[ { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-shareholder-capitalism/", "claim": "Did Biden Call for an 'End to Shareholder Capitalism'?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "08/06/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Fear-mongering Facebook memes misrepresented the position articulated by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in a speech in July 2020." ], "justification": "In the summer of 2020, multiple readers asked Snopes to investigate claims that former U.S. Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had called for an end to \"shareholder capitalism.\" In July and August, Facebook users shared posts that contained the following text: users shared posts \"Biden wants to end Shareholder Capitalism...that's your 401[k]...your pensions...your retirement...are you voting for that?\" Another social media meme suggested that Biden's proposals would result in the destruction or liquidation of 401(k) pension savings: Those memes did not accurately reflect remarks made by Biden in July 2020 on the subject of \"shareholder capitalism.\" At a July 9 event in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, Biden gave a relatively conventional stump speech, hitting on several familiar themes his working-class upbringing in nearby Scranton, the values he inherited from his family, and his vision for an American economy that, according to him, places less emphasis on corporate profit, and a greater emphasis on rewarding hard work and smaller-scale entrepreneurship, especially in the context of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which devastated some smaller businesses and left millions unemployed. As part of this broader \"Wall Street versus Main Street\" theme, Biden said the following (emphasis added): theme Enough is enough, it's time reverse the priorities in this country. It's time to help small businesses, middle-class folks, manage their way through a pandemic, and let's help millions of would-be entrepreneurs get out from under their debts so they can start businesses. And it's time corporate America paid their fair share of taxes...The days of Amazon paying nothing in federal income tax will be over. Let's make sure that workers have a power, and the voice. It's way past time to put an end to the era of shareholder capitalism the idea [that] the only responsibility a corporation has is to its shareholders. That's simply not true, it's an absolute farce. They have responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country. That isn't [a] new or radical notion. These are basic values and principles that helped build this nation in the first instance. Now the challenge is to take these fundamental values, and apply them to the new economy we have to build in the years ahead...\" Biden did not propose dissolving the stock market, or prohibiting the public trading of companies, or shareholder investment and dividend. In saying \"It's way past time to put an end to the era of shareholder capitalism,\" Biden was taking a position in a long-running ethical debate between \"shareholder\" and \"stakeholder\" theories. One academic has helpfully summed up that philosophical conflict as follows: summed up Shareholder theory asserts that shareholders advance capital to a companys managers, who are supposed to spend corporate funds only in ways that have been authorized by the shareholders. As Milton Friedman wrote, \"There is one and only one social responsibility of business to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud.\" wrote On the other hand, stakeholder theory asserts that managers have a duty to both the corporations shareholders and \"individuals and constituencies that contribute, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to [a companys] wealth-creating capacity and activities, and who are therefore its potential beneficiaries and/or risk bearers.\" Although there is some debate regarding which stakeholders deserve consideration, a widely accepted interpretation refers to shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers and the local community. In the short video below, philosopher and professor of business administration R. Edward Freeman arguably the primary advocate for stakeholder theory outlines the approach: Biden characterized the era of shareholder capitalism as one in which the following idea holds sway \"[that] the only responsibility a corporation has is to its shareholders.\" His rejection of that principle was classic stakeholder theory: \"That's simply not true, it's an absolute farce. They [companies] have responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.\" We asked the Biden campaign for details on any specific proposals the former vice president had, or how exactly he envisioned an end to \"the era of shareholder capitalism,\" but we did not receive a response in time for publication. Although those details were not available, it's clear that Biden was not calling for the abolition of shareholding itself. Rather, he proposed bringing an end to the era of shareholder capitalism, meaning an end to the predominance of that particular ethical approach and a new gravitation towards the stakeholder-driven approach, a position that, whether or not one agrees with its tenets, has in recent years become orthodox among progressives, within the Democratic party, and even among business leaders themselves. In 2019, for example, the Business Roundtable an influential group of chief executive officers of some of the largest companies in the United States executed a high-profile shift in its approach, writing: writing \"Since 1978, Business Roundtable has periodically issued Principles of Corporate Governance that include language on the purpose of a corporation. Each version of that document issued since 1997 has stated that corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders. It has become clear that this language on corporate purpose does not accurately describe the ways in which we and our fellow CEOs endeavor every day to create value for all our stakeholders, whose long-term interests are inseparable.\" What Biden called for in his Dunmore speech was therefore, as he rightly said, not a \"new or radical notion.\" It was not an end to the stock market nor the ability of individuals to buy and sell shares, and therefore it was not a proposal that would cause pensions to evaporate, as several Facebook memes falsely claimed. Corporate Finance Institute. \"Main St. vs Wall Street: The Mutual Dependence and Conflicts Between the Two.\"\r 7 July 2020. Smith, H. Jeff. \"The Shareholders vs Stakeholders Debate.\"\r The Sloan Management Review, Massachussetts Institute of Technology.\" 15 July 2003. Friedman, Milton. \"The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.\"\r The New York Times. 13 September 1970. Business Roundtable. \"Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.\"\r 19 August 2019.", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=156UvNegYgQzYdqSO7gsuCQFlD6kmGXdD", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UTniyHzAB8jSVpyZirsWpnAQMU6cA_dl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In July and August, Facebook users shared posts that contained the following text:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/eqnFJ", "https://archive.is/vBHE0", "https://archive.is/Js1Sn" ] }, { "sentence": "As part of this broader \"Wall Street versus Main Street\" theme, Biden said the following (emphasis added):", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/J1kmz" ] }, { "sentence": "One academic has helpfully summed up that philosophical conflict as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/fEJCd" ] }, { "sentence": "Shareholder theory asserts that shareholders advance capital to a companys managers, who are supposed to spend corporate funds only in ways that have been authorized by the shareholders. As Milton Friedman wrote, \"There is one and only one social responsibility of business to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Tq6Pi" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2019, for example, the Business Roundtable an influential group of chief executive officers of some of the largest companies in the United States executed a high-profile shift in its approach, writing:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Zwr5N" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kushner-oscar-covid/", "claim": "Does Jared Kushner's brother own a business associated with COVID-19 testing?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "03/16/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Oscar, a digital health-insurance startup that recently set up a service for users to find COVID-19 testing centers, was co-founded by Joshua Kushner. " ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Compared to the output of most other developed countries, the United States' ability to test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has been extremely limited. This reality has led to rumors that President Donald Trump's administration, or some of its members, have a financial interest in promoting specific tests as opposed to others that would be more widely available or more easily distributed. more widely available One claim that has emerged in this vein came from a report by Raw Story that asserted \"the Kushner family is trying to cash in on the pandemic that could kill millions of us.\" The basis for this claim concerns the health insurance startup Oscar co-founded by Jared Kushners brother, Joshua Kushner. Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of and special adviser to Trump. report On March 13, 2020, Oscar announced that it would be launching a testing-center locator for COVID-19: announced Today, Oscar, a tech-driven health insurance company, launched the first testing center locator for COVID-19 in the U.S., featuring more than 100 centers today. It is accessible to the general public and more testing centers are being added every day. However, the details of Oscar's testing locator have been described incorrectly in several viral social media posts alleging profiteering from the Kushners during the coronavirus pandemic. A well-shared post by a user named \"Boston Judy,\" for example, asserted that \"we didn't have testing because the Trump family circle wanted to wait till they could make a profit.\" well-shared post Even if this assertion had merit, the actions Oscar took merely help locate unaffiliated testing centers. As an insurance company, Oscar does not manufacture, perform, analyze, or sell any actual COVID-19 test. Further, the test-center locator that Oscar developed is open to the general public and is not limited to people who get insurance through Oscar. Once a user has taken a short survey, the locator will provide the closest locations for testing in areas in which they operate. While the service also acts as a promotion for the company, it can serve as a testing center locator for any interested party. open \"Boston Judy\" later clarified that Oscar was not producing tests, but that the company would get to \"bill the feds for evaluating people for COVID and referring them to a testing center if they meet the criteria [for testing].\" While the legislation that would allow for such a reimbursement likely will include a fund for covering the cost of these tests, the legislation has not yet been finalized, and it's unclear that it would really be a windfall for Oscar, either. On March 13, 2020, U.S. House Democrats and the White House reached a deal on a package of legislation that included a requirement that insurance companies cover the full cost of COVID-19 with no cost sharing. As described by the Brookings Institute, this legislation, if and when it is passed by the Senate and signed by the president: described Would offer financial support to state governments by temporarily increasing the share of Medicaid spending financed by the federal government, require almost all forms of health insurance to cover COVID-19 testing without cost-sharing, and create mechanisms to pay for COVID-19 testing for uninsured people. In other words, while the government will likely be subsidizing insurance companies like Oscar, they are doing so to cover losses incurred by the requirement for full reimbursement to members. These laws, and the federal reimbursement they would authorize, would apply to any health insurance company in America, not only Oscar. would apply Joshua Kushner co-founded Oscar in 2012. His venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, holds a significant ownership share. According to financial-disclosure forms released by Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, covering the year 2018, the couple owned and received profit from shares of Thrive: co-founded financial- disclosure This document also appears to assert that the couple divested from Thrive during the 2018 financial year: Under federal law, executive branch employees are eligible to defer paying capital gains taxes on investments sold to comply with conflict of interest requirements. To take advantage of this benefit, the employees must obtain a Certificate of Divestiture from the Office of Government Ethics prior to selling the asset. Jared Kushner received a certificate of divestiture for, among other things, four Thrive-associated funds in February 2017. federal law selling the asset in February 2017 In a narrow legal sense, this removed the conflict of interest associated with his financial ownership in his brothers companies, according to Virginia Canter, who serves as chief ethics counsel for the nonpartisan Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which also provided us with Kushners Certificate of Divestiture. But, she told us, his divestment does little to alter the appearance of a conflict of interest or reduce the risk of potential corruption, especially if he is using his public office to promote the private interests of his brother or giving him preferential access. The similarities between the Trump Administrations announcement of a website designed to locate COVID-19 testing centers and the website released by Oscar have been a source of speculation about undue access on Joshua Kushners part. source speculation That being said, the assertion that the Kushners as a family are involved in the business of COVID-19 testing is not entirely accurate. The company's coronavirus response so far is limited to an online form that allows users to find a testing location if their symptoms call for it. Health insurance companies are likely to be reimbursed for covering the cost of COVID-19 testing once legislation is passed, but this would apply to all insurance providers, not just Oscar. For these reasons, we rank the truth of this claim as a \"Mixture.\" Kenen, Joanne. \"How Testing Failures Allowed Coronavirus to Sweep the U.S.\"\r Politico. 6 March 2020. Okeson, Sarah. \"Heres How the Kushner Family Is Cashing in on the Coronavirus.\"\r Raw Story. 15 March 2020. Oscar Health. Oscar Launches First Testing Center Locator for COVID-19.\"\r Accessed 13 March 2020. Okeson, Sarah. \"Heres How the Kushner Family Is Cashing in on the Coronavirus.\"\r Raw Story. 15 March 2020. Fiedler, Matthew, et al. \"What are the Health Coverage Provisions in the House Coronavirus Bill?\"\r Brookings Institute. 13 March 2020. Bertoni, Steven. \"Oscar Health Gets $400 Million And A $2.7 Billion Valuation from Fidelity.\"\r Forbes. 22 February 2016. U.S. Office of Government Ethics. \"Jared Kushner Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report (OGE Form 278e) - 2018.\"\r Accessed 16 March 2020. U.S. Office of Government Ethics. \"Ivanka Trump Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report (OGE Form 278e) - 2018.\"\r Accessed 16 March 2020. Update [18 March 2020]: Updated to include documentation of Kushner's Certificate of Divestment and added comments from Virginia Canter.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "Compared to the output of most other developed countries, the United States' ability to test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has been extremely limited. This reality has led to rumors that President Donald Trump's administration, or some of its members, have a financial interest in promoting specific tests as opposed to others that would be more widely available or more easily distributed.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166" ] }, { "sentence": "One claim that has emerged in this vein came from a report by Raw Story that asserted \"the Kushner family is trying to cash in on the pandemic that could kill millions of us.\" The basis for this claim concerns the health insurance startup Oscar co-founded by Jared Kushners brother, Joshua Kushner. Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of and special adviser to Trump.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/wip/tXZiM" ] }, { "sentence": "On March 13, 2020, Oscar announced that it would be launching a testing-center locator for COVID-19:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oscar-launches-first-testing-center-locator-for-covid-19-301023288.html" ] }, { "sentence": "However, the details of Oscar's testing locator have been described incorrectly in several viral social media posts alleging profiteering from the Kushners during the coronavirus pandemic. A well-shared post by a user named \"Boston Judy,\" for example, asserted that \"we didn't have testing because the Trump family circle wanted to wait till they could make a profit.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2913246908738427&set=a.167949316601547&type=3&av=241061082705085&eav=AfZYClhd0LQ8wdwzYjDRESbKatdZYWQ4hGaSIdzFzmG7sbB2CEDl2-CPP1GCXK8uMkQ&theater", "https://twitter.com/BostonJudy3/status/1238895920969908230" ] }, { "sentence": "Even if this assertion had merit, the actions Oscar took merely help locate unaffiliated testing centers. As an insurance company, Oscar does not manufacture, perform, analyze, or sell any actual COVID-19 test. Further, the test-center locator that Oscar developed is open to the general public and is not limited to people who get insurance through Oscar. Once a user has taken a short survey, the locator will provide the closest locations for testing in areas in which they operate. While the service also acts as a promotion for the company, it can serve as a testing center locator for any interested party.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oscar-launches-first-testing-center-locator-for-covid-19-301023288.html" ] }, { "sentence": "On March 13, 2020, U.S. House Democrats and the White House reached a deal on a package of legislation that included a requirement that insurance companies cover the full cost of COVID-19 with no cost sharing. As described by the Brookings Institute, this legislation, if and when it is passed by the Senate and signed by the president:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2020/03/13/what-are-the-health-coverage-provisions-in-the-house-coronavirus-bill/" ] }, { "sentence": "In other words, while the government will likely be subsidizing insurance companies like Oscar, they are doing so to cover losses incurred by the requirement for full reimbursement to members. These laws, and the federal reimbursement they would authorize, would apply to any health insurance company in America, not only Oscar.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2020/03/13/what-are-the-health-coverage-provisions-in-the-house-coronavirus-bill/" ] }, { "sentence": "Joshua Kushner co-founded Oscar in 2012. His venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, holds a significant ownership share. According to financial-disclosure forms released by Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, covering the year 2018, the couple owned and received profit from shares of Thrive:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/02/22/oscar-health-gets-400-million-and-a-2-7-billion-valuation-from-fidelity/#777a4fb55321", "https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015b-2713-d4bd-a5df-bfd3e5af0000", "https://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/03211930/Ivanka-Trump-2018-278.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Under federal law, executive branch employees are eligible to defer paying capital gains taxes on investments sold to comply with conflict of interest requirements. To take advantage of this benefit, the employees must obtain a Certificate of Divestiture from the Office of Government Ethics prior to selling the asset. Jared Kushner received a certificate of divestiture for, among other things, four Thrive-associated funds in February 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/5/2634.1001", "https://www2.oge.gov/Web/OGE.nsf/0/CB13B398F168EC5E85258026004CE9B3/$FILE/Certificate%20of%20Divestiture%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/03/KUSHNER-CERTIFICATES-OF-DIVESTITURE.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In a narrow legal sense, this removed the conflict of interest associated with his financial ownership in his brothers companies, according to Virginia Canter, who serves as chief ethics counsel for the nonpartisan Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which also provided us with Kushners Certificate of Divestiture. But, she told us, his divestment does little to alter the appearance of a conflict of interest or reduce the risk of potential corruption, especially if he is using his public office to promote the private interests of his brother or giving him preferential access. The similarities between the Trump Administrations announcement of a website designed to locate COVID-19 testing centers and the website released by Oscar have been a source of speculation about undue access on Joshua Kushners part.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/jared-kushner-once-controlled-oscar-now-running-a-coronavirus-testing-site/", "https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/15/21180370/google-testing-website-coronavirus-trump-covid-19-confusion" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/mar/05/dan-patrick/dan-patrick-errs-saying-texas-will-end-fiscal-year/", "claim": "Texas this fiscal year will have more money in reserve than the other 49 states combined.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "03/04/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Texas state government can afford tax cuts and targeted investments and will still have billions of dollars left over, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Austin radio station KLBJ AM. In the Feb. 25, 2015 interview,which we caught online, Patrick said: We are in the best financial shape of any state in the country. Well have about $11 billion or so in our rainy day fund by the end of our fiscal year. Thats more money in reserve than the other 49 states combined. This fiscal year runs through August 2015. Could it be that Texas will have more money in its rainy day fund than all other states combined? We emailed Patricks office to seek the basis of his statement and to gauge if he was trying to make an uncheckable predictionrather than a flat factual statement. We also looked for the latest information on each states expected fiscal-year-end reserves. The Texas state comptroller, Glenn Hegar, issued his two-yearstate revenue forecastin January 2015. Hegar said the states rainy day fund will have a balance of nearly $8.5 billion when fiscal 2015 ends Aug. 31, 2015. Hegar projected the fund to grow to $9.8 billion a year later and to $11 billion through August 2017. Per Patricks statement, then, all the other states together should be expecting to end their 2015 fiscal years with less than $8.5 billion, combined. Texas, Alaska outpace other states An online search led us to afall 2014 reportby the National Association of State Budget Officers initially making us think Patrick was onto something. In the report,The Fiscal Survey of States, a section headlined Year-End Balances said that generally, states have made progress rebuilding budgetary reserves since revenues plummeted during the Great Recession of 2009-10. State budgets passed into law for the 2015 fiscal year show reserve balances nationally totaling $53.1 billion, the report said. And, the report said, a disproportionate share of state budget reserves are concentrated in Alaska and Texas, which account for $20.6 billion or 38.8 percent of states reported total balances in fiscal 2015. Pew official For more perspective, we sought guidance from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which in July 2014 issued areporton how states might build rainy day funds. By email, spokeswoman Sarah Leiseca passed along analyst Brenna Erfords conclusion--drawing onFiscal 50, a Pew interactive breaking out the fiscal status of each state--that Patrick got it wrong. At the moment, per Pew, Texas has $10.3 billion in reserve funds (rainy day funds plus ending balances) providing enough for state government to operate for 79.1 days. The only state with more reserve funds currently is Alaska, with $13.3 billion, providing enough for the state to operate for 181.9 days, Erford said. SOURCE: Online interactive,Fiscal 50, Pew Charitable Trusts (chart received in an email from Sarah Leiseca, communications officer, Pew Charitable Trusts, attributing information to research by Brenna Erford, manager, state budget policy team, Pew Charitable Trusts, Feb. 26, 2015). Going forward, Erford noted, the NASBO fall 2014 report indicates Texas projecting a reserve balance of about $8 billion through the end of the 2015 fiscal year, which would run second to the projected year-end reserves for Alaska, $11.4 billion. According to these data, the sum total of reserves in California, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Florida, and Indiana, is greater than Texas reserves, providing clear evidence, Alaska withstanding, that Texas reserves are not more than the other 49 states combined, Erford said. NASBO charts With a nudge fromMichael Leachman, a state budget expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we spotted charts in the NASBO report indicating the 50 states together in fall 2014 were projecting 2015 fiscal-year-end reserves, meaning regular balances plus rainy day fund set-asides, of about $53 billion--with Texas accounting for $10.7 billion of that and Alaska $10 billion and other states all together projecting nearly $32 billion in ending reserves. An adjoining chart indicates Texas ending fiscal 2015 with $8 billion in its rainy day fund alone compared to other states together winding up with about $34 billion in such funds. Texas appears to have bigger balances than many states. But its predicted totals dont dwarf all other states projected savings combined. Patrick: Unintentional error After we looked over the charts, Patricks office told us Patrick made an unintentional error in the radio interview. By email, spokesman Alejandro Garcia said Patrick takes pride in the state stockpiling reserves, but hed meant to talk up jobs created in Texas versus jobs created in all other states combined as he ad-libbed the comment. Our ruling Patrick said Texas this year will have more money in reserve than the other 49 states combined. On our inquiry, Patrick acknowledged this was a misstatement. Indeed, what he celebrated turned out to be incorrect and ridiculous. Pants on Fire! PANTS ON FIRE The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "State Budget", "States", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1i2zpKGuZJvZlAeVEti5b5FZjX0YYloQQ", "image_caption": "The Fiscal Survey of States" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the Feb. 25, 2015 interview,which we caught online, Patrick said: We are in the best financial shape of any state in the country. Well have about $11 billion or so in our rainy day fund by the end of our fiscal year. Thats more money in reserve than the other 49 states combined.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.newsradioklbj.com/blogs/texas-news/listen-lt-gov-dan-patrick-pushes-big-tax-cuts-texas" ] }, { "sentence": "The Texas state comptroller, Glenn Hegar, issued his two-yearstate revenue forecastin January 2015. Hegar said the states rainy day fund will have a balance of nearly $8.5 billion when fiscal 2015 ends Aug. 31, 2015. Hegar projected the fund to grow to $9.8 billion a year later and to $11 billion through August 2017.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.texastransparency.org/State_Finance/Budget_Finance/Reports/Biennial_Revenue_Estimate/2016_17/pdf/BRE_2016-17.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "An online search led us to afall 2014 reportby the National Association of State Budget Officers initially making us think Patrick was onto something. In the report,The Fiscal Survey of States, a section headlined Year-End Balances said that generally, states have made progress rebuilding budgetary reserves since revenues plummeted during the Great Recession of 2009-10. State budgets passed into law for the 2015 fiscal year show reserve balances nationally totaling $53.1 billion, the report said. And, the report said, a disproportionate share of state budget reserves are concentrated in Alaska and Texas, which account for $20.6 billion or 38.8 percent of states reported total balances in fiscal 2015.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nasbo.org/sites/default/files/NASBO%20Fall%202014%20Fiscal%20Survey%20of%20States.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "For more perspective, we sought guidance from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which in July 2014 issued areporton how states might build rainy day funds. By email, spokeswoman Sarah Leiseca passed along analyst Brenna Erfords conclusion--drawing onFiscal 50, a Pew interactive breaking out the fiscal status of each state--that Patrick got it wrong.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Assets/2014/07/SFH_Rainy-Day-Fund-Deposit-Rules-Report_ARTREADY_v9.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "SOURCE: Online interactive,Fiscal 50, Pew Charitable Trusts (chart received in an email from Sarah Leiseca, communications officer, Pew Charitable Trusts, attributing information to research by Brenna Erford, manager, state budget policy team, Pew Charitable Trusts, Feb. 26, 2015).", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50#ind0" ] }, { "sentence": "With a nudge fromMichael Leachman, a state budget expert at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we spotted charts in the NASBO report indicating the 50 states together in fall 2014 were projecting 2015 fiscal-year-end reserves, meaning regular balances plus rainy day fund set-asides, of about $53 billion--with Texas accounting for $10.7 billion of that and Alaska $10 billion and other states all together projecting nearly $32 billion in ending reserves. An adjoining chart indicates Texas ending fiscal 2015 with $8 billion in its rainy day fund alone compared to other states together winding up with about $34 billion in such funds.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cbpp.org/experts/?fa=view&id=161" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/apr/30/steve-crisafulli/crisafulli-says-257000-would-be-forced-medicaid-un/", "claim": "If we choose Obamacare expansion, 600,000 will lose eligibility for their subsidies, of which 257,000 would be forced into Medicaid.", "author": "Joshua Gillin", "posted": "04/30/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Even before the Florida House adjourned early, Speaker Steve Crisafulli laid blame for the sessions budget impasse clearly on Medicaid expansion. In an essayprinted by theTampa Bay Times, Crisafulli wrote the Senate had partnered with the Obama administration to demand the expansion. But the House believed the move would drag people into a costly system that didnt work. Under federal law, other low-income Floridians have access to health care subsidies to buy private insurance for less than the average cost of a wireless phone bill, said Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island. In fact, if we choose Obamacare expansion, 600,000 will lose eligibility for their subsidies, of which 257,000 would be forced into Medicaid. Estimates say the expansion would cover more than 800,000 people, many of whom are currently uninsured. We wondered where Crisafulli was getting his numbers. Playing percentages This subject can make heads spin pretty easily, so before we begin, lets review a few basics about the Affordable Care Act. The laws intent was to expand coverage to the uninsured through two different ways. The first was to give subsidies to people who needed help to buy insurance through HealthCare.gov or a new state marketplace. The second way was to expand Medicaid, a state-federal insurance program for the very poor. Medicaid expansion ended up being optional for the states, thanks to a 2012 Supreme Court ruling. This is what the Florida House and Senate are arguing about. The Senate wants to expand Medicaid so that recipients end up buying heavily subsidized insurance. The House doesnt want to expand Medicaid at all. Crisafullis numbers are based on how many Floridians would qualify for the expansion, which would be extended to all adults up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (100 percent is currently$11,770 for an individual and $24,250 for a family of four). Technically the calculation is actually 133 percent under the law, but a 5 percent deduction is added on top of that. If a state doesnt expand Medicaid, people who make 100 to 400 percent of the poverty level can get subsidies to buy insurance in a marketplace. These are the subsidies Crisafulli is talking about. But if you qualify for Medicaid, youre not eligible for help paying premiums. His argument is that if the state extends the program, the people between 100 and 133 percent of the federal poverty level (hes not citing the full 138, youll note) will lose their subsidies to buy policies, and the House simply wont let that happen. Crisafulli is using 2015-16 fiscal year estimates by the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which we examined ourselves. That projection says there are about 609,000 people in the 100 to 133 percent of poverty level range, and a little more than 351,000 of them have insurance of some kind. They get it through employers, Medicare or some other form of government assistance program, or buy insurance on their own (subsidized or not). Those people could enroll in Medicaid if they wanted to. More than 257,000 have no insurance at all, and these are the ones Crisafulli is saying will be forced into Medicaid. His office confirmed he meant they will be left without subsidies and will not make enough money to buy policies, so Medicaid will be their only option. What it means The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and health policy experts largely agreed the numbers were plausible, but there are some points they said Crisafulli is sidestepping. Foremost is the idea that 257,000 people would be forced to join the program. There is no law that says you have to use Medicaid if you qualify, and not everyone who is currently eligible enrolls. Ben Sommers, a health policy and economics professor at Harvard, said its pretty tough for Crisafulli to imply those quarter-million people would be upset by suddenly qualifying for Medicaid. Giving uninsured people Medicaid is pretty popular among uninsured people, Sommers said. There arent any public opinion surveys Ive seen in which low-income adults dont generally support the Medicaid expansion. Crisafulli neglects to mention there are many Floridians who right nowdont qualify for either Medicaid or federal subsidies, an estimated 669,000 people whose income is below 100 percent of federal poverty level. Those uninsured Floridians account for 18 percent of all Americans in the so-called coverage gap -- second only to Texas. They would all benefit from Medicaid expansion by gaining coverage. Finally, Crisafulli is arguing that expanding Medicaid under Obamacare would unfairly take away subsidies that Floridians need to buy their own insurance. Those subsidies are a feature of the very same Affordable Care Act he criticizes. Our ruling Crisafulli said, If we choose Obamacare expansion, 600,000 will lose eligibility for their subsidies, of which 257,000 would be forced into Medicaid. Crisafulli is using incendiary language to describe state projections about Medicaid expansion. The state estimates that about 609,000 Floridians would lose access to subsidies to buy insurance under an expansion. About 257,000 of those people would be uninsured, likely because theyre too poor to buy their own. The rest could enroll in Medicaid if they wanted to. So his numbers can be considered accurate. But experts tell us saying those people would beforcedinto the program isnt accurate. Many of the very poor would likely see becoming eligible for Medicaid as a benefit. We rate the statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Health Care", "Medicaid", "State Budget", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In an essayprinted by theTampa Bay Times, Crisafulli wrote the Senate had partnered with the Obama administration to demand the expansion. But the House believed the move would drag people into a costly system that didnt work.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/crisafulli-why-the-florida-house-opposes-medicaid-expansion/2227220" ] }, { "sentence": "Crisafullis numbers are based on how many Floridians would qualify for the expansion, which would be extended to all adults up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (100 percent is currently$11,770 for an individual and $24,250 for a family of four). Technically the calculation is actually 133 percent under the law, but a 5 percent deduction is added on top of that.", "hrefs": [ "https://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm#thresholds" ] }, { "sentence": "Crisafulli neglects to mention there are many Floridians who right nowdont qualify for either Medicaid or federal subsidies, an estimated 669,000 people whose income is below 100 percent of federal poverty level. Those uninsured Floridians account for 18 percent of all Americans in the so-called coverage gap -- second only to Texas. They would all benefit from Medicaid expansion by gaining coverage.", "hrefs": [ "http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid-an-update/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/freedom-convoy-guinness/", "claim": "Did 50,000 'Freedom Convoy' Trucks Set Guinness World Record?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "01/27/2022", "sci_digest": [ "The vast majority of truck drivers in Canada are vaccinated. " ], "justification": "In January 2022, a number of trucks participated in a convoy across Canada in protest of the country's requirement for cross-border truckers to be vaccinated for COVID-19. As videos of the so-called \"freedom convoy\" spread on social media, so did a number of claims concerning just how many trucks were participating in this event. These claims ranged from a few hundred to more than 50,000. Some even claimed that the freedom convoy had set a Guinness World Record for the world's largest truck convoy. country's requirement for cross-border truckers to be vaccinated for COVID-19 As of this writing, the freedom convoy has not earned a place in the Guinness World Records book. Furthermore, the claim that this convoy involved 50,000 trucks appears to be a gross exaggeration that goes against all available evidence. The largest truck convoy on record was set in November 2020 in Cairo, Egypt. That convoy involved 480 trucks and stretched 7.5 km (4.6 miles). Guinness writes: Guinness writes The largest parade of trucks consisted of 480 trucks and is achieved by Tahya Misr Fund (Egypt), in Cairo, Egypt, on 20 November 2020. With a length of 7.5 km, Tahya Misr Fund was able to organize a parade of 480 trucks, amid the harsh weather and heavy rain, breaking the Guinness World Records title for the largest parade of trucks, which was achieved 16 years ago in the Netherlands with a parade size of 416 trucks, thus the Tahya Misr Fund became the ne record holder. This Guinness World Records entry provides a data point that makes us skeptical of the 50,000 truck claim. If a 500 truck convoy stretched 7.5 km, a 50,000 truck convoy would stretch 750 km (about 460 miles). We have seen no evidence to support the idea that the freedom convoy is anywhere near 460 miles long. So just how many trucks participated in this freedom convoy? There's no official count for the number of trucks participating in this convoy. Estimates are also difficult because this big rig convoy also includes a number of cars and other smaller vehicles. Furthermore, the \"freedom convoy\" has been a multiple-day event and some trucks may only be participating for a portion of the journey. These variables make it difficult to estimate just how many trucks are participating. We reached out to the Canadian Trucking Alliance for more information and we will update this article if more information is made available. Many Canadian news outlets have used the word \"hundreds\" to quantify the number of trucks in this convoy. The CBC, for example, reported: \"Hundreds of truckers set off from British Columbia to Ottawa on Sunday to protest a federal vaccine mandate despite the urging of the country's largest trucking federation to comply.\" reported Adrian Ghobrial, a reporter for the Toronto news outlet City News, said that while thousands of people have come out to watch and support the truckers as they drive by, he was skeptical that the convoy consisted of more than 100 trucks: David Akin, the chief global correspondent with Global News, cited a report from the Ontario Provincial Police that 113 trucks (as well as 276 personal vehicles) were recorded coming into Thunder Bay from Winnipeg. On social media, the estimate of trucks involved in this convoy has grown by the tweet. A post from Fox News host Sean Hannity, for example, claimed that the freedom convoy consisted of 10,000 trucks. Others claimed that this number was in excess of 50,000 trucks. freedom convoy consisted of 10,000 trucks The claim that 50,000 trucks are participating in this convoy appears to have originated with one of the protest's organizers. The organizers may not be the most reliable source for this figure, however, as they have reason to inflate these numbers. originated with one of the protest's organizers The number also seems implausible due to what we know about the trucking industry in Canada. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the cross-border vaccine mandate would impact about 15% (or about 16,000) of the country's truckers. If the 50,000 truck claim is to be believed, that would mean that not only would every one of those 16,000 truckers have to participate in the event, but they'd also need to be joined by 34,000 additional trucks who weren't impacted by the mandate. Canadian Trucking Alliance The Canadian Trucking Alliance said in a statement that the \"the vast majority of the Canadian trucking industry is vaccinated with the overall industry vaccination rate among truck drivers closely mirroring that of the general public. Accordingly, most of our nations hard-working truck drivers are continuing to move cross-border and domestic freight to ensure our economy continues to function.\" statement Canada Police Fear Violence at Trucker Vaccine Protest. ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canada-police-fear-violence-trucker-vaccine-protest-82497084. Accessed 27 Jan. 2022. Canadian Trucking Alliance Statement to Those Engaged in Road/Border Protests - Canadian Trucking Alliance. https://cantruck.ca/canadian-trucking-alliance-statement-to-those-engaged-in-road-border-protests/. Accessed 27 Jan. 2022. Hundreds of Truckers Headed to Ottawa in Freedom Rally Convoy against Vaccine Mandate | CBC News. CBC, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freedom-rally-bc-jan-23-1.6324942. Accessed 27 Jan. 2022. Largest Parade of Trucks. Guinness World Records, https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-truck-convoy. Accessed 27 Jan. 2022.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OoX29kUFGDzt7Xqlm0acWdEbDFJqkduc", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mVmMVbIrW82X1wFtdG_83X_jYjWSslPm", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In January 2022, a number of trucks participated in a convoy across Canada in protest of the country's requirement for cross-border truckers to be vaccinated for COVID-19. As videos of the so-called \"freedom convoy\" spread on social media, so did a number of claims concerning just how many trucks were participating in this event. These claims ranged from a few hundred to more than 50,000. Some even claimed that the freedom convoy had set a Guinness World Record for the world's largest truck convoy. ", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canada-police-fear-violence-trucker-vaccine-protest-82497084" ] }, { "sentence": "The largest truck convoy on record was set in November 2020 in Cairo, Egypt. That convoy involved 480 trucks and stretched 7.5 km (4.6 miles). Guinness writes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-truck-convoy" ] }, { "sentence": "Many Canadian news outlets have used the word \"hundreds\" to quantify the number of trucks in this convoy. The CBC, for example, reported: \"Hundreds of truckers set off from British Columbia to Ottawa on Sunday to protest a federal vaccine mandate despite the urging of the country's largest trucking federation to comply.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freedom-rally-bc-jan-23-1.6324942" ] }, { "sentence": "On social media, the estimate of trucks involved in this convoy has grown by the tweet. A post from Fox News host Sean Hannity, for example, claimed that the freedom convoy consisted of 10,000 trucks. Others claimed that this number was in excess of 50,000 trucks. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1486738916191395855" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim that 50,000 trucks are participating in this convoy appears to have originated with one of the protest's organizers. The organizers may not be the most reliable source for this figure, however, as they have reason to inflate these numbers. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=110053964919379&id=100286905896085" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the cross-border vaccine mandate would impact about 15% (or about 16,000) of the country's truckers. If the 50,000 truck claim is to be believed, that would mean that not only would every one of those 16,000 truckers have to participate in the event, but they'd also need to be joined by 34,000 additional trucks who weren't impacted by the mandate. ", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canada-police-fear-violence-trucker-vaccine-protest-82497084" ] }, { "sentence": "The Canadian Trucking Alliance said in a statement that the \"the vast majority of the Canadian trucking industry is vaccinated with the overall industry vaccination rate among truck drivers closely mirroring that of the general public. Accordingly, most of our nations hard-working truck drivers are continuing to move cross-border and domestic freight to ensure our economy continues to function.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://cantruck.ca/canadian-trucking-alliance-statement-to-those-engaged-in-road-border-protests/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/sep/26/andrew-koenig/first-cut-missouri-income-tax-over-100-years/", "claim": "The bill that I carried cutting MOs income tax for 1st time in over 100 years will start its 1st phase in jan 1 2018. #moleg @Eric_Schmitt", "author": "Katelyn Brown", "posted": "09/26/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Taxes have been a hot topic in the political world lately. President Donald Trump has been calling for reduction of corporate taxes. This is something he talked about when visiting Missouri in August. However, income tax is a hot button topic in Missouri as well. State Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, boasted on Twitter that a law he helped pass would be the first cut to Missouri income tax in over a century. The bill that I carried cutting MOs income tax for 1st time in over 100 years will start its 1st phase in jan 1 2018, the senator tweeted on Aug. 30, 2017, with the hashtag moleg and tagging Missouri State Treasurer Eric Schmitt. Over a century? This seemed a little bit out there. When Koenigs office did not answer our inquiry, we started digging for ourselves. Koenig was referring to Senate Bill 509 from 2014. Koenig was the House handler for the bill, as a state representative at the time. What does the now law actually do to income tax though? Simply put, income tax rates will decrease by a tenth of a percent every year until the top tax rate is a half of a percent lower, or 5.5 percent instead of the current 6 percent. There will also be an increase in income tax deductibles for business income until it reaches 25 percent. To trigger the start of the law, the states gross income had to exceed income in one of the three previous years by $150 million. That happened in the last fiscal year, so now the bill will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. The prospect of decreasing income tax is appealing for taxpayers, but is this really the first time it is happening in over a century? We talked to Anne Rottman, the library administrator at the Missouri Legislative Library, about the last time Missouri saw a reduction in income taxes. I dont think there ever has been a cut, she said. It turns out, shes right. Missouri income tax was established in 1917. This tax was for a half of a percent annually on individuals income. Income tax saw revisions throughout the years. Graduated tax brackets were created in 1939 and have not been changed since 1972. The limit for deduction for federal income taxes was created in 1993. There were various other revisions and adjustments as well. However, none of these were decreases in the tax levied. For a century, tax law has been growing into what income tax looks like today. Why has there always been an increase and never a decrease? No idea why this approach took so long, said Joseph Haslag, an economics professor at MU. Others seem to be stumped as well. The half-percentage reduction of the tax rate per year gives the state legislature some time to adjust to having less revenue for the budget. Meanwhile, theres a more immediate impact for individuals: Tax brackets will now be adjusted annually based on percent increase in inflation. However, when it comes to the economy overall, it isnt as exciting as it sounds, Haslag said. For a revenue-test state like Missouri, the tax cut reduction will have small, very small, positive effect on Missouris economic growth, Haslag said. And while Koenig is correct that the states income rate has never decreased, its important to note that the legislature has enacted many income tax deductions that have the same effect of lowering someones state income tax bill. Beginning in 2016, for example, 100 percent of a military pension income became exempt from Missouri state tax. The state also created a new deduction for people from Missouri who relocated a business to Missouri. Koenig said that Senate Bill 509 would cut Missouri income tax for the first time in over 100 years. The truth of the matter is Missouri income tax has never been cut. Income tax laws were put in place in 1917. This was 100 years ago exactly. Its not over 100 years, but Koenig was pretty close. Its worth noting, however, that Missouri has created a long list of deductions that could reduce a persons state income tax bill without having to decrease the overall tax rate. Koenigs statement is accurate but needs that clarifying information. That meets our definition of Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Taxes", "Missouri" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-arrest-los-angeles-mayor/", "claim": "Did Immigration Enforcement Agents Arrest the Mayor of Los Angeles?", "author": "Snopes Staff", "posted": "12/26/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A routine review of content labeled satire." ], "justification": "On Nov. 26, Taters Gonna Tate published an article positing that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) had arrested the mayor of Los Angeles. article \"ICE Arrests LA Mayor for Harboring Fugitives Through Sanctuary City.\" Weve all been wondering when this would happen and why wasnt this done from the start. But we shouldnt dwell. Justice is finally being done. Josiah Barron, the celebrated mayor of Los Angeles County, was led away from his office in handcuffs today by ICE agents and charged with harboring fugitives from the law with his decision to provide undocumented immigrants with refuge under his Sanctuary City designation. The arrest followed Barrons order to the citys police to not cooperate with ICE by reporting illegal aliens in their custody. ICE demanded the criminals be handed over but they were denied. This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: describes \"Tatersgonnatate.com is a subsidiary of the Americas Last Line of Defense network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery ... Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this sites pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.\" The fake story was widely shared in late December after America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) re-promoted it on Facebook on Dec. 24. Although the article bore disclaimers that labelled it \"satire,\" many readers mistook it for serious news, as demonstrated by a series of earnest comments on the ALLOD Facebook page: For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire and humor. why TatersGonnaTate.com. \"ICE Arrests LA Mayor for Harboring Fugitives Through Sanctuary City.\"\r 26 November 2019.", "issues": [ "lien" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17nkGsZ6eBsFofN-JxqLqqugeHxtTv-iT", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Nov. 26, Taters Gonna Tate published an article positing that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) had arrested the mayor of Los Angeles. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/WeO5V" ] }, { "sentence": "This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/pZgBR" ] }, { "sentence": "For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire and humor.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/notes/why-we-include-humor-and-satire-in-snopes-com/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/channing-tatum-rumor/", "claim": "Did Channing Tatum Come Out as Gay?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/28/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Fake news of no redeeming value is often generated by prank news sites and formatted for social media impact." ], "justification": "On 28 May 2015, a news-like link began to circulate on Facebook claiming popular actor Channing Tatum came out as gay. The link's headline stated \"Channing Tatum comes out as Gay,\" and the preview text read \"Channing Tatum comes out as Gay following a number of rumours\": While the rumor was briefly popular on sites like Twitter and Facebook among Tatum's fans, it was generated by the site Feednewz.com. Feednewz.com is not a news site; rather, its primary purpose is the generation of user-submitted links that appear to be news stories. As with a similar viral hoax involving EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, the Channing Tatum hoax spread atypically far for a FeedNewz.com link due to user interest in the fabricated claim. Danny Dyer Claims like the one about Tatum often spread due to a compelling headline alone. Readers who clicked through to the appended link were greeted with the following image revealing the prank: Channing Tatum did not reveal any new information about his sexuality, and he remained married to actress Jenna Dewan until they separated in March 2018. Jenna Dewan", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1GUcqNG2R9ko_BlkxDNmvzYg42BMfBbYL", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "While the rumor was briefly popular on sites like Twitter and Facebook among Tatum's fans, it was generated by the site Feednewz.com. Feednewz.com is not a news site; rather, its primary purpose is the generation of user-submitted links that appear to be news stories. As with a similar viral hoax involving EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, the Channing Tatum hoax spread atypically far for a FeedNewz.com link due to user interest in the fabricated claim.", "hrefs": [ "dyer.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Channing Tatum did not reveal any new information about his sexuality, and he remained married to actress Jenna Dewan until they separated in March 2018. ", "hrefs": [ "https://people.com/movies/jenna-dewan-feels-a-sense-of-joy-and-freedom-after-split-from-channing-tatum/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scam-amazon-free-airpods-raffle/", "claim": "Is Amazon Giving Away Free AirPods in a Raffle?", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "04/24/2021", "sci_digest": [ "If you receive this congratulatory text message from \"Amazon\" on your phone, don't click that link!" ], "justification": "If you received a text message purportedly from Amazon, chances are you are one of many and it is a scam. Over March and April 2021, many Snopes readers told us they received messages on their phones claiming they had won an AirPod or another device in a raffle. One of our editors also received the message, which said: Amazon: Congratulations Bond, you came second in this weeks Amazon pods raffle! Follow this link to [...] She did not follow that link, however, because this appeared right away to be a scam. Indeed, the link did not connect to an official Amazon webpage. According to Amazon, all of its web pages normally follow the same format, ending in amazon.com, for example: pay.amazon.com or aws.amazon.com. Any link that is an IP address or a random string of numbers should be automatically suspicious. Amazon The Better Business Bureau (BBB) alerted users to this scam back in March. It warned that if you get a text message from a range of unknown numbers and with a suspicious link for collecting your item: alerted users Dont click! The text message is not from Amazon and it is the latest in a long list of impersonation scams that have been happening since the start of the pandemic, often using Amazons brand. The bogus raffle and suspicious link are part of a con used to trick people into visiting a phishing website, where they unwittingly share account credentials as well as personal and financial information with fraudsters. According to Amazon, any customer who receives a questionable email, text or call from a person impersonating Amazon or an Amazon employee should report them to Amazon customer service. Amazon investigates these complaints and will take action, if warranted. You can submit suspicious information to stop-spoofing@amazon.com. Amazon also offers a page to help identify if an email, text or phone call is really from Amazon. BBB also included a screenshot of a message similar to the one received by our editor, except the recipient was told that they came third in the raffle. When our editor reported the number that texted her to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), it recommended a number of tips to block spam messages. The tips can be read here. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) here Given that the link to collecting the so-called prize does not direct us to an official Amazon website, and it could potentially share your private information, we rate this claim a Scam.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mg0CKYyqW6Jb39mXYlEdktBhnokdPgKl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Indeed, the link did not connect to an official Amazon webpage. According to Amazon, all of its web pages normally follow the same format, ending in amazon.com, for example: pay.amazon.com or aws.amazon.com. Any link that is an IP address or a random string of numbers should be automatically suspicious.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=G4YFYCCNUSENA23B" ] }, { "sentence": "The Better Business Bureau (BBB) alerted users to this scam back in March. It warned that if you get a text message from a range of unknown numbers and with a suspicious link for collecting your item:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/23914-bbb-warning-you-won-raffle-from-amazon-watch-out-its-another-scam" ] }, { "sentence": "BBB also included a screenshot of a message similar to the one received by our editor, except the recipient was told that they came third in the raffle. When our editor reported the number that texted her to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), it recommended a number of tips to block spam messages. The tips can be read here. ", "hrefs": [ "https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/assistant?pid=A", "https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-report-spam-text-messages#what_to_do" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/education-oregon/", "claim": "Did Oregon Officials Say 'Showing Work' in Math Class Is White Supremacism?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "02/22/2021", "sci_digest": [ "We reached out to the Oregon Department of Education about a newsletter it sent to math teachers statewide." ], "justification": "In early 2021, Snopes became aware of online reports that alleged the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) said the practice of students documenting how they answer math problems perpetuated white supremacism. Among web pages circulating the claim was a Feb. 15 article on conservative commentator Ben Shapiro's media website, The Daily Wire. It read: Feb. 15 article A mathematics guide sent out to Oregon schools tells educators that asking students to show their work in math class is a form of white supremacy. [...] Examples of classroom actions that allegedly perpetuate white supremacy include asking students to show their work, focusing on getting the right answer, tracking student success, and grading students. A separate web page by Fox News titled, \"Oregon promotes teacher program that seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics',\" also made the assertion, while users of social media sites including Twitter and Reddit debated the accuracy of such reports, or circulated their allegations about the state department's instructions to educators as fact. web page Reddit We learned the rumor's source was a Feb. 5 newsletter from ODE to math teachers across the state that included links to additional teaching resources. See the below-displayed screenshot of a portion of the public bulletin, of which Snopes confirmed the authenticity via ODE's Director of Communications Mark Siegel. Feb. 5 newsletter In other words, a portion of the ODE-sponsored newsletter promoted a virtual learning seminar designed by an outside entity Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction that aimed to equip middle school math teachers with ideas to curb documented performance gaps between white and English-speaking students and all other students, according to the bulletin and our correspondence with Siegel. Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction documented The Oregon newsletter included links to the home page of the so-called \"Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction\" project (on which we elaborate below), as well as to register for the course. Siegel said in an email to Snopes: home page \"The materials contained in the [newsletter] are drawn from both internal and external sources and inclusion of external materials does not necessarily indicate Oregon Department of Education endorsement.\" More than 30 people from agencies across California and other states such as San Diego State University, the Los Angeles County of Education and UnboundEd (a hub of training resources for teachers) designed the ODE-advertised project \"Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,\" according to an online pamphlet listing collaborators. UnboundEd online pamphlet In addition to the online teaching classes featured in the ODE newsletter, the initiative's website hosts several PDFs to which middle school teachers anywhere can refer if they are interested in working toward the project's goal: dismantling racism in math classes. One such report, totaling 82 pages, stated more than halfway through: initiative's website In other words, a resource on the website for \"Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,\" which ODE called a partner in the newsletter, indeed stated that \"white supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms\" when educators require students to show their work because the mandate does not necessarily help students process information. Instead, the PDF encouraged teachers to offer a variety of ways for students to demonstrate their question-answering process, including via verbal discussions or multimedia projects that don't use written words or numbers. We reached out to several of the project's collaborators for their comment on the The Daily Wire and Fox News' framing of the above-described advice for middle school math teachers, and we heard back from Joanne Rossi Becker, a math and statistics professor at San Jose State University. Becker said while she did not author the report she served as a reviewer of its materials the recommendation aimed to encourage educators to allow students to explain their thinking in ways other than writing, such as through conversations, graphs, or videos. \"Overall, the document is well done and has cogent recommendations for teachers and other educators to ameliorate implicit bias and racism,\" Becker wrote in an email to Snopes. To be clear, while the ODE newsletter promoted a course designed by the project to eliminate racial and language gaps in teaching, as well as a link to a homepage, it did not include a link to or mention the above-displayed PDF, specifically. Siegel told Snopes: ODE did not directly instruct educators in terms of specific instructional practices, rather an optional resource was shared to support teacher conversations to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The department is supportive of conversations in the larger context identifying beliefs and practices that perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics. The authors of this resource described this larger idea using the term white supremacy. The term 'showing the work' in this resource refers to a single approach identified by the teacher. Although a single answer may be expected, students could arrive at correct answers using a variety of approaches such as grouping physical objects (legos, blocks), diagrams of problems, writing it out, video explanations, and spreadsheets. Put another way, the department said it supports the project's goal to help students of color and multilingual students do better in math class, as well as its recommendation to allow classes a variety of ways to explain how they solve problems. \"Neither ODE nor the course has made claims that math content itself is racist,\" Siegel wrote. \"The system of mathematics education, including policy, graduation requirements, standards, instruction, course sequences, and assessments, must be evaluated through an equity stance to disrupt inequitable outcomes we currently experience.\" In sum, it's true a project designed by dozens of school administrators and scholars said expanding options for math students to explain their processes for answering questions could help close racial and language gaps in teaching, addressing existing \"white supremacy culture.\" But it was false to frame that recommendation as a mandatory directive from ODE to teachers, or to suggest the department itself said the standard idea of \"showing work\" is a form of white supremacy. For those reasons, we rate this claim a \"Mixture\" of truth and misleading information.", "issues": [ "equity" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1eGahmgmbKRmDyPFDW3DzZ23NewoQkdq6", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HXWY81icJNvdeJVrK3X1cIlwWVueu7oJ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mjXIvkrI-CuTp_MVX9-p3cjkR_HtWvcS", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1q5YEhHnfo8fMpXBrTGS7YR4hN7tublh_", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Among web pages circulating the claim was a Feb. 15 article on conservative commentator Ben Shapiro's media website, The Daily Wire. It read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailywire.com/news/asking-students-to-show-their-work-in-math-class-is-a-form-of-white-supremacy?utm_source=facebo" ] }, { "sentence": "A separate web page by Fox News titled, \"Oregon promotes teacher program that seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics',\" also made the assertion, while users of social media sites including Twitter and Reddit debated the accuracy of such reports, or circulated their allegations about the state department's instructions to educators as fact.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foxnews.com/us/oregon-education-math-white-supremacy", "https://www.reddit.com/r/matheducation/comments/llpnsn/oregon_dept_of_education_asking_students_to_show/" ] }, { "sentence": "We learned the rumor's source was a Feb. 5 newsletter from ODE to math teachers across the state that included links to additional teaching resources. See the below-displayed screenshot of a portion of the public bulletin, of which Snopes confirmed the authenticity via ODE's Director of Communications Mark Siegel.", "hrefs": [ "https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/ORED/bulletins/2bfbb9b?fbclid=IwAR3U8iS7fCD-g0NArQh74qlRa5IVFiTXoithZA89kMvmD0DETmzcV9DuQdg" ] }, { "sentence": "In other words, a portion of the ODE-sponsored newsletter promoted a virtual learning seminar designed by an outside entity Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction that aimed to equip middle school math teachers with ideas to curb documented performance gaps between white and English-speaking students and all other students, according to the bulletin and our correspondence with Siegel.", "hrefs": [ "https://equitablemath.org/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery", "https://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/assessment/Pages/Assessment-Group-Reports.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "The Oregon newsletter included links to the home page of the so-called \"Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction\" project (on which we elaborate below), as well as to register for the course. Siegel said in an email to Snopes:", "hrefs": [ "https://equitablemath.org/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery" ] }, { "sentence": "More than 30 people from agencies across California and other states such as San Diego State University, the Los Angeles County of Education and UnboundEd (a hub of training resources for teachers) designed the ODE-advertised project \"Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,\" according to an online pamphlet listing collaborators.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.unbounded.org/", "https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/Math-Equity-Collaborators-Bios.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition to the online teaching classes featured in the ODE newsletter, the initiative's website hosts several PDFs to which middle school teachers anywhere can refer if they are interested in working toward the project's goal: dismantling racism in math classes. One such report, totaling 82 pages, stated more than halfway through:", "hrefs": [ "https://equitablemath.org/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-china-virus-atlanta-shooting/", "claim": "Did Trump Refer to 'China Virus' on Fox the Night Asian Women Were Killed in Atlanta?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "03/17/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The former president had called into Fox on March 16 to talk about issues unrelated to the Atlanta-area mass shooting." ], "justification": "Around 5 p.m. EDT on March 16, 2021, a 21-year-old white man allegedly shot and killed eight people -- six of whom were Asian women -- at three Atlanta-area spas. The investigation into the mass shooting remained ongoing, as of this report. allegedly shot and killed investigation As word of the tragedy spread online, however, people flooded social media with messages of sympathy for the deceased. Many posts classified them as unknowing victims of the country's increasing xenophobia, given a surge of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S, or pervasive violence against women. surge of attacks Among such posters was Aaron Rupar, a journalist at Vox. A couple of hours after the incident, for instance, he blamed former U.S. President Donald Trump's characterization of the coronavirus as a reason for growing hate crimes against Asian Americans, and tweeted: Vox tweeted \"[I] don't think it's a coincidence that Trump spent the better part of a year using a virus as a slur against Chinese people while hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked by 150 percent.\" Rupar was referring to Trump's repeated insistence on calling the coronavirus the \"Chinese virus\" -- going against widely accepted public health guidelines that warn against titling disease outbreaks after nations or regions of the world to eliminate stigmatization -- and 2020 hate crime statistics in 16 U.S. cities compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. repeated insistence guidelines 2020 hate crime statistics About 20 minutes later, Rupar added: The underlying claim was true as authorities in the Atlanta area embarked on a manhunt to catch the suspect on the evening of March 16, Trump referred to the coronavirus as the \"China virus\" on Fox News. a manhunt to catch the suspect But let this be clear: No evidence explicitly connected the former president's use of the term on national television with the tragedy unfolding simultaneously in Georgia. Furthermore, it was unclear whether he was even aware of the mass shooting when he said \"China virus\" while talking about unrelated matters -- specifically, his presidential administration's approach to the American economy. The interviewer did not ask him about the Atlanta-are shooting. Here's what happened: Between roughly 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. EDT, according to The Associated Press, the victims' bodies were reported inside massage parlors, and authorities arrested the suspected gunman -- Robert Aaron Long, of Woodstock, Georgia -- as he was driving on the interstate. Meanwhile, at 7 p.m. EDT, Trump called in for a phone interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, a recording of which Snopes obtained via the media outlet's website and is displayed below. Maria Bartiromo Throughout much of the interview, the former president lambasted his successor's approach to immigration, criticized election security, and took credit for the ongoing efforts to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to every American willing to get one. Then, at approximately the 5-minute mark, he said: immigration COVID-19 [The economy] was recovering under my administration -- twice. We got it to a level that the world has never seen before. We were the envy of the world and then when we got hit by the, as I call it, 'the China virus' -- COVID -- it obviously went down along with every other economy. And then we were the first to get it back up. You can watch the segment here: ", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1o9mWmOoHfo223MTwItcqNBKDj203hvgT", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Around 5 p.m. EDT on March 16, 2021, a 21-year-old white man allegedly shot and killed eight people -- six of whom were Asian women -- at three Atlanta-area spas. The investigation into the mass shooting remained ongoing, as of this report.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/03/16/7-killed-in-shootings-at-3-atlanta-area-massage-parlors/", "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56424616" ] }, { "sentence": "As word of the tragedy spread online, however, people flooded social media with messages of sympathy for the deceased. Many posts classified them as unknowing victims of the country's increasing xenophobia, given a surge of attacks against Asian Americans that coincided with the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S, or pervasive violence against women.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/victims-anti-asian-attacks-reflect-0632beaa1726f17dcabb672c224ad86a" ] }, { "sentence": "Among such posters was Aaron Rupar, a journalist at Vox. A couple of hours after the incident, for instance, he blamed former U.S. President Donald Trump's characterization of the coronavirus as a reason for growing hate crimes against Asian Americans, and tweeted:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.vox.com/authors/aaron-rupar", "https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1372000278166274049" ] }, { "sentence": "Rupar was referring to Trump's repeated insistence on calling the coronavirus the \"Chinese virus\" -- going against widely accepted public health guidelines that warn against titling disease outbreaks after nations or regions of the world to eliminate stigmatization -- and 2020 hate crime statistics in 16 U.S. cities compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-chinese-virus-notes/", "https://archive.is/pDMKO", "https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET-%20Anti-Asian%20Hate%202020%203.2.21.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The underlying claim was true as authorities in the Atlanta area embarked on a manhunt to catch the suspect on the evening of March 16, Trump referred to the coronavirus as the \"China virus\" on Fox News.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/robert-aaron-long/" ] }, { "sentence": "Meanwhile, at 7 p.m. EDT, Trump called in for a phone interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, a recording of which Snopes obtained via the media outlet's website and is displayed below.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/02/12/fox-hosts-dobbs-bartiromo-strike-back-in-voting-fraud-suit/" ] }, { "sentence": "Throughout much of the interview, the former president lambasted his successor's approach to immigration, criticized election security, and took credit for the ongoing efforts to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to every American willing to get one. Then, at approximately the 5-minute mark, he said:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-biden-shirts-let-us-in/", "https://www.snopes.com/collections/new-coronavirus-collection/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/largest-stock-drops-trump/", "claim": "Did the 8 Largest Single-Day Stock Drops Occur Under Trump?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/28/2020", "sci_digest": [ "As is often the case with statistics, which ones you choose to consider makes a significant difference." ], "justification": "In February 2020, as fears surrounding the outbreak of a new coronavirus and a potential pandemic triggered the worst one-day drop in U.S. stocks since 2011, a chart began circulating via social media purportedly showing the \"8 Largest Dow Jones Drops in American History.\" one-day drop What was notable about the chart was that all of the listed stock market drops had supposedly occurred during the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump: The chart was accurate as far as it went, replicating information from the Wikipedia \"List of largest daily changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average\" page about the greatest single-day drops in the Dow: page However, this chart only displayed net (or absolute) losses in the Dow, and obviously a drop of 1,000 points when the average stands at 25,000 is far less severe than a drop of 1,000 points when the average stands at only 5,000. As we detailed in another article, a chart of the largest single-day percentage (or relative) changes in the Dow shows that none of the top 10 single-day percentage drops in that stock index has occurred during the Trump administration: article Biggest one-day percentage stock index losses (Sources: The Wall Street Journal's Market Data and Yahoo! Finance's downloadable Dow Jones data) Market Data data The largest single-day percentage drop in the Dow took place on Oct. 19, 1987 a day commonly known as Black Monday when the Dow fell 508 points for a loss of 22.6% of its value. Black Monday Wikipedia. \"List of Largest Daily Changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.\"\r Accessed 28 February 2020. Wikipedia. \"Black Monday (1987).\"\r Accessed 28 February 2020. Associated Press. \"Virus Anxiety Triggers Biggest 1-Day Market Drop Since 2011.\"\r Snopes.com. 28 February 2020. MacGuill, Dan. \"Does the Dow Jones Do Worse Under Republican Presidents?\"\r Snopes.com. 8 February 2018.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Gz7NnkbaU0fp848aqfF2ujA7yhJHZiRJ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fAkO2-NQJ-giKNghqpYJB41-9NWfgp_l", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In February 2020, as fears surrounding the outbreak of a new coronavirus and a potential pandemic triggered the worst one-day drop in U.S. stocks since 2011, a chart began circulating via social media purportedly showing the \"8 Largest Dow Jones Drops in American History.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/02/27/virus-anxiety-triggers-biggest-1-day-market-drop-since-2011/" ] }, { "sentence": "The chart was accurate as far as it went, replicating information from the Wikipedia \"List of largest daily changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average\" page about the greatest single-day drops in the Dow:", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_daily_changes_in_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average" ] }, { "sentence": "As we detailed in another article, a chart of the largest single-day percentage (or relative) changes in the Dow shows that none of the top 10 single-day percentage drops in that stock index has occurred during the Trump administration:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dow-jones-losses-republicans/" ] }, { "sentence": " (Sources: The Wall Street Journal's Market Data and Yahoo! Finance's downloadable Dow Jones data)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3047-djia_alltime.html", "https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history?period1=1325566800&period2=1517979600&interval=1d&filter=history&frequency=1d" ] }, { "sentence": "The largest single-day percentage drop in the Dow took place on Oct. 19, 1987 a day commonly known as Black Monday when the Dow fell 508 points for a loss of 22.6% of its value.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-millionaires-stimulus-checks/", "claim": "Can American millionaires receive $1.7 million in COVID-19 stimulus funds?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/21/2020", "sci_digest": [ "That would be about 1,400 times the amount a low-income worker would receive from the federal government's COVID-19 economic relief package." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Responding to an unprecedented disruption to the U.S. economy caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020, approved a $2.2 trillion stimulus package called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. approved CARES Aiming to provide direct payments to Americans, the relief package authorized the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to send $1,200 checks to low- and middle-class workers. The legislation also boosted funding for unemployment benefits, set aside billions of dollars for loans to help small businesses, and increased health care spending by $100 billion, among other provisions. $1,200 checks But the bill included an additional benefit for wealthy Americans, per national media headlines in mid-April: Over 43,000 U.S. Millionaires will get stimulus averaging $1.6 million each\" (New York Post) and \"How Some Rich Americans Are Getting Checks Averaging $1.7 million\" (Forbes). Snopes received numerous reader inquiries about the veracity of those reports. Over 43,000 U.S. Millionaires will get stimulus averaging $1.6 million each How Some Rich Americans Are Getting Checks Averaging $1.7 million\" The claim is multi-pronged: that millionaires and other Americans received the same type of stimulus checks, termed \"Economic Impact Payments\"; that those payments were higher for millionaires than for other workers; and that the economic benefits for the country's wealthiest residents averaged $1.7 million each under the CARES Act. other Americans The coronavirus relief package authorized the federal government to send: For single tax filers with higher annual salaries but less than $99,000 the federal government is reducing the stimulus checks by $5 for each $100 above the $75,000 threshold (similar math goes for payments to families). Yet here is evidence that proves part of the above claim false, in the words of the IRS: \"Tax filers with adjusted gross income up to $75,000 for individuals and up to $150,000 for married couples filing joint returns will receive the full payment\" which does not exceed the amounts of $1,200 for individuals, $2,400 for joint claims, and $500 per qualifying child. That means only in this hypothetical situation a family had 3,400 qualifying children could an American receive a stimulus check of $1.7 million. Here's language verbatim from the CARES Act: However, the latter part of the claim that millionaires could reap an average of $1.7 million in financial gains under the CARES Act is less definite. The answer begins with understanding pre-CARES Act tax code. In 2017, the federal government established new limitations on how much money owners of so-called \"pass-through\" businesses can deduct as losses against their \"nonbusiness\" income to minimize their tax liability. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, owners of such businesses entities where profits flow through to owners and are not subject to corporate income taxes could deduct a maximum of $250,000 in losses individually ($500,000 for couples) to offset taxable income from other sources, such as capital gains. Two Democratic Congressmen Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Llloyd Doggett of Texas have explained the rule like this: pass-through\" Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, have explained If one spouse owns a company that had a $5 million loss in 2018 and the other spouse made $5 million from stock market investments, this limitation meant that the couples taxable income was $4.5 million (not zero, if the loss were allowed to fully cancel out the income). The other $4.5 million in losses, however, could be carried forward to use in future years. Provisions in the CARES Act temporarily suspended that limitation until the start of 2021, according to an analysis of legislative records by Snopes. In other words, the IRS is legally obligated to count excess losses from businesses that it otherwise wouldnt have and provide them with \"the same treatment as if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had not been enacted,\" according to attorneys with the international law firm Foley and Lardner. Foley and Lardner Additionally, the provisions change the timeline of the 2017 law and allow for the new standard to retroactively apply, enabling businesses to report losses in 2018 and 2019 against the past five years. Those taxpayers, however, would likely need to amend their 2018 and 2019 tax returns if they have already been filed to see any changes, according to the tax consulting firm Calvetti Ferguson. Calvetti Ferguson And since the modification under the CARES Act only applies until Dec. 31, 2020, the 2017 law will kick in the following year. Here's how that change to tax code is relevant to the claim: Americans who earn $1 million or more will benefit the most from the temporary suspension on the deduction limit, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan congressional body the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). In early April 2020, Whitehouse and Doggett requested the committee to research \"the distributional effects\" of the provision within the CARES Act. Later, the commissions chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, shared its findings in a letter to the congressmen, including the caveat: Joint Committee on Taxation in a letter There is, of course, a great deal of uncertainty about the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how those economic effects will translate into business losses for individuals. The revenue estimate represents our best effort to give Congress useful information about the potential scale of revenue changes associated with this provision. The letter included the following table, showing what class of Americans will receive what percentage of benefits from the amendment to the 2017 tax law: The table shows almost 82% of the provision's benefits will go toward about 43,000 Americans who earn $1 million or more annually. Put another way, hedge-fund investors and owners of real estate businesses are \"far and away\" the two prime beneficiaries of the change to the 2017 tax law, Steve Rosenthal, a tax expert at the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told The Washington Post. The JCT also found that suspending the limitation for \"pass-through\" businesses will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, the Post reported. Tax Policy Center The Washington Post Using those numbers, you can do back-of-the-napkin math to estimate the amount of money the country's wealthiest population could reduce from their tax burden as a result of the change (82% of $90 billion): about $73.8 billion. Then, if you divide that total by the estimated number of impacted Americans who earn $1 million or more (43,000), you end up with an average of $1,716,279 or about $1.7 million each. \"If you take the reports calculations at face value, that means that, on average, each of the eligible taxpayers would get a windfall of ~$1.7 million! Forbes contributor Shahar Ziv wrote. Clearly not all of those earning only $1 million will receive a $1.7 million tax cut; however, just as some may receive less than the $1.7 million, some may benefit much more.\" In sum, given that U.S. millionaires won't receive stimulus payments based on their income under the CARES Act but rather the Act's provisions enable those Americans to take advantage of a temporary tax relief potentially to the tune of $1.7 million on average we rate this claim as a \"Mixture\" of true and false information. Arnell, Michael and Teachout, Eric. CARES Act Income Tax Implications.\" Calvetti Ferguson. 31 March 2020. Brown, Lee. Over 43,000 U.S. millionaires will get stimulus averaging $1.6 million each.\r New York Post. 16 April 2020. Cochrane, Emily and Fandos, Nicholas. Senate Approves $2 Trillion Stimulus After Bipartisan Deal.\r The New York Times. 25 March 2020. H.R.748 CARES Act. All Actions H.R.748 116th Congress (2019-2020).\r Congress.gov. Accessed 20 April 2020. Internal Revenue Service. \"Economic impact payments: What you need to know\".\r Accessed 20 April 2020. May, Ashley and Weisblat, David. CARES Act -- Summary of Tax Provision.\r Foley & Lardner LLP. Accessed 20 April 2020. H.R.748 CARES Act. All Actions H.R.748 116th Congress (2019-2020).\rCongress.gov. Accessed 20 April 2020. Stein, Jeff. Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds.\r The Washington Post. 14 April 2020. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.\rCongress.gov. Accessed 20 April 2020. The White House. Remarks by President Trump at Signing of H.R. 748, The CARES Act.\r27 March 2020. Ziv, Shahar. How Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus Checks Averaging $1.7 Million.\rForbes. 14 April 2020.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1TK6LUOWqn59c8UoqqXZxIRTUh0M9kQFe" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1xWmkrsuI7aU-jQ2f9Zp6lc-HAoYY1z6I" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "Responding to an unprecedented disruption to the U.S. economy caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020, approved a $2.2 trillion stimulus package called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-h-r-748-cares-act/", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/text?fbclid=IwAR02m0Wa0g0InSzH5o1LkqrmEyCR1l2ljF-j293rulP1p7NaKcdtaYXfHRg#toc-H25CA409D9D2844399CF965A38F83F6C6" ] }, { "sentence": "Aiming to provide direct payments to Americans, the relief package authorized the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to send $1,200 checks to low- and middle-class workers. The legislation also boosted funding for unemployment benefits, set aside billions of dollars for loans to help small businesses, and increased health care spending by $100 billion, among other provisions.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-stimulus-check/" ] }, { "sentence": "But the bill included an additional benefit for wealthy Americans, per national media headlines in mid-April: Over 43,000 U.S. Millionaires will get stimulus averaging $1.6 million each\" (New York Post) and \"How Some Rich Americans Are Getting Checks Averaging $1.7 million\" (Forbes). Snopes received numerous reader inquiries about the veracity of those reports. ", "hrefs": [ "https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/43k-us-millionaires-will-get-stimulus-averaging-1-6m-each/", "https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaharziv/2020/04/14/why-are-rich-americans-getting-17-million-stimulus-checks/#13702e11665b" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim is multi-pronged: that millionaires and other Americans received the same type of stimulus checks, termed \"Economic Impact Payments\"; that those payments were higher for millionaires than for other workers; and that the economic benefits for the country's wealthiest residents averaged $1.7 million each under the CARES Act.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-stimulus-check/" ] }, { "sentence": "The answer begins with understanding pre-CARES Act tax code. In 2017, the federal government established new limitations on how much money owners of so-called \"pass-through\" businesses can deduct as losses against their \"nonbusiness\" income to minimize their tax liability. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, owners of such businesses entities where profits flow through to owners and are not subject to corporate income taxes could deduct a maximum of $250,000 in losses individually ($500,000 for couples) to offset taxable income from other sources, such as capital gains. Two Democratic Congressmen Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Llloyd Doggett of Texas have explained the rule like this:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-pass-through-businesses", "https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr1/BILLS-115hr1enr.pdf", "https://doggett.house.gov/sites/doggett.house.gov/files/NOL%20Ltr.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Provisions in the CARES Act temporarily suspended that limitation until the start of 2021, according to an analysis of legislative records by Snopes. In other words, the IRS is legally obligated to count excess losses from businesses that it otherwise wouldnt have and provide them with \"the same treatment as if the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had not been enacted,\" according to attorneys with the international law firm Foley and Lardner. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foley.com/en/insights/publications/2020/03/cares-act-summary-of-tax-provision" ] }, { "sentence": "Additionally, the provisions change the timeline of the 2017 law and allow for the new standard to retroactively apply, enabling businesses to report losses in 2018 and 2019 against the past five years. Those taxpayers, however, would likely need to amend their 2018 and 2019 tax returns if they have already been filed to see any changes, according to the tax consulting firm Calvetti Ferguson. ", "hrefs": [ "https://calvettiferguson.com/coronavirus-income-tax-implications/" ] }, { "sentence": "Here's how that change to tax code is relevant to the claim: Americans who earn $1 million or more will benefit the most from the temporary suspension on the deduction limit, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan congressional body the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). In early April 2020, Whitehouse and Doggett requested the committee to research \"the distributional effects\" of the provision within the CARES Act. Later, the commissions chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, shared its findings in a letter to the congressmen, including the caveat:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.jct.gov/about-us/role-of-jct.html", "https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/116-0849.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The table shows almost 82% of the provision's benefits will go toward about 43,000 Americans who earn $1 million or more annually. Put another way, hedge-fund investors and owners of real estate businesses are \"far and away\" the two prime beneficiaries of the change to the 2017 tax law, Steve Rosenthal, a tax expert at the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told The Washington Post. The JCT also found that suspending the limitation for \"pass-through\" businesses will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, the Post reported.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/about", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/14/coronavirus-law-congress-tax-change/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-eye-injury/", "claim": "Did Jimmy Carter participate in the building of low-cost housing despite encountering difficulties from an eye injury?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/14/2022", "sci_digest": [ "For more than two years, fans of the president have circulated images and memes of the alleged incident." ], "justification": "For years, liberal social media users have shared photographs or videos supposedly depicting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter doing woodworking with what appears to be an eye injury, apparently to emphasize that his alleged age and medical history hadn't stopped him from volunteering. One Twitter user, for example, posted the below-displayed meme about the 39th president in April 2022: videos posted A reverse-image search of the meme revealed numerous instances in which internet users promoted this underlying claim: that Carter, at age 95, fell, received stitches and then the following day helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity a Christian nonprofit that helps low-income families build homes and pay their mortgages. revealed numerous instances Christian nonprofit [See also: Why Do the Bidens Look Giant in Photo With Carters?] Why Do the Bidens Look Giant in Photo With Carters? The claim was true though the incident had occurred more than two years ago, as of this writing. On Oct. 7, 2019, The Associated Press published the photographs featured in the meme, writing: writing NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) With a bandage above his left eye and a large, red welt below it, former President Jimmy Carter was greeted by a cheering crowd Monday morning as he prepared to help build a home with Habitat for Humanity in Nashville. Habitat for Humanity Carter fell at home on Sunday, requiring 14 stiches, but he did not let his injuries keep him from participating in his 36th building project with the nonprofit Christian housing organization. He turned 95 last Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone. The newspaper reported that he and his wife, former First Lady Rosalyn Carter, worked that day on building corbels, a type of support bracket, for a home. CNN also reported on the public appearance, including the following quote from the former president in its Oct. 8, 2019, story: I fell down and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and had to go to the hospital. And they took 14 stitches in my forehead and my eye is black, as youve noticed, he said. But I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville and build houses. CNN also reported According to the nonprofit's website, the couple formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity in the 1980s, and they have rallied \"thousands of volunteers and even celebrities\" to join the organization's cause since then. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Habitat for Humanity paused its so-called \"Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project,\" a reoccurring event during which the couple fundraises to build a grouping of homes somewhere. nonprofit's website 1980s Interested in presidential trivia? We recently combed our archives to compile exclusive stories regarding presidents pets, drinking, alleged extramarital affairs, purported after-death hauntings of the White House and more. They are listed in order of presidential term here, and include the following nuggets of information about Carter: presidents pets drinking extramarital affairs purported after-death hauntings here Yes, Carter once helped contain a potentially dangerous accident at a nuclear reactor in Canada. He and his wife, Rosalynn, are the longest-married couple in presidential history. Carter indeed published an open letter entitled Losing My Religion for Equality. Carter Work Project. Habitat for Humanity, https://www.habitat.org/volunteer/build-events/carter-work-project. Accessed 14 Apr. 2022. Despite Fall, Former President Carter Helps Build Home. AP NEWS, 7 Oct. 2019, https://apnews.com/article/9ef214c0b3c748b6b32fa40a70ff6624. Ahmed, Elizabeth Wolfe, Saeed. Despite 14 Stitches and a Black Eye, Jimmy Carter Is Back Building Homes. CNN, 8 Oct. 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/us/carter-building-houses-after-stitches-falling-trnd/index.html.", "issues": [ "mortgage" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1oAHztfHERoUsAYrQmlN8zYsEAOEBxT4J" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "For years, liberal social media users have shared photographs or videos supposedly depicting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter doing woodworking with what appears to be an eye injury, apparently to emphasize that his alleged age and medical history hadn't stopped him from volunteering. One Twitter user, for example, posted the below-displayed meme about the 39th president in April 2022:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2422094131446700", "https://twitter.com/liberalheatfan/status/1513218613007851539" ] }, { "sentence": "A reverse-image search of the meme revealed numerous instances in which internet users promoted this underlying claim: that Carter, at age 95, fell, received stitches and then the following day helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity a Christian nonprofit that helps low-income families build homes and pay their mortgages.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=simg:CAESiwIJ4VHSMf0ro0Ma_1wELELCMpwgaOwo5CAQSFMIivBG-IYI2vSnoF4s27z7xA_141GhvRMmDaitY3frA1EVKpXQGEvL_1cJyNCSL-P7pAgBTAEDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIEt3joggwLEJ3twQkangEKHAoJY2FycGVudHJ52qWI9gMLCgkvbS8wMTl4NGYKGwoIaGFuZHltYW7apYj2AwsKCS9tLzA5MV85eAocCgh3b3Jrd2VhctqliPYDDAoKL20vMDI2bGM3dwolChJibHVlLWNvbGxhciB3b3JrZXLapYj2AwsKCS9tLzAxa3EzZgocCgpwb3dlciB0b29s2qWI9gMKCggvbS8wX2tzaww&q=jimmy+carter+meme&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&vet=1&fir=bbDtpTaMrG8b9M%252C4i9MtfH3QC8eQM%252C_%253Bbjw_rKYpp5RRLM%252C9vQxXg3W3GoXFM%252C_%253BR9pHuOmDnLV0VM%252C7_efEt6fLb6CxM%252C_%253BYjZh_QfYTHRJZM%252Cj4zyDZJak-B9OM%252C_%253B9zqRTNILRT3wQM%252CGDQKEuNvvQZNTM%252C_%253BzPx_HDmCfJv3-M%252CXvTIs74i8arYzM%252C_%253BTnGa23zjJAmNQM%252CtyrdtYgUaG2L5M%252C_%253Bu3QeZL2lzdHUZM%252ClBGraNrWqFJM_M%252C_%253BItKZwgodznh-dM%252Cc6ONJUIOIO6dZM%252C_%253B27_sd1ex_iufUM%252CuTkel6Yykp6SAM%252C_%253BpE0fRmNlRqSfyM%252CtSPUTRahFDli9M%252C_%253BJp9DdV14_l_HzM%252C5Lou2UDQQWzK3M%252C_%253BUqdsCRsP9THRkM%252CgMdGApgALYxySM%252C_%253BWDHEfCtpHtuo_M%252CKK9yvAmK3mmM8M%252C_%253B1wiBmW0gDDk2iM%252Csb-8JKPlofsOhM%252C_%253BXJ6n1Zfkoo_PIM%252Cl0SvdTCn9lT_wM%252C_%253BbuLKgmpkHfnS_M%252CNU2n0PDxtAbXaM%252C_%253BpSr72YQ8b6-0YM%252CL7Bky8dq5HNpYM%252C_%253B7lEoXJXhu2TpiM%252CXj_MNrGxdGhW0M%252C_%253B-IkhOXy_uL0csM%252Ch_jWvl6b7EfimM%252C_%253BOPdCA8C6UmjpJM%252Ctz3egVVXtE2JpM%252C_%253BOW7XU3Yk9SJsOM%252CwIk2ab4rActIAM%252C_%253Bh7cnON6IT08wSM%252CewYajzOgvLjvkM%252C_%253BMnyujBU7jkQGjM%252Cmhs7MH5x9Ikq0M%252C_%253BxXy8WQMy_p-FiM%252CkTzZChwtUZYEjM%252C_%253BaIvld-bCuNjS5M%252CpLf-WGS8DD8zbM%252C_%253BkgrdomJKq9SHNM%252CLHqxtg1fLxO-gM%252C_%253BLMoaeQgfrviRVM%252C4ahovSY5CuKkzM%252C_%253BMRb-ji0ti_loTM%252CtUvt3ShxaBMZ9M%252C_%253B83BaAjpWfNLu9M%252CroxLRsOqlcCyoM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kS5cKfwhaQwOWQp5hYna3W_BU7d6A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFuMmcgZT3AhV0Ap0JHTUtCjwQ9QF6BAg2EAE&biw=1330&bih=918&dpr=1#imgrc=bjw_rKYpp5RRLM", "https://www.habitat.org/about" ] }, { "sentence": "[See also: Why Do the Bidens Look Giant in Photo With Carters?]", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bidens-photo-carters/" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim was true though the incident had occurred more than two years ago, as of this writing. On Oct. 7, 2019, The Associated Press published the photographs featured in the meme, writing:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/9ef214c0b3c748b6b32fa40a70ff6624/gallery/6956dbdb3b3e4ea7b476c8be493f8ba4" ] }, { "sentence": "NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) With a bandage above his left eye and a large, red welt below it, former President Jimmy Carter was greeted by a cheering crowd Monday morning as he prepared to help build a home with Habitat for Humanity in Nashville.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.habitat.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "CNN also reported on the public appearance, including the following quote from the former president in its Oct. 8, 2019, story: I fell down and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and had to go to the hospital. And they took 14 stitches in my forehead and my eye is black, as youve noticed, he said. But I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville and build houses.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/us/carter-building-houses-after-stitches-falling-trnd/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the nonprofit's website, the couple formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity in the 1980s, and they have rallied \"thousands of volunteers and even celebrities\" to join the organization's cause since then. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Habitat for Humanity paused its so-called \"Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project,\" a reoccurring event during which the couple fundraises to build a grouping of homes somewhere.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.habitat.org/volunteer/build-events/carter-work-project", "https://www.habitat.org/stories/glimpse-what-inspires-president-carter" ] }, { "sentence": "Interested in presidential trivia? We recently combed our archives to compile exclusive stories regarding presidents pets, drinking, alleged extramarital affairs, purported after-death hauntings of the White House and more. They are listed in order of presidential term here, and include the following nuggets of information about Carter:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-president-dog-100-years/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-korea-richard-nixon-nuclear/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nancy-pelosi-with-jfk/", "https://www.snopes.com/articles/378130/white-house-abraham-lincoln-ghost/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/02/16/stories-about-u-s-presidents/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2007/aug/01/hillary-clinton/an-accurate-summary-of-economic-stats/", "claim": "Corporate profits are up, CEO pay is up, but average wages of Americans are flat.", "author": "Bill Adair", "posted": "08/01/2007", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Corporate profits have been rising. The Commerce Department reported that corporate profits from current production increased 21.4 percent in 2006 and were up 12.5 percent in 2005. CEO pay has also gone up. A Forbes report in May 2007 said chief executives of the nation's 500 largest companies got a 38 percent raise in 2006, on top of a 6 percent hike in 2005 and a 54 percent raise in 2004. And Clinton is right that average wages have been flat. Adjusted for inflation, median family income has been flat since 2001, hovering around $54,000, according to government statistics.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/collapsing-currency/", "claim": "Has there been a suggestion that H.R. 2847 contains a provision indicating the downfall of the U.S. dollar on July 1, 2014?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/14/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: The U.S. dollar will officially collapse after 1 July 2014 due to the implementation of H.R. 2847." ], "justification": " Claim: The U.S. dollar will officially collapse after 1 July 2014 due to the implementation of H.R. 2847. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, April 2014] On this date, U.S. House of Representatives Bill \"H.R. 2847\" goes into effect. It will usher in the true collapse of the U.S. dollar, and will make millions of Americans poorer, overnight. You now have just several months to prepare ... Origins: This item about the passage of H.R. 2847 causing the U.S. dollar to collapse as of 1 July 2014 is another example financial scarelore put out in conjunction with an investment come-on, in this case an ominous sales pitch put out by the folks at Stansberry & Associates Investment Research LLC. come-on This latest panic piece is offered in a Stansberry & Associates presentation featuring a number of scary-sounding statements about how we in the U.S. are soon to experience a \"near-complete shutdown of the American economy,\" will see \"the savings of millions wiped out,\" will be living under the imposition of martial law by the federal government, and will be struggling in the aftermath of a number of other apocalyptic financial scenarios. presentation And according to Stansberry & Associates, this remarkable, radical collapse of the United States monetary system and \"our normal way of life\" is going into effect in a mere matter of months (just like a similar recent conspiracy scare about the federal government's plan to eliminate 16 states from the U.S. in the very near future). 16 states But wait ... all one needs in order to avoid suffering from this devastating national calamity, one that will collapse our entire monetary system and spell doom for the American way of life, is a little information. Information that can be yours if you'll just shell out $149 for a one-year subscription to Stansberry's Investment Advisory newsletter. Or, as one wry commentator put it: subscription In other words, if a financial company spews a bunch of stuff that sounds sufficiently alarming, and then promotes its product as something that will help protect people against this horribly scary thing, it might be able to lure gullible folks into believing that a \"fairly easy and inexpensive to protect themselves\" against losing their money is for them to send their money to that company instead. And, unfortunately, such schemes work often enough to keep these types of schemers in business. So what is this all really about? H.R. 2847, also known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (or HIRE), was a Congressional bill passed into law in March 2010 that sought to provide payroll tax breaks and incentives for businesses to hire unemployed workers. A section of that bill, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (known as FATCA), sought to eliminate the non-compliance of U.S. taxpayers who hold foreign accounts by requiring those taxpayers (including those living outside the U.S.) to report certain foreign accounts and offshore assets to the government, and by requiring foreign financial institutions to report information about the ownership of overseas assets held by U.S. taxpayers to the government: HIRE FATCA The problem originates in U.S. government efforts to prevent future offshore-banking tax scams like the UBS one in 2009. To keep better track of the flow of assets owned by U.S. citizens, Fatca requires bankers in other countries to send the IRS information about transactions by any of their customers who are Americans. Similarly, U.S. banks have to report to the IRS info on their non-U.S.-citizen customers, so the IRS can send it on to their home countries. You can understand the motivation behind the rule. It's a big connected world economy, huge sums can be transferred anywhere in an instant, and much as INTERPOL or the World Health Organization have a legitimate interest in sharing data, so too might taxing authorities. In principle, everyone should pay his or her fair share, somewhere. As noted on the American Citizens Abroad web site: American Citizens Abroad Starting July 1, 2014, FATCA will require FFIs to provide annual reports to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the name and address of each U.S. client, as well as the largest account balance in the year and total debits and credits of any account owned by a U.S. person. If an institution does not comply, the U.S. will impose a 30% withholding tax on all its transactions concerning U.S. securities, including the proceeds of sale of securities. In addition, FATCA requires any foreign company not listed on a stock exchange or any foreign partnership which has 10% U.S. ownership to report to the IRS the names and tax I.D. number (TIN) of any U.S. owner. FATCA also requires U.S. citizens and green card holders who have foreign financial assets in excess of $50,000 (higher for those who are bona-fide residents abroad) to complete a new Form 8938 to be filed with the 1040 tax return, starting with fiscal year 2011. FATCA has been the subject of criticisms on a number of fronts (which the Treasury Department has attempted to counter in its own \"Myth vs. FACTA\" write-up), among them that the costs of implementing it may outstrip the additional revenues it will bring in, that it may prompt \"capital flight\" in the form of foreign financial institutions divesting themselves of U.S. assets, that foreign relations may be strained by the U.S. requiring foreign governments to gather and report (at their own expense) information on U.S. citizens, and that the law may make it difficult or impossible for U.S. citizens living and/or working abroad to open accounts in foreign banks: criticisms Myth vs. FACTA But casting such a wide net is producing unintended consequences for some Americans who faithfully pay their taxes from afar. Banks around the world are suddenly rejecting Americans as clients or customers, because they don't want the reporting and bureaucratic hassles, plus the potential exposure to draconian penalties. Non-Americans are pulling their assets out of U.S. banks. I get emails every day from American expats who say they are facing all kinds of problems bringing their long-standing foreign-based banking life into compliance with this new law. Some of them say they're getting ready to renounce their citizenship. Over the years I've had accounts with banks in England, Japan, Malaysia, China, and now Australia when living or working in those places, and I'm wondering what I have to worry about to make sure the remaining ones \"comply.\" \"I have always filed my U.S. taxes just as I am supposed to,\" says Brian Dublin, 47, an American businessman now based in Zug, Switzerland, who has lived overseas for many years, including stints in Russia. \"However, as a result of FATCA, in the past year I have been kicked out of a Swiss bank that said, 'Hey, we love you, but we won't work with Americans.' I have also been kicked out of a Swiss pension fund. They told me they don't want any Americans in the fund. They don't want to work on behalf of the IRS,\" he says. \"And on top of that, I spend many hours and many dollars each year filing U.S. taxes when I sometimes turn out to have zero liability for that year because I have paid a lot of tax somewhere else,\" Dublin adds. Dublin, a New York City native, says he will be eligible for Swiss nationality in the next few years and that if the situation has not dramatically changed he will give serious consideration to renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Writing in the New American, Alex Newman argued the more dire side of FATCA, speculating that it could potentially result in a large-scale movement by foreign investors to pull out of U.S. assets and markets: Estimates suggest there is currently more than $21 trillion of foreign capital invested in American assets and markets, with about $10 trillion of that in the stock market. However, that could change as FATCA enforcement begins later this year possibly quickly. The Japanese Bankers Association, the European Banking Federation, the Institute of International Bankers, and others, for example, have all openly warned in recent years that some of their members could decide to ditch U.S. assets and markets in response to FATCA. Luxembourg Bankers' Association CEO Jean-Jacques Rommes, speaking to Democrats Abroad, warned that the best way for banks to lower compliance risks was simply to reduce the amount of American assets they hold. \"In other words, divest from the US market, in general,\" he explained, as summarized by the Luxembourg Bankers' Association. Multiple reports have suggested that small and medium-sized firms, unable to bear the compliance costs or the crippling withholding taxes, would be especially likely to ditch American markets. \"On the institutional side, the cost of becoming FATCA compliant may be prohibitive for some foreign institutions, and therefore they will divest from their American holdings,\" explained Douglas Goldstein, author of The Expatriate's Guide to Handling Money and Taxes and director of Profile Investment Services Ltd. Indeed, compliance costs borne by the private sector are expected to dwarf the amount of additional U.S. tax revenue perhaps by hundreds of times. Goldstein explained: \"Faced with the choice between paying to implement the new rules or divesting from U.S.-based assets, smaller foreign banks that can't afford to shoulder these costs may choose the latter,\" Goldstein added. \"After all, there are plenty of promising new markets in which to invest.\" Needless to say, if foreign institutions started fleeing U.S. markets, the economic damage would be massive potentially apocalyptic, especially considering U.S. trade deficits and Americas outsized reliance on foreign investment and outside credit just to function. The full implementation of FATCA may, as some critics have maintained, ultimately prove more harmful to U.S. business interests and U.S. citizens living and working abroad than its benefits will merit. But no credible source that isn't an investment firm trying to scare potential customers into forking over money for a newsletter subscription is seriously maintaining that a law passed five years ago will collapse the entire U.S. economic system, destroy the American way of life, and lead to the imposition of martial law. Last updated: 23 March 2015 Fallows, James. \"Fatca: The Menace You'll Hear About in 2012.\" The Atlantic. 31 December 2011. Graffy, Colleen. \"How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence.\" The Wall Street Journal. 17 July 2013. Hjelmgaard, Kim. \"Americans Abroad Find Citizenship Too Taxing to Keep.\" USA Today. 8 March 2014. Newman, Alex. \"The Dark Road: The Worst Tax Law You've Never Heard About.\" The New American. 8 April 2014.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1b-9GC-4lOiFccEXr3U3jytpSA1jPgoM6" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: This item about the passage of H.R. 2847 causing the U.S. dollar to collapse as of 1 July 2014 is another example financial scarelore put out in conjunction with an investment come-on, in this case an ominous sales pitch put out by the folks at Stansberry & Associates Investment Research LLC.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailypaul.com/312861/obama-s-new-july-1st-2014-law-will-shock-most-americans" ] }, { "sentence": "is offered in a Stansberry & Associates presentation featuring a number of scary-sounding statements about how we in the U.S. are soon to experience a \"near-complete shutdown of the American economy,\" will see \"the savings of millions wiped out,\" will be living under the imposition of martial law by the federal government, and will be struggling in the aftermath of a number of other apocalyptic financial scenarios.", "hrefs": [ "https://pro.stansberryresearch.com/1310PSIEANEW/LPSIQ295/" ] }, { "sentence": "And according to Stansberry & Associates, this remarkable, radical collapse of the United States monetary system and \"our normal way of life\" is going into effect in a mere matter of months (just like a similar recent conspiracy scare about the federal government's plan to eliminate 16 states from the U.S. in the very near future).", "hrefs": [ "16states.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "But wait ... all one needs in order to avoid suffering from this devastating national calamity, one that will collapse our entire monetary system and spell doom for the American way of life, is a little information. Information that can be yours if you'll just shell out $149 for a one-year subscription to Stansberry's Investment Advisory newsletter. Or, as one wry commentator put it:", "hrefs": [ "https://order.stansberryresearch.com/1310PSIEANEW/LPSIQ295/index.htm?pageNumber=2" ] }, { "sentence": "H.R. 2847, also known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (or HIRE), was a Congressional bill passed into law in March 2010 that sought to provide payroll tax breaks and incentives for businesses to hire unemployed workers. A section of that bill, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (known as FATCA), sought to eliminate the non-compliance of U.S. taxpayers who hold foreign accounts by requiring those taxpayers (including those living outside the U.S.) to report certain foreign accounts and offshore assets to the government, and by requiring foreign financial institutions to report information about the ownership of overseas assets held by U.S. taxpayers to the government:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr2847/text", "https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Corporations/Foreign-Account-Tax-Compliance-Act-FATCA" ] }, { "sentence": "As noted on the American Citizens Abroad web site:", "hrefs": [ "https://americansabroad.org/issues/fatca/fatca-bad-america-why-it-should-be-repealed/" ] }, { "sentence": "FATCA has been the subject of criticisms on a number of fronts (which the Treasury Department has attempted to counter in its own \"Myth vs. FACTA\" write-up), among them that the costs of implementing it may outstrip the additional revenues it will bring in, that it may prompt \"capital flight\" in the form of foreign financial institutions divesting themselves of U.S. assets, that foreign relations may be strained by the U.S. requiring foreign governments to gather and report (at their own expense) information on U.S. citizens, and that the law may make it difficult or impossible for U.S. citizens living and/or working abroad to open accounts in foreign banks:", "hrefs": [ "https://americansabroad.org/issues/fatca/fatca-bad-america-why-it-should-be-repealed/", "https://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Myth-vs-FATCA.aspx" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/when-a-writer-falls-in-love-with-you/", "claim": "When a Writer Falls in Love with You", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/10/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: Canadian rapper Drake penned a viral quote about falling in love with a writer." ], "justification": " Claim: The viral quote \"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die\" was written by Canadian rapper Drake. Example: [Collected via Twitter, January 2015] If a Writer Falls in Love with you, You shall Never Die #ReadSomewhere #ReadSomewhere Gaonka6hhora (@Gaonka6hhora) February 9, 2015 February 9, 2015 Origins: In January 2015, Canadian musician Aubrey Drake Graham, better known in his persona as the rapper Drake,incorrectly attributed a viral Tumblr quote about a writer's falling in love to Mustafa the Poet when he posted the meme to his Instagram page: @mustafathepoet @mustafathepoet A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Jan 14, 2015 at 9:11pm PST Hundreds of thousands of viewers liked the photo, and many who saw the above-displayed Instagram post believed it was written by Drake, while others noticed the musician's attempt to credit the original author and praised Mustafa the Poet for penning the viral phrase. But the phrase \"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die\" was written neither by Drake nor by Mustafa the Poet. The true author is Mik Everett, who first published the quote back in 2011 on her blog: Mik Everett blog Lots of things might happen. That's the thing about writers. They're unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you've never seen To Kill a Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. Its an unpredictable life. But what happens if a writer falls in love with you? This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you've never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you've never known. And yet they're you. They're not you; they're someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill a Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you're wandering through the pages of some story you've never even read. There's no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. Vibe NY Mag On 23 January 2015, Mik Everett took to her website to express her frustrations with being a virally famous, yet unknown, author. A portion of Everett's article is republished below: website Last Monday, I woke up to something weirder than I could possibly imagine. I woke up to find that Drake had posted a quote by me on Instagram. And that he'd credited the quote to another author. There is no Thought Catalogue article entitled What to Do If a Famous Rapper Steals Your Quote. There is no Buzzfeed article on how to cope with the rabid fans of a rockstar insisting that you've stolen from him. To the best of my knowledge, this isn't a very common problem to have. Sure, I've heard of academic and artistic plagiarism before, usually involving two high-profile, Entertainment News celebrities. But I'm not a celebrity. I've sold, like, two hundred copies of each of my books. I live well below the poverty line. I'm a regular person who said something kinda catchy once on the internet, and lots of people liked it. And Drake liked it. I am so disconnected from that quote and the people who use it; I am simultaneously on the outside looking in on the very idea of fame, and in the very middle of it. To be clear here, nobody broke any laws. Drake did not take credit for the quote. He attempted to cite the quote, like we all learned how to do in middle school. He just cited the wrong poet. That poet (he goes by Mustafa) did give me appropriate credit for the quote, eventually. After Drake had re-posted the quote and attributed it to Mustafa, I think it kinda blew up in his face and people started hounding him to give me credit. And he did add my name in. But on the internet, that doesn't matter. Everyone else is still attributing the quote to Mustafa. And there's no way to fix it. Just try messaging Drake on Instagram. On one hand, it's not that big of a deal. The quote has been used several million times on the internet, and is rarely credited to me. On the other hand, I would really, really, really like to make a living as an author. And in our day and age, there are no more camera-shy Thomas Pynchons. To be a financially successful author is inextricable from being a famous author. We hope this helps Mik Everett garner some of the recognition she deserves. Last updated: 10 February 2015", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-kMlYnNbZXx5ygU6I08PlVAe-XiABVi3", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "If a Writer Falls in Love with you, You shall Never Die #ReadSomewhere", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/ReadSomewhere?src=hash" ] }, { "sentence": " Gaonka6hhora (@Gaonka6hhora) February 9, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Gaonka6hhora/status/564680456394645505" ] }, { "sentence": " @mustafathepoet", "hrefs": [ "https://instagram.com/p/x3MUMIjQDH/" ] }, { "sentence": "But the phrase \"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die\" was written neither by Drake nor by Mustafa the Poet. The true author is Mik Everett, who first published the quote back in 2011 on her blog: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/authormikeverett", "https://karenfelloutofbedagain.tumblr.com/post/14327141634/what-happens-if-you-fall-in-love-with-a-writer" ] }, { "sentence": "On 23 January 2015, Mik Everett took to her website to express her frustrations with being a virally famous, yet unknown, author. A portion of Everett's article is republished below:", "hrefs": [ "https://mikeverett.com/what-happens-if-a-famous-rapper-falls-in-love-with-your-quote/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-relief-funds-us-uk/", "claim": "Is the meme offering a precise comparison of COVID relief funds between the United States and other nations?", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "12/11/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Comparing apples to oranges is ironically a fruitless method of argument." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the global economy in 2020, resulting in growing unemployment, governments scrambled to support people and businesses to varying degrees, announcing a range of stimulus relief funds meant to help struggling businesses and furloughed employees. By December 2020, lawmakers in the U.S. were also running out of time to pass another major coronavirus relief package. ravaged running out of time A meme began circulating in late 2020 that compared the U.S. governments stimulus checks -- given to a significant portion of the U.S. population -- to coronavirus relief funds deployed around the world. The meme effectively argued that the U.S. was not giving enough money to support workers compared with other countries. We broke down the numbers below and learned that, while the numbers are largely accurate, the meme was comparing apples to oranges. Below are the respective stimulus relief funds being provided to populations around the world, particularly across Europe, Australia, and the U.K. In March 2020, the Australian government outlined a plan to subsidize the wages of 6 million people in order to keep them in their jobs. The plan would pay employees at any company that saw a 30% reduction in revenue around $1,500 Australian dollars (the equivalent of $928 U.S. dollars according to Reuters) every two weeks. March 2020 outlined pay Reuters This calculation would amount to $1,856 U.S. dollars per month. But according to conversion rates calculated by Newsweek in April, the relief check amounted to around $1,993 per month. Based on current conversion rates calculated on Google Finance, this same amount would now be more than $2,200 every four weeks. Newsweek Australia also had a number of other social security measures including one-off Economic Support Payments of AU$750 in April and July 2020 to qualifying recipients. Economic Support Payments The Canadian government provides $500 Canadian dollars per week for up to 26 weeks for workers who stopped working or had their income reduced by at least 50% due to COVID-19. Based on current conversion rates on Google, this amounts to around $1,565 U.S. dollars per month. The meme presumably pulled their data from Newsweek's April 2020 story, which calculated the amount as being $1,433 U.S. dollars per month at that time. provides Newsweek Overall, the Canadian government aims to spend up to $75 billion U.S. dollars in emergency aid and economic stimulus to assist members of their population who are struggling financially. Measures include boosting child benefit payments, wage subsidies for small businesses, and tax relief measures. Overall The Danish government will cover up to 75% of employee salaries in private companies as long as those companies agree to not fire people. According to Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Denmarks Aalborg University, this would amount to up to $3,288 per month (roughly based on the conversion rate at the time of the interview), which lines up with the number in the meme. For hourly workers who qualify, the government would cover 90% of their wages. Flemming Larsen hourly workers The deal, which was struck between the government and trade unions, covers companies who have to lay off at least 30% of their staff, or 50 staff or more. But this particular form of coverage does not support the self-employed and other vulnerable groups. deal self-employed According to The Guardian, more than 12 million people in France are covered by a partial unemployment scheme that covers 70% of salaries when companies are forced to reduce or suspend work, which is up to 6,927 euros per month (which according to Newsweeks calculations in April were $7,575 U.S. dollars, but around $8,400 today). Employees previously on minimum wage receive 100% coverage of their salaries. The Guardian $7,575 U.S. dollars The French government is also giving paid leave to parents who cannot work from home and who are responsible for children younger than 16. paid leave The German scheme covers 10 million workers according to The Guardian, paying up to 67% of net wages lost due to shorter hours, to a maximum of 6,700 euros per month (again, $7,326.78 U.S. dollars in April according to Newsweek, but $8,125 today) for employees with children and 60% for those without children. The Guardian $7,326.78 The budget also includes a 50 billion euro program to help the self-employed and small businesses threatened with bankruptcy, giving them direct payments of up to 15,000 euros (more than $18,000). Irelands temporary wage subsidy scheme allows affected companies to recoup up to 70% of their net income up to 21,400 euros until May. After May 4, 2020, the scheme became more generous, paying an 85% subsidy up to the same amount. temporary wage subsidy After May 4, employees would be given a maximum of 350 euros per week if they earned less than or equal to 412 euros per week, and they would receive a maximum of 410 euros per week if they earned between 500 and 586 euros per week. 410 euros amounted to $448.36 U.S. dollars per week according to Newsweek in April, which matches up with the memes calculation of $1793.44. Today that amounts to around $1,987. May 4 Newsweek The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme reimburses companies for 80% of their gross salaries up to 2,500 pounds per month (which amounts to around $3,300 U.S. dollars today, and according to Newsweek was $3,084 in April). As of August, some workers were able to return to their jobs part-time, and in November the government extended the scheme until March 31, 2021. Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Newsweek November The U.S. government did indeed give many qualifying people a one-time stimulus relief check of $1,200, which on the surface appears to be to a small fraction of what these other countries appear to be giving workers who are unemployed or in danger of being furloughed. This check was given to individual taxpayers who made less than $75,000 in adjusted gross income in 2018. They would receive between $600 and $1,200 with the highest earners getting the maximum payment. one-time given But this meme did not account for the overall stimulus package, including unemployment benefits and additional funds granted for dependents. The data from other countries showcased relief funds for helping the unemployed or preventing lay-offs, so the numbers were comparing two totally different items. The CARES Act, a $2 trillion dollar relief bill that was passed in March 2020, increased unemployment benefits and added $600 dollars per week from the federal government on top of whatever base amount workers received from their state. The legislation also added 13 weeks of unemployment insurance. However, many of the provisions from this expired in July. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act also expanded paid family and medical leave options for some workers. A new relief bill is being debated by congress, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing over how much stimulus the U.S. economy needs. CARES Act Families First Coronavirus Response Act debated Given that the numbers cited in the meme compare very different stimulus packages around the world, with a range of complex provisions, to a one-time payment in the U.S. that does not reflect the full stimulus relief package, we rate this claim a Mixture.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14_hRvI8UNwAxo8FjjMmeN7hGK1F6kfk3" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the global economy in 2020, resulting in growing unemployment, governments scrambled to support people and businesses to varying degrees, announcing a range of stimulus relief funds meant to help struggling businesses and furloughed employees. By December 2020, lawmakers in the U.S. were also running out of time to pass another major coronavirus relief package.", "hrefs": [ "https://qz.com/1819776/here-are-the-coronavirus-bailouts-being-prepared-around-the-world/", "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stimulus-check-covid-relief-bill-update-2020-12-09/" ] }, { "sentence": "In March 2020, the Australian government outlined a plan to subsidize the wages of 6 million people in order to keep them in their jobs. The plan would pay employees at any company that saw a 30% reduction in revenue around $1,500 Australian dollars (the equivalent of $928 U.S. dollars according to Reuters) every two weeks.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2020L00419/Explanatory%20Statement/Text", "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-idUSKBN21P3JD", "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-30/australia-pledges-a-130-billion-over-six-months-to-support-jobs", "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-idUSKBN21P3JD" ] }, { "sentence": "This calculation would amount to $1,856 U.S. dollars per month. But according to conversion rates calculated by Newsweek in April, the relief check amounted to around $1,993 per month. Based on current conversion rates calculated on Google Finance, this same amount would now be more than $2,200 every four weeks.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360" ] }, { "sentence": "Australia also had a number of other social security measures including one-off Economic Support Payments of AU$750 in April and July 2020 to qualifying recipients. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/economic-support-payment/how-much-you-can-get" ] }, { "sentence": "The Canadian government provides $500 Canadian dollars per week for up to 26 weeks for workers who stopped working or had their income reduced by at least 50% due to COVID-19. Based on current conversion rates on Google, this amounts to around $1,565 U.S. dollars per month. The meme presumably pulled their data from Newsweek's April 2020 story, which calculated the amount as being $1,433 U.S. dollars per month at that time.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/news/2020/10/the-government-of-canada-launches-applications-for-the-canada-recovery-benefit.html", "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360" ] }, { "sentence": "Overall, the Canadian government aims to spend up to $75 billion U.S. dollars in emergency aid and economic stimulus to assist members of their population who are struggling financially. Measures include boosting child benefit payments, wage subsidies for small businesses, and tax relief measures.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52022506" ] }, { "sentence": "The Danish government will cover up to 75% of employee salaries in private companies as long as those companies agree to not fire people. According to Flemming Larsen, a professor at the Center for Labor Market Research at Denmarks Aalborg University, this would amount to up to $3,288 per month (roughly based on the conversion rate at the time of the interview), which lines up with the number in the meme. For hourly workers who qualify, the government would cover 90% of their wages.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/denmark-freezing-its-economy-should-us/608533/", "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/denmark-coronavirus-uk-government-workers-employees" ] }, { "sentence": "The deal, which was struck between the government and trade unions, covers companies who have to lay off at least 30% of their staff, or 50 staff or more. But this particular form of coverage does not support the self-employed and other vulnerable groups.", "hrefs": [ "https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/03/denmarks-answer-to-the-coronavirus-recession", "https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/03/denmarks-answer-to-the-coronavirus-recession" ] }, { "sentence": "According to The Guardian, more than 12 million people in France are covered by a partial unemployment scheme that covers 70% of salaries when companies are forced to reduce or suspend work, which is up to 6,927 euros per month (which according to Newsweeks calculations in April were $7,575 U.S. dollars, but around $8,400 today). Employees previously on minimum wage receive 100% coverage of their salaries.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/furlough-qa-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#:~:text=The%20German%20scheme%2C%20called%20Kurzarbeit,60%25%20for%20those%20without%20children", "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360" ] }, { "sentence": "The French government is also giving paid leave to parents who cannot work from home and who are responsible for children younger than 16.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.france24.com/en/20200325-the-race-to-save-jobs-european-governments-step-in-to-pay-wages" ] }, { "sentence": "The German scheme covers 10 million workers according to The Guardian, paying up to 67% of net wages lost due to shorter hours, to a maximum of 6,700 euros per month (again, $7,326.78 U.S. dollars in April according to Newsweek, but $8,125 today) for employees with children and 60% for those without children.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/furlough-qa-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#:~:text=The%20German%20scheme%2C%20called%20Kurzarbeit,60%25%20for%20those%20without%20children", "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360" ] }, { "sentence": "Irelands temporary wage subsidy scheme allows affected companies to recoup up to 70% of their net income up to 21,400 euros until May. After May 4, 2020, the scheme became more generous, paying an 85% subsidy up to the same amount.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/furlough-qa-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#:~:text=The%20German%20scheme%2C%20called%20Kurzarbeit,60%25%20for%20those%20without%20children" ] }, { "sentence": "After May 4, employees would be given a maximum of 350 euros per week if they earned less than or equal to 412 euros per week, and they would receive a maximum of 410 euros per week if they earned between 500 and 586 euros per week. 410 euros amounted to $448.36 U.S. dollars per week according to Newsweek in April, which matches up with the memes calculation of $1793.44. Today that amounts to around $1,987.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gov.ie/en/service/578596-covid-19-wage-subsidy/", "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360" ] }, { "sentence": "The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme reimburses companies for 80% of their gross salaries up to 2,500 pounds per month (which amounts to around $3,300 U.S. dollars today, and according to Newsweek was $3,084 in April). As of August, some workers were able to return to their jobs part-time, and in November the government extended the scheme until March 31, 2021.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/may/12/how-the-uk-furlough-scheme-compares-with-other-countries", "https://www.newsweek.com/heres-how-us-coronavirus-stimulus-package-compares-other-countries-around-world-1497360", "https://www.natlawreview.com/article/uk-government-extends-furlough-scheme" ] }, { "sentence": "The U.S. government did indeed give many qualifying people a one-time stimulus relief check of $1,200, which on the surface appears to be to a small fraction of what these other countries appear to be giving workers who are unemployed or in danger of being furloughed. This check was given to individual taxpayers who made less than $75,000 in adjusted gross income in 2018. They would receive between $600 and $1,200 with the highest earners getting the maximum payment.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/1200-dollar-stimulus-check-coronavirus.html", "https://archive.li/qVUDX#selection-657.1-657.185" ] }, { "sentence": "The CARES Act, a $2 trillion dollar relief bill that was passed in March 2020, increased unemployment benefits and added $600 dollars per week from the federal government on top of whatever base amount workers received from their state. The legislation also added 13 weeks of unemployment insurance. However, many of the provisions from this expired in July. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act also expanded paid family and medical leave options for some workers. A new relief bill is being debated by congress, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing over how much stimulus the U.S. economy needs.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/821457551/whats-inside-the-senate-s-2-trillion-coronavirus-aid-package", "https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/pandemic/ffcra-employee-paid-leave#:~:text=Up%20to%20an%20additional%2010,care%20provider%20is%20closed%20or", "https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/9/us-stimulus-saga-what-could-end-up-in-new-virus-relief-bill" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-biggest-tax-increase/", "claim": "Is Biden implying that there might be the biggest tax hike ever in the United States?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "10/15/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The Trump campaign repeatedly made the claim to try to convince average Americans they would pay more in taxes under Biden." ], "justification": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here During his 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump on multiple occasions claimed his Democratic opponent Joe Biden would impose the \"biggest tax increase in history\" if voters elected him. In an August interview on Fox News, for instance, Trump said of Democrats: said They want to tax $4 trillion, going to be the biggest tax increase in history by far. It will triple up records, and they're big taxers. It's just something that won't work. We'll have you will see a depression, the likes of which you have never seen. In the following weeks, he reiterated the claim that \"you are going to have the tax increase of your life\" if Biden wins the 2020 election in social media posts and during campaign events, without explaining who would bear the brunt of the alleged hike. Trump tweeted on Oct. 5: tweeted Below is an analysis of Biden's tax proposal assessing whether it would indeed raise taxes by an amount never seen before in modern U.S. history, and who would most feel its impact. According to his campaign website, Biden ran for president on the promise that he would change multiple aspects of the country's tax system specifically in regards to individual income and payroll taxes, business taxes, and tax expenditures. campaign website promise The proposed changes would repeal aspects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Trump administration and Republicans framed as a solution to fuel economic growth ,and Democrats saw as a gift to the country's richest individuals and large corporations at the expense of low-to-middle-class Americans. 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Specifically, Biden's tax plan would roll back the act's income tax reductions for the country's top bracket of taxpayers, as well as expand that category to include Americans with incomes over $400,000 annually, rather than just those who earn more than $518,400. $518,400 His proposal would also require that group of top earners to limit deductions and pay an additional Social Security payroll tax, per an analysis by Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Millionaires and billionaires would be subject to taxes on long-term capital gains at ordinary not preferential income tax rates. analysis long-term capital gains Additionally, Biden's plan would increase the top tax rate for corporations from 21% to 28% and impose a 15% minimum tax on companies' book income, according to his campaign website. It would also reduce tax subsidies for commercial real estate and fossil fuels and incentivize renewable energy investments, among other changes. All of that said, the country's richest taxpayers and corporations would cover the majority of Biden's proposed tax increases not average Americans both in dollar amounts and as a share of their incomes. But let's look at the anticipated impact at a granular level. All income levels would face some sort of tax burden in 2021 under Biden's plan (we explain more below), though the highest-income households would pay higher income taxes directly and see substantially larger increases than anyone else. Gleckman made the following estimations: His plan would raise taxes on households in the top 1% of the income distribution (those with income more than $837,000) by an average of about $299,000. [...] By contrast, taxpayers in the middle-income quintile (those with income between $52,000 and $93,000) would experience an average tax increase of just $260. [...] Taxpayers in the bottom quintile (those with income less than $26,000) would see an average tax increase of only $30. That added burden on low- and middle-income households representing about 2% of the proposed change would be an indirect result of employers shifting the cost of the higher corporate tax rate to some workers. Corporations on a grand scale would slightly lower wages and investment income, which would, on average, more than offset the effects of Biden's new tax credits, the center concluded. Alicyn McLeod, a tax adviser and writer for Accounting Today, said in October 2020: Accounting Today Bidens proposal is primarily motivated by fairness. Many U.S. taxpayers are concerned that large corporations arent paying their fair share. While understandable, this position ignores the belief among many tax and economic policy experts that a significant portion of corporate taxes are ultimately paid by workers, shareholders, and consumers as opposed to companies themselves. In sum, the overwhelming majority of Americans those who earn $400,000 or less annually would not see their taxes increase as a direct result of Biden's tax proposal, and the top 1% earners would shoulder the brunt of his proposed hike. But low-to-middle-class workers would see slightly lower investment returns and wages as a result of corporate tax increases, according to economists' analysis including a a budgetary model by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. budgetary model Biden's plan would raise about $3.38 trillion in additional tax revenue over 10 years, according to the university's model. Concurrently, per Gleckman's analysis, that would amount to an increase in federal revenue by about 1.5% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is the economy's total output of goods and services, and economists rely on it greatly to measure the economy's health and how fiscal or regulatory policies could impact it not raw dollar amounts that don't consider inflation and population changes. To determine the legitimacy of Trump's claim, we considered federal tax proposals and their impact on GDP over decades. Of almost two dozen congressional tax bills that increased federal tax revenues between 1940 and 2012, for example, the five largest tax increases raised annual revenue between 1.33% and 5.04% of GDP, according to a 2013 compilation of such records by the U.S. Department of Treasury. the U.S. Department of Treasury The following table compiled by the Tax Foundation, another independent public policy think tank, showed where Biden's plan would stand in comparison to those other proposals: Tax Foundation According to those findings, Biden's tax proposal, if enacted by Congress, would amount to the fifth-largest tax increase since the 1940s not the biggest hike in modern U.S. history. Biden-Harris. \"Tale Of Two Tax Policies: Trump Rewards Wealth, Biden Rewards Work.\"\r Accessed 15 October 2020. Adamczyk, Alicia. \"Here's Who Would Pay More Under Joe Biden's Tax Plan.\"\r CNBC. 7 October 2020. Penn Wharton University of Pennsylvania. \"PWBM Analysis of The Biden Platform.\"\r 14 September 2020. DePietro, Andrew. \"Here's How Much The Top 5% Earns In America's Largest Cities.\"\r Forbes. 30 June 2019. McLeod, Alicyn. \"Trump vs. Biden: Whose Tax Plan Makes For Good Tax Law?\"\r AccountingToday. 14 October 2020. Frank, Robert. \"Biden Defines $400,000 a Year as 'Wealthy': Here's What That Buys In A Big City.\"\r CNBC. 6 October 2020. Wilson, Garrett, and Erica York. \"Reviewing Joe Biden's Tax Vision.\"\r Tax Foundation. 20 August 2020. Fordham, Evie. \"Trump Tells 'Mornings with Maria' Biden Presidency Would Bring 'Biggest Tax Increase In History'.\"\r FoxBusiness. 13 August 2020. Wilson, Garrett and Erica York. \"Placing Joe Biden's Tax Increases In Historical Context.\"\r Tax Foundation. 3 September 2020. Mermin, Gordon, et. al. \"An Analysis of Former Vice President Biden's Tax Proposals.\"\r Tax Policy Center. 5 March 2020.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zvYtiySwyDwTRdWIjPbtN7T9mC7JR6ZQ" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1rLN0GH91X8kEYErZItTX8HtJo6lLwE-4" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/" ] }, { "sentence": "During his 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump on multiple occasions claimed his Democratic opponent Joe Biden would impose the \"biggest tax increase in history\" if voters elected him. In an August interview on Fox News, for instance, Trump said of Democrats:", "hrefs": [ "https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-interview-fox-business-maria-bartiromo-august-13-2020" ] }, { "sentence": "In the following weeks, he reiterated the claim that \"you are going to have the tax increase of your life\" if Biden wins the 2020 election in social media posts and during campaign events, without explaining who would bear the brunt of the alleged hike. Trump tweeted on Oct. 5:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1313063990797504512" ] }, { "sentence": "According to his campaign website, Biden ran for president on the promise that he would change multiple aspects of the country's tax system specifically in regards to individual income and payroll taxes, business taxes, and tax expenditures.", "hrefs": [ "https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/", "https://joebiden.com/two-tax-policies/" ] }, { "sentence": "The proposed changes would repeal aspects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Trump administration and Republicans framed as a solution to fuel economic growth ,and Democrats saw as a gift to the country's richest individuals and large corporations at the expense of low-to-middle-class Americans.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr1/BILLS-115hr1eas.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Specifically, Biden's tax plan would roll back the act's income tax reductions for the country's top bracket of taxpayers, as well as expand that category to include Americans with incomes over $400,000 annually, rather than just those who earn more than $518,400.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-provides-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2020" ] }, { "sentence": "His proposal would also require that group of top earners to limit deductions and pay an additional Social Security payroll tax, per an analysis by Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Millionaires and billionaires would be subject to taxes on long-term capital gains at ordinary not preferential income tax rates.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/biden-would-raise-taxes-4-trillion-over-10-years-mostly-highest-income-households", "https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-are-capital-gains-taxed" ] }, { "sentence": "Alicyn McLeod, a tax adviser and writer for Accounting Today, said in October 2020:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/trump-vs-biden-whose-tax-plan-makes-for-good-tax-law" ] }, { "sentence": "In sum, the overwhelming majority of Americans those who earn $400,000 or less annually would not see their taxes increase as a direct result of Biden's tax proposal, and the top 1% earners would shoulder the brunt of his proposed hike. But low-to-middle-class workers would see slightly lower investment returns and wages as a result of corporate tax increases, according to economists' analysis including a a budgetary model by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.", "hrefs": [ "https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2020/9/14/biden-2020-analysis#tax" ] }, { "sentence": "To determine the legitimacy of Trump's claim, we considered federal tax proposals and their impact on GDP over decades. Of almost two dozen congressional tax bills that increased federal tax revenues between 1940 and 2012, for example, the five largest tax increases raised annual revenue between 1.33% and 5.04% of GDP, according to a 2013 compilation of such records by the U.S. Department of Treasury.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-analysis/Documents/WP81-Table2013.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The following table compiled by the Tax Foundation, another independent public policy think tank, showed where Biden's plan would stand in comparison to those other proposals:", "hrefs": [ "https://taxfoundation.org/joe-biden-tax-increases-historical-context/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/massachusetts-license-renewal/", "claim": "Has the state of Massachusetts stopped sending out notices for renewing driver's licenses by mail?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "11/04/2008", "sci_digest": [ "Massachusetts is no longer mailing notifications for driver's license renewals?" ], "justification": "Claim: Massachusetts is no longer mailing notifications for driver's license renewals. Status: True. Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] This is just a heads up to everyone. Effective immediately the Registry of Motor Vehicles will no longer be mailing out License renewal applications or reminders to renew your driver's license. It is now the drivers responsibility to know when their license is expiring and renew it on there own. This may be a surprise to all of you and it should be, there has been no public information sent out about these changes. Fortunately enough we received the info in one of our trade publications. This idea could change in the future but as of right now it's a huge cost savings and they plan to run with it. Below is a blurb from the publications. Mailings Eliminated The RMV will no longer mail out the following materials to customers: License renewal noticesMass ID renewal noticesLicense reinstatement letters: Letter sent to a licensed customer when his/her license is reinstated,provided that the license is still active Letter sent to an unlicensed customer when his/her right to operate isreinstatedRegistration reinstatement letters: Letter sent to a person or corporation whose suspended registration hasbeen reinstated Letter sent to a person or corporation whose revoked registration has beenreinstatedVehicle Inspection reminder letters for vehicles that are overdue for inspectionInspector license renewal notices7D license renewal noticesDriver's Education CertificatesJunior Operator Brochures for parents (still available in branches)Change of address labels (customers can create their own) I am just passing this along, my suggestion is to pull out your license and some how set suspense to yourself to make sure you renew it. This is just a heads up so that no one gets pulled over and car impounded because they didn't realize they hadn't renewed their license. Origins: We're used to seeing certain types of notices arrive in our mailboxes regularly aside from monthly credit card statements and water/gas/electricity bills, every year or two the mail brings us income tax forms, voter materials for upcoming elections, automobile registration renewals, etc. One common type of mailing won't be arriving in mailboxes of Massachusetts residents any more, however: renewal notification for about-to-expire driver's licenses. As of 3 November 2008, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) will no longer be sending out notices to residents reminding them to renew their driver's licenses. Statewide cuts and spending controls announced by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in October 2008 slashed $2 million from the RMV's budget, so the RMV has eliminated mailing license renewal reminders and other courtesy notices in an effort to save money (in this case an estimated $800,000): Governor Deval Patrick said that he will eliminate 1,000 jobs from state government and slash the budget by more than $1 billion, reacting to the national economic crisis with sweeping cuts that his administration called the worst single round of midyear budget rollbacks in state history. The reductions will be spread across almost all sectors of state government, biting deeply into state university campuses and community colleges, the state's health insurance programs, and dozens of social service programs from assistance for at-risk teens to services for the mentally ill and the elderly. The cuts range from a hit of nearly $300 million on healthcare spending to the elimination of letters to residents simply reminding them to get their driver's licenses renewed. As noted in a \"Message from Registrar Kaprielian on RMV Budget Cuts\" displayed on the Massachusetts RMV web site: RMV Like many businesses across the Commonwealth, the RMV is working to squeeze every penny of savings from our budget in the wake of a drastic downturn in the state's economy. To weather this financial storm, the RMV is adopting operational changes that, we believe, will minimize the impact on customer service in our branches. RMV MAILINGSThe RMV will eliminate courtesy notices that are sent to customers for the following services: License and Mass ID renewal noticesVehicle Inspection reminder letters for vehicles that are overdue for inspectionInspector license renewal notices7D license renewal noticesDriver's Education CertificatesJunior Operator Brochures for parentsChange of address labels For now, at least, it's incumbent upon residents of that commonwealth to be aware when their licenses are due to expire and to initiate the renewal process on their own in a timely fashion. Last updated: 4 November 2008 Sources: Viser, Matt. \"Patrick to Cut 1,000 Jobs from State Payroll.\" The Boston Globe. 16 October 2008.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "As noted in a \"Message from Registrar Kaprielian on RMV Budget Cuts\" displayed on the Massachusetts RMV web site:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mass.gov/rmv/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/netflix-scam/", "claim": "Is Netflix Giving Away Free 1-Year Subscriptions Due to COVID-19?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "12/06/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Phishing scams have proliferated on the internet since the start of the pandemic." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Since the start of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States in March 2020, a scam has been circulating on the internet falsely informing viewers that streaming giant Netflix was offering a free one-year subscription due to the pandemic. scam Here's an example of the scam we found circulating on Twitter, with the user's name cropped out for privacy reasons: The text of the scam read, \"Due to the CoronaVirus pandemic worldwide, Netflix is giving some free pass for their platform during the period of isolation. Run on the site cause it will end quick!\" The post also included a link, which we cropped out because it is likely a phishing site. phishing Netflix is making no such offer, and in fact as of October 2020, it no longer even offered temporary free trials for potential subscribers. no longer In other Netflix-related scams, members of the public reported receiving emails and text messages from scammers posing as Netflix representatives, telling them they need to update their accounts. The company stated it wouldn't seek personal information, like banking or credit card numbers, in texts or emails. scams stated", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LrlDVoKdeq9p90LAuPaOtIjtToW0kznN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "Since the start of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States in March 2020, a scam has been circulating on the internet falsely informing viewers that streaming giant Netflix was offering a free one-year subscription due to the pandemic.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/fraud/" ] }, { "sentence": "The text of the scam read, \"Due to the CoronaVirus pandemic worldwide, Netflix is giving some free pass for their platform during the period of isolation. Run on the site cause it will end quick!\" The post also included a link, which we cropped out because it is likely a phishing site.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-scams" ] }, { "sentence": "Netflix is making no such offer, and in fact as of October 2020, it no longer even offered temporary free trials for potential subscribers.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/13/21514661/netflix-free-trial-us-cancel-content-sampling-streaming" ] }, { "sentence": "In other Netflix-related scams, members of the public reported receiving emails and text messages from scammers posing as Netflix representatives, telling them they need to update their accounts. The company stated it wouldn't seek personal information, like banking or credit card numbers, in texts or emails.", "hrefs": [ "https://krdo.com/news/2020/09/30/netflix-scam-targets-users-through-text-email/", "https://help.netflix.com/en/node/65674" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shane-patrick-boyle-died-after-starting-a-gofundme-campaign-for-insulin/", "claim": "Did Shane Patrick Boyle pass away due to his illness following successful fundraising for insulin via a crowdfunding campaign?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/27/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Reports concerning a man who passed away shortly after starting a GoFundMe crowdsourcing campaign to raise money for insulin were met with some skepticism." ], "justification": "In February 2017, Shane Patrick Boyle started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for \"a month of insulin.\" A few weeks later, he died after developing diabetic ketoacidosis. Although several local outlets reported on Boyle's death at the time, it wasn't until November 2017 that Boyle's story reached many readers, thanks in part to a Facebook post from United States Sen. Bernie Sanders linking to an article in The Nation about the rising cost of insulin: several local outlets reported post The Nation We cannot call ourselves a great country as long our young people are literally dying because they cannot afford life-saving medication. This young man, Shane Patrick Boyle, died on March 18 after his GoFundMe campaign to pay for insulin came up $50 short. Something has got to change. Our job is to stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and enact policies that make prescription drugs affordable for everyonenot ones that make the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry rich. In addition to highlighting the sad circumstances surrounding Boyle's death, The Nation also pointed to Alec Raeshawn Smith, a 26-year-old who died in June after he lost his insurance and started to ration his insulin: died Alec Raeshawn Smith, age 26, was found dead in his apartment on June 27. He was rationing his insulin after he aged out of his parents insurance coverage. The sad fact is more people would be alive today if insulin was affordable for all Americans. The deaths of Smith and Boyle and their reported struggles with health insurance were met with skepticism by some readers. Others encountered this news on social media, where it was shared with incomplete or incorrect information. For instance, comedian David Anthony conflated the deaths of these two individuals when he wrote that a 26-year-old had started a GoFundMe to get insulin: For the rest of my life I will never forget a 26 year old started a gofundme to get insulin, didnt get the amount he needed and died rationing his not costly medicine. Just before Thanksgiving. Dave Anthony (@daveanthony) November 24, 2017 November 24, 2017 Alec Raeshawn Smith was 26 years old at the time of his death; however, we have not been able to find anything to indicate that he had set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for insulin. (A fundraiser was set up after his death to cover funeral costs.) Shane Patrick Boyle, on the other hand, was older when he died, and he did set up a fundraiser for medication. fundraiser Smith passed away on 27 June 2017. In his obituary, his family asked for donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and encouraged everyone to sign a petition for affordable health care: obituary In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be given to Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, www.jdrf.org. We would also like to encourage everyone to go to www.jdrf.org and sign the Coverage 2 Control petition which will provide affordability, choice and coverage for people with Diabetes. www.jdrf.org www.jdrf.org Boyle died of the same treatable complication that killed Smith: diabetic ketoacidosis. Before his death on 18 March 2017, he set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for one month of insulin: The only archived version of this campaign is from 23 March 2017, five days after Boyle's death. Although this copy shows that Boyle had raised $1,590 of a $750 goal, it appears that the majority of this money was raised after his passing. (All eight comments were posted in the days following Boyle's death and the visible donations, more than $200, were posted within a day of its archival date.) Ted Closson, a comic book artist and friend of Boyle's, wrote that Boyle was \"$50 shy of his goal\" for over two weeks: wrote A second GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a memorial for Boyle and his mother also suggests that the fundraiser was short of the $750 goal at the time of Boyle's passing (emphasis ours): campaign The world lost a wonderful man due to complications of type 1 diabetes. My cousin, Shane Boyle, put everything into taking care of his ailing mother at the expense of his own needs. Shane's mother, Judy Boyle, passed away on March 11th and we lost Shane to diabetes exactly a week later on March 18th. After his death, we learned that Shane lost his prescription benefits when he moved to Mena, Arkansas to care for his mom. We found a GoFundMe where he was trying to raise $750 to get just one more month of insulin and supplies. Unfortunately, he didn't get help in time. Shane died because he was trying to stretch out his life saving insulin to make it last longer. Shane was working hard to take care of his mother's funeral arrangements when he died. Her service had to be cancelled because of the unexpected financial burden of losing two family members in a week's time. I am hoping we can raise the funds for a combined funeral service for Shane and Judy Boyle. If we can raise more than is needed for the service, any remaining funds would go to a charity that provides insulin to diabetics like Shane. We don't want other families to suffer the pain of losing a loved one because they couldn't afford medications. Thank you for any help you can provide, even if all you can offer is a kind message or sharing a special memory. Vice also mentioned the circumstances surrounding Boyle's death in a story about the rising price of insulin. rising Long before Boyle launched a fundraising campaign, he worried about a Trump presidency's effects on the price of insulin. Immediately after the election, on 9 November 2016, Boyle wrote on Facebook (emphasis ours): wrote Facebook Last night/ this morning, I was so depressed I did not want to live in this world anymore (and as a type one diabetic, I honestly don't know how long I will live if I lose access to affordable healthcare). Today, I feel more optimistic, not because I think everything is going to be okay, but because I have seen so many of your posts, recognizing the fight that is ahead, and talking about organizing, not just sitting back and complaining or planning for the next election. Higgs, Micaela. \"The High Price of Insulin Is Literally Killing People.\"\r Tonic. 5 April 2017. Elliot, James. \"Alex Azar, Trumps HHS Pick, Has Already Been a Disaster for People With Diabetes.\"\r The Nation. 21 November 2017. Closson, Ted. \"A GoFundMe Campaign Is Not Health Insurance.\"\r The Nib. 25 May 2017. Glass Tire. \"RIP Shane Patrick Boyle, Founder of Zine Fest Houston.\"\r 20 March 2017.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1IrpE_jSEXZw9Fsq8_PoU5FTPrvDg6VtZ" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1INEMtLobWXe5K2rTQH40ldTFikAfHPuP" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In February 2017, Shane Patrick Boyle started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for \"a month of insulin.\" A few weeks later, he died after developing diabetic ketoacidosis. Although several local outlets reported on Boyle's death at the time, it wasn't until November 2017 that Boyle's story reached many readers, thanks in part to a Facebook post from United States Sen. Bernie Sanders linking to an article in The Nation about the rising cost of insulin:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/ZineFestHouston/posts/1302611626500511", "https://www.facebook.com/FPHNews/photos/a.492672920756136.108452.127726110584154/1396985066991579/?type=3", "https://www.facebook.com/RocksaltMagazine/photos/a.264159070382706.65445.207122622753018/1003585776440028/?type=3&theater", "https://glasstire.com/2017/03/20/rip-shane-patrick-boyle-founder-of-zine-fest-houston/", "https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/posts/10156519608882908", "https://www.thenation.com/article/alex-azar-trumps-hhs-pick-has-already-been-a-disaster-for-people-with-diabetes/" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition to highlighting the sad circumstances surrounding Boyle's death, The Nation also pointed to Alec Raeshawn Smith, a 26-year-old who died in June after he lost his insurance and started to ration his insulin:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/alec-smith-obituary?pid=185974586&view=guestbook" ] }, { "sentence": " Dave Anthony (@daveanthony) November 24, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/daveanthony/status/934122301108338688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Alec Raeshawn Smith was 26 years old at the time of his death; however, we have not been able to find anything to indicate that he had set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for insulin. (A fundraiser was set up after his death to cover funeral costs.) Shane Patrick Boyle, on the other hand, was older when he died, and he did set up a fundraiser for medication.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gofundme.com/AlecRaeshawn" ] }, { "sentence": "Smith passed away on 27 June 2017. In his obituary, his family asked for donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and encouraged everyone to sign a petition for affordable health care:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washburn-mcreavy.com/obituaries/Alec-Smith-3/#!/Obituary" ] }, { "sentence": "In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be given to Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, www.jdrf.org. We would also like to encourage everyone to go to www.jdrf.org and sign the Coverage 2 Control petition which will provide affordability, choice and coverage for people with Diabetes. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.jdrf.org/", "https://www.jdrf.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "Ted Closson, a comic book artist and friend of Boyle's, wrote that Boyle was \"$50 shy of his goal\" for over two weeks:", "hrefs": [ "https://thenib.com/a-gofundme-campaign-is-not-health-insurance?id=ted-closson&t=author" ] }, { "sentence": "A second GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a memorial for Boyle and his mother also suggests that the fundraiser was short of the $750 goal at the time of Boyle's passing (emphasis ours):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gofundme.com/shane-boyle-judy-boyle-memorial" ] }, { "sentence": "Vice also mentioned the circumstances surrounding Boyle's death in a story about the rising price of insulin.", "hrefs": [ "https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/ezwwze/the-high-price-of-insulin-is-literally-killing-people" ] }, { "sentence": "Long before Boyle launched a fundraising campaign, he worried about a Trump presidency's effects on the price of insulin. Immediately after the election, on 9 November 2016, Boyle wrote on Facebook (emphasis ours):", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/nQwq1", "https://www.facebook.com/shanepatrickboyle/posts/10154103843833697" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/nov/18/joe-biden/biden-says-middle-income-earners-lost-ground-reces/", "claim": "The median income of a middle class family went down $2,100 from 2001 to 2007.", "author": "Maryalice Gill", "posted": "11/18/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Vice President Joe Biden visited a New Hampshire university Oct. 20, 2011, to promote President Barack Obamas American Jobs Act before an audience whom he called the 9/11 generation.Speaking to a full house inside Plymouth State Universitys lecture hall, Biden talked about the need to restore the middle class and to bring jobs back to America. He said middle-income-earning Americans have been under siege, long before the economic recession hit.In the previous decade, before the current recession, the middle class was getting killed, said Biden. During that period between 2001-07, productivity of American workers was up 20 percent, but median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100 during this time.Did the median of middle-income households really take a $2,100 hit before the economy hit the fan? We looked into Bidens claim to find out.First we contacted Bidens staff to find out which figures they were using to come to the $2,100 decrease in the median income for middle-class households.Tobin Marcus, Bidens deputy economic policy adviser, told us the vice president was referring to real median household income for working age households. Were looking at the core wage-earning households as opposed to retirees, Marcus said.Working age households aretypically consideredhouses headed by someone between the ages of 25 and 54, and the median income was chosen to represent middle income wage earners.Bidens office cited the Census Bureaus Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Surveys for year-ending data for2000and2007.They said they compared inflation-adjusted numbers, using the annual average increase column of theBureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index.We took a look at their numbers, and their calculations checked out.To be sure, we contacted Dennis Delay, an economist with the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies and a New Hampshire State Forecast Manager for the New England Economic Partnership.He confirmed the calculations Bidens campaign provided.I looked at the data sources, and they appear to be correct, and the data calculated correctly, Delay said.Delay then pointed us toa report by the Economic Policy Institutewhich used the same data. From 2000-07, the Institute said the real median income of working age households fell from $61,574 in 2000 to $59,460 in 2007a decrease of $2,114.The White House Task Force on the Middle Classcited a weak labor market and anemic job growth of the 2000s among some of the problems that contributed to the approximately 3.4 percent decline in the median of middle class incomes over the seven years leading up to the economic recession.Clearly median inflation adjusted income fell much faster during the recession (2007 to present), Delay said. But the fall in that indicator during a period of economic expansion (2000 to 2007) is very troubling. I dont believe any other period of economic expansion saw a commensurate decline in median inflation adjusted income.Our ruling:Vice President Biden said the median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100 from 2001-07, and the numbers check out. We rate Bidens claim True.", "issues": [ "National", "Income", "New Hampshire 2012" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Vice President Joe Biden visited a New Hampshire university Oct. 20, 2011, to promote President Barack Obamas American Jobs Act before an audience whom he called the 9/11 generation.Speaking to a full house inside Plymouth State Universitys lecture hall, Biden talked about the need to restore the middle class and to bring jobs back to America. He said middle-income-earning Americans have been under siege, long before the economic recession hit.In the previous decade, before the current recession, the middle class was getting killed, said Biden. During that period between 2001-07, productivity of American workers was up 20 percent, but median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100 during this time.Did the median of middle-income households really take a $2,100 hit before the economy hit the fan? We looked into Bidens claim to find out.First we contacted Bidens staff to find out which figures they were using to come to the $2,100 decrease in the median income for middle-class households.Tobin Marcus, Bidens deputy economic policy adviser, told us the vice president was referring to real median household income for working age households. Were looking at the core wage-earning households as opposed to retirees, Marcus said.Working age households aretypically consideredhouses headed by someone between the ages of 25 and 54, and the median income was chosen to represent middle income wage earners.Bidens office cited the Census Bureaus Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Surveys for year-ending data for2000and2007.They said they compared inflation-adjusted numbers, using the annual average increase column of theBureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index.We took a look at their numbers, and their calculations checked out.To be sure, we contacted Dennis Delay, an economist with the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies and a New Hampshire State Forecast Manager for the New England Economic Partnership.He confirmed the calculations Bidens campaign provided.I looked at the data sources, and they appear to be correct, and the data calculated correctly, Delay said.Delay then pointed us toa report by the Economic Policy Institutewhich used the same data. From 2000-07, the Institute said the real median income of working age households fell from $61,574 in 2000 to $59,460 in 2007a decrease of $2,114.The White House Task Force on the Middle Classcited a weak labor market and anemic job growth of the 2000s among some of the problems that contributed to the approximately 3.4 percent decline in the median of middle class incomes over the seven years leading up to the economic recession.Clearly median inflation adjusted income fell much faster during the recession (2007 to present), Delay said. But the fall in that indicator during a period of economic expansion (2000 to 2007) is very troubling. I dont believe any other period of economic expansion saw a commensurate decline in median inflation adjusted income.Our ruling:Vice President Biden said the median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100 from 2001-07, and the numbers check out. We rate Bidens claim True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2009/wp2009_23.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/second-covid-stimulus-foreign-aid/", "claim": "Was foreign aid included in the second COVID-19 stimulus package?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "12/23/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A misleading meme about the second coronavirus stimulus bill sparked internet outrage." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO A massive federal spending bill passed by United States Congress on Dec. 21, 2020, was almost 5,600 pages long, so there was plenty for everyone to debate. But social media was full of misleading outrage takes, framing the legislation as a COVID-19 stimulus package that doled out foreign aid unrelated to the pandemic. In fact, what Congress passed was a $2.3 trillion spending bill that funds the U.S. government through the 2021 fiscal year. The bill includes a $900 billion coronavirus relief package not the other way around. But many framed the story in reverse, claiming that Congress had passed a coronavirus relief package and opportunistically included foreign aid and other unrelated items. For example, conservative bloggers Diamond and Silk tweeted, \"what does 10M dollars going to Pakistan for gender programs have to do with [coronavirus] relief for Americans?\" Many other social media users posted the following meme: tweeted Claims that Congress jammed foreign aid and museum funding into coronavirus economic relief are misleading. It's more accurate to say Congress passed a $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill funding the entirety of the U.S. government, including foreign aid programs, national museum funding, and also a coronavirus relief package. funding For example, the $10 million in aid to Pakistan for \"gender programs\" is slated under U.S. State Department funding in the omnibus bill, along with a number of other foreign aid programs, The way the meme above presents the $600 stimulus payments is also misleading because it juxtaposes the sum total of aid for various countries and institutions included in the spending bill, alongside individual payments to Americans included in the coronavirus relief package. The coronavirus relief package includes $600 stimulus checks, which will be paid out to most Americans, but the total cost of these checks and other aid to Americans adds up to $900 billion. It's also misleading to state that the only benefit included in the bill for Americans is a check for $600. Although the amounts of financial assistance were less than what was provided in first stimulus package in March 2020, the coronavirus relief package includes expansion of unemployment benefits, another round of small business loans, as well as rent, utilities, and food assistance along with $600 stimulus checks. includes Legislators complained they didn't have time to properly review the massive document before voting on it. Some legislators said the price tag for the legislative package was too big, while others said relief provided to Americans struggling with economic fallout from the pandemic didn't go far enough. complained On the evening of Dec. 22, 2020, the day after Congress passed the spending package, U.S. President Donald Trump made a statement echoing these internet claims, raising doubts that he would sign the legislation after the White House had already indicated he would. Among other statements, Trump said he wanted stimulus checks to be $2,000 instead of $600, which U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she agreed with. statement agreed The bill comes nine months after the CARES Act stimulus package was signed in March 2020, as well as months of partisan haggling between Republicans, who wanted a more limited package, and Democrats, who had pushed for a bigger bill. It also comes amid a surge of reported COVID-19 cases amid the holiday season. More than 322,000 Americans have died from the pandemic as of this writing. nine months died", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1TL66nfDJJc-MyWvtekdc97R5FsTBBiQN" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "But many framed the story in reverse, claiming that Congress had passed a coronavirus relief package and opportunistically included foreign aid and other unrelated items. For example, conservative bloggers Diamond and Silk tweeted, \"what does 10M dollars going to Pakistan for gender programs have to do with [coronavirus] relief for Americans?\" Many other social media users posted the following meme:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/coUxa" ] }, { "sentence": "Claims that Congress jammed foreign aid and museum funding into coronavirus economic relief are misleading. It's more accurate to say Congress passed a $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill funding the entirety of the U.S. government, including foreign aid programs, national museum funding, and also a coronavirus relief package.", "hrefs": [ "https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/democrats.appropriations.house.gov/files/Summary%20of%20H.R.%20133%20Appropriations%20Provisions.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "It's also misleading to state that the only benefit included in the bill for Americans is a check for $600. Although the amounts of financial assistance were less than what was provided in first stimulus package in March 2020, the coronavirus relief package includes expansion of unemployment benefits, another round of small business loans, as well as rent, utilities, and food assistance along with $600 stimulus checks.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/congress-agrees-on-covid-relief-bill-with-600-dollar-stimulus-checks.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Legislators complained they didn't have time to properly review the massive document before voting on it. Some legislators said the price tag for the legislative package was too big, while others said relief provided to Americans struggling with economic fallout from the pandemic didn't go far enough.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1341145260014100480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1341146432565329922%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2020%2F12%2F21%2F948862052%2Fhouse-passes-900-billion-coronavirus-relief-bill-ending-months-long-stalemate" ] }, { "sentence": "On the evening of Dec. 22, 2020, the day after Congress passed the spending package, U.S. President Donald Trump made a statement echoing these internet claims, raising doubts that he would sign the legislation after the White House had already indicated he would. Among other statements, Trump said he wanted stimulus checks to be $2,000 instead of $600, which U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she agreed with.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/22/trump-calls-covid-relief-bill-unsuitable-and-demands-congress-add-higher-stimulus-payments.html", "https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1341557535732604935" ] }, { "sentence": "The bill comes nine months after the CARES Act stimulus package was signed in March 2020, as well as months of partisan haggling between Republicans, who wanted a more limited package, and Democrats, who had pushed for a bigger bill. It also comes amid a surge of reported COVID-19 cases amid the holiday season. More than 322,000 Americans have died from the pandemic as of this writing.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/20/mcconnell-says-congress-has-agreed-to-900-billion-coronavirus-stimulus-deal.html", "https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iphone-namedrop-warning/", "claim": "Is iPhone AirDrop Feature 'NameDrop' Dangerous, as Facebook Posts Claim?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "11/27/2023", "sci_digest": [ "Here's the lowdown about the Facebook warnings regarding NameDrop, an iPhone feature that debuted with the September 2023 release of iOS 17." ], "justification": "In late November 2023, Facebook users shared variations of a viral warning about a relatively new iPhone feature called NameDrop, also known as \"Bringing Devices Together.\" The posts hinted that NameDrop, dubbed by Apple as \"a new AirDrop experience,\" was dangerous, and said that users needed to take action to protect their privacy and security. Multiple U.S. police department Facebook pages also shared the warnings, which perhaps was one of the reasons that we received so many reader emails about this rumor. U.S. police department Facebook pages We reviewed multiple versions of the same warning about NameDrop on iPhone devices. One such warning read as follows: warning IMPORTANT PRIVACY UPDATE: If you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update, they have set a new feature called NameDrop defaulted to ON. This feature allows the sharing of your contact info just by bringing your phones close together. While you do need to accept the transfer, if you would prefer to shut this off go to: Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together. Change to OFF. PARENTS: You may consider changing these settings after the update on your childrens phones, also, to help keep them safe as well! Despite the virality of these warnings, here's the truth: These posts are based on a misunderstanding of how the NameDrop feature works with an iPhone, just like so many other technological scares that in past years were also virally shared on Facebook. Barring the possibility of any future security holes being uncovered by users, the NameDrop feature was designed with multiple layers of protection. NameDrop is a feature that allows two users to hold their iPhone devices very close to each other in order to share a phone number or email address. This also works with an iPhone and an Apple Watch or two Apple Watches. NameDrop Basically, instead of asking a friend for their contact details or handing your device to a friend to have them input their information, NameDrop allows this exchange of basic data to happen in a much easier, yet still secure, manner. The feature was first included in the software update known as iOS 17. It released in September 2023 after being announced in June. iOS 17 announced Apple says that, for NameDrop to work, users' devices must be \"within a few centimeters\" of each other to initiate the first step of the process. Also, both users must be signed into iCloud. Users can then select if they want to share their phone number or email address and must tap a \"Share\" button to complete the exchange of one of the two pieces of basic contact data. To be clear, no contact information is automatically shared when two devices are brought together without a user taking action. Further, NameDrop does not work unless the devices are already unlocked. Think of the following scenario: You sit down in a cozy coffee shop with your phone in your purse or on the table. Another customer is sitting several tables away. That other customer isn't going to be able to initiate the NameDrop feature on your phone because the devices are further apart than the \"within a few centimeters\" of proximity specified by Apple. Even if that other customer walks by and bumps into the purse or your phone on the table, if your phone is locked with a passcode or other security feature, they couldn't even begin initiating the NameDrop feature. Further, even if your phone is unlocked, you would still have to tap some buttons in order for the person to receive your contact details. In other words, there are multiple layers of security that were implemented for the NameDrop feature that are meant to protect users. The only way a person could misuse the NameDrop feature on your phone is if they take your unlocked phone away from you without your permission and initiate the sharing of contact information. However, this does not make the NameDrop feature unsafe. It simply means that you need to not allow strangers to take your unlocked phone away from you. All of the data we've detailed above led us to our rating of False, meaning that, as the authoritative tech blog Wired.com put it in the headline of their article, \"No, You Dont Need to Turn Off Apples NameDrop Feature in iOS 17.\" article If users, including parents, still wish to turn off the NameDrop feature, simply navigate on an iPhone to \"Settings,\" \"General\" and then \"AirDrop.\" To disable NameDrop, toggle the \"Bringing Devices Together\" feature to off. This screenshot shows NameDrop (\"Bringing Devices Together\") enabled. Parents can learn more about parental controls for Apple devices on the company's website. website Apple Announces Powerful New Privacy and Security Features. Apple Newsroom, 5 June 2023, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-announces-powerful-new-privacy-and-security-features/. Combs, Mary-Elisabeth. Heres Everything to Know About NameDrop on iPhone. CNET, 31 Oct. 2023, https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/heres-everything-to-know-about-namedrop-on-iphone/. Hardwick, Tim. iOS 17: How to Share Contact Details With NameDrop. MacRumors, 14 Sept. 2023, https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/ios-share-contact-details-with-namedrop/. iOS 17. Apple, https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17/. Rogers, Reece. No, You Dont Need to Turn Off Apples NameDrop Feature in iOS 17. Wired, 27 Nov. 2023,https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-namedrop-ios17/. Use NameDrop on iPhone to Share Your Contact Info. Apple Support, https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/namedrop-iphone-share-contact-info-iph1b6c664b7/ios.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vEjG0SKfW_aCAcYEPxNSGakYLNf34BM7", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Multiple U.S. police department Facebook pages also shared the warnings, which perhaps was one of the reasons that we received so many reader emails about this rumor.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/jhtIO", "https://archive.ph/7cKst", "https://archive.ph/IB43O", "https://archive.ph/hkDu3", "https://archive.ph/5yDi4" ] }, { "sentence": "We reviewed multiple versions of the same warning about NameDrop on iPhone devices. One such warning read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/jhtIO" ] }, { "sentence": "NameDrop is a feature that allows two users to hold their iPhone devices very close to each other in order to share a phone number or email address. This also works with an iPhone and an Apple Watch or two Apple Watches.", "hrefs": [ "https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/namedrop-iphone-share-contact-info-iph1b6c664b7/ios" ] }, { "sentence": "Basically, instead of asking a friend for their contact details or handing your device to a friend to have them input their information, NameDrop allows this exchange of basic data to happen in a much easier, yet still secure, manner. The feature was first included in the software update known as iOS 17. It released in September 2023 after being announced in June.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-17/", "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-announces-powerful-new-privacy-and-security-features/" ] }, { "sentence": "All of the data we have detailed above led us to our rating of False, meaning that, as the authoritative tech blog Wired.com put it in the headline of their article, \"No, You Dont Need to Turn Off Apples NameDrop Feature in iOS 17.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wired.com/story/apple-iphone-namedrop-ios17/" ] }, { "sentence": "Parents can learn more about parental controls for Apple devices on the company's website.", "hrefs": [ "https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-parental-controls-iph00ba7d632/ios" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-dont-separate-mommy-protest-sign-real/", "claim": "Is an 'Obama Don't Separate Me From My Mommy' Protest Sign Real?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/21/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph showing protesters holding a sign is real, but the sign is referring to separations due to the deportation of family members in the United States rather than forcibly separating families at the border." ], "justification": "As news broke in June 2018 that children were being separated from their families by immigration agents as they crossed into the United States from Mexico, an intense round of whataboutism ensued as the usual bots, paid trolls, unpaid trolls, and useful idiots took the opportunity to claim that President Barack Obama did the same thing during his time in office (he didn't). One piece of \"evidence\" supporting this argument was a photograph of a group of protesters holding a sign reading \"Obama Don't Separate Me From My Mommy.\" whataboutism he didn't This image was frequently shared along with statements claiming that it destroyed \"the liberal narrative,\" and that Obama, too, had kept children in cages after separating them from their mothers: statements This is indeed a genuine photograph that was taken during the Obama era in 2014. However, there major differences between the immigration policy at the center of the pictured protest and the child detention centers that were at the center of public outrage in June 2018. In a nutshell: Families were separated under President Barack Obama as the result of deportation of undocumented people from the United States. Families were separated under President Donald Trump as parents and children were put into different detention facilities after they crossed the border to ask for asylum in the United States. Obama was referred to by some border activists as the \"Deporter-in-Chief\" during his time in office, as he deported more people from the United States (thanks in part, but not completely, to a change in definition) than any other president in modern history. Many of these deportations resulted in families being separated, because children born in the United States were allowed to stay in the country but their parents were forced to leave. deported definition A June 2014 article published by the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Obama, saying that he was not living up to the promises he made on immigration during the 2008 campaign, and that deportation was still separating children from their parents under his watch: criticized During the 2008 campaign, Senator Barack Obama seemed to understand their pain and promised to fix our broken immigration system. He promised to enact comprehensive immigration reform and create a pathway to citizenship for the millions of hardworking people who labor for little money at often thankless jobs to make their children's lives and for that matter our lives a little bit easier. He pledged to no longer separate children from their parents. Today 4 million children call an undocumented immigrant mom or dad. Children who hug their parents extra tight before they leave for work for fear they'll never see them again. The viral photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Jose Luis Magana on 2 August 2014 as demonstrators asked Obama to modify his deportation policies. Associated Press Obama attempted to mitigate the issue a few months later when he announced the \"Immigration Accountability Executive Action plan. One of the central points of the plan was to focus on felons rather than families; another was to provide undocumented immigrants already living in the United States a chance to avoid deportation by passing a background check and paying taxes. Immigration Accountability Executive Action plan This photograph shows a group of protesters urging President Barack Obama to modify his policies in order to ease deportations that result in family separations. The sign does not refer to children that were taken away from their parents and placed in detention centers. Timm, Jane. \"Fact check: Did Obama Administration Separate Families?.\"\r NBC News. 19 June 2018. Bichir, Demian. \"Exiled: The Obama Administration's Horrifying Deportation Record.\"\r ACLU. 10 June 2014.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LMU8SHztAa_DvL-ftqywgVg7cq_0kfzv", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "As news broke in June 2018 that children were being separated from their families by immigration agents as they crossed into the United States from Mexico, an intense round of whataboutism ensued as the usual bots, paid trolls, unpaid trolls, and useful idiots took the opportunity to claim that President Barack Obama did the same thing during his time in office (he didn't). One piece of \"evidence\" supporting this argument was a photograph of a group of protesters holding a sign reading \"Obama Don't Separate Me From My Mommy.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/whataboutism-origin-meaning", "https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/fact-check-did-obama-administration-separate-families-n884856" ] }, { "sentence": "This image was frequently shared along with statements claiming that it destroyed \"the liberal narrative,\" and that Obama, too, had kept children in cages after separating them from their mothers:", "hrefs": [ "https://imgur.com/7WxR4hi" ] }, { "sentence": "Obama was referred to by some border activists as the \"Deporter-in-Chief\" during his time in office, as he deported more people from the United States (thanks in part, but not completely, to a change in definition) than any other president in modern history. Many of these deportations resulted in families being separated, because children born in the United States were allowed to stay in the country but their parents were forced to leave. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deported-more-people/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deported-more-people/" ] }, { "sentence": "A June 2014 article published by the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Obama, saying that he was not living up to the promises he made on immigration during the 2008 campaign, and that deportation was still separating children from their parents under his watch:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/exiled-obama-administrations-horrifying-deportation-record" ] }, { "sentence": "The viral photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Jose Luis Magana on 2 August 2014 as demonstrators asked Obama to modify his deportation policies.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Immigration-Protest/8f91dd5a67b34434a906c5fc97c1aef8/32/0" ] }, { "sentence": "Obama attempted to mitigate the issue a few months later when he announced the \"Immigration Accountability Executive Action plan. One of the central points of the plan was to focus on felons rather than families; another was to provide undocumented immigrants already living in the United States a chance to avoid deportation by passing a background check and paying taxes. ", "hrefs": [ "https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/20/fact-sheet-immigration-accountability-executive-action", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-agree-trump-administration-immigration-policies/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1956-republican-platform/", "claim": "It is essential to regularly review the 1956 Republican Platform.", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/23/2014", "sci_digest": [ "A summary of the 1956 Republican platform describes a significant divergence from the party's focus in recent decades." ], "justification": "A few weeks before the 2012 U.S. presidential election, a meme began to circulate on social media suggesting the 1956 Republican platform included policies that would more closely match those of progressives in later years: meme The tenets listed in the 1956 Republican platform graphic certainly deviate from many of the GOP's current party lines, but were the following cited planks notably different six decades ago? It's difficult to make a direct comparison for a few reasons. One is that the Republican Party's national platform is not necessarily the same as the issues espoused by individual candidates at the federal, state, or local levels. In recent years, the advent of social media has enabled candidates and political organizations to push individually important agendas that may not hew to the party's overall national platform. Another issue is defining what the party's platform is at any given time. The most recent available Republican Party platform dated to 2012, during the campaign of Mitt Romney. Not all issues addressed in the graphic above were directly mentioned or comparably referenced in the 2012 platform, and individual Republican Party members who have made statements about platform issues since then do not necessarily speak for the GOP at large. The image displayed above first points to assistance for \"low-income communities,\" language that does not specifically appear in the 1956 Republican platform. Under the heading of \"Labor,\" the original document supported (to a degree) several of the positions summarized in the graphic in respect to minimum wage laws, unemployment assistance, and equal pay irrespective of gender: platform The Eisenhower Administration will continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers; Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers; Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system; Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits; Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex; Clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who are subject to federal wage standards on Federal and Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts; Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable; Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex; Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment. The quoted portion did not specify expanded access to unemployment insurance benefits. However, the introduction addressed matters of expanding that benefit, as well as Social Security and even health care. The word \"Protect\" did not appear in that bit, but it did state: We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs expansion of social security broadened coverage in unemployment insurance improved housing and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.We shall continue to seek extension and perfection of a sound social security system. On the matter of supporting and encouraging labor unions, the 1956 Republican platform stated that \"workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform ... workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions.\" It pledged to: Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, President Eisenhower recommended constructive amendments to this Act. The Democrats in Congress have consistently blocked these needed changes by parliamentary maneuvers. The Republican Party pledges itself to overhaul and improve the Taft-Hartley Act along the lines of these recommendations. By contrast, the 2012 Republican Party platform said of workers, unemployment insurance, and worker protections that: platform The best jobs program is economic growth. We do not offer yet another made-in-Washington package of subsidies and spending to create temporary or artificial jobs. We want much more than that. We want a roaring job market to match a roaring economy. Instead, what this Administration has given us is 42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8 percent, the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. Republicans will pursue free market policies that are the surest way to boost employment and create job growth and economic prosperity for all.In all the sections that follow, as well as elsewhere in this platform, we explain what must be done to achieve that goal. The tax system must be simplified. Government spending and regulation must be reined in. American companies must be more competitive in the world market, and we must be aggressive in promoting U.S. products abroad and securing open markets for them. A federal-State-private partnership must invest in the nation's infrastructure: roads, bridges, airports, ports, and water systems, among others. Federal training programs have to be overhauled and made relevant for the workplace of the twenty-first century. Potential employers need certainty and predictability for their hiring decisions, and the team of a Republican President and Congress will create the confidence that will get Americans back to work. Unions were also addressed in the 2012 platform in a somewhat different manner: We will restore the rule of law to labor law by blocking \"card check,\" enacting the Secret Ballot Protection Act, enforcing the Hobbs Act against labor violence, and passing the Raise Act to allow all workers to receive well-earned raises without the approval of their union representative. We demand an end to the Project Labor Agreements; and we call for repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, which costs the taxpayers billions of dollars annually in artificially high wages on government projects. We support the right of States to enact Right-to-Work laws and encourage them to do so to promote greater economic liberty. Ultimately, we support the enactment of a National Right-to-Work law to promote worker freedom and to promote greater economic liberty. We will aggressively enforce the recent decision by the Supreme Court barring the use of union dues for political purposes without the consent of the worker. Republicans in 1956 appeared markedly softer on matters of immigration and asylum, as their platform explained: The Republican Party supports an immigration policy which is in keeping with the traditions of America in providing a haven for oppressed peoples, and which is based on equality of treatment, freedom from implications of discrimination between racial, nationality and religious groups, and flexible enough to conform to changing needs and conditions.In that concept, this Republican Administration sponsored the Refugee Relief Act to provide asylum for thousands of refugees, expellees and displaced persons, and undertook in the face of Democrat opposition to correct the inequities in existing law and to bring our immigration policies in line with the dynamic needs of the country and principles of equity and justice. We believe also that the Congress should consider the extension of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 in resolving this difficult refugee problem which resulted from world conflict. To all this we give our wholehearted support. In 2012, the GOP platform was slightly more stringent: We recognize that for most of those seeking entry into this country, the lack of respect for the rule of law in their homelands has meant economic exploitation and political oppression by corrupt elites. In this country, the rule of law guarantees equal treatment to every individual, including more than one million immigrants to whom we grant permanent residence every year. That is why we oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by intentionally violating the law, disadvantage those who have obeyed it. Granting amnesty only rewards and encourages more law breaking. We support the mandatory use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (S.A.V.E.) program an internet-based system that verifies the lawful presence of applicants prior to the granting of any State or federal government entitlements or IRS refunds. We insist upon enforcement at the workplace through verification systems so that jobs can be available to all legal workers. Use of the E-verify program an internet-based system that verifies the employment authorization and identity of employees must be made mandatory nationwide. State enforcement efforts in the workplace must be welcomed, not attacked. When Americans need jobs, it is absolutely essential that we protect them from illegal labor in the workplace. In addition, it is why we demand tough penalties for those who practice identity theft, deal in fraudulent documents, and traffic in human beings. It is why we support Republican legislation to give the Department of Homeland Security long-term detention authority to keep dangerous but undeportable aliens off our streets, expedite expulsion of criminal aliens, and make gang membership a deportable offense. Social Security warranted a few mentions in the 2012 platform, most notably in this portion: For much of the last century, an opposing view has dominated public policy where we have witnessed the expansion, centralization, and bureaucracy in an entitlement society. Government has lumbered on, stifling innovation, with no incentive for fundamental change, through antiquated programs begun generations ago and now ill-suited to present needs and future requirements. As a result, today's taxpayers - and future generations - face massive indebtedness, while Congressional Democrats and the current Administration block every attempt to turn things around. This man-made log-jam - the so-called stalemate in Washington - particularly affects the government's three largest programs, which have become central to the lives of untold millions of Americans: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Among the remaining points of the graphic, gender pay discrepancy was not directly referenced in the 2012 platform. While the two platforms from 1956 and 2012 may appear starkly different when compared side-by-side, one must also keep in mind that the Republican Party tenets referenced in this meme predate many of the issues American voters now feel are central to their lives 60 years on.", "issues": [ "equity" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Rekl_wi4bny_wHsMX067_XXsvLzwBEH0" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A few weeks before the 2012 U.S. presidential election, a meme began to circulate on social media suggesting the 1956 Republican platform included policies that would more closely match those of progressives in later years:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Hrr7r" ] }, { "sentence": "The image displayed above first points to assistance for \"low-income communities,\" language that does not specifically appear in the 1956 Republican platform. Under the heading of \"Labor,\" the original document supported (to a degree) several of the positions summarized in the graphic in respect to minimum wage laws, unemployment assistance, and equal pay irrespective of gender:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25838" ] }, { "sentence": "By contrast, the 2012 Republican Party platform said of workers, unemployment insurance, and worker protections that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gop.com/platform/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/google-phonebook/", "claim": "Google PhoneBook", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/12/2002", "sci_digest": [ "Will entering a phone number into Google produce a home address and a map with directions to that address?" ], "justification": "Claim: Entering a phone number into the Google search engine can produce a home address and a map with directions to that address. . Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] Beware the New Google Feature! www.google.com Type your home telephone number into Google's search bar & click the search button . . . MapQuest returns with a physical location of your phone number. People could use this feature to locate your home address, and receive explicit directions on how to get there from anywhere in the country. You can remove your name off this database To do this: Type in your full phone number using dashes like this:555-123-4567. If your number appears in the mapping database, an icon resembling a telephone will appear to left of the entry on the results page. Click on this icon and it will take you to a page containing a description of the service, and a link to request your number be removed! Recheck your phone # to be sure it has been removed. Also, if you have children, please check their phone # too! This is another example of invasion of privacy, isn't it? Origins: The gist of the message quoted above is true: Typing a phone number into the popular Google search engine can produce a display like the following: Google Here we entered a phone number (805-495-9897) and were presented with a display showing the name and address of the person to whom that number is assigned, as well as two links (Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest) which will produce maps and driving directions for that address. (The information we used for our display belongs to a friend who has since moved to another state, so we're not giving away anyone's valid personal information here.) Clicking on the telephone icon will take the user to an informational page about the Google Phonebook feature, which includes a link to a form one can use to request that his personal information be removed from this feature. form As to the issue of whether this Google feature is a shocking \"invasion of privacy,\" there are a few points to keep in mind: This feature is not \"new\" the PhoneBook service has been offered by Google for several years now. This feature does not work for every phone number. Some classes of phone numbers, such as unpublished phone numbers (i.e., numbers belonging to customers who have requested that their local phone service providers not publish their numbers in printed phone directories or make them available through directory assistance), will not display. The information displayed is compiled from a number of publicly accessible sources and is not unique to Google. There are many other web sources through which users can look up the same information. Google has simply combined two different services readily available on a number of different web sites: reverse phone directory look-ups and mapping/driving directions services. Even without Google, it's a simple feat for any moderately knowledgeable web user to plug a phone number into a reverse phone directory web site to find the name and address corresponding to that number, then use an on-line service such as Mapquest to obtain directions to that address. Mapquest In short, the Google PhoneBook feature may be troubling to those who value their privacy, but it's a symptom and not a cause. The larger issue is that many entities we deal with in daily life who are privy to our personal information can make that information available to sources that compile databases which services such as Google PhoneBook use. The public has been making privacy gains through the implementation of laws such as those requiring credit bureaus, phone companies, and motor vehicle bureaus to offer \"opt-out\" features which provide customers with means to restrict the distribution of their personal information, but until that larger issue is completely eliminated, trying to keep one's personal information off the web is akin to engaging in a perpetual game of \"Wack-a-Mole\": it provides momentary satisfaction but otherwise accomplishes little. credit bureaus phone companies motor vehicle Last updated: 21 February 2005 ", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1U2mVO5dVpssM1PhqsmF9huTSjRd37YK5", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: The gist of the message quoted above is true: Typing a phone number into the popular Google search engine can produce a display like the following:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com" ] }, { "sentence": "Here we entered a phone number (805-495-9897) and were presented with a display showing the name and address of the person to whom that number is assigned, as well as two links (Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest) which will produce maps and driving directions for that address. (The information we used for our display belongs to a friend who has since moved to another state, so we're not giving away anyone's valid personal information here.) Clicking on the telephone icon will take the user to an informational page about the Google Phonebook feature, which includes a link to a form one can use to request that his personal information be removed from this feature.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html" ] }, { "sentence": " Google has simply combined two different services readily available on a number of different web sites: reverse phone directory look-ups and mapping/driving directions services. Even without Google, it's a simple feat for any moderately knowledgeable web user to plug a phone number into a reverse phone directory web site to find the name and address corresponding to that number, then use an on-line service such as Mapquest to obtain directions to that address.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mapquest.com/directions" ] }, { "sentence": "In short, the Google PhoneBook feature may be troubling to those who value their privacy, but it's a symptom and not a cause. The larger issue is that many entities we deal with in daily life who are privy to our personal information can make that information available to sources that compile databases which services such as Google PhoneBook use. The public has been making privacy gains through the implementation of laws such as those requiring credit bureaus, phone companies, and motor vehicle bureaus to offer \"opt-out\" features which provide customers with means to restrict the distribution of their personal information, but until that larger issue is completely eliminated, trying to keep one's personal information off the web is akin to engaging in a perpetual game of \"Wack-a-Mole\": it provides momentary satisfaction but otherwise accomplishes little.", "hrefs": [ "/inboxer/pending/credit.asp", "/inboxer/pending/sbc.asp", "/politics/traffic/florida.asp" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/20/wendy-davis/wendy-davis-drawing-outdated-survey-slightly-overs/", "claim": "The disparity in income between males and females in Texas remains at 18%, as women earn only 82% of what men make.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "03/20/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Texas women are paid less than men, Wendy Davis stresses. In a March 10, 2014,tweet, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee pointed out that her Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, passed up a chance to say whether he would have vetoed a Davis-sponsored measure related to ensuring equal pay for Texas women that didnt make it into law. Davis, a Fort Worth state senator, wrote: While@GregAbbott_TXdodges questions on the Texas Equal Pay Act, women are still paid 82 cents for every dollar a man earns in Texas. Well leave it to Abbott and Davis to debate the 2013 measure vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry. But we wondered: Are Texas women still paid 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man? We found that pay gaps persist, though comparisons can be dicey. Comparing women and men doing 'same' job In August 2013, werated as Mostly Falsea related Davis claim: Texas women make an average of $8,355 less per year than men doing the very same job. Thats not necessarily correct for individuals doing the same job. In 2010, $8,355 was the general gap between median salaries of full-time working Texas men and women, according to federal estimates, and the 2012 gap was nearly $500 less than that. Significantly, the research cited by Davis did not drill down to salaries for men and women doing the same jobs. In contrast, 2013 survey results indicated a $2,000 gap between the median pay for Texas men and women with comparable professional experiences holding the same or similar jobs. Annual U.S. Census Bureau surveys But Davis recent 82 cents claim wasnt specific to people doing the same jobs. Responding to our request for back-up information, Davis spokeswoman Rebecca Acua pointed us to an April 2013fact sheetfrom the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group for workplace fairness and other issues. The sheet opens: In Texas, on average, a woman who holds a full-time job is paid $35,301 per year while a man who holds a full-time job is paid $43,160 per year. This means that women in Texas are paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to a yearly gap of $7,859 between men and women who work full time in the state. That statement is footnoted to the one-year American Community Survey undertaken in 2011 by the U.S Census Bureau and abureau chartindicating median earnings in the past 12 months by sex by work experience for residents 16 and older. These aligned with the partnerships fact sheet. Latest available estimate Kliner pointed out, too, that comparable results based on the2012 ACSwere posted online by the bureau in September 2013. The 2012 estimates indicate that median earnings for Texas men who worked full time year-round in the past 12 months were $44,802; for Texas women meeting these criteria, median earnings were $35,453 or 79 cents for every dollar earned by men who worked full time. Because Davis said women still earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, we calculated the comparable figure for previous years, according to the bureaus surveys. We found the comparable figure to be 80 cents in2006,2009and2010, 79 cents in2007and 78 cents in2008. Separately, we downloaded a bureau chart showing slightly different estimated median earnings for full-time male and female civilian workers in Texas based on the bureaus 2012 survey. Theresulting chartindicated a median wage for full-time working men of--$45,166 for men, $35,518 for women. By this metric, we calculated, civilian full-time female workers in Texas earned an estimated 79 cents for each dollar earned by full-time male workers. In 2011, a bureauchartsuggests, the comparable figure was 81 cents. Kliner told us the partnership relies on bureau estimates not limited to civilian workers because it believes that delivers a more complete view of the workforce. It is also the chart that has been used historically, so it allows for comparisons over time, she wrote. Upshot: The latest available estimate is that Texas women working full time earned 79 cents for every dollar earned by such men in 2012. That was a penny better than in one of the previous six years, the same or a penny less than the result in four of the years and three cents less than the 82 cents estimated for 2011 and relied upon by Davis. Experts note caveats Experts we queried agreed with our math while offering caveats. By email, Lloyd Potter, the state demographer, pointed out that any focus on earnings for full-time workers leaves out part-time workers. Women, he wrote, are more likely to be employed part-time. Still, Potter said, if we just looked at part-time workers, again, youd probably find women earn less. In our 2013 fact check, we noted theres a range of how many hours full-time workers log, and men are more likely than women to be on the job for 41 hours or more per week, according to theBureau of Labor Statistics. Because more men work overtime,that should translate into higher earnings for them -- because they are paid more, or because their longer hours lead to more job success -- and contribute to the wage gap. Though more nuanced analysis shows that job differences explain much of the pay gap, experts agree that much of it still cannot be accounted for. Thats where sexism comes in, some say. Finally, Potter said, the differential quoted probably is not adjusted for educational attainment or work experience. It is not. If it were, wed probably find the differential would shrink (toward equality) as women tend to have less work experience than men though educational attainment is fairly comparable among adults across sex. Austin economist Stuart Greenfield similarly said by email: In the aggregate, Sen. Davis statement is absolutely, positively correct, though he said that when one controls for work experience, education, and other factors, the earnings differential is reduced. National comparisons Greenfield also pointed out a Dec. 2, 2013, Bureau of Labor Statisticspress releasesummarizing median-pay changes among full-time workers over the years: In Texas, the ratio of womens to mens earnings trended upward from 1997 to 2004. It then fluctuated from 2005 to 2009 before climbing to a series high of 85.6 percent in 2010. However, in the last two years the Texas womens to mens earnings ratio has declined 6.0 percentage points to its lowest level since 2001. According to the 2012 survey results, Texas women fared better compared to men in their state than women in 24 states. Arizona placed first; women working full time earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by men. (For more than a decade, the graph indicates, Texas women fared better than their male counterparts in the state compared to women versus men in the nation as a whole, though conditions dipped in Texas compared to the nation in 2011 and 2012. We asked Cheryl Abbot, a regional economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to speak to why this was so. See herreply here.) Jennifer Lee, a researcher for the left-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities, which focuses on programs serving low-income Texans, said of the 79-cent pay difference estimate suggested by the 2012 survey: This is how the wage gap is usually calculated. If you expand who youre looking at to include all employed individuals (whether or not they work full-time or year-round), women earn 71 cents for every dollar that a man earns, Lee said by email. Lee reminded us of a February 2007 paper by Cornell University labor economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn,The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone Far Enough?The paper states that 53 percent of the gender wage gap stems from variation in job, industry and union status between the genders. According to the paper, major reasons for such wage gaps include: Occupational and industry category (49% of the reason) Lee said that many women are concentrated in particular occupations. Occupations that are heavily female, such as health care support or personal care and service occupations, tend to pay low wages, she said. For example, home health aides in Texas, who are largely female, earn on average $17,430 per year, Lee said, while women also represent 63% of workers earning minimum-wage or less in Texas. When you break down earnings data by occupation, she said, this gap persists in almost all occupations. Labor Force Experience (10.5%) A portion of the gap is explained by factors related to work experience, such as interruptions in work for child care, Lee said. Unexplained (41%) Lee said a large portion of the gap is unexplained by womens choices. This could be because of conscious or unconscious biases (research shows this is particularly acute against mothers), Lee wrote, while other research shows that different attitudes around wage negotiations may contribute to the gender wage gap. Lee added: A lot of people see occupational choices and time off from work as womens choices. And while this is true, I think its important to realize that the choices we make are heavily influenced by the environment in which we make choices, the choices that are available, and how those choices are presented. So while its true that more women work in low-wage jobs, there may be reasons why women dont choose to work in some higher-wage occupations. Similarly, mothers may choose to take time off work to care for young children, but perhaps they wouldnt if child care were more available or affordable. Our ruling Davis said that Texas women are still paid 82 cents for every dollar a man earns in the state. Her figure, based on a 2011 federal survey, reflects median earnings for adults who worked full time in the past 12 months, leaving out part-time workers. Its also outdated in that according to the latest available survey, taken in 2012, Texas women earned 79 cents for every dollar earned by men (again working full time in the past 12 months), less than what Davis said. We rate this claim as Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Women", "Workers", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gyh3FSryIt92-UH6CMQ1Dz1R8YKWdPWs", "image_caption": "MOSTLY TRUE" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In a March 10, 2014,tweet, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee pointed out that her Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, passed up a chance to say whether he would have vetoed a Davis-sponsored measure related to ensuring equal pay for Texas women that didnt make it into law.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/wendydavistexas/status/443117232998998018" ] }, { "sentence": "Davis, a Fort Worth state senator, wrote: While@GregAbbott_TXdodges questions on the Texas Equal Pay Act, women are still paid 82 cents for every dollar a man earns in Texas.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX" ] }, { "sentence": "In August 2013, werated as Mostly Falsea related Davis claim: Texas women make an average of $8,355 less per year than men doing the very same job.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/aug/07/wendy-davis/wendy-davis-says-men-paid-more-8000-more-women-sam/" ] }, { "sentence": "Responding to our request for back-up information, Davis spokeswoman Rebecca Acua pointed us to an April 2013fact sheetfrom the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group for workplace fairness and other issues.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/workplace-fairness/fair-pay/texas-women-and-the-wage-gap.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "That statement is footnoted to the one-year American Community Survey undertaken in 2011 by the U.S Census Bureau and abureau chartindicating median earnings in the past 12 months by sex by work experience for residents 16 and older. These aligned with the partnerships fact sheet.", "hrefs": [ "http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_11_1YR_B20017&prodType=table" ] }, { "sentence": "Kliner pointed out, too, that comparable results based on the2012 ACSwere posted online by the bureau in September 2013. The 2012 estimates indicate that median earnings for Texas men who worked full time year-round in the past 12 months were $44,802; for Texas women meeting these criteria, median earnings were $35,453 or 79 cents for every dollar earned by men who worked full time.", "hrefs": [ "http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_B20017&prodType=table" ] }, { "sentence": "Because Davis said women still earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, we calculated the comparable figure for previous years, according to the bureaus surveys. We found the comparable figure to be 80 cents in2006,2009and2010, 79 cents in2007and 78 cents in2008.", "hrefs": [ "http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_06_EST_B20017&prodType=table" ] }, { "sentence": "Separately, we downloaded a bureau chart showing slightly different estimated median earnings for full-time male and female civilian workers in Texas based on the bureaus 2012 survey. Theresulting chartindicated a median wage for full-time working men of--$45,166 for men, $35,518 for women. By this metric, we calculated, civilian full-time female workers in Texas earned an estimated 79 cents for each dollar earned by full-time male workers. In 2011, a bureauchartsuggests, the comparable figure was 81 cents.", "hrefs": [ "http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_1YR_S2402&prodType=table" ] }, { "sentence": "In our 2013 fact check, we noted theres a range of how many hours full-time workers log, and men are more likely than women to be on the job for 41 hours or more per week, according to theBureau of Labor Statistics. Because more men work overtime,that should translate into higher earnings for them -- because they are paid more, or because their longer hours lead to more job success -- and contribute to the wage gap. Though more nuanced analysis shows that job differences explain much of the pay gap, experts agree that much of it still cannot be accounted for. Thats where sexism comes in, some say.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2011.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Greenfield also pointed out a Dec. 2, 2013, Bureau of Labor Statisticspress releasesummarizing median-pay changes among full-time workers over the years: In Texas, the ratio of womens to mens earnings trended upward from 1997 to 2004. It then fluctuated from 2005 to 2009 before climbing to a series high of 85.6 percent in 2010. However, in the last two years the Texas womens to mens earnings ratio has declined 6.0 percentage points to its lowest level since 2001.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/ro6/fax/women_earnings_tx.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the 2012 survey results, Texas women fared better compared to men in their state than women in 24 states. Arizona placed first; women working full time earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by men.(For more than a decade, the graph indicates, Texas women fared better than their male counterparts in the state compared to women versus men in the nation as a whole, though conditions dipped in Texas compared to the nation in 2011 and 2012. We asked Cheryl Abbot, a regional economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to speak to why this was so. See herreply here.)", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TuVww6o9lvg-dfQ5CI0EwcrER9euLhtVHgVp1CtvsY8/pub" ] }, { "sentence": "Lee reminded us of a February 2007 paper by Cornell University labor economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn,The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone Far Enough?The paper states that 53 percent of the gender wage gap stems from variation in job, industry and union status between the genders.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-weight-loss-scam/", "claim": "Stay away from the weight loss scheme advertised on 'Shark Tank' that inaccurately guarantees '50lbs in 61 Days.'", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "06/30/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Unsolicited emails that appeared as a fake Fox News article led to a Keto Burn scam that had no affiliation with the \"Shark Tank\" TV show." ], "justification": "For years, readers have received unsolicited email messages about a weight loss product that purportedly appeared on the \"Shark Tank\" television show. Clicking the link in the email led to a product called Keto Burn. We previously reported about a similar scam involving a similarly-named product: Keto Fit. show reported The emails for Keto Burn were designed to look like a Fox News article, even though they appeared to have no affiliation with Fox News. This article did not come from Fox News. It was fake. It appears that a person or company used the Fox News logo without the company's permission. After clicking the link in the email, users were led through a number of questionable redirects, meaning that they were bounced from website to website before landing on a final page. On that final page was another misleading story on a website called Live Intelligence Outreach. The headline read: \"50lbs in 61 Days: New No-Exercise Skinny Pill Melts Belly Fat. Why Every Judge On Shark Tank Backed This Product!\" another misleading story The article showed a screenshot that appeared to be from a Fox News Channel television show. This fake screenshot appeared on a Keto Burn pitch website. However, this was also fake. This did not air on the Fox News Channel. One dead giveaway is that the font in the lower-third area looks amateurish. The email for the Keto Burn weight loss product claimed to come from \"ABC - Shark Tank\" and mentioned \"Inc Magazine: Shark Tank Shocker.\" Clicking the link in the email led to a page that claimed: \"It was the most-watched episode in 'Shark Tank' history when sisters Anna and Samantha Martin won over the 'Shark Tank' panel.\" page However, we found no such episode. People named Anna and Samantha Martin never appeared on the show. The scam article also claimed: \"The pair are the first contestants in the shows long duration to ever receive a standing ovation and offers of investment from all panel members. The sisters said they celebrated the success with champagne and cake when the episode wrapped.\" The story then displayed a picture of \"Shark Tank\" personalities with a cake, purportedly celebrating after an episode about a weight loss product. This photograph has nothing to do with weight loss products. However, this picture had nothing to do with weight loss products and simply showed \"Shark Tank\" celebrating its 100th episode. This was confirmed on the Getty Images website. The celebration had nothing to do with Anna and Samantha Martin, Keto Burn, or any other weight loss offerings. Getty Images website In addition to \"Shark Tank,\" the Keto Burn weight loss website also claimed the product was covered by The New York Times, \"Today,\" O, The Oprah Magazine, People's Stylewatch, and Redbook. These publisher logos were misleading. However, we searched the content of all five publishers and did not find any coverage of a product called Keto Burn. This was highly misleading. In sum, a scam involving unsolicited emails, \"Shark Tank,\" and a Keto Burn weight loss product led to an article that misled readers. We recommend readers delete such emails and avoid following links to such websites.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1y6q-TNIgARpCwFbFAeqpmBSll67jDS_k" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dr8xUuRdhrfc5NdxSvKzZ7yC99jPNO8q" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qZ7m9X3d9JBTXGT19nCTSY-cFgGfMRx1" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FYEAJ-rivm_zyA7BC662ENDaWfDjGeAf" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "For years, readers have received unsolicited email messages about a weight loss product that purportedly appeared on the \"Shark Tank\" television show. Clicking the link in the email led to a product called Keto Burn. We previously reported about a similar scam involving a similarly-named product: Keto Fit.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/09/24/shark-tank-star-kevin-olearys-wife-charged-in-boat-crash/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-endorse-keto-pill/" ] }, { "sentence": " This article did not come from Fox News. It was fake.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/shark-tank-weight-loss-email.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "After clicking the link in the email, users were led through a number of questionable redirects, meaning that they were bounced from website to website before landing on a final page. On that final page was another misleading story on a website called Live Intelligence Outreach. The headline read: \"50lbs in 61 Days: New No-Exercise Skinny Pill Melts Belly Fat. Why Every Judge On Shark Tank Backed This Product!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/XBmhk" ] }, { "sentence": " This fake screenshot appeared on a Keto Burn pitch website.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/fake-fox-news-screenshot-scam.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Clicking the link in the email led to a page that claimed: \"It was the most-watched episode in 'Shark Tank' history when sisters Anna and Samantha Martin won over the 'Shark Tank' panel.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/XBmhk" ] }, { "sentence": " This photograph has nothing to do with weight loss products.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/shark-tank-cake-100th.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "However, this picture had nothing to do with weight loss products and simply showed \"Shark Tank\" celebrating its 100th episode. This was confirmed on the Getty Images website. The celebration had nothing to do with Anna and Samantha Martin, Keto Burn, or any other weight loss offerings.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/episode-610-for-the-first-time-in-series-history-all-six-news-photo/457972236" ] }, { "sentence": " These publisher logos were misleading.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/as-seen-in-keto-burn.jpg" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivana-trump-golf-club-burial/", "claim": "Ivana Trump was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Club.", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "08/01/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Rumors abound about the New Jersey gravesite of former U.S. President Donald Trump's first wife." ], "justification": "Former U.S. President Donald Trumps first wife, Ivana Trump, was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, based on media reports and photographs taken of the site. laid to rest New York Post reporters visited the golf club and photographed Ivana Trumps grave. Their report included a number of shots from different angles, including one revealing a wooded area near the site.A source told the New York Post that Ivana was buried not too far from the club house. According to the report, she was buried in a place that was not visible to golfers as they tee off for a round of golf. The small section of the club where she was buried is below the backside of the first tee. New York Post wooded area source A number of memes consisting of edited versions of those photographs went viral in late July 2022, with one in particular getting tens of thousands of likes and comments on Instagram. The image posted by Instagram account homegrownterrorists showed a golf cart rolling past what appeared to be Ivana Trump's gravesite. homegrownterrorists It's clear that this photograph is fake when it's compared to the pictures published in the New York Post article. The gravesite has been inserted into a wider shot of a golf cart on a golf course fairway. Unlike the Post's photographs, the manipulated image doesnt show a wooded area immediately adjacent to the grave. New York Post article A separate rumor speculates that Trump used the burial site for tax break purposes. Indeed, the New Jersey tax code does exempt cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments. Potentially, her grave could save the property from paying a significant sum in a state with high tax rates. According to the code, a cemetery company is exempt from paying real property taxes, income taxes, sales and use taxes, business taxes, and inheritance taxes; cemetery trust funds are also exempt from taxes. tax code code Trump has expressed his desire to be buried at the New Jersey golf course for years. His company even described it as his favorite property in a 2014 filing with the state. A 2017 Washington Post report revealed how he had been trying to convince local authorities to let him build cemeteries at the golf course since 2007. After numerous attempts, two of his plans were approved around 2017, but construction for them had not begun. The 2017 report said that the Trump Organization still needed to apply for state approval to make the land a public cemetery. Washington Post However, Ivana Trump is the first known family member to be buried at the Bedminster golf club. Brooke Harrington, a sociology professor at Dartmouth and tax researcher, pointed out that the tax code has no stipulation for a minimum number of human remains needed for the tax breaks to apply. known Brooke Harrington tax code Documents published by ProPublica show that the Trump Family Trust had sought to designate a property in nearby Hackettstown, New Jersey, as a non-profit cemetery company. ProPublica However, this was not the first time Trump had been accused of trying to reduce his taxes on the property by varying its use. A 2016 Wall Street Journal report found that the golf club benefited from a farmland tax break because part of the land was designated for agricultural purposes specifically for hay production and a small herd of goats. The Huffington Post reported in 2019 that he had saved around $88,000 that year. Wall Street Journal Huffington Post New Jersey laws state a landowner must have no less than five acres of farmland actively devoted to an agricultural or horticultural use for the two years immediately preceding the tax year being applied for and meet specific minimum gross income requirements based on the productivity of the land. New Jersey laws A representative for the Trump Organization told Fortune magazine that the links being drawn between Ivana Trump's gravesite and tax laws were truly evil. Fortune While it is unknown if the choice of this location for her grave had any connection to taxes, the Trump family has a history of seeking ways to reduce tax bills. Furthermore, given the photographs, and an acknowledgement from a Trump representative regarding the location of her grave while denying the rumors connecting it to tax laws, we rate the overall claim as True. \"Cemeteries, Funerals & New Jersey Taxes.\" New Jersey Division of Taxes, https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/anj22.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. \"Department of Agriculture | Soil Evaluation Mapping Tool.\" Nj.gov. https://www.nj.gov/agriculture/home/farmers/farmlandassessment.html. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Fahrenthold, David A. The Mystery of Donald Trump and the New Jersey Cemetery. Washington Post, 10 Mar. 2017. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mystery-of-donald-trump-and-the-new-jersey-cemetery/2017/03/10/7823f63c-facb-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Helmore, Edward. Will Ivana Help Donald Trump with Tax Breaks from beyond the Grave? The Guardian, 31 July 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/31/donald-ivana-trump-cemetery-golf-course-taxes. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. How Trumps Goats Likely Save Him $88,000 A Year. HuffPost UK, 15 Aug. 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-goats_n_5d546ebce4b08385506719f1. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Photos Show Ivana Trumps Grave at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ. New York Post, 28 July 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Roberts, Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Andrea Suozzo, Brandon. Trump Family Trust - Nonprofit Explorer. ProPublica, 9 May 2013, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/465718872. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Rubin, Richard. Goat Herd Helps Trump Lower Tax Bite. Wall Street Journal, 20 Apr. 2016. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/goat-herd-helps-trump-lower-tax-bite-1461191607. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022. Will Ivana Trumps Burial at Donalds Golf Club Give the Former President a Tax Break? Fortune, https://fortune.com/2022/08/01/does-donald-trump-get-tax-break-by-burying-ivana-trump-at-trump-national-golf-club/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zq2NdRJgIWeB93U9K-I6GbmNOfZ-vIGO" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Former U.S. President Donald Trumps first wife, Ivana Trump, was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, based on media reports and photographs taken of the site. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/ivana-trump-gravesite-trump-national-golf-club-tax-break-2022-7" ] }, { "sentence": "New York Post reporters visited the golf club and photographed Ivana Trumps grave. Their report included a number of shots from different angles, including one revealing a wooded area near the site.A source told the New York Post that Ivana was buried not too far from the club house. According to the report, she was buried in a place that was not visible to golfers as they tee off for a round of golf. The small section of the club where she was buried is below the backside of the first tee.", "hrefs": [ "https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/", "https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/", "https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/" ] }, { "sentence": "A number of memes consisting of edited versions of those photographs went viral in late July 2022, with one in particular getting tens of thousands of likes and comments on Instagram. The image posted by Instagram account homegrownterrorists showed a golf cart rolling past what appeared to be Ivana Trump's gravesite.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgr1N41JnfX/" ] }, { "sentence": "It's clear that this photograph is fake when it's compared to the pictures published in the New York Post article. The gravesite has been inserted into a wider shot of a golf cart on a golf course fairway. Unlike the Post's photographs, the manipulated image doesnt show a wooded area immediately adjacent to the grave.", "hrefs": [ "https://nypost.com/2022/07/28/photos-show-ivana-trumps-grave-at-trump-national-golf-club-in-bedminster-nj/" ] }, { "sentence": "A separate rumor speculates that Trump used the burial site for tax break purposes. Indeed, the New Jersey tax code does exempt cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments. Potentially, her grave could save the property from paying a significant sum in a state with high tax rates. According to the code, a cemetery company is exempt from paying real property taxes, income taxes, sales and use taxes, business taxes, and inheritance taxes; cemetery trust funds are also exempt from taxes.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/anj22.pdf", "https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/anj22.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump has expressed his desire to be buried at the New Jersey golf course for years. His company even described it as his favorite property in a 2014 filing with the state. A 2017 Washington Post report revealed how he had been trying to convince local authorities to let him build cemeteries at the golf course since 2007. After numerous attempts, two of his plans were approved around 2017, but construction for them had not begun. The 2017 report said that the Trump Organization still needed to apply for state approval to make the land a public cemetery. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mystery-of-donald-trump-and-the-new-jersey-cemetery/2017/03/10/7823f63c-facb-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "However, Ivana Trump is the first known family member to be buried at the Bedminster golf club. Brooke Harrington, a sociology professor at Dartmouth and tax researcher, pointed out that the tax code has no stipulation for a minimum number of human remains needed for the tax breaks to apply.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/31/donald-ivana-trump-cemetery-golf-course-taxes", "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/31/donald-ivana-trump-cemetery-golf-course-taxes", "https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/anj22.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Documents published by ProPublica show that the Trump Family Trust had sought to designate a property in nearby Hackettstown, New Jersey, as a non-profit cemetery company. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/31/donald-ivana-trump-cemetery-golf-course-taxes" ] }, { "sentence": "However, this was not the first time Trump had been accused of trying to reduce his taxes on the property by varying its use. A 2016 Wall Street Journal report found that the golf club benefited from a farmland tax break because part of the land was designated for agricultural purposes specifically for hay production and a small herd of goats. The Huffington Post reported in 2019 that he had saved around $88,000 that year.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wsj.com/articles/goat-herd-helps-trump-lower-tax-bite-1461191607", "https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-golf-goats_n_5d546ebce4b08385506719f1" ] }, { "sentence": "New Jersey laws state a landowner must have no less than five acres of farmland actively devoted to an agricultural or horticultural use for the two years immediately preceding the tax year being applied for and meet specific minimum gross income requirements based on the productivity of the land.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nj.gov/agriculture/home/farmers/farmlandassessment.html" ] }, { "sentence": "A representative for the Trump Organization told Fortune magazine that the links being drawn between Ivana Trump's gravesite and tax laws were truly evil.", "hrefs": [ "https://fortune.com/2022/08/01/does-donald-trump-get-tax-break-by-burying-ivana-trump-at-trump-national-golf-club/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/military-spent-1-billion/", "claim": "Did the Military Spend $1 Billion on This 'New Vehicle'?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/02/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The vehicle's front end featured a giant ball, similar to the boulder from \"Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.\"" ], "justification": "Since 2017, an imposing military-style vehicle with a giant rolling ball on its front has been featured in online advertisements and YouTube thumbnails. An advertisement created by the website Yeah Motor, which was hosted by the advertising platform Taboola, showed the image of the vehicle with the words: \"The Military Spent $1 Billion on This New Vehicle, And Here's The First Look.\" Readers who clicked the advertisement were led to a 52-page slideshow on Yeah Motor, where the image of the ball vehicle did not appear. This method of drawing in readers with clickbait to a slideshow with multiple pages is known as advertising arbitrage. With arbitrage, the goal is to make more money on the ads displayed during the slideshow than it costs to place the ads that drive readers to the story in the first place. 52-page slideshow The MAD LAB YouTube channel also featured the image in a thumbnail for the video, \"Best Off-Road Vehicles of All Time.\" video However, the vehicle doesn't show up in the 12-minute video. The MAD LAB YouTube channel turned off the ability to like or dislike the video where viewers can click a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon which is unique to this video in particular. The feature was perhaps disabled because of the large number of dislikes the video was receiving for failing to deliver on the promise in the thumbnail. Other videos on the channel allowed the liking and disliking of videos. The image is also featured on several other YouTube videos: The military did not spend $1 billion on this \"new vehicle\" because it's not real. Concept artist Camille Kuo created the impressive artwork, although her signature appeared to be removed via Photoshop. The original \"track ball\" artwork with the signature is available on her ArtStation page: Camille Kuo https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PVxDy Kuo, who is from Taipei, Taiwan, told us that her artwork is available on image-licensing websites, which allows anyone who can pay the licensing fee the ability to use the artwork for commercial purposes. \"That's why you see they are being used commercially without giving me credit,\" Kuo said. However, it's unclear if all of the advertisers and YouTube users that featured her artwork in thumbnails properly obtained licenses. For this piece, \"track ball,\" I emphasized the importance of being a tank without having traditional tank wheels. It can massively mash whatever comes through at the bottom, making pancakes. All of the work is done in Photoshop using the industry of concept art techniques called Photobash and 3DKitbash. She told us that it took around two to three hours to create, although \"the process of concepting the design takes the longest.\" Kuo's other work can be viewed on her ArtStation page. her ArtStation page Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1MGV2VE2Tu5PuLMzzX3--u_VOYsa4JITK", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KOfchDdgl5PuBxnb4qdaSR3nIFg0ZCZ7", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Readers who clicked the advertisement were led to a 52-page slideshow on Yeah Motor, where the image of the ball vehicle did not appear. This method of drawing in readers with clickbait to a slideshow with multiple pages is known as advertising arbitrage. With arbitrage, the goal is to make more money on the ads displayed during the slideshow than it costs to place the ads that drive readers to the story in the first place.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/SpMrD" ] }, { "sentence": "The MAD LAB YouTube channel also featured the image in a thumbnail for the video, \"Best Off-Road Vehicles of All Time.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/GtwYV" ] }, { "sentence": "The military did not spend $1 billion on this \"new vehicle\" because it's not real. Concept artist Camille Kuo created the impressive artwork, although her signature appeared to be removed via Photoshop. The original \"track ball\" artwork with the signature is available on her ArtStation page:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.artstation.com/camilkuo" ] }, { "sentence": "She told us that it took around two to three hours to create, although \"the process of concepting the design takes the longest.\" Kuo's other work can be viewed on her ArtStation page.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.artstation.com/camilkuo" ] }, { "sentence": "Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/contact" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-and-obama-by-the-numbers/", "claim": "Does the data provided in this meme accurately reflect the numerical comparison between Trump and Obama?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "08/13/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Donald Trump, Jr. shared a doctored graphic which falsely showed his father with a higher job approval rating than his predecessor, Barack Obama." ], "justification": "An image purportedly reproducing a CNN graphic comparing Presidents Trump and Obama \"by the numbers\" -- with the former seemingly recording a significantly higher job approval rating than his predecessor -- received a viral push on 8 August 2018, when Donald Trump, Jr. shared it with his 1.2 million followers on Instagram: However, the image was a doctored version of a graphic that was originally used during a CNN fact-checking segment regarding a tweet posted by President Trump about his approval numbers: Presidential Approval numbers are very good - strong economy, military and just about everything else. Better numbers than Obama at this point, by far. We are winning on just about every front and for that reason there will not be a Blue Wave, but there might be a Red Wave! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018 August 5, 2018 CNN's John King fact checked this tweet by comparing Presidents Obama and Trump \"by the numbers\" from around the same point of times in their presidencies. The image posted by Trump Jr. showed his father with a 50% job approval rating, but the genuine graphic aired by CNN showed President Trump's approval rating at only 40%. Here's the original segment from CNN: A side-by-side comparison clearly shows how a \"50%\" was digitally edited (quite poorly) in place of the \"40%\" number in the original graphic: The job approval statistics used by CNN for this graphic were taken from Gallup. According to that polling company, which samples presidential approval ratings every week, President Trump had never held a 50% approval writing up to the point of the CNN segment. Gallup. Donald Trump, Jr. later removed the doctored image from his Instagram page. An expanded version of the chart began making the rounds in September 2018 in the form of a meme shared by Turning Point USA, a conservative group whose stated mission is \"to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.\" shared stated Apart from repeating the inaccurate \"50 percent\" approval rating for Trump and substituting year-to-date federal deficit figures with first-year-in-office totals for both Trump and Obama, the Turning Point USA chart faithfully copies the information provided in the August CNN segment. As CNN correspondent John King pointed out in that segment, the numbers reflect favorably on Trump. In terms of comparing Trump to Obama, however, the meme omits important contextual information. First, the figures cited were snapshots of a particular point in each president's administration. They didn't reflect longer-term fluctuations and trends. Second, unlike Trump, Obama entered office in the midst of a devastating economic collapse. Trump inherited an economy that was already strong and growing. It's meaningless to compare the two without taking these factors into account. Unemployment rate: As stated in the meme, the unemployment rate in July 2018 was 3.9 percent, as compared to 9.4 percent at the same point in Obama's first term in office (July 2010). But that number fell during 2011 as the economy began to recover, and, apart from minor fluctuations, fell steadily every year thereafter. By December 2016 (Obama's last full month in office) the unemployment rate was down to 4.7 percent and still falling, as illustrated in this U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics graph: rate Jobs added: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total non-farm employment in the U.S. grew from 145.7 million in January 2017 to almost 149 million in June 2018 -- an increase of approximately 3.2 million jobs. The same source reported that by the exact same point in Obama's first term, the economy had lost some 3.5 million jobs since January 2009 (.6 million more than was claimed by CNN and the Turning Point USA meme). But, again, the recession was underway, and the economy had already shed nearly 3.6 million jobs during the 12 months before Obama took office. The employment rate began to improve in 2011 and did so steadily throughout the rest of Obama's two terms: employment First year deficit: The Congressional Budget Office reported in March 2018 that the federal deficit stood at $665 billion (equivalent to 3.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product) at the end of 2017, Trump's first year in office. At the end of Obama's first year, 2009, the deficit was $1.4 trillion (9.9 percent of GDP, the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945). It was mostly attributable to spending on the stimulus package meant to rescue the U.S. economy from the recession. Deficit spending didn't remain that high throughout Obama's tenure, however. In fact, the deficit during each of the last three years of his term of office ($485 billion in 2014, $438 billion in 2015, and $585 in 2016) was lower than the 2017 deficit, as well as the projected $833 billion deficit for 2018. reported $1.4 trillion deficit GDP growth: The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product reflects the health of the economy in terms of the value of all goods and services produced in a given time period. As of the end of the second quarter of 2018, the rate of GDP growth was 4.2 percent (revised upward from 4.1 percent), as compared to a rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010, Obama's second year in office. The quarterly GDP growth rate can be volatile, however. It reached or surpassed the 4 percent mark on four separate occasions during the Obama administration, including hitting a high point of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014: 1.6 percent source: tradingeconomics.com tradingeconomics.com Changes in economic indicators are a valid way of evaluating the effectiveness of presidents and their policies, but, as in the examples above, when they are taken out of context and oversimplified they can be more misleading than enlightening. Amadeo, Kimberly. \"U.S. GDP by Year Compared to Recessions and Events: The Strange Ups and Downs of the U.S. Economy Since 1929.\"\r The Balance. 2 August 2018. Gstalter, Morgan. \"Trump Jr. Falsely Claims That GDP Growth Never Passed 2 Percent Under Obama.\"\r 27 July 2018. Nance-Nash, Sheryl. \"Revision of Second Quarter GDP Shows Slowing Economy.\"\r ABC News. 27 August 2010. Selk, Avi. \"Trumps Approval Hits 50 Percent In a Doctored Poll Graphic Shared by His Son.\"\r The Washington Post. 10 August 2018. Congressional Budget Office. \"The Federal Budget in 2017: An Infographic.\"\r 5 March 2018. Congressional Budget Office. \"Federal Budget Deficit Totals $1.4 Trillion in Fiscal Year 2009.\"\r 6 November 2009. CNN. \"MAGIC WALL: Trump vs. Obama, By the Numbers.\"\r 6 August 2018. NPR. \"GDP Is Up 4.1 Percent: What That Means.\"\r 27 July 2018. Trading Economics. \"United States GDP Growth Rate - 1947-2018.\"\r Accessed 17 September 2018. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. \"Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.\"\r Accessed 17 September 2018. U.S. Department of Treasury. \"Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government.\"\r 12 July 2018. Update [17 September 2018]: Added analysis of expanded Facebook meme circulating on September 2018.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vBTrtFku5PuPtVEn4Wwo4q6TIzaCDOVN" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14gu3GxGOuZIfTyRGgA0miWBRQMcxYU-a" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bHZuRcpY3s12zqXsTbwQqAJktbwzd-Gf" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qWuuxop4TX6wkdEU50808r60woHQ1ziZ" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1P3CGj4lK99vL7sqe76eLM_OfhxofLQWB" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1026196465696350208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "The job approval statistics used by CNN for this graphic were taken from Gallup. According to that polling company, which samples presidential approval ratings every week, President Trump had never held a 50% approval writing up to the point of the CNN segment.", "hrefs": [ "https://news.gallup.com/poll/203207/trump-job-approval-weekly.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "An expanded version of the chart began making the rounds in September 2018 in the form of a meme shared by Turning Point USA, a conservative group whose stated mission is \"to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/turningpointusa/photos/a.376802782368444/1849665108415530/?type=3&theater", "https://www.tpusa.com/aboutus/" ] }, { "sentence": "Unemployment rate: As stated in the meme, the unemployment rate in July 2018 was 3.9 percent, as compared to 9.4 percent at the same point in Obama's first term in office (July 2010). But that number fell during 2011 as the economy began to recover, and, apart from minor fluctuations, fell steadily every year thereafter. By December 2016 (Obama's last full month in office) the unemployment rate was down to 4.7 percent and still falling, as illustrated in this U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics graph:", "hrefs": [ "https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000" ] }, { "sentence": "Jobs added: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total non-farm employment in the U.S. grew from 145.7 million in January 2017 to almost 149 million in June 2018 -- an increase of approximately 3.2 million jobs. The same source reported that by the exact same point in Obama's first term, the economy had lost some 3.5 million jobs since January 2009 (.6 million more than was claimed by CNN and the Turning Point USA meme). But, again, the recession was underway, and the economy had already shed nearly 3.6 million jobs during the 12 months before Obama took office. The employment rate began to improve in 2011 and did so steadily throughout the rest of Obama's two terms:", "hrefs": [ "https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001" ] }, { "sentence": "First year deficit: The Congressional Budget Office reported in March 2018 that the federal deficit stood at $665 billion (equivalent to 3.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product) at the end of 2017, Trump's first year in office. At the end of Obama's first year, 2009, the deficit was $1.4 trillion (9.9 percent of GDP, the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945). It was mostly attributable to spending on the stimulus package meant to rescue the U.S. economy from the recession. Deficit spending didn't remain that high throughout Obama's tenure, however. In fact, the deficit during each of the last three years of his term of office ($485 billion in 2014, $438 billion in 2015, and $585 in 2016) was lower than the 2017 deficit, as well as the projected $833 billion deficit for 2018.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53624", "https://www.cbo.gov/publication/24992", "https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306" ] }, { "sentence": "GDP growth: The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product reflects the health of the economy in terms of the value of all goods and services produced in a given time period. As of the end of the second quarter of 2018, the rate of GDP growth was 4.2 percent (revised upward from 4.1 percent), as compared to a rate of 1.6 percent in the second quarter of 2010, Obama's second year in office. The quarterly GDP growth rate can be volatile, however. It reached or surpassed the 4 percent mark on four separate occasions during the Obama administration, including hitting a high point of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014:", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/Business/revision-quarter-gdp-shows-slowing-economy/story?id=11494558" ] }, { "sentence": "source: tradingeconomics.com", "hrefs": [ "https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth#" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alexa-orders-dollhouse-and-cookies/", "claim": "Did Amazon's Alexa Order Unwanted Dollhouses for a Little Girl and TV Viewers?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "02/06/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Claims that Amazon's digital assistant went rogue, ordering dollhouses for a little girl and hundreds of TV viewers, are questionable." ], "justification": "In early 2017 several news outlets reported on a story that owners of Amazon's Alexa digital assistant device owners were \"left out of pocket\" after a 6-year-old girl named Brooke Neitzel inadvertently triggered one into placing an order for an expensive dollhouse, and a news report on the incident triggered a plague of automated, unwanted dollhouse ordering: reported [In January 2017] it was reported that an Amazon Echo in Dallas, Texas, had ordered a $170 dollhouse after six-year-old Brooke Neitzel asked: 'Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?' Although the little girl apparently meant it as a rhetorical question the device saw it as a command and ordered a KidKraft Sparkle mansion dollhouse, as well as four pounds of sugar cookies. But to make matters worse many Amazon Echoes apparently picked up on TV anchor Jim Patton's words in the report: 'I love the little girl saying \"Alexa ordered me a dollhouse\".' Viewers at home were then left stunned when their own Amazon Echoes picked up the voice requests in the report and ordered dolls houses too. As voice-command purchasing is enabled as a default on the Alexa devices, viewers found it had mistaken the show for their command and bought the toy. According to that report, a Texas kindergartner's request for Alexa to \"play dollhouse\" with her and \"get [her] a dollhouse\" resulted in her family's being charged for an order for a top-dollar toy. And when the family's tale was reported by a San Diego news station, \"stunned\" viewers also became the recipients of unwanted dollhouses simply because an anchor repeated the same phrase, which their own Amazon Echo/Alexa devices picked up on and transformed into orders. In one interview, Neitzel's mother Megan provided the Alexa log showing that her daughter had asked the device \"Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?\" But the embedded video of the log suggested that instead of confirming a dollhouse order, Alexa had responded, \"Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question\": interview We attempted to replicate the circumstances of the purported inadvertent order and were unable to do so. When asked \"can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?\" our, Alexa responded with \"now shuffling songs by Bauhaus.\" Asking \"Alexa, can you get me a dollhouse?\" returned \"hmm ... Im not sure what you meant by that question.\" \"Alexa, can you play dollhouse with me? returned ... heres a sample of 'Dollhouse Sounds' by Dollhouse Incorporated. Alexa, can you get me a dollhouse? was answered by I wasnt able to understand the question I heard.\" No permutation of \"[c]an you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?\" we tried resulted in a prompt to confirm a dollhouse order in any of our experiments conducted with two separate Alexa-enabled devices. The only potential purchase-triggering word appeared to be \"order,\" after which it was necessary to confirm or decline the transaction (which we did at least three times and did not accidentally order any dollhouses). An Amazon spokesperson told us in response to our inquiry that ordering items through Alexa is a multi-step process that requires confirmation: You must ask Alexa to order a product and then confirm the purchase with a yes response to purchase via voice. If you asked Alexa to order something on accident, simply say no when asked to confirm. You can also manage your shopping settings in the Alexa app, such as turning off voice purchasing or requiring a confirmation code before every order. Additionally, orders you place for physical products are eligible for free returns. This conforms to our own experience: we couldn't induce Alexa into ordering anything without its first showing us the item, displaying a price, and asking us for verbal confirmation. We also couldn't get Alexa to order two items at once, as supposedly happened with the dollhouse and cookies Alexa always processed multiple items separately no matter how we tried to join them, displaying a price and requiring a verbal confirmation for each item. We also could find no confirmation (outside of anecdotal repetition) that a spate of unwanted dollhouse orders followed in the wake of San Diego newscaster Jim Patton's report on the story. Perhaps the television audio of that newscast might have woken up some viewers' Alexas, but those viewers would still have had to confirm any potential dollhouse purchases by responding 'yes' to Alexa's request for purchase confirmation. We have yet to locate any of the \"viewers at home left stunned\" as their Alexa devices foisted undesired $165 toys upon them. CBS News. \"6-Year-Old Orders $160 Dollhouse, 4 Pounds of Cookies with Amazon's Echo Dot.\"\r 5 January 2017.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1__Q1MU_2B_J7qWAbEIz4KLrzAR14jg3V", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In early 2017 several news outlets reported on a story that owners of Amazon's Alexa digital assistant device owners were \"left out of pocket\" after a 6-year-old girl named Brooke Neitzel inadvertently triggered one into placing an order for an expensive dollhouse, and a news report on the incident triggered a plague of automated, unwanted dollhouse ordering:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Uk66P/image" ] }, { "sentence": "In one interview, Neitzel's mother Megan provided the Alexa log showing that her daughter had asked the device \"Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?\" But the embedded video of the log suggested that instead of confirming a dollhouse order, Alexa had responded, \"Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/6-year-old-brooke-neitzel-orders-dollhouse-cookies-with-amazon-echo-dot-alexa/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/net-worth/", "claim": "Barack Obama's Net Worth", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/16/2012", "sci_digest": [ "Barack Obama's net worth increased over $10 million from 2008 to 2012?" ], "justification": "Claim: Barack Obama's net worth increased over $10 million from 2008 to 2012. UNDETERMINED Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2012] Seen on Facebook: Tea party's photo of President Obama on a golf cart purporting his net worth 12/31/07 and 12/31/11 Origins: This graphic claiming that Barack Obama's net worth had increased from $1.3 million at the end of 2007 to over $11.4 million by the end of 2011 was widely circulated in October 2012. It's fair to say the Obamas' net worth has increased significantly during the time Barack Obama has been President, but fixing a specific dollar amount to that increase is difficult: net worth figures for politicians are typically derived from analyzing financial disclosure forms, a method which leaves room for a good deal of interpretation. financial disclosure Certainly the dollar figures displayed in the above graphic were not just pulled out of thin air: CNN/Money did peg Barack Obama's net worth at $1.3 million in 2007, and some sources (such as this Associated Press article) stated his net worth in mid-2012 to be around $11.8 million. CNN/Money Associated Press Other sources vary widely regarding the latter figure, however. In mid-2012 Forbes estimated the Obamas' net worth to be $5.7 million (down slightly from the previous year), OpenSecrets.org put the figure somewhere in the broad range of \"$1,566,014 to $7,764,999,\" and other sources listed similarly broad range estimates such as \"somewhere between $2.6 million and nearly $8.3 million.\" Forbes OpenSecrets.org other sources The Forbes report noted why the online version of its article included a considerably lower estimation of the Obamas' net worth than the print version of its article had: The current issue of Forbes magazine values the Obamas at a shared net worth of nearly $9 million, based on the May 16, 2011 financial disclosure, the most up-to-date as of press time. The day after our issue went to press, Obama released his new financial disclosure form, showing that: 1) the Obamas have taken money out of treasurys; 2) book money is decreasing; and 3) the family still owes on its mortgage, disclosed for the first time. The latest disclosure also gave new information on the familys college savings plans, which allowed us to refine our valuation and bring the sum down. The above valuation takes all this into account. Last updated: 16 October 2012 ", "issues": [ "mortgage" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PJj9e6AsRgzGo-ytveghtFRMYrDR8m0s", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "dollar amount to that increase is difficult: net worth figures for politicians are typically derived from analyzing financial disclosure forms, a method which leaves room for a good deal of interpretation.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/16/us/politics/16disclosure-doc.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Certainly the dollar figures displayed in the above graphic were not just pulled out of thin air: CNN/Money did peg Barack Obama's net worth at $1.3 million in 2007, and some sources (such as this Associated Press article) stated his net worth in mid-2012 to be around $11.8 million. ", "hrefs": [ "https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/moneymag/0712/gallery.candidates.moneymag/5.html", "https://news.yahoo.com/romney-vp-pick-well-off-not-megarich-065023055.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Other sources vary widely regarding the latter figure, however. In mid-2012 Forbes estimated the Obamas' net worth to be $5.7 million (down slightly from the previous year), OpenSecrets.org put the figure somewhere in the broad range of \"$1,566,014 to $7,764,999,\" and other sources listed similarly broad range estimates such as \"somewhere between $2.6 million and nearly $8.3 million.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2012/05/16/obamas-worth-nearly-6-million-see-why-hes-down-since-last-year/", "https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/candidate.asp", "https://rollingout.com/politics/presidenetobamas-net-worth/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jun/09/anonymous-activist/austin-yard-signs-suggest-office-tower-project-cou/", "claim": "500 percent more traffic here?", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "06/09/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A chunk of residential Northwest Austin has bridled at the prospect of a low-rise office park becoming much more. Our attention was drawn to yard signs suggesting the towering redevelopment at the southwest corner of Spicewood Springs Road and MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) would quintuple area traffic. Dallas-based Spire Realty Group LPseeks a zoning changeto build up Austin Oaks, an office complex with 12 buildings of two to three stories each. In a version of its proposal made public in 2014, Spire said that on the parts of the site closer to MoPac, it wanted to build two office buildings of 17 stories each, though those plans have since been trimmed to 10-story buildings or so, according toSteve Drenner, an Austin lawyer representing Spire in its zoning case. Initial plans, also since modified per Drenner, called for up to 610 apartments and townhomes in the three- to five-story buildings, plus retail and restaurant space. The soonest construction was planned to start was around 2020, after existing office leases expire. The 500% signs dont reveal any group or person as the originator or sponsor. By phone, Ann Denkler, a volunteer witha coalitionopposing the redevelopment, told us the group did not create them. City 'unable to verify' traffic impact We reached out to city officials at first, wondering what data were available. By email, spokeswoman Sylvia Arzola told us: The project and the traffic impact analysis are currently under review. At this time we are unable to verify the traffic impact until a full evaluation of the project and accompanying mitigation is provided by the developer. Meanwhile, we found something close to the 500 percent claim in a September 2014 presentation by Jim Duncan of Austin, a city planner by profession. Duncan said he developed the presentation at the urging of a neighborhood friend and based his traffic projection on an engineering report written by another firm at the developers request. That report, Duncan said, indicated daily car trips near the proposed Austin Oaks Planned Use Development would increase from 4,118 to 23,804 once the expansion was finished--a 478 percent uptick. We turned back to Arzola, who agreed by email it looks like the traffic figures indeed came from the developers consultants study. However, she noted, a fresh traffic analysis was released in May 2015 based on the developer changing what it seeks to build. Duncan said hed heard the revision talk and for that reason, he said, his calculation of the potential 478 percent increase in daily car trips near the project would likely be outflanked. Im sure the number is lower now, Duncan said. Traffic impact studies Arzola emailed us two traffic studies for the project, dated a year apart, and another city official, Bryan Golden, emailed us excerpts from a study completed in August 2014 (which looked to us like the one Duncan relied on). Each study presents predicted unadjusted daily trips in the area should the project be built out with predicted increases ranging from more than 300 percent to more than 480 percent. Generally, unadjusted daily trips means daily car trips in an area, a city official told us, without reductions accounting for trips internal to a development, say, or trips there on city buses. An unadjusted count rolls in trips expected due to existing developments plus the additional trips expected once the project is finished, Bryan Golden told us by email. The projections are generated by an engineering industry calculator, Golden said. The initial June 26, 2014, traffic impact analysis was completed by a professional engineer, Bobak J. Tehrany, for Bury-AUS, Inc. That analysis, of 14 nearby intersections and 11 proposed driveways, said the redevelopment on completion in 2031 would generate an additional 20,736 unadjusted daily trips by car compared to some 4,248 daily trips attributed to the existing office complex which breaks out to an eventual 488 percent increase. With the redevelopment, Tehrany wrote, all but two of the nearby intersections would need improvements. That is, he said, the maximum desirable volumes are currently being exceeded along the roadway segments which were evaluated, though he also said that doesnt mean the roadways had exceeded their respective capacities. The Aug. 19, 2014, traffic impact analysis--taking into account a nearby intersection the city wanted to add to the analysis, Amanda Swor of Drenners firm told us by email--suggested the project would result in nearly 19,700 additional unadjusted daily car trips, up 478 percent from 4,118 of late. We didnt get a fix on why the count of current-day traffic went down. Most recently, the May 22, 2015, traffic impact analysis filed on behalf of the developers states: Based on the proposed land use intensities, it is anticipated that the development will generate a total of 19,819 unadjusted daily trips; however, due to the existing office land uses, the proposed redevelopment is anticipated to generate a net increase of 15,701 unadjusted daily trips. This is taking into consideration the trips which already exist on the roadway network due to the existing development. That is, once the development is done, nearby traffic would be up 381 percent from the 4,118 daily car trips of late. Developer's advocate says traffic likely to increase less By phone, Drenner pointed out the May 2015 analysis includes a chart suggesting that once adjustments are made to account for car trips internal to the development, there would actually be a 332 percent increase in traffic. He said this latest analysis was based on Spires modified development planhalving the number of residential units and reducing retail uses filed with the city April 30, 2015. Drenner said, too, the developers are suggesting $1.5 million in spending to improve nearby streets and creation of a fund that would accumulate money for area road improvements. Next, we wondered how much traffic near the site would increase if the developers added nothing. Denkler and Golden counseled that analysts assume a 2 percent annual increase in car trips. At our request, Golden calculated the 4,118 current unadjusted daily car trips would escalate 37 percent to 5,653 in 2031--again, provided theres no expansion on the site. Our ruling Yard signs posted in opposition to a proposed Northwest Austin redevelopment say: 500 percent more traffic? Traffic studies filed in 2014 based on the developers original proposal support the 500-percent figure, yet the developer later submitted a revised plan and its May 2015 traffic analysis suggests at most a 381 percent increase in daily car trips, still a substantial spike. Perhaps the project and predicted traffic effects will continue to change. For now, taking into account the information available when the signs were made, we rate the claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "City Budget", "City Government", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Dallas-based Spire Realty Group LPseeks a zoning changeto build up Austin Oaks, an office complex with 12 buildings of two to three stories each. In a version of its proposal made public in 2014, Spire said that on the parts of the site closer to MoPac, it wanted to build two office buildings of 17 stories each, though those plans have since been trimmed to 10-story buildings or so, according toSteve Drenner, an Austin lawyer representing Spire in its zoning case.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.mystatesman.com/news/business/could-planned-project-set-off-mopac-development-bo/nhDRc/#4cf8abbd.257409.735753" ] }, { "sentence": "The 500% signs dont reveal any group or person as the originator or sponsor. By phone, Ann Denkler, a volunteer witha coalitionopposing the redevelopment, told us the group did not create them.", "hrefs": [ "http://nopud.weebly.com/about-us.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/delta-air-lines-scams-500-for-1-dollar/", "claim": "Delta Air Lines Scams Promise '$500 Gift Card for $1' and '$100 Reward'", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "05/22/2023", "sci_digest": [ "We looked at the origins of two supposed gift card or \"reward\" promotions that seemed way too good to be true." ], "justification": "In May 2023, a reader informed us by email of a scam appearing in Facebook and Instagram ads that claimed Delta Air Lines was holding a promotion to give away $500 gift cards for $1 each. On the same day, we reviewed a second \"Delta Airlines Online Shopper\" scam in an email from an address ending in asahi.com that promised a \"$100 reward\" or gift card, simply for taking a survey. Needless to say, these were not legitimate giveaways, nor were they offered by Delta Air Lines. Always remember with online offers that if they seem too good to be true, they probably are. Worse, they are likely to be phishing scams that can result in both privacy and monetary losses for victims. First, Delta Air Lines was not giving away $500 gift cards for $1 each. Even something as small as $5 gift cards for $1 each would make little sense, as it would be putting Delta or other airlines in the position of losing money to the throngs who would buy up the cards. The scam ads read as follows: Elevate your travel experience with Delta! We're giving you an extraordinary opportunity to fuel your dreams of exploration. For only $1, you can get a $500 gift card - a limited time offer that's too good to pass up. It's time to see why Delta isn't just an airline, it's the Delta difference. Apply now and book your next Delta journey today! The paid ads on Facebook and Instagram led to a fake survey onduwucuu.info. After filling out the survey, the scam led users towb.giftgiveaways.xyz where they were asked to fill out personal information and a credit card number. As for the email scam that promised $100 Delta Air Lines \"rewards\" or gift cards for taking a survey, the messages were often coming from \"ozdxuofbqh.asahi.com via loi5sir.classyield.site.\" Clicking the link in the message led to a strangely-labeled \"Hitech Research\" website onignitesurge.org. The page instructed users to take a survey and then pick a \"free\" offer on gadgetspromodeals.com or other websites. However, these \"free\" offers came with monthly subscription fees that were hidden in the terms and conditions. Nowhere on these pages did we find a box for customers to check to indicate that they agreed to the fine print that appeared on another page. The domain name giftgiveaways.xyz was last registered on May 15, just seven days before we looked into the \"$500 gift cards for $1\" scam. Meanwhile, ignitesurge.org, the website associated with the $100 Delta Air Lines \"reward\" email scam, was last registered on April 5. Newly-registered domain names are often a big red flag associated with scams. We advise all readers to do their due diligence before giving their credit card number to a website they've never heard of. Scammers often hide subscription fees in terms and conditions and purposely do not mention these fees anywhere on the product checkout pages. Contact your credit card company immediately if you believe you have given your credit card number to scammers. Delta Air Lines hosts a page about the scams they've seen over the years, including gift card promotional websites: page Over the years, Delta has received reports of attempts by parties not affiliated with us to fraudulently gather customer information in a number of ways including: fraudulent emails, social media sites, postcards, Gift Card promotional websites claiming to be from Delta Air Lines and letters or prize notifications promising free travel. These messages were not sent by Delta Air Lines. We do not market to our customers this way, but individuals or groups intending to gather and use your personal data for their gain can be inventive in their approach often adding messages to generate a sense of urgency so you take action. Scammers know that airfare can be quite pricey. By pushing fake offers for cheaper airline tickets, they attempt to scam the masses with their fraudulent schemes. If readers encounter offers in the future that seem suspicious, we recommend contacting the airline company directly to ask questions. For further reading n the realm of \"way too good to be true,\" we once covered anotherscam that claimed Delta Air Lines was giving away first-class air travel tickets and $10,000 in cash. scam \"Protect Your Data.\" Delta Air Lines, https://www.delta.com/us/en/legal/privacy-and-security/protect-your-data.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qK4KOebEU81eWItO5Blz1DBPfmqw6FE5", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1SpT88JBhOlBOCFHOLvgxGA_eNMCcg3os", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Delta Air Lines hosts a page about the scams they've seen over the years, including gift card promotional websites:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.delta.com/us/en/legal/privacy-and-security/protect-your-data" ] }, { "sentence": "For further reading n the realm of \"way too good to be true,\" we once covered anotherscam that claimed Delta Air Lines was giving away first-class air travel tickets and $10,000 in cash.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/delta-airlines-ticket-scam/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/aug/11/kevin-boyce/ohio-treasurer-kevin-boyce-twice-cut-his-own-pay/", "claim": "Ive even cut my own salary -- twice.", "author": "Joe Guillen", "posted": "08/11/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Elected officials pay can be a sensitive topic with taxpayers, especially in todays economic climate. So its no surprise Ohio Treasurer Kevin Boyce, who is running in November to keep his job, is bragging about cutting his salary.Boyce talked about his six-figure earnings in a YouTube video released by his office. Presented as a preview of the offices forthcoming annual financial report, the production feels more like a tribute to Boyces performance as treasurer aimed directly at voters.Ive even cut my salary -- twice, said Boyce, a Democrat and former Columbus city councilman.Boyce was appointed Treasurer in late 2008. Richard Cordray left a vacancy when he took the state attorney generals job in the wake of Marc Danns resignation.Annual salaries for the states elected officials are set in state law, which lawmakers can amend to increase or decrease pay. The treasurers salary has been set at $109,986 since 2008.In June 2009, Boyce sent a memo to the state Department of Administrative Services saying he was taking a pay cut that would reduce his gross salary that year to $107,874. The pay cut, effective July 1, 2009, was the equivalent of taking five unpaid furlough days, a cost-saving measure that has been forced upon many state employees.In the same memo, Boyce authorized an extension of the reduction for all of 2010. This years pay cut is the equivalent of 10 unpaid furlough days, according to the administrative services department.Boyces gross salary this year will be $105,757.Boyce lumped both cuts -- each about 2 percent -- in the same memo, but he effectively trimmed his salary twice. Had he not extended the cut into 2010, his pay wouldve jumped back up to $109,986, a spokeswoman for the administrative services department said.We find Boyces statement True. Comment on this item.", "issues": [ "Ohio", "Message Machine 2010", "State Budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Comment on this item.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/08/ohio_treasurer_kevin_boyce_twi.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/children-detention-center-trump/", "claim": "Do Photos Show Children at Detention Center Under Trump's Watch?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/25/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Conditions at immigration detention facilities have been poor, to say the least, for years. " ], "justification": "In June 2019, a variety of news outlets published reports detailing the horrid conditions at immigrant detention centers along the United States' southern border. The Associated Press, for instance, quoted a lawyer named Warren Binford, who visited a facility in Texas and spoke to some of the immigrant children detained within, saying that the kids were living in \"inhumane conditions.\" ABC News obtained a medical declaration that likened these detention centers to torture facilities. Associated Press ABC News As outrage from these reports grew online, actress Nancy Lee Grahn posted a set of photographs that supposedly documented these conditions and accused the Trump administration of forcing children to \"sleep on cement floor with an aluminum blanket & lights on all night\": Nancy Lee Grahn While the text of Grahn's tweet accurately reflects recent news reports, the photographs she used to illustrate her point were not taken during U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. These photographs are actually still images from a surveillance camera at a Border Patrol holding facility in Tucson, Ariz., in August 2015. The images were released as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Immigration Council and the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection concerning the conditions at the agency's temporary holding facilities. lawsuit Here's an excerpt from an NPR report: NPR The holding cells were designed to be used for temporary holding a period of hours. The American Immigration Council analyzed Border Patrol data and concluded that from September 2014 to August 2015, two-thirds of immigrants detained in Border Patrol facilities in the Southwest were held for more than 24 hours, and tens of thousands of people were held for more than three days. Photos of the cells show people crowded together in concrete cells. Several images show prisoners sitting or sleeping on bare floors with no mats available to them even when there are unused mats in empty cells. While these photographs were taken during the Obama administration, the conditions described in Grahn's tweet still apply to the detention facilities operating under Trump. Physician Dolly Lucio Sevier was granted access to a detention center after a flu outbreak sent five infants to the neonatal intensive care unit. In a medical declaration obtained by ABC News, Sevier compared the conditions to a \"torture facility\" and wrote that minors were dealing with \"extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.\" ABC News Binford, a law professor, told NPR: \"They are worse than actual prison conditions. It is inhumane. It's nothing that I ever imagined seeing in the United States of America.\" NPR The second part of Grahn's tweet mentions \"Sarah Fabian\" and claims that companies are making $750 day to detain immigrant children. Fabian is a Department of Justice lawyer who attempted to defend the conditions at detention centers during a June 2019 Court of Appeals hearing. According to the Washington Post: defend The government went to federal court this week to argue that it shouldnt be required to give detained migrant children toothbrushes, soap, towels, showers or even half a nights sleep inside Border Patrol detention facilities. The position bewildered a panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday, who questioned whether government lawyers sincerely believed they could describe the temporary detention facilities as safe and sanitary if children werent provided adequate toiletries and sleeping conditions. One circuit judge said it struck him as inconceivable.\" [...] The government was in court to appeal a 2017 ruling finding that child migrants and their parents were detained in dirty, crowded, bitingly cold conditions inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities along the southern border. Migrants are first taken to those facilities after they are apprehended at the border. [...] U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee had found that migrants in Rio Grande Valley facilities were hungry, with some eating only sandwiches of two pieces of dry bread and one slice of ham. They were thirsty, with up to 20 migrants sharing the same cup to drink from the water cooler. They were embarrassed to use a toilet in front of 50 other people and they couldnt take a shower or brush their teeth or even wash their hands with soap and dry them with a towel, the judge found. At night, they couldnt sleep. The lights were left on, as they shivered beneath an aluminum blanket on the concrete floor, the judge found. Gee ruled in June 2017 that these Obama-era conditions violated a 1997 settlement agreement requiring that immigrant children in the governments custody be housed in safe and sanitary conditions, and that the government maintain concern for the particular vulnerability of minors. But the Trump administration protested. The 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, didnt say anything about providing a toothbrush, towels, dry clothing, soap, or even sleep, the administration has argued. Grahn's claim that companies make $750 \"a kid a day to torture them\" relates to the fact that some immigration detention centers are owned and operated by private for-profit companies. Reuters reported in February 2019 that while it costs about $250 per day to hold a child at a permanent detention center, the cost can triple at temporary, privately owned, for-profit facilities such as the \"Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children\": Reuters As the government seeks to rapidly expand the sites capacity, it has waived a federal requirement at Homestead meant to ensure children receive sufficient health care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which cares for the children, previously required Homestead to maintain a clinician-to-child ratio of 1 to 12 to provide mental health services, according to a November 2018 report. But that requirement has been relaxed to 1 to 20, a Homestead program director said on Wednesday. The facility sits on federal property, and unlike established childrens shelters, such as smaller group or foster homes that hold migrant children across the country, is not governed by state child welfare regulations designed to protect youngsters from harm. [...] About 35 miles south of Miami, the facility is run by Comprehensive Health Services, Inc., a private, for-profit company with a growing line of business in housing immigrant children. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, the firms parent company, Caliburn International Corp., noted President Donald Trumps immigration policies were driving significant growth. It costs approximately $250 per day to house a migrant child at a standard, permanent shelter, said Mark Weber, an HHS spokesman. But at an influx facility like Homestead, the cost is triple that - around $750 per day. It is covered by American taxpayers. To sum up: Viral photographs supposedly documenting the conditions at immigration detention facilities under the Trump administration were actually taken in 2015 during Obama's tenure. The poor conditions at these Obama-era centers have continued or worsened under Trump. Flynn, Meagan. \"Detained Migrant Children Got No Toothbrush, No Soap, No Sleep. Its No Problem, Government Argues.\"\r Washington Post. 21 June 2019. Torbati, Yeganeh; Cooke, Kristina. \"First Stop for Migrant Kids: For-Profit Detention Center.\"\r Reuters. 14 February 2019. Domonoske, Camila. \"Surveillance Stills From Border Patrol Facilities Show Crowded, Trash-Filled Cells.\"\r NPR. 19 August 2016. Gonzales, Richard. \"Obama Immigrant Detention Policies Under Fire.\"\r NPR. 12 June 2015. Marhsall, Serena; Zak, Lana; Metz, Jennifer. \"Doctor Compares Conditions for Unaccompanied Children at Immigrant Holding Centers to 'Torture Facilities.'\"\r ABC News. 23 June 2019. PBS News Hour. \"A Firsthand Report of 'Inhumane Conditions' at a Migrant Childrens Detention Facility.\"\r 21 June 2019. PBS News Hour. \"A Firsthand Report of 'Inhumane Conditions' at a Migrant Childrens Detention Facility.\"\r 21 June 2019.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1XhZbDH6YHjbVUepcYcMaaUI94bfHNiiG", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In June 2019, a variety of news outlets published reports detailing the horrid conditions at immigrant detention centers along the United States' southern border. The Associated Press, for instance, quoted a lawyer named Warren Binford, who visited a facility in Texas and spoke to some of the immigrant children detained within, saying that the kids were living in \"inhumane conditions.\" ABC News obtained a medical declaration that likened these detention centers to torture facilities.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-firsthand-report-of-inhumane-conditions-at-a-migrant-childrens-detention-facility", "https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doctor-compares-conditions-immigrant-holding-centers-torture-facilities/story?id=63879031" ] }, { "sentence": "As outrage from these reports grew online, actress Nancy Lee Grahn posted a set of photographs that supposedly documented these conditions and accused the Trump administration of forcing children to \"sleep on cement floor with an aluminum blanket & lights on all night\": ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/NancyLeeGrahn/status/1142089522487762944" ] }, { "sentence": "These photographs are actually still images from a surveillance camera at a Border Patrol holding facility in Tucson, Ariz., in August 2015. The images were released as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Immigration Council and the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection concerning the conditions at the agency's temporary holding facilities.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/12/414023967/obama-immigrant-detention-policies-under-fire" ] }, { "sentence": "Here's an excerpt from an NPR report:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/19/490624225/surveillance-stills-from-border-patrol-facilities-show-crowded-trash-filled-cell" ] }, { "sentence": "Physician Dolly Lucio Sevier was granted access to a detention center after a flu outbreak sent five infants to the neonatal intensive care unit. In a medical declaration obtained by ABC News, Sevier compared the conditions to a \"torture facility\" and wrote that minors were dealing with \"extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doctor-compares-conditions-immigrant-holding-centers-torture-facilities/story?id=63879031" ] }, { "sentence": "Binford, a law professor, told NPR: \"They are worse than actual prison conditions. It is inhumane. It's nothing that I ever imagined seeing in the United States of America.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/2019/06/23/735191289/law-professor-describes-poor-conditions-where-migrant-children-are-held" ] }, { "sentence": "The second part of Grahn's tweet mentions \"Sarah Fabian\" and claims that companies are making $750 day to detain immigrant children. Fabian is a Department of Justice lawyer who attempted to defend the conditions at detention centers during a June 2019 Court of Appeals hearing. According to the Washington Post: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/06/21/detained-migrant-children-no-toothbrush-soap-sleep/" ] }, { "sentence": "Reuters reported in February 2019 that while it costs about $250 per day to hold a child at a permanent detention center, the cost can triple at temporary, privately owned, for-profit facilities such as the \"Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children\": ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children/first-stop-for-migrant-kids-for-profit-detention-center-idUSKCN1Q3261" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/churchill-on-islam/", "claim": "Winston Churchill on Islam", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/08/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: Winston Churchill commented on the 'dreadful curses of Mohammedanism' in his 1899 book 'The River Wars.'" ], "justification": " Claim: Winston Churchill wrote about the \"dreadful curses of Mohammedanism\" in his 1899 book The River Wars. Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] Origins: An obscure quote attributed to British statesman Winston Churchill has been circulating on the Internet since at least May 2013, when Missouri State Representative Rick Stream sent an e-mail to his colleagues warning about the dangers of Islam. That e-mail cited a passage said to have been taken from a speech by Churchill, as reproduced in his 1899 book The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan: He was a brave young soldier, a brilliant journalist, an extraordinary politician and statesman, a great war leader and Prime Minister, to whom the Western world must be forever in his debt. He was a prophet in his own time; He died on 24 January 1965, at the grand old age of 90 and, after a lifetime of service to his country, was accorded a State funeral. How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. The above-quoted passage did appear in The River War when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899, but the selection was removed when the book was condensed into one volume and republished in 1902. While the one-volume abridged edition of The River War is still readily available, as of January 2015 the original two-volume 1899 version is much harder to find, a condition which may have led to confusion about the origins of the quote in question. However, the Churchill Centre has confirmed these words were indeed written by Winston Churchill. confirmed The passage as reproduced on the Internet typically incorporates one small omission, though: it elides Churchill's praise of \"Moslems\" as \"brave and loyal soldiers\" and covers the gap by combining the remaining part of the sentence with the previous one: Last updated: 8 January 2015 ", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Z8lwmlpwntjiWCNCX5Y0LVmafHKvBT2y", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The above-quoted passage did appear in The River War when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899, but the selection was removed when the book was condensed into one volume and republished in 1902. While the one-volume abridged edition of The River War is still readily available, as of January 2015 the original two-volume 1899 version is much harder to find, a condition which may have led to confusion about the origins of the quote in question. However, the Churchill Centre has confirmed these words were indeed written by Winston Churchill.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/118-finest-hour-113/3749-datelines" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/15/donald-trump/trump-botches-japanese-bowling-ball-test/", "claim": "In Japan, they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify...It's horrible, the way we're treated.", "author": "Jon Greenberg", "posted": "03/15/2018", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "President Donald Trump often speaks of how other countries treat American products unfairly. At a private fundraising event in Missouri, Trump singled out a particular practice in Japan. It's called the bowling ball test. Do you know what that is? Trump said, according to a recording obtained by theWashington Post.That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air, and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify. It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible. TheWashington Postnoted, It was unclear what he was talking about. So we wanted to look into it. We asked the White House press office what Trump had in mind and got no comment. In her regular press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was just joking. However, we found something that loosely fits what he described. There are no bowling balls, and no 20-foot drop. But Japans National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victim Aid does whats called apedestrian head protection performance test. Its designed to measure the force someones head would absorb if a car hit them. This involves firing a carefully calibrated hemisphere-shaped device (so, more like half of a bowling ball) at the hood and windshield. The device records the force. Heres a graphic from the agencys website: Note that the largest head impactor is 4.5 kilograms, or about 10 pounds. So, the details about a bowling ball, the weight and the height of the drop are all wrong. But those details aside, Trump also got the purpose and nature of the test totally wrong. When he said, If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify, that would be a test of the strength of the hood. In contrast, the test is all about a persons head and the force it has to absorb in an accident. Its the complete opposite, said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategy, a private firm that studies vehicle and consumer product safety. In fact, the more a hood dents or flexes, the better it is for the head of the unlucky pedestrian. Its akin to any other type of crash, Kane said. You look at cars today, and the impact damage to cars is much greater. Theres a lot of crush, but thats to absorb the energy and keep it away from people. Abiomedical engineering dissertationfrom Wayne State University made the same point: To lower head injury criterion, two main principles are necessary: provision of sufficient deformation space and provision of a low stiffness of the impacted vehicle body parts. However, Trump got one element correct. American cars sold in Japan, at least all models made this decade, have to meet the Japanese safety standard. So Trump was correct that this is a hurdle for American car makers. Its worth noting that Europe has a similar standard. Inthe early 2000s, the problem of cars hitting pedestrians was worse in Europe and Japan than in the United States. In Japan, for example, 27 percent of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians hit by cars. In the United States, it was 13 percent. The head impact test is a standardized test and has been there for many years, said Pankaj Mallick, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Our car companies are very much aware of this, but at this time, there are no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements to do this test for qualification of a car hood. Kane noted that the United States stands out for having lower safety standards than Europe and Japan. If U.S. car makers wanted to make safer cars, they could sell them in both markets, he said. If they dont, thats a business decision. Trump said that in Japan, they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. American cars must meet a Japanese standard. But Trump mangled the highly controlled process, which does not involve a bowling ball dropped from 20 feet. Where Trump really goes astray is on the purpose of the test; he has it backward. Its not about seeing if the hood is strong. The more a hood gives way, the better it is for the head of a pedestrian. Trumps understanding of the test is so far off the mark, we rate this claim False.", "issues": [ "National", "Public Safety", "Trade" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1d4ZgZqqJZ-nlbZ1WJ6PpJsZzc9Gt7M8d", "image_caption": "Washington Post." } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "It's called the bowling ball test. Do you know what that is? Trump said, according to a recording obtained by theWashington Post.That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air, and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify. It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/03/14/in-fundraising-speech-trump-says-he-made-up-facts-in-meeting-with-justin-trudeau/?utm_term=.c910225a4abf" ] }, { "sentence": "There are no bowling balls, and no 20-foot drop. But Japans National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victim Aid does whats called apedestrian head protection performance test. Its designed to measure the force someones head would absorb if a car hit them.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nasva.go.jp/mamoru/en/assessment_car/head_protection_test.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Abiomedical engineering dissertationfrom Wayne State University made the same point: To lower head injury criterion, two main principles are necessary: provision of sufficient deformation space and provision of a low stiffness of the impacted vehicle body parts.", "hrefs": [ "https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1884&context=oa_dissertations" ] }, { "sentence": "Its worth noting that Europe has a similar standard. Inthe early 2000s, the problem of cars hitting pedestrians was worse in Europe and Japan than in the United States. In Japan, for example, 27 percent of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians hit by cars. In the United States, it was 13 percent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/pedestrianimpacts2001esv.pdf.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-news-vindman-statement/", "claim": "Was Fox News Removed From 'Armed Forces Radio' Over Vindman Segment?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/22/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Fox News was criticized for a segment on Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's testimony during the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump. " ], "justification": "On Nov. 21, 2019, a rumor started to circulate on social media that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) had removed Fox News from \"Armed Forces Radio\" over the network's coverage of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's testimony during the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump: circulate No, Fox News has not been removed from \"Armed Forces Radio,\" a misnomer of the American Forces Network Radio (AFN). Navy Capt. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesperson, confirmed to the Associated Press that this rumor was false: Associated Press \"We have not cancelled Fox News from American Forces Network programming, either on our radio or TV services.\" A spokesperson for American Forces Network Radio told us via email: American Forces Network (AFN) Radio has and continues to air FOX radio newscasts and features on many of our radio services. AFN Radio rotates top of the hour radio newscasts between FOX, Associated Press, ABC, CBS and Westwood One radio. While Fox News was not removed from America Forces Network Radio, the network truly was criticized for how it covered Vindman's testimony. Vindman's lawyer sent a letter to Fox News asking it to retract an Oct. 28 segment that aired on Laura Ingraham's prime-time show, \"The Ingraham Angle.\" On the show, guest John Yoo, a former deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, appeared to suggest that Vindman was guilty of espionage. letter Newsweek reported: reported A law firm representing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman sent Fox News a warning letter on Wednesday asking for the retraction and correction of a segment on Laura Ingraham's show which suggested the colonel might be guilty of espionage. \"We are compelled to write because of a deeply flawed and erroneous Fox News segment that first aired on October 28, 2019, the gist of which has since been republished countless times, including by the President of the United States to his 66.9 million Twitter followers.\" The segment on The Ingraham Angle featured a panel with lawyer John Yoo, a former Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General and current U.C. Berkeley law professor, and legal scholar, Alan Dershowitz. In an exchange with Yoo, Ingraham remarked on something she read about about the colonel, the New York Times reports. \"Here we have a U.S. national security official who is advising Ukraine, while working inside the White House, apparently against the president's interest, and usually, they spoke in English,\" said Ingraham. \"Isn't that kind of an interesting angle on this story?\" \"I find that astounding and, you know, some people might call that espionage,\" responded Yoo. Fox News released a statement saying that \"Yoo was responsible for his own sentiments\": As a guest on FOX News, John Yoo was responsible for his own sentiments and he has subsequently done interviews to clarify what he meant. Yoo also wrote an op-ed for USA Today on Nov. 1, 2019, in which he claimed that he was talking about Ukraine, not Vindman specifically, and that he has \"no reason to question Vindmans patriotism or loyalty to the United States.\" USA Today Vindman's lawyers also addressed Yoo's Op-Ed in their complaint, writing: writing \"On November 1, 2019, Mr. Yoo published an op-ed in USA Today regarding his appearance on Fox News several days earlier. In the Yoo op-ed, Mr. Yoo stated, contrary to fact, that \"I didn't call Alexander Vindman a spy.\" But of course, he did - Mr. Yoo's statement on Fox News expressly accused LTC Vindman of \"espionage\" and was universally understood to have done so. it is why Mr. Yoo wrote an op-ed seeking to rewrite recorded fact; it is why he begins his op-ed, \"I really stepped in it this week.\" What Mr. Yoo \"stepped in\" was a lie. Darcy, Oliver. \"Lawyer for Impeachment Witness Lt. Col Vindman Demands Fox News Retract 'False and Defamatory' Segment.\"\r CNN. 21 November 2019. Associated Press. \"Fox News Was Not Removed From Armed Forces Radio Over Vindman Testimony.\"\r 21 November 2019. Yoo, John. \"John Yoo: No, I Didn't Call Alexander Vindman a Spy. But Ukraine Did Engage in Espionage.\"\r USA Today. 1 November 2019.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pld-7W2VINxZivy52jPGlOtQRiICF4xH", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Nov. 21, 2019, a rumor started to circulate on social media that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) had removed Fox News from \"Armed Forces Radio\" over the network's coverage of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's testimony during the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump:", "hrefs": [ "https://mobile.twitter.com/24baseballReed/status/1197625568562421764" ] }, { "sentence": "Navy Capt. Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesperson, confirmed to the Associated Press that this rumor was false:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8153761166" ] }, { "sentence": "While Fox News was not removed from America Forces Network Radio, the network truly was criticized for how it covered Vindman's testimony. Vindman's lawyer sent a letter to Fox News asking it to retract an Oct. 28 segment that aired on Laura Ingraham's prime-time show, \"The Ingraham Angle.\" On the show, guest John Yoo, a former deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, appeared to suggest that Vindman was guilty of espionage.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6555531-VIndman-Boies-LETTER.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Newsweek reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newsweek.com/vindman-sends-letter-fox-news-seeking-retraction-after-ingraham-suggests-he-might-guilty-1473131" ] }, { "sentence": "Yoo also wrote an op-ed for USA Today on Nov. 1, 2019, in which he claimed that he was talking about Ukraine, not Vindman specifically, and that he has \"no reason to question Vindmans patriotism or loyalty to the United States.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/11/01/john-yoo-alexander-vindman-ukraine-espionage-testimony-column/4111757002/" ] }, { "sentence": "Vindman's lawyers also addressed Yoo's Op-Ed in their complaint, writing:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6555531-VIndman-Boies-LETTER.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jan/16/kevin-flynn/ri-planner-kevin-flynn-nothing-rhodemap-ri-plan-ta/", "claim": "Theres nothing in the [RhodeMap RI] plan that takes away local government control and local zoning control.", "author": "Katie Mulvaney", "posted": "01/16/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "The RhodeMap RI long-term economic development plan continues to spark controversy throughout Rhode Island. This week, Republican legislators saidthey would submit legislationto free municipalities from having to incorporate it in their local planning. That follows comments House Speaker Nicholas Mattiellomade in December to radio station WPRO-AM. Mattiello said, the plan is never going to come before the House or the Senate in its totality and were never going to vote on it. The controversy started in mid-September with the release of a 200-page draft of the plan, which is meant to guide efforts to improve the states economy. During meetings that sometimes descended into shouting matches, critics said that if RhodeMap RI were implemented, local cities and towns would be relinquishing control to the federal government on affordable housing and land-use issues because the plan was paid for, in part, by a $1.9 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant. Supporters said there's nothing in the plan that would infringe on individual property rights or local control over zoning. Because the debate is likely to continue in the coming months, we decided to examine a statement made late last year by Kevin M. Flynn, associate director for planning for the state Division of Planning, who oversaw the plans development. Addressing concerns about ceding municipal control,Flynn told EcoRI News,theres nothing in the plan that takes away local government control and local zoning control. We asked Flynnhow he backed up his statement. While we waited for a response, we read through the RhodeMap RI plan, and found nothing to indicate a threat to local control, suggesting Flynns statement was accurate. But things got more complicated when we looked at other documents, including the Planning Divisions grant application, the grant agreement, and HUDs description of the Sustainable Regional Planning Grant Program, the source of the $1.9 million. According to HUD, the program is intended to support planning efforts that integrate land use, economic and workforce development, transportation and infrastructure investments. It also aims to enable local and state planners to consider such issues as energy use, climate change, public health and social equity in economic planning. Agencies that apply for such grants must agree to generate plans aimed at producing, among other objectives, equitable land use planning that furthers the federal Fair Housing Act and complies with other civil rights laws. And those agencies must agree to analyze and overcome barriers to housing discrimination -- in HUDs words, to affirmatively further fair housing. Critics view those provisions with alarm, saying they essentially give the federal government license to override state and local government control. They point to a long-running legal dispute involving New Yorks Westchester County as Exhibit A. More on that in a moment. When Flynn got back to us, he referred us to Article XIII of the Rhode Island Constitution, which empowers cities and towns to adopt and amend their charters, and enact and amend local land use laws. He also cited state zoning enabling legislation, which delegates zoning authority to cities and towns. A plan is simply that. A plan, Flynn said. A plan has no power to modify constitutional or statutory law. The economic development plan could never supercede state law, he said. That is a basic tenet of our jurisprudence. Looking for more impartial views,we reached out to more than 10 national housing law experts. The four who responded agreed that communities do not cede zoning control when they accept HUD grants. But they had some caveats. For example, Brian Gilmore, an associate professor and director of the Housing Clinic at Michigan State University College of Law, said, I wouldnt say theyve ceded total control. I would say they have obligations. Robert G. Schwemm, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said much the same thing. Its illegal to use local zoning power to maintain segregation, Schwemm said. However, HUD has no direct power over local zoning authority, Schwemm said. HUD could deny the grant or take back money, but thats a remote possibility, he said. The idea of a fund cutoff is virtually unheard of, because historically, the Fair Housing Act has been enforced weakly. Theyre doing more than has been done in the past, he said of the Obama administration. HUDs Annual Report on Fair Housing 2012-2013 showed that the agency received 495 analyses by cities and towns examining fair housing choice. Of those, HUD took enforcement action in five instances. Heres why Westchester County is important. In 2006, a housing advocacy group sued the county in federal court, arguing that it had defrauded taxpayers by accepting $50 million in HUD grant money while failing to remove barriers to fair housing as required by its agreement with HUD. HUD later became a plaintiff in the suit. A judge ultimately agreed with the plaintiffs, and a landmark settlement was reached requiring the county to spend $50 million to build or acquire 750 affordable-housing units in communities that were more than 90 percent white. Now, the county and HUD are fighting over whether the county has complied with the settlement and whether it must amend its zoning ordinances to do so. The county has lost at least $20 million in HUD grants so far. We contacted the county for its take on HUD grants and local control. The experience in Westchester has been caveat emptor, said Ned McCormack, Westchester communications director and senior adviser to County Executive Robert P. Astorino, using the Latin phrase for buyer beware. Once you take any money from HUD, your interpretation of what is expected in return and their interpretation vary widely. Our ruling Kevin M. Flynn said nothing in the RhodeMap RI plan takes away local government control and local zoning control. Technically, there is nothing in the plans language that appears to compromise local zoning law or control. But his statement doesnt acknowledge the strings attached to the HUD grant. In accepting the $1.9 million from HUD to develop the plan, the state agreed to, among other things, expand housing opportunities for underserved populations on the basis of race, ethnicity, or economic status and, thus, is obligated to do so. In fact, HUD has taken legal action against grant recipients such as Westchester County that, in its view, failed to live up to its agreement. Its rare, but it has happened. For the record, in December, 26 Rhode Island cities and towns were awarded nearly $5.3 million in HUD grants through the Community Development Block Grant program On balance, we rate Flynns claim is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, our definition of Half True. (Correction: Article XIII of the Rhode Island Constitution spells out home rule for cities and towns. The article number was incorrect in the original version of this item.)", "issues": [ "Rhode Island", "City Government", "Economy", "Government Regulation", "Regulation", "States" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/politifact%2Fphotos%2FRhodeMapRI_logo.JPG", "image_caption": "(Correction: Article XIII of the Rhode Island Constitution spells out home rule for cities and towns. The article number was incorrect in the original version of this item.)" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This week, Republican legislators saidthey would submit legislationto free municipalities from having to incorporate it in their local planning.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.providencejournal.com/politics/content/20150111-gop-legislators-move-to-block-rhodemap-ri.ece" ] }, { "sentence": "That follows comments House Speaker Nicholas Mattiellomade in December to radio station WPRO-AM. Mattiello said, the plan is never going to come before the House or the Senate in its totality and were never going to vote on it.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.630wpro.com/2014/12/12/news-speaker-mattiello-says-rhodemap-will-sit-on-the-shelf/" ] }, { "sentence": "Addressing concerns about ceding municipal control,Flynn told EcoRI News,theres nothing in the plan that takes away local government control and local zoning control.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.ecori.org/government/2014/11/24/rhodemap-ri-opponents-win-delay-on-vote.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/apr/15/virginia-foxx/it-takes-americans-61-billion-hours-prepare-their-/", "claim": "Americans spend 6.1 billion hours a year on tax preparation.", "author": "Tim Ryan", "posted": "04/15/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Tax day has come around again, and with it a startling claim about the amount of time Americans spend doing their taxes each year. According to U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., it takes United States taxpayers a total of 6.1 billion hours to file their taxes. That adds up to more than 695,000 years. 6.1 Billion hours a year, just to figure out how much money the government is going to take, she said ina post on Twitter. We had to check to see if this number could possibly be accurate. According to Foxxs office, the number comes from the Taxpayer Advocate Services 2013 report to Congress, which tackled the issue of the complexity of the U.S. tax code. In 2012, the National Taxpayer Advocate has designated the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) as one of the most serious problems facing taxpayers, the report reads. The existing code, by our count, has reached nearly four million words and imposes unconscionable burden on taxpayers. Our analysis of IRS data indicates that individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. Its important to note that the report comes to the number by calculating the estimated combined time businesses and individuals spend filing taxes, not just that of private citizens. The Taxpayer Advocate Service is an independent group within the Internal Revenue Service that is tasked with helping taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS and recommend changes that will prevent the problems. The number was calculated by multiplying the number of times each type of tax form was filed in 2010 by the amount of time the IRS estimates it takes to complete each form, according to Ken Drexler, a media relations officer at the Taxpayer Advocate Service. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 requires federal agencies to estimate the amount of time it takes to fill out a given piece of paperwork. Its the best number you can come up with, but its not necessarily a number you would take to the bank, Drexler said, noting it would take longer for someone unfamiliar with a form to complete it than someone who has done so many times before. Accountants and tax professionals, for example, could fill out the forms faster than an average filer. In other words, the estimate might have flaws, but it is the best guess as to the time it takes for businesses and individuals to fill out tax paperwork. In a2011 report, the Laffer Center for Supply Side Economics further broke down the 6.1 billion hour figure, finding that individuals spend 3.16 billion of those hours filling out tax forms, while businesses clock in at 2.94 billion hours. The estimate has remained the same since 2010. In 2009, the Taxpayer Advocate Service concluded Americans spent a whopping 7.6 billion hours completing the forms. Our ruling Foxx said, 6.1 billion hours a year, just to figure out how much money the government is going to take. The number came from the Taxpayer Advocate Services 2013 report to Congress, which stated that individuals and businesses spent 6.1 billion hours preparing their taxes. Its important to note that the figure is an estimate. It comes from taking the number of tax forms filed in the last year and multiplying it by the IRSs estimate of the time it takes to prepare the forms. Foxxs larger point, that it takes a very long time for Americans to comply with filing their federal taxes, is accurate. The number is an estimate, but its from a credible, independent report. We rate this statement True.", "issues": [ "National", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "6.1 Billion hours a year, just to figure out how much money the government is going to take, she said ina post on Twitter.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/virginiafoxx/status/456087219112255488" ] }, { "sentence": "In a2011 report, the Laffer Center for Supply Side Economics further broke down the 6.1 billion hour figure, finding that individuals spend 3.16 billion of those hours filling out tax forms, while businesses clock in at 2.94 billion hours.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.laffercenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2011-Laffer-TaxCodeComplexity.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cellphones-homeland-security/", "claim": "Facebook Posts About Homeland Security Memos and 'Hacked' Cellphones Are Misleading", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "03/28/2022", "sci_digest": [ "\"Don't know if this is true but better safe than sorry,\" one Facebook user posted." ], "justification": "In late March 2022, we looked into two viral and false Facebook posts that were copied and pasted by countless users. One of the posts, which was also purportedly received as a text message alert, claimed that \"cellphones are being hacked\" to steal banking information. The misleading copypasta post said that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned U.S. citizens to \"keep your fuel topped off,\" to gather cash and food, and to plan for the uncertainties surrounding the potential global impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Facebook copypasta U.S. Department of Homeland Security Russia's invasion Ukraine The first message appeared to warn of a potential Russian cyberattack and read as follows: Russian FYI\"Please be aware,Just received this:ALERTCellphones Are Being Hacked!You Get Called And Get Asked If You've Been Vaccinated Or Not. Then You're Told To Press 1 Or 2 As An Answer And Boom All Your Banking Information Is Accessed. People Are Loosing Money. Please Alert Them Not To Respond!Also, homeland security says because of what's going on with Ukraine, keep your fuel topped off and store up some cash in case ATMs get hacked and credit card systems are unavailable. We know it's possible since the fuel lines were hacked once before recently. So glad God provides for his own. Just do our part and keep praying. PASS it on\" The second viral message did not mention cellphones but did keep the Homeland Security part. It added lines about keeping \"basic food,\" \"emergency preparedness supplies,\" and a \"family emergency plan\" all ready to go: SHARING#ShareThis: Received this as a text this morning. From the Office of Homeland Security that encouraged us to take the following precautions:- Have basic food and emergency preparedness supplies available.- Have some cash on-hand in case ATM's or credit card readers are unavailable.- Do not allow your vehicles to get low on fuel.- Ensure that you have a family emergency plan.They said, \"we have no information to suggest a specific credible cyber threat against the US Homeland\", but stressed \"it is our responsibility to be prepared\" because \"Russia has significant offensive cyber capabilities\". They said \"we are mindful of the potential for the Russian government to consider escalating its destabilizing actions in ways that may impact others outside of Ukraine.\" ?Pass on There's some truth to these two viral posts. At the same time, they're also quite misleading. We've been publishing debunkings of similarly scary-sounding yet harmless Facebook posts for many years. publishing debunkings Facebook posts As for the first post, we found no evidence that pressing a single digit on a mobile phone after receiving a call could release \"all your banking information\" to be \"hacked\" and stolen. Such a result, if it happened, would amount to some kind of fantasy or magic that doesn't have a possibility of happening in reality. fantasy magic Source: Facebook As for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims in both posts, these also were fairly misleading. Homeland Security did not issue a memo or any guidance to all U.S. citizens to \"keep your fuel topped off\" or to \"store up some cash\" due to the war in Ukraine. U.S. Department of Homeland Security Ukraine Source: Facebook The quotes at the end of the second post came from an interview with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a letter from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). an interview a letter The partial truth of these posts was that CISA did issue some guidance to federal agencies and organizations to be prepared for a cyberattack during the conflict in Ukraine. An initiative, dubbed \"Shields Up,\" specifically provided recommendations for agencies and organizations, not all citizens, to beef up security and to \"plan for the worst.\" did issue some guidance Ukraine The Hill reported that this guidance for federal employees and workers at organizations did include keeping fuel topped off and having extra food, cash, and other supplies ready as part of a \"personal and professional preparedness\" plan. However, again, this wasn't meant for all U.S. citizens. reported On the website Ready.gov, which is officially operated by Homeland Security, the department published a page for all citizens about how to be prepared for a cyberattack. Nowhere on the page did it say anything about storing up \"basic food,\" \"emergency preparedness supplies,\" or a \"family emergency plan.\" (Some of these components are mentioned for other disasters such as the event of a nuclear explosion, however.) Ready.gov page nuclear explosion KHOU previously published a debunking of the first viral post that mentioned, \"cellphones are being hacked.\" The outlet reported that it had received the following statement from a spokesperson for the department: \"The Department of Homeland Security did not send this text message alert.\" published We reached out to the department to independently confirm the statement sent to KHOU and to find out if it had anything else to add. This story will be updated if we receive further information.", "issues": [ "banking" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YMsX7GdF67ewWlXNEVLcldnMQoiH1121", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14WfxLUj_W9B4OBFx7r7kp1MfvGSJ-YUL", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late March 2022, we looked into two viral and false Facebook posts that were copied and pasted by countless users. One of the posts, which was also purportedly received as a text message alert, claimed that \"cellphones are being hacked\" to steal banking information. The misleading copypasta post said that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned U.S. citizens to \"keep your fuel topped off,\" to gather cash and food, and to plan for the uncertainties surrounding the potential global impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/facebook/", "https://www.snopes.com/articles/369246/what-is-copypasta/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/homeland-security/", "https://snopes.com/tag/russia-ukraine/", "https://snopes.com/tag/ukraine/" ] }, { "sentence": "The first message appeared to warn of a potential Russian cyberattack and read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://snopes.com/tag/russia" ] }, { "sentence": "There's some truth to these two viral posts. At the same time, they're also quite misleading. We've been publishing debunkings of similarly scary-sounding yet harmless Facebook posts for many years.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-pirates/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-extreme-hackers-warning/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-media-hacker-warning/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-media-hacker-warning/" ] }, { "sentence": "As for the first post, we found no evidence that pressing a single digit on a mobile phone after receiving a call could release \"all your banking information\" to be \"hacked\" and stolen. Such a result, if it happened, would amount to some kind of fantasy or magic that doesn't have a possibility of happening in reality.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/04/02/the-easter-bunny-tale-fun-fiction-or-harmful-myth/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/magic-sword-toothpick/" ] }, { "sentence": " Source: Facebook", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/03/cellphones-being-hacked-post.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "As for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims in both posts, these also were fairly misleading. Homeland Security did not issue a memo or any guidance to all U.S. citizens to \"keep your fuel topped off\" or to \"store up some cash\" due to the war in Ukraine.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dhs.gov/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zelenskyy-singing-imagine/" ] }, { "sentence": " Source: Facebook", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/03/homeland-security-facebook-memo.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The quotes at the end of the second post came from an interview with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a letter from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/secmayorkas/status/1496298003371630593", "https://abcnews.go.com/International/shields-cyberattack-affect-americans-prepare/story?id=83085211" ] }, { "sentence": "The partial truth of these posts was that CISA did issue some guidance to federal agencies and organizations to be prepared for a cyberattack during the conflict in Ukraine. An initiative, dubbed \"Shields Up,\" specifically provided recommendations for agencies and organizations, not all citizens, to beef up security and to \"plan for the worst.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up", "https://www.snopes.com/collections/rumors-russia-attack-collection/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Hill reported that this guidance for federal employees and workers at organizations did include keeping fuel topped off and having extra food, cash, and other supplies ready as part of a \"personal and professional preparedness\" plan. However, again, this wasn't meant for all U.S. citizens.", "hrefs": [ "https://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/595945-cyber-officials-urge-federal-agencies-to-armor-up-for-potential" ] }, { "sentence": "On the website Ready.gov, which is officially operated by Homeland Security, the department published a page for all citizens about how to be prepared for a cyberattack. Nowhere on the page did it say anything about storing up \"basic food,\" \"emergency preparedness supplies,\" or a \"family emergency plan.\" (Some of these components are mentioned for other disasters such as the event of a nuclear explosion, however.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ready.gov/", "https://www.ready.gov/cybersecurity", "https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-explosion" ] }, { "sentence": "KHOU previously published a debunking of the first viral post that mentioned, \"cellphones are being hacked.\" The outlet reported that it had received the following statement from a spokesperson for the department: \"The Department of Homeland Security did not send this text message alert.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.khou.com/article/news/verify/verify-homeland-security-not-telling-people-to-stock-up-on-gas/285-3c662e96-50b6-442a-ad9b-69a5229a8ae3" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lyft-free-ride-job-interview/", "claim": "Does Lyft Provide Free Rides to Job Interviews?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "02/12/2021", "sci_digest": [ "In early 2021, social media users enthusiastically shared a post about the ride-hailing company with the encouraging sign-off, \"If you need help, here's help.\" " ], "justification": "In February 2021, social media users enthusiastically shared a tweet that outlined a program purportedly run by the ride-hailing company Lyft that allows users to avail themselves of a free ride to a job interview, should they need it. The tweet, attributed to Twitter user @ThaOriginalKaee, read as follows: So Lyft has a new program that will pick you up and take you to a job interview for free, and if you get hired they will give you up to three weeks of free rides until you get paid. There have been times in my life this would have been a game changer. If you need help here's help. That Twitter account has since been suspended, but the tweet was authentic, based on several screenshots showing various \"retweet\" and \"like\" counts. The tweet was also originally published in October 2019. For reasons that are not clear, it enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in January and February 2021, as illustrated by the following screenshot, which shows just a selection of Facebook posts from the first two months of the year: suspended several screenshots showing various Facebook posts The post was largely accurate. Lyft does indeed run an initiative called the \"Jobs Access Program\" that gives some users the opportunity to get free rides to job interviews and training and, if they become employed, free transportation to and from their new job for the first three weeks. However, the service is not available to everyone. Lyft runs the jobs access program in just 20 cities across the United States and Canada, and it is primarily targeted at individuals who have historically experienced difficulties in gaining employment, such as veterans and persons with disabilities. In February 2021, many social media users shared @ThaOriginalKaee's viral tweet, which described the initiative as \"new.\" However, most screenshots of that tweet had the date cut off, meaning many readers will have mistakenly understood Lyft's initiative to be a new one. While that was true at the time the tweet was originally published in October 2019, it wasn't \"new\" in 2021. Lyft launched the jobs access program in October 2019, announcing it had partnered with non-profit groups including United Way, Goodwill, the National Down Syndrome Society, and the USO (United Service Organizations). The news release associated with the launch explained the initiative, as follows: news release ... Were excited to announce Lyfts Jobs Access Program, a new initiative that aims to close short-term transportation gaps related to employment access and job training. For the unemployed, reliable transportation to a job interview or to the first few weeks of work can mean the difference between successful, long-term employment and lost opportunities. So weve partnered with several leading national and local organizations dedicated to workforce development in order to deliver free or discounted rides to people making their way through the employment pipeline. Lyfts Jobs Access Program will focus on three key interventions in the employment pipeline that are critical to individual success, and where transportation can play a major role: We are focused on communities that stand to benefit most from short-term transportation support, ranging from veterans to individuals with disabilities. At the time the initiative was launched, Lyft stated that it was available in 35 cities. However, the company's website now lists only 20 cities and states in which the jobs access program is operational. As of February 2021, they are: Atlanta; Austin; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New Jersey; New York; Oakland; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; Tacoma; Toronto; Ottowa; Washington, D.C. now lists In December 2020, Lyft stated that in the 14 months since it was launched the jobs access program had facilitated more than 30,000 free rides for individuals. stated While it wasn't immediately clear what exact criteria and restrictions applied to the way in which United Way, Goodwill, and other charities distribute free ride credits to applicants, the program is clearly designed to prioritize individuals with the most acute need of assistance in accessing transportation in order to enter, or re-enter, the workforce. There is also an application process, whereby would-be users submit their name, contact details, and some basic information about themselves and, according to Lyft's website, can expect to receive a response within a week. website So a program does exist whereby Lyft, in partnership with several non-profit organizations, provides free rides to and from job interviews, training, and for the first three weeks of a beneficiary's new employment. However, the initiative has several limitations, namely: It's restricted to 20 cities in the United States and Canada; targeted to communities and individuals who have historically experienced difficulty in finding employment; and involves a relatively slow application process, meaning a user can't simply open up the Lyft app on their phone and spontaneously demand a free ride to a job interview on an ad hoc basis. Taking these facts into consideration, we are issuing a rating of \"true\"", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PDNyS0IFvBmhTOmf8u01jtS07xGJdb9B", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1L0OxPxQG9uSD5oYT0C1kfrs0-EsHOYMc", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "That Twitter account has since been suspended, but the tweet was authentic, based on several screenshots showing various \"retweet\" and \"like\" counts. The tweet was also originally published in October 2019. For reasons that are not clear, it enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in January and February 2021, as illustrated by the following screenshot, which shows just a selection of Facebook posts from the first two months of the year:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/eKU8u", "https://archive.is/HpaHx", "https://archive.is/UdPUd", "https://archive.is/JuuIV", "https://archive.is/jRajz", "https://www.facebook.com/search/photos?q=%22so%20lyft%20has%20a%20new%20program%22&f=AbqNVpVSU3nHrJNyVUCUpL4FZJL6ipvWVjbVuGAx0xGWMB9K-qgpdhFtK9ZYOtUWWBpzcvcu32cfCcrjkowF0GBy1-WO1E22feE5xKAXVm-pQ69ilpwc0uoyJaFKGw9LiOLJgtOUBYeQHVuOXv7hWaAl&filters=eyJycF9jcmVhdGlvbl90aW1lOjAiOiJ7XCJuYW1lXCI6XCJjcmVhdGlvbl90aW1lXCIsXCJhcmdzXCI6XCJ7XFxcInN0YXJ0X3llYXJcXFwiOlxcXCIyMDIxXFxcIixcXFwic3RhcnRfbW9udGhcXFwiOlxcXCIyMDIxLTFcXFwiLFxcXCJlbmRfeWVhclxcXCI6XFxcIjIwMjFcXFwiLFxcXCJlbmRfbW9udGhcXFwiOlxcXCIyMDIxLTEyXFxcIixcXFwic3RhcnRfZGF5XFxcIjpcXFwiMjAyMS0xLTFcXFwiLFxcXCJlbmRfZGF5XFxcIjpcXFwiMjAyMS0xMi0zMVxcXCJ9XCJ9In0%3D" ] }, { "sentence": "Lyft launched the jobs access program in October 2019, announcing it had partnered with non-profit groups including United Way, Goodwill, the National Down Syndrome Society, and the USO (United Service Organizations). The news release associated with the launch explained the initiative, as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/dRMyZ" ] }, { "sentence": "At the time the initiative was launched, Lyft stated that it was available in 35 cities. However, the company's website now lists only 20 cities and states in which the jobs access program is operational. As of February 2021, they are: Atlanta; Austin; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Denver; Houston; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New Jersey; New York; Oakland; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; Tacoma; Toronto; Ottowa; Washington, D.C.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/pDMKY" ] }, { "sentence": "In December 2020, Lyft stated that in the 14 months since it was launched the jobs access program had facilitated more than 30,000 free rides for individuals. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/6bvia" ] }, { "sentence": "While it wasn't immediately clear what exact criteria and restrictions applied to the way in which United Way, Goodwill, and other charities distribute free ride credits to applicants, the program is clearly designed to prioritize individuals with the most acute need of assistance in accessing transportation in order to enter, or re-enter, the workforce. There is also an application process, whereby would-be users submit their name, contact details, and some basic information about themselves and, according to Lyft's website, can expect to receive a response within a week.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/pDMKY" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jason-lewis-dress-code/", "claim": "Did Congressman Jason Lewis Call for a Dress Code for American Women?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "07/30/2018", "sci_digest": [ "In his career as a radio host, Lewis said he should be able to call women \"sluts\" but did not demand they be dressed demurely and \"fully-clothed.\"" ], "justification": "In late July 2018, Facebook users circulated a meme bearing the image of U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minnesota) with text stating that he had \"called for a dress code for American women\": The meme referenced comments Lewis made in 2012, five years before he assumed office, when his primary occupation was hosting the syndicated talk radio program \"The Jason Lewis Show.\" Those comments resurfaced on 18 July 2018, when CNN published excerpts from Lewis' former radio program (which ended in 2014) in the lead-up to Lewis's bid for reelection in the 2018 November midterms. excerpts In recordings from March 2012 released by CNN, Lewis \"repeatedly expressed disbelief that people could no longer refer to women as 'sluts',\" even if those women were sexually active or dressed provocatively: \"Well, the thing is, can we call anybody a slut? This is what begs the question. Take \"Sandra Fluke out of it, take Rush [Limbaugh] out of it for a moment ... Does a woman now have the right to behave and I know there's a double standard between the way men chase women and running and running around you know, I'm not going to get there, but you know what I'm talking about. But it used to be that women were held to a little bit of a higher standard. We required modesty from women. Now, are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can't call her a slut?\" Sandra Fluke \"Now Limbaugh's reasoning was, look, if you're demanding that the taxpayers pay for your contraception, you must use a lot of them and therefore, ergo, you're very sexually active and in the old days, what we used to call people who were in college or even graduate school who were sexually active, we called them sluts.\" \"But have we really got to the point where you can't refer to Madonna as a slut without being sued? I mean, Madonna has had a series of lovers, as have many in Hollywood. Now in the old days, what did we call this? Madonna dresses up in these sorts of prostitute-like outfits on stage, and she goes there and she sings and she shows half of her body. What did we call those people? 30 years ago? 40 years ago? 50 years ago? You can't do that today, it's too politically incorrect?\" Lewis was referring to a then-current controversy over comments made by fellow conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who had termed Sandra Fluke, then a law student at Georgetown University, a \"slut\" and a \"prostitute\" for speaking before a House committee in support of mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives. speaking Although Lewis may have been, in a very broad sense, suggesting a \"dress code\" for women by criticizing figures such as Madonna for \"running around [in] slutty outfits\" and making statements such as \"Only we can tell our young women, 'don't look like some slut and you won't get hit on,'\" we found no instance of his advocating the imposition of a mandatory (i.e., legislatively established) mode of dress for women. We reached out to Lewis's spokespeople and received no response, but Lewis campaign spokeswoman Becky Alery told CNN that Lewis's comments as a radio host were old news: \"This has all been litigated before, and as Congressman Lewis has said time and time again, it was his job to be provocative while on the radio.\" Kaczynski, Andrew. \"A GOP Congressman Once Lamented Not Being Able to Call Women 'Sluts' Anymore.\"\r CNN. 18 July 2018. Brodey, Sam. \"There Are New Recordings from Jason Lewis Lightning-Rod Past as a Talk Radio Host. Will It Matter This Time?\"\r MinnPost. 26 July 2018. Cottle, Michelle. \"Meet Minnesota's Mini-Trump.\"\r The Atlantic. 12 August 2016. DeBonis, Mike. \"Paul Ryan Backs Rep. Jason Lewis, Who Faces Drumbeat of Revelations from His Talk-Radio Career.\"\r The Washington Post. 27 July 2018.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1a6JMjCVK5a0mOKwxNvLxu-Osk1bTxqKS", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The meme referenced comments Lewis made in 2012, five years before he assumed office, when his primary occupation was hosting the syndicated talk radio program \"The Jason Lewis Show.\" Those comments resurfaced on 18 July 2018, when CNN published excerpts from Lewis' former radio program (which ended in 2014) in the lead-up to Lewis's bid for reelection in the 2018 November midterms.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/politics/kfile-jason-lewis/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "\"Well, the thing is, can we call anybody a slut? This is what begs the question. Take \"Sandra Fluke out of it, take Rush [Limbaugh] out of it for a moment ... Does a woman now have the right to behave and I know there's a double standard between the way men chase women and running and running around you know, I'm not going to get there, but you know what I'm talking about. But it used to be that women were held to a little bit of a higher standard. We required modesty from women. Now, are we beyond those days where a woman can behave as a slut, but you can't call her a slut?\"", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh%E2%80%93Sandra_Fluke_controversy" ] }, { "sentence": "Lewis was referring to a then-current controversy over comments made by fellow conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who had termed Sandra Fluke, then a law student at Georgetown University, a \"slut\" and a \"prostitute\" for speaking before a House committee in support of mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives.", "hrefs": [ "https://youtu.be/xlRC0nsjtKQ" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/carl-sagans-foreboding-of-an-america/", "claim": "Is This Carl Sagan's 'Foreboding of an America'?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "01/23/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A quote from a 1995 book by the late astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan struck a nerve with some readers decades later." ], "justification": "Amid talk of alternative facts and a post-truth world that dominated the news directly after the inauguration of President Donald Trump on 20 January 2017, a quote from astrophysicist and science communicator Carl Sagan emerged as a viral meme: This is the excerpt from the passage containing that quote which was shared most frequently: excerpt Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my childrens or grandchildrens time when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and whats true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. This excerpt was taken from Sagans 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In a May 1997 review of that work, Smithsonian magazine described Sagan's motivation for writing it: \"In The Demon-Haunted World, the late astronomer Carl Sagan writes in defense of science and reason in a world he sees as darkened by ignorance, superstition, pseudoscience, deceitful advertising and mindless television.\" review Sagan, for his part, described the book as \"a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science.\" described The discussion of a loss of manufacturing jobs, an inability for public officials to grasp issues, and increasing distrust in science led many to assert that Sagan was predicting our current political and scientific climate although, as Matt Novak articulated in a piece for Gizmodo, its often easy to view predictions of the future in a way that biases one's reading of the them: articulated Now, its important to remember that the accuracy of predictions is often a Rorschach test. An interpretation of a particular predictions accuracy usually says a lot about the people interpreting them and their own hopes or fears for the future. And honestly, some of Sagans concerns sound rather quaint. If you continue reading, the chapter goes on to talk about how the most popular videocassette rental was Dumb and Dumber, and how Beavis and Butthead was incredibly popular on TV. This, of course, was 1995, but theres not much new to this way of thinking each generation thinks that the next generations media is toxic and vapid and worthless. Relevancy of the movie Dumb and Dumber notwithstanding, themes regarding the erosion of trust in favor of one's own deeply entrenched views appear repeatedly in the book. For example: One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If weve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. Were no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. Its simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that weve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Whether or not 2017 was the fulfillment of a Carl Sagan nightmare is a subjective matter, but the proffered description of that nightmare was authentic. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.\r Random House, 1995. ISBN 0-345-40946-9. Trachtman, Paul. Review of 'The Demon-Haunted World', 'Einstein, History, and Other Passions', 'The End of Science.\r Smithsonian. May 1997. Novak, Matt. Yes, The Eerie Carl Sagan Prediction That's Going Viral Is Real. \r Paleofuture. 23 January 2017.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FSIqFhFHeJ8lR4HyEqwJxNyh85BlObUM", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This is the excerpt from the passage containing that quote which was shared most frequently:", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=Yz8Y6KfXf9UC&pg=PT48&lpg=PT48&dq=Science+is+more+than+a+body+of+knowledge;+it+is+a+way+of+thinking.+I+have+a+foreboding+of+an+America+in+my+children%E2%80%99s+or+grandchildren%E2%80%99s+time%E2%80%94when+the+United+States+is+a+service+and+information+economy&source=bl&ots=5O-7Dr3kHC&sig=14bCAlukjTzuoqEGGLV1K8LfTUU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9tKO34djRAhVhqVQKHY_PA0cQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=Science%20is%20more%20than%20a%20body%20of%20knowledge%3B%20it%20is%20a%20way%20of%20thinking.%20I%20have%20a%20foreboding%20of%20an%20America%20in%20my%20children%E2%80%99s%20or%20grandchildren%E2%80%99s%20time%E2%80%94when%20the%20United%20States%20is%20a%20service%20and%20information%20economy&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "This excerpt was taken from Sagans 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In a May 1997 review of that work, Smithsonian magazine described Sagan's motivation for writing it: \"In The Demon-Haunted World, the late astronomer Carl Sagan writes in defense of science and reason in a world he sees as darkened by ignorance, superstition, pseudoscience, deceitful advertising and mindless television.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/review-of-the-demon-haunted-world-einstein-history-and-other-passions-the-end-of-science-136518521/" ] }, { "sentence": "Sagan, for his part, described the book as \"a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=Yz8Y6KfXf9UC&pg=PT48&lpg=PT48&dq=Science+is+more+than+a+body+of+knowledge;+it+is+a+way+of+thinking.+I+have+a+foreboding+of+an+America+in+my+children%E2%80%99s+or+grandchildren%E2%80%99s+time%E2%80%94when+the+United+States+is+a+service+and+information+economy&source=bl&ots=5O-7Dr3kHC&sig=14bCAlukjTzuoqEGGLV1K8LfTUU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9tKO34djRAhVhqVQKHY_PA0cQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=Science%20is%20more%20than%20a%20body%20of%20knowledge%3B%20it%20is%20a%20way%20of%20thinking.%20I%20have%20a%20foreboding%20of%20an%20America%20in%20my%20children%E2%80%99s%20or%20grandchildren%E2%80%99s%20time%E2%80%94when%20the%20United%20States%20is%20a%20service%20and%20information%20economy&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "The discussion of a loss of manufacturing jobs, an inability for public officials to grasp issues, and increasing distrust in science led many to assert that Sagan was predicting our current political and scientific climate although, as Matt Novak articulated in a piece for Gizmodo, its often easy to view predictions of the future in a way that biases one's reading of the them:", "hrefs": [ "https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/yes-the-eerie-carl-sagan-prediction-thats-going-viral-1791502520" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivanka-trump-coffins-trademark/", "claim": "Is the assertion true that Ivanka Trump has a trademark for coffins in China?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "04/14/2020", "sci_digest": [ "In 2018, the United States' first daughter was awarded a variety of trademarks. " ], "justification": "In April 2020, as the global death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000, social media users started to post messages about how Ivanka Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter and newly appointed member of the White House's council to reopen America, had a trademark in China on coffins: pandemic messages While some shared this claim as if it were a \"fun fact,\" others made a more direct connection between her company's trademark on coffins in China to the rising death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic: According to multiple news reports, the first daughter's company, Ivanka Trump Marks LLC, was truly awarded a trademark on coffins in China. However, this occurred in 2018, long before COVID-19 started to spread around the globe. The Associated Press reported in May 2018 that her company had been awarded 13 trademarks in China over three months. These trademarks covered a variety of products, including baby blankets, coffee, perfume, and coffins: reported 13 trademarks Ivanka Trumps brand continues to win foreign trademarks in China and the Philippines, adding to questions about conflicts of interest at the White House, The Associated Press has found. On Sunday, China granted the first daughters company final approval for its 13th trademark in the last three months, trademark office records show. Over the same period, the Chinese government has granted Ivanka Trumps company provisional approval for another eight trademarks, which can be finalized if no objections are raised during a three-month comment period. Taken together, the trademarks could allow her brand to market a lifetimes worth of products in China, from baby blankets to coffins, and a host of things in between, including perfume, makeup, bowls, mirrors, furniture, books, coffee, chocolate and honey. Ivanka Trump stepped back from management of her brand and placed its assets in a family-run trust, but she continues to profit from the business. When users in April 2020 re-shared news stories about her trademarks amidst the global pandemic, many insinuated she would be capitalizing off of people's deaths, and that people in China would be required to purchase a Trump coffin. But that's not the case. This confusion appears to be based on the conflation of the terms \"trademark\" and \"patent.\" With a trademark, Ivanka Trump has the opportunity to sell products (in this case a coffin) bearing her company's name. A trademark does not give Trump's company any sort of exclusive deal to sell coffins in China. Other companies can still manufacturer and sell coffins just as always. patent Australia's ABC News noted that companies sometimes file for a trademark as part of a \"defensive\" strategy to prevent competitors from squatting on a brand's name: ABC News Companies register for trademarks for a variety of reasons. They can be a sign of corporate ambition, but in many countries, like China, where trademark squatting is rampant, companies also file defensively, to block copycats from grabbing legal rights to a brand's name. This appears to be the strategy of Ivanka Trump's company. Abigail Klem, the president of the Ivanka Trump brand, said in a May 2018 statement that these trademarks were obtained during the \"normal course of business.\" Klem also noted that trademark infringement was rampant, and that the company was trying to protect its brand: statement The brand has filed, updated, and rigorously protected its international trademarks over the past several years in the normal course of business, especially in regions where trademark infringement is rampant. ... We have recently seen a surge in trademark filings by unrelated third parties trying to capitalize on the name and it is our responsibility to diligently protect our trademark. It should also be noted that, as Snopes reported in 2019, Ivanka Trump was not running the company at the time that these trademarks were obtained. Ivanka stepped down from day-to-day operations in 2017 and announced that the company was closing down the following year: reported Ivanka Trump said in a statement announcing the closure: statement \"After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington. So making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners.\" While Ivanka Trump may have not had a hand in obtaining these trademarks, the government transparency advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) cautioned that these trademarks could still represent a conflict of interest in the future. CREW wrote: wrote Ivanka announced the immediate closure of her brand in July 2018, citing her official government responsibilities in Washington, DC. However, her trademarks remain a potential conflict of interest as she continues to work on policy in the White House and meet with foreign leaders. To sum up: Ivanka Trump's company obtained several trademarks in China in 2018 that covered a wide range of products, including baby blankets, perfume, and coffins. This trademark gives the company the opportunity to sell Trump-branded coffins and prevents other companies from using the Trump brand to sell their own coffins. As of this writing, we've seen no reporting that Ivanka Trump's company (which she no longer operates) plans to manufacture or sell coffins in China. Higgins, Tucker. \"Ivanka Trumps Chinese Trademarks Raise Questions About Potential Conflicts of Interest.\"\r CNBC 29 May 2018. Associated Press. \"Ivanka Trump Wins 13 New Trademarks From China in 3 Months.\"\r 28 May 2018. ABC News. \"Ivanka Trump's Chinese Trademarks on Products From Baby Blankets to Coffins Raise Corruption Concerns.\"\r 28 May 2018. Palma, Bethania. \"Did China Grant a Trademark to Ivanka Trump for Voting Machines?\"\r Snopes.com. 9 October 2019. Zhang, Caroline. \"Ivanka Trum's Business Wins Approval for 16 New Chinese Trademarks Despite Shutting Down.\"\r Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 5 November 2018.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fI5KLS7STi721bLSY8h2tVECuHMypxQR" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1leODtrJn0V0liBg43syL39bZy5iyS3Zv" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In April 2020, as the global death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic surpassed 100,000, social media users started to post messages about how Ivanka Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter and newly appointed member of the White House's council to reopen America, had a trademark in China on coffins:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-launch-opening-our-country-task-force-global-deaths-pass-n1181796", "https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1248652948109955072" ] }, { "sentence": "The Associated Press reported in May 2018 that her company had been awarded 13 trademarks in China over three months. These trademarks covered a variety of products, including baby blankets, coffee, perfume, and coffins:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/9caf2ddbbae84bd09e9d732036d667b4/China-approves-13-new-Ivanka-Trump-trademarks-in-3-months", "https://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/21164242/5.7-trademarks.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "This confusion appears to be based on the conflation of the terms \"trademark\" and \"patent.\" With a trademark, Ivanka Trump has the opportunity to sell products (in this case a coffin) bearing her company's name. A trademark does not give Trump's company any sort of exclusive deal to sell coffins in China. Other companies can still manufacturer and sell coffins just as always.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/04/patent-trademark.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Australia's ABC News noted that companies sometimes file for a trademark as part of a \"defensive\" strategy to prevent competitors from squatting on a brand's name:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-29/china-approves-13-new-ivanka-trump-trademarks-in-3-months/9810558" ] }, { "sentence": "This appears to be the strategy of Ivanka Trump's company. Abigail Klem, the president of the Ivanka Trump brand, said in a May 2018 statement that these trademarks were obtained during the \"normal course of business.\" Klem also noted that trademark infringement was rampant, and that the company was trying to protect its brand:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/29/ivanka-trump-chinese-trademarks-raise-conflict-of-interest-questions.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It should also be noted that, as Snopes reported in 2019, Ivanka Trump was not running the company at the time that these trademarks were obtained. Ivanka stepped down from day-to-day operations in 2017 and announced that the company was closing down the following year:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivanka-trump-voting-machines/" ] }, { "sentence": "Ivanka Trump said in a statement announcing the closure: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-brand-shuts-down-full-story-2018-7" ] }, { "sentence": "CREW wrote:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.citizensforethics.org/ivanka-trump-trademarks/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/home-on-the-million-dollar-range/", "claim": "Do these houses belong to John Kerry?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/01/2004", "sci_digest": [ "An emailed item supposedly shows five homes owned by U.S. senator John Kerry and worth many millions of dollars." ], "justification": "[Collected on the Internet, 2004] John Kerry, man of the common folk . . . he understands your pain, really . . trust him--dah, yeah--right! The many homes of Democrat Presidential candiate John F. Kerry. Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania (Assessed value: $3.7 million) Ketchum, Idaho ski getaway/vacation home (Assessed value: $4.9 million) Washington, D.C - Georgetown area (Assessed value: $4.7 million) Nantucket, MA waterfront retreat on Brant Point (Assessed value: $9.2 million) Boston, Massachusetts - Beacon Hill home (Assessed value: $6.9) Total assessed value of all five homes = $29.4 million. . . . and he sold this estate in Italy to activist actor George Clooney, just before announcing his candidacy for president. I guess he thought it might not look right to the common man. ($7.8 million) Other foreign property ownership by John Kerry is unknown... because he denied repeated requests for this information. Please e-mail this information to all your friends, family and contacts. Class warfare is not right, but neither is being a hypocrite. This man wants to be our president, while claiming that he relates to Joe-6-pack and the common man. He wants to raise income taxes on the rich, well, guess what? He won't pay those taxes because he is already rich! He wants to make it harder for you to get rich by raising taxes on your income! Talk about snobbery and protecting his \"class.\" Please e-mail to at least 5 people. It's certainly no secret to anyone familiar with the U.S. political scene that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts has a net worth of several million dollars, and that his wife, Teresa, could accurately be described as \"super wealthy.\" Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry was previously married for 25 years to the late Henry John Heinz III, a member of the founding family of the H.J. Heinz Company, and after his death in a 1991 plane crash she inherited a Heinz family fortune estimated at over $500 million. H.J. Heinz John and/or Teresa Kerry do own several valuable properties in the U.S., including: A five-story, twelve-room brownstone townhouse (with six fireplaces, a rooftop deck, and an elevator) in Boston's Beacon Hill. This home is John Kerry's main residence and was assessed at a value of $6.6 million in 2003 A nine-room colonial home on a 90-acre family farm in Fox Chapel near Pittsburgh. This home is Teresa Kerry's longtime residence, where she lived while was married to John Heinz and where she raised her three children. It is valued at $3.7 million. A ski/vacation home located near the banks of the Big Wood River in Ketchum, Idaho, fashioned from a reassembled barn originally built in England in 1485 and brought to Idaho by Teresa Heinz Kerry's late husband. It was purchased for $4.9 million in 1988. A three-story, five-bedroom waterfront estate near the Brant Point Lighthouse in Nantucket's harbor, where John and Teresa Kerry were married in 1995. The beachfront property is valued at $9.1 million. A 23-room townhouse in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., valued at $4.7 million. The aggregate value of these five homes is roughly $29 million, but the claim that John Kerry \"owns\" all of these properties is problematic. John and Teresa Kerry signed a prenuptial agreement and have kept their premarital assets separate. The Boston townhouse (which John Kerry mortgaged in 2003 to finance his presidential bid) is the only one of these homes that they own as a couple; the other four belonged to Teresa before her 1995 marriage to John Kerry, and some of them are even still listed under the name of her late husband. Also, according to the London Times, the Italian villa bought by actor George Clooney was sold a year before John Kerry announced his intention to seek the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and it was owned not by John or Teresa Kerry, but by Mrs. Drue Heinz, a relative of Teresa's through her marriage to John Heinz: The Hollywood star George Clooney has parted company with his long-time agent in a dispute over the purchase of a historic 5m Italian villa. Clooney is reported to have been \"incensed\" when he discovered that Michael Gruber, who steered his career from the television medical drama ER to box office hits such as The Perfect Storm, had discussed a 175,000 fee for helping to arrange for the star to buy the house from Drue Heinz, the philanthropist. The widow of Jack Heinz, grandson of the American entrepreneur who first bottled 57 varieties of pickle, Heinz lives in Ascot, Berkshire, but in recent years she had turned the Villa Oleandra on Lake Como, north of Milan, into a writers' sanctuary. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the American classic The Scarlet Letter, stayed there in the 1850s. Family illnesses persuaded Heinz to sell the villa, situated in the village of Laglio, where the neighbours include Donatella Versace, the fashion designer. DePaulo, Lisa. \"Taming Teresa.\"\r Elle. June 2003.\r\r Fee, Gayle and Laura Raposa. \"Crocodile Tears at Fleet If Dems Move Bash.\"\r The Boston Herald. 19 March 2004 (p. 20).\r Harlow, John. \"Angry Clooney Cuts Loose from Agent Who Steered Him to Film Stardom.\"\r The [London] Times. 27 October 2002 (p. 29).\r Kasindorf, Martin. \"Kerry Hits the Slopes, Fires Back After Bush's Criticism.\"\r USA Today. 20 March 2004.\r\r Noah, Timothy. \"Does Teresa Heinz Trust John Kerry?\" \r Slate. 2 December 2003.\r\r Reston, Maeve. \"Teresa Heinz Kerry Speaks Her Mind, But in N.H., It's Not Hurting Husband.\"\r Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 30 November 2003.\r\r Silberman, Ellen J. and Jack Meyers. \"Kerry Loan Twice As Nice.\"\r The Boston Herald. 25 Feburary 2004.\r\r Associated Press.. \"Five Kerry Homes Valued at Nearly $33M.\"\r USA Today. 22 March 2004.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cNVKuvf3uEDBrbvPfpVV0Ki4KRB3uTz1" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17JkWNEDAl07DfiWjgEPdODVsS-zh0G98" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LAVBM4DFT8D8m4I6cSnsa7b9o208zip1" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1MvVZkH-Z3MoL4CgRsDs9dJy2ZGDR978e" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pT7ITlzBEMGp6Nx_9SDVQm3v4ivocawp" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1m4ddgpcDeGWGTseoXD4Z6N1ZT9EWoqKB" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "It's certainly no secret to anyone familiar with the U.S. political scene that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts has a net worth of several million dollars, and that his wife, Teresa, could accurately be described as \"super wealthy.\" Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry was previously married for 25 years to the late Henry John Heinz III, a member of the founding family of the H.J. Heinz Company, and after his death in a 1991 plane crash she inherited a Heinz family fortune estimated at over $500 million.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.heinz.com/jsp/index.jsp" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/twilight-saga-moonlight-glow/", "claim": "Is This a Poster for a New 'Twilight' Movie?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "08/17/2015", "sci_digest": [ "A poster advertising a forthcoming \"Twilight\" film was simply a fan tribute. " ], "justification": "On 14 August 2015, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a movie poster for a film called Twilight Saga: Moonlight Glow (Part 1) (embedded above). Subsequently that post was shared hundreds of thousands of times, followed by rumors about a soon-to-be-released Twilight sequel. shared Example: I have been seeing pictures posted on social media about a new twilight saga coming in Nov, of 2015 called twilight moonlight glow but when I search it on the web I can't find any info about this movie. Is this a hoax? However, a closer look at the image revealed that the poster was clearly not the harbinger of new Twilight sequels (which would certainly not be a surprise to fans, were the projects legitimate): As the detail illustrates, the date of the film was rendered in a style most commonly seen outside the United States (day/month/year), whereas official Twilight movie posters utilize an American format (month/date/year, as seen here, here, and here). Under the date, a URL led to a DeviantArt user's page, which revealed that the circulating Twilight saga \"Moonlight Glow\" poster was a creative work of fan tribute and not an official promotional graphic. here here here revealed Moreover, fan interest in a new entry to the series has remained strong enough to warrant significant entertainment news coverage (of which there was none supporting the rumor). The books on which the films were based ended at the same juncture as their cinematic counterparts, so no additional book story lines exist for further Twilight adaptations involving the characters of Edward and Bella Cullen. Although author Stephenie Meyer originally planned a novel presenting the events of the series from Edward's perspective (titled Midnight Sun), that project was scrapped after unfinished drafts of the book were leaked online. story lines Finally, rumors of a different November 2015 Twilight sequel (purportedly the third part of the films' final installment, Breaking Dawn, Part 3) had previously circulated. Those claims were junk news, similarly spread by hopeful fans, and not related to any new projects attached to the franchise. Twilight sequel", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1m_R4u_SfY2X0NK_AJftZzJBqg1WL689P", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14QT0cMbJzzPpEjh1wfhhK9EROINES1Xj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 14 August 2015, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a movie poster for a film called Twilight Saga: Moonlight Glow (Part 1) (embedded above). Subsequently that post was shared hundreds of thousands of times, followed by rumors about a soon-to-be-released Twilight sequel.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1452896511705400&set=a.1422841924710859.1073741827.100009551961082&type=1" ] }, { "sentence": "As the detail illustrates, the date of the film was rendered in a style most commonly seen outside the United States (day/month/year), whereas official Twilight movie posters utilize an American format (month/date/year, as seen here, here, and here). Under the date, a URL led to a DeviantArt user's page, which revealed that the circulating Twilight saga \"Moonlight Glow\" poster was a creative work of fan tribute and not an official promotional graphic.", "hrefs": [ "https://i.imgur.com/4xtD0YW.jpg", "https://i.imgur.com/LgoLBVd.jpg", "https://i.imgur.com/wTASRIZ.jpg", "https://cylonka.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-Moonlight-Glow-poster-383180750" ] }, { "sentence": "Moreover, fan interest in a new entry to the series has remained strong enough to warrant significant entertainment news coverage (of which there was none supporting the rumor). The books on which the films were based ended at the same juncture as their cinematic counterparts, so no additional book story lines exist for further Twilight adaptations involving the characters of Edward and Bella Cullen. Although author Stephenie Meyer originally planned a novel presenting the events of the series from Edward's perspective (titled Midnight Sun), that project was scrapped after unfinished drafts of the book were leaked online.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(series)#Other_books" ] }, { "sentence": "Finally, rumors of a different November 2015 Twilight sequel (purportedly the third part of the films' final installment, Breaking Dawn, Part 3) had previously circulated. Those claims were junk news, similarly spread by hopeful fans, and not related to any new projects attached to the franchise.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/twilight.asp" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bush-cull-fact-check/", "claim": "A search of bushes and a verification check.", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "06/21/2015", "sci_digest": [ "" ], "justification": "FACT CHECK: Area social media meme's \"5 Things You Should Know About Jeb Bush\" factually accurate? Claim: A social media meme accurately detailsfive aspectsof Jeb Bush's record on women's issues. trueExample: [Collected via e-mail, June 2015]Facebook post citing \"evils\" committed by Jeb Bush - only 15.5 months togo with this.... Claim: A social media meme accurately detailsfive aspectsof Jeb Bush's record on women's issues. true Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2015]Facebook post citing \"evils\" committed by Jeb Bush - only 15.5 months togo with this.... Origins: On 15 June 2015 the women's rights-focused group Ultraviolet published the above-displayed image, addressing the record of Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, to their Facebook page. After many viewers questioned the veracity of the claims made about Bush and his record on women's issues, the post was edited to include supporting citations for its entries; but earlierversions of the post continued to circulate without it. published The numbered claims and their attendant backgrounds are as follows: Appointed a guardian for the fetus of a rape victim. This statement stemmed from a 2003 case involving a 22-year-old, severely developmentally disabled Florida woman who had been living in state-supervised facilities for most of her life. She had become pregnant after being raped while living in a group home and had no family to make decisions on her behalf;and (even though neither the woman herself nor anyone caring for her had sought to abort the fetus) Governor Bush stepped in and asked the court to intervene in this \"uniquely troubling situation\" and appoint a representative to protect the fetus's rights:Religious groups praised the governor's actions.\"If a guardian is appointed, there would be a clear recognition that there is a human being occupying that womb,\" said Brian Fahling, senior trial lawyer for the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy. \"The governor has the constitutional duty to uphold the right to life.\"The Christian Coalition of Florida issued a statement in support of Mr. Bush. \"The appropriate thing to do is allow the child an opportunity at life and prosecute the criminal who raped the helpless woman.\"Critics say the governor's actions are intended to keep the issue in the courts until the woman is in the third trimester of her pregnancy and can no longer obtain an abortion.\"Our take on this is that this woman's needs, her desires and her interests need to take precedence,\" said Bebe Anderson, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group. \"If she is incompetent, someone else should represent her and her interests alone and make that decision for her.\"The critics also accuse Mr. Bush, a Republican, of trying to set a precedent in establishing legal protection for fetuses and of using the case to win political points with conservative groups.The governor said in his statement, \"While others may interpret this case in light of their own positions, we see it as the singular tragedy it is, and remain focused on serving the best interests of this particular victim and her unborn child.\" This statement stemmed from a 2003 case involving a 22-year-old, severely developmentally disabled Florida woman who had been living in state-supervised facilities for most of her life. She had become pregnant after being raped while living in a group home and had no family to make decisions on her behalf;and (even though neither the woman herself nor anyone caring for her had sought to abort the fetus) Governor Bush stepped in and asked the court to intervene in this \"uniquely troubling situation\" and appoint a representative to protect the fetus's rights:Religious groups praised the governor's actions. \"If a guardian is appointed, there would be a clear recognition that there is a human being occupying that womb,\" said Brian Fahling, senior trial lawyer for the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy. \"The governor has the constitutional duty to uphold the right to life.\" The Christian Coalition of Florida issued a statement in support of Mr. Bush. \"The appropriate thing to do is allow the child an opportunity at life and prosecute the criminal who raped the helpless woman.\" Critics say the governor's actions are intended to keep the issue in the courts until the woman is in the third trimester of her pregnancy and can no longer obtain an abortion. \"Our take on this is that this woman's needs, her desires and her interests need to take precedence,\" said Bebe Anderson, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group. \"If she is incompetent, someone else should represent her and her interests alone and make that decision for her.\" The critics also accuse Mr. Bush, a Republican, of trying to set a precedent in establishing legal protection for fetuses and of using the case to win political points with conservative groups. The governor said in his statement, \"While others may interpret this case in light of their own positions, we see it as the singular tragedy it is, and remain focused on serving the best interests of this particular victim and her unborn child.\" The statement originated with the Florida Adoption Act of 2001 (more commonly known as \"Bill 141\" or the \"Scarlet Letter\" law), which overhauled the state's adoption regulations with the stated goal of trying to \"provide greater finality once the adoption is approved, and to avoid circumstances where future challenges to the adoption disrupt the life of the child.\" The bill was inspired, in part, by the three-year fight over Baby Emily, whose father, a convicted rapist, had contested her adoption. (The Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Emily's adoptive parents in 1995.) The law required that any woman who was planning to put her infant up for adoption but did not know the identity of the child's father first had to run newspaper advertisements once a week for a month in the community where the child might have been conceived disclosing their names, ages, height, hair and eye color, race and weight, the child's name and birthplace, a description of the possible father, and details of the dates and places of sexual encounters that might have produced the child. Advocates of the bill maintained that it protected the rights of men who may not have known they had fathered children and that it would \"minimize last-minute challenges from a biological father, as well as challenges a father might bring after an adoption has been made legal,\" while critics contended that it was \"draconian and humiliating,\" and that Governor Bush's failure to veto the bill indicated he supporting the \"shaming\" of women for their sexual activity. Although Jeb Bush had previously lamented the lack of social stigma for having children outside of marriage (writing in his 1995 book Profiles in Character that \"one of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame\"), he did not fully approve of Bill 141 and said that the state should not be \"stigmatizing women\":Gov. Jeb Bush [has] noted numerous problems with it. Officials in the governor's office say he supports an alternative way of protecting fathers' rights one already in use in many other states. Called fathers' registries, this system permits men who believe they may have fathered a child to place their names on a confidential list, which must be checked during adoption proceedings. \"We should be making adoption easier, not more difficult, and not stigmatizing women who are trying to do the right thing,\" Bush spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst told reporters in Tallahassee. Gov. Bush also stated in a letter to Secretary of State Katherine Harris that he felt the bill put too much responsibility on the birth mother to locate the father, and while he did not veto the \"Scarlet Letter\" bill, neither did he sign it: He passively allowed it to become law in the expectation that legislators would revise the section requiring the publication of women's sexual histories\"House Bill 141 does have its deficiencies,\" he wrote. \"Foremost, in its effort to strike the appropriate balance between rights and responsibilities, there is a shortage of responsibility on behalf of the birth father that could be corrected by requiring some proactive conduct on his part.\" letter In fact, immediately after he let the Florida Adoption Act become law, Bush was advocating for fixes to it. The Florida House almost immediately passed a law that Bush considered a \"better alternative.\" It cut back on women's reporting requirements and established a paternity registry, for example. These were state-maintained databases that allowed a man to register if he believed he may have fathered a child. Then, if that child were ever put up for adoption, the father would have been notified and he could have a say in the proceedings. Governor Bush repealed the \"Scarlet Letter\" law in May 2003, signing a replacement measure that instituted the paternity registry mentioned above. The repeal had become something of a moot issue by then, however, as an appeals court had ruled the previous month that it was unconstitutional for the state to require women and underage girls to disclose their sexual histories, even in cases of consensual sex. Hired a staffer who called women \"sluts.\" The claim that Jeb Bush hired a staffer who called women \"sluts\" is true in a literal sense, although the staffer's employment by Bush was very short-lived, as he immediately left his position after the controversy about some of his several-year-old Tweets hit the news.This brouhaha originated with Jeb Bush's temporary hiring in February 2015 of Hipster.com co-founder Ethan Czahor as his Chief Technology Officer, in charge of handling the preparations for Bush's presidential run. Almost immediately after the hiring was announced, Czahor's Twitter history was dissected and shared by various media outlets. Among their findings were a handful of tweets published by Czahor in 2009 and 2010 in which he made insensitive remarks about women and used the word \"sluts\" in reference to them. A Bush spokesman quickly characterized the comments as \"inappropriate\" and indicated that Czahor had been directed to promptly delete them.One day later, Czahor resigned from his newly-assigned position and apologized for his previous remarks. Said low-income women should \"get their lifetogether and find a husband.\" As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information.The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:\"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three.\" The claim that Jeb Bush hired a staffer who called women \"sluts\" is true in a literal sense, although the staffer's employment by Bush was very short-lived, as he immediately left his position after the controversy about some of his several-year-old Tweets hit the news. This brouhaha originated with Jeb Bush's temporary hiring in February 2015 of Hipster.com co-founder Ethan Czahor as his Chief Technology Officer, in charge of handling the preparations for Bush's presidential run. Almost immediately after the hiring was announced, Czahor's Twitter history was dissected and shared by various media outlets. Among their findings were a handful of tweets published by Czahor in 2009 and 2010 in which he made insensitive remarks about women and used the word \"sluts\" in reference to them. A Bush spokesman quickly characterized the comments as \"inappropriate\" and indicated that Czahor had been directed to promptly delete them. One day later, Czahor resigned from his newly-assigned position and apologized for his previous remarks. Said low-income women should \"get their lifetogether and find a husband.\" As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information.The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:\"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three.\" As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information. The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:\"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three.\" Although a generous interpretation of this statement might be to say that Jeb Bush was simply enumerating the several possibilities that (female) welfare recipients could avail themselves of after the expiration of their benefits, he made it clear later that he felt unmarried women were a significant contribution to the welfare problem:Bush did not deny making the statement. In fact, he repeated that marriage is one way along with finding a job and help from private charities for women to get off welfare. Marriage, Bush said, \"is one of many options, and if people are honest about the welfare system we have today, how you get on welfare is not having a husband in the house.\" In support of this claim, Ultraviolet cited an April 2015Salon article, which in turn referenced an interview Bush gave to Focus on the Family on 13 April 2015. During the course of that interview, Bush lauded Florida's role as an outlier in funding \"crisis pregnancy centers\" (CPCs) during his tenure as governor:We were the only state, I believe, to have funded with state monies crisis pregnancy centers to provide counselors so that these not-for-profits that in many cases aren't as well funded as many others, could act on their mission, which is to provide broader support, but the actual counseling was done, you know, paid for by the state. It was a godsend for these crisis pregnancy centers and a lot of babies' lives were saved and a lot of families got the joy of being able to bring a child up in their home. article interview CPCs While Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, the state funded crisis pregnancy centers through the sales of 'Choose Life' specialty license plates (under legislation signed into law by Bush in 1999) and through the creation of the Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program (which was introduced by Bush in 2005):The Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program was introduced by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2005 to increase visibility for the state's non-abortion counseling options and stem its rising abortion rate. The $4 million launch established a toll-free hotline 1-866-673-HOPE to point pregnant women in the direction of their nearest non-abortion, nonprofit option, and also provide grants to those organizations for counseling, prenatal support and adoption. The money is only available to organizations that make no mention at all of abortion. It can go to religious organizations, and it supplements the $800,000 the centers receive yearly from the state's \"Choose Life\" license plates and whatever federal funds come in. Florida was not alone in that regard, however: several other states, including Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Texas, approved state funding of crisis pregnancy centers during the same timeframe. Moreover, between 2001 and 2006 over $60 million in federal funds were given to crisis pregnancy centers, in large part through abstinence-only programs initiated during the administration of Jeb's brother, President George W. Bush. Last updated: 21 June 2015 Originally published: 21 June 2015 Sources: Canedy, Dana. \"Gov. Jeb Bush to Seek Guardian for Fetus of Rape Victim.\" The New York Times. 15 May 2003. Canedy, Dana. \"Florida 'Scarlet Letter' Law Is Repealed by Gov. Bush.\" The New York Times. 31 May 2003. Dahlburg, John-Thor. \"Florida Wants All the Details from Mothers in Adoption Notices.\" Los Angeles Times. 21 August 2002. Dahlburg, John-Thor. \"Florida Ends 'Scarlet Letter' Adoption Law.\" Los Angeles Times. 31 May 2003. Manes, Billy. \"Immaculate Deception.\" Orlando Weekly. 26 February 2009. Griffin, Michael. \"Smith Rips Bush's 'Find a Husband' Tip for Women on Welfare.\" Orlando Sentinel. 7 September 1994. Hongo, Hudson. \"New Jeb Bush Hire Deletes Comments About Sluts, Gays from Twitter.\" Gawker. 9 February 2015. Kaczynski, Andrew. \"Jeb Bush Chief Technology Officer Resigns After Deleting Old Tweets About 'Sluts.'\" BuzzFeed. 10 February 2015. Kurtzleben, Danielle. \"Jeb Bush and Florida's 'Scarlet Letter Law,' Explained.\" NPR. 10June 2015. McDonough, Katie. \"Jeb's Abortion Nightmare.\" Salon. 14 April 2015. Miller, Zeke J. \"Jeb Bush Hires Co-Founder of Hipster.com.\" Time. 9 February 2015. Simon, Stephanie. \"States Fund Antiabortion Advice.\" Los Angeles Times. 11 February 2007.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1n0_EO3moHyxI-p8HwmlIqAcLU26Bm9iP" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FAu5RoY3MuPsh2vattSv6z9V864Od6Rs" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dliBQ5DmEDjpN6NF9V1lGI8_ubp4U1DZ" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wSJzFvpEdgj10NRHHCnohi4AaX7e4-8c" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PSt3KLhsBN17pHhrns-ZxcLSVPo30yYo" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bhlOldNY_HxJek4r-CsVLiTvuXKfd98y" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aF1CV3I-iWf0nC9UQeGy3OArwUpAGdNE" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Origins: On 15 June 2015 the women's rights-focused group Ultraviolet published the above-displayed image, addressing the record of Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, to their Facebook page. After many viewers questioned the veracity of the claims made about Bush and his record on women's issues, the post was edited to include supporting citations for its entries; but earlierversions of the post continued to circulate without it.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/weareultraviolet/photos/a.308793015857415.71731.260933440643373/879777348758976/?type=1&theater" ] }, { "sentence": " Gov. Bush also stated in a letter to Secretary of State Katherine Harris that he felt the bill put too much responsibility on the birth mother to locate the father, and while he did not veto the \"Scarlet Letter\" bill, neither did he sign it: He passively allowed it to become law in the expectation that legislators would revise the section requiring the publication of women's sexual histories\"House Bill 141 does have its deficiencies,\" he wrote. \"Foremost, in its effort to strike the appropriate balance between rights and responsibilities, there is a shortage of responsibility on behalf of the birth father that could be corrected by requiring some proactive conduct on his part.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.leg.state.fl.us/data/session/2001/house/journals/pdf/bound/hj0423.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": " In support of this claim, Ultraviolet cited an April 2015Salon article, which in turn referenced an interview Bush gave to Focus on the Family on 13 April 2015. During the course of that interview, Bush lauded Florida's role as an outlier in funding \"crisis pregnancy centers\" (CPCs) during his tenure as governor:We were the only state, I believe, to have funded with state monies crisis pregnancy centers to provide counselors so that these not-for-profits that in many cases aren't as well funded as many others, could act on their mission, which is to provide broader support, but the actual counseling was done, you know, paid for by the state. It was a godsend for these crisis pregnancy centers and a lot of babies' lives were saved and a lot of families got the joy of being able to bring a child up in their home.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/jebs_abortion_nightmare_how_he_funneled_tax_dollars_to_quack_anti_choicers_gutted_real_health_care/", "https://www.focusonthefamily.com/media/daily-broadcast/jeb-bush-on-the-importance-of-family", "https://www.prochoiceamerica.org/media/fact-sheets/abortion-cpcs.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-flyer-enemy-of-people/", "claim": "Is there a flyer from the Black Lives Matter movement that labels white people as the 'adversary'?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/15/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A piece of racist propaganda was circulated in an attempt to smear the Black Lives Matter movement. " ], "justification": "In the spring of 2020, as protests against racial injustice and police brutality swept across the U.S. following the death of a Black man in police custody, online trolls started to spread racist propaganda in an attempt to smear the Black Lives Matter movement. Generally speaking, these posts made inflammatory and violent claims, then falsely attributed them to BLM. For example, one such hoax held that BLM protesters were going to \"assassinate white families.\" hoax In June 2020, Snopes came across yet another flyer falsely attributed to Black Lives Matter that labeled white men, women, and children as \"the enemy\": But this is not a genuine flyer issued or endorsed by Black Lives Matter. This is a piece of racist propaganda that was created in an apparent attempt to smear BLM and heighten racial tensions. It isn't clear who created this fake poster. The earliest posting that we could find was from June 11, 2020, from a Twitter account devoted to QAnon, a wide-ranging and far-right conspiracy theory based almost entirely on anonymous social media posts that claim a deep state plot exists against President Donald Trump. From there, it was shared to the Russian site Aftershock.news; an All Lives Matter account; and an account adorned with British flags, where it received thousands of retweets. QAnon Aftershock.news All Lives Matter account While we've found several accounts sharing this flyer along with messages denigrating Black Lives Matter, we've yet to see any accounts connected to the Black Lives Matter movement sharing this flyer in earnest. In addition to the fact that this flyer originated with posters critical of BLM and not with BLM accounts spreading this message in earnest the statements on this flyer are also contrary to the positions of the Black Lives Matter movement. Nowhere on the Black Lives Matter website are white people identified as \"enemies,\" and the website is void of any calls to violence against white people. BLM has also not called for \"re-education camps,\" for \"Black power\" to run the government, or for white people to stop dating outside their race. The official Black Lives Matter website has put out a list of \"demands,\" but that list has practically nothing in common with the viral hoax shown above. The official list from Black Lives Matter calls for an end to systematic racism and for the national defunding of police: Black Lives Matter We call for an end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken. We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive. If youre with us, add your name to the petition right now and help us spread the word. The \"demands\" on the hoax flyer did not originate with BLM. The items on this list are examples of what someone who is unfamiliar with the Black Lives Matter movement may fear are central tenets of this group. When a similar fake flyer was found in England, a local BLM activist told Scotland's Evening Telegraph: Evening Telegraph Joy Gansh, a local BLM activist, believes the display was created by people trying to discredit the movement. She said: Things like that, after what happened with the George Floyd mural being defaced, I think thats something that a white supremacist would put up to discredit us. Nobody that Ive seen advocating for the BLM movement would think that that is appropriate. My personal opinion is that this is people being framed. This is a way to make us seem in the wrong. The art student, who plans to organise a BLM march in Dundee soon, believes that white supremacists are using false posters to encourage violence. People that hold those kinds of beliefs arent part of this movement, she added. \"This seems like a way to stop us in our tracks and make us seem violent so they can come back with violence. We arent here for violence, were just here for justice and equality in all aspects of life. This fake flyer, as well as similar items, have been pushed on internet forums such as 4chan in an explicit attempt to smear the Black Lives Matter movement. In one post, for example, a 4chan poster states that \"people are falling for this [hoax flyer], let's kick it into overdrive.\" In another thread, users exchange various fake BLM posters and encourage each other to share them. In another thread, a user gives instructions on how to make and spread this racist propaganda: 4chan smear thread thread The only thing maintaining the completely bizarre state of affairs the USA and the world is in right now is the fact that some white people still think they can be on the \"right side of history\" by kneeling for the Noseberg-controlled BLM movement. We can destroy their whole plan. Make propaganda posters and spread them around. If enough whites realize that blacks will never ever feel that anything is \"enough\", they'll abandon the movement. It'll crash and burn. Asarch, Steven. \"Is The 'Go Bald For Black Lives Matter' Movement Real?\"\r Newsweek. 5 June 2020. Breland, Ali. \"Alt-Right Trolls Are Trying to Sabotage Black Lives Matter Chatrooms.\"\r Mother Jones. 8 June 2020. Bell, Matteo. \"Outrage at Posters in Dundee Calling for Police, MPs and White People to be Killed.\"\r Evening Telegraph. 12 June 2020. CORRECTION [17 June 2020]: The original article misstated the date of publication of this image on the Russian site Aftershock.news. This image was posted to that site on June 12, not June 6, as originally stated. ", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bOO4jdSX50JItVg7r7QPt5mJi7ktvJER" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17iVJjHJuzkns5yYAHQLp9TYUoCEBhCw4" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "For example, one such hoax held that BLM protesters were going to \"assassinate white families.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-lives-matter-hoax/" ] }, { "sentence": "It isn't clear who created this fake poster. The earliest posting that we could find was from June 11, 2020, from a Twitter account devoted to QAnon, a wide-ranging and far-right conspiracy theory based almost entirely on anonymous social media posts that claim a deep state plot exists against President Donald Trump. From there, it was shared to the Russian site Aftershock.news; an All Lives Matter account; and an account adorned with British flags, where it received thousands of retweets.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/QStorm1111/status/1271294250265776130", "https://archive.vn/RFmOF", "https://twitter.com/AllLive89225189/status/1271479115753938946", "https://archive.vn/iUkKM" ] }, { "sentence": "BLM has also not called for \"re-education camps,\" for \"Black power\" to run the government, or for white people to stop dating outside their race. The official Black Lives Matter website has put out a list of \"demands,\" but that list has practically nothing in common with the viral hoax shown above. The official list from Black Lives Matter calls for an end to systematic racism and for the national defunding of police:", "hrefs": [ "https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/" ] }, { "sentence": "When a similar fake flyer was found in England, a local BLM activist told Scotland's Evening Telegraph:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/if-they-dont-stop-kill-a-cop-outrage-at-posters-calling-for-police-mps-and-white-people-to-be-killed-found-in-dundee-park/" ] }, { "sentence": "This fake flyer, as well as similar items, have been pushed on internet forums such as 4chan in an explicit attempt to smear the Black Lives Matter movement. In one post, for example, a 4chan poster states that \"people are falling for this [hoax flyer], let's kick it into overdrive.\" In another thread, users exchange various fake BLM posters and encourage each other to share them. In another thread, a user gives instructions on how to make and spread this racist propaganda:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/8mZDk#selection-873.0-882.0", "https://archive.vn/olplb", "https://archive.vn/BvDsH", "https://archive.vn/W4k36" ] }, { "sentence": "The only thing maintaining the completely bizarre state of affairs the USA and the world is in right now is the fact that some white people still think they can be on the \"right side of history\" by kneeling for the Noseberg-controlled BLM movement. We can destroy their whole plan. Make propaganda posters and spread them around. If enough whites realize that blacks will never ever feel that anything is \"enough\", they'll abandon the movement. It'll crash and burn.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/06/RACIST-PROPAGANDA-HOAX.jpg" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/oct/31/mike-parson/parsons-mostly-right-about-big-growth-small-busine/", "claim": "Wages are on the rise in fact we were the top small-business wage growth state in the nation.", "author": "Joe Noser", "posted": "10/31/2019", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "During his recent election announcement for governor of Missouri, Mike Parson trumpeted a strong economy in the state, taking particular care to highlight increases in small-business wages. With record lows in unemployment, more people are going back to work in Missouri, Parson said Sept. 8. Wages are on the rise in fact we were the top small-business wage growth state in the nation. Does the governors comment check out? We wanted to investigate. A spokesperson for Parsons campaign cited an April 2019 article from St. Louis Business Journal that used numbers from an April 2019 report from Paychex/IHS Market Small Business Employment Watch to show Missouri ranked first in the country in hourly wage growth for small businesses. At $25.55 per hour, Missouri small business wages were up 3.48%, or 86 cents, that month. The Show-Me State finished first ahead of California, New York, Arizona and Illinois in small-business wage growth. According to the Small Business Employment Watchs September report, Missouri now ranks third in the country in hourly wage growth increase at 3.38% (New York is second at 3.53% and Illinois is first at 4.11%). If assessing for weekly wage growth rise, Missouri is second at 3.83%. Illinois comes in at 3.84%, just .01% better than Missouri. Overall, Missouri has been a top-five small business wage growth state (by weekly earnings) every month this year, according to Paychexs analysis. So what is Paychex, and how does it calculate its data for the Small Business Employment Watch? Paychex is a human resources and payroll company with over 600,000 clients nationwide. According to a media spokesperson for the company, it uses up-to-date, aggregated payroll data from approximately 350,000 of Paychex's small business clients with fewer than 50 workers to keep its data current. All businesses whose wage data is included in the report must have run payroll for the month that the data is being compiled and the three months prior. According to a Paychex spokesperson, the sample includes millions of small-business workers. How many small-business workers are there in Missouri and in the United States? It depends what you consider a small business. Paychex defines a small business as a firm with fewer than 50 workers, but the U.S. Small Business Administration defines small businesses as firms with less than 500 workers. According to the SBAs 2019 profile for the state of Missouri, there are 1.2 million small business employees in the state of Missouri alone, and 58.9 million in the country. In other words, while Paychex represents a significant portion of small businesses, its not the whole pie. The company itself claims to work with one in 12 private sector employees. Parson said, Wages are on the rise in fact we were the top small business wage growth state in the nation. This statement is backed by statistics from Paychex that showed it to be true for the month of April, although Missouri fell behind in later months. Since it cant be proven that Paychex takes a representative sample, and its the only indicator Parson cites, we rate this comment as Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Small Business", "Missouri" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/feb/19/eric-cantor/cantor-says-states-are-spending-more-medicaid-publ/", "claim": "Collectively states are spending more on Medicaid than they do on K-12 education.", "author": "Nancy Madsen", "posted": "02/19/2013", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, is urging lawmakers to make Medicaid more flexible, effective and cheaper for states to run.Under the Medicaid system the rules are set in Washington, but much of the bills are paid in our state capitals, he said during his Feb. 5 Make Life Workspeechat a conservative think tank in Washington Collectively states are spending more on Medicaid than they do on K-12 education.We looked into the claim that states are paying more for Medicaid than public education. Cantors staff told us the information came from areport, published by the National Association of State Budget Officers last fall, that tallied where states get and spend their money.The study found that states planned to spend a total $1.7 trillion in fiscal 2012. Of the sum, 39.8 percent would come from general fund moneys that are collected through statewide taxes, 31.2 percent from federal grants and the remaining 29 percent from other state funds and bonds.Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, was expected to be the most expensive item in the collective state budgets. States were projected to spend $406 billion on the service, or 23.9 percent of their total budgets. Elementary and secondary education came in second, drawing $336 billion, or 19.8 percent of total expenses.But theres a catch to these figures: The federal government provides states with about 56 percent of what they spend on Medicaid, according to NASBO report. So Cantor is including as state expenses about $228 billion that Uncle Sam sends to the states for Medicaid.The picture changes if we simply examine the portions of Medicaid and public education that states pay out of their general funds. Public schools rise to the top of the expense list, drawing an expected $235 billion last fiscal year, or 34.7 percent of all general fund spending. Medicaid falls to a distant No. 2, receiving an estimated $133 billion, or 19.6 percent of general fund outlays.Experts we spoke to didnt express a preference for one accounting method or the other.We include both methods in our report, said Stacy Mazer, senior staff associate at NASBO. One reason weve been using total funds is that some states define their funds differently. And one of the other issues is that even though its not all your money, youre still administering it.Tracy Gordon, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said most health care industry analysts use a total figure cited by Cantor, but note that it includes federal dollars.Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said his organization tracks states general fund spending and considers K-12 education to be the greatest recipient of state money.Our rulingCantor said states are spending more on Medicaid than on education. His statement is correct, although it should be noted that a substantial portion of the dollars states are spending on Medicaid come from the federal government.We rate Cantors statement True.", "issues": [ "Education", "Medicaid", "State Budget", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, is urging lawmakers to make Medicaid more flexible, effective and cheaper for states to run.Under the Medicaid system the rules are set in Washington, but much of the bills are paid in our state capitals, he said during his Feb. 5 Make Life Workspeechat a conservative think tank in Washington Collectively states are spending more on Medicaid than they do on K-12 education.We looked into the claim that states are paying more for Medicaid than public education. Cantors staff told us the information came from areport, published by the National Association of State Budget Officers last fall, that tallied where states get and spend their money.The study found that states planned to spend a total $1.7 trillion in fiscal 2012. Of the sum, 39.8 percent would come from general fund moneys that are collected through statewide taxes, 31.2 percent from federal grants and the remaining 29 percent from other state funds and bonds.Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, was expected to be the most expensive item in the collective state budgets. States were projected to spend $406 billion on the service, or 23.9 percent of their total budgets. Elementary and secondary education came in second, drawing $336 billion, or 19.8 percent of total expenses.But theres a catch to these figures: The federal government provides states with about 56 percent of what they spend on Medicaid, according to NASBO report. So Cantor is including as state expenses about $228 billion that Uncle Sam sends to the states for Medicaid.The picture changes if we simply examine the portions of Medicaid and public education that states pay out of their general funds. Public schools rise to the top of the expense list, drawing an expected $235 billion last fiscal year, or 34.7 percent of all general fund spending. Medicaid falls to a distant No. 2, receiving an estimated $133 billion, or 19.6 percent of general fund outlays.Experts we spoke to didnt express a preference for one accounting method or the other.We include both methods in our report, said Stacy Mazer, senior staff associate at NASBO. One reason weve been using total funds is that some states define their funds differently. And one of the other issues is that even though its not all your money, youre still administering it.Tracy Gordon, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said most health care industry analysts use a total figure cited by Cantor, but note that it includes federal dollars.Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said his organization tracks states general fund spending and considers K-12 education to be the greatest recipient of state money.Our rulingCantor said states are spending more on Medicaid than on education. His statement is correct, although it should be noted that a substantial portion of the dollars states are spending on Medicaid come from the federal government.We rate Cantors statement True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/05/full-text-eric-cantors-make-life-work-speech/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wikileaks-exposes-clinton-assassination-of-antonin-scalia/", "claim": "WikiLeaks Exposes Clinton Assassination of Antonin Scalia?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "10/14/2016", "sci_digest": [ "An e-mail published by WikiLeaks referenced not the literal assassination of Antonin Scalia, but what appeared to be a coordinated smear of Bernie Sanders." ], "justification": "On 13 October 2016, the web site RedStateWatcher reported that e-mail published by WikiLeaks revealed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had been assassinated by Hillary Clinton operatives: reported Antonin Scalia For Trump's sake, please share this to get the word out. The corruption is immense! We need Trump elected to save our country! According to new WikiLeaks emails, three days before Justice Scalia died this email was sent, using the term \"wetworks\" exclusively used in Military meaning \"assassination\". The item referenced a leaked e-mail sent on 9 February 2016, four days before Justice Scalia was found dead in his room at a Texas ranch. E-mail in that chain was presented in reverse chronological order (with the most recent reply first) sender John Podesta initiated the chain at 4:36 PM, and recipient Steve Elmendorf responded at 8:56 PM: e-mail Steve Elmendorf From: John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com]Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 4:36 PM To: Steve Elmendorf Subject: Thanks Didn't think wet works meant pool parties at the Vineyard. From:elmendorf@teamsubjectmatter.comTo: john.podesta@gmail.comDate: 2016-02-09 20:56Subject: RE: Thanks I am all in Sounds like it will be a bad nite , we all need to buckle up and double down Based on Wikipedia's definition of the term, RedStateWatcher claimed that the \"wet works\" phrase used in the otherwise vague e-mail was incontrovertible proof it referenced a literal assassination: definition Claims that Scalia was assassinated were not novel, as within a day of his death conspiracy theories about the manner in which he died swept social media. And the newly-leaked document was contemporaneous to Scalia's sudden passing, heightening concern about the use of the term \"wet work\" (or \"wetwork\"). assassinated However, dictionaries present a broader picture of the term and its applied uses: uses In fact, the term had then-recently been used euphemistically, to describe Chelsea Clinton's campaign trail attacks on her mother's Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders: euphemistically Conservative websites gleefully denounced Chelsea the attack dog. Democrats, meanwhile, wrung their hands over why she of all people would be dispatched to do this kind of wet work. (As strategist Brad Bannon told The Hill, This makes Chelsea just another political player in the arena, and if I was Chelsea, thats not where Id want to be.) And a media bored to sobs with the Democratic primary leapt on the episode like ducks on a June bug. Commentators mused endlessly about why the Clinton camp had taken this route and what it meant. (Consensus: nothing good.) Bernie Sanders was repeatedly invited to respond. Bloombergs Mark Halperin might have sounded a smidge melodramatic when he asserted, I have covered the Clintons since 1991. It takes a lot to surprise me, and I am stunned watching Chelsea Clinton go on the attack. Stunned. Never seen anything like it. In media coverage, \"wet work[s]\" was being used to describe deliberately obtained unflattering coverage of an opponent. And on the same day that the e-mails supposedly describing an assassination plot were sent, Alex Seitz-Wald penned an article for MSNBC that described Bernie Sanders as a regular attendee of luxurious fundraisers, particularly in Martha's Vineyard. The piece also reported both Bill and Hillary Clinton as performing the same sort of \"wet work\" as Chelsea Clinton: article The Sanders campaign is all about smashing the alleged stranglehold corporate power has on politics, and the candidate himself frequently touts that his insurgent run is funded by small donations, not wealthy people or outside groups. Its been an effective message, and one pro-Clinton forces have tried to muddy by calling attention to Sanders ties to the DSCC [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee], which is financed in large part by industry PACs. The DSCC used its financial and political power to bolster Sanders and urge Democrats not to challenge him in his 2006 Senate bid, and spent close to $200,000 through various means to aid his election. Bill Clinton said this week that he practically fell out of my chair when he read reports that Sanders had attended the DSCCs summer donor retreats on Marthas Vineyard, and Hillary Clinton said Sanders took Wall Street cash not directly, but through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Sanders campaign fired back by calling the charge disturbing, dishonest and beyond preposterous, noting the DSCC also receives small donations and is hardly exclusively funded by Wall Street. Although MSNBC published the piece on 9 February 2016, the topic of Sanders' DSCC retreats was the subject of e-mails dated 6 and 7 February 2016. In that chain, campaign associates looked to have discovered a photograph of Sanders at such a retreat and brainstormed ways in which to get a member of the press to cover his attendance at a February 2016 DSCC fundraiser (the e-mail appeared to have an appended image of Sanders titled IMG_0692.JPG). subject e-mails Rearranged in chronological order, the chain demonstrated Hillary Clinton's staffers planning how best to attack her opponent with retreat image and information about the lavish fundraisers: On Feb 6, 2016 9:47 PM, \"Tina Flournoy\" wrote:Bernie at the DSCC retreatOn Saturday, February 6, 2016, Brian Fallon wrote:OmgOn Feb 6, 2016 9:58 PM, \"John Podesta\" wrote:Can we tweet?On Feb 6, 2016, at 7:02 PM, Brian Fallon wrote:I think we shd give to NY postFrom:Tina@presidentclinton.comTo: bfallon@hillaryclinton.comDate: 2016-02-07 01:09 Subject:Re: IMG_0692.JPGDSCC event in edgartown last July. Getting exact dateOn Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 10:18 PM, Tina Flournoy wrote:Will send briefing for the event with attendeesFrom:bfallon@hillaryclinton.comTo: Tina@presidentclinton.comDate: 2016-02-07 16:18Subject: Re: IMG_0692.JPGThank you. We are on this Tina Flournoy stated Sanders attended a DSCC event in July 2015, and on the date of the \"wet work\" e-mail (to which Podesta was also party) Seitz-Wald wrote: During his 10 years on the Senate, Bernie Sanders has been a regular presence at luxurious Democratic fundraising retreats, according to more than a half-dozen lobbyists, donors and former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staff members with whom he attended the events. Sanders most recently appeared at one last July, shortly after he announced his presidential run. Sanders connection to the DSCC has become a issue in his heated primary contest with front-runner Hillary Clinton, who has struggled to explain her close ties to Wall Street and the large speaking fees shes been paid by Goldman Sachs and other banks. Sanders has made Clintons relationships with the financial industry a key point of contrast on the campaign trail. On 13 February 2016, Clinton campaign operatives e-mailed about continuing to use the fundraisers as a smear: e-mailed We have gamed out this hit and don't think it works on debate stage (see Milwaukee debate as example). But hit him all the time on being at DSCC retreats on Martha's Vineyard with lobbyists every year. Finding that it harder for him. Rearranged into the context of Antonin Scalia's death, the use of the term \"wet work\" was presumed by many to mean literal assassination. But e-mails between staffers just prior to the 9 February 2016 document revealed planning for a coordinated effort to plant a negative story about Sanders in the press in the days prior to the 9 February 2016 e-mail and article. On the date Podesta discussed \"wet work\" with Elmendorf, MSNBC published the coverage sought by Clinton's staffers on 6 and 7 February 2016. As such, the most likely victim of the \"wet work\" was not Scalia, but Sanders. Cottle, Michelle. \"Chelsea Clinton Grows Up.\"\r The Atlantic. 19 January 2016. Seitz-Wald, Alex. \"Bernie Sanders a Regular at High-Dollar Donor Retreats.\"\r MSNBC. 9 February 2016.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1nQ5mjcoTxi_YOyt8EEu5JitV59hJ2oMC", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1SZFoQxYlG5i1LsKSifzzB_ZyebdBbPZ4", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=160ad4033mlQKIusLfeL4dtegXV9X_H1F", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 13 October 2016, the web site RedStateWatcher reported that e-mail published by WikiLeaks revealed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had been assassinated by Hillary Clinton operatives:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/lWqBW", "https://www.snopes.com/2016/02/13/justice-scalia-dead-79/" ] }, { "sentence": "The item referenced a leaked e-mail sent on 9 February 2016, four days before Justice Scalia was found dead in his room at a Texas ranch. E-mail in that chain was presented in reverse chronological order (with the most recent reply first) sender John Podesta initiated the chain at 4:36 PM, and recipient Steve Elmendorf responded at 8:56 PM:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6008", "https://teamsubjectmatter.com/team/steve-elmendorf/" ] }, { "sentence": "Based on Wikipedia's definition of the term, RedStateWatcher claimed that the \"wet works\" phrase used in the otherwise vague e-mail was incontrovertible proof it referenced a literal assassination:", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetwork" ] }, { "sentence": "Claims that Scalia was assassinated were not novel, as within a day of his death conspiracy theories about the manner in which he died swept social media. And the newly-leaked document was contemporaneous to Scalia's sudden passing, heightening concern about the use of the term \"wet work\" (or \"wetwork\").", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2016/02/15/scalia-autopsy-conspiracy-theories/" ] }, { "sentence": "However, dictionaries present a broader picture of the term and its applied uses:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wet%20work" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, the term had then-recently been used euphemistically, to describe Chelsea Clinton's campaign trail attacks on her mother's Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/chelsea-clinton-bernie-sanders/424623/" ] }, { "sentence": "In media coverage, \"wet work[s]\" was being used to describe deliberately obtained unflattering coverage of an opponent. And on the same day that the e-mails supposedly describing an assassination plot were sent, Alex Seitz-Wald penned an article for MSNBC that described Bernie Sanders as a regular attendee of luxurious fundraisers, particularly in Martha's Vineyard. The piece also reported both Bill and Hillary Clinton as performing the same sort of \"wet work\" as Chelsea Clinton:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/bernie-sanders-regular-luxurious-dscc-fundraising-retreats" ] }, { "sentence": "Although MSNBC published the piece on 9 February 2016, the topic of Sanders' DSCC retreats was the subject of e-mails dated 6 and 7 February 2016. In that chain, campaign associates looked to have discovered a photograph of Sanders at such a retreat and brainstormed ways in which to get a member of the press to cover his attendance at a February 2016 DSCC fundraiser (the e-mail appeared to have an appended image of Sanders titled IMG_0692.JPG).", "hrefs": [ "https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9394", "https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9394" ] }, { "sentence": "On 13 February 2016, Clinton campaign operatives e-mailed about continuing to use the fundraisers as a smear:", "hrefs": [ "https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8640" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-welcome-sign-kansas-city-typo/", "claim": "Does a 'Welcome to Kansas City' Sign Contain an Unfortunate Typo?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "05/08/2018", "sci_digest": [ "An image of a welcome sign featuring the word \"anally\" instead of \"annually\" is a digital creation." ], "justification": "The phrase \"you had one job!\" is frequently used to note humorous instances when a relatively small mistake (such as a spelling error) results in a bigger or embarrassing problem. (We've all been there.) The \"You Had One Job\" Twitter account has posted scores of examples of this meme. On 7 May 2018, it shared an amusing image that supposedly shows a \"Welcome to Kansas City\" sign which mistakenly spelled the word \"annually\" as \"anally,\" delighting 12-year-olds and those who share their humor everywhere: shared Unfortunately for fans of amusing typos, this misspelling wasn't the result of careless proofreading or the handiwork of a disgruntled employee, but rather an enterprising prankster with a gift for digital editing. The @VisitKC Twitter account posted an image showing the original sign, and remarked that the photograph had been doctored: @VisitKC remarked Other images showing the same sign from different angles were also posted online: sign Gish, Sarah. \"No Butts About It: Viral Photo of Visit KC Tourism Sign Is a Prank.\"\r The Kansas City Star. 7 May 2018.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EvmGmin652G5SpqMmwFCznU12zMQbloR", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qnZGMOQKDubqBXMPkz5CKG912fOqb-sZ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YZv75DpeOI0i72XobxcSHUmW5_gxOkTz", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The \"You Had One Job\" Twitter account has posted scores of examples of this meme. On 7 May 2018, it shared an amusing image that supposedly shows a \"Welcome to Kansas City\" sign which mistakenly spelled the word \"annually\" as \"anally,\" delighting 12-year-olds and those who share their humor everywhere:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TheRealKlaus/status/993597039702310913" ] }, { "sentence": "The @VisitKC Twitter account posted an image showing the original sign, and remarked that the photograph had been doctored:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/VisitKC/status/993596678774149131", "https://twitter.com/VisitKC/status/993596678774149131" ] }, { "sentence": " Other images showing the same sign from different angles were also posted online:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/trmndsblndtte/status/993592833935364097" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/aug/04/jennifer-granholm/jennifer-granholm-says-massive-government-cuts-mic/", "claim": "I cut more as a percentage out of government than any state in the country this past decade. And where is Michigan in terms of its economic growth? Cutting did not result in economic growth.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "08/04/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "During theJuly 31, 2011, edition of NBCsMeet the Press, Jennifer Granholm -- a Democrat who served as governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011 -- was asked to bring her own experience to bear on the debate over the federal debt ceiling.Clearly the entitlement question has to be addressed, Granholm said, referring to the rising cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which is a major contributor to the growing federal debt.However, Granholm told host David Gregory that she was skeptical about whether such cuts would be a boon for the economy at large.I can tell you, David, I cut more as a percentage out of government than any state in the country this past decade, Granholm said. And where is Michigan in terms of its economic growth? Cutting did not result in economic growth. What results in growth is making sure you've got a good business climate for businesses to grow and prosper. And so we've got to cut where we can in order to invest where we must in order to grow the economy. And it's that investment side that I worry that those who are affiliated with the tea party or who are on the far right don't realize that other countries are co-investing with businesses in order to create jobs in their countries.If we do nothing more than just cut, she continued, that will continue to accelerate the lack of growth in (gross domestic product). So we've got to realize that the strategy here must be very specific. Yes, you've got to reform entitlements, but you've got reform entitlements and invest in order to grow because the quickest way to take down your deficit is through growth.We wondered about three elements of Granholms comments: whether she cut more as a percentage out of government than any state in the country this past decade, how poor Michigans economic growth has been over the same period and whether spending cuts to state government hampered economic growth. (Separately, were looking at a comment from the same show by Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, in which he accused Granholm of supporting the highest tax increases in the history of Michigan, which helped push unemployment from 6.8 percent to 15.3 percent. )Well take up the three claims in order.Did Michigan cut more from its government than any state in the country?To answer this question, we turned toThe Fiscal Survey of States, a twice-annual publication of the National Association of State Budget Officers that offers fiscal data for the 50 states going back to 1979.We determined that the most appropriate data to use were figures for annual expenditures from the 50 states general funds. Well acknowledge up front that this is not the only measure that could be used to compare how much state governments have been cut. In fact, Michigans state revenues flow into two accounts, the general fund and the school-aid fund, and the numbers we looked at only take into account the general fund. However, fiscal experts told us that the general fund offers a reasonable yardstick for state spending, and it also turned out to be the same measurement Granholm used, according to a spokeswoman. (Then theres the eternal statisticians lament: When comparing all 50 states across a period of nearly a decade, you take the statistics you can get. )We calculated the change in general fund expenditures for all 50 states between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2010 -- the closest approximation we could get to the start and end dates of Granholms tenure.And by this measure, Granholm is right. Every state but two saw their general-fund expenditures increase over that period (without taking inflation into account). The two that didnt? Georgia, which saw its general fund expenditures fall by $54 million over that period, and Michigan, which saw its general fund expenditures fall by more than $1 billion. If theyd been adjusted for inflation, the decrease would be even more severe.Using another measure, Carole Polan, a spokeswoman for Granholm, added that from 2000 to 2008, the number of state employees fell by about 11,000 -- a 17 percent decline. That was a more rapid decline than in private employment, which fell in the state by 12 percent over the same period, Polan said.Well address the causes of these declines in a moment, but for now, we can say that by this measure, Granholm is right that spending on government declined faster in Michigan than in any other state between 2003 and 2010.How poor was Michigans economic growth during Granholms tenure?To answer this question, we looked at gross domestic product data for Michigan as published by the U.S. Commerce Departments Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Just as the bureau calculates the national gross domestic product, it does the same for individual states.) Once again, we compared Michigans GDP for 2003 and 2010.By this measure too, Michigan performed worst in the nation. Its gross domestic product rose by 6 percent over that period (again, not adjusted for inflation). That may sound okay, but its not. Its only about one-third the rate of the next worst-performing state -- Ohio, at 17 percent growth. And its less than one-fifth of the increase of the nation as a whole, which was 31 percent.So where economic growth is concerned, Granholm is right again: Michigans performance during her tenure was uniquely poor among the 50 states.Did spending cuts to state government hamper Michigans economic growth?The cuts to government almost certainly hampered Michigans economy. But experts say that they werent the primary cause of the states poor economic performance.Long-term troubles in the automotive industry, the national recession and raising taxes on businesses and individuals were all partially to blame, said Patrick L. Anderson, an economic analyst in East Lansing, Mich., who wrote a report released by Granholm's successor elected in 2010, Republican Rick Snyder.Charles Ballard, an economist at Michigan State University and author ofMichigan's Economic Future: A New Look, added that even before the national economic crisis of 2008, the auto industry limped along for much of the decade, with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler losing market share steadily. In Michigan, we dont have Honda plants -- we have GM, Ford and Chrysler plants. Two of those companies went into bankruptcy. For better or for worse, we are home to the portions of the industry that did the worst.Meanwhile, Ballard added that Michigans tax structure -- which doesnt tax most services or Internet sales and mail-order -- exacerbated the fiscal impact of these economic problems.If the sectors that arent taxed are growing faster than those that are, the sales tax applies to an ever-shrinking portion of the economy, Ballard said. So if you put the tax law on autopilot, the portion of your economy going to tax revenues shrinks every year.In fact, Michigans revenues peaked in 2000 and are not projected to return to peak until 2020, said Arturo Perez, a state budget analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. No other state has had a similar revenue situation.Given this backdrop, a more appropriate way of thinking about it is that a poor economy in Michigan caused a drop in state tax revenue, which in turn forced Granholm to cut government services -- not the other way around. Declining tax revenue is a much more urgent factor for state governments than for the federal government, since most states are constrained from using deficit spending. (Michigan is one, though unavoidable deficits may be resolved in the next fiscal year.) This means that tax revenues play a more direct role in determining spending levels than they do at the federal level.The plain fact is that state economic growth rates are in the short run linked to the demand for products that are produced in the state -- products like autos in Michigan, oil in Texas, sunny vacations in Florida and gambling holidays in Nevada, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution. Demand for these products can have booms and busts that are completely unrelated to a states typical tax rate or spending level. In the short run, when demand for a states products plummets, its state tax revenues fall, forcing the state to trim state spending or increase state tax rates. Our ruling Theres strong evidence supporting two of Granholms statistical claims -- that government spending has fallen faster in Michigan than in any other state, and that the states economic performance has been especially poor compared to other states.However, in theMeet the Pressinterview, Granholm was trying to use her experience as a governor to make a larger point about how cutting government did not result in economic growth. She's probably correct that government cuts hampered her state's recovery, at least in the short term, but Michigans experience over the last decade suggests that the reverse is an even bigger factor -- that is, poor economic growth hurts tax revenues and, in turn, forces government cuts. This doesnt mean that Granholms point is inaccurate, but in trying to apply a state lesson to a federal problem, shes ignored a key factor in how state fiscal policy works. On balance, we rate her statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Deficit", "Economy", "States" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "During theJuly 31, 2011, edition of NBCsMeet the Press, Jennifer Granholm -- a Democrat who served as governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011 -- was asked to bring her own experience to bear on the debate over the federal debt ceiling.Clearly the entitlement question has to be addressed, Granholm said, referring to the rising cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which is a major contributor to the growing federal debt.However, Granholm told host David Gregory that she was skeptical about whether such cuts would be a boon for the economy at large.I can tell you, David, I cut more as a percentage out of government than any state in the country this past decade, Granholm said. And where is Michigan in terms of its economic growth? Cutting did not result in economic growth. What results in growth is making sure you've got a good business climate for businesses to grow and prosper. And so we've got to cut where we can in order to invest where we must in order to grow the economy. And it's that investment side that I worry that those who are affiliated with the tea party or who are on the far right don't realize that other countries are co-investing with businesses in order to create jobs in their countries.If we do nothing more than just cut, she continued, that will continue to accelerate the lack of growth in (gross domestic product). So we've got to realize that the strategy here must be very specific. Yes, you've got to reform entitlements, but you've got reform entitlements and invest in order to grow because the quickest way to take down your deficit is through growth.We wondered about three elements of Granholms comments: whether she cut more as a percentage out of government than any state in the country this past decade, how poor Michigans economic growth has been over the same period and whether spending cuts to state government hampered economic growth. (Separately, were looking at a comment from the same show by Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, in which he accused Granholm of supporting the highest tax increases in the history of Michigan, which helped push unemployment from 6.8 percent to 15.3 percent.)Well take up the three claims in order.Did Michigan cut more from its government than any state in the country?To answer this question, we turned toThe Fiscal Survey of States, a twice-annual publication of the National Association of State Budget Officers that offers fiscal data for the 50 states going back to 1979.We determined that the most appropriate data to use were figures for annual expenditures from the 50 states general funds. Well acknowledge up front that this is not the only measure that could be used to compare how much state governments have been cut. In fact, Michigans state revenues flow into two accounts, the general fund and the school-aid fund, and the numbers we looked at only take into account the general fund. However, fiscal experts told us that the general fund offers a reasonable yardstick for state spending, and it also turned out to be the same measurement Granholm used, according to a spokeswoman. (Then theres the eternal statisticians lament: When comparing all 50 states across a period of nearly a decade, you take the statistics you can get.)We calculated the change in general fund expenditures for all 50 states between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2010 -- the closest approximation we could get to the start and end dates of Granholms tenure.And by this measure, Granholm is right. Every state but two saw their general-fund expenditures increase over that period (without taking inflation into account). The two that didnt? Georgia, which saw its general fund expenditures fall by $54 million over that period, and Michigan, which saw its general fund expenditures fall by more than $1 billion. If theyd been adjusted for inflation, the decrease would be even more severe.Using another measure, Carole Polan, a spokeswoman for Granholm, added that from 2000 to 2008, the number of state employees fell by about 11,000 -- a 17 percent decline. That was a more rapid decline than in private employment, which fell in the state by 12 percent over the same period, Polan said.Well address the causes of these declines in a moment, but for now, we can say that by this measure, Granholm is right that spending on government declined faster in Michigan than in any other state between 2003 and 2010.How poor was Michigans economic growth during Granholms tenure?To answer this question, we looked at gross domestic product data for Michigan as published by the U.S. Commerce Departments Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Just as the bureau calculates the national gross domestic product, it does the same for individual states.) Once again, we compared Michigans GDP for 2003 and 2010.By this measure too, Michigan performed worst in the nation. Its gross domestic product rose by 6 percent over that period (again, not adjusted for inflation). That may sound okay, but its not. Its only about one-third the rate of the next worst-performing state -- Ohio, at 17 percent growth. And its less than one-fifth of the increase of the nation as a whole, which was 31 percent.So where economic growth is concerned, Granholm is right again: Michigans performance during her tenure was uniquely poor among the 50 states.Did spending cuts to state government hamper Michigans economic growth?The cuts to government almost certainly hampered Michigans economy. But experts say that they werent the primary cause of the states poor economic performance.Long-term troubles in the automotive industry, the national recession and raising taxes on businesses and individuals were all partially to blame, said Patrick L. Anderson, an economic analyst in East Lansing, Mich., who wrote a report released by Granholm's successor elected in 2010, Republican Rick Snyder.Charles Ballard, an economist at Michigan State University and author ofMichigan's Economic Future: A New Look, added that even before the national economic crisis of 2008, the auto industry limped along for much of the decade, with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler losing market share steadily. In Michigan, we dont have Honda plants -- we have GM, Ford and Chrysler plants. Two of those companies went into bankruptcy. For better or for worse, we are home to the portions of the industry that did the worst.Meanwhile, Ballard added that Michigans tax structure -- which doesnt tax most services or Internet sales and mail-order -- exacerbated the fiscal impact of these economic problems.If the sectors that arent taxed are growing faster than those that are, the sales tax applies to an ever-shrinking portion of the economy, Ballard said. So if you put the tax law on autopilot, the portion of your economy going to tax revenues shrinks every year.In fact, Michigans revenues peaked in 2000 and are not projected to return to peak until 2020, said Arturo Perez, a state budget analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. No other state has had a similar revenue situation.Given this backdrop, a more appropriate way of thinking about it is that a poor economy in Michigan caused a drop in state tax revenue, which in turn forced Granholm to cut government services -- not the other way around. Declining tax revenue is a much more urgent factor for state governments than for the federal government, since most states are constrained from using deficit spending. (Michigan is one, though unavoidable deficits may be resolved in the next fiscal year.) This means that tax revenues play a more direct role in determining spending levels than they do at the federal level.The plain fact is that state economic growth rates are in the short run linked to the demand for products that are produced in the state -- products like autos in Michigan, oil in Texas, sunny vacations in Florida and gambling holidays in Nevada, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution. Demand for these products can have booms and busts that are completely unrelated to a states typical tax rate or spending level. In the short run, when demand for a states products plummets, its state tax revenues fall, forcing the state to trim state spending or increase state tax rates.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43948074/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jan/06/bob-mcdonnell/gov-bob-mcdonnell-says-hes-proposed-record-contrib/", "claim": "Says hes proposed the largest employer contribution to the Virginia Retirement System in history.", "author": "Sean Gorman", "posted": "01/06/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed spending an additional $2.2 billion on state employee and teacher pensions during a two-year budget period that will begin July 1.The governor, in presenting his biennial budget plan to the General Assemblys money committees on Dec. 19,saidhis pension proposal, if approved, would be the largest employer contribution to the Virginia Retirement System in history.We wondered whether the total $2.21 billion infusion over two budget years would truly be historic.Since taking office in 2010, McDonnell has made a number of proposals to reform the Virginia Retirement System, which is an estimated $19.9 billion short of the assets needed to pay its projected pension liabilities over the next 85 years. But the governor also added to VRSs woes early in his term by convincing the legislature to divert $620 million in scheduled pension contributions to balance the states general fund, which pays for education, public safety and health programs.Under McDonnells new proposal, Virginia would pay roughly $600 million for state employee pensions during the 2013-14 budget years. Another $1.6 billion would be contributed to teacher retirement funds, with local governments picking up $1 billion of the sum and the state government paying $600 million.Tucker Martin, McDonnells director of communications, told us the governors claim that the $2.21 billion total contributions would be historic was based on VRS data.The VRS figures show the largest employer contribution to date came in the 2007-08 biennial budget when total state and local contributions were $1.72 billion. Thats lower than McDonnells proposal.The retirement system started in 1942, but VRS doesnt have records of employer contributions before 1973.Jeanne Chenault, a VRS spokeswoman, said the number of teachers and state employees before 1973 would have been lower, so its unlikely that contribution amounts would have exceeded 1973 levels.The VRS data shows annual contribution amounts without adjusting for inflation. So we did that work ourselves to see McDonnells claim could survive another test.It did. Even when adjusting for inflation, the 2007-08 contributions were still the high-water mark for employer contributions to the pension system, coming in at just more than $1.8 billion in current dollars. McDonnells proposal eclipses that.Our Ruling:The governor said his proposed $2.21 billion employer contribution for state worker and teacher pensions would be the largest in VRS history.For as far back as the data goes, the governors statement is correct even when adjusting for inflation.We rate the claim True.", "issues": [ "Pensions", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed spending an additional $2.2 billion on state employee and teacher pensions during a two-year budget period that will begin July 1.The governor, in presenting his biennial budget plan to the General Assemblys money committees on Dec. 19,saidhis pension proposal, if approved, would be the largest employer contribution to the Virginia Retirement System in history.We wondered whether the total $2.21 billion infusion over two budget years would truly be historic.Since taking office in 2010, McDonnell has made a number of proposals to reform the Virginia Retirement System, which is an estimated $19.9 billion short of the assets needed to pay its projected pension liabilities over the next 85 years. But the governor also added to VRSs woes early in his term by convincing the legislature to divert $620 million in scheduled pension contributions to balance the states general fund, which pays for education, public safety and health programs.Under McDonnells new proposal, Virginia would pay roughly $600 million for state employee pensions during the 2013-14 budget years. Another $1.6 billion would be contributed to teacher retirement funds, with local governments picking up $1 billion of the sum and the state government paying $600 million.Tucker Martin, McDonnells director of communications, told us the governors claim that the $2.21 billion total contributions would be historic was based on VRS data.The VRS figures show the largest employer contribution to date came in the 2007-08 biennial budget when total state and local contributions were $1.72 billion. Thats lower than McDonnells proposal.The retirement system started in 1942, but VRS doesnt have records of employer contributions before 1973.Jeanne Chenault, a VRS spokeswoman, said the number of teachers and state employees before 1973 would have been lower, so its unlikely that contribution amounts would have exceeded 1973 levels.The VRS data shows annual contribution amounts without adjusting for inflation. So we did that work ourselves to see McDonnells claim could survive another test.It did. Even when adjusting for inflation, the 2007-08 contributions were still the high-water mark for employer contributions to the pension system, coming in at just more than $1.8 billion in current dollars. McDonnells proposal eclipses that.Our Ruling:The governor said his proposed $2.21 billion employer contribution for state worker and teacher pensions would be the largest in VRS history.For as far back as the data goes, the governors statement is correct even when adjusting for inflation.We rate the claim True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.governor.virginia.gov/utility/docs/Address%20to%20the%20Joint%20Money%20Committees%20December%2019,%202011.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jun/18/george-allen/george-allen-says-he-froze-college-tuition-when-he/", "claim": "Before I was governor, tuition was skyrocketing and we stopped that. We capped and then we froze college tuition.", "author": "Sean Gorman", "posted": "06/18/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "U.S. Senate candidate George Allen says he put the brakes on rising college costs when he was governor from 1994 to 1998.Before I was governor, tuition was skyrocketing, and we stopped that, Allen said in a May 25 debate between four candidates seeking the GOP Senate nomination. We capped, and then we froze college tuition.Allen won the Republican primary on June 12 and will face Democrat Tim Kaine this fall. They are seeking to replace Democrat Jim Webb, who is not seeking a second Senate term.We wondered if the Allen administration really did put a lid on tuition. Allen, while making this claim, shared credit with the Democratic-controlled legislature that served with him.Dan Allen, a senior adviser to the campaign, pointed us to aJuly 2011 reportfrom the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.The study said that during the early 1990s, colleges and universities increased tuitions by double digits annually to compensate for state funding cuts made by the General Assembly and then-Gov. Doug Wilder to help balance the budget during a recession.Wilder, in his final budget proposal made during an improving economy in December 1993, urged the General Assembly to cap tuition and instructional fee increases for in-state students at 5 percent during the 1994-95 school year and 4 percent during 1995-96.Allen, who took office in January 1994, successfully urged the General Assembly go a step further and cap the increases at 3 percent during each of the next two school years.In 1996, as SCHEV notes, Allen and the General Assembly froze tuition and instructional fees entirely. The action did not apply to a number of other mandatory college costs, such as fees for athletic programs, health services and campus transportation. Lawmakers eased some of the burden on colleges by appropriating an additional $200 million for higher education.The Richmond Times-Dispatch in January 1998 reported that a strong economy during Allens term allowed him to finance the tuition freeze. State tax revenues grew by about 45 percent during his tenure.Allen, in his farewell budget, recommended freezing tuition through 2000. His successor, Republican Jim Gilmore, rolled back tuition and instructional fees by 20 percent for in-state students.When Allen arrived in the governors mansion during the 1993-94 academic year, the average tuition and instructional fees for full time, in-state undergraduate students at four-year colleges was $2,518,according to SCHEVs historical tables.That rose to $2,717 in the 1995-1996 academic year and stayed at that level through 1997-1998, the last academic year of Allens term.Using inflation-adjusted figures based on 1992 dollars, the report shows the amount of tuition and instructional fees went from $2,383 in the 1993-94 academic year down to $2,320 in 1997-98. Even when other mandatory fees that were not subject freeze are added in, the college costs remained flat after being adjusted for inflation.Costs at two-year colleges showed the same trend: in-state tuition and instructional fees at those institutions were basically flat during Allens term.Our rulingAllen said that, as governor, he stopped soaring tuition costs by implementing a tuition freeze.Allen and the General Assembly did impose a freeze after tuition had risen sharply during the early 1990s recession. Allen had leeway to cap tuitions because a healthy economy during his term allowed lawmakers to increase state appropriations to colleges and universities.We rate Allens claim True.", "issues": [ "Education", "State Budget", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "U.S. Senate candidate George Allen says he put the brakes on rising college costs when he was governor from 1994 to 1998.Before I was governor, tuition was skyrocketing, and we stopped that, Allen said in a May 25 debate between four candidates seeking the GOP Senate nomination. We capped, and then we froze college tuition.Allen won the Republican primary on June 12 and will face Democrat Tim Kaine this fall. They are seeking to replace Democrat Jim Webb, who is not seeking a second Senate term.We wondered if the Allen administration really did put a lid on tuition. Allen, while making this claim, shared credit with the Democratic-controlled legislature that served with him.Dan Allen, a senior adviser to the campaign, pointed us to aJuly 2011 reportfrom the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.The study said that during the early 1990s, colleges and universities increased tuitions by double digits annually to compensate for state funding cuts made by the General Assembly and then-Gov. Doug Wilder to help balance the budget during a recession.Wilder, in his final budget proposal made during an improving economy in December 1993, urged the General Assembly to cap tuition and instructional fee increases for in-state students at 5 percent during the 1994-95 school year and 4 percent during 1995-96.Allen, who took office in January 1994, successfully urged the General Assembly go a step further and cap the increases at 3 percent during each of the next two school years.In 1996, as SCHEV notes, Allen and the General Assembly froze tuition and instructional fees entirely. The action did not apply to a number of other mandatory college costs, such as fees for athletic programs, health services and campus transportation. Lawmakers eased some of the burden on colleges by appropriating an additional $200 million for higher education.The Richmond Times-Dispatch in January 1998 reported that a strong economy during Allens term allowed him to finance the tuition freeze. State tax revenues grew by about 45 percent during his tenure.Allen, in his farewell budget, recommended freezing tuition through 2000. His successor, Republican Jim Gilmore, rolled back tuition and instructional fees by 20 percent for in-state students.When Allen arrived in the governors mansion during the 1993-94 academic year, the average tuition and instructional fees for full time, in-state undergraduate students at four-year colleges was $2,518,according to SCHEVs historical tables.That rose to $2,717 in the 1995-1996 academic year and stayed at that level through 1997-1998, the last academic year of Allens term.Using inflation-adjusted figures based on 1992 dollars, the report shows the amount of tuition and instructional fees went from $2,383 in the 1993-94 academic year down to $2,320 in 1997-98. Even when other mandatory fees that were not subject freeze are added in, the college costs remained flat after being adjusted for inflation.Costs at two-year colleges showed the same trend: in-state tuition and instructional fees at those institutions were basically flat during Allens term.Our rulingAllen said that, as governor, he stopped soaring tuition costs by implementing a tuition freeze.Allen and the General Assembly did impose a freeze after tuition had risen sharply during the early 1990s recession. Allen had leeway to cap tuitions because a healthy economy during his term allowed lawmakers to increase state appropriations to colleges and universities.We rate Allens claim True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.schev.edu/Reportstats/2011TuitionFeesReport.pdf?from=" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/israel-military-palestine-treasure/", "claim": "Did Israel Destroy the Palestine National Library, the Azhar Library, and the 'National Cultural Center'?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "05/13/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A cultural center was indeed destroyed in Gaza in August 2018, but a viral meme contains some inaccurate and misleading information about it. " ], "justification": "In May 2019, a set of images supposedly showing the Palestine \"National Cultural Center\" before and after it was destroyed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went viral on social media, along with the claim that the IDF had also destroyed the National Palestine Library and the Azhar Library: Many social media users presented these images as if they were recent, even comparing them to the fire that had broken out at Notre Dame Cathedral a few weeks prior: recent Notre Dame Cathedral The photographs used in this meme were real, but they were not taken recently, and the accompanying information was inaccurate or misleading. These photographs show the Said al-Mishal Centre (not the \"National Cultural Center\") in Gaza that was destroyed during an air strike on 9 August 2018 at the end of a \"round of escalation\" between the militant group Hamas and the IDF. Here's how the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center summed up the events that eventually led to the Centre's destruction: destroyed Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center On August 8 and 9, 2018, there was a fifth round of escalation between Hamas and the IDF. Hamas and the other terrorist organizations fired about 180 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli territory. The IDF responded with extensive attacks on Hamas infrastructure and assets. During and between the rounds of escalation (end of May to August 9, 2018), more than 610 rockets and mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory. At the same time, contacts have been held to reach an agreement between the sides, mediated by Egypt and the UN envoy to the Middle East, so far without result. The Israeli military maintained that the Said al-Mishal Centre was targeted because it was being \"used by the Hamas terror organisations interior security forces for military purposes.\" But Sameer al-Mishal, director general of the Centre, disputed this assertion, and the Palestinian Performing Arts Network released a statement claiming that the IDF was attacking the culture of Palestine: The centre was a symbol of Palestinian cultural heritage and was purposefully targeted by the Israeli occupation because art and culture reinforce and strengthen Palestinian national and cultural identity.\" Palestinian Performing Arts Network While we were able to find a number of reports concerning the destruction of the Said al-Mishal Centre in August 2018, as well as several images showing the aftermath of that attack (including the image featured on the right-hand side of this meme), our search for news reports about the destruction of the Palestine National Library were less successful. number reports destruction aftermath The claim that Israel destroyed the \"Palestine National Library\" likely refers to a July 2018 bombing at a Hamas training facility in Gaza. YnetNews reported that the five-story, unfinished building, which sat on a network of tunnels, had originally been planned as a national library: reported The Hamas training facility in Gaza that the IAF attacked on Saturday was meant to be the \"Palestinian national library,\" the IDF said. The facility, located next to the Sheikh Zayed mosque, is an unfinished and abandoned five-story building in the al-Shati refugee camp, which was meant to be used for public or government services for the Palestinians, or at the very least for housing. Instead, the IDF said it has been used for years as an urban warfare training facility for Hamas, and in recent months Hamas has also been using it to drill survival in the tunnels. A tunnel was dug under the building, which connects to Hamas's massive underground tunnel network in the strip. While this building may have been intended at one time to house a \"Palestinian National Library,\" the edifice apparently never operated in this function. Again, it's unclear exactly what facility this meme is referring to as the \"Azhar\" library. Our best guess is that it is referencing the Al-Azhar University - Gaza (AUG). Library of Faculty of Agriculture: While that library is still standing as of this writing, one of its branches was severely damaged by \"Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2009\": Library of Faculty of Agriculture: Library of Faculty of Agriculture: It contains a huge collection of materials in Agricultural and Animal Sciences essential for students in the Faculty of Agriculture. Al Azhar University - Gaza (AUG) has the only faculty specialized in Agriculture in the Gaza Strip. However, the library was severely damaged during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2009. The total destruction of the library forced the university administration to join what was left from it in the central library in a hall named Faculty of Agriculture hall. We were unable to find many additional details about this attack. A contemporary article from the New Humanitarian didn't mention the library specifically, but it did report that Al-Azhar University - Gaza was damaged during an attack in 2009, and that thousands of students were unable to return to school due to \"issues related to war\": New Humanitarian Al-Azhar, Gazas second largest university, generally seen as pro-Fatah (the political faction associated with Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank) was hit on the same day. Three thousand of the 20,000 registered students could not return this semester due to issues related to the war, said public relations officer at Al-Azhar University Sameh Hassanin, who also said there had been a 20 percent increase in the number of students unable to afford fees since the offensive ended. There is also a library at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, but we found no reports concerning the destruction of that library. library Zitun, Yoav. \"The 'National Library' That Turned Into a Training Facility.\"\r YnetNews. 15 July 2018. Kennedy, Rachel. \"Israeli Airstrikes Flatten Cultural Centre in Gaza Strip as Hamas Seeks Truce.\"\r EuroNews. 10 August 2018. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. \"The Fifth Round of Escalation Between Israel and Hamas, August 8-9, 2018.\"\r 9 August 2018. Balousha, Hazem; Holmes, Oliver. \"'Our Memories Have Vanished:' The Palestinian Theatre Destroyed in a Bomb Strike.\"\r The Guardian. 22 August 2018. Update [3 June 2019]: Added information concerning a branch of the Al-Azhar University - Gaza (AUG) that was severely damaged in 2009. ", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19gfQHJF2wD9rXho-oK3UQ3jvZUAxk7vD", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1lvFLNIUfA34qTpzHPYA-7B32AIeSWkGD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Many social media users presented these images as if they were recent, even comparing them to the fire that had broken out at Notre Dame Cathedral a few weeks prior:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.fo/ZAESo", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/04/17/misinformation-notre-dame-fire/" ] }, { "sentence": "These photographs show the Said al-Mishal Centre (not the \"National Cultural Center\") in Gaza that was destroyed during an air strike on 9 August 2018 at the end of a \"round of escalation\" between the militant group Hamas and the IDF. Here's how the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center summed up the events that eventually led to the Centre's destruction:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/aug/22/our-memories-have-vanished-the-palestinian-theatre-destroyed-in-a-bomb-strike", "https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/fifth-round-escalation-israel-hamas-august-8-9-2018/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Israeli military maintained that the Said al-Mishal Centre was targeted because it was being \"used by the Hamas terror organisations interior security forces for military purposes.\" But Sameer al-Mishal, director general of the Centre, disputed this assertion, and the Palestinian Performing Arts Network released a statement claiming that the IDF was attacking the culture of Palestine: The centre was a symbol of Palestinian cultural heritage and was purposefully targeted by the Israeli occupation because art and culture reinforce and strengthen Palestinian national and cultural identity.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://artists.ps/post/318.html" ] }, { "sentence": "While we were able to find a number of reports concerning the destruction of the Said al-Mishal Centre in August 2018, as well as several images showing the aftermath of that attack (including the image featured on the right-hand side of this meme), our search for news reports about the destruction of the Palestine National Library were less successful.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.euronews.com/2018/08/10/israeli-airstrikes-flatten-cultural-centre-in-gaza-strip-as-hamas-seeks-truce-the-cube", "https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/fifth-round-escalation-israel-hamas-august-8-9-2018/", "https://www.kanannews.net/post/1379", "https://m-arch.livejournal.com/1814018.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim that Israel destroyed the \"Palestine National Library\" likely refers to a July 2018 bombing at a Hamas training facility in Gaza. YnetNews reported that the five-story, unfinished building, which sat on a network of tunnels, had originally been planned as a national library:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5310182,00.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Library of Faculty of Agriculture:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.alazhar.edu.ps/eng/Library/about.html" ] }, { "sentence": "We were unable to find many additional details about this attack. A contemporary article from the New Humanitarian didn't mention the library specifically, but it did report that Al-Azhar University - Gaza was damaged during an attack in 2009, and that thousands of students were unable to return to school due to \"issues related to war\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2009/03/26/tough-times-university-students-gaza" ] }, { "sentence": "There is also a library at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, but we found no reports concerning the destruction of that library. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.azhar.edu.eg/centeral-lib" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/aug/02/blog-posting/how-trump-state-permitted-3-d-printed-gun/", "claim": "Says Donald Trump contradicted his own administration when he said the decision to allow blueprints for 3D-printed guns to be distributed doesnt seem to make much sense.", "author": "Bill McCarthy", "posted": "08/02/2018", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A federal judgeissueda temporary restraining order to block the online publication of blueprints outlining how to create untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed firearms. The blueprints were originally scheduled for an Aug. 1 release after a government settlement ended five years of litigation. But word of the release prompted panic as legislators and officials scrambled to block the action. Before the federal judges ruling, at least 21 attorneys general filed suit to stop the blueprints from going live. As conversation heated up, President Donald Trump weighed in onTwitter. I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public, he said. Already spoke to NRA, doesnt seem to make much sense! I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesnt seem to make much sense! Politicians and pundits jumped at the presidents words as proof that he was unfamiliar with a decision from his own administration. Trump: My own administrations latest decision doesnt seem to make much sense! said a July 31headlinefrom Addicting Info, a liberal website. This story was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about ourpartnershipwith Facebook.) Trumps last-minute statement gave us pause, too, so we decided to look at the settlement. Was the Trump administration or Trump actually behind it? The White House did not respond to a request for comment (though Trump's press secretary said later that he did not get a chance to weigh in). So we searched elsewhere for our answer. On May 5, 2013, Defense Distributeduploadedblueprints online that could be used to make a working 3D-printed gun called The Liberator, as well as a 53-secondvideoof founder Cody Wilson firing one. Wilson soon received aletterfrom the Obama administrations State Department demanding that he remove the files from the internet. The letter said the technical data amounted to an illegal gun export in violation of theArms Export Control ActandInternational Traffic in Arms Regulations, because it could be accessed in countries where the United States does not sell weapons. The State Department instructed Wilson to take down the files until he applied for specific approval of the guns multiple components. By that point, the blueprints had already been downloaded 100,000 times. In response, Wilson filed alawsuitagainst the State Department with the help of Second Amendment Foundation, a guns-rights organization, in which he sought a preliminary injunction to allow continued publication of the gun files online. Under both the Obama and Trump administrations, the government stuck by its assertion that the technical data constituted an illegal gun export. Wilson countered that the governments intervention violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Ultimately, district and appeals courts both rejected Wilsons injunction request. But as the case turned to the First Amendment claim, the government made an unexpected settlement offer. With thesettlement, reached in June and announced July 10, the government waived the relevant export restrictions and allowed Wilson to post the blueprints online as early as Aug. 1. Specifically, the State Departmentannouncedthat it was in the interest of the security and foreign policy of the United States to temporarily modify theU.S. Munitions Listto exclude the technical data for the 3-D-printed guns. Defense-related items on the munitions list face tight restrictions, because they offer a critical military or intelligence advantage to the United States. The U.S. Commerce Department manages a separate export list with fewer restrictions. It is not clear what role Trump or the White House played in the settlement decision, though White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanderssaid during an Aug. 1 press briefing that the Department of Justice instructed the State Department to settle without White House approval. The State Department has said that its role in this issue relates solely to regulation of exports of certain types of firearms and any related technical data. But the move to shift the 3D-printed guns technical data outside of the State Departments purview was not without precedent. The governments decision came amid a longstanding but relatively behind-the-scenes administrative project started under the Obama administration and known as export control reform to restructure the regulations governing exports of weapons and technologies. Just as the litigation against Wilson can be traced back to the Obama years, so, too, can the export control changes that may have opened the door for the State Departments settlement. Beginning in 2009, the Obama administrationlaunchedan overhaul of export control in order to refine regulations for items that were subject to both the State Departments International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Commerce Departments Export Administration Regulations. The goal of the reform was to streamline export controls by transferring commercially available items such as consumer guns off the USML and onto the less restrictive Commerce Control List. The State Department began reviewing the munitions list, sifting through each category and removing items that were not considered military-sensitive. By 2016, it had finished reviewing all but threecategories: firearms, ammunition and artillery. However, reform of those final categories stalled before it could become policy. Aproposed rulewould have handed jurisdiction of commercial firearms export controls to the Commerce Department in 2012, but it was delayed following the Sandy Hook school shooting. That proposed rule did notregainmomentum until 2018, under Trump. On May 24, the Departments ofStateandCommercesimultaneously publishedproposalsin the Federal Register to amend the final three categories of the munitions list. The proposed revisions would keep military-grade weapons under State Department jurisdiction and place commercially available firearms under the purview or the Commerce Department. According to theNew York Times, these proposals strongly resemble the Obama administrations 2012 version. CNNreportedthat the government is currently reviewing them. This may explain the State Departments sudden decision to settle its case with Wilson. By recommending that commercial firearm exports move under Commerce Department oversight, the May 24 proposals would likely free Wilsons blueprints from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations that previously restricted them. My guess is that it was somehow wrapped up in the movement of items from the (U.S. Munitions List) to the (Commerce Control List), said Rachel Stohl, managing director at the Stimson Center and an expert in the international arms trade. If you deregulate the weapons themselves, it would follow that the technical specs could be deregulated as well. Stohl added that the settlement was unexpected and the State and Commerce Departments have been less than forthcoming on these details. For his part, Wilson has agreed to refrain from posting his blueprints for at least another month while the multi-state lawsuit travels through the courts. A headline suggested that the government settlement that would have made 3D-printable guns available for download was actually a Trump administration decision, and that Trump said that didn't make much sense. We could not independently determine the extent of Trumps involvement, although Sanders said the president was not afforded the opportunity to approve of the settlement decision. But the State Department under Trump did initiate the settlement after previously taking steps to clear a path for it. However, the Obama administrations export control reform made those steps possible, and it is not far-fetched to consider the Trump administrations move a continuation of that initiative. We rate this statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Foreign Policy", "Trade", "PunditFact", "Guns" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A federal judgeissueda temporary restraining order to block the online publication of blueprints outlining how to create untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed firearms.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/3d-printed-gun-maker-cody-wilson-explains-why-he-wants-to-post-blueprints-for-ar-15-style-rifles/" ] }, { "sentence": "As conversation heated up, President Donald Trump weighed in onTwitter. I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public, he said. Already spoke to NRA, doesnt seem to make much sense!", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1024264286418489345" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump: My own administrations latest decision doesnt seem to make much sense! said a July 31headlinefrom Addicting Info, a liberal website.", "hrefs": [ "http://addictinginfo.com/2018/07/31/trump-my-own-administrations-latest-decision-doesnt-seem-to-make-much-sense/" ] }, { "sentence": "This story was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about ourpartnershipwith Facebook.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536?helpref=related" ] }, { "sentence": "On May 5, 2013, Defense Distributeduploadedblueprints online that could be used to make a working 3D-printed gun called The Liberator, as well as a 53-secondvideoof founder Cody Wilson firing one.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/09/state-department-demands-takedown-of-3d-printable-gun-for-possible-export-control-violation/#5d8fcd5a375f" ] }, { "sentence": "Wilson soon received aletterfrom the Obama administrations State Department demanding that he remove the files from the internet. The letter said the technical data amounted to an illegal gun export in violation of theArms Export Control ActandInternational Traffic in Arms Regulations, because it could be accessed in countries where the United States does not sell weapons.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/05/09/state-department-demands-takedown-of-3d-printable-gun-for-possible-export-control-violation/#5d8fcd5a375f" ] }, { "sentence": "In response, Wilson filed alawsuitagainst the State Department with the help of Second Amendment Foundation, a guns-rights organization, in which he sought a preliminary injunction to allow continued publication of the gun files online.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20170512750" ] }, { "sentence": "With thesettlement, reached in June and announced July 10, the government waived the relevant export restrictions and allowed Wilson to post the blueprints online as early as Aug. 1.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4600187-Defense-Distributed-Settlement-Agreement.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Specifically, the State Departmentannouncedthat it was in the interest of the security and foreign policy of the United States to temporarily modify theU.S. Munitions Listto exclude the technical data for the 3-D-printed guns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/" ] }, { "sentence": "But the move to shift the 3D-printed guns technical data outside of the State Departments purview was not without precedent. The governments decision came amid a longstanding but relatively behind-the-scenes administrative project started under the Obama administration and known as export control reform to restructure the regulations governing exports of weapons and technologies.", "hrefs": [ "https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/03/08/fact-sheet-implementation-export-control-reform" ] }, { "sentence": "Beginning in 2009, the Obama administrationlaunchedan overhaul of export control in order to refine regulations for items that were subject to both the State Departments International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Commerce Departments Export Administration Regulations.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083005331.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The State Department began reviewing the munitions list, sifting through each category and removing items that were not considered military-sensitive. By 2016, it had finished reviewing all but threecategories: firearms, ammunition and artillery.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/01/20/defense-industry-hopeful-trump-will-pick-up-obama-s-legacy-of-export-control-reform/" ] }, { "sentence": "However, reform of those final categories stalled before it could become policy. Aproposed rulewould have handed jurisdiction of commercial firearms export controls to the Commerce Department in 2012, but it was delayed following the Sandy Hook school shooting.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.propublica.org/article/in-big-win-for-defense-industry-obama-rolls-back-limits-on-arms-export" ] }, { "sentence": "That proposed rule did notregainmomentum until 2018, under Trump. On May 24, the Departments ofStateandCommercesimultaneously publishedproposalsin the Federal Register to amend the final three categories of the munitions list.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/business/gun-exports-trump.html" ] }, { "sentence": "According to theNew York Times, these proposals strongly resemble the Obama administrations 2012 version. CNNreportedthat the government is currently reviewing them.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/business/gun-exports-trump.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jan/30/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-top-1-percent-earn-more-national-inc/", "claim": "Today the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928.", "author": "Alex Wilts", "posted": "01/30/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lately have aired similar concerns about the future of working-class Americans, though they differ over what to do. In hisJanuary 2015 State of the Union address, the Democratic president said he wants towork with Congress to offer free community college to students while creating other education, child care and retirement savings programs to help the middle class. Funding, hes proposed, would come from a $320 billion tax increase on the nations highest earners and financial institutions including investment banks. After Obamas speech, Cruz told Fox News he was disappointed with Obamas goals to increase government spending and taxes, which he described as hurting hardworking Americans. Then Cruz said the countrys rich and powerful have gotten fat and happy on Obamas watch. Today the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928, Cruz said. Take that, Mister President! And was Cruz right? Cruz cites West Coast economist By email, Cruz spokesman Phil Novack indicated Cruz does not agree with Obama, who said in his speech he wants to reduce the top 1 percents after-tax income. Novack said Cruz, rather than increase taxes on the wealthy, believes the only way to jumpstart the economyis by championing pro-growth policies like energy development and aflatter, simpler tax structure. And, Novack said, Cruz drew his comparison to 1928 froma reportby the Pew Research Center citing research byEmmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who studies wealth and income inequality. Saez helps steer theWorld Top Incomes Database, sponsored by the Paris School of Economics, a research center and conglomerate of French universities offering graduate degrees and post-graduate fellowships in economics. The database, in place since 2011, shows the distribution of top incomes for more than 20 countries using data from millions of tax returns collected over about 100 years. By email, Saez said he and economists includingThomas Pikettybuilt the database from sources including public-use files of individual tax returns. The public-use micro-files are blurred to preserve each payers confidentiality, Saez said. A closer look To check on changes over time for ourselves, we built a chart fromthe database. The resulting data, covering 1913, the earliest checkable year, to 2012, shows 1928 and 2012 to be the top two years where the top 1 percent of the richest Americans (the richest of the rich)earned the greatest share of the nations income, whichthe government breaks downinto 15 categories including wages, salaries and self-employment income plus income from dividends and interest. In 1928, the top 1 percentof earners, then comprised of about 1.2 million residents, together held 19.6 percent of the nations income. In 2008, the year Obama was elected president, the top 1 percent possessed nearly 18 percent. The 1 percent collectively saw its share of the nations income escalate nearly 5 percent through the first three years of Obamas presidency. And in his fourth year, 2012, the 1 percent (nearly 314 million residents) controlled 19.34 percent. According to the database, that was the greatest share these wealthiest Americans had held since 1928, as Cruz said.(No. 3 goes to 1927, when the top 1 percent had 18.7 percent of U.S. income.) Top 15 years the richest American taxpayers had the greatest share of U.S. income 1913 through 2012 Year Top 1% income share 1928 19.6 2012 19.34 1927 18.68 1916 18.57 1929 18.42 2007 18.33 1914 18.16 2006 18.06 1926 18.01 1913 17.96 2008 17.89 2005 17.68 1936 17.64 1917 17.6 1925 17.6 Source:The World Top Incomes Database, 2011 (accessed Jan. 30, 2015) By email, Saez told usObama and Congress (which shifted to Republican control in his tenure) did little to address wealth inequality up until 2012 as the country recovered from the Great Recession -- which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. In aSept. 3, 2013, report, Saez wrote that in 2012, average real incomes per familyin the top 1 percent of earners nationally increased by 19.6 percent, while average incomes among the rest of us grew1 percent. The report said the entire surge in top 1 percent incomes in 2012 could be a result of income re-timing -- when people hold off on making payments so they can report a higher income to take advantage of lower tax rates. By email, Saez said he expects the top 1 percents income share for 2014 to prove slightly lower than in 2012 as a result of tax increasesapproved by Congress and Obama in 2013raising the nations marginal income-tax rate from 35 to 39.6 percent for married couples earning more than $450,000 annually, starting in 2013. That deal, which also whittled tax deductions for high-earning businesses and individuals, helped the government avoidthe fiscal cliff, a term describing the looming impact of tax cuts initiated by President George W. Bush expiring at the end of 2012 at the same time congressionally mandated spending reductions were due to kick in. Questions about income-inequality research The World Top Incomes Database and Saezs work have become popular sources forpoliticiansto cite when discussing income and wealth inequality. Still, some experts have raised doubts about what goes into the Piketty-Saez inequality measurements. By email, Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said the Saez-Piketty data understate income growth by the bottom 99 percent. That is, he noted, Piketty and Saez limit their focus to pre-tax private income including wages, self-employment earnings, dividends, interest, rental payments and, in some cases, capital gains. The result, Burtless said, is the database doesnt consider other sources of income such as Social Security, unemployment benefits, food stamps, government reimbursement of medical bills and untaxed fringe benefits such as employer contributions to health and retirement plans. If we include these income items, the bottom 99 percent of income recipients has enjoyed much faster increases in income than whats shown by Piketty and Saez, Burtless wrote. Burtless suggested the best statistics on U.S. income inequality come from the nonpartisanCongressional Budget Office. That's because CBO constructs 3 measures of income -- gross market income, pretax income (gross market income plus cash and no cash government transfers), and after-tax income (pre-tax income minus federal income, payroll, and excise taxes), Burtless said in his email. CBO data indicates that from 2009 to 2010, the top 1 percents share of income increased from 13.3 percent to 14.9 percent. (To refresh, Piketty and Saez say their research shows the top 1 percents share of income escalating from 16.68 percent to 17.45 percent.) Next, we talked to Robert Litan, another economist with the Brookings Institution, about why income inequality escalated so quickly in Obamas first term. By email, Litan said reasons for the rising share of the top 1 percents income include rising CEO pay relative to workers, extraordinary success of tech entrepreneurs in particular, made possible by Internet + globalization, and successful financiers, especially hedge fund managers. AJune 12, 2014 articleby the liberal Economic Policy Institute also highlights inequality in earnings and compensation between CEOs and typical workers. Burtless and Litan also told us by email Congress and Obama could not have done much to affect the percentage increase of the top 1 percents income based on Piketty-Saez measurements. The Congress and president have a bigger direct impact on after-tax income than on pre-tax income because their decisions directly affect the tax burdens and government transfer payments of families in different positions in the income distribution, Burtless said. Our ruling Cruz said: Today the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928. Cruz accurately recapped calculations of income by respected researchers though this statement fails to note there are some income streams not part of the cited calculations that would tend to help those of us in the bottom 99 percent, relatively speaking. Also, tax changes that took effect in 2013 may slightly be reducing how much of the nations income is held by the top 1 percent. Mark this statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Income", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In hisJanuary 2015 State of the Union address, the Democratic president said he wants towork with Congress to offer free community college to students while creating other education, child care and retirement savings programs to help the middle class. Funding, hes proposed, would come from a $320 billion tax increase on the nations highest earners and financial institutions including investment banks.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/20/remarks-president-state-union-address-january-20-2015" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Cruz spokesman Phil Novack indicated Cruz does not agree with Obama, who said in his speech he wants to reduce the top 1 percents after-tax income. Novack said Cruz, rather than increase taxes on the wealthy, believes the only way to jumpstart the economyis by championing pro-growth policies like energy development and aflatter, simpler tax structure.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/10/19/ted-cruz-republicans-election-congress-priorities-jobs-obamacare-column/17267261/" ] }, { "sentence": "And, Novack said, Cruz drew his comparison to 1928 froma reportby the Pew Research Center citing research byEmmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who studies wealth and income inequality.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/07/5-facts-about-economic-inequality/" ] }, { "sentence": "Saez helps steer theWorld Top Incomes Database, sponsored by the Paris School of Economics, a research center and conglomerate of French universities offering graduate degrees and post-graduate fellowships in economics.", "hrefs": [ "http://topincomes.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/" ] }, { "sentence": "The database, in place since 2011, shows the distribution of top incomes for more than 20 countries using data from millions of tax returns collected over about 100 years. By email, Saez said he and economists includingThomas Pikettybuilt the database from sources including public-use files of individual tax returns. The public-use micro-files are blurred to preserve each payers confidentiality, Saez said.", "hrefs": [ "http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/en/cv-en" ] }, { "sentence": "To check on changes over time for ourselves, we built a chart fromthe database.", "hrefs": [ "http://topincomes.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/#Database:" ] }, { "sentence": "The resulting data, covering 1913, the earliest checkable year, to 2012, shows 1928 and 2012 to be the top two years where the top 1 percent of the richest Americans (the richest of the rich)earned the greatest share of the nations income, whichthe government breaks downinto 15 categories including wages, salaries and self-employment income plus income from dividends and interest.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.census.gov/cps/data/incdef.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Source:The World Top Incomes Database, 2011 (accessed Jan. 30, 2015)", "hrefs": [ "http://topincomes.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/#Database:" ] }, { "sentence": "In aSept. 3, 2013, report, Saez wrote that in 2012, average real incomes per familyin the top 1 percent of earners nationally increased by 19.6 percent, while average incomes among the rest of us grew1 percent. The report said the entire surge in top 1 percent incomes in 2012 could be a result of income re-timing -- when people hold off on making payments so they can report a higher income to take advantage of lower tax rates.", "hrefs": [ "http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Saez said he expects the top 1 percents income share for 2014 to prove slightly lower than in 2012 as a result of tax increasesapproved by Congress and Obama in 2013raising the nations marginal income-tax rate from 35 to 39.6 percent for married couples earning more than $450,000 annually, starting in 2013. That deal, which also whittled tax deductions for high-earning businesses and individuals, helped the government avoidthe fiscal cliff, a term describing the looming impact of tax cuts initiated by President George W. Bush expiring at the end of 2012 at the same time congressionally mandated spending reductions were due to kick in.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/business/merely-rich-and-superrich-the-tax-gap-is-narrowing.html?_r=0" ] }, { "sentence": "The World Top Incomes Database and Saezs work have become popular sources forpoliticiansto cite when discussing income and wealth inequality. Still, some experts have raised doubts about what goes into the Piketty-Saez inequality measurements.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jan/13/elizabeth-warren/warren-average-family-bottom-90-percent-made-more-/" ] }, { "sentence": "Burtless suggested the best statistics on U.S. income inequality come from the nonpartisanCongressional Budget Office. That's because CBO constructs 3 measures of income -- gross market income, pretax income (gross market income plus cash and no cash government transfers), and after-tax income (pre-tax income minus federal income, payroll, and excise taxes), Burtless said in his email. CBO data indicates that from 2009 to 2010, the top 1 percents share of income increased from 13.3 percent to 14.9 percent. (To refresh, Piketty and Saez say their research shows the top 1 percents share of income escalating from 16.68 percent to 17.45 percent.)", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/44604-AverageTaxRates.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Next, we talked to Robert Litan, another economist with the Brookings Institution, about why income inequality escalated so quickly in Obamas first term. By email, Litan said reasons for the rising share of the top 1 percents income include rising CEO pay relative to workers, extraordinary success of tech entrepreneurs in particular, made possible by Internet + globalization, and successful financiers, especially hedge fund managers. AJune 12, 2014 articleby the liberal Economic Policy Institute also highlights inequality in earnings and compensation between CEOs and typical workers.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/01/peter-kinder/peter-kinder-right-about-high-unemployment-minorit/", "claim": "Youth unemployment in minority communities is about 40 to 45 percent.", "author": "Katie Moeller", "posted": "03/31/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Candidates for Missouris GOP gubernatorial nomination have sparred over race relations, MU campus protests and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. At a March 17 debate in Columbia, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said unemployment was a key cause of the events in Ferguson, saying, Young men were walking around with nothing to do. The reasons for the unrest in Ferguson following the shooting of Michael Brown arent simple, but we wanted to determine whether Kinders numbers for youth unemployment in minority communities were on the money. Youth unemployment in Ferguson and the city of St. Louis Kinders office said the numbers came from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch column in 2014, which said 47 percent of the metro areas African-American men between ages 16 and 24 were unemployed, according to 2012 census numbers. Peter Muesser, professor of labor economics at MU, said the youth jobless rate Kinder cited seemed to be in the correct range. Im seeing Kinders statement as likely reliable because it was based on Census Bureau info, he said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau are the best sources when it comes to reliable unemployment statistics. The Census Bureau and the BLS work together, using annual and monthly surveys to define the unemployment rate and other measures of the American population. The Current Population Survey is more in-depth, but the American Community Survey has a bigger sample size, which allows for unemployment estimates from smaller geographical areas like cities and townships. According to the American Community Survey, the youth unemployment rates in 2014 for St. Louis City, Ferguson Township, and Ferguson City were significantly different. Because Kinder specified youth unemployment in minority communities, we looked at the demographic makeup of both St. Louis City and Ferguson. St. Louis has a comparable number of black and white residents. Ferguson has a significantly larger African-American population, with black residents outnumbering white residents by a 2-to-1 margin. The rate of African American unemployment in all age groups is historically twice that of white unemployment across the nation. Youth unemployment is no different nationally, the unemployment rate for African Americans 16-24 is about 20 percent, while the unemployment rate for the same age group of whites is about 10 percent. Our Ruling The Census Bureaus American Community Survey data fits Ferguson into Kinders claim of youth unemployment of about 40 percent to 45 percent in minority communities. Defining which cities, suburbs and townships are minority communities is a matter of debate. But its worth noting that Fergusons youth are not only more unemployed than their peers in St. Louis , they are also significantly more unemployed on average than both white and black 16-24 year-olds across the country. Ferguson was the community in question when Kinder cited the rate of 40 percent to 45 percent of youth unemployment in minority communities and Ferguson does fit into Kinders estimate. We rate Kinders statement as Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "Race and Ethnicity", "Missouri" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-rebranding-twitter/", "claim": "Is Elon Musk Rebranding Twitter as 'X'?", "author": "Izz Scott LaMagdeleine", "posted": "07/24/2023", "sci_digest": [ "At the time of writing, the bird logo was still referenced on Twitters Brand Toolkit page as its logo." ], "justification": "In July 2023, we began to receive emails from readers asking if it was true that social media platform Twitter was rebranding to \"X.\" We also found posts repeating the claim on social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and TikTok. Facebook Reddit TikTok The claim is true. Twitter owner Elon Musk did rebrand Twitter to X. At the time of writing, Twitter had already begun replacing its famous bird logo with a stylized X. \"And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,\" Musk tweeted on July 23, 2023. tweeted And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023 July 23, 2023 Reputable news organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The Verge, NBC News, and CNNall reported on the rebrand. AP reportedthat Musk had founded a startup in 1999 called X.com, which later became PayPal, and that he also calls his son with singer Grimes \"X\" for short. Associated Press (AP) The Verge NBC News CNN reported which later became PayPal his son with singer Grimes At the time of writing, Twitter's bird logo was still displayed as its logo on the company's web page that discussed branding. \"Our logo is our most recognizable asset,\" the page said. \"That's why we're so protective of it.\" said However, Twitter's sign-up page looked like this: (Twitter) In an article about the replacement of Twitter's bird logo, The Verge wrote: The Verge The bird theming runs deep, and it's not clear that X Corp. (as Twitter has legally been known for months now) will be able to replace it entirely. We've previously written about changes to Twitter's platform, including a false claim that U.S. President Joe Biden's Twitter account had been designated as a business account. false claim About Twitter | Our Logo, Brand Guidelines, and Tweet Tools. https://about.twitter.com/en/who-we-are/brand-toolkit.html. Accessed 24 July 2023. Chan, Kelvin. \"Elon Musk Reveals New X Logo to Replace Twitter's Blue Bird.\" AP News, 24 July 2023, https://apnews.com/article/twitter-x-logo-blue-bird-musk-0689e9a5c3a217afc2fbefeaf0e6d8a8. Da Silva, Chantal. \"Twitter Rebrands to 'X' as Elon Musk Loses Iconic Bird Logo.\" NBC News, 24 July 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-loses-iconic-bird-logo-rcna95880. LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. \"Was Biden's Twitter Account Designated for Business?\" Snopes, 21 Apr. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bidens-twitter-account-designated-for-business/. Valinsky, Jordan. \"Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter as X | CNN Business.\" CNN, 24 July 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/tech/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-hnk-intl/index.html. Warren, Tom. \"Twitter Is Now X as the Little Blue Bird Disappears.\" The Verge, 24 July 2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23804973/twitter-x-logo-brand-replacement.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1apyixOgBsLCEvg4uK8NKHMFP-IQcQljJ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "We also found posts repeating the claim on social media platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and TikTok.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/T3IUU", "https://archive.ph/nRHm2", "https://www.tiktok.com/@yourbestfriendjoshua/video/7259091626474097963?q=X%20twitter&t=1690213301659" ] }, { "sentence": "At the time of writing, Twitter had already begun replacing its famous bird logo with a stylized X. \"And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,\" Musk tweeted on July 23, 2023.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/K7tBB" ] }, { "sentence": " Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1682964919325724673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Reputable news organizations like the Associated Press (AP), The Verge, NBC News, and CNNall reported on the rebrand. AP reportedthat Musk had founded a startup in 1999 called X.com, which later became PayPal, and that he also calls his son with singer Grimes \"X\" for short.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/twitter-x-logo-blue-bird-musk-0689e9a5c3a217afc2fbefeaf0e6d8a8", "https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23804973/twitter-x-logo-brand-replacement", "https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-loses-iconic-bird-logo-rcna95880", "https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/24/tech/twitter-rebrands-x-elon-musk-hnk-intl/index.html", "https://apnews.com/article/twitter-x-logo-blue-bird-musk-0689e9a5c3a217afc2fbefeaf0e6d8a8", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/was-elon-musk-fired-from-paypal/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-grimes-baby-x-ae-a12/" ] }, { "sentence": "At the time of writing, Twitter's bird logo was still displayed as its logo on the company's web page that discussed branding. \"Our logo is our most recognizable asset,\" the page said. \"That's why we're so protective of it.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/gRNmx" ] }, { "sentence": "In an article about the replacement of Twitter's bird logo, The Verge wrote:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23805415/twitter-x-logo-rebrand-bird-farewell-to-birds" ] }, { "sentence": "We've previously written about changes to Twitter's platform, including a false claim that U.S. President Joe Biden's Twitter account had been designated as a business account.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bidens-twitter-account-designated-for-business/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/jul/15/barack-obama/barack-obama-said-80-percent-americans-favor-both-/", "claim": "Eighty percent of the American people support an approach (to federal budget problems) that includes revenues and includes cuts.", "author": "Angie Drobnic Holan", "posted": "07/15/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "As President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress continued their high-stakes stand-off over raising the debt ceiling and other budget issues, Obama held a press conference to press his case that he's a reasonable guy. One of the main points of contention is whether an agreement should include tax increases of any kind, such as closing tax loopholes or tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans oppose raising taxes.During a press conference on July 15, 2011, Obama was asked if the negotiations would be going better if he had started making his case to the public months ago, pushing a proposal that included tax increases and spending cuts. Obama rejected the premise. You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem, he said. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements. We won't weigh in on Obama's diagnosis of being dug in, but we were interested in the poll numbers on whether the public supports a balanced approach or not.The most recent poll we found largely supported Obama's statement. A Gallup poll conducted July 7-10, 2011 posed the question this way:As you may know, Congress can reduce the federal budget deficit by cutting spending, raising taxes, or a combination of the two. Ideally, how would you prefer to see Congress attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit: only with spending cuts, mostly with spending cuts, equally with spending cuts and tax increases, mostly with tax increases, or only with tax increases?The answer only spending cuts got 20 percent. The other answers were mostly spending cuts, 30 percent; equal spending cuts and tax increases, 32 percent; mostly tax increases, 7 percent; only tax increases, 4 percent; unsure/other, 6 percent.We'll note that Obama counted in his favor people who favored only tax increases or who weren't sure, so he wasn't completely accurate. If you deduct those groups, only 70 percent support the balanced approach. But the poll did support his overall point.Other polls also showed support for Obama's statement, but not quite at an 80-percent level.A poll from Quinnipiac University conducted July 5-11, 2011, asked: Do you think any agreement to raise the national debt ceiling should include only spending cuts, or should it also include an increase in taxes for the wealthy and corporations?In this case, 67 percent favored including tax increases, while 25 percent favored spending cuts only. Another 8 percent were unsure.In June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that most people, 46 percent, favored a combination of cuts and tax increases, compared with 26 percent who said cuts alone and 13 percent who said raise taxes. An ABC/Washington Postpoll from April found the number was higher, at 59 percent. We reviewed polls and consulted experts a few weeks ago for a fact-check onwhether people support tax increasesor not. Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who studies polls on taxation, told us polls usually show support for balanced approaches, particularly if people don't have to pay the higher taxes themselves. Generally, combinations of tax hikes and spending cuts are most popular. It seems fair to most people. Spending cuts are favored in the abstract. Tax hikes are favored as long as they don't affect me. Generally, people don't think anybody should have to pay more than a quarter of their income in total taxes, she said. Finally, a few other cautions on poll numbers.Pollsters have long noted that when you ask questions with different wording, you get different results. All the polls we looked at phrased the question slightly differently.A few recent polls also suggested that people find the whole debt ceiling debate confusing, or they aren't following it very closely. A Pew Research Center/Washington Postpoll from May asked people how well they felt they understood what would happen if the government does not raise the federal debt limit; 47 percent said not too well or not at all well. And the July Gallup poll found that 42 percent of respondents were following the issue not too closely or not at all. Getting back to Obama's statement, he said, You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. Even the best poll doesn't show support quite that high -- he would more accurately have accounted for the small numbers that support only tax increases or were unsure, putting the number at 70 percent. But his overall point is correct that polls show most Americans support a balanced approach when given a choice between cutting spending or raising taxes. So we rate his statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Federal Budget", "Polls and Public Opinion", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "We reviewed polls and consulted experts a few weeks ago for a fact-check onwhether people support tax increasesor not. Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who studies polls on taxation, told us polls usually show support for balanced approaches, particularly if people don't have to pay the higher taxes themselves.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jun/29/john-boehner/polls-taxes-show-people-favor-mixed-approach/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nordstrom-card-survey-scam/", "claim": "Nordstrom Gift Card Survey Scam", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "02/03/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A slicker-than-average Facebook coupon scam is circulating, baiting users with the promise of a $200 Nordstrom gift card." ], "justification": "In early February 2016, social mediausers began sharing various versions of the above link,claiming that the retailer Nordstrom was offering a $200 gift card to Facebook users who \"referred three friends\" to the promotion. The embedded links pointed to a URL that was typically some variation on nordstrom.egiftcards.co, and not hosted on the official Nordstrom website.Userswho attempted to complete the steps andclaim the Nordstrom gift cardwere directed to well-designed (but still illegitimate)page withthe following instructions: To Celebrate Valentines Day Get a Nordstrom $200 Gift Card Simply Invite 3 Friends to Get Your Gift CardAfter 3 Friends Click Your Link.Get Your Gift Card Instantly! The landing page in question didn't resemble other popular Facebook coupon scams. However, it did display a rapidly decreasing number of \"available gift cards\" suggesting users should comply urgently or miss out: Coupon and gift card scams appear frequentlyon Facebook; Kohl's,Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, Wegmans, and Walmartwere among popular retailers impersonated byscammersseeking personal information from social media users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Wegmans Walmart scammers On 3 February 2016, a Nordstrom representative responded to our inquiry about the circulating gift card scam: You're correct, this is a fraudulent promotion as it is not affiliated with Nordstrom and we are not sponsoring any giveaways of gift cards. We recommend not clicking the link or entering any personal information. Our team is actively working to make customers aware of the situation and apologize for any confusion. A July 2014 Better Business Bureauarticleadvisedsocial media userson how to avoid survey and coupon scams: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. ", "issues": [ "banking" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1o5YMME7RVi_ZYo4WD27qAg0_tupG6P2n", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Coupon and gift card scams appear frequentlyon Facebook; Kohl's,Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, Wegmans, and Walmartwere among popular retailers impersonated byscammersseeking personal information from social media users.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/kohlsgiftcard.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/costco.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/homedepot.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/lowes.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/krogercard.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/bestbuy.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/macys.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/olivegarden.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/publix.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/target.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/wegmans-200-off-facebook-coupon-scam/", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/walmart.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/nothing.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "A July 2014 Better Business Bureauarticleadvisedsocial media userson how to avoid survey and coupon scams:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/07/customer-survey-scam-lures-victims-with-gift-card/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jan/17/edward-cox/unemployment-inching-almost-every-county-outside-n/", "claim": "Of all the 62 counties in New York state, all of them, unemployment is going up except for the five counties of New York City.", "author": "Dan Clark", "posted": "01/17/2018", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "New York Republican State Committee Chairman Edward F. Cox claimed the unemployment rate is rising in upstate counties, something Republicans intend to remind voters about in the 2018 race for governor. Of all the 62 counties in New York state, all of them, unemployment is going up except for the five counties of New York City, Coxsaidin a radio interview. The claim is in direct contrast to a rosier picture of the economy painted by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The governor touted a decline in unemployment statewide during his State of the State address this month. Every region has seen a drop in unemployment and underemployment, Cuomo said. Is Cox right that unemployment is up everywhere outside New York City? Coxs numbers Cox based his claim on a press release on unemployment from the state Department of Labor, his spokesperson said. The release showed the jobless rate for the states 15 metro areas in November 2016 and November 2017, the latest data released by the department. The release does not break down unemployment by county, though it links to that data. Albany, Schenectady and Troy are all counted as one area even though the cities are in different counties. Each of the 14 metro areas outside New York City had a higher unemployment rate in November 2017 than the year before, the data showed. The rural parts of the state, lumped into one category, also had a higher unemployment rate. The New York City metro area was the only place where unemployment went down. A short-term rise in unemployment isn't always bad news. As was the case inMassachusettslast year, a higher unemployment rate could mean more people have decided to enter a growing workforce, but have not landed a job yet. All but five of the state's metro areas added private sector jobs last year. The labor force, meanwhile, increased in all but two counties in New York state. Unemployment by county The state Department of Labor also tracks the unemployment rate for each county. Our analysis of the data shows Cox is mostly correct in his claim, with a few exceptions. The unemployment rate in Lewis County decreased from 6.1 percent in November 2016 to 5.9 percent a year later. The countys labor force and the number of people working increased during that time. Seneca and Clinton counties saw no change in unemployment during that time. The labor force and the number of people employed increased in those counties as well. Unemployment in every other county outside New York City went up between November 2016 and November 2017. Unemployment in each of New York Citys five boroughs went down. The rates for each county and metro area are not seasonally adjusted. That means they dont adjust the data for major shifts in employment during retail holidays seasons, or construction in the summer. A market analyst from the state Department of Labor said the agency does not calculate seasonally adjusted numbers at the county level. Since 2011 While unemployment has inched up in most counties outside New York City recently, the trend has been very different since Cuomo took office in 2011. The unemployment rate is lower in every county since Cuomo took office in 2011, according to state data. Hamilton County, which recorded the largest one-year increase in unemployment in 2017, still has a lower unemployment rate than it did in 2011. Other counties, like Clinton and Columbia, now have an unemployment rate less than half of what it was when Cuomo took office. Someanalystsbelieve drops in unemployment upstate have been inflated by a shrinking population. Monroe County had more than 13,000 fewer people in the labor force in November 2017 than January 2011, for example. During that time, the countys unemployment rate decreased from 8.3 percent to 5.1 percent. Our ruling Of all the 62 counties in New York state, all of them, unemployment is going up except for the five counties of New York City, Cox said. Cox was comparing unemployment figures between November 2017 and November 2016. The figures showed unemployment up in almost every county outside New York City. One county had a lower rate, and two other counties had no change in their unemployment rates. We rate his claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "New York" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Of all the 62 counties in New York state, all of them, unemployment is going up except for the five counties of New York City, Coxsaidin a radio interview.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wcny.org/january-9-2018-ed-cox/" ] }, { "sentence": "A short-term rise in unemployment isn't always bad news. As was the case inMassachusettslast year, a higher unemployment rate could mean more people have decided to enter a growing workforce, but have not landed a job yet.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/06/15/unemployment-rising-and-that-good-news-really/nQVe3gkbyQm6L0Qp3c4n3O/story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Someanalystsbelieve drops in unemployment upstate have been inflated by a shrinking population.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/report-job-gains-in-ny-but-not-everywhere/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/07/barbara-buono/barbara-buono-claims-state-spending-was-lower-fy20/", "claim": "Says spending in the fiscal 2009 budget was lower than spending in the fiscal 2014 budget", "author": "Caryn Shinske", "posted": "07/07/2013", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Chris Christie has spent months hammering home how high New Jerseys spending was when his gubernatorial challenger Barbara Buono chaired a Senate budget panel a few years ago. Now Buono, a Democratic state senator from Metuchen, is taking her shot at spending under Christie. Buono made her move at a June 26 Senate budget hearing when she spoke against Christies $32.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2014. The Legislature approved the plan that afternoon and Christie signed it two days later. Buono noted in her speech that the fiscal year 2009 budget crafted on her watch, when she chaired the Senates Budget and Appropriations Committee, spent less than whats been approved for fiscal year 2014. We wondered if that was true, especially since Christie has frequently criticized spending levels when Buono helmed the budget panel, particularly for fiscal year 2008. But in this case, Buonos claim about higher spending in Christies just-approved budget is accurate. Lets review the numbers. Patrick Giordano, Buonos chief of staff, said in an e-mail that Buonos figures were confirmed by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. We reviewed an e-mail sent by David J. Rosen, the OLS budget and finance officer, to Giordano, and then confirmed the data separately with Rosen. The result? Spending in the fiscal year 2009 appropriations act was $32.86 billion, compared with $32.97 billion for the fiscal year 2014 spending plan, Rosen wrote to Giordano. Thats a difference of $108,491,000 or one-third of 1 percent. So, Buonos claim is correct: spending for the fiscal year 2014 budget is higher than fiscal year 2009. For context, lets also look at spending under the fiscal year 2008 budget the other spending plan that Buono helped craft during her chairmanship of the Senate budget panel. Buono referenced both budgets during her speech on the Senate floor. Former Gov. Jon Corzine had final approval of the fiscal years 2008 and 2009 budgets. Now lets look at spending for every fiscal year since 2008: FISCAL YEAR TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS FY2008 $33.47 billion FY2009 $32.86 billion FY2010 $28.99 billion FY2011 $28.36 billion FY2012 $29.69 billion FY2013 $31.65 billion FY2014 $32.97 billion Sources: New Jersey Office of Legislative Services Summary Of Appropriations Acts for fiscal years 2008-2014 So state spending dropped from fiscal year 2008 to 2009, but state spending has increased in each of Christies budgets. Its worth noting that the recession had a major impact on decreased spending from 2008 to 20009. The National Bureau of Economic Research has defined the recession as beginning in December 2007 and ending in June 2009. New Jersey Senate Republicans spokesman Ben Sparks did not respond to our request for comment. Our ruling Buono said during a speech on the Senate floor about the fiscal year 2014 budget that its spending level is higher than spending under the fiscal year 2009 budget. Buono chaired the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee when the 2009 plan was drafted and ultimately approved by Corzine. The OLS confirmed Buonos claim, noting that spending for fiscal year 2009 was $32.86 billion, compared with $32.97 billion for fiscal year 2014. We rate Buonos claim True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com.", "issues": [ "New Jersey", "State Budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "To comment on this story, go toNJ.com.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/06/politifact_nj_barbara_buono_says_spending_under_budget_she_worked_on_for_2009_lower_than_chris_chris.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/target-transgender-bathroom-policy/", "claim": "Target Transgender Bathroom Policy", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "04/20/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A social media controversy erupted when Target announced a chain-wide policy inviting transgender customers to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity." ], "justification": "Public debate aroundtransgender individuals and bathroomusehit a fever pitch in April 2016, largely due to the controversial passage of HB 2(otherwise known as the \"bathroom bill\") in North Carolina. On 19 April 2016, Target released a statement confirming a new policy abouttransgender customers and bathrooms: bathroom HB 2 bathroom bill statement Continuing to Stand for Inclusivity Recent debate around proposed laws in several states has reignited a national conversation around inclusivity. So earlier this week, we reiterated with our team members where Target stands and how our beliefs are brought to life in how we serve our guests. Inclusivity is a core belief at Target. Its something we celebrate. We stand for equality and equity, and strive to make our guests and team members feel accepted, respected and welcomed in our stores and workplaces every day. We believe that everyoneevery team member, every guest, and every communitydeserves to be protected from discrimination, and treated equally. Consistent with this belief, Target supports the federal Equality Act, which provides protections to LGBT individuals, and opposes action that enables discrimination. In our stores, we demonstrate our commitment to an inclusive experience in many ways. Most relevant for the conversations currently underway, we welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. Bathroomcontroversies weren't new in April 2016, but HB2, which was by far the highest profilelegislation of that nature,provoked a huge response across the country.Target was not thefirst large and well-known entity to clarify its policy abouttransgender bathroom use, and the brand responded to some feedback on Twitter: controversies first @Kusau Everyone is welcome at Target. @Kusau Target (@Target) April 20, 2016 April 20, 2016 Not all of the public's response was positive. Target's Facebook page was flooded with critical responses similar to the (heavilysatirized) commentsthat appeared when the chain announced gender-neutral toy aisles: satirized gender-neutral toy Some misinformation also circulated about the development. The web site The Political Insider reportedthat the retailer released the statement under pressure from the President and LGBT groups: reported Target just caved to pressure from the Obama administration and liberal activists. They have announced that any transgendered person can use the bathroom in their stores, according to the gender they associate with. Now in Target stores, men are allowed to use the restroom next to your daughter. Once called perverted, this is now a civil right. No information we could find substantiated the claim that Target was pressured to institute the chain-wide policy, and no retailers of a similar size and scope have reported any organized pushto enact similar policies.While HB2 isan enforceable law, Target's bathroom policy issimply a brand's policy decision based on its own ethics andbelief structure. It istrue that Target announced on 19 April 2016 that transgender shoppers and staffers werewelcome to use the bathroom that best matchedtheir gender identities. However, neither President Obama nor any groups appeared to have forced the retailer's hand in issuing the policy, and no \"transgender bathrooms\" were included in the details of the announcement. ", "issues": [ "equity" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1a-U6BfP4qDouGx0zmQCVlAYSN5PEnXoY", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EksZH9zzFYzzz_-BEcKPYBsQQXzFIXIs", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18QU6r48QPGoqwQyXedo3LEefF5eoaFl8", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sQ5QVj9gA0aBwltJ4uC0P-r-BpVF3aFn", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Public debate aroundtransgender individuals and bathroomusehit a fever pitch in April 2016, largely due to the controversial passage of HB 2(otherwise known as the \"bathroom bill\") in North Carolina. On 19 April 2016, Target released a statement confirming a new policy abouttransgender customers and bathrooms:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/kroger-unisex-bathroom-sign/", "https://www.snopes.com/nc-bathroom-bill-opposition-leader-a-sex-offender/", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/19/north-carolinas-bathroom-bill-looks-to-be-hurting-pat-mccrorys-political-future/", "https://corporate.target.com/article/2016/04/target-stands-inclusivity" ] }, { "sentence": "Bathroomcontroversies weren't new in April 2016, but HB2, which was by far the highest profilelegislation of that nature,provoked a huge response across the country.Target was not thefirst large and well-known entity to clarify its policy abouttransgender bathroom use, and the brand responded to some feedback on Twitter:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/obama-chicago-transgender-locker-room/", "https://www.snopes.com/bruce-springsteen-bathroom-law/" ] }, { "sentence": "@Kusau Everyone is welcome at Target. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Kusau" ] }, { "sentence": " Target (@Target) April 20, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Target/status/722826962176188416" ] }, { "sentence": "Not all of the public's response was positive. Target's Facebook page was flooded with critical responses similar to the (heavilysatirized) commentsthat appeared when the chain announced gender-neutral toy aisles:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2015/08/14/man-trolls-target-customers/", "https://www.snopes.com/2015/08/10/target-removing-gender-labels/" ] }, { "sentence": "Some misinformation also circulated about the development. The web site The Political Insider reportedthat the retailer released the statement under pressure from the President and LGBT groups:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/yAz12/image" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prepare-for-war-wisconsin/", "claim": "Does Website for Wisconsin Republicans Say 'Prepare for War'?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "01/12/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The St. Croix County Republican Party supposedly kept the phrase on its website, despite requests to take it down." ], "justification": "On Jan. 12, 2021, news reports surfaced alleging a web page for Wisconsin's St. Croix County Republican Party told supporters to \"prepare for war\" despite urging from the state party to remove the message and the deadly insurrection by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol the previous week. web page U.S. Capitol The reports were true. As of this report, the homepage for the local Republican group in northwestern Wisconsin read, \"Si vis pacem, para bellum\" the Latin adage, \"if you want peace, prepare for war.\" Then, underneath that heading, the page said in English: If you want peace, prepare for war. The phrase, originally coined in the 4th or 5th century, embodies the concept conveyed in earlier works such as Plato's \"Nomoi\", and carries with it a modern day interpretation of \"Peace Through Strength\", a cornerstone of conservative beliefs. Welcome to the digital battlefield. The message also perpetuated the conspiracy theory that \"Democrats in concert with the Marxist left and a complicit mass media\" were running a coordinated scheme to undermine conservative Americans and try to overturn Trump's 2016 presidential win, without providing proof to support the claims. The page also alleged Trump's political opponents colluded in an illegal scheme to block him from serving another presidential term, though numerous court battles and reviews by election security experts proved that did not happen. Rather, President-elect Joe Biden defeated Trump under election laws outlined in the Constitution and federal and state statutes: He received at least 270 electoral votes. (See here for all of our fact-checking content related to 2020 voter fraud claims.) received at least See here for all of our fact-checking content related to 2020 voter fraud claims After those false claims, the St. Croix Republican Party's homepage said Trump radically changed the party, and that \"patriots need to continue the fight\" and \"stand and be counted as a conservative warrior\" to uphold the Constitution and remove \"leftist tyrants\" from elected positions in Wisconsin. According to online archives of the URL, stcroixrepubblican.org, the website at one point called for \"eliminating\" those political opponents instead of removing them. online archives The St. Croix County partys chairman, John Kraft, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the homepage included the phrase \"prepare for war\" before the deadly insurrection in defiance of Biden's presidential win on Jan. 6. He did not say when, exactly, the page was first posted, and did not respond to the local newspaper's question about whether he thought about taking down the message after the attack by right-wing extremists. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Kraft told the newspaper he \"can't help what twisted inferences local Democrats choose to attribute to it.\" On Jan. 9, Kraft said on his Facebook page that its never been clearer that we are absolutely at war with the left,\" according to The Associated Press. The Associated Press A representative of the group did not respond to Snopes' request for an interview for this report, though we will post updates when, or if, someone returns our message. According to Wisconsin Republican Chairman Andrew Hitt, the state party does not control the local parties, and it asked St. Croix County Republicans to remove the call to \"prepare for war\" before the violent insurrection, though he did not specify a date for the request. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: \"Especially in light of recent events, it's an ill-chosen phrase to express their sentiments,\" Hitt said. \"We suggested at an earlier date they remove this, but they declined to take our advice.\"", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19agzFTtS2IlLn4e_RMLM6cxMiXTtnsqt", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Jan. 12, 2021, news reports surfaced alleging a web page for Wisconsin's St. Croix County Republican Party told supporters to \"prepare for war\" despite urging from the state party to remove the message and the deadly insurrection by supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol the previous week.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/madison-wisconsin-capitol-siege-58b305957fc1b09634391f3b066513f4", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/01/06/liveblog-jan-6-capitol-riots/" ] }, { "sentence": "The page also alleged Trump's political opponents colluded in an illegal scheme to block him from serving another presidential term, though numerous court battles and reviews by election security experts proved that did not happen. Rather, President-elect Joe Biden defeated Trump under election laws outlined in the Constitution and federal and state statutes: He received at least 270 electoral votes. (See here for all of our fact-checking content related to 2020 voter fraud claims.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/2020-election-over/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/voter-fraud-rumors/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to online archives of the URL, stcroixrepubblican.org, the website at one point called for \"eliminating\" those political opponents instead of removing them.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210107224015/https://www.stcroixrepublican.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "The St. Croix County partys chairman, John Kraft, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the homepage included the phrase \"prepare for war\" before the deadly insurrection in defiance of Biden's presidential win on Jan. 6. He did not say when, exactly, the page was first posted, and did not respond to the local newspaper's question about whether he thought about taking down the message after the attack by right-wing extremists.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/daniel-bice/2021/01/11/st-croix-republican-party-urges-members-prepare-war/6622950002/" ] }, { "sentence": "On Jan. 9, Kraft said on his Facebook page that its never been clearer that we are absolutely at war with the left,\" according to The Associated Press.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/madison-wisconsin-capitol-siege-58b305957fc1b09634391f3b066513f4" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/may/06/herb-kohl/sen-herb-kohl-says-hes-never-done-any-negative-cam/", "claim": "Ive been through four campaigns and have not done any negative campaigning.", "author": "Dave Umhoefer", "posted": "05/06/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Twenty-three years into his Senate tenure, Wisconsins Herb Kohl hasnt announced whether he will seek another six-year term in 2012.But as Republicansstep up their criticismof him, Kohl is making crystal clear his disdain for the kind of rough-and-tumble campaign environment that almost surely would be part of another campaign.Compared to his last couple races when Kohl used his massive personal fortune to vanquish underfunded opponents with soft-sell TV ads, it would be a new environment for the senator who owns the Milwaukee Bucks and built the Kohls department and grocery store chains.Inremarks to reportersin Madison on April 28, 2011, Kohl ruminated about the state of todays campaigns. He said people dont like anybody in public life because of venomous attacks and sniping among congressional members, something he said he engages in hardly at all.Then he got specific: Ive been through four campaigns and have not done any negative campaigning. And I dont get into any personal jousts with other people in public life. But thats just my style.So has Kohl really avoided any negative campaigning?Thats quite a claim in this age of mud-slinging and aggressive campaign tactics. We decided to check it out.Of course, it would be impossible to track down every campaign statement Kohl made since 1988 and copies of decades-old TV ads. So we focused our look-back to media descriptions of TV ads, debates and the candidates strategies in his four races. We also talked to the people who should know best: several of his former opponents or their aides, Kohls campaign staff, and a longtime political reporter.Kohl has of course benefited from negative attacks launched by groups supporting his campaigns, but he spoke only of his own campaigns conduct, so well limit our review to that.One more note before we begin: Because there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes negative campaigning, we asked Team Kohl what exactly he meant by his claim.Sen. Kohl has said that he believes campaigning is about telling the people of Wisconsin what hes done and what he plans to do, not tearing down his opponent or telling people not to vote for them, Kohl press secretary Lynn Becker said. He has not been deliberately malicious or factually dishonest in his campaigns or while serving in public office.Indeed, his two most recent opponents said there was no negative campaigning in their contests -- and had high praise for Kohl.He never did anything negative in his campaign. Hell have the job as long as he wants the job, said John Gillespie, founder of Rawhide Boys Ranch, who lost to Kohl in 2000.Say hi to Herb if you talk to him. Tell him I owe him a dinner, said Robert Lorge, Kohls 2006 rival.Fair enough. Those were landslide wins.What about the earlier contests?1988:Kohl was a surprise entrant in the Democratic primary, winning the nomination comfortably over former Gov. Tony Earl, Ed Garvey and Doug La Follette. Hefrustrated hisrivalsby limiting his debate participation and spending millions on TV ads.At the time,Earls media consultant David Axelrod chargedthat Kohls popular slogan -- Nobodys Senator But Yours -- was an implicit negative attack. It implied that candidates who -- unlike Kohl -- have to raise most of their campaign money are beholden to donors, said Axelrod, who later went on to help a guy named Barack Obama get elected president.Earlattacked Kohl as uninformed and error-prone, prompting Kohl campaign aide Bill Christofferson to call Earl desperate and guilty of misrepresentation.Insiders on both sides agree that Kohl ran no attack ads in the primary -- and none in the very tight general election that saw Republican state legislator Susan Engeleiterclose the gap to just a fewpointswith a series of ads targeting Kohl in the closing weeks.Engeleiter herself told us she has nothing but positive recollections of a pretty cordial campaign. She also praised Kohls dealing with her when she later was confirmed as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.La Follette and Garvey say today that they wouldnt call Kohls primary race negative. Regarding Kohls slogan, La Follette agreed with Kohl aide Christofferson, who said: Herb Kohl was talking about himself, not anyone else, when he promised to be 'nobody's senator but yours. 'Indeed, Kohl explicitly used his positive campaign ads as a selling point, and called his victory a blow against negative campaigning.1994:In his first re-election campaign, Kohl wasted little timeaggressively portraying Republican opponent Robert Welch, a state lawmaker from Redgranite, as an extreme conservative and flip-flopper. At an early debate, he cited Welchs no-exceptions stance against abortion and his vow never to vote for a tax hike as extreme. According to media accounts, he did not explain the flip-flop charge.Afterwards, Welch told reporters Kohl was nastier than I expected.Later, after Welch attempted to tie Kohl to President Clinton, Kohl launched arare TV ad that focused on an opponentby name. Another followed. The ads accused Welch of distorting Kohls record. One said that fellow Republicans had criticized Welchs tactics -- something deemed misleading in aMilwaukee Journal fact check.The exchange led Welch to accuse Kohl of running a multimillion dollar mudslinging campaign. Kohl said it was Welch who went negative.The rhetoric heated up. At one point in the race, after Welch accused Kohl of religion bashing, Kohl spokesman Jeffrey Gillis said that Welch's attack again shows that he'll say or do anything to get elected.So, that seems like quite a bit of snarling.Looking back, though, Welchs campaign manager Mike Maxwell doesnt have strong opinions about the back and forth.I dont know that Kohl was particularly negative through that election, he told us. He didnt recall the distort ad that Kohl ran. He did say that some might consider the extreme charge a negative attack.Kohl, Maxwell recalled, just had overwhelming resources and then he signed (Bucks first round draft choice Glenn Robinson) six days before the election. (We could not reach Welch for comment).Kenneth Lamke, a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter who covered the 1994 race, offered the strongest opinion we heard on whether Kohl went negative against Welch. He says yes.Lamke said the extreme charge by Kohl was within bounds but uncharacteristic of Herb. Lamke viewed the attack as unprovoked and an exaggeration; Gillis, the Kohl aide, said it was a response to the drumbeat of criticism of Kohl during the Republican primary. Lamke, we should note, asked us to describe his personal politics as leans Republican.We asked several political scientists to characterize the language of the Kohl ad. They reacted cautiously because we could not provide the ad itself, just direct quotes from it in media accounts. That makes it impossible to fully judge the tone. Vanderbilt professor John Geer, an author of a much-cited book on negative campaigning, said it sounded like a tame response ad -- not the kind of classic negative ad the public doesnt like. Darrell West, of the Brookings Institution, agreed. UW-Madisons Ken Goldstein said Kohls ad met the academic research definition of negative because it focused on Welch, not Kohl. The test of whether it was unfair is whether it was accurate, he said. So Kohls campaigns have been remarkably low-confrontation affairs, with the most notable exception being 1994, the first -- and perhaps only -- time Kohl aired TV spots going after an opponent.So how does Kohl fare on his statement that he has never campaigned negatively?Clearly, Kohl has spent the vast bulk of his time and money on upbeat, positive ads. Even his opponents agree strongly with that -- one even wants to buy him dinner.The only ad that pops up as arguably negative is the 1994 distort spot against Welch. It drew some critical attention, but is viewed as a pretty tame response ad. Beyond that, Kohls campaigns have engaged in some labeling and name calling. And Kohls aggressive 1994 portrayal of Welch as an extremist was arguably negative.Kohl is mostly on target here, with some minor exceptions.Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Bipartisanship", "Campaign Finance", "Candidate Biography", "Elections", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Twenty-three years into his Senate tenure, Wisconsins Herb Kohl hasnt announced whether he will seek another six-year term in 2012.But as Republicansstep up their criticismof him, Kohl is making crystal clear his disdain for the kind of rough-and-tumble campaign environment that almost surely would be part of another campaign.Compared to his last couple races when Kohl used his massive personal fortune to vanquish underfunded opponents with soft-sell TV ads, it would be a new environment for the senator who owns the Milwaukee Bucks and built the Kohls department and grocery store chains.Inremarks to reportersin Madison on April 28, 2011, Kohl ruminated about the state of todays campaigns. He said people dont like anybody in public life because of venomous attacks and sniping among congressional members, something he said he engages in hardly at all.Then he got specific: Ive been through four campaigns and have not done any negative campaigning. And I dont get into any personal jousts with other people in public life. But thats just my style.So has Kohl really avoided any negative campaigning?Thats quite a claim in this age of mud-slinging and aggressive campaign tactics. We decided to check it out.Of course, it would be impossible to track down every campaign statement Kohl made since 1988 and copies of decades-old TV ads. So we focused our look-back to media descriptions of TV ads, debates and the candidates strategies in his four races. We also talked to the people who should know best: several of his former opponents or their aides, Kohls campaign staff, and a longtime political reporter.Kohl has of course benefited from negative attacks launched by groups supporting his campaigns, but he spoke only of his own campaigns conduct, so well limit our review to that.One more note before we begin: Because there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes negative campaigning, we asked Team Kohl what exactly he meant by his claim.Sen. Kohl has said that he believes campaigning is about telling the people of Wisconsin what hes done and what he plans to do, not tearing down his opponent or telling people not to vote for them, Kohl press secretary Lynn Becker said. He has not been deliberately malicious or factually dishonest in his campaigns or while serving in public office.Indeed, his two most recent opponents said there was no negative campaigning in their contests -- and had high praise for Kohl.He never did anything negative in his campaign. Hell have the job as long as he wants the job, said John Gillespie, founder of Rawhide Boys Ranch, who lost to Kohl in 2000.Say hi to Herb if you talk to him. Tell him I owe him a dinner, said Robert Lorge, Kohls 2006 rival.Fair enough. Those were landslide wins.What about the earlier contests?1988:Kohl was a surprise entrant in the Democratic primary, winning the nomination comfortably over former Gov. Tony Earl, Ed Garvey and Doug La Follette. Hefrustrated hisrivalsby limiting his debate participation and spending millions on TV ads.At the time,Earls media consultant David Axelrod chargedthat Kohls popular slogan -- Nobodys Senator But Yours -- was an implicit negative attack. It implied that candidates who -- unlike Kohl -- have to raise most of their campaign money are beholden to donors, said Axelrod, who later went on to help a guy named Barack Obama get elected president.Earlattacked Kohl as uninformed and error-prone, prompting Kohl campaign aide Bill Christofferson to call Earl desperate and guilty of misrepresentation.Insiders on both sides agree that Kohl ran no attack ads in the primary -- and none in the very tight general election that saw Republican state legislator Susan Engeleiterclose the gap to just a fewpointswith a series of ads targeting Kohl in the closing weeks.Engeleiter herself told us she has nothing but positive recollections of a pretty cordial campaign. She also praised Kohls dealing with her when she later was confirmed as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.La Follette and Garvey say today that they wouldnt call Kohls primary race negative. Regarding Kohls slogan, La Follette agreed with Kohl aide Christofferson, who said: Herb Kohl was talking about himself, not anyone else, when he promised to be 'nobody's senator but yours.'Indeed, Kohl explicitly used his positive campaign ads as a selling point, and called his victory a blow against negative campaigning.1994:In his first re-election campaign, Kohl wasted little timeaggressively portraying Republican opponent Robert Welch, a state lawmaker from Redgranite, as an extreme conservative and flip-flopper. At an early debate, he cited Welchs no-exceptions stance against abortion and his vow never to vote for a tax hike as extreme. According to media accounts, he did not explain the flip-flop charge.Afterwards, Welch told reporters Kohl was nastier than I expected.Later, after Welch attempted to tie Kohl to President Clinton, Kohl launched arare TV ad that focused on an opponentby name. Another followed. The ads accused Welch of distorting Kohls record. One said that fellow Republicans had criticized Welchs tactics -- something deemed misleading in aMilwaukee Journal fact check.The exchange led Welch to accuse Kohl of running a multimillion dollar mudslinging campaign. Kohl said it was Welch who went negative.The rhetoric heated up. At one point in the race, after Welch accused Kohl of religion bashing, Kohl spokesman Jeffrey Gillis said that Welch's attack again shows that he'll say or do anything to get elected.So, that seems like quite a bit of snarling.Looking back, though, Welchs campaign manager Mike Maxwell doesnt have strong opinions about the back and forth.I dont know that Kohl was particularly negative through that election, he told us. He didnt recall the distort ad that Kohl ran. He did say that some might consider the extreme charge a negative attack.Kohl, Maxwell recalled, just had overwhelming resources and then he signed (Bucks first round draft choice Glenn Robinson) six days before the election. (We could not reach Welch for comment).Kenneth Lamke, a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter who covered the 1994 race, offered the strongest opinion we heard on whether Kohl went negative against Welch. He says yes.Lamke said the extreme charge by Kohl was within bounds but uncharacteristic of Herb. Lamke viewed the attack as unprovoked and an exaggeration; Gillis, the Kohl aide, said it was a response to the drumbeat of criticism of Kohl during the Republican primary. Lamke, we should note, asked us to describe his personal politics as leans Republican.We asked several political scientists to characterize the language of the Kohl ad. They reacted cautiously because we could not provide the ad itself, just direct quotes from it in media accounts. That makes it impossible to fully judge the tone.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nrsc.org/kohl-doubles-down-on-liberal-record-spends-billions-to-fund-obamacare" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-401k-tax/", "claim": "Is Biden considering a proposal to tax income generated from 401(k) accounts?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/28/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The proposed Biden/Harris plan would replace individual retirement account deductions with a flat deduction available to everybody." ], "justification": "During the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign cycle, social media users circulated a meme claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had announced he intended to tax 401(k) plan retirement accounts: However, the published Biden campaign plan for addressing savings and retirement issues makes no mention of taxing 401(k) accounts, nor could we locate any speech or other public statement by Biden in which he suggested imposing a tax on such accounts. Biden campaign plan Biden did unveil a tax plan that called for \"equalizing the tax benefits of retirement plans.\" Key to that plan was the fact that currently, contributions workers make to retirement plans such as 401(k)s consist of pretax dollars, which reduces those workers' taxable income and thus their income tax liability: reduces Right now you can deduct your contributions to your 401(k) plan right off the top of your income. So far as the IRS is concerned, the money is invisible for this years calculations. Make $200,000 and contribute the maximum $19,500 to your 401(k), and as far as Uncle Sam (and your state) are concerned, you didnt make $200,000 this year, you only made $181,500. But, Biden contended, this type of tax benefit is skewed in favor of higher-income families: The more tax you pay, the more [your 401(k) contribution] saves you. If you have to pay the top, 37% federal tax rate on every extra dollar you earn, deducting that money from your tax return saves you $7,215 in income taxes. But if youre only paying 10% federal tax on each extra dollar you earn, deducting $19,500 would save you just $1,950. Therefore, Biden has proposed to equalize these benefits across the income spectrum by providing taxpayers with an approximately 26% refundable tax credit in place of the deductions they currently get for contributing to retirement plans: The current tax benefits for retirement savings are based on the concept of deferral, whereby savers get to exclude their retirement contributions from tax, see their savings grow tax-free, and then pay taxes when they withdraw money from their account. This system provides upper-income families with a much stronger tax break for saving and a limited benefit for middle-class and other workers with lower earnings. The Biden Plan will equalize benefits across the income scale, so that low- and middle-income workers will also get a tax break when they put money away for retirement. The Tax Foundation independent tax policy organization explained this plan thusly: Tax Foundation Biden proposes converting the current deductibility of traditional retirement contributions into matching refundable tax credits for 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs), and other types of traditional retirement vehicles, such as SIMPLE accounts. Bidens proposal would eliminate deductible traditional contributions and instead provide a 26 percent refundable tax credit for each $1 contributed. The tax credit would be deposited into the taxpayers retirement account as a matching contribution. Existing contribution limits would remain, and Roth-style tax treatment would be unaffected. Is it accurate to assert that Joe Biden said \"he's going to tax your 401(k)\"? Not really, since the Democratic presidential candidate hasn't proposed taxing the amount of money people contribute to or maintain in their retirement accounts, nor to eliminate the tax reductions workers realize by paying some of their earnings into those plans. But Biden's proposal would likely have the effect, in the words of MarketWatch, of \"subsidizing retirement savings for those earning less by raising taxes on everyone else.\" MarketWatch Mermin, Gordon B. An Analysis of Former Vice President Bidens Tax Proposals.\"\r Tax Policy Center. 5 March 2020. Mercado, Darla. \"Biden Calls for an Overhaul of 401(k) Tax Breaks. What It Means for You.\"\r CNBC. 22 September 2020. Watson, Garrett. \"Bidens Proposal Would Shift the Distribution of Retirement Tax Benefits.\"\r Tax Foundation. 26 August 2020. Arends, Brett. \"Opinion: Will Bidens 401(k) Plan Help You or Hurt You?\"\r MarketWatch. 15 September 2020.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=12ZfYNzDdZkXGze8VMUeVQZCffSUlXYpe" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, the published Biden campaign plan for addressing savings and retirement issues makes no mention of taxing 401(k) accounts, nor could we locate any speech or other public statement by Biden in which he suggested imposing a tax on such accounts.", "hrefs": [ "https://joebiden.com/older-americans/" ] }, { "sentence": "Biden did unveil a tax plan that called for \"equalizing the tax benefits of retirement plans.\" Key to that plan was the fact that currently, contributions workers make to retirement plans such as 401(k)s consist of pretax dollars, which reduces those workers' taxable income and thus their income tax liability:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-bidens-401k-plan-help-you-or-hurt-you-2020-09-09" ] }, { "sentence": "The Tax Foundation independent tax policy organization explained this plan thusly:", "hrefs": [ "https://taxfoundation.org/bidens-proposal-would-shift-the-distribution-of-retirement-tax-benefits/" ] }, { "sentence": "Is it accurate to assert that Joe Biden said \"he's going to tax your 401(k)\"? Not really, since the Democratic presidential candidate hasn't proposed taxing the amount of money people contribute to or maintain in their retirement accounts, nor to eliminate the tax reductions workers realize by paying some of their earnings into those plans. But Biden's proposal would likely have the effect, in the words of MarketWatch, of \"subsidizing retirement savings for those earning less by raising taxes on everyone else.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-bidens-401k-plan-help-you-or-hurt-you-2020-09-09" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/promotional-booklet/", "claim": "Was it asserted by Obama's literary representative that he was born in Kenya?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/18/2012", "sci_digest": [ "A 1991 literary promotional booklet identified Barack Obama as having been born in Kenya." ], "justification": "In May 2012 the web site Breitbart published a copy of a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by the literary agency Acton & Dystel showcasing their roster of writers, among whom was a young man named Barack Obama. This booklet was of particular interest because it included a brief biographical sketch which described the future President as having been born in Kenya: Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago's South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White. Is this booklet evidence that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya? Not even the site that published it made that claim, noting in a disclaimer that: Andrew Breitbart was never a \"Birther,\" and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of \"Birtherism.\" In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. ... [W]e discovered, and now present, the booklet described below one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review. It is evidence not of the President's foreign origin, but that Barack Obama's public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times. The editor of the biographical text about Barack Obama which was included in the booklet maintained that the mention of Kenya was an error on her part and was not based on any information provided to her by Obama himself: Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients. \"You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me an agency assistant at the time,\" Goderich wrote. \"There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.\" A New York Times article about Barack Obama published in 1990, a year before the Acton & Dystel promotional booklet was issued, correctly identified his birthplace as Hawaii. article A variant of this item paired the image shown above with the statement \"Big Oops! Harvard Law Review did not cleanse its 1991 yearbook which states he was born in Kenya.\" As noted above, the biographical sketch pictured above was put out by a literacy agency; it was not part of any yearbook published by Harvard. Butterfield, Fox. \"First Black Elected to Head Harvard's Law Review.\"\r The New York Times. 6 February 1990. Stableford, Dylan. \"'Obama's Literary Agent Misidentified His Birthplace in 1991.\"\r ABC News. 18 May 2012. Taranto, James. \"Counterfeit Kenyan.\"\r The Wall Street Journal. 18 May 2012.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Wj3AoAH_evKEV0963rA9PHGgl8ArSjtT" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A New York Times article about Barack Obama published in 1990, a year before the Acton & Dystel promotional booklet was issued, correctly identified his birthplace as Hawaii.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-changes/", "claim": "Is this roster of modifications made to Social Security throughout the years authentic?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/29/2005", "sci_digest": [ "The Social Security system has been subject to debate for many decades." ], "justification": "The Social Security system has been a contentious political issue ever since it was proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and implemented in 1935. Arguments regarding how the system should be used, administered, and funded and even whether it should exist at all have been the subject of debate for many decades now: Examples: [Collected via e-mail, October 2005] SOCIAL SECURITY:Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised: 1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary, 2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program, 3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year, 4.) That the money the participants put into the independent \"Trust Fund\" rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and, 5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income. Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to \"put away,\" you may be interested in the following: Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent \"Trust\" fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it? A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate. Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding? A: The Democratic Party. Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities? A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the \"tie-breaking\" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S. Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants? MY FAVORITE :A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it! Then, after doing all this lying and thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away! And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens believe it! Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during this 2004 election year! Variations: A version of this piece circulated via e-mail in 2005 opened with the following introduction: Dear Friends:Many years ago in Seattle, two wonderful neighbors, Elliott and Patty Roosevelt came to my home to swim on a regular basis. They were a great couple full of laughter and stories that today I continue to marvel at. Both are now deceased, but their stories remain. During the years of our friendship we had many, many discussions about his parents (President Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt) and how his father and mother never intended for the Social Security and Welfare programs to turn out the way they are today. Elliott used to say that if his mother returned to earth and saw what the politicians had done to their programs she would have burned all of them in hell. Here is a story I received today regarding the Social Security Program and I immediately thought of Elliott's comments. Hope you will read this and think about it. In this vein, the above-quoted item seeks to enumerate (and assign blame for) alterations to Social Security that have supposedly betrayed the intent of the system as originally conceived back in the 1930s. Most of the entries contained therein, however, are inaccurate regarding what changes were made and/or who was responsible for making them: . . . participation in the Program would be completely voluntary There was no provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 (nor has there ever been any provision) for the payment of Social Security payroll taxes (now commonly known as FICA, from an acronym for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) to be voluntary. Since the inception of the Social Security program, the law has required that payroll taxes for persons working at jobs covered by Social Security \"shall be collected by the employer of the taxpayer by deducting the amount of the tax from the wages as and when paid.\" FICA It is true that Social Security provisions originally applied only to \"workers in commerce and industry (except railroads) under age 65 in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, and on American vessels,\" and thus those who worked in fields not designated as \"commerce and industry\" (e.g., government workers, farm workers, doctors, lawyers) neither paid into the Social Security fund nor received benefits from it. Nearly all of those exemptions have been since phased out: applied . . . participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program Social Security taxes were never limited to the first $1,400 of annual income, nor was there any provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 to permanently fix the tax rate at 1%. The Social Security Act of 1935 set the original rate at 1% of the first $3,000 of annual income, with provisions to gradually increase that rate to 3% over the next twelve years: increase 1) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1937, 1938, and 1939, the rate shall be 1 per centum.(2) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1940, 1941, and 1942, the rate shall 1 1/2 per centum.(3) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1943, 1944, and 1945, the rate shall be 2 per centum.(4) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1946, 1947, and 1948, the rate shall be 2 1/2 per centum.(5) With respect to employment after December 31, 1948, the rate shall be 3 per centum. These figures have been adjusted many times over the years. Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, as of 2005 participants pay 6.2% of the first $90,000 of their income (with their employers contributing a like sum) into what is commonly known as OASDI (from an acronym for Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, the official name of the basic retirement benefits portion of the Social Security program). . . . the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that Social Security payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions: For the purposes of the income tax imposed by Title I of the Revenue Act of 1934 or by any Act of Congress in substitution therefor, the tax imposed by section 801 shall not be allowed as a deduction to the taxpayer in computing his net income for the year in which such tax is deducted from his wages. Social Security payroll taxes have never been deductible from income for tax purposes, either when the program was originally instituted or at any time since. . . . the money the participants put into the independent \"Trust Fund\" rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program The Social Security Trust Fund was established in 1939 to receive monies collected for Social Security through payroll taxes. The monies in this fund are managed by the Department of the Treasury; they are not, nor have they ever been, put into the \"general operating fund.\" However, whether the Social Security Trust Fund can truly be said to be \"independent\" is problematic. The Social Security Act specifies that the monies in the fund may only \"be invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal government,\" such as treasury bills, treasury notes, and treasury bonds, as well as special issue bonds. So, essentially, the government can \"invest\" Social Security funds by lending them to itself, then spending that money on programs not related to Social Security (e.g., defense, foreign aid, education). The government \"pays back\" this money when the Social Security program redeems the bonds, but critics of the program contend Social Security will eventually fall into deficit by 2018, and the Treasury won't have the necessary cash on hand to redeem the bonds and pay back the fund. As the Social Security and Medicare Trustees themselves noted in their 2005 Annual Report: Annual Report In 2005 the Social Security tax income surplus is estimated to be more than offset by the shortfall in tax and premium income for Medicare, resulting in a small overall cash shortfall that must be covered by transfers from general fund revenues. The combined shortfall is projected to grow each year such that by 2017 net revenue flows from the general fund to the trust funds will total $515 billion, or 2.3 percent of GDP. Since neither the interest paid on the Treasury bonds held in the HI [Hospital Insurance] and OASDI Trust Funds, nor their redemption, provides any net new income to the Treasury, the full amount of the required Treasury payments to these trust funds must be financed by some combination of increased taxation, increased Federal borrowing and debt, or a reduction in other government expenditures. Thus, these payments along with the 75 percent general fund revenue contributions to SMI will add greatly to pressures on Federal general fund revenues much sooner than is generally appreciated. A somewhat dated but detailed article about how the Social Security trust funds are invested can be found here. here . . . the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income It is true that Social Security benefits were not originally considered taxable income. However, that status was not due to any promise or act on the part of President Roosevelt, nor was it specified in the Social Security Act (or any other law); it was the result of a series of rulings by the Treasury Department in 1938 and 1941 that excluded Social Security benefits from federal income taxation. Those rulings were overriden by amendments to the Social Security act enacted in 1983. rulings amendments Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent \"Trust\" fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate. As noted above, the monies paid into the Social Security trust have never been \"put into the general fund.\" The requirements for how the Social Security Trust Fund is to be financed and invested have not changed since the fund's inception in 1939. The reference to Lyndon Johnson indicates that someone was probably confused by a change implemented at the end of the Johnson administration (1969) that altered how the fund was accounted for in the federal budget but did not change the actual operations of the fund itself: above altered Beginning in fiscal year 1969, Social Security and other Federal programs that operate through trust funds were counted officially in the budget. This was done administratively by President Johnson. At the time Congress did not have a budget-making process. In 1974 Congress adopted procedures for setting budget goals through passage of annual budget resolutions. Like the budgets prepared by the President, these resolutions were to reflect a \"unified\" budget that included trust fund programs such as Social Security in the budget totals.Beginning in the late 1970s, Social Security faced financial problems, and over a period of time legislation was enacted to restore the financial health of the program. However, because the Federal budget deficit remained large, interest in reducing Social Security spending continued. This routine consideration of Social Security constraints led to concerns that cuts in Social Security were being proposed for budgetary purposes rather than programmatic ones. In response to this concern, a series of measures were enacted in 1983, 1985, and 1987 making the program a more distinct part of the budget and permitting Congressional floor objections (points of order) to be raised against budget bills containing Social Security changes. This method of accounting for the Social Security Trust Fund in the federal budget was reversed in 1990. Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?A: The Democratic Party. As noted above, Social Security withholding has never been deductible from income for tax purposes. The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that monies paid into Social Security via payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions. above Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?A: The Democratic Party. Prior to 1984, income derived from Social Security benefits was exempt from taxation. Amendments to the Social Security Act passed by Congress in 1983 allowed for 50% of Social Security benefits to be considered taxable income for taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds. Responsibility for this change cannot fairly be assigned to either political party. The idea originated with a proposal issued by the bipartisan Greenspan Commission, which had been created by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The amendments were passed by a House of Representatives in which the Democrats held a clear majority of the seats (296-166), but the proposed amendments received \"Yea\" votes from members of both parties, and they were signed into law by President Reagan. Greenspan Commission Q: Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities?A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the \"tie-breaking\" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S. In 1993, Congress passed legislation that increased the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to taxation from 50% to 85%. As with the 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act, this increase applied only to taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds. This change to Social Security was but one element of the massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) introduced in Congress in 1993. OBRA was barely passed by a 218-216 vote in the House of Representatives, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it (although 41 Democrats voted against it). Likewise, the Senate vote on OBRA was deadlocked at 50-50 (again, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it, although 6 Democrats voted against it) until Vice-President Al Gore (a Democrat) cast the deciding \"Yea\" vote. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton (also a Democrat). OBRA vote vote Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it! No one whether he be a citizen, immigrant, or illegal alien is eligible to collect Social Security benefits unless he (or someone else, such as a parent or spouse) has paid into the system. Someone has confused Social Security itself with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) the latter is a federal welfare program \"designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income\" by providing \"cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.\" Immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits under certain conditions, but SSI is financed by general revenues and not Social Security taxes. SSI was not enacted by the administration of President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat); it was created and signed into law in 1972, during the administration of President Richard Nixon (a Republican). benefits SSI Additional information: Riedl, Brian and David John. \"Social Security's Fictitious Trust Fund.\" Knight-Ridder Tribune. 10 November 2004.", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "There was no provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 (nor has there ever been any provision) for the payment of Social Security payroll taxes (now commonly known as FICA, from an acronym for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) to be voluntary. Since the inception of the Social Security program, the law has required that payroll taxes for persons working at jobs covered by Social Security \"shall be collected by the employer of the taxpayer by deducting the amount of the tax from the wages as and when paid.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://money.cnn.com/pf/101/lessons/18/page3.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It is true that Social Security provisions originally applied only to \"workers in commerce and industry (except railroads) under age 65 in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, and on American vessels,\" and thus those who worked in fields not designated as \"commerce and industry\" (e.g., government workers, farm workers, doctors, lawyers) neither paid into the Social Security fund nor received benefits from it. Nearly all of those exemptions have been since phased out:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20000816010805/https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/HOP/hopi.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Social Security taxes were never limited to the first $1,400 of annual income, nor was there any provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 to permanently fix the tax rate at 1%. The Social Security Act of 1935 set the original rate at 1% of the first $3,000 of annual income, with provisions to gradually increase that rate to 3% over the next twelve years:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/history/35acviii.html" ] }, { "sentence": "However, whether the Social Security Trust Fund can truly be said to be \"independent\" is problematic. The Social Security Act specifies that the monies in the fund may only \"be invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal government,\" such as treasury bills, treasury notes, and treasury bonds, as well as special issue bonds. So, essentially, the government can \"invest\" Social Security funds by lending them to itself, then spending that money on programs not related to Social Security (e.g., defense, foreign aid, education). The government \"pays back\" this money when the Social Security program redeems the bonds, but critics of the program contend Social Security will eventually fall into deficit by 2018, and the Treasury won't have the necessary cash on hand to redeem the bonds and pay back the fund. As the Social Security and Medicare Trustees themselves noted in their 2005 Annual Report:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html" ] }, { "sentence": "A somewhat dated but detailed article about how the Social Security trust funds are invested can be found here.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20030724115523/https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ASKACT/part5.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It is true that Social Security benefits were not originally considered taxable income. However, that status was not due to any promise or act on the part of President Roosevelt, nor was it specified in the Social Security Act (or any other law); it was the result of a series of rulings by the Treasury Department in 1938 and 1941 that excluded Social Security benefits from federal income taxation. Those rulings were overriden by amendments to the Social Security act enacted in 1983.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/history/it3447.html", "https://www.ssa.gov/history/1983amend2.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As noted above, the monies paid into the Social Security trust have never been \"put into the general fund.\" The requirements for how the Social Security Trust Fund is to be financed and invested have not changed since the fund's inception in 1939. The reference to Lyndon Johnson indicates that someone was probably confused by a change implemented at the end of the Johnson administration (1969) that altered how the fund was accounted for in the federal budget but did not change the actual operations of the fund itself:", "hrefs": [ "#trust", "https://web.archive.org/web/19970617031124/https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ASKACT/part6.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As noted above, Social Security withholding has never been deductible from income for tax purposes. The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that monies paid into Social Security via payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions.", "hrefs": [ "#exempt" ] }, { "sentence": "Responsibility for this change cannot fairly be assigned to either political party. The idea originated with a proposal issued by the bipartisan Greenspan Commission, which had been created by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The amendments were passed by a House of Representatives in which the Democrats held a clear majority of the seats (296-166), but the proposed amendments received \"Yea\" votes from members of both parties, and they were signed into law by President Reagan.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/gspan8.html" ] }, { "sentence": "This change to Social Security was but one element of the massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) introduced in Congress in 1993. OBRA was barely passed by a 218-216 vote in the House of Representatives, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it (although 41 Democrats voted against it). Likewise, the Senate vote on OBRA was deadlocked at 50-50 (again, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it, although 6 Democrats voted against it) until Vice-President Al Gore (a Democrat) cast the deciding \"Yea\" vote. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton (also a Democrat).", "hrefs": [ "https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c103:2:./temp/~c103hPx9db::", "https://clerk.house.gov/evs/1993/roll406.xml", "https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=1&vote=00247#position" ] }, { "sentence": "No one whether he be a citizen, immigrant, or illegal alien is eligible to collect Social Security benefits unless he (or someone else, such as a parent or spouse) has paid into the system. Someone has confused Social Security itself with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) the latter is a federal welfare program \"designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income\" by providing \"cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.\" Immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits under certain conditions, but SSI is financed by general revenues and not Social Security taxes. SSI was not enacted by the administration of President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat); it was created and signed into law in 1972, during the administration of President Richard Nixon (a Republican).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10024.html", "https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/11000.html#part2" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jan/28/democratic-national-committee/national-democrats-criticizing-rick-perry-says-tex/", "claim": "College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "01/28/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Democrats criticized Rick Perry for college costs the day the Republican governor gave his valedictory speech to Texas lawmakers. Among the beefs in a Jan. 15, 2015, email blast from the Democratic National Committee: College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003, putting the dream of earning a college degree further out of reach for many Texans. That year should ring a bell; its when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislatureagreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards. Committee's source We wondered how much tuition ultimately escalated. By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012news storyin theDallas Morning Newsthat said by the papers analysis, Texas students are paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also said: State officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but the costs have ballooned since 2003, even when inflation is factored in. Updated data Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, pointed out aFebruary 2014 board documentshe described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document said, in part: From fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 SCHs at a public university has increased by 104 percent. An SCH is a semester credit-hour. According to the document, the boards calculations were rooted in tuition and fees charged students. Then again, the board said, a student's actual charges may vary based on the student's classification and level of enrollment, the college the student attends within the university, the student's specific personal circumstances, or for other reasons deemed appropriate by the institution. Charts in the board analysis indicate the tuition and fees each year from fall 2003 through fall 2013 for nearly 40 institutions, most of them in the University of Texas or Texas A&M University systems. On average in fall 2003, tuition and fees were $1,934 for 15 semester credit-hours, according to the report. The average in fall 2013 was $3,951, the board said. By phone, Polden confirmed the boards results didnt take inflation into account. So we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsinflation calculatorto estimate that tuition and fees at the states public colleges and universities escalated 61 percent, in real terms, from fall 2003 through fall 2013. But that didnt bring us to the 2014-15 school year. So we asked for comparable charges on average for a student as of fall 2014. By email, Polden said the fall 2014 statewide average for someone taking 15 SCHs was $4,091, lifting the raw average tuition increase since fall 2003 to 112 percent. Adjusted for inflation, we calculated, the increase was 64 percent. UT Austin Separately, we asked the University of Texas at Austin for its fall 2014 charge for that many credit hours. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed the amount, $4,905, which we compared with the fall 2003 charge for that university of $2,721. Adjusted for inflation, the hike over the years came out to 40 percent. Out of governor's control? Worth mention: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years too, Perrycalled for $10,000, four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuitionso an entering student would pay the same tab each year while earning a degree. Our ruling The Democratic group, zeroing in on Perry, said Texas college tuition rates increased 55 percent since 2003. That figure is outdated--the increase through fall 2014 was 64 percent--and it's also worth clarifying the governor didn't directly control tuition, though he approved of the 2003 law deregulating rates and appointed ruling public college and university governing boards. We rate the statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Education", "State Budget", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "That year should ring a bell; its when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislatureagreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Actions.aspx?LegSess=78R&Bill=HB3015" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012news storyin theDallas Morning Newsthat said by the papers analysis, Texas students are paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also said: State officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but the costs have ballooned since 2003, even when inflation is factored in.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20120922-texas-college-tuition-up-55-percent-since-2003-deregulation-analysis-shows.ece" ] }, { "sentence": "Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, pointed out aFebruary 2014 board documentshe described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document said, in part: From fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 SCHs at a public university has increased by 104 percent. An SCH is a semester credit-hour.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/pdf/3369.PDF" ] }, { "sentence": "By phone, Polden confirmed the boards results didnt take inflation into account. So we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsinflation calculatorto estimate that tuition and fees at the states public colleges and universities escalated 61 percent, in real terms, from fall 2003 through fall 2013.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Worth mention: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years too, Perrycalled for $10,000, four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuitionso an entering student would pay the same tab each year while earning a degree.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/perry-pushing-tuition-freeze-10000-degrees/nSQ8b/" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obfuscatedcare/", "claim": "Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber Hails American 'Stupidity'", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "11/10/2014", "sci_digest": [ "'Obamacare architect' Jonathan Gruber recently said that Obamacare only passed due to the 'stupidity' of the American voter and a lack of 'transparency,' and video footage of his remarks was deleted f" ], "justification": " Claim: Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the \"stupidity\" of the American voter and a lack of \"transparency,\" and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. : Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the \"stupidity\" of the American voter and a lack of \"transparency. UNDETERMINED: Video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. Example: [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Hey Media, is UPenn pulling the Gruber video where he says ObamaCare passed by Democrats lying to the public a newsworthy event? Just askin' Jonathan Gruber, an Obamacare's architect admitted that lack of transparency/stupidity of electorate helped pass the bill Origins: In November 2014, a 52-second long excerpt from a video of a 2013 conferenceinvolving Jonathan Gruber, a consultant who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration and Congress during the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or \"Obamacare\"), began to circulate on the internet. Gruber made the remarks captured in that excerpt during the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics in October 2013. Gruber's remarks became controversial when video of the conference was posted online thirteen months after the LDI panel on health economics took place. panel Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of economics, was speaking at a panel titled \"The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA and How Economics Can Inform Inevitable Mid-Course Corrections.\" The footage from which the comments originated ran for nearly an hour and covered issues tangential to Obamacare, such as its classification as a tax, subsidies, and how the bill came into law. Gruber's controversial remarks come at around the 18-minute mark in the video shown below: During the portion of the video in question, Gruber said: This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money it would not have passed. OK? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not. After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he \"spoke inappropriately\": elaborated Gruber's comments were part of a broader public conversation between him and economist Mark Pauly on the economics of health care reform. Gruber was responding to a remark by Pauly about financing transparency in the law and the politics surrounding the ACA's individual mandate. The political process, he said, striking a critical tone, resulted in inefficiencies in the law which should be corrected. \"In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed,\" he said. \"You can't do it politically, you just literally cannot do it. It's not only transparent financing but also transparent spending.\" In the video, Gruber appeared to be speaking specifically about the political environment in 2010 and its impact on the law's funding mechanisms. Gruber takes a critical stance on some of those outcomes, calling them \"irrational.\" \"I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent but I'd rather have this law than not,\" Gruber said. \"That involves tradeoffs that we don't prefer as economists but are realistic.\" Gruber apologized for his comments during an on-air interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow. \"The comments in the video were made at an academic conference,\" Gruber said. \"I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments.\" Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures \"led to an incomplete law with some typos.\" \"It would have made more sense to do Obamacare the way we did in Massachusetts, which would be to just give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance,\" Gruber said. \"That was politically infeasible and so instead it was done through the tax code.\" The full video of the 2013 Health Economics Conference was published by PennLDI on YouTube, and when the excerpt video of Gruber's remarks began to circulate online, many viewers assumed the comments to be recent (they were not), and others maintained PennLDI then removed the clip from the Internet due to the political controversy. On the latter point, several Twitter users posted screenshots of a YouTube error page that indicated the source video had been (at least briefly) removed by the University after Gruber's remarks became a focus of attention: recent However, it isn't yet clear whether the PennLDI video was deliberately pulled from the Internet due to the political controversy it created, or whether it was made unavailable at some point after it was initially posted for unrelated reasons (e.g., error, copyright issues, technical problems). It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics when they were spotted and excerpted from the longer PennLDI video by Philadelphia investment adviser Rich Weinstein, then posted to the YouTube channel of the American Commitment 501(c)(4) (i.e., a politically active nonprofit organization), whose Phil Kerpen tweeted: Rich Weinstein American Commitment My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014 The claim that the University of Pennsylvania deliberately tried to scrub the clip from the Internet may also have stemmed from Kerpen or the PAC: Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014 Last updated: 12 November 2014 ", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vRS6glCuYASDfYXvSnCFjtu33I_lUhNT", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14sygFDF-_ww1_SqpCQG7EohDhPYfKKzY", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: In November 2014, a 52-second long excerpt from a video of a 2013 conferenceinvolving Jonathan Gruber, a consultant who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration and Congress during the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or \"Obamacare\"), began to circulate on the internet. Gruber made the remarks captured in that excerpt during the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics in October 2013. Gruber's remarks became controversial when video of the conference was posted online thirteen months after the LDI panel on health economics took place.", "hrefs": [ "https://ldi.upenn.edu/ahec2013/agenda" ] }, { "sentence": "After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he \"spoke inappropriately\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/11/11/obamacare-consultant-under-fire-for-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-comment/" ] }, { "sentence": "The full video of the 2013 Health Economics Conference was published by PennLDI on YouTube, and when the excerpt video of Gruber's remarks began to circulate online, many viewers assumed the comments to be recent (they were not), and others maintained PennLDI then removed the clip from the Internet due to the political controversy. On the latter point, several Twitter users posted screenshots of a YouTube error page that indicated the source video had been (at least briefly) removed by the University after Gruber's remarks became a focus of attention:", "hrefs": [ "https://rare.us/story/an-obamacare-architect-just-admitted-something-about-the-law-that-will-make-you-sick-to-your-stomach/" ] }, { "sentence": "It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics when they were spotted and excerpted from the longer PennLDI video by Philadelphia investment adviser Rich Weinstein, then posted to the YouTube channel of the American Commitment 501(c)(4) (i.e., a politically active nonprofit organization), whose Phil Kerpen tweeted:", "hrefs": [ "https://online.wsj.com/articles/best-of-the-web-today-gruber-vs-gruber-1406318853", "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.asp/American_Commitment" ] }, { "sentence": "My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/531877333700198400" ] }, { "sentence": " Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/531877333700198400" ] }, { "sentence": "Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb", "https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/531849433286471680" ] }, { "sentence": "Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb" ] }, { "sentence": " Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/531849433286471680" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-christ-billboard-st-louis/", "claim": "Did a Billboard in Missouri Show President Trump Alongside a Gospel Quote?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "11/05/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Some Christians expressed concern that a billboard near St. Louis seemingly equated the 45th president with Jesus Christ himself." ], "justification": "In the final days before the November 2018 elections, social media users in Missouri began posting descriptions and photographs of a billboard that appeared to show President Donald Trump's face accompanied by an excerpt from a well-known Bible verse and a re-working of his 2016 presidential campaign slogan \"Make America Great Again\": From a friend -- a billboard spotted outside of St Louis. I don't like using the word \"heresy,\" but I think I'll make an exception in this case. pic.twitter.com/FqaPnBXGHT pic.twitter.com/FqaPnBXGHT Diana Butler Bass (@dianabutlerbass) November 4, 2018 November 4, 2018 The images prompted expressions of concern by some Christians that the billboard was associating or likening President Trump to Jesus Christ himself, the \"Word made flesh\" referenced in the Gospel quotation. In its proper context, Chapter 1, Verse 14 of the Gospel of John reads: reads He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The billboard is real, and the photographs of it shared on social media in early November are authentic. The existence of the billboard was verified by St. Louis television station KMOV, which published their own photograph of it, describing the location as being \"on Interstate 170 near St. Charles Rock Road,\" which is around 15 miles north-west of downtown St. Louis, Missouri: KMOV \"Make the Gospel Great Again\": Large billboard of Trump has St. Louis Co. residents talking https://t.co/l0EDbpWhU2 #KMOV pic.twitter.com/FLIuXd47C9 https://t.co/l0EDbpWhU2 #KMOV pic.twitter.com/FLIuXd47C9 KMOV (@KMOV) November 5, 2018 November 5, 2018 This corroborates the description in Martha Baker's 3 November Facebook post, which stated that the billboard was located \"on I-170 (the Innerbelt in St. Louis) between the Rock Road and Page Blvd.\" Three days before Baker's post, another social media user posted their description of the billboard, expressing their dismay at what they called its \"idolatry\": This is not a drill. In #STL I just saw a billboard with Trump on it that says, The word made flesh. And Make the gospel great again. I cannot begin to express how livid I am at this level of idolatry. #STL Rev. Momma (@TheRevMomma) October 31, 2018 October 31, 2018 The billboard is undoubtedly real, though it is not yet clear who paid for it and when it was erected. A spokesperson for DDI Media, the St. Louis company which owns the billboard itself, told us they could not share such information. On 5 November, a Facebook page called \"Make the Gospel Great Again\" (which is no longer available on the social networking web site) claimed responsibility for the billboard: claimed ...We met as a team last night to discuss how much hatred weve received for our efforts to encourage fellow believers in holding fast to the faith. We prayed that the facebook page would be a community for fellow Christians to be encouraged at what God is doing in the world and to find out how they could, like our president, be a part of being Gods presence in making America great. But the hateful comments and mean spiritedness from liberals and atheists drowned out the voices of Christians in this country. These reflect the level of unfair deranged media attacks on the President in general and his supporters. Our billboard IS NOT equating Jesus with President Donald Trump. Salvation comes only from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, not any man. But God does send his messengers to us, and just as King David liberated the faithful in his day, President Trump is doing this today through his protection of the unborn, defense of our land against foreign invaders and standing up for Israel... The page described its mission statement as follows: \"We believe God has given American Christians His earthly messenger - Donald J Trump. We follow his words in faith each day!\" statement As far back as 10 October, \"Make the Gospel Great Again\" posted an image which was almost identical to that ultimately displayed on the St. Louis billboard, and its profile photograph was the same logo which appeared on the billboard (a crucifix with an American flag): posted photograph We sent a list of questions to an email address associated with the \"Make the Gospel Great Again\" Facebook page, in order to clarify who was behind it, and verify whether there was a link between it and the St. Louis billboard, but we did not receive any response. Zotos, Alexis. \"'Make the Gospel Great Again': Large Billboard of Trump Has St. Louis Co. Residents Talking.\"\r KMOV. 5 November 2018. Updated [7 November 2018]: Added information about the Facebook page \"Make the Gospel Great Again.\"", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1A6Rfn-9DUSxBlyDiUr1zlwlDaHfXeiz1", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "From a friend -- a billboard spotted outside of St Louis. I don't like using the word \"heresy,\" but I think I'll make an exception in this case. pic.twitter.com/FqaPnBXGHT", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/FqaPnBXGHT" ] }, { "sentence": " Diana Butler Bass (@dianabutlerbass) November 4, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/dianabutlerbass/status/1058950301271486465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "The images prompted expressions of concern by some Christians that the billboard was associating or likening President Trump to Jesus Christ himself, the \"Word made flesh\" referenced in the Gospel quotation. In its proper context, Chapter 1, Verse 14 of the Gospel of John reads:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/John-1-14/" ] }, { "sentence": "The billboard is real, and the photographs of it shared on social media in early November are authentic. The existence of the billboard was verified by St. Louis television station KMOV, which published their own photograph of it, describing the location as being \"on Interstate 170 near St. Charles Rock Road,\" which is around 15 miles north-west of downtown St. Louis, Missouri:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.kmov.com/news/make-the-gospel-great-again-large-billboard-of-trump-has/article_538f78d0-e0a9-11e8-b68e-4735053c1e10.html" ] }, { "sentence": "\"Make the Gospel Great Again\": Large billboard of Trump has St. Louis Co. residents talking https://t.co/l0EDbpWhU2 #KMOV pic.twitter.com/FLIuXd47C9", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/l0EDbpWhU2", "https://twitter.com/hashtag/KMOV?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/FLIuXd47C9" ] }, { "sentence": " KMOV (@KMOV) November 5, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/KMOV/status/1059454818836611072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "This is not a drill. In #STL I just saw a billboard with Trump on it that says, The word made flesh. And Make the gospel great again. I cannot begin to express how livid I am at this level of idolatry.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/STL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": " Rev. Momma (@TheRevMomma) October 31, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TheRevMomma/status/1057456613005635584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "On 5 November, a Facebook page called \"Make the Gospel Great Again\" (which is no longer available on the social networking web site) claimed responsibility for the billboard: ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20181105235708/https://www.facebook.com/MaketheGospelGreatAgain/posts/2119336688317841?__tn__=-R" ] }, { "sentence": "The page described its mission statement as follows: \"We believe God has given American Christians His earthly messenger - Donald J Trump. We follow his words in faith each day!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/dYtSu#selection-1891.0-1891.123" ] }, { "sentence": "As far back as 10 October, \"Make the Gospel Great Again\" posted an image which was almost identical to that ultimately displayed on the St. Louis billboard, and its profile photograph was the same logo which appeared on the billboard (a crucifix with an American flag):", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/AWNAQ", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2018/11/Screen-Shot-2018-11-05-at-19.07.00.png" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bread-and-media-circuses/", "claim": "Islamic Justice — Boy Punished for Stealing Bread", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/28/2006", "sci_digest": [ "Photographs document a roadside stunt, not a Muslim boy having his arm crushed under a truck as a punishment for stealing bread." ], "justification": "The above-displayed photographs have been circulating on the Internet since at least 2004, usually in e-mail forwards that set them in one of several Arab/Muslim areas (e.g., Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestinian territories) and claim that the boy pictured is being punished under a harsh Sharia law system that imposes a penalty grossly out of proportion to the nature of the crime (i.e., having his arm crushed under a vehicle because he stole a loaf of bread). Sharia These pictures originated with the Iranian news site PeykeIran, who (along with persons who have witnessed similar scenes in other countries) confirmed that what the photographs actually depict is performers hustling money from onlookers by staging a common street act, one in which a subject seemingly allows himself to be run over by a heavy vehicle and then emerges unscathed. This a common act, variations of which are performed by many magicians and accomplished through a variety of means, with no lasting harm done. That the subject is a small boy who grimaces his way through the stunt is all part of the act, intended to elicit sympathy and extra cash from onlookers. (Despite his contorted facial expressions, the boy is not seriously or permanently injured by the process.) PeykeIran It's difficult to make any definitive statement about Sharia/Islamic law since customs and enforcement can vary from region to region, but although the cutting off hands may sometimes be the prescribed maximum penalty for cases of theft under the strictest interpretations of Sharia, Islamic law resources consistently note that such punishments shall not be applied to children who have not yet reached puberty (which is defined as the age of 15 for boys), nor for the theft of small-value items or food by the hungry: penalty puberty food The maximum sentence of any violation of law is not applied in every case. In the robbery and theft cases for example, the maximum penalty of hand-cutting applies after the consideration of many factors such as track record and whether the theft was made for profit. In some cases, such as stealing food because of severe hunger or to prevent death, there may not be a penalty. A person's hand is not amputated when he steals less than the equivalent of 4.374 grams of gold [or] something that is useless. The penalty for the one who steals (when the above conditions are met) is that his/her right arm is amputated. The above photographs do not depict any form of amputation, and it is the child's left arm which goes under the wheels. Moreover, there are no police, judges, religious authorities, or other officials evident in any of the pictures, just a huckster with a hand-held microphone who drums up business and describes the action for the onlookers visible in the background of the first photo. (Also note the blanket placed under the boy's arm: something that is useful for a staged stunt but is unlikely to be provided or allowed by those intent on severely punishing a lawbreaker.) The versions of these photographs circulated via e-mail generally leave out the last pictures of the original series, which show the same boy after the conclusion of the stunt: ", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qJU_gRgvMEpRbr1ulBCXyn0HST6D-Vya", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The above-displayed photographs have been circulating on the Internet since at least 2004, usually in e-mail forwards that set them in one of several Arab/Muslim areas (e.g., Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestinian territories) and claim that the boy pictured is being punished under a harsh Sharia law system that imposes a penalty grossly out of proportion to the nature of the crime (i.e., having his arm crushed under a vehicle because he stole a loaf of bread).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,777972,00.html" ] }, { "sentence": "These pictures originated with the Iranian news site PeykeIran, who (along with persons who have witnessed similar scenes in other countries) confirmed that what the photographs actually depict is performers hustling money from onlookers by staging a common street act, one in which a subject seemingly allows himself to be run over by a heavy vehicle and then emerges unscathed. This a common act, variations of which are performed by many magicians and accomplished through a variety of means, with no lasting harm done. That the subject is a small boy who grimaces his way through the stunt is all part of the act, intended to elicit sympathy and extra cash from onlookers. (Despite his contorted facial expressions, the boy is not seriously or permanently injured by the process.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.peykeiran.com" ] }, { "sentence": "It's difficult to make any definitive statement about Sharia/Islamic law since customs and enforcement can vary from region to region, but although the cutting off hands may sometimes be the prescribed maximum penalty for cases of theft under the strictest interpretations of Sharia, Islamic law resources consistently note that such punishments shall not be applied to children who have not yet reached puberty (which is defined as the age of 15 for boys), nor for the theft of small-value items or food by the hungry: ", "hrefs": [ "https://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=1895&CATE=12", "https://www.iran-bulletin.org/political_islam/punishmnt.html", "https://www.islamic-study.org/islamic_penal_law.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/whataburger-closing-its-doors/", "claim": "Whataburger Closing Its Doors?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/28/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A \"prank\" Facebook post fooled many into thinking the restaurant chain was closing down." ], "justification": "A prank Facebook post that appeared to link to an article reporting that the restaurant chain Whataburger was closing its doors appeared in June 2017: However, clicking on the link takes you to a fake news story about the restaurant chain's faux announcement on the prank web site Channel22news.com: fake news story The Texas based food chain is shutting its doors effective April 26 due to numerous reports of food poisoning with high concentrations of salmonella found in meat served in the DFW area during the month of April Anyone who has eaten at Whataburger should be tested for salmonella poisoning. Symptoms can show up as many as three weeks out. I doctors [sic] urge all people who have eaten at these restaurants especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to immediately seek medical attention if they have eaten there more than once during past few weeks. The more time youve eaten there the higher likelihood of an infection occurring. Lawsuits have already been filed and Whataburger has decided to shut its doors due to the litigation and payouts that it expects to have to make. Filing bankrupt in a downtown Austin courthouse Wataburger spokesman, Jeff smith said We have taken the advice of our counsel and filed Chapter 7 and have shut our doors. It is unclear what the future holds for the Texas based chain. One thing for certain, Allyson Heffernan is sure to be disappointed! Channel22News is clearly labeled with various disclaimers and carries a \"you got owned\" meme in its header: We do NOT support FAKE NEWS!!! This is a Prank website that is intended for Fun. Bullying, Violent Threats or posts that Violate Public Order are NOT permitted on this Website. Channel22News, as well as other sites of its ilk, allow users to generate their own fake news stories. These stories are then packaged into social media posts that resemble genuine news items. Because many people share links on social media without actually reading the stories, these \"pranks\" frequently reach large audiences. other sites without actually reading In response to the prank, Whataburger created a Facebook post of their own: Facebook An article is being circulated stating that Whataburger will be closing all stores. This article is a hoax, and we arent going anywhere. Dewey, Caitlin. \"6 in 10 of You Will Share This Link Without Reading it, a New, Depressing Study Says.\"\r Washington Post. 16 June 2016.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1GnQlL3QBPZgPENKxXnmXbUSbvoDcEdQl", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aGN6m6HkuTRD1RXFqAUNhRkH2ZNz0cyq", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10eYkWhZNVJmPU6LqbjeRdo4G6T9VKd9h", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, clicking on the link takes you to a fake news story about the restaurant chain's faux announcement on the prank web site Channel22news.com:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/nTm0l" ] }, { "sentence": "Channel22News, as well as other sites of its ilk, allow users to generate their own fake news stories. These stories are then packaged into social media posts that resemble genuine news items. Because many people share links on social media without actually reading the stories, these \"pranks\" frequently reach large audiences. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/bull-shark-kentucky-lake/", "https://www.snopes.com/saltwater-crocodile-captured-in-long-island-sound-near-bridgeport/", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/16/six-in-10-of-you-will-share-this-link-without-reading-it-according-to-a-new-and-depressing-study/?utm_term=.aa188c3f407e" ] }, { "sentence": "In response to the prank, Whataburger created a Facebook post of their own:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/whataburger/photos/a.196181800410538.53005.196174093744642/1718529668175736/?type=3&theater" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/arizona-drug-welfare-recipients/", "claim": "Did Arizona's Drug Testing Program for Welfare Recipients Catch Just One Person?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "04/03/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Reports overstate how many people were tested under a state program for TANF recipients." ], "justification": "An image circulated online criticizes Arizona's drug testing program for social assistance for supposedly spending a whopping $3.6 million to test 87,000 welfare recipients but catching only a single violator: The drug test program, administered by the state Department of Economic Services (DES), allows officials to drug test those who receive cash benefits as part or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program if they have \"reasonable cause\" to do so. A January 2017 article by Counter Current News reported that only one person out of 87,000 had been disqualified from the TANF program for failing a drug test under that program, at a cost of $3.6 million to the state. article That claims was based on two sources: a March 2012 USA Today editorial stating that 87,000 people \"went through the program\" between 2009 and 2012 with only one testing positive, and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report that estimated the cost for each drug test at $42. editorial report However, the underlying source material didn't state that 87,000 people had actually been subjected to drug tests in Arizona that figure reflected the total number of people in the state who were receiving TANF benefits at the time (whether or not they had been tested or presented reasonable cause for testing). And ACLU spokesperson Alexandra Ringe told us the organization planned to take down their report that provided the $42 drug test cost figure because the report was outdated. A DES spokesperson, Misty Kaufman, also told us on 23 March 2017 that under the state program, officials ask TANF recipients to submit to drug testing if DES is notified by \"a law enforcement agency, a court, or other governmental entity\" that they could be using drugs. A test may also be requested if recipients indicate in statements that they have used illegal drugs within the previous 30 days. Failing the test does not invoke a monetary fine, but it does disqualify otherwise eligible recipients from claiming cash benefits for a year. Since the program went into effect in November 2009, Kaufman said, 49 people had been flagged for drug testing as of 30 June 2016. Twenty-three of those people actually took the tests, which DES said cost a total of $585, or $25.43 per test. Of those 23 people, two had tested positive for drugs through September 2012, and another four since then. However, only three of the six people who failed the test lost their TANF benefits, as the other three positive results were attributed to prescription medications. According to Kaufman, the three valid disqualifications led to recipients' losing a combined $1,816 in benefit monies. Another 26 TANF benefit recipients have declined to take the drug test since the program went into effect, with 20 of them losing benefits in the aggregate sum of $4,155. The benefit period for the other six people had expired before they could incur the cutoff penalty. The National Conference of State Legislatures said in March 2017 that Arizona was one of at least 15 states that passed laws requiring drug tests or drug screenings for people participating in benefit programs. Florida's law, which required that every welfare applicant receive drug testing, was struck down by a federal judge in December 2013, who ruled that it amounted to an illegal search. By that point, 108 of 4,086 people had tested positive for drugs under that state's program. The New York Times noted at the time that the Florida program \"cost more money to carry out than it saved.\" said struck down New York Times On 15 February 2017, the House passed House Joint Resolution 42, which rolled back a 2016 Labor Department rule limiting state-administered drug tests on unemployment insurance applicants to people seeking jobs in fields that already require drug screenings. That measure passed the U.S. Senate on 14 March 2017 and was presented to President Donald Trump on 21 March 2017. passed passed USA Today. \"Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Nets Little.\" \r 18 March 2012. American Civil Liberties Union. \"Drug Testing of Public Assistance Recipients as a Condition of Eligibility.\" \r Accessed 3 April 2017.\r Robles, Francis. \"Florida Law on Drug Tests for Welfare Is Struck Down.\" \r The New York Times. 31 December 2013. National Conference of State Legislatures. \"Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients and Public Assistance.\" \r 14 March 2017. Wang, Amy B. \"Welfare Recipients Face Drug Tests.\"\r The Arizona Republic. 25 November 2009.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Ktb_ajnseF9nolFaxRWdGqHZXO63RgIY", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The drug test program, administered by the state Department of Economic Services (DES), allows officials to drug test those who receive cash benefits as part or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program if they have \"reasonable cause\" to do so. A January 2017 article by Counter Current News reported that only one person out of 87,000 had been disqualified from the TANF program for failing a drug test under that program, at a cost of $3.6 million to the state.", "hrefs": [ "https://countercurrentnews.com/2017/01/arizona-spent-over-1-7-million-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-to-catch-one-person/" ] }, { "sentence": "That claims was based on two sources: a March 2012 USA Today editorial stating that 87,000 people \"went through the program\" between 2009 and 2012 with only one testing positive, and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report that estimated the cost for each drug test at $42. ", "hrefs": [ "https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-03-18/drug-testing-welfare-applicants/53620604/1", "https://www.aclu.org/other/drug-testing-public-assistance-recipients-condition-eligibility" ] }, { "sentence": "The National Conference of State Legislatures said in March 2017 that Arizona was one of at least 15 states that passed laws requiring drug tests or drug screenings for people participating in benefit programs. Florida's law, which required that every welfare applicant receive drug testing, was struck down by a federal judge in December 2013, who ruled that it amounted to an illegal search. By that point, 108 of 4,086 people had tested positive for drugs under that state's program. The New York Times noted at the time that the Florida program \"cost more money to carry out than it saved.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/drug-testing-and-public-assistance.aspx", "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/us/florida-law-on-drug-testing-for-welfare-is-struck-down.html", "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/us/florida-law-on-drug-testing-for-welfare-is-struck-down.html" ] }, { "sentence": "On 15 February 2017, the House passed House Joint Resolution 42, which rolled back a 2016 Labor Department rule limiting state-administered drug tests on unemployment insurance applicants to people seeking jobs in fields that already require drug screenings. That measure passed the U.S. Senate on 14 March 2017 and was presented to President Donald Trump on 21 March 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/42?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hjr+42%22%5D%7D&r=1", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-joint-resolution/42/actions?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hjr+42%22%5D%7D&r=1" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/secure-fence-act-50-billion-border/", "claim": "Did Congress allocate $50 billion in 2006 specifically for the development of border fencing?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "01/16/2019", "sci_digest": [ "When some leading Democrats voted for the Secure Fence Act, were they agreeing to 10 times more funding than President Donald Trump requested for his border wall in 2018?" ], "justification": "During the U.S. federal government shutdown that began in December 2018, President Donald Trump and many of his supporters blamed Congressional Democrats for the budgetary impasse. As part of that rhetorical battle, Trump and others accused Democrats of hypocrisy and political opportunism, alleging that their current opposition to providing funding for the president's long-promised border wall was in stark contrast to their past support for border security infrastructure. In his 8 January 2019 Oval Office address, President Trump alluded to this notion by taking a swipe at Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Minority leader who, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was scheduled to offer a response to the president's primetime immigration speech: \"Senator Chuck Schumer who you will be hearing from later tonight has repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past, along with many other Democrats. They changed their mind only after I was elected President.\" In a similar vein, around the beginning of 2019 a widely-shared meme posed a rhetorical question about $50 billion in funding for border infrastructure that was supposedly part of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, implying that Democratic Congressional leaders had somehow been involved in misappropriating the money: \"Schumer, Pelosi and the Dems may have wished they had just given POTUS the 5 Billion for the wall ... rather than having to answer this question!!! ... or is this the bigger picture??? Where is the $50 Billion set aside for the 2006 Secure Fence Act? Bush signed it & Obama was supposed to oversee its construction? Where is the money?\" A 12 January post on the website of the conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense contained this graphic version of the meme: website The figure of $50 billion was especially significant because it was a far greater sum than the $5 billion for border wall construction which President Trump demanded be included in the 2019 federal budget, and which formed the crux of the partisan standoff and ensuing government shutdown. The \"$50 billion\" message was shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, prompting inquiries from readers about its veracity. Twitter Facebook In reality, $50 billion was not set aside for border security infrastructure as part of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, and therefore no misappropriation of such funding occurred. One analysis, which predated the Secure Fence Act by seven years, predicted that building and maintaining the type of border fencing provided for in that legislation might cost up to $49 billion over the course of 25 years, but that analysis did not play a significant role in Congressional deliberations before the passing of the Secure Fence Act. The Secure Fence Act was a law introduced by Republican Congressman Peter King of New York in September 2006 and signed by President George W. Bush on 26 October 2006. Among other provisions, the law required the Secretary of Homeland Security to begin (within 18 months) the construction of at least two layers of fencing, along with barriers, cameras, and sensors, along five sections of the United States border with Mexico: law required In the context of the 2018-19 controversy over President Trump's proposed border wall, Republicans made claims about the effectiveness of that border fencing in reducing illegal border crossings into the United States. In a previous fact check, we found such claims to be vague and flawed. fact check Some Democrats supported the bill, and some didn't. In the House of Representatives, the Secure Fence Act passed by 283 votes to 138, with 64 Democrats voting in favor and 131, including Nancy Pelosi, voting against it. passed In the U.S. Senate, the bill passed 80-19. Some 26 Democrats supported it, including future president and vice-president Barack Obama and Joe Biden, 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and future Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, while 17 Democrats, including future Secretary of State John Kerry and future Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, opposed it. passed The claim that Congress \"set aside\" $50 billion for border fencing in 2006 appears to have been derived from a 1999 study conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In a 2 January 2019& column for Fox News, Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana used the figure in accusing Congressional Democrats of \"playing games with America's safety\": column The bill before us would certainly do some good. It would authorize some badly needed funding for better fences and better security along our borders that should help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country. No, that statement wasnt made by a Republican. It was a speech given by then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in 2006, when 26 Senate Democrats -- including Obama and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer of New York - voted for The Secure Fence Act, which allocated $50 billion over 25 years for 700 miles of fencing along the border. Thats right. Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer voted for 10 times more funding than President Trump is requesting now to secure our border. What has changed Democrats recognition that our southern border needs to be secured? Two words: President Trump. In a 2017 Boston Globe column, Annie Linskey wrote of the Secure Fence Act that \"Congress put aside $1.4 billion for the fence, but the whole cost, including maintenance, was pegged at $50 billion over 25 years, according to analyses at the time.\" column Several articles from early 2007 and 2008 referred to the $50 billion claim. For example, in September 2008, then-Democratic U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas wrote in opposition to the border fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act: 2007 wrote \"With construction expected to exceed $1.2 billion and lifetime maintenance of up to $50 billion, the exorbitant cost of this border fence would be better invested in additional Border Patrol agents, equipment and technology.\" In January 2007, the Migration Policy Institute cited a report by the Congressional Research Service as its source for the $50 billion figure, writing: cited The 700 miles of double-layer border fencing called for in the Secure Fence Act of [2006] could cost more than $50 billion over 25 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) ... The report cites a Corps of Engineers study that estimates construction of the fencing would cost about $1.2 to $1.3 million a mile, in addition to costs for labor and for purchasing the required property. Further, the Corps of Engineers estimates that maintenance of the fence over its 25-year lifespan would cost between $16.4 million to $70 million per mile, depending on the frequency and strength of attempts to cross it. The CRS report was dated 21 September 2006: seven days after the House of Representatives passed the Secure Fence Act, and eight days before the Senate did likewise: report Because border fencing is a relatively new and limited phenomenon along the U.S.-Mexico border, there is a dearth of information concerning its overall costs and benefits. The Corps of Engineers study predicted that the costs of constructing a double layer fence consisting of primary fencing and Sandia fencing would range from $1.2 million to $1.3 million a mile. The Corps of Engineers also predicted that the 25 year life cycle cost of the fence would range from $16.4 million to $70 million per mile depending on the amount of damage sustained by the fencing. If significant portions of the border were to be fenced, reducing the areas along which individuals could cross the border, it may stand to reason that the fencing will be subjected to more breaches and other attempts to compromise than the fencing that has already been constructed. This may mean that the costs of maintaining border fencing that is widely deployed in the future will be higher than they have been thus far for the limited deployment. The double-layer fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act was expected to stretch for a total of around 700 miles. If the \"25-year life cycle cost\" of the fence was between $16.4 million and $70 million per mile, that would equate to a 25-year cost of between $11.5 billion and $49 billion. That \"worst case\" estimate of $49 billion over 25 years is the source of the \"$50 billion\" claim which was promulgated in 2007 and 2008, and then again in 2017 and 2019, amid the controversy over President Trump's border wall proposals, and Democratic opposition to them. Because the original Corps of Engineers study was seven years old by 2006, the CRS adjusted the original figures presented in the 1999 report for inflation. The Corps of Engineers recommended using landing mat fencing for a primary fence and Sandia fencing for a secondary fence. Those figures were as follows: study The existence of the 1999 Corps of Engineers study shows that, at the time lawmakers voted through the Secure Fence Act in 2006, one analysis from a reliable source included estimates that indicated the 25-year cost of a 700-mile double-layer fence along the southern border (such as that envisioned in the Secure Fence Act) could range from $11.5 billion to $49 billion. Furthermore, a Congressional Research Service report which reiterated those findings was published on 21 September 2006, too late to be taken into consideration by U.S. Representatives, but before their Senate counterparts cast their votes. However, these estimates (the source of the \"$50 billion\" figure) only appear to have attracted attention and gained traction after the passing of the Secure Fence Act (for example in the January 2007 Migration Policy Institute analysis), rather than beforehand. In a debate about the bill on 29 September 2006, for example, several U.S. Senators offered varying estimates of the likely cost of the fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act. None of them mentioned a figure of $50 billion, or even close to that. debate In fact, no member of either house of Congress mentioned either the figure of $50 billion nor the original 1999 Army Corps of Engineers study during any debate about the Secure Fence Act. On 25 September 2006, the Washington Post reported that confusion existed over how much the construction of the fencing would cost, although again, none of the estimates listed in the article came anywhere close to $50 billion: reported The House has passed and the Senate is debating legislation to build 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border with no certain idea of how much it would cost. Estimates range from $2 billion, cited by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for homeland security, to $7 billion, the figure used by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Homeland Security officials told congressional aides it would cost about $5 billion. The department would not confirm that figure nor address the cost of the 107 miles of fencing already up along the nearly 2,000-mile border. The cost can vary depending on whether the government or a private contractor builds the fence. So while it's true that the Army Corps of Engineers study was publicly available when Congress passed the Secure Fence Act in 2006 and could have proved instructive to the debate around the planned construction of border fencing, no evidence suggests that either document played a part in the considerations or deliberations of lawmakers before they cast their votes. This is worth bearing in mind when evaluating any claim that lawmakers (particularly Democrats now hostile to President Trump's border wall plans) passed the Secure Fence Act despite estimates which placed its 25-year cost at $50 billion. Finally, the more specific claim made in the meme and by Rep. Scalise, that the Secure Fence Act \"allocated\" or \"set aside\" $50 billion over 25 years, is false. In fact, the Secure Fence Act did not authorize, allocate or \"set aside\" any funding. In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) had spent $2.3 billion on building 654 miles of border fencing between 2007 and 2015, and that CBP had projected in 2009 that the cost of maintaining its border fencing for 20 years would be $1 billion. reported U.S. Congress. \"Public Law 109-367 -- Secure Fence Act of 2006.\"\r 26 October 2006. Kasprak, Alex. \"Did Illegal Border Traffic Drop by 90% in Areas Where Physical Barriers Were Expanded?\"\r Snopes.com. 8 January 2019. Scalise, Rep. Steve. \"Democrats Need to Stop Playing Games with America's Safety and Fund Border Security Now.\"\r Fox News. 2 January 2019. Linskey, Annie. \"In 2006, Democrats Were Saying 'Build That Fence!\"\r The Boston Globe. 27 January 2017. The Washington Times. \"Fence Advocate Calls Estimates Exaggerated.\"\r 16 January 2007. Kariam, Reed. \"America's Border Fence.\"\r CQ Researcher. 19 September 2008. Gelatt, Julia. \"New Congress Takes First Steps Toward Immigration Reform.\"\r Migration Policy Institute. 15 January 2007. Nuez-Neto, Blas and Stephen Via. \"Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border.\"\r Congressional Research Service. 21 September 2006. Marsh, Dr. Charles P. et al. \"Engineering Life-Cycle Cost Comparison Study of Barrier Fencing Systems.\"\r U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Construction Engineering Research Laboratories. February 1999. Gamboa, Suzanne. \"Questions Remain on Cost of Border Bills.\"\r The Washington Post. 25 September 2006. U.S. Government Accountability Office. \"Southwest Border Security -- Additional Actions Needed to Better Assess Fencing's Contributions to Operations and Provide Guidance for Identifying Capability Gaps.\"\r February 2017.", "issues": [ "inflation" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1eP4CVrOKGGh5Zdo3BtABmxzYwPfLOKWi" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fx63Hu_-WYcYl7mWKN_BoiXauWLsQIPA" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A 12 January post on the website of the conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense contained this graphic version of the meme:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/m1BVm" ] }, { "sentence": "The \"$50 billion\" message was shared widely on Twitter and Facebook, prompting inquiries from readers about its veracity.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%22where%20is%20the%20%2450%20billion%20set%20aside%22%20since%3A2018-12-21%20until%3A2019-01-14&src=typd&lang=en", "https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=%22where%20is%20the%20%2450%20billion%20set%20aside%22&epa=SERP_TAB" ] }, { "sentence": "The Secure Fence Act was a law introduced by Republican Congressman Peter King of New York in September 2006 and signed by President George W. Bush on 26 October 2006. Among other provisions, the law required the Secretary of Homeland Security to begin (within 18 months) the construction of at least two layers of fencing, along with barriers, cameras, and sensors, along five sections of the United States border with Mexico:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6061", "https://www.congress.gov/109/plaws/publ367/PLAW-109publ367.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In the context of the 2018-19 controversy over President Trump's proposed border wall, Republicans made claims about the effectiveness of that border fencing in reducing illegal border crossings into the United States. In a previous fact check, we found such claims to be vague and flawed.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/border-traffic-drop-barriers/" ] }, { "sentence": "Some Democrats supported the bill, and some didn't. In the House of Representatives, the Secure Fence Act passed by 283 votes to 138, with 64 Democrats voting in favor and 131, including Nancy Pelosi, voting against it.", "hrefs": [ "https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll446.xml" ] }, { "sentence": "In the U.S. Senate, the bill passed 80-19. Some 26 Democrats supported it, including future president and vice-president Barack Obama and Joe Biden, 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and future Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, while 17 Democrats, including future Secretary of State John Kerry and future Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, opposed it.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00262" ] }, { "sentence": "In a 2 January 2019& column for Fox News, Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana used the figure in accusing Congressional Democrats of \"playing games with America's safety\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/rep-steve-scalise-democrats-need-to-stop-playing-games-with-americas-safety-fund-border-security-now" ] }, { "sentence": "In a 2017 Boston Globe column, Annie Linskey wrote of the Secure Fence Act that \"Congress put aside $1.4 billion for the fence, but the whole cost, including maintenance, was pegged at $50 billion over 25 years, according to analyses at the time.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/26/when-wall-was-fence-and-democrats-embraced/QE7ieCBXjXVxO63pLMTe9O/story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Several articles from early 2007 and 2008 referred to the $50 billion claim. For example, in September 2008, then-Democratic U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas wrote in opposition to the border fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jan/16/20070116-101145-5622r/", "https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2008091900#REF[10]" ] }, { "sentence": "In January 2007, the Migration Policy Institute cited a report by the Congressional Research Service as its source for the $50 billion figure, writing:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/new-congress-takes-first-steps-toward-immigration-reform" ] }, { "sentence": "The CRS report was dated 21 September 2006: seven days after the House of Representatives passed the Secure Fence Act, and eight days before the Senate did likewise:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20061030110435/https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33659.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Because the original Corps of Engineers study was seven years old by 2006, the CRS adjusted the original figures presented in the 1999 report for inflation. The Corps of Engineers recommended using landing mat fencing for a primary fence and Sandia fencing for a secondary fence. Those figures were as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a360954.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In a debate about the bill on 29 September 2006, for example, several U.S. Senators offered varying estimates of the likely cost of the fencing envisioned in the Secure Fence Act. None of them mentioned a figure of $50 billion, or even close to that.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/crec/2006/09/29/CREC-2006-09-29-pt1-PgS10608-2.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "On 25 September 2006, the Washington Post reported that confusion existed over how much the construction of the fencing would cost, although again, none of the estimates listed in the article came anywhere close to $50 billion:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500277_pf.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2017, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) had spent $2.3 billion on building 654 miles of border fencing between 2007 and 2015, and that CBP had projected in 2009 that the cost of maintaining its border fencing for 20 years would be $1 billion.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/682838.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-border-wall/", "claim": "Is Biden Admin Restarting Border Wall Construction?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/07/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Joe Biden promised not to build \"another foot of wall\" during his 2020 campaign." ], "justification": "In early April 2021, Snopes readers asked us to investigate rumors that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration was coming around to the idea of a continuous wall between Mexico and the U.S. and considering restarting construction on it. Among entities that highlighted the claim was Charlie Kirk's conservative political group, Turning Point USA. Via statements like the below-displayed Facebook post, the group and other Biden critics attempted to frame the rumor as evidence of the president's alleged hypocrisy; he had promised not to build \"another foot of wall\" during his 2020 presidential campaign. Charlie Kirk below-displayed Facebook post another foot of wall While it was false to claim the Biden administration had warmed up to the border wall as a solution to immigration problems, it was true that funding was allowed for \"limited construction\" (via unspecified congressional actions) to occur during the Biden presidency, according to The White House. Below, we lay out evidence for those conclusions. First, the claim surfaced after Biden issued an executive order on Jan. 20 pausing a stream of federal funding toward border-wall construction initiated by former President Donald Trump. Trump had framed the multi-billion-dollar spending as a necessary step to curb illegal border crossings by people fleeing poor living conditions in Central American nations. By contrast, Biden dubbed the concept \"a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.\" executive order dubbed As of Jan. 15, 2021, the government had spent $6.1 billion of the $10.8 billion in work it signed contracts to have done, according to a Senate Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press (AP). Around that time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that oversees border security and operations, said the wall, in total, spanned 771 miles, including vehicle barriers and pedestrian fencing about one-third of the length of the entire border. The Associated Press said Biden's executive order halted \"immediately the obligation of funds related to construction of the southern border wall, to the extent permitted by law,\" and required his administration to determine the cost of cancelling in-process construction contracts and whether the money could be spent elsewhere, according to the order and news reports. news reports Cut to April 5, when the Washington Times, a conservative-leaning news outlet, published an article titled, \"EXCLUSIVE: Biden's DHS may restart border wall construction to plug 'gaps'.\" The reporting was based on notes supposedly documenting a meeting the previous week between Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees. article Alejandro Mayorkas It was unclear, based on The Washington Times report, when or under what circumstances the purported meeting took place, as well as how the media outlet obtained the notes. No reputable news outlet -- such as The Associated Press or Reuters -- reported on the alleged conversation about filling in \"gaps\" at the border wall (aside from Business Insider, which primarily recirculated The Washington Times' reporting). Business Insider According to the purported notes, Mayorkas said CBP leaders have submitted proposals for \"different projects\" along the border wall because officials supposedly have the opportunity to finish or update certain areas. Here's his full quote in The Washington Times: 'The president has communicated quite clearly his decision that the emergency that triggered the devotion of DOD funds to the construction of the border wall is ended. But that leaves room to make decisions as the administration, as part of the administration, in particular areas of the wall that need renovation, particular projects that need to be finished,' he said. He said those parts include 'gaps,' 'gates,' and areas 'where the wall has been completed but the technology has not been implemented.' Put another way, despite Biden's order to stop pumping emergency dollars into the project, Mayorkas purportedly said an unidentified sum of money could still be used to repair or update certain areas. Such construction could include gates or technology improvements, according to his alleged comments. order It is unclear how, or under what congressional action or work contract, border officials could legally access said funding for the potential construction. We reached out to agencies including the White House and DHS for clarity on that legality, and we did not receive a response. We will update this report when, or if, we do. During daily press briefings on April 6 and 7, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed previously approved congressional actions set aside funding for \"some components of the wall\" and \"limited construction.\" Her comments did not explain the nature of that construction, nor when it would take place. Here's the verbatim transcription of her statement on April 6, according to an official White House transcript and C-SPAN video recording of the media event: White House transcript C-SPAN video Wall construction remains paused, to the extent permitted by law. So some has already been funded through a congressional authorization and funding allocation. But as agencies develop for a plan its paused while agencies are developing a plan for the President on the management of the federal funds. When the administration took office, as you referenced, funds had been diverted from congressionally appropriated military construction projects and other appropriated purposes toward building the wall. And wall construction was being challenged in multiple lawsuits and for much of the wall, I should say; not all of it by plaintiffs who allege serious environmental and safety issues. Under those circumstances, federal agencies are continuing to review wall contracts and develop a plan to submit to the President soon. It is it is paused. There is some limited construction that has been funded and allocated for, but it is otherwise paused. The following day, she reiterated the same points, stressing the administration's overall opposition to the border-wall concept, according to C-SPAN and a White House transcript. C-SPAN White House transcript \"There are some components of the wall that had already been allocated,\" she said. \"We dont believe the wall is an answer. We have never believed the wall as an answer to addressing the challenges immigration challenges at the border. Theres a review underway of, kind of, where this funding had been allocated and not, but its currently paused and for the most part.\" Meanwhile, criticism of the Biden administration's alleged participation in border-wall construction surfaced among progressives. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, tweeted on April 7: \"It's shameful and unacceptable for @POTUS to continue the construction of Trump's xenophobic and racist wall.\" tweeted @POTUS In sum, the nature of the \"limited construction\" that could still take place on the wall under the Biden administration is unknown -- no evidence showed it would extend the barrier's length. For that reason, and those listed above, we rate this claim a \"Mixture\" of true and misleading information.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UpPfCvsUyO8iXLpYeSjgfY2NokXRjzL-", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1tmNywinP3SfSX0ADZ-j8AluRhWLMVj_4", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Among entities that highlighted the claim was Charlie Kirk's conservative political group, Turning Point USA. Via statements like the below-displayed Facebook post, the group and other Biden critics attempted to frame the rumor as evidence of the president's alleged hypocrisy; he had promised not to build \"another foot of wall\" during his 2020 presidential campaign.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/charliekirk11?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor", "https://www.facebook.com/376776419037747/posts/3952754331439920", "https://www.npr.org/2020/08/05/899266045/biden-would-end-border-wall-construction-but-wont-tear-down-trump-s-additions?t=1617794094359" ] }, { "sentence": "First, the claim surfaced after Biden issued an executive order on Jan. 20 pausing a stream of federal funding toward border-wall construction initiated by former President Donald Trump. Trump had framed the multi-billion-dollar spending as a necessary step to curb illegal border crossings by people fleeing poor living conditions in Central American nations. By contrast, Biden dubbed the concept \"a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-termination-of-emergency-with-respect-to-southern-border-of-united-states-and-redirection-of-funds-diverted-to-border-wall-construction/", "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-termination-of-emergency-with-respect-to-southern-border-of-united-states-and-redirection-of-funds-diverted-to-border-wall-construction/" ] }, { "sentence": "As of Jan. 15, 2021, the government had spent $6.1 billion of the $10.8 billion in work it signed contracts to have done, according to a Senate Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Associated Press (AP). Around that time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that oversees border security and operations, said the wall, in total, spanned 771 miles, including vehicle barriers and pedestrian fencing about one-third of the length of the entire border.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-donald-trump-oceans-coronavirus-pandemic-bc664278ac096e6ff878116034ec06bb", "https://www.khou.com/article/news/verify/verify-how-much-of-president-trumps-450-mile-border-wall-is-actually-a-new-barrier/285-ce164c2a-c8d7-4ded-b82b-6141b980d61b" ] }, { "sentence": "Biden's executive order halted \"immediately the obligation of funds related to construction of the southern border wall, to the extent permitted by law,\" and required his administration to determine the cost of cancelling in-process construction contracts and whether the money could be spent elsewhere, according to the order and news reports.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/biden-inauguration-joe-biden-donald-trump-oceans-coronavirus-pandemic-bc664278ac096e6ff878116034ec06bb" ] }, { "sentence": "Cut to April 5, when the Washington Times, a conservative-leaning news outlet, published an article titled, \"EXCLUSIVE: Biden's DHS may restart border wall construction to plug 'gaps'.\" The reporting was based on notes supposedly documenting a meeting the previous week between Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/5/dhs-may-restart-border-wall-construction-plug-gaps/", "https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/alejandro-mayorkas/" ] }, { "sentence": "It was unclear, based on The Washington Times report, when or under what circumstances the purported meeting took place, as well as how the media outlet obtained the notes. No reputable news outlet -- such as The Associated Press or Reuters -- reported on the alleged conversation about filling in \"gaps\" at the border wall (aside from Business Insider, which primarily recirculated The Washington Times' reporting).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-restart-border-wall-construction-trump-pledge-gaps-2021-4" ] }, { "sentence": "Put another way, despite Biden's order to stop pumping emergency dollars into the project, Mayorkas purportedly said an unidentified sum of money could still be used to repair or update certain areas. Such construction could include gates or technology improvements, according to his alleged comments.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-termination-of-emergency-with-respect-to-southern-border-of-united-states-and-redirection-of-funds-diverted-to-border-wall-construction/" ] }, { "sentence": "Here's the verbatim transcription of her statement on April 6, according to an official White House transcript and C-SPAN video recording of the media event:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/06/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-april-6-2021/", "https://www.c-span.org/video/?510560-1/white-house-favor-vaccine-passports" ] }, { "sentence": "The following day, she reiterated the same points, stressing the administration's overall opposition to the border-wall concept, according to C-SPAN and a White House transcript. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.c-span.org/video/?510598-1/white-house-open-compromise-infrastructure-plan-denies-talks-beijing-olympics-boycott&live=", "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/04/07/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-and-secretary-of-commerce-gina-raimondo-april-7-2021/" ] }, { "sentence": "Meanwhile, criticism of the Biden administration's alleged participation in border-wall construction surfaced among progressives. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, tweeted on April 7: \"It's shameful and unacceptable for @POTUS to continue the construction of Trump's xenophobic and racist wall.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1379842225522216961", "https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-belichick-mac-jones/", "claim": "Did Bill Belichick Shake His Head at Mac Jones' Overthrow?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "04/01/2021", "sci_digest": [ "It's quite imaginative to believe that Belichick and a number of other NFL coaches and general managers would show disappointment at a single throw." ], "justification": "In late March 2021, a video was shared that showed Bill Belichick shaking his head moments after NFL prospect Mac Jones overthrew a football. The New England Patriots coach was on hand to attend the University of Alabama football team's pro days. In the video, he was standing next to San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan: video The video appeared in articles that were shown to Google Discover users. For example, one story said: \"Bill Belichick isn't impressed with Mac Jones throw at Alabama pro day.\" Another read: \"Cameras catch Bill Belichick's reaction to Mac Jones' overthrow at Alabama Pro Day.\" Several articles appeared to perhaps read minds. We found no indication that Belichick was shaking his head or showing disapproval at a single overthrow by Jones. In the video, it appeared that Shanahan and Belichick were having a conversation. The likely explanation of Belichick's head shake was that he was reacting to something Shanahan said. Four NFL coaches were on hand to watch Jones and other Alabama football prospects. Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints, Matt Nagy of the Chicago Bears, Shanahan, and Belichick were all in attendance. The Associated Press also reported that Belichick was among a group of five general managers on hand. reported In January 2021, Jones led the Alabama football team to the College Football Playoff national championship. He was also a Heisman Trophy finalist, placing third in the vote count. The team's head coach is Nick Saban. placing third The same Twitter account that hosted the video of Belichick shaking his head also tweeted this video. It showed Jones throwing a deep ball with precision: this video ESPN also shared more videos of the Alabama pro days that showed Jones executing a number of solid plays. more videos The Associated Press published a brief comment from Jones. He appeared to feel confident in his showing in front of Belichick and the other NFL coaches and general managers: published \"At Alabama, they told me to sit in the picket and rip it, so that's what I did,\" Jones said. \"That's what you're supposed to do when you're at Alabama.\" \"But when the NFL comes, I'll do whatever they tell me to do. I showed today that I can do everything that they want me to do.\" Without further evidence that Belichick was showing disapproval at a single throw of the football by a Heisman Trophy finalist who led his team to a national title, we have rated this claim as \"Unproven.\" disapproval", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1irwuFfazejybZJWY1dcSck029HEZP7hQ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late March 2021, a video was shared that showed Bill Belichick shaking his head moments after NFL prospect Mac Jones overthrew a football. The New England Patriots coach was on hand to attend the University of Alabama football team's pro days. In the video, he was standing next to San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1376943104230576133" ] }, { "sentence": " Several articles appeared to perhaps read minds.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/04/belichick-mac-jones-overthrow.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Four NFL coaches were on hand to watch Jones and other Alabama football prospects. Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints, Matt Nagy of the Chicago Bears, Shanahan, and Belichick were all in attendance. The Associated Press also reported that Belichick was among a group of five general managers on hand.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/college-football-nfl-alabama-alabama-crimson-tide-football-new-orleans-saints-ca23f986957981e3c30461d32c1f6714" ] }, { "sentence": "In January 2021, Jones led the Alabama football team to the College Football Playoff national championship. He was also a Heisman Trophy finalist, placing third in the vote count. The team's head coach is Nick Saban.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/college-football-sports-alabama-alabama-crimson-tide-football-football-473babd4d412a8a8ad5d9b74e1cd337a" ] }, { "sentence": "The same Twitter account that hosted the video of Belichick shaking his head also tweeted this video. It showed Jones throwing a deep ball with precision:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1376942074398916609" ] }, { "sentence": "ESPN also shared more videos of the Alabama pro days that showed Jones executing a number of solid plays.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GllSCMIsGWc", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFYBlouCgLE" ] }, { "sentence": "The Associated Press published a brief comment from Jones. He appeared to feel confident in his showing in front of Belichick and the other NFL coaches and general managers:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/college-football-nfl-alabama-alabama-crimson-tide-football-new-orleans-saints-ca23f986957981e3c30461d32c1f6714" ] }, { "sentence": "Without further evidence that Belichick was showing disapproval at a single throw of the football by a Heisman Trophy finalist who led his team to a national title, we have rated this claim as \"Unproven.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdwchohlMjI" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/new-american-way-life/", "claim": "The New American Way of Life", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "09/01/2015", "sci_digest": [ "" ], "justification": "FACT CHECK: Are the claims made in an e-mail titled \"New American Way of Life\" accurate? Claim: An e-mail titled \"New American Way of Life\" accurately describes a generous safety net available to Americans who opt not to work. Examples: [Collected via Facebook and e-mail, August 2015] Do you have any info on this article? I find a lot of it to be wrong, and no sources are cited. From what I understand less than 5% of the population abuses welfare, Pell grants barely cover college tuition and books. Who gets free cell phones? Does a mother of 2 really get $600 a month in food stamps? I've seen this posted 3 times today in my FB feed and feel it needs to be dispelled ------------------------ The Key to Success for Those Who Are Inheriting America in 13 Easy Steps! How to get $75,000 in benefits every year from the US Government for you and your girlfriend? Follow these proven and simple steps. First ... get a girlfriend 1. Don't marry her. 2. Use your mom's address to receive your mail. 3. The guy buys a house. 4. Guy rents out house to his girl girlfriend who has 2 of his kids. 5. Section 8 will pay $900 a month for a 3 bedroom home. 6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay for family insurance. 7. Being a single mother, Girlfriend gets to go to college for free! 8. Girlfriend gets $600 a month for food stamps 9. Girlfriend gets free cell phone from US Government 10. Girlfriend get free utilities. 11. Guy moves into home but still uses mom's house to receive mail. 12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of household at $1,800 credit. 13. Girlfriend gets disability for being \"crazy\" or having a \"bad back\" at $1,800 a month and never has to work again. This plan is perfectly legal and is being executed now by millions of people. A married couple with a stay at home mom yields $0 dollars. An unmarried couple with stay at home mom nets $21,600 disability + $10,800 free housing + $6,000 free obamacare + $6,000 free food + $4,800 free utilities + $6,000 Pell Grant money to spend + $12,000 a year in college tuition free from Pell Grant + $8,800 tax benefit for being a single mother = $75,000 a year in benefits. Any idea why the country is 18 + trillion in debt? Welcome to the new multicultural diverse, fundamentally changed America, thanks to the ever popular and exciting, everyone is entitled to everything world. Origins: The item reproduced above has been circulating online since at least April 2015, and after it was published the Miller County Liberal of to Colquitt, Georgia, on 19 August 2015 it received a boost in popularity due to the implied authority of appearing in print. (Although it was attributed to \"John Tabb,\" an earlier version was credited to \"Jeffery Rightmire.\") published credited As is often the case with e-mail polemics focused on purported welfare abuse and taxpayer outrage, the \"New American Way of Life\" offers an implausible, far-fetched scenario to condemn those who use public assistance to make ends meet: polemics welfare abuse taxpayer assistance 1. Don't marry (your girlfriend). 2. Use your mom's address to receive your mail. 3. The guy buys a house. 4. Guy rents out house to his girlfriend who has 2 of his kids. 5. Section 8 will pay $900 a month for a 3 bedroom home. Points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the forward pertain to the imagined generosity of the housing program colloquially called \"Section 8,\" the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) assistance program that provides very low-income families with subsidized vouchers they can use towards paying a portion of their monthly rent. Section 8 HUD While Section 8 is frequently derided in the fashion referenced above, it's very difficult to play the system in the manner described due to the low supply versus tremendous demand for housing and vouchers among those in need of it. Applicants typically have to spend years on waiting lists before Section 8 housing becomes available, and in many cases it takes years to even get one's name on a waiting list in the first place. Waiting lists for the program close to new applicants for years at a time on a not-infrequent basis, as a 24 August 2015 article in the Albuquerque Journal reported: close years The waiting list for Section 8 subsidized housing will re-open on Sept. 1, after closing 28 months ago, the Bernalillo County Housing Department announced Friday. But getting onto that waiting list is no assurance that a person will move into Section 8 housing anytime soon. According to Housing Department senior administrative assistant, Craig Smith, the waiting list will re-open with 600 people still on the list, and we expect to add thousands by the time the list is closed back down, though there is no tentative date when that will happen. The wait list was shut down on May 1, 2013, because of sequestering of funds and budget cuts from the federal government, in particular the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. So it's extremely unlikely the baby daddy landlord in this hypothetical scenario could simply make a residence available for the Section 8 program and then immediately rent it to the tenant of his choosing. He'd typically have to wait years for his preferred renter (i.e., his girlfriend) to get on a Section 8 waiting list, then more years for her to work her way to the top of the list, before he could double-dip by getting the government to subsidize his girlfriend's paying him rent to live in a house he owns. The baby daddy in this scenario (one who can afford to buy his own house) would probably be far better off financially if he simply lived in the house with his girlfriend, or rented it out to someone other than his girlfriend. 6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay for family insurance. There is a persistent misperception that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act PPACA 7. Being a single mother, Girlfriend gets to go to college for free! If there is any guaranteed way for a \"single mother\" to obtain a college education for free, we've yet to locate it. Yes, federal Pell Grants can provide qualifying students with up to almost $6,000 per year towards the cost of attending college (depending upon financial need), but they aren't tied to one's status as a single mother. There are some grants and scholarships available for single parents to both help them afford school while they are in and and help them pay it off once they have graduated, but those types of programs are scant, and very, very few unpartnered mothers could get a free ride to any college on the basis of their status as single parents alone. Pell Grants single parents scant 8. Girlfriend gets $600 a month for food stamps The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as \"food stamps\") is an often criticized assistance program aimed at combating hunger by financially struggling families. Eligibility for SNAP varies based on household size, but the maximum monthly allotment ranges from $194 for a family of one to $1,169 for a family of eight. Each additional family member after that can qualify a household for up to $146 more each month in benefits, or just under $5 per person per day. The household size posited here (a single mother with two children) wouldn't qualify for $600 per month in SNAP benefits. food stamps criticized Eligibility The Department of Agriculture (under which the program operates) estimates a total annual program \"loss\" of about four percent. Despite widespread belief that the SNAP program is rampantly abused with little oversight, fraud in the program is aggressively investigated and prosecuted where applicable. estimates investigated 9. Girlfriend gets free cell phone from US Government The Lifeline program (commonly known as \"Obamaphones,\" even though the program was actually initiated long before the Barack Obama took office) requires phone service providers to offer monthly discounts on landline or wireless telephone service to eligible low-income consumers. The program does not require those providers to issue \"free cell phones\" to anyone (although some cellular providers choose to do so at their own expense). Obamaphones 10. Girlfriend get free utilities. Various programs administered at the state level provide low-income families with financial assistance to offset the costs of essential utilities, but often only in emergency situations. utilities emergency 11. Guy moves into home but still uses mom's house to receive mail. One might theoretically do this, but the person who deliberately falsified his residence address in order to live in self-owned housing that he was being paid to rent to another party under the Section 8 program would be committing a crime, not simply taking legitimate and legal advantage of government assistance programs. 12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of household at $1,800 credit. Whether or not taxpayers are setting out to craftily claim tax deductions to which they are not entitled, the IRS's head of household tax filing status indeed entitles the person filing to a higher deduction ($9,250 in 2015 versus $6,300 for taxpayers filing as Single or Married Filing Separately). It's important to bear in mind that that dollar amount is what taxpayers may deduct from their taxable income, and not necessarily an amount that they will receive back in the form of a tax refund. head of household status entitles And of course, if each parent is claiming one of the two children as a dependent, than the mother can't be legally collecting benefits (such as SNAP) for both children. Girlfriend gets disability for being \"crazy\" or having a \"bad back\" at $1,800 a month and never has to work again. For starters, one cannot simply declare herself to be mentally ill or have back problems, then sit back and collect disability payments for the rest of her (working) life. Such claims have to be documented by medical professionals as genuinely disabling conditions, and even then those living with disabilities find that securing benefits isn't quite so easy. Presuming the woman in this anecdote is fairly young, she would have to have accrued sufficient work credits to qualify for lifelong disability payments (an unlikely scenario), and then she would still have to meet separate criteria for a qualifying condition (which precludes having earned more than $1,090 per month in that year). The condition under which a person qualifies also must be one that limits ability to do any other work: easy accrued work credits criteria If you cannot do the work you did in the past, we see if you are able to adjust to other work. We consider your medical conditions and your age, education, past work experience and any transferable skills you may have. If you cannot adjust to other work, your claim will be approved. If you can adjust to other work, your claim will be denied. According to data from the agency, more than half of disability claims are denied, and the wait for hearings has increased (partly due to an aging pool of applicants). The anecdotal claimant's purported plundering of disability benefits also conflicts with her concurrent sponging of educational grants, as the usefulness of the latter is negated by the former: A full-time student wouldn't qualify for lifelong disability payments, and college would be unnecessary for the matriarch of a household who intended to remain home for life collecting benefits for her fabricated disability. denied aging This plan is perfectly legal and is being executed now by millions of people. A married couple with a stay at home mom yields $0 dollars. An unmarried couple with stay at home mom nets. $21.600 disability + $10,800 free housing + $6,000 free obamacare +$6,000 free food + $4,800 free utilities + $6,000 Pell Grant money to spend + $12,000 a year in college tuition free from Pell Grant + $8,800 tax benefit for being a single mother = $75,000 a year in benefits. Any idea why the country is 18 + trillion in debt? As the excerpt above concludes, the figures bandied about in the e-mail encompass virtually all programs available to low-income Americans and extrapolates the fictional family described routinely accesses all of them. Some of the benefits described (such as free college for single mothers or free utility programs) don't seem to exist, and several of forms of assistance (such as Section 8 or disability) are not administered in the simplistic manner suggested by this item. Furthermore, while this item asserts that the complex welfare hustling plan described here is \"perfectly legal,\" several aspects of it involve defrauding the system in an expressly prohibited (and largely criminal) fashion. Were any family to hide assets or lie about household income on application forms, they would be subject to severe penalties and prosecution should their perfidy be unraveled. The scheme also rests upon the (fallacious) notion that access to assistance programs is easy to both maintain and retain. fallacious Finally, the causes of the national debt are fairly complex. However, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and Defense broadly account for most government spending. account Last updated: 31 August 2015 Originally published: 31 August 2015", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1DFNb5fVlHPQcM6D-6jzpNkx5nBylH0rD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: The item reproduced above has been circulating online since at least April 2015, and after it was published the Miller County Liberal of to Colquitt, Georgia, on 19 August 2015 it received a boost in popularity due to the implied authority of appearing in print. (Although it was attributed to \"John Tabb,\" an earlier version was credited to \"Jeffery Rightmire.\")", "hrefs": [ "https://www.millercountyliberal.com/news/2015-08-19/Opinion/New_American_way_of_life.html", "https://hotspringsdaily.com/2015/07/the-secret-to-financial-success/" ] }, { "sentence": "As is often the case with e-mail polemics focused on purported welfare abuse and taxpayer outrage, the \"New American Way of Life\" offers an implausible, far-fetched scenario to condemn those who use public assistance to make ends meet:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/imtired.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/4wives.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/refugees.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/benefit.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/welfare.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the forward pertain to the imagined generosity of the housing program colloquially called \"Section 8,\" the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) assistance program that provides very low-income families with subsidized vouchers they can use towards paying a portion of their monthly rent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/section8.asp", "https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8" ] }, { "sentence": "While Section 8 is frequently derided in the fashion referenced above, it's very difficult to play the system in the manner described due to the low supply versus tremendous demand for housing and vouchers among those in need of it. Applicants typically have to spend years on waiting lists before Section 8 housing becomes available, and in many cases it takes years to even get one's name on a waiting list in the first place. Waiting lists for the program close to new applicants for years at a time on a not-infrequent basis, as a 24 August 2015 article in the Albuquerque Journal reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.abqjournal.com/633059/news/countys-subsidized-housing-waiting-list-to-reopen.html", "https://www.thv11.com/story/news/local/little-rock/2015/08/25/rental-help-waiting-list-opens-after-6-years/32342989/" ] }, { "sentence": "If there is any guaranteed way for a \"single mother\" to obtain a college education for free, we've yet to locate it. Yes, federal Pell Grants can provide qualifying students with up to almost $6,000 per year towards the cost of attending college (depending upon financial need), but they aren't tied to one's status as a single mother. There are some grants and scholarships available for single parents to both help them afford school while they are in and and help them pay it off once they have graduated, but those types of programs are scant, and very, very few unpartnered mothers could get a free ride to any college on the basis of their status as single parents alone.", "hrefs": [ "https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/grants-scholarships/pell", "https://www.swd.ucla.edu/documents/SingleMothers.pdf", "https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-scholarship-coach/2011/09/29/where-to-find-scholarships-for-single-moms" ] }, { "sentence": "The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as \"food stamps\") is an often criticized assistance program aimed at combating hunger by financially struggling families. Eligibility for SNAP varies based on household size, but the maximum monthly allotment ranges from $194 for a family of one to $1,169 for a family of eight. Each additional family member after that can qualify a household for up to $146 more each month in benefits, or just under $5 per person per day. The household size posited here (a single mother with two children) wouldn't qualify for $600 per month in SNAP benefits.", "hrefs": [ "https://now.snopes.com/2015/05/21/food-stamp-receipt-15000/", "https://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/wifoodstamps.asp", "https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility" ] }, { "sentence": "The Department of Agriculture (under which the program operates) estimates a total annual program \"loss\" of about four percent. Despite widespread belief that the SNAP program is rampantly abused with little oversight, fraud in the program is aggressively investigated and prosecuted where applicable.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/us/food-stamp-fraud-in-the-underground-economy.html", "https://www.fns.usda.gov/fraud/what-snap-fraud" ] }, { "sentence": "The Lifeline program (commonly known as \"Obamaphones,\" even though the program was actually initiated long before the Barack Obama took office) requires phone service providers to offer monthly discounts on landline or wireless telephone service to eligible low-income consumers. The program does not require those providers to issue \"free cell phones\" to anyone (although some cellular providers choose to do so at their own expense).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Various programs administered at the state level provide low-income families with financial assistance to offset the costs of essential utilities, but often only in emergency situations.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.benefits.gov/benefits/browse-by-category/category/ENA", "https://otda.ny.gov/programs/heap/" ] }, { "sentence": "Whether or not taxpayers are setting out to craftily claim tax deductions to which they are not entitled, the IRS's head of household tax filing status indeed entitles the person filing to a higher deduction ($9,250 in 2015 versus $6,300 for taxpayers filing as Single or Married Filing Separately). It's important to bear in mind that that dollar amount is what taxpayers may deduct from their taxable income, and not necessarily an amount that they will receive back in the form of a tax refund.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/publications/p501/ar02.html", "https://www.1040.com/tax-guide/taxes-for-families/dependents-for-head-of-household-and-eic/", "https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0213/what-does-filing-as-head-of-household-mean-for-your-taxes.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "For starters, one cannot simply declare herself to be mentally ill or have back problems, then sit back and collect disability payments for the rest of her (working) life. Such claims have to be documented by medical professionals as genuinely disabling conditions, and even then those living with disabilities find that securing benefits isn't quite so easy. Presuming the woman in this anecdote is fairly young, she would have to have accrued sufficient work credits to qualify for lifelong disability payments (an unlikely scenario), and then she would still have to meet separate criteria for a qualifying condition (which precludes having earned more than $1,090 per month in that year). The condition under which a person qualifies also must be one that limits ability to do any other work:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judges-tell-lawmakers-they-are-urged-to-approve-social-security-disability-claims/2013/06/27/ea990a7e-df66-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html", "https://www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/disability/dqualify2.html", "https://www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/credits.html", "https://www.socialsecurity.gov/planners/disability/dqualify5.html" ] }, { "sentence": "According to data from the agency, more than half of disability claims are denied, and the wait for hearings has increased (partly due to an aging pool of applicants). The anecdotal claimant's purported plundering of disability benefits also conflicts with her concurrent sponging of educational grants, as the usefulness of the latter is negated by the former: A full-time student wouldn't qualify for lifelong disability payments, and college would be unnecessary for the matriarch of a household who intended to remain home for life collecting benefits for her fabricated disability.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2011/sect04.html", "https://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-11-12/social-security-disability-harder-get-baby-boomer-bubble-swells-number#.VeSlJSgVhBc" ] }, { "sentence": "Furthermore, while this item asserts that the complex welfare hustling plan described here is \"perfectly legal,\" several aspects of it involve defrauding the system in an expressly prohibited (and largely criminal) fashion. Were any family to hide assets or lie about household income on application forms, they would be subject to severe penalties and prosecution should their perfidy be unraveled. The scheme also rests upon the (fallacious) notion that access to assistance programs is easy to both maintain and retain.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/07/the-double-standard-of-making-poor-people-prove-theyre-worthy-of-government-benefits/" ] }, { "sentence": "Finally, the causes of the national debt are fairly complex. However, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and Defense broadly account for most government spending.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-5-solution/", "claim": "5% Downpayment Quote", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/18/2010", "sci_digest": [ "Senator Chris Dodd opined 5% down payment requirement 'would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it'?" ], "justification": "Claim: Senator Chris Dodd opined that a 5% down payment requirement \"would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it.\" Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2010] Democrats Vote Down 5 Percent Rule In a bid to stem taxpayer losses for bad loans guaranteed by federal housing agencies Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) proposed that borrowers be required to make a 5% down payment in order to qualify. His proposal was rejected 57-42 on a party-line vote because, as Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) explained, \"passage of such a requirement would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it.\" Origins: One factor that fueled the subprime mortgage crisis of the 2000s was easy access given to home loans for those who were poor risks. As these loans almost inevitably failed, mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures not only rose but spiraled dramatically upwards, seriously affecting banking and financial markets around the world. Many people believe a tightening of lending practices would keep similar economic collapses in the housing market from occurring again, with one proposed tightening being the imposition of a five percent down payment requirement upon prospective home buyers. However, not everyone believes such a requirement would be the best way to deal with the issue, which leads us to the fictitious quote reproduced above. Although the debate was real, the quote wasn't it was a fabrication which was penned by John Semmens of Semi-News, an online publication billed as \"A Satirical Look at Recent News,\" and appeared as the final item in his 15 May 2010 column. Other offerings from that column include \"Election Officials to Bar Voluntary Showing of ID by Voters\" (an item that included the made-up statement of a Wisconsin Election Board official: \"Allowing those who have valid IDs to show them would intimidate those without IDs. They might be discouraged from attempting to vote. This would lower turnout and threaten the democratic process\") and \"Crist Refuses to Return GOP Donations\" (which quoted Crist as saying: \"Look, my view has always been caveat emptor\"). column Semi-News is a satire publication, albeit one which draws upon the news of the day. Senator Bob Corker had proposed an amendment (S.A. 3955) to the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 which would have (among other things) instituted a residential mortgage underwriting standard requiring a five percent down payment from prospective home buyers. Democrats did oppose the amendment, with one reason given by Dodd being that it would have disadvantaged home buyers who had good credit and solid incomes but lacked the cash to make required down payments. S.A. 3955 Stability Act Last updated: 20 June 2010 ", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "publication billed as \"A Satirical Look at Recent News,\" and appeared as the final item in his 15 May 2010 column. Other offerings from that column include \"Election Officials to Bar Voluntary Showing of ID by Voters\" (an item that included the made-up statement of a Wisconsin Election Board official: \"Allowing those who have valid IDs to show them would intimidate those without IDs. They might be discouraged from attempting to vote. This would lower turnout and threaten the democratic process\") and \"Crist Refuses to Return GOP Donations\" (which quoted Crist as saying: \"Look, my view has always been caveat emptor\").", "hrefs": [ "https://azconserv1.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/president-wants-lebron-james-to-sign-with-bulls/" ] }, { "sentence": "Semi-News is a satire publication, albeit one which draws upon the news of the day. Senator Bob Corker had proposed an amendment (S.A. 3955) to the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 which would have (among other things) instituted a residential mortgage underwriting standard requiring a five percent down payment from prospective home buyers. Democrats did oppose the amendment, with one reason given by Dodd being that it would have disadvantaged home buyers who had good credit and solid incomes but lacked the cash to make required down payments. ", "hrefs": [ "https://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=S3551&dbname=2010_record", "https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SN03217:" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/would-you-have-invested/", "claim": "If given the opportunity, would you have put your money into it?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/17/2006", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph shows eleven original staff members of Microsoft back in 1978." ], "justification": "One of the lessons of the personal computer revolution that began in the 1970s was that tremendous business success was no longer entirely the province of staid, conservatively-dressed, mature adult males with expensive business school educations. As Microsoft, Apple Computer, and hundreds of other technology-driven companies demonstrated, plenty of young, sartorially-questionable, self-taught young people of both sexes could achieve business success on a par with some of the world's oldest and biggest corporations. A photograph of Microsoft staff members in 1978 has been circulated online for many years bearing titles such as \"Would you have invested?\" It reflects the notion that, back in 1978, not many people might have predicted that a small group of casually-dressed, long-haired youngsters was creating a corporation that would, four decades later, reach an estimated market value of $330 billion, themselves becoming millionaires (and a few even billionaires) in the process. market value In December 1978, Microsoft had just completed its first million-dollar sales year, and the decision was made to decamp from the company's Albuquerque, New Mexico, headquarters and relocate to bigger and better digs in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington. The formal studio photograph displayed above was taken on 7 December 1978, shortly before that move, and captured all but a couple of the current Microsoft staff: To suitably immortalize the Albuquerque years, Bob Greenberg cut a deal with a photo studio for a group portrait on December 7. Pearl Harbor Day in Albuquerque featured a snowstorm, but only Miriam Lubow, who was stranded at home with her kids, and Ric Weiland [Microsoft's second employee], out of town on business, failed to make the sitting. All eleven of the employees in the Albuquerque picture, along with Weiland, were about to make the trip to Seattle. Only Miriam Lubow would stay behind reluctantly. Gates offered to pay for her and her family's move to Seattle, but Miriam's husband demurred: \"He said, 'Why are we going to follow this kid to Seattle? It always rains in Seattle.'\" On a Concorde flight to Europe, Gates wrote her a thank-you note for her service to Microsoft. As it turned out, she was merely postponing the inevitable. Three years later Miriam would move to the Seattle area and work again for Microsoft, this time focusing more narrowly on a skill she had developed in Albuquerque: getting customers to pay up. (Technically, Microsoft wasn't yet \"Microsoft Corporation\" at the time this photograph was taken the company was founded as a partnership and officially became a Washington State corporation on 1 July 1981.) As for the identities of the persons pictured, and their lives after Microsoft: Bill Gates (front row, left): William Gates III, the Harvard drop-out who at 18 co-founded (and later served as CEO and Chairman of the Board of) Microsoft, the world's largest software company, hardly needs any introduction. He is regularly ranked as the one of the richest individuals in the world (with an estimated net worth in 2015 of $78 billion); in 2008 he withdrew from Microsoft's day-to-day operations to focus his attention on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which combats diseases such as polio, malaria, and AIDS. richest withdrew Foundation Andrea Lewis (front row, second from left): Andrea Lewis was a former MITS technical writer and Computer Notes editor hired in 1978 to produce documentation for Microsoft products as the company's first technical writer. She left her day-to-day job at Microsoft in 1983, has since worked as a freelance journalist and fiction writer, and helped create the Richard Hugo House, a literary center in Seattle. She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. MITS Richard Hugo House Marla Wood (front row, second from right): Marla Wood (wife of Steve Wood, also pictured above) worked as a bookkeeper and administrative assistant at Microsoft until 1980, when she and her husband left the company (becoming the first of the eleven staff members in the photograph to depart Microsoft), in large part due to a dispute regarding payment of overtime wages: Bill's letter confirming [a $50,000 offer to Steve Ballmer to become his assistant] became a personnel disaster when some disgruntled soul copied it and tacked it on the office bulletin board. Along with his salary, high for Microsoft, Ballmer was to get a 5 to 10 percent cut of the company based on a formula involving the year's revenue growth. It sorely rankled loyalists who had been slaving for the company since the Albuquerque days without so much as a profit-sharing plan to show for it. When it came to clerical help, Gates had been tightfisted beyond the bounds of the law. Overtime had always been paid on a straight-time basis, and though the rules affecting programmers might be debatable, the rules affecting clerical workers were not. Marla Wood and other office staffers had checked into the labor regulations and discovered that they deserved time and a half for overtime currently and retroactively. When Steve Wood approached Gates about it, he agreed to start paying time and a half but insisted that back pay was out of the question. If the secretaries wanted to file a complaint, well, let 'em. They did. When the state notified Gates that the back pay was due, it wasn't long before Marla Wood got the news: Bill comes storming into my office saying he just had a phone call from these people, just livid. This was the one time I was really on the receiving end of one of his rages I mean, just screaming about this and how it was going to ruin his reputation ... This would be on his reports forever and ever ... I was saved by an overseas phone call which he proceeded to take at my desk, whereupon I ran out, went down to Steve's office and said, \"I'm quitting. I can't stand it here any more.\" And he said, \"That's all right; I'm seeing a headhunter tomorrow anyway.\" But before she and her husband departed Microsoft, Marla saw to it that the issue was settled. Although it amounted to only $100 or so for her and as little as $20 for the others, \"It was just a matter of principle.\" Paul Allen (front row, right): Paul Allen, a childhood friend of Bill Gates, co-founded Microsoft with Gates in 1975 and resigned his day-to-day position in 1983 after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease (for which he was successfully treated), although he remained on Microsoft's board of directors until 2000. A variety of post-Microsoft investments, in technology companies and other areas of business (including ownership of the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team) have helped bring him an estimated net worth of $17 billion. Like Bill Gates, he engages in philanthropic efforts through his chairmanship of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. net worth Foundation Bob O'Rear (second row, left): In 1978 programmer Bob O'Rear was, at age 35, the oldest of the Microsoft staff members pictured above, and, as a native Texan, one of only two staffers who did not come from the Pacific Northwest area. He was also one of the best-educated employees, a NASA engineer who held degrees in mathematics and physics. He left the company in 1993 and now runs a cattle ranch in Texas in addition to serving on the boards of a variety of high-tech firms. Bob Greenberg (second row, second from left): Bob Greenberg, who arranged the deal for the studio photograph displayed above, was a programmer Bill Gates knew from his Harvard days, hired in 1977 to help Microsoft create a new version of the BASIC programming language for a new Texas Instruments computer. Greenberg proved invaluable for more than just his technical expertise, lending the fledgling company $7,000 during a financial crunch in mid-1977; although he left Microsoft in 1981, he went from one business juggernaut to another, helping the family business, Coleco, launch the Cabbage Patch Kids marketing craze of the 1980s. He now reportedly develops software for golf courses. Coleco Marc McDonald (second row, second from right): Marc McDonald is generally identified as Microsoft's (then \"Micro-Soft\") first employee, hired in 1976 to adapt BASIC for the new NCR 7200 machine. (Although a couple of other people had worked for Microsoft on a contract basis, McDonald was the first hiree to draw a regular salary.) Marc left Microsoft in 1984, reportedly disenchanted with the changes wrought by the company's burgeoning growth, and went to work for fellow ex-Microsoft staffer Paul Allen's new company, Asymetrix. In an amusing coincidence, McDonald eventually ended up back at Microsoft when it acquired Design Intelligence, the Seattle-based software company for which he was then working. NCR 7200 acquired Gordon Letwin (second row, right): The initial 1978 meeting between Gordon Letwin and his future employer, Bill Gates, was somewhat contentious, according to the biography Gates: Befitting its role as a haven for soldering-iron types, Heath[kit] was now marketing its own computers, including a Z-80 machine with a homegrown edition of BASIC instead of the Microsoft version. As Bill Gates was attempting to correct this egregious error, he was introduced to a black-haired gnome by the name of Gordon Letwin, who proceeded to chew him out in front of a group of about fifteen people. Letwin, the author of Heath's BASIC, felt his turf was being violated and by the purveyor of an inferior product to boot. Bill Gates nonetheless prevailed, selling Heath his BASIC and FORTRAN for H-DOS, a proprietary operating system Letwin had developed for Heath. But Letwin had instinctively understood how to win the favor of William Henry Gates: Stand up to the guy. By the end of the year Gordon Letwin would come to work for Microsoft and begin work on a BASIC compiler. Among other projects, Gordon served as Microsoft's chief architect for the development of the infamous OS/2 operating system and stayed with the company longer than any of the other staffers pictured above (with the exception of Bill Gates himself), finally leaving in 1993 to escape the day-to-day tech bustle and enjoy life. He has reportedly contributed a substantial portion of the money he acquired during his tenure at Microsoft to various environmental causes. Steve Wood (top row, left): Steve Wood was Microsoft's first married employee, a Stanford graduate with a master's degree who was hired in 1976 to help create a Microsoft version of FORTRAN. Later, when Steve was serving as Microsoft's office manager, his wife Marla joined the company as a clerical worker, eventually taking over all of Microsoft's bookkeeping chores after Miriam Lubow stayed behind when the firm relocated from New Mexico to Washington. Steve and Marla both left Microsoft in 1980 (as detailed above); in 1996, Steve Wood founded Wireless Services Corp. (now SinglePoint), a mobile messaging company. SinglePoint Bob Wallace (top row, center): Bob Wallace joined Microsoft in 1978 after responding to a photocopied ad that Paul Allen had left in the Seattle computer store where he worked. He served as a production manager and software designer until 1983, when he became (like Marc McDonald would the following year) disenchanted with the changes in the company's culture brought about by Microsoft's success and growth: [Paul] Allen's illness and departure coalesced uneasiness within the ranks of the remaining Albuquerquians the core group that had helped establish Microsoft early, had followed their leader to Bellevue, had stuck with the company through some tumultuous years, and now found themselves being middle-managed into oblivion. In March 1983 Bob Wallace, in the best Microsoft tradition, got into a heated dispute with his supervisor over a technical point. The supervisor told him, \"there's nothing you can do about it, and you can't talk to Bill about it ... I'm the only one who can talk to Bill.\" For Wallace, being barred from talking with Bill was not just a shock but an insult. He told his supervisor as much, half expecting Gates to intercede. When it didn't happen, he resigned. In 1983 Bob Wallace started his own company, Quicksoft, which marketed the text-processing program PC-Write, generally touted as being the first (widely-used) shareware program. He sold Quicksoft in 1991, moved to northern California a few years later, and long interested in psychedelic drugs started Mind Books (a bookstore offering literature about psychoactive plants and compounds) and the Promind Foundation (an organization dedicated to supporting scientific research and public education about psychedelics). In 2002, Bob Wallace became the first (and so far the only) one of the eleven Microsoft staffers pictured above to pass away, succumbing to pneumonia at age 53. Jim Lane (top row, right): Jim Lane, who got his start with microcomputers at the Denver-based Digital Group, was hired by Microsoft in late 1978 (shortly before this picture was taken). As a Microsoft project manager, he was a key figure in forging the partnership between Microsoft software and Intel's microprocessors (a relationship symbolized by the development of the term \"Wintel\"). He left Microsoft in 1985 (reportedly stating that the company had \"beat the enthusiasm out of me\") to run his own software/consultancy business. Digital Group Wintel Nearly thirty years later, just before Bill Gates stepped down from being involved in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft, the eleven staffers pictured above reunited for another photograph, with office manager Miriam Lubow (who missed the original sitting) taking the place of Bob Wallace (who died in 2002): ", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1B1TGNhb0jnHfFLNx1rtHUjEqzGiE0xm-" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14imUQPznyEUHUVJD2_vyrLaUtJCaLnin" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NIUeH-a0hNOLaS_rP9dBg2nIx36a7EQN" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A photograph of Microsoft staff members in 1978 has been circulated online for many years bearing titles such as \"Would you have invested?\" It reflects the notion that, back in 1978, not many people might have predicted that a small group of casually-dressed, long-haired youngsters was creating a corporation that would, four decades later, reach an estimated market value of $330 billion, themselves becoming millionaires (and a few even billionaires) in the process.", "hrefs": [ "https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/market_cap" ] }, { "sentence": " Bill Gates (front row, left): William Gates III, the Harvard drop-out who at 18 co-founded (and later served as CEO and Chairman of the Board of) Microsoft, the world's largest software company, hardly needs any introduction. He is regularly ranked as the one of the richest individuals in the world (with an estimated net worth in 2015 of $78 billion); in 2008 he withdrew from Microsoft's day-to-day operations to focus his attention on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which combats diseases such as polio, malaria, and AIDS.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/?list=billionaires", "https://web.archive.org/web/20070126054134/https://www.gatesfoundation.org/AboutUs/Announcements/Announce-060615.htm", "https://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " Andrea Lewis (front row, second from left): Andrea Lewis was a former MITS technical writer and Computer Notes editor hired in 1978 to produce documentation for Microsoft products as the company's first technical writer. She left her day-to-day job at Microsoft in 1983, has since worked as a freelance journalist and fiction writer, and helped create the Richard Hugo House, a literary center in Seattle. She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.", "hrefs": [ "https://rwebs.net/micros/altair/", "https://hugohouse.org/about/history/" ] }, { "sentence": " Paul Allen (front row, right): Paul Allen, a childhood friend of Bill Gates, co-founded Microsoft with Gates in 1975 and resigned his day-to-day position in 1983 after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease (for which he was successfully treated), although he remained on Microsoft's board of directors until 2000. A variety of post-Microsoft investments, in technology companies and other areas of business (including ownership of the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team) have helped bring him an estimated net worth of $17 billion. Like Bill Gates, he engages in philanthropic efforts through his chairmanship of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.forbes.com/profile/paul-allen/?list=billionaires", "https://www.pgafamilyfoundation.org/" ] }, { "sentence": " Bob Greenberg (second row, second from left): Bob Greenberg, who arranged the deal for the studio photograph displayed above, was a programmer Bill Gates knew from his Harvard days, hired in 1977 to help Microsoft create a new version of the BASIC programming language for a new Texas Instruments computer. Greenberg proved invaluable for more than just his technical expertise, lending the fledgling company $7,000 during a financial crunch in mid-1977; although he left Microsoft in 1981, he went from one business juggernaut to another, helping the family business, Coleco, launch the Cabbage Patch Kids marketing craze of the 1980s. He now reportedly develops software for golf courses.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n3/65_Coleco.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Marc McDonald (second row, second from right): Marc McDonald is generally identified as Microsoft's (then \"Micro-Soft\") first employee, hired in 1976 to adapt BASIC for the new NCR 7200 machine. (Although a couple of other people had worked for Microsoft on a contract basis, McDonald was the first hiree to draw a regular salary.) Marc left Microsoft in 1984, reportedly disenchanted with the changes wrought by the company's burgeoning growth, and went to work for fellow ex-Microsoft staffer Paul Allen's new company, Asymetrix. In an amusing coincidence, McDonald eventually ended up back at Microsoft when it acquired Design Intelligence, the Seattle-based software company for which he was then working.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thecorememory.com/html/ncr_7200.html", "https://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=111590" ] }, { "sentence": " Steve Wood (top row, left): Steve Wood was Microsoft's first married employee, a Stanford graduate with a master's degree who was hired in 1976 to help create a Microsoft version of FORTRAN. Later, when Steve was serving as Microsoft's office manager, his wife Marla joined the company as a clerical worker, eventually taking over all of Microsoft's bookkeeping chores after Miriam Lubow stayed behind when the firm relocated from New Mexico to Washington. Steve and Marla both left Microsoft in 1980 (as detailed above); in 1996, Steve Wood founded Wireless Services Corp. (now SinglePoint), a mobile messaging company.", "hrefs": [ "https://singlepoint.com/" ] }, { "sentence": " Jim Lane (top row, right): Jim Lane, who got his start with microcomputers at the Denver-based Digital Group, was hired by Microsoft in late 1978 (shortly before this picture was taken). As a Microsoft project manager, he was a key figure in forging the partnership between Microsoft software and Intel's microprocessors (a relationship symbolized by the development of the term \"Wintel\"). He left Microsoft in 1985 (reportedly stating that the company had \"beat the enthusiasm out of me\") to run his own software/consultancy business.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bytecollector.com/the_digital_group.htm", "https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Wintel.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-zuckerberg-resignation/", "claim": "Did Mark Zuckerberg Announce His Resignation from Facebook?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/14/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Reports that the social media maven is stepping down were fiction created to sell a skin care product -- or an April Fool's Day joke." ], "justification": "In March 2017, an advertisement disguised as a news story appeared to report that Facebook CEO's Mark Zuckerberg was leaving the company in order to sell skin care products. The hoax report was published on the web site GetInkNews.co: story Neither Katy Perry nor any of the other aforementioned celebrities have endorsed this product, and the web site took unrelated images of Zuckerberg and various celebrities (the image of Katy Perry was taken in 2011) to make it seem as if they had endorsed Zuckerberg's skin care line together. 2011 The advertisement also claimed that Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan were giving away free samples of the product (as long as customers paid for shipping and handling): ZUCKERBERG GIVES PRODUCTS AWAY FOR FREE! So, what if you arent rich or famous? Chan and Zuckerberg dont care. After all, they are already worth more than $556 billion. We arent in this to make a fortune, Chan told a friend recently. We already have amassed a fortune. I just want to help people. That is why she is now offering readers the opportunity to experience the joys of younger looking skin for FREE! The only cost to you is a $4.95 shipping and handling fee, so you can try the EcoMaxx Ageless Moisturizer and EcoMaxx Ageless Eye Revitalizer have it delivered right to your front door. Simply click on the link here for ordering details. This a relatively new form of the ubiquitous fake news: an advertisement designed to mimic a genuine news item in order to convince people to buy a skin care product. At the very bottom of this web page, below the comments section, below several links to purchase this product, and below several fake celebrity endorsements, appears a disclaimer: THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE This website is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice and treatment from your personal physician. Visitors are advised to consult their own doctors or other qualified health professional regarding the treatment of medical conditions. The author shall not be held liable or responsible for any misunderstanding or misuse of the information contained on this site or for any loss, damage, or injury caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by any treatment, action, or application of any food or food source discussed in this website. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration have not evaluated the statements on this website. The information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. MARKETING DISCLOSURE: You should know that the owner of this website has a monetary connection to the product & services advertised and provided. The owner receives payment whenever a qualified lead is referred. All of the information regarding the goods and services mentioned on this website is provided by the owner. ADVERTISING DISCLOSURE: This website is an advertisement and not a news publication. Any photographs of persons used on this site are models. Any photographs of before/after images used on this site are not real and are only used to illustrate the results some may achieve. Many of the articles featured on this site are what is commonly referred to as an advertorial, a combination of advertisement and editorial written in an editorial format as an independent news story. However, unlike an independent news story, an advertorial may promote a particular product or interest. Advertorials take factual information and report it in an editorial format to allow the author, often a company marketing its products, to enhance or explain certain elements to maintain the readers interest. A familiar example is an airline's in-flight magazines that provide editorial reports about travel destinations to which the airline flies. In 2018, the same conceit of Facebook's head announcing that he was stepping down was used as fodder for an April Fool's Day joke: stepping down Last year in June, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the company a new mission statement, it was too late for him to try to change how things worked at Facebooks offices. While it wasnt made public, Cambridge Analytica had already used data from millions of users for voter profiling and other purposes. In the wake of the recent data misuse revelation, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has resigned from the company. While demands were already being made for his resignation, this has come as a big surprise for many. Zuckerberg publicly informed the world via a post on Facebook. Altus, Celeste. \"But Did He Friend Her?\"\r AdWeek. 21 January 2011. Get Ink News. \"Mark Zuckerberg Disgusted with Social Media; Set to Leave Facebook Later This Year.\"\r Retrieved 13 March 2017.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1lzVabeyaUUJRnvM0s3cCg1JCl5w1Pdru", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1l7zhCziWKViep2X4tbzXkEU9kYRvcQs-", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EqXIyaOGsBXVNxvypPOGxcsNPoO633pM", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In March 2017, an advertisement disguised as a news story appeared to report that Facebook CEO's Mark Zuckerberg was leaving the company in order to sell skin care products. The hoax report was published on the web site GetInkNews.co:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/LSajx" ] }, { "sentence": "Neither Katy Perry nor any of the other aforementioned celebrities have endorsed this product, and the web site took unrelated images of Zuckerberg and various celebrities (the image of Katy Perry was taken in 2011) to make it seem as if they had endorsed Zuckerberg's skin care line together.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2017/03/katy-perry-zuckerberg.jpg", "https://www.adweek.com/digital/but-did-he-friend-her/" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2018, the same conceit of Facebook's head announcing that he was stepping down was used as fodder for an April Fool's Day joke:", "hrefs": [ "https://fossbytes.com/mark-zuckerberg-leaves-facebook-april-fools/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-military-planes-israel/", "claim": "Does Video Show 'US Military Sending Huge Planes Full of Heavy-Duty Equipment to Israel' in 2023?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "10/11/2023", "sci_digest": [ "The video was shared in an X post days following Hamas' surprise terrorist attack on Israel in October 2023." ], "justification": "On Oct. 11, 2023, a user on X named Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) posted a video with a caption that claimed it showed the U.S. military \"sending huge planes full of heavy-duty equipment to Israel,\" apparently to be used in its war against Hamas. However, the video in the post showed clips that were at least four years old. In other words, the video had nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas war. post Israel-Hamas war As we previously reported, the account bearing Wallace's name is known for spreading baseless conspiracy theories following massive tragic events. He has even bragged about making money on X based on promoting such false rumors. reported baseless conspiracy theories bragged He was warned not to post this video from Maui, Hawaii, which it turns out is actually an explosion in Macul, Chile, in May. It got 20,000 retweets, 54,000 likes and 10 million views before being Community Noted. He's making money from viral false posts like this. pic.twitter.com/SjtJmNHm0X pic.twitter.com/SjtJmNHm0X Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 14, 2023 August 14, 2023 The video in question showed a C-5M Super Galaxy taxiing and taking off from a runway. During the taxiing process, several aircraft, possibly CV-22 Osprey and other helicopters, were visible on the ground. The video consisted of three total clips. We traced the first and third clips to a YouTube video that was uploaded on Oct. 5, 2019. It looked to have been recorded on the day before it was uploaded. The number on the side of the airplane appeared to be \"7030.\" YouTube video The second clip in the video showed an airplane with the number \"7045.\" That clip was at least months old, according to another YouTube video that showed the exact same shot at the 4:42 mark. In other words, Wallace's video showed two different aircraft, not one. YouTube video In Wallace's upload of these clips, the shots were mirrored horizontally. This mirroring made the words and numbers appear backwards. Sometimes, misinformation and disinformation purveyors mirror images and videos in order to try to avoid reverse-image search detection. We reached out to Wallace to ask if he was aware that the video was old. We also asked him if he was the person who horizontally mirrored the shots. This story will be updated if we receive answers to our questions. While the video itself was unrelated to the war, the rest of Wallace's post contained genuine reporting from The Associated Press that was published days following Hamas' surprise terrorist attack in Israel. That story read as follows: The Associated Press Hamas' surprise terrorist attack A plane carrying advanced armaments designed to facilitate significant military operations landed Tuesday evening at the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said. We are grateful for the US backing and assistance to the IDF, and to the State of Israel in general, during this challenging period. Our common enemies know that the cooperation between our militaries is stronger than ever, and is a key part in ensuring regional security and stability, the IDF said in a statement. Further, on Oct. 10, the U.S. Department of Defense published specifics of the kind of equipment being sent to Israel: U.S. Department of Defense [U.S. President Joe] Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today and Biden assured him that the U.S. response to the events will be swift, decisive and overwhelming. \"My team has been in near constant communication with our Israeli partners and partners all across the region and the world from the moment this crisis began,\" the president said. \"We're surging additional military assistance, including ammunition, and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome. We are going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.\" For more details about the war, including the most recent death toll figures, we recommend referencing live updates from ABC News, The New York Times and The AP. ABC News The New York Times The AP Al Lawati, Abbas, and Nadeen Ebrahim. Israel Is at War with Hamas. Heres What to Know. CNN, Oct. 9, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-war-explained-mime-intl/index.html. C-5M Super Galaxy Takeoff (2019). YouTube, Gung Ho Vids, Oct. 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqY7YVqrytc. Haworth, John, et al. Israel-Gaza Live Updates: 22 Americans among the Dead.ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/israel-gaza-hamas/?id=103804516. Kingsley, Patrick, et al. Israel-Hamas War: Israel Agrees to Unity Government as War With Hamas Intensifies.The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/11/world/israel-news-hamas-war. Liles, Jordan. Biden Did Not Fall Asleep While Meeting with Maui Fire Victims, C-SPAN Video Confirms. Snopes, Aug. 22, 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-asleep-maui-video/. Powered Vertical Takeoff with a Payload of 120 Metric Tons: C-5M Super Galaxy. YouTube, Future Machine Tech, May 4, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNwHumNej-w. The First Plane Carrying US Armaments Lands in Israel, IDF Says. The Associated Press, Oct. 10, 2023, https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates#0000018b-1d0b-d13a-a5af-ffab53b50000. U.S. Flowing Military Supplies to Israel, as Country Battles Hamas Terrorists.U.S. Department of Defense, Oct. 10, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3553040/us-flowing-military-supplies-to-israel-as-country-battles-hamas-terrorists/.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1T1860PYIUtz2SHq1IxoUCzltRqlD7B1B", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, the video in the post showed clips that were at least four years old. In other words, the video had nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas war.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/YfHvV", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/israel-hamas_war/" ] }, { "sentence": "As we previously reported, the account bearing Wallace's name is known for spreading baseless conspiracy theories following massive tragic events. He has even bragged about making money on X based on promoting such false rumors.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-asleep-maui-video/", "https://archive.ph/sFB6s", "https://archive.ph/1zHv8" ] }, { "sentence": "He's making money from viral false posts like this. pic.twitter.com/SjtJmNHm0X", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/SjtJmNHm0X" ] }, { "sentence": " Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 14, 2023", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1691040580090863616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "The video consisted of three total clips. We traced the first and third clips to a YouTube video that was uploaded on Oct. 5, 2019. It looked to have been recorded on the day before it was uploaded. The number on the side of the airplane appeared to be \"7030.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqY7YVqrytc" ] }, { "sentence": "The second clip in the video showed an airplane with the number \"7045.\" That clip was at least months old, according to another YouTube video that showed the exact same shot at the 4:42 mark. In other words, Wallace's video showed two different aircraft, not one.", "hrefs": [ "https://youtu.be/tNwHumNej-w?si=z6gpx950iKNC3ct9&t=282" ] }, { "sentence": "While the video itself was unrelated to the war, the rest of Wallace's post contained genuine reporting from The Associated Press that was published days following Hamas' surprise terrorist attack in Israel. That story read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates#0000018b-1d0b-d13a-a5af-ffab53b50000", "https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/08/middleeast/hamas-videos-visual-timeline/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Further, on Oct. 10, the U.S. Department of Defense published specifics of the kind of equipment being sent to Israel:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3553040/us-flowing-military-supplies-to-israel-as-country-battles-hamas-terrorists/" ] }, { "sentence": "For more details about the war, including the most recent death toll figures, we recommend referencing live updates from ABC News, The New York Times and The AP.", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/israel-gaza-hamas/?id=103804516", "https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/11/world/israel-news-hamas-war", "https://apnews.com/live/israel-hamas-war-live-updates" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/curves/", "claim": "Curves and organizations supporting the sanctity of life.", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "04/27/2004", "sci_digest": [ "Does Gary Heavin, founder and CEO of the fitness chain Curves, support pro-life causes?" ], "justification": "Claim: Gary Heavin, founder and CEO of the fitness chain Curves, supports pro-life causes. Status: True. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Just so you know: Gary Heavin, the founder of the Waco, Texas-based chain of exercise studios called Curves, is a heavy contributor to several organizations allied with Operation Save America, the rather more muscular successor to Operation Rescue, the anti-choice group. The organizations he funds are spreading the lie that abortions lead to an increased risk of breast cancer. Planned Parenthood says its operations in Texas are being threatened by Heavin-funded clinics based on the old therapeutic model \"you must carry your child to term.\" In an article in Christianity Today, Heavin expressed pride in his involvement with anti-choice groups, to which he donates 10 percent of Curves' profits. You may do with this information what you will. Origins: With more than 7,000 fitness and weight loss centers around the globe, Curves is the largest fitness franchise in the world. One in four health clubs in the U.S. is a Curves, a stupendous feat given that the company has only been around since 1992. Yet, for the utterly amazing, consider this: Prior to January 2004, Curves didn't have a national ad campaign. Almost all of its customers found out about the chain through word of mouth. You wouldn't think one exercise club could be that different from any other, but Curves are, and that difference accounts for the success of the chain. Curves exercise clubs are strictly for women. Their stripped-down no-frills look will likely come as a shock to those who have been conditioned to believe proper fitness palaces should be fashioned of glass and gleaming chrome and populated by herds of designer-garbed hard-bodied 20-somethings setting new land speed records on treadmills and exercise bikes. At Curves, there are no lockers or showers, and the clientele is predominently middle-aged and overweight. The equipment members use is set up in a circle. Every 30 seconds those working out are told to move to the next station, which is either another machine that works different muscle groups or a space between two machines where exercisers run or walk in place. A typical Curves workout regimen is 30 minutes a day, three times a week. Because the equipment is hydraulic, it adapts to each user's level of fitness, making these workouts suitable for anyone regardless of physical conditioning. Women like the Curves program for its \"30 minutes and you're on your way\" aspect, but also for the camaraderie that comes from exercising with others, which appears to be spurred on by the arrangement of the workout stations in a circle. Friendships form. Encouragement is given. A sense of \"We're all in this together\" pervades. More than 7,000 outlets since 1992. Obviously, they're doing something right. This highly successful chain is the brainchild of Gary Heavin, a Texas businessman who earlier in his life had a 17-location fitness center chain before filing bankruptcy, divorcing, losing custody of his two children, and serving a six-month jail sentence for failure to pay child support. Although a Christian from his teen years, he re-committed his life to Christ while in jail, after which he and his new wife (whom he married just before his incarceration) opened the first Curves in Harlingen, Texas, in 1992. The text of the e-mail quoted above was written by Jon Carroll, a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle. It appeared in that paper on 20 April 2004. The statements made by Carroll in those three short paragraphs about Gary Heavin, the founder and CEO of Curves, hold water for the most part. Heavin (pronounced \"Haven\"), is a born-again Christian who is strongly pro-life and, according to an Operation Save America's web site (a pro-life group of a more radical orientation than Operation Rescue, and one that asserts there is a connection between abortion and increased risk of breast cancer), is one of their supporters: Operation Save America Operation Rescue We then contacted Mr. Gary Heavin, Founder and CEO of Curves International. Mr. Heavin is a wealthy man who is a committed Pro-life Christian. He is the premier customer of the bank that sponsors Komen. He graciously returned our phone call and promised to use his influence to convince the bank to give some of the funding to Carenet, so they could take care of the women, instead of Planned Parenthood. Several months passed and, lo and behold, on Tuesday, September 23rd, in the year of our Lord 2003, Carenet, our local CPC, held their annual banquet. It was the most attended, and as far as I was concerned, the best one to date. At the end, a major announcement and press statement was issued for Central Texas. Gary Heavin made a five million dollar grant to Family Practice, Carenet, and McCap. These groups and ministries would receive one million dollars a year for the next five years. Granted, some shortcuts were taken by Jon Carroll in his heads-up about Heavin. If Heavin does support Operation Save America, his \"support\" is of a non-financial nature. The \"article in Christianity Today\" was actually published in Today's Christian (formerly Christian Reader), a magazine put out by Christianity Today. Also, the \"donates 10 percent of Curves' profits\" is a misleading way of saying Heavin gave away that much money in 2003 the wording implies he donates that percentage of Curves' profits on an ongoing basis, yet the source material this information was drawn from speaks only to one particular year (2003), not to any year before it, and not to any plans by Heavin to gift at a similar level in future years. Moreover, the Today's Christian article stated that Heavin donated an amount equal to 10 percent of Curves' profits to \"charities,\" which Jon Carroll has represented solely as \"anti-choice groups\" though Heavin does financially support pro-life organizations and might well give only to them, he might also donate to other manner of charitable groups as well, with the 10 percent figure representing the total of what he doled out in charitable contributions in 2003 to various causes, both pro-life and otherwise. Ergo, either Carroll mischaracterized or misunderstood what he read, or he based his statement on information outside that Today's Christian article: Servanthood may not be today's normal model for business success, but that hasn't stopped the Heavins. In 2003, the couple gave away $10 million 10 percent of their company's gross revenues and 80 percent of Gary's net income to charities. Heavin matches the first $1,000 that each franchise raises for community causes such as walkathons to benefit pro-life pregnancy-care centers. Such controversial stances have led to criticism, but Heavin is unfazed. \"There's nothing healthy about abortion,\" he says. \"I'm not afraid to tell the truth.\" In a correction published 4 May 2004, The San Francisco Chronicle said: \"A Ruth Rosen column Thursday 'What's wrong with curves?' stated that three 'pregnancy crisis centers' that received $5 million from Curves owner Gary Heavin were 'supported by Operation Save America.' The column was referring to Operation Save America's verbal endorsement of the centers, not financial support.\" On 13 May 2004, The San Francisco Chronicle published a further correction to information contained in both the Rosen and Carroll pieces: Two recent columns contained errors involving contributions made by Gary Heavin, founder and CEO of Curves, the women's fitness chain. Ruth Rosen's April 29 opinion-page column stated that Heavin \"has given at least $5 million of his profits to some of the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country.\" That characterization is not accurate. The column specified that the money went to \"three Texas organizations to fund 'pregnancy crisis centers.'\" Only one of the recipients, Care Net, operates pregnancy crisis centers that are designed to dissuade pregnant women from having abortions while offering other support services to encourage adoption. Heavin has pledged to give Care Net $1 million over the next five years, according to a Curves spokeswoman. The largest of the pledges $3.75 million over five years goes to the Family Practice Center of McLennan County, which provides a variety of health-care services to Central Texas residents, many of whom are uninsured, according to the Curves spokeswoman. The Catholic-run center does not provide abortions but is not actively involved in the anti-abortion movement, the center's CEO said. The other recipient of Heavin's pledge, $250,000 over five years, was the McLennan County Collaborative Abstinence Project, which promotes sexual abstinence among teens. Its director said that, as a matter of policy, its staff would not discuss abortion when making presentations. The column presented the contributions as a percentage of the company's annual gross revenues. But the Curves spokeswoman said that those pledges, as well as millions of dollars in donations to a wide range of charities, came from Heavin's personal wealth. The column also referred to Heavin's comments in a \"recent Christianity Today\" article that he \"is proud to support these organizations.\" In fact, the interview was published in the January-February issue of Today's Christian, a magazine affiliated with Christianity Today. In it, Heavin expressed his anti-abortion views but did not talk about his support for any specific organization. In addition, Jon Carroll, in his April 20 Datebook column, erred in referring to Heavin's comments as appearing in \"Christianity Today\" and by stating that Heavin \"donates 10 percent of Curves profits\" to \"anti-choice groups.\" He also wrote that Heavin's recipients were allied with Operation Save America, a radical anti-abortion group. As stated in a May 4 clarification on Rosen's column, Operation Save America has praised those recipients on its Web site but does not provide financial support, nor does it have a formal alliance with them. The Chronicle regrets the errors. Gary Heavin is far from the first successful businessman to underwrite reproductive causes Tom Monaghan of Domino's Pizza and Carl Karcher, founder of the California-based hamburger chain Carl's Jr., have been very open and public regarding their support of the pro-life philosophy, just as Warren Buffett, ranked by Forbes magazine as the second-richest man in the world, has been forthcoming about his backing of pro-choice programs. In each instance, these men are acting as private citizens who choose to bestow parts of their fortunes on the causes they believe in, not as officers of their corporations. The money is theirs to do with as they please, just as anyone's paycheck belongs to the person who earns it and stops being the employer's money at the moment it is paid out. That a spendthrift employee might choose to gamble away his earnings doesn't mean the company he works for supports gambling; likewise, that a wealthy man financially supports particular causes doesn't mean the corporation that paid him the money favors those movements. Domino's Pizza Warren Buffett All this is by way of saying that while it's correct to identify Gary Heavin as a patron of pro-life endeavors, it would not be right to point to Curves as a supporter of those same causes. Barbara \"cause and effect\" Mikkelson Additional information: Curves International web site Last updated: 19 November 2006 Sources: Carroll, Jon. \"Jon Carroll.\" The San Francisco Chronicle. 20 April 2004 (p. E12). Chan, Vera H-C. \"Gary Heavin Creates Sanctuaries for Women.\" San Jose Mercury News. 16 April 2004. Kennedy, John W. \"Rolling with the Curves.\" Today's Christian. January 2004 (p. 30). Lawrence, Elana. \"Curves, Without Frills.\" The Washington Post. 27 May 2003 (p. F1). Reimer, Susan. \"The Mature Are Ready to Go Around These Curves.\" The Baltimore Sun. 8 February 2004 (p. N1). Rosen, Ruth. \"What's Wrong With Curves?\" The San Francisco Chronicle. 29 April 2004 (p. B9). The San Francisco Chronicle. \"Corrections.\" 4 May 2004 (p. A2). The San Francisco Chronicle. \"Corrections.\" 13 May 2004 (p. A2).", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jbh59KR_aInBZuGTILeoS9lcJdMWOdp5" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The statements made by Carroll in those three short paragraphs about Gary Heavin, the founder and CEO of Curves, hold water for the most part. Heavin (pronounced \"Haven\"), is a born-again Christian who is strongly pro-life and, according to an Operation Save America's web site (a pro-life group of a more radical orientation than Operation Rescue, and one that asserts there is a connection between abortion and increased risk of breast cancer), is one of their supporters:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.operationsaveamerica.org/articles/articles/decline-pp-central-tx.htm", "https://www.operationrescue.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "Gary Heavin is far from the first successful businessman to underwrite reproductive causes Tom Monaghan of Domino's Pizza and Carl Karcher, founder of the California-based hamburger chain Carl's Jr., have been very open and public regarding their support of the pro-life philosophy, just as Warren Buffett, ranked by Forbes magazine as the second-richest man in the world, has been forthcoming about his backing of pro-choice programs. In each instance, these men are acting as private citizens who choose to bestow parts of their fortunes on the causes they believe in, not as officers of their corporations. The money is theirs to do with as they please, just as anyone's paycheck belongs to the person who earns it and stops being the employer's money at the moment it is paid out. That a spendthrift employee might choose to gamble away his earnings doesn't mean the company he works for supports gambling; likewise, that a wealthy man financially supports particular causes doesn't mean the corporation that paid him the money favors those movements. ", "hrefs": [ "/business/alliance/domino.asp", "/inboxer/outrage/buffett.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Curves International web site", "hrefs": [ "https://www.curvesinternational.com/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/mar/28/john-cornyn/john-cornyn-Texas-Medicaid-spending-counts-state-f/", "claim": "Last year, Texas allocated nearly one-third of its budget to Medicaid, amounting to one-third of all the state's expenditures.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "03/28/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Extolling thehealth care act that Republicans briefly advocatedas an improvement on the Obamacare law, Sen. John Cornyn singled out how much Medicaid costs Texas state government. In March 9, 2017, Senate floor remarks brought to our attention by a reader, the Texas Republican prefaced his claim by saying state and federal governments spend an awful lot of money on Medicaid, the federal-state entitlement program providing health coverage to the poor, especially mothers, children and the disabled, which was launched by Congress in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnsons Great Society. Cornyn went on: In Texas, for example, my state spent close to a third of its budget on Medicaid last year, a third of all state spending. We emailed Cornyns office to request his backup, then turned to the authoritative May 2016Fiscal Size-up reportfrom the Legislative Budget Board, which advises state legislators on spending matters. That report, Cornyn spokesman Drew Brandewie shortly advised by email, was the basis of Cornyns claim along with other published accounts of Medicaids share of the two-year budget approved by the 2015 Legislature. According to the report, the 2016-17 Texas budget devoted $61.2 billion in funds from all sources, including state and federal aid, to Medicaid, which lately has had a monthly caseload of 4.1 million residents, up from about 2.1 million in 2002, according to a 2017LBB presentation--and that amount over the two years running through August 2017 accounted for 29.3 percent of $209.1 billion in All Funds appropriations. Federal funds drive Medicaid budgets because by law, the federal share of a states Medicaid expenditures cant be less than 50 percent though the share is refined for each state using a formula comparing the states average per capita income to the national average. In Texas in fiscal 2016, the federal share broke out to about 57 percent,according tothe Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Also, each Texas dollar spent on Medicaid that year was matched by $1.33 in federal aid, the foundation says. We noticed another way to frame the issue in that Cornyn referred to Medicaid accounting for one third of all state spending in 2016. Thats not correct. According to the Fiscal Size-up, the 2016-17 budget allocated $25.2 billion in state general revenue and GR from dedicated accounts meaning state funds to Medicaid. Those billions, we calculated, amounted to 22.1 percent of nearly $114 billion in total GR and GR-D spending in the two-year budget. Separately, we asked the Texas Health and Human Services Commission how much Medicaid absorbs in money budgeted by lawmakers. By email, Christine Mann shared an agency chart showing the escalating share of Medicaid spending in the budget, considering both state and federal aid, from fiscal 2000 through fiscal 2015. Medicaid absorbed about 20 percent of budgeted state and federal funds in 2000, the chart indicate, but its accounted for 25 percent or more of the All Funds budget since 2010. Spending decisions remain Mann also pointed out that exactly how much legislators commit to Medicaid for the budget that runs through August 2017 will depend on actions during the session that ends May 29. As of mid-March 2017, Mann said commission staff expected Medicaid spending to be around $63 billion in state and federal funds. Traditionally, lawmakers adjust for increases in Medicaid caseloads and costs that build up between sessions by signing off on short-term supplemental appropriations. A March 2017LBB documentsummarizes a version of House Bill 2, which proposes additional spending through August 2017. From figures in the document, we calculated that lawmakers could end up authorizing $63.8 billion in spending, both state and federal, on Medicaid, through the 2016-17 biennium; barring changes, that would break out to 29.8 percent of the states total budgeted spending of $214.3 billion. We also sought insight from Oliver Bernstein of the budget-savvy liberal-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities. Bernstein emailed us slightly different figures for whats likely to be spent on Medicaid through August 2017. He otherwise suggested by email that Medicaids heightened share of total spending traces in part to cuts in state support for public schools and institutions of higher education; when other big items get whittled, Medicaids budgetary significance grows. Our ruling Cornyn said Texas spent close to a third of its budget on Medicaid last year, a third of all state spending. Nearly 30 percent of state plus federal aid in the 2016-17 Texas budget went to Medicaid. About 22 percent of state funds alone was appropriated for Medicaid. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Health Care", "Medicaid", "State Budget", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fvXPlmrxtPzo-EBXD3ZfoTH2J4gkvoII" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Extolling thehealth care act that Republicans briefly advocatedas an improvement on the Obamacare law, Sen. John Cornyn singled out how much Medicaid costs Texas state government.", "hrefs": [ "http://bit.ly/2lUXmzD" ] }, { "sentence": "We emailed Cornyns office to request his backup, then turned to the authoritative May 2016Fiscal Size-up reportfrom the Legislative Budget Board, which advises state legislators on spending matters.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Publications/Fiscal_SizeUp/Fiscal_SizeUp.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the report, the 2016-17 Texas budget devoted $61.2 billion in funds from all sources, including state and federal aid, to Medicaid, which lately has had a monthly caseload of 4.1 million residents, up from about 2.1 million in 2002, according to a 2017LBB presentation--and that amount over the two years running through August 2017 accounted for 29.3 percent of $209.1 billion in All Funds appropriations.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Appropriations_Bills/85/Introduced_Senate/3559_LBE_SEN_Summary_2018-19.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Federal funds drive Medicaid budgets because by law, the federal share of a states Medicaid expenditures cant be less than 50 percent though the share is refined for each state using a formula comparing the states average per capita income to the national average. In Texas in fiscal 2016, the federal share broke out to about 57 percent,according tothe Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Also, each Texas dollar spent on Medicaid that year was matched by $1.33 in federal aid, the foundation says.", "hrefs": [ "http://kff.org/medicaid/state-indicator/federal-matching-rate-and-multiplier/?currentTimeframe=2&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D" ] }, { "sentence": "Traditionally, lawmakers adjust for increases in Medicaid caseloads and costs that build up between sessions by signing off on short-term supplemental appropriations. A March 2017LBB documentsummarizes a version of House Bill 2, which proposes additional spending through August 2017. From figures in the document, we calculated that lawmakers could end up authorizing $63.8 billion in spending, both state and federal, on Medicaid, through the 2016-17 biennium; barring changes, that would break out to 29.8 percent of the states total budgeted spending of $214.3 billion.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Appropriations_Bills/85/Supplemental_Appropriations/SUPPLEMENTAL_85thLEG.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/michael-bloomberg-donald-trump/", "claim": "Was it stated by Michael Bloomberg that Donald Trump is a 'con artist' and a 'cheat'?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "09/23/2016", "sci_digest": [ "Michael Bloomberg did call Donald Trump's candidacy a \"con,\" but he didn't refer to Trump as a \"con artist\" and a \"cheat.\"" ], "justification": "A graphic featuring an image of former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg next to a quote ostensibly uttered by him about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, referring to the GOP candidate as \"con artist\" and a \"cheat,\" has been widely circulated on social media: I have known Trump for decades. We have traveled in the same business circles. He is known among other millionaires as a con artist and among business owners as a cheat out to stiff everyone. The text of this image first started circulating in July 2016, shortly after Bloomberg made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention to endorse Hillary Clinton. Bloomberg issued several remarks critical of Donald Trump during his DNC speech, including referring to his candidacy as a \"con\" and mocking his business acumen, but he did not say the words attributed to him above. circulating A full transcript of Bloomberg's speech can be found here, while the relevant portion has been reproduced below: here I'm a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con when we see one! Trump says he'll punish manufacturers that move to Mexico or China, but the clothes he sells are made overseas in low-wage factories. He says he wants to put Americans back to work, but he games the US visa system so he can hire temporary foreign workers at low wages. He says he wants to deport 11 million undocumented people, but he seems to have no problem in hiring them. What'd I miss here?! Truth be told, the richest thing about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy. He wants you to believe that we can solve our biggest problems by deporting Mexicans and shutting out Muslims. He wants you to believe that erecting trade barriers will bring back good jobs. He's wrong on both counts. We can only solve our biggest problems if we come together and embrace the freedoms that our Founding Fathers established right here in Philadelphia, which permitted our ancestors to create the great American exceptionalism that all of us now enjoy. Donald Trump doesn't understand that. Hillary Clinton does. And we can only create good jobs if we make smarter investments in infrastructure and do more to support small businesses. Not stiff them. Donald Trump doesn't understand that. Hillary Clinton does. I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump's business plan is a disaster in the making. He would make it harder for small businesses to compete, do great damage to our economy, threaten the retirement savings of millions of Americans, lead to greater debt and more unemployment, erode our influence in the world, and make our communities less safe. The bottom line is: Trump is a risky, reckless, and radical choice. And we can't afford to make that choice. Nonetheless, some newspapers misquoted Bloomberg and reported that he had referred to Trump as a \"con artist\": misquoted As Michael Bloomberg said perfectly about Trump during his speech at the Democratic convention in July: Im a New Yorker and I know a con artist when I see one. It was Florida senator Marco Rubio who referred to Trump (more than once) as a \"con artist\" during the campaign for the Republican nomination: referred We are so excited about what lies ahead for our campaign, Rubio said. You see, just five days ago, we began to unmask the true nature of the front-runner so far in this race. Five days ago, we began to explain to the American people that Donald Trump is a con artist. Two weeks from tonight right here in Florida we are going to send a message loud and clear, Rubio said. We are going to send the message that the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con artist.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1IOOwjZ92UB1d9ZFfvvvoC6B3EofbQptc" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The text of this image first started circulating in July 2016, shortly after Bloomberg made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention to endorse Hillary Clinton. Bloomberg issued several remarks critical of Donald Trump during his DNC speech, including referring to his candidacy as a \"con\" and mocking his business acumen, but he did not say the words attributed to him above.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/groups/268096136534189/permalink/1346390405371418/?match=dGhlIHNhbWUgYnVzaW5lc3MgY2lyY2xlcyBoZSBpcyBrbm93biBhbW9uZyBvdGhlciBtaWxsaW9uYWlyZXMgYXMgYSBjb24gYXJ0aXN0IGFuZCBhbW9uZyBidXNpbmVzcyBvd25lcnMgYXMgYSBjaGVhdCBvdXQgdG8gc3RpZmYgZXZlcnlvbmUsaSBoYXZlIGtub3duIHRydW1wIGZvciBkZWNhZGVzIHdlIGhhdmUgdHJhdmVsZWQ%3D" ] }, { "sentence": "A full transcript of Bloomberg's speech can be found here, while the relevant portion has been reproduced below:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12302828/michael-bloomberg-dnc-speech-transcript-2016-democratic-convention" ] }, { "sentence": "Nonetheless, some newspapers misquoted Bloomberg and reported that he had referred to Trump as a \"con artist\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/08/27/letter-trumps-ego-will-make-world-dangerous/89410414/" ] }, { "sentence": "It was Florida senator Marco Rubio who referred to Trump (more than once) as a \"con artist\" during the campaign for the Republican nomination:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-02/republican-elites-harden-to-trump-as-voters-flock-to-him" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clint-eastwood-net-worth/", "claim": "Did Clint Eastwood's Net Worth Leave His Family 'in Tears'?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/14/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A strange online death hoax about Clint Eastwood's net worth purportedly leaving his family \"in tears\" circulated in online advertisements late in 2020." ], "justification": "Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning work includes four Oscars: Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role for both 1993's \"Unforgiven\" and 2004's \"Million Dollar Baby.\" Eastwood's work spans decades, and some of his roles were uncredited. For example, he briefly appeared in 1995's \"Casper.\" Also, since at least September 2020 he appeared uncredited in none other than an online advertisement that read: \"Clint Eastwood's Net Worth Left His Family In Tears.\" appeared an online advertisement Of course, Eastwood had nothing to do with the dubious ad. Further, he was not dead. As of December 2020, Clint Eastwood was alive and filming a new movie during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 90-year-old actor was born on May 31, 1930. filming a new movie The misleading advertisements that falsely claimed Eastwood's net worth \"left his family in tears\" led readers to a seemingly endless, multi-page story on refinancegold.com. The headline for the slideshow-style article read: \"Special Celebs & Their Incredible Net Worth.\" story Clint Eastwood's name finally appeared on page 225 after readers had clicked \"Next\" 225 times, right before the end of the story. The page included no mention of his family being left \"in tears.\" Clint Eastwood ~ $375 Million (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI) Clint Eastwood is Hollywoods 70s star who has had a long and fruitful acting career in succeeding decades, mostly portraying rough-and-tough characters in Western settings. These days, he is one a highly accomplished director. He is best known for his roles in the Dollars Trilogy and Dirty Harry films. With a $375-million net fortune in his bank account from his long career as an actor, producer and director in show business, he will never need to ask for a loan in his life ever again. We previously covered other misleading net worth advertisements for Alex Trebek, Sean Connery, Jaleel White, and Richard Gere. White and Gere were both still alive. Alex Trebek Sean Connery Jaleel White Richard Gere On the TrustPilot.com reviews website, a user named Paul H. posted a one-star review for refinancegold.com, the website that created the misleading Clint Eastwood advertisement: posted a one-star review Hurtful Misleading Ad to Draw You In Their morally despicable ad to draw you to their website should warn you right off of having anything to do with this company. The hook was:\"Clint Eastwood's Net Worth Left His Family in Tears\" (accompanied by a pic of Clint looking distraught and at death's door - the sort of pic we could all be caught with at the wrong time of the day). I'm not particularly a fan of Clint Eastwood but as far as I know he's very much alive and not going bankrupt any time soon. I'm sure he doesn't need me to defend him, but this sort of ad is hurtful to those who love him, deceitful and without conscience. Avoid this company like the plague, how far can you trust people who are willing to draw you in with that sort of ad? Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hGERXrgZx167d3jKSe9uF7sY_OE0aBce", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning work includes four Oscars: Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role for both 1993's \"Unforgiven\" and 2004's \"Million Dollar Baby.\" Eastwood's work spans decades, and some of his roles were uncredited. For example, he briefly appeared in 1995's \"Casper.\" Also, since at least September 2020 he appeared uncredited in none other than an online advertisement that read: \"Clint Eastwood's Net Worth Left His Family In Tears.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCcpOk5ni80", "https://archive.vn/UeMzy#selection-283.0-283.51" ] }, { "sentence": "Of course, Eastwood had nothing to do with the dubious ad. Further, he was not dead. As of December 2020, Clint Eastwood was alive and filming a new movie during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 90-year-old actor was born on May 31, 1930.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/clint-eastwood-shooting-movie-in-belen/" ] }, { "sentence": "The misleading advertisements that falsely claimed Eastwood's net worth \"left his family in tears\" led readers to a seemingly endless, multi-page story on refinancegold.com. The headline for the slideshow-style article read: \"Special Celebs & Their Incredible Net Worth.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20201214231535/https://refinancegold.com/trending/can-you-guess-who-has-the-biggest-bank-account?id=2020-02-24+03%3A06%3A03" ] }, { "sentence": " (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/12/GettyImages-631094566-scaled.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "We previously covered other misleading net worth advertisements for Alex Trebek, Sean Connery, Jaleel White, and Richard Gere. White and Gere were both still alive.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alex-trebek-net-worth/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sean-connery-net-worth/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jaleel-white-net-worth-tears/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/richard-gere-net-worth/" ] }, { "sentence": "On the TrustPilot.com reviews website, a user named Paul H. posted a one-star review for refinancegold.com, the website that created the misleading Clint Eastwood advertisement:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.trustpilot.com/review/refinancegold.com" ] }, { "sentence": "Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/contact" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-ban-chappelle-booing-video/", "claim": "Did Elon Musk Ban User Who Posted Video of Musk Being Booed at Chappelle Show?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/12/2022", "sci_digest": [ "As the new owner of Twitter, Musk has instituted sweeping changes not entirely popular with users." ], "justification": "On Dec. 11, 2022, comedian Dave Chappelle invited new Twitter owner Elon Musk to walk onstage during one of his stand-up performances at the Chase Center in San Francisco. The moment was met with a mix of audience reactions, including boos, cheers, and likely a bit of shouting. The event headlined both Chris Rock and Chappelle in a limited, multi-city tour. Hours after the performance ended, video of Musk's moment onstage was made available online. A Twitter user named@CleoPat48937885posted four tweets with four different videos, according to anarchive.vncapture of the profile. It's unclear if the user recorded the videos, but other tweets on the account did show prior interest in concerts in the San Francisco area, as well as Chappelle. This may very well have meant that the user shot the videos with a phone, as they claimed. archive.vn The clips were later made available on YouTube in two parts. two parts The first tweet from @CleoPat48937885 showed the caption, \"Dave chappelle brought up Elon musk up on stage at the chase center. Had to pry the yonder for this ahaha pt 1.\" first tweet The reference to having to \"pry the Yondr\" was about pouches that were supposed to secure phones during the performance. The purpose of Yondr pouches is to lock up phones, disabling the ability for people to take pictures and videos. Such pouches often help to keep stand-up comedy material from leaking out before being eventually released as stronger bits in specials. Prior to the show, the official Chase Center Twitter account described the Yondr pouches like this: described After @CleoPat48937885uploaded all four video clips in tweets on Twitter, a Reddit user linked to the first tweet in aposton the r/videos subreddit. post Within either minutes or hours, the Twitter account for@CleoPat48937885 disappeared, which meant that the tweets were no longer available. As of Dec. 12, the account did not show a message that indicated it was \"suspended,\" as had been seen in past years for accounts that had been suspended. Rather, the page for the account only said, \"This account doesn't exist.\" One Reddit user commented, without citing evidence, \"The fact that Elon suspended the user over it makes it even more worth sharing.\" Many other users across social media made the same claim, saying that Musk had suspended or banned@CleoPat48937885, perhaps in order to bury the existence of the videos. commented Another user tweeted, \"Elon Musk is deleting accounts that post this video of him being booed for 10 minutes last night at a Dave Chapelle show. He can't delete us all. Retweet while you still can.\" The tweet received tens of thousands of engagements and was still available hours later. tweeted We haven't yet uncovered evidence that Musk or anyone else at Twitter suspended or banned@CleoPat48937885. It's possible, yes, but there's no data that showed this rumor to be true. Another potential possibility was that the Twitter user saw how the story was blowing up on blogs and social media and feared security officials at Chase Center might be able to identifythe user with video footage from where it was recorded, or through other methods. Basically, we don't know for sure why the account no longer exists. A screenshot of the aforementioned Reddit thread was posted to Twitter with the caption, \"They are blocking Twitter users who post the video.\" However, we found plenty of people who continually posted the videos of Musk onstage with Chappelle whose accounts were not suspended. posted At one point on Dec. 12, the day after the performance, the news was becoming so popular that Chappelle showed up as a trend in the U.S. The trend remained live on the sidebar of the website and, as of this writing, was not being removed or hidden by the platform. Chadwiko. \"Elon Musk Got Booed off the Stage at the Dave Chappelle Show in SF Last Night.\" r/videos on Reddit.com, 12 Dec. 2022, https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/zjutsq/comment/izwkk7w/. @ChaseCenter. Twitter, 11 Dec. 2022, https://twitter.com/ChaseCenter/status/1602023274258366464. \"Chris Rock & Dave Chappelle at Chase Center.\" Chase Center, https://www.chasecenter.com/events/chris-rock-dave-chappelle-20221211. @CleoPat48937885. Twitter, https://twitter.com/CleoPat48937885/. Lehman, Gabe. \"Elon Musk Stunned after Mass Booing at Chappelle SF Show.\" SFGATE, 12 Dec. 2022, https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/dave-chappelle-brings-elon-musk-17648515.php.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RHP6m_BRWgUTfZtKG83PjUpuAosHSL3c", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1tSIsiNQnuYgB3Snt9NS7TQR4ZSjB4cBm", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bRbSjeADA3Gsvh50tUX8U_fHm61FUb1L", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Hours after the performance ended, video of Musk's moment onstage was made available online. A Twitter user named@CleoPat48937885posted four tweets with four different videos, according to anarchive.vncapture of the profile. It's unclear if the user recorded the videos, but other tweets on the account did show prior interest in concerts in the San Francisco area, as well as Chappelle. This may very well have meant that the user shot the videos with a phone, as they claimed.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/7iJBu" ] }, { "sentence": "The clips were later made available on YouTube in two parts.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQhTwyLTgXA", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_6r7atpW_U" ] }, { "sentence": "The first tweet from @CleoPat48937885 showed the caption, \"Dave chappelle brought up Elon musk up on stage at the chase center. Had to pry the yonder for this ahaha pt 1.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/sDx2G" ] }, { "sentence": "Prior to the show, the official Chase Center Twitter account described the Yondr pouches like this:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ChaseCenter/status/1602023274258366464" ] }, { "sentence": "After @CleoPat48937885uploaded all four video clips in tweets on Twitter, a Reddit user linked to the first tweet in aposton the r/videos subreddit.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/zjutsq/elon_musk_got_booed_off_the_stage_at_the_dave/" ] }, { "sentence": "One Reddit user commented, without citing evidence, \"The fact that Elon suspended the user over it makes it even more worth sharing.\" Many other users across social media made the same claim, saying that Musk had suspended or banned@CleoPat48937885, perhaps in order to bury the existence of the videos.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/zjutsq/comment/izwkk7w/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3" ] }, { "sentence": "Another user tweeted, \"Elon Musk is deleting accounts that post this video of him being booed for 10 minutes last night at a Dave Chapelle show. He can't delete us all. Retweet while you still can.\" The tweet received tens of thousands of engagements and was still available hours later.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/duty2warn/status/1602319496076722178" ] }, { "sentence": "A screenshot of the aforementioned Reddit thread was posted to Twitter with the caption, \"They are blocking Twitter users who post the video.\" However, we found plenty of people who continually posted the videos of Musk onstage with Chappelle whose accounts were not suspended.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ClydeInky/status/1602341916909215744" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sanders-mlk-selma-march/", "claim": "Bernie Sanders Marched with MLK at Selma?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "01/21/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph doesn't show Bernie Sanders marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 with Martin Luther King, Jr." ], "justification": "On 20 January 2016, the web site Democratic Underground posted a photograph purportedly showing Bernie Sanders participating in a 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery (Alabama) with Martin Luther King, Jr. The web site identified the man standing \"behind Coretta King, just right of Old Glory in the glasses, white 't' shirt, open collar and dark jacket\" as the future United States senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate: photograph The man pictured in the above-displayed photograph does bear a resemblance to a young Bernie Sanders, but that similarity isn't sufficient by itself to confirm that Sanders took part in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march: The above-displayed image was taken on 26 March 1965, and a caption to the photograph provided by licenser Corbis Images identifies Martin Luther King, Jr. along with several other prominent political leaders but makes no mention of Bernie Sanders: caption Dr. Martin Luther King (C) leads thousands of civil rights demonstrators out on the last leg of their Selma to Montgomery 50-mile hike. Others identifiable in the front row include John Davis (2nd from L) of SNCC, King's aide Reverend Ralph Abernathy (3rd from L), Dr. Ralph Bunche (5th from L), Mrs. King (next to her husband) and Reverend Hosea Williams (carrying little girl, R). This photograph has been widely available for decades, but it wasn't until January 2016 that Bernie Sanders' name became associated with a face in the crowd. Although Sanders has stated that he did participate in the landmark \"March on Washington\" civil rights event of August 1963 (where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic \"I Have a Dream\" speech), we haven't found any record of Sanders' claiming that he was also present at any other civil rights march involving Martin Luther King, Jr: stated speech On the national holiday named for the civil rights leader, Sen. Bernie Sanders called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., \"one of the great leaders in American history.\" Sanders, then a college student, was in the crowd on The Mall in Washington when King delivered his \"I have a dream\" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. \"We must never forget his heroic efforts to end segregation and racial injustice. It is also important, however, to remember that he fought for a society in which all people had good jobs at good wages and that quality education and health care were available to all. At a time when we have an almost record number of Americans living in poverty, obscene levels of income and wealth inequality and millions working longer hours for lower pay, we still have much to learn from Dr. King's extraordinary life.\" As Mother Jones noted, Sander's active participation in the Civil Rights movement was \"brief and localized\" and effectively ended in 1963: noted Civil Rights Sanders' involvement was brief and localized, his sacrifices limited to one arrest for protesting and a bad GPA from neglecting his studies. But Sanders was, in his own right, an active participant in the movement during his three years at the University of Chicago. Although Sanders did attend the 1963 March on Washington, at which Lewis spoke, most of his work was in and around Hyde Park, where he became involved with the campus chapter of CORE [Congress of Racial Equality] shortly after transferring from Brooklyn College in 1961. During Sanders' first year in Chicago, a group of apartment-hunting white and black students had discovered that off-campus buildings owned by the university were refusing to rent to black students, in violation of the school's policies. CORE organized a 15-day sit-in at the administration building, which Sanders helped lead. The protest ended when George Beadle, the university's president, agreed to form a commission to study the school's housing policies. That spring, with Sanders as its chairman, the university chapter of CORE merged with the university chapter of SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]. Sanders announced plans to take the fight to the city of Chicago, and in the fall of 1962 he followed through, organizing picketers at a Howard Johnson in Cicero. Sanders told the Chicago Maroon, the student newspaper, that he wanted to keep the pressure on the restaurant chain after the arrest of 12 CORE demonstrators in North Carolina for trying to eat at a Howard Johnson there. Sanders left his leadership role at the organization not long afterward; his grades suffered so much from his activism that a dean asked him to take some time off from school. But he continued his activism with CORE and SNCC. In August of 1963, not long after returning to Chicago from the March on Washington, Sanders was charged with resisting arrest after protesting segregation at a school on the city's South Side. He was later fined $25, according to the Chicago Tribune. Some have pegged the identity of the face circled above as likely being that of Paul Reese, who looked somewhat like a young Bernie Sanders, participated in civil rights events of the time, and was present at the march pictured here: Paul Reese In short: One more time: that picture is not of Bernie Sanders, who did not march in Selma. His campaign has *confirmed* this. https://t.co/EseJmycaVX https://t.co/EseJmycaVX Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) February 12, 2016 February 12, 2016 ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1xcF4vLI0ZsY9poT1VeT8sYEVR76QIUwV", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mA3IDdX-2uTC74Rtv24NU5WH6P8OD3tq", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 20 January 2016, the web site Democratic Underground posted a photograph purportedly showing Bernie Sanders participating in a 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery (Alabama) with Martin Luther King, Jr. The web site identified the man standing \"behind Coretta King, just right of Old Glory in the glasses, white 't' shirt, open collar and dark jacket\" as the future United States senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.democraticunderground.com/128099366#post1" ] }, { "sentence": "The above-displayed image was taken on 26 March 1965, and a caption to the photograph provided by licenser Corbis Images identifies Martin Luther King, Jr. along with several other prominent political leaders but makes no mention of Bernie Sanders:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/BE047040/selmamontgomery-march-leaders-crowd" ] }, { "sentence": "This photograph has been widely available for decades, but it wasn't until January 2016 that Bernie Sanders' name became associated with a face in the crowd. Although Sanders has stated that he did participate in the landmark \"March on Washington\" civil rights event of August 1963 (where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic \"I Have a Dream\" speech), we haven't found any record of Sanders' claiming that he was also present at any other civil rights march involving Martin Luther King, Jr:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPWcmPE5shc", "https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/martin-luther-king-jr" ] }, { "sentence": "As Mother Jones noted, Sander's active participation in the Civil Rights movement was \"brief and localized\" and effectively ended in 1963:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago", "/sanders-mlk-selma-march/" ] }, { "sentence": "Some have pegged the identity of the face circled above as likely being that of Paul Reese, who looked somewhat like a young Bernie Sanders, participated in civil rights events of the time, and was present at the march pictured here:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pressrepublican.com/news/memories-of-selma-then-and-now/article_0cc45ff5-abfc-5e94-9d8c-45aceab4decf.html" ] }, { "sentence": "One more time: that picture is not of Bernie Sanders, who did not march in Selma. His campaign has *confirmed* this. https://t.co/EseJmycaVX", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/EseJmycaVX" ] }, { "sentence": " Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) February 12, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/697964945267408896" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/toys-r-us-closing-locations-not-accepting-gift-cards/", "claim": "Are all Toys R Us stores shutting down and refusing to honor gift cards?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "03/14/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Ongoing business troubles for the toy chain led to rumors that gift cards could soon be (or already are) of no value." ], "justification": "In mid-March 2018, readers began to ask whether it was true that Toys R Us locations had stopped accepting gift cards as a form of payment as of 11 March 2018: is it true toy retailer, Toys R Us is no longer accepting gift cards after 3/11/18? Many linked to a 10 March 2018 Scotsman.com article about a similar situation, but it focused on Toys R Us locations specifically in the United Kingdom: article Toys R Us have said on their website: Gift cards and vouchers will be honoured until Sunday, 11 March [2018]. There are no refunds for cash value on any gift cards. But customers are encouraged to redeem such vouchers as soon as possible as stores may be subject to closure without notice. News about UK-based locations proved confusing to some readers, and the gift card announcement coincided with matters related to Toys R Us' fiscal solvency in the United States. A post shared to shopping site SlickDeals in March 2018 posited that those in possession of Toys R Us gift cards ought to use them sooner rather than later: locations posited Multiple reports are out there that TRU is going into liquidation bankruptcy next week. If you have gift cards, they'll be trash the moment they announce, most likely. Use those cards this weekend if you don't want them to be worthless. Hold onto receipts if they manage to avoid liquidation, you can just return the items if you didn't have anything much you wanted right now. If not, at least you got something for your paper. Also remember to check your rewards total and use those points/certificates as well! The post referenced a 9 March 2018 CNNMoney article about the closure of UK-based Toys R Us locations, and the state of the retailer's finances in the United States. article On 13 March 2018, CNBC cited reports of a liquidation plan in progress: cited Toys R Us, the iconic U.S. retailer, is in the process of drafting the court motion for its liquidation plan, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC on [13 March 2018]. The retailer could file as soon as the end of [14 March 2018], making the motion official. It will then begin to wind down the storied toy retailer, after more than half a century in business. A liquidation will most likely result in the closing of all of Toys R Us' 800 stores in the U.S. As of midday on 14 March 2018 the web site ToysRUs.com still accepted gift cards as payment, and the site offered customers the option of purchasing physical or virtual versions at checkout: purchasing Although articles speculated that Toys R Us gift cards might soon become worthless in the United States, and UK outlets have stopped accepting them, no definitive information about their future is yet available. speculated In response to our inquiry, a representative for Toys R Us replied: Thanks for asking! Please know that we are not going out of business, but we are making changes to the number of stores we have. In the meantime, our stores are operating as usual and you can also continue to shop online at https://www.toysrus.com and https://www.babiesrus.com. Additionally, our customer registry, credit, warranty and loyalty programs will continue as normal. We will also continue to sell and accept gift cards as always. On 15 March 2018, a representative for Toys R Us said the chain planned to honor gift cards for a 30-day period. However, the Better Business Bureau advised consumers to use the cards \"sooner rather than later.\" said Bomey, Nathan. \"Toys 'R' Us Gift Cards Are Good For The Next 30 Days.\"\r USA Today. 15 March 2018. Goldman, David. \"Toys 'R' Us To Close All Of Its UK Stores.\"\r CNNMoney. 14 March 2018. Hirsch, Lauren. \"Toys R Us Prepares Plan To Liquidate Its Business.\"\r CNBC. 13 March 2018. Jackson, Russell. \"Toys R Us Gift Cards No Longer Being Accepted In Stores.\"\r The Scotsman. 10 March 2018, LaMonica, Paul. \"Toys 'R' Us Could Go Out Of Business. That's Bad News For Lego And Barbie.\"\r CNNMoney. 9 March 2018, Peterson, Hayley. \"Toys R Us Gift Cards Could Be Useless In A Matter Of Weeks.\"\r Business Insider. 13 March 2018, ToysRUs.com. \"Gift Cards.\"\r Accessed 14 March 2018. Updated 15 March 2018, 9:46 A.M.: Added a statement from a Toys R Us representative. Updated 16 March 2018, 1:39 P.M.: Added confirmation of 30-day expiry made by company representative. ", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Mx2flYcGk1hN3wDa5UBnXI3LbrpzOLIW" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Many linked to a 10 March 2018 Scotsman.com article about a similar situation, but it focused on Toys R Us locations specifically in the United Kingdom:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.scotsman.com/news/toys-r-us-gift-cards-no-longer-being-accepted-in-stores-1-4703518" ] }, { "sentence": "News about UK-based locations proved confusing to some readers, and the gift card announcement coincided with matters related to Toys R Us' fiscal solvency in the United States. A post shared to shopping site SlickDeals in March 2018 posited that those in possession of Toys R Us gift cards ought to use them sooner rather than later:", "hrefs": [ "https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/14/news/companies/toys-r-us-closing/index.html", "https://slickdeals.net/f/11354815-psa-toys-r-us-finally-most-likely-going-bankrupt-next-week-use-those-gift-cards-or-rewards-this-weekend-people" ] }, { "sentence": "The post referenced a 9 March 2018 CNNMoney article about the closure of UK-based Toys R Us locations, and the state of the retailer's finances in the United States. ", "hrefs": [ "https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/09/investing/toys-r-us-closing-hasbro-mattel/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "On 13 March 2018, CNBC cited reports of a liquidation plan in progress:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/toys-r-us-is-preparing-to-file-its-liquidation-plan-with-the-court.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As of midday on 14 March 2018 the web site ToysRUs.com still accepted gift cards as payment, and the site offered customers the option of purchasing physical or virtual versions at checkout:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.toysrus.com/toys/gifts/gift-cards" ] }, { "sentence": "Although articles speculated that Toys R Us gift cards might soon become worthless in the United States, and UK outlets have stopped accepting them, no definitive information about their future is yet available.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-gift-cards-could-be-useless-2018-3" ] }, { "sentence": "On 15 March 2018, a representative for Toys R Us said the chain planned to honor gift cards for a 30-day period. However, the Better Business Bureau advised consumers to use the cards \"sooner rather than later.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/15/toys-r-us-gift-cards/427268002/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-created-more-jobs-trump/", "claim": "Did the final three years of Obama's presidency witness a greater number of jobs being generated compared to the initial three years of Trump's administration?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "02/19/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Left-leaning critics of U.S. President Donald Trump rejected his claims to overseeing unprecedented economic growth in early 2020. Who was right?" ], "justification": "In February 2020, we received multiple inquiries from readers about the veracity of social media posts and news articles which claimed that the U.S. economy had added 1.5 million more jobs during former President Barack Obama's final three years in office, than it did during President Donald Trump's first three years. On Feb. 17, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, tweeted that Obama had \"created 1.5 million more jobs in his last 3 years than Donald Trump has in his first 3 years.\" tweeted Earlier, the left-leaning Democratic Coalition group posted a link to a Yahoo! News article with the headline \"Trump's First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama's Last 3,\" adding \"FACT: New figures from Trumps own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trumps tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obamas a decline of 19% under Trump.\" posted article That article was itself a republication of a Feb. 10 report published by HuffPost, which read as follows: HuffPost \"As President Donald Trump takes the stage at his reelection rally here [Manchester, New Hampshire] Monday and boasts of his economic record, there is one statistic he is likely to omit: He created 1.5 million fewer jobs in his first three years in office than predecessor Barack Obama did in his final three. Newly revised figures from Trumps own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trumps tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obamas a decline of 19% under Trump, according to a HuffPost analysis.\" The HuffPost article didn't specify the exact metric it used in order to arrive at those numbers, but the standard figure used to gauge jobs growth in the United States is total, seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment, which is released every month as part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) establishment survey, in which BLS collects data from a sample of around 145,000 businesses and government agencies throughout the country. establishment survey When a news headline states that, for example, the economy \"added 225,000 Jobs in January,\" that's typically a reference to seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment and it means there were 225,000 more jobs in the United States in January 2020, than there were in December 2019. news headline states Once a year, the BLS revises its employment data after consulting more official figures collected from each state's unemployment insurance agency. This \"benchmark\" revision process enhances the accuracy of jobs figures and typically results in retrospective adjustments to employment statistics from every month over the preceding 10 years. benchmark That's what happened on Feb. 7, when the BLS released both the preliminary employment figures for January and revised jobs numbers from 2010 through 2019. Those revisions meant that jobs growth in 2018 turned out to be slower than was originally recorded, prompting Slate to report that: released Slate \"On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest batch of employment numbers, along with its annual benchmark revisions adjusting its estimates from prior months. Before, the government believed that the U.S. had added 223,000 jobs per month in 2018, the year that the GOPs tax cuts and new, higher spending levels took effect. It has now lowered that estimate to 193,000 per month, a significant drop.\" For its part, MSNBC wrote that: MSNBC The revisions for 2019 showed that the economy generated nearly 2.1 million jobs last year, which is a pretty good number. The trouble, however, is the job totals from last year were down from the year before, and were actually the lowest since 2011. Or put another way, while Trump spent the year boasting that the U.S. job market was the strongest it's ever been, 2019 saw job growth slow to an eight-year low. What's more, the best year for jobs during Trump's presidency 2.31 million in 2018 fails to reach the job growth in any of the three final years of Barack Obama's presidency. It adds a degree of irony to his rhetorical record: Trump ran for president in 2015 and 2016, telling the nation that the economy was horrible and he'd make it vastly better. But annual job growth totals from both 2015 and 2016 were better than any year of the Republican's tenure, at least so far. Taking this one step further, Trump has now been in office for 36 full months February 2017 through January 2020 and in that time, the economy has created 6.56 million jobs. In the 36 months preceding Trump's presidency February 2014 to January 2017 the economy created 8.08 million jobs. Before we present the figures at the heart of this fact check, it should be noted that as a rule, politicians overstate their influence over the economy when indicators are healthy, and downplay their influence when things are bad. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times, before Trump's inauguration in January 2017: wrote \"The reality is that presidents have far less control over the economy than you might imagine. Presidential economic records are highly dependent on the dumb luck of where the nation is in the economic cycle. And the White House has no control over the demographic and technological forces that influence the economy. Even in areas where the president really does have power to shape the economy appointing Federal Reserve governors, steering fiscal and regulatory policy, responding to crises and external shocks the relationship between presidential action and economic outcome is often uncertain and hard to prove.\" However, Trump himself has repeatedly insisted on tying positive economic indicators like employment growth to his own presidency. So even if we might dispute the premise that presidents should receive unqualified praise or blame when the economy grows or tanks, it's worth checking the numbers involved. After all, if Trump proposes that he is to be thanked for employment growth, his own logic dictates that he should be blamed if that rate of growth is slowing down. insisted In order to measure and compare jobs growth during Obama's final three years in office and jobs growth during Trump's first three, we obtained a data set containing 10 years' worth of monthly non-farm payroll employment figures, which BLS confirmed for Snopes was the most reliable and up-to-date data set available, and took into account the February 2020 benchmark revisions. The spreadsheet can be downloaded here, and the table is shown below: here It's important to note that the monthly employment figures for December 2019 and January 2020 are both still preliminary. The January 2020 figure will be revised in March, and all the monthly figures shown in the table are liable to be further revised in 2021, when BLS conducts its annual benchmark revisions again. There are several potential ways to compare jobs growth under Obama and Trump, depending on where you place the transition between the two administrations. Since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, there is a case for \"starting the clock\" in January 2017, but also for starting it in February 2017, since that was his first full month in office. If the purpose of the comparison is to gauge the possible influence of a presidency on employment trends, one could also measure jobs growth starting in November 2016, since that's when Trump was actually elected, or in December 2016, since that was the first full month of what could be described as the \"Trump era.\" Finally, if one wished to use only the most reliable figures available, and exclude the preliminary data from December 2019 and January 2020, one could track jobs growth for just the first 34 months of Trump's presidency (from February 2017 to November 2019), and compare that to the final 34 months of Obama's tenure (from April 2014 to January 2017). The following table takes into account all five methods. Each of them demonstrates that the final three years of Obama's presidency saw significantly superior jobs growth than the first three years of Trump's presidency. As the table shows, Obama's final three years in office saw significantly greater jobs growth than Trump's fist three years did, no matter where the transition between presidencies is placed. Across the first four different methods, the gap averages out at around 1.5 million jobs meaning the claim at the center of this fact check was accurate. Employment has grown during the first three years of Trump's presidency, but at a significantly slower rate than it did towards the end of Obama's tenure across the first four methods used here, jobs growth under Trump has averaged out at around 19% slower than the rate of growth experienced during his predecessor's final three years in office. When we exclude the two months of preliminary data (December 2019 and January 2020) and compare blocks of 34 months each (as opposed to blocks of 36 months), the jobs growth gap is naturally slightly smaller (because the time periods in question are slightly shorter), but the gap in the rate of growth is still significant, with Trump's presidency seeing employment grow 18.2% more slowly than it did during the final 34 months of Obama's time in office. Date, S.V. \"Trumps First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obamas Last 3.\"\r Yahoo! News. 10 February 2020. Date, S.V. \"Trumps First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obamas Last 3.\"\r HuffPost. 10 February 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. \"Economic News Release -- the Employment Situation, January 2020.\"\r 7 February 2020. Weissmann, Jordan. \"Trumps Jobs Record Is Weaker Than Everyone Thought.\"\r Slate. 7 February 2020. Benen, Steve. \"The Nagging Detail About Job Growth Trump Probably Won't Like.\"\r MSNBC. 7 February 2020. Irwin, Neil. \"Presidents Have Less Power Over the Economy Than You Might Think.\"\r The New York Times. 17 January 2017. Boak, Josh; Miller, Zeke. \"Trump Claims Credit for Economy, Jobs in New York Speech.\"\r The Associated Press. 12 November 2019.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1R3UZn644qzcYOq54mjQ9yh2bnwxR2di3" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pVR4J4DZ-ZvYpVCqjTvuKDn9j_ZlmiDk" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10nQLPZ9ADnQbYzTOaN31dM8vz60ORBXL" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1kJl190URj2DzoVtuKHSPzhh7Xt-mJAoV" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Feb. 17, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, tweeted that Obama had \"created 1.5 million more jobs in his last 3 years than Donald Trump has in his first 3 years.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Y6kKL" ] }, { "sentence": "Earlier, the left-leaning Democratic Coalition group posted a link to a Yahoo! News article with the headline \"Trump's First 3 Years Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama's Last 3,\" adding \"FACT: New figures from Trumps own Department of Labor show that 6.6 million new jobs were created in the first 36 months of Trumps tenure, compared with 8.1 million in the final 36 months of Obamas a decline of 19% under Trump.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/mEk8J", "https://archive.is/zs0lp" ] }, { "sentence": "That article was itself a republication of a Feb. 10 report published by HuffPost, which read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/8tALi" ] }, { "sentence": "The HuffPost article didn't specify the exact metric it used in order to arrive at those numbers, but the standard figure used to gauge jobs growth in the United States is total, seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment, which is released every month as part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) establishment survey, in which BLS collects data from a sample of around 145,000 businesses and government agencies throughout the country.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cestn.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "When a news headline states that, for example, the economy \"added 225,000 Jobs in January,\" that's typically a reference to seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment and it means there were 225,000 more jobs in the United States in January 2020, than there were in December 2019. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/lEfD8", "https://archive.is/cr07M", "https://archive.is/Jauy0" ] }, { "sentence": "Once a year, the BLS revises its employment data after consulting more official figures collected from each state's unemployment insurance agency. This \"benchmark\" revision process enhances the accuracy of jobs figures and typically results in retrospective adjustments to employment statistics from every month over the preceding 10 years. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/6GJtS" ] }, { "sentence": "That's what happened on Feb. 7, when the BLS released both the preliminary employment figures for January and revised jobs numbers from 2010 through 2019. Those revisions meant that jobs growth in 2018 turned out to be slower than was originally recorded, prompting Slate to report that:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20200215035519/https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm", "https://archive.is/cbRzw" ] }, { "sentence": "For its part, MSNBC wrote that:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/S04st" ] }, { "sentence": "Before we present the figures at the heart of this fact check, it should be noted that as a rule, politicians overstate their influence over the economy when indicators are healthy, and downplay their influence when things are bad. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times, before Trump's inauguration in January 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/Lzguh" ] }, { "sentence": "However, Trump himself has repeatedly insisted on tying positive economic indicators like employment growth to his own presidency. So even if we might dispute the premise that presidents should receive unqualified praise or blame when the economy grows or tanks, it's worth checking the numbers involved. After all, if Trump proposes that he is to be thanked for employment growth, his own logic dictates that he should be blamed if that rate of growth is slowing down.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/8Eixa" ] }, { "sentence": "In order to measure and compare jobs growth during Obama's final three years in office and jobs growth during Trump's first three, we obtained a data set containing 10 years' worth of monthly non-farm payroll employment figures, which BLS confirmed for Snopes was the most reliable and up-to-date data set available, and took into account the February 2020 benchmark revisions. The spreadsheet can be downloaded here, and the table is shown below:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/02/SeriesReport-20200219163101_f61953.xlsx" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fireworks-furlough/", "claim": "Have July 4th Events at Military Installations Been Called Off?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "07/02/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: President Obama has canceled July 4 celebrations at U.S. military bases to save money." ], "justification": " Claim: President Obama has canceled July 4 celebrations at U.S. military bases to save money. OUTDATED Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2013] Supposedly the president has cancelled 4th of July celebrations for the troops on military bases to save money. Origins: This item about President Obama's having cancelled Independence Day celebrations at U.S. military bases scheduled for 4 July 2013 began circulating a few days before that holiday. It is true that some of the U.S. military bases which typically stage larger July 4 shows cut back or canceled their 4th of July celebrations that year, but those bases individually chose to do so due to budgetary constraints, not because President Obama directed all U.S. bases to skip celebrating Independence Day that year to \"save money.\" The mandatory $85 billion budget cut imposed by sequestration as of March 2013 an outcome for which Congress and the President shared some measure of blame due to their inability to resolve deficit reduction issues affected many federal departments, including the military. Therefore, some U.S. military bases had to make the choice of scrapping annual fireworks shows (which can cost upwards of $100,000) or other Independence Day events in order to allocate funds to more vital areas: sequestration The Fourth of July won't have a patriotic boom in the sky over some military bases because budget cuts and furloughed workers also mean furloughed fireworks. Independence Day celebrations have been canceled at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base and at the Army's Fort Bragg, both in North Carolina. The annual July Fourth celebration also has been scrapped at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Ga. The reason is money namely the lack of it. The failure in Washington to follow up a 2011 budget pact with additional spending cuts meant $85 billion across-the-board cuts that began in March. Budgets tightened, the military took a major hit and many federal workers absorbed pay cuts through forced furloughs. When the decision was made to forgo fireworks at Camp Lejeune, the commanding general, Brig. Gen. Thomas Gorry, said the cancellation would \"ensure that we can mitigate the fiscal challenges we are currently facing.\" Last year's Independence Day at the base cost about $100,000, including $25,000 for the fireworks. The big issue is paying the overtime to personnel for security, transportation, logistics and safety. Base officials said they couldn't justify paying overtime when federal workers are losing pay while furloughed. Marines and their families at Lejeune will instead be able to participate in some free activities golf, bowling, skeet shooting, archery and movies. Other bases that are canceling ceremonies to mark the nation's birthday: Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, where the annual Jammin' July 4th put on by the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw and local city and county officials has been scrapped. The base plans a smaller \"freedom bash\" on July 3 with pool games, face painting and bouncy castles. The Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, which is scaling back by canceling the fireworks and instead hosting a daytime celebration featuring the Pacific Fleet Band and the Air Force Band of the Pacific. New Jersey's Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Last updated: 8 June 2015 Kerr, Jennifer C. \"A Fourth of July with No Fireworks for Some Military Bases.\" The Washington Post. 1 July 2013.", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/p070414ps-1146.jpeg" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The mandatory $85 billion budget cut imposed by sequestration as of March 2013 an outcome for which Congress and the President shared some measure of blame due to their inability to resolve deficit reduction issues affected many federal departments, including the military. Therefore, some U.S. military bases had to make the choice of scrapping annual fireworks shows (which can cost upwards of $100,000) or other Independence Day events in order to allocate funds to more vital areas: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/sequester" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/robin-williams-helps-the-homeless/", "claim": "Did Robin Williams' Contracts Help the Homeless?", "author": "Snopes Staff", "posted": "08/25/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Comedian Robin Williams was lauded for his charitable initiative towards the homeless in a viral Facebook post." ], "justification": "In the wake of comedian Robin Williams' death by suicide in August 2014, an item about Williams' supposedly requiring in his work contracts that \"the company hiring him also had to hire a certain number of homeless people and put them to work\" quickly spread far and wide online: Years ago I learned a very cool thing about Robin Williams, and I couldn't watch a movie of his afterward without thinking of it. I never actually booked Robin Williams for an event, but I came close enough that his office sent over his rider. For those outside of the entertainment industry, a rider lists out an artist's specific personal and technical needs for hosting them for an event- anything from bottled water and their green room to sound and lighting requirements. You can learn a lot about a person from their rider. This is where rocks bands list their requirement for green M&Ms (which is actually a surprisingly smart thing to do). This is also where a famous environmentalist requires a large gas-guzzling private jet to fly to the event city, but then requires an electric or hybrid car to take said environmentalist to the event venue when in view of the public. When I got Robin Williams' rider, I was very surprised by what I found. He actually had a requirement that for every single event or film he did, the company hiring him also had to hire a certain number of homeless people and put them to work. I never watched a Robin Williams movie the same way after that. I'm sure that on his own time and with his own money, he was working with these people in need, but he'd also decided to use his clout as an entertainer to make sure that production companies and event planners also learned the value of giving people a chance to work their way back. I wonder how many production companies continued the practice into their next non-Robin Williams project, as well as how many people got a chance at a job and the pride of earning an income, even temporarily, from his actions. He was a great multiplier of his impact. Let's hope that impact lives on without him. Thanks, Robin Williams -- not just for laughs, but also for a cool example. This account appears to have originated with an article posted by Brian Lord (\"A Little Known Robin Williams Story\") on 12 August 2014, recounting the author's experience in attempting to hire Williams for an event: Brian Lord I never actually booked Robin Williams for an event, but I came close enough that his office sent over his rider. When I got Robin Williams' rider, I was very surprised by what I found. He actually had a requirement that for every single event or film he did, the company hiring him also had to hire a certain number of homeless people and put them to work. That bit of information took off virally when it was quoted in a Facebook post made on 25 August by a user named \"Perry Marshall,\" whom many readers confused with Penny Marshall, an actress/comedienne who was friends with Robin Williams throughout his life. Facebook As of now this story remains unverified: We've seen no mention or confirmation of it by anyone who ever worked with Robin Williams, nor has anyone to our knowledge produced a copy of a Robin Williams contract bearing the clause in question. The Smoking Gun document leak site long ago posted what may have been a backstage rider from a Robin Williams' appearance in 2002, but it included no reference in its text to a requirement for employing the homeless. backstage rider", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1JJwzv3T2aSR1hnx0pR0lssC35gcEQ6c4", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This account appears to have originated with an article posted by Brian Lord (\"A Little Known Robin Williams Story\") on 12 August 2014, recounting the author's experience in attempting to hire Williams for an event:", "hrefs": [ "https://brianlord.org/2014/08/12/a-little-known-robin-williams-story/" ] }, { "sentence": "That bit of information took off virally when it was quoted in a Facebook post made on 25 August by a user named \"Perry Marshall,\" whom many readers confused with Penny Marshall, an actress/comedienne who was friends with Robin Williams throughout his life.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/perrymarshallcom/photos/a.64846114983.21409.54830869983/10150430256394984/?type=1" ] }, { "sentence": "As of now this story remains unverified: We've seen no mention or confirmation of it by anyone who ever worked with Robin Williams, nor has anyone to our knowledge produced a copy of a Robin Williams contract bearing the clause in question. The Smoking Gun document leak site long ago posted what may have been a backstage rider from a Robin Williams' appearance in 2002, but it included no reference in its text to a requirement for employing the homeless.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstage/comedy/robin-williams-0" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/internal-robbing-you-service/", "claim": "Is the IRS Seizing Innocent Americans' Bank Accounts?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/28/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Is the IRS seizing the bank accounts of innocent Americans under civil forfeiture laws?" ], "justification": " Claim: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seizing bank accounts from innocent American citizens under civil forfeiture laws. : Civil forfeiture laws enable law enforcement agents and the government to seize the assets of Americans who are neither guilty nor even suspected of any wrongdoing. Civil forfeiture laws are new or exclusive to the IRS. Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Just read a Facebook post. It was an article regarding the IRS seizing bank accounts of innocent American citizens who have done nothing criminally wrong. Inspite of the problems this has caused individuals the IRS seems relatively unconcerned except they want to collect money for whatever reasons. Is this true? Does the IRS have the right to just take the money of American citizens from their accounts? Are they an acting collections agency for the government now? I found this article a tad disturbing to say the least. Thank you for amy information you might have regarding this article and subject matter. Origins: On 5 October 2014, the issue of civil forfeiture and its effects on American citizens entered the spotlight after HBO host John Oliver addressed the matter at length on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment, Oliver and guest Jeff Goldblum focused on seemingly arbitrary, unfair, and corrupt civil forfeiture practices allegedly perpetrated by law enforcement agents in a number of jurisdictions. Oliver's civil forfeiture segment sparked a number of conversations about the laws surrounding confiscation of assets under related laws. Then, on 25 October 2014, the New York Times For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up. It seems Hinders' run-in with the IRS was triggered by her practice of keeping deposits under the mandated reporting threshold of $10,000. Deposits that exceed $10,000 must be reported to the government under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, but Hinders told the Times that she believed large deposits created unnecessary paperwork for bank employees: Bank Secrecy Act My mom had told me if you keep your deposits under $10,000, the bank avoids paperwork. I didn't actually think it had anything to do with the I.R.S. Former federal prosecutor David Smith, an expert on such seizures, told the paper that the practice of civil forfeiture has shifted to focus on individuals not historically targeted by such laws: They're going after people who are really not criminals. They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law. Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, described the seizures as \"structuring\" related, referring to suspicion triggered by a large number of deposits near the $10,000 threshold for reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. In response to sudden interest in the IRS's policies regarding \"structuring cases,\" Weber issued a statement indicating the IRS will curtail its seizure activities in cases where no crime is suspected: statement After a thorough review of our structuring cases over the last year and in order to provide consistency throughout the country (between our field offices and the U.S. attorney offices) regarding our policies, I.R.S.-C.I. will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with \"legal source\" structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying the seizure and forfeiture and the case has been approved at the director of field operations (D.F.O.) level. While the act of structuring whether the funds are from a legal or illegal source is against the law, I.R.S.-C.I. special agents will use this act as an indicator that further illegal activity may be occurring. This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.'s mission and key priorities. The policy involving seizure and forfeiture in \"illegal source\" structuring cases will remain the same. The IRS is just one of several agencies engaging in civil forfeiture, and Oliver's segment also addressed its application by local and regional law enforcement: Prior to Oliver's segment and the Times' profile, civil forfeiture practices had been extensively profiled in the media: In general, you needn't be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with \"probable cause\" is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner's guilt or innocence. One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. \"The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window,\" Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There's no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve. Although the IRS has pledged to restrict its civil forfeiture activity to mainly \"illegal source\" cases, the practice is not limited to the tax agency and remains legal. Last updated: 28 October 2014 Stillman, Sarah. \"Taken.\" The New Yorker. 12 August 2013.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BpxPc7ICOr9QOwffNtEpjOxWeR7ZB3Qj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "It seems Hinders' run-in with the IRS was triggered by her practice of keeping deposits under the mandated reporting threshold of $10,000. Deposits that exceed $10,000 must be reported to the government under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, but Hinders told the Times that she believed large deposits created unnecessary paperwork for bank employees:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Bank-Secrecy-Act" ] }, { "sentence": "Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, described the seizures as \"structuring\" related, referring to suspicion triggered by a large number of deposits near the $10,000 threshold for reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. In response to sudden interest in the IRS's policies regarding \"structuring cases,\" Weber issued a statement indicating the IRS will curtail its seizure activities in cases where no crime is suspected:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/us/statement-of-richard-weber-chief-of-irs-criminal-investigation.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/badgering-state/", "claim": "Wisconsin Bans Poor People from Buying Shellfish, Potatoes and Ketchup?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/16/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: Wisconsin has passed a bill banning poor people from purchasing shellfish, potatoes, and ketchup." ], "justification": " Claim: Wisconsin has passed a bill banning poor people from purchasing shellfish, potatoes, and ketchup. Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2015] Is this true? Origins: Recents months have seen efforts by lawmakers in several states to limit what recipients of food stamps and other forms of public assistance may purchase with those benefits. For example, a member of the Missouri legislature introduced a bill that would bar recipients of supplemental nutrition assistance programs (SNAP) from using their benefits to purchase cookies, chips, energy drinks, seafood or steak. And Kansas passed a law prohibiting recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds from spending those monies on a variety of goods and services: Missouri Kansas Similarly, in May 2015, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill (Assembly Bill 177) that would require those who receive food stamps to spend at least two-thirds of their benefits on foodstuffs designated by the state as nutritional items. The list of allowed nutritional items includes meat, fish, fresh produce, and white potatoes, but specifically excludes food stamps from being used for purchases of crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish: bill The larger list of allowed foodstuffs excludes such items as white potatoes, nuts, cranberry sauce, popsicles, spaghetti sauce, soup, ketchup, pickles, baked beans, flavored peanut butter, flavored milk, and brown eggs. foodstuffs Contrary to various inaccurate headlines, however, the proposed law (if fully passed and enacted as law) would not \"ban\" food stamp recipients from purchasing these food items; rather, it would restrict them from spending more than one-third of their SNAP benefits on such foodstuffs. It's also unlikely the bill will be codified as law, as it would require a federal waiver that no state has ever received: headlines No state has received such a waiver, but Rep. Brooks said he believes his bill is less restrictive than some proposed in other states and has a better chance of being implemented. Proponents of the bill argue that it would promote healthier eating habits which would benefit both food stamp recipients and taxpayers: They argue that limiting the purchase of junk food promotes healthy eating, reduces unspecified \"abuses\" and benefits society in the long run. \"There is a direct financial benefit not just to the individual, which of course is obvious to have better health, but also to state taxpayers and society as a whole,\" said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Oppoents, however, contend that the bill would neither promote healthier eating nor reduce fraud: \"It's a restriction that's designed just to make the lives of those that are already struggling that much harder,\" said Rep. Lisa Subeck. \"And instead, we should be focusing not on the foods people buy but on putting people to work by creating jobs that get people off of FoodShare.\" To illustrate Democrats' opposition, Rep. Evan Goyke held a platter of four Wisconsin cheeses. All four were cheddar. One was shredded and three were in block form. Three displayed flags that said \"GOP Prohibited.\" One flag said \"GOP Approved.\" The approved cheese was a block of mild cheddar. Two sharp cheddars one shredded and one block were not approved. One mild cheddar was not approved because it was too large, Goyke said. \"The stated goals of this bill are nutrition and fraud,\" said Rep. Mark Spreitzer. \"When you look at something like this cheese plate, there's no evidence of sharp cheddar fraud. People are not buying sharp cheddar in order to defraud FoodShare, and there's no nutritional difference. So if those are the stated goals, the bill is not accomplishing either.\" Last updated: 16 May 2015 ", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1oeq1BORFE7nI6bWUBuV3uBVSSKJmA-cJ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Recents months have seen efforts by lawmakers in several states to limit what recipients of food stamps and other forms of public assistance may purchase with those benefits. For example, a member of the Missouri legislature introduced a bill that would bar recipients of supplemental nutrition assistance programs (SNAP) from using their benefits to purchase cookies, chips, energy drinks, seafood or steak. And Kansas passed a law prohibiting recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds from spending those monies on a variety of goods and services:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills151/billpdf/intro/HB0813I.PDF", "https://kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/measures/documents/hb2258_enrolled.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Similarly, in May 2015, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill (Assembly Bill 177) that would require those who receive food stamps to spend at least two-thirds of their benefits on foodstuffs designated by the state as nutritional items. The list of allowed nutritional items includes meat, fish, fresh produce, and white potatoes, but specifically excludes food stamps from being used for purchases of crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish:", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/proposals/ab177.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The larger list of allowed foodstuffs excludes such items as white potatoes, nuts, cranberry sauce, popsicles, spaghetti sauce, soup, ketchup, pickles, baked beans, flavored peanut butter, flavored milk, and brown eggs.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p4/p44578.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Contrary to various inaccurate headlines, however, the proposed law (if fully passed and enacted as law) would not \"ban\" food stamp recipients from purchasing these food items; rather, it would restrict them from spending more than one-third of their SNAP benefits on such foodstuffs. It's also unlikely the bill will be codified as law, as it would require a federal waiver that no state has ever received:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/f5uj" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-carrier-stock/", "claim": "Is Carrier owned by Donald Trump or does he own its stock?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "12/06/2016", "sci_digest": [ "After a high-profile negotiation with Carrier, rumors appeared that President-elect Trump owned a stake in (or all of) the company." ], "justification": "A 30 November 2016 negotiation between Donald Trump and the company Carrier in order to keep some 1,000 jobs in the United States was soon followed by claims that he either owned (or was a shareholder in) the company or parent United Technologies: Carrier claims As part of its #TrumpLeaks program, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump has uncovered the financial disclosures Trump filed in May 2016, which shows he owns stock in UT. According to the 104-page financial disclosure form that all candidates running for President are required to fill out, Trump made between $2,501 and $5,000 in interest from an investment in United Technologies. The entry in the financial disclosure can be found on page number 45 under Part 6. The full financial disclosure can be found online here. The material quoted above cited the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, which claimed to be pursuing legal action against Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) head James Comey. That group was involved in several questionable efforts against Trump, and appeared to exist solely to mount legal and media-based challenges against him. Democratic Coalition Against Trump James Comey Claims that Trump owned Carrier or stock in United Technologies closely mirrored similar rumors the President-elect was similarly vested in the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Although the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had at one point owned Carrier or United Technologies stock in 2014 or 2015, his 2016 Personal Financial Disclosure [PFD] did not reflect any such investment: Dakota Access Pipeline reported reflect Trump's spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that a \"goal of the immediate transfer of management of The Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump as well as a team of highly skilled executives.\" Trump's transition team vowed that any holdings that represented potential conflicts of interest would be transferred before his January 2017 inauguration. In early December 2016 additional details about the Carrier deal emerged, including the total number of jobs preserved in the negotiation as well as a portion slated for outsourcing by the end of 2017. Carrier Grimaldi, James V and . \"Donald Trump Had Investments In Carrier Corp.s Parent.\"\r Wall Street Journal. 2 December 2016. Korte, Gregory. \"Donald Trump Financial Disclosure Report, 2016.\"\r USA Today. 18 May 2016.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17QPclK3DPDIc8ABXbYp0BoRBFvqX9QGn" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A 30 November 2016 negotiation between Donald Trump and the company Carrier in order to keep some 1,000 jobs in the United States was soon followed by claims that he either owned (or was a shareholder in) the company or parent United Technologies:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/donald-trump-brokers-deal-with-carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-america/", "https://archive.is/HjaPx" ] }, { "sentence": "The material quoted above cited the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, which claimed to be pursuing legal action against Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) head James Comey. That group was involved in several questionable efforts against Trump, and appeared to exist solely to mount legal and media-based challenges against him.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/democratic-coalition-against-trump/", "https://www.snopes.com/2016/10/28/complaint-filed-against-james-comey/" ] }, { "sentence": "Claims that Trump owned Carrier or stock in United Technologies closely mirrored similar rumors the President-elect was similarly vested in the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Although the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had at one point owned Carrier or United Technologies stock in 2014 or 2015, his 2016 Personal Financial Disclosure [PFD] did not reflect any such investment:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/does-donald-trump-own-a-stake-in-the-dakota-access-pipeline/", "https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-had-investments-in-carrier-corp-s-parent-1480723443", "https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2838696-Trump-2016-Financial-Disclosure.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump's spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that a \"goal of the immediate transfer of management of The Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses to Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump as well as a team of highly skilled executives.\" Trump's transition team vowed that any holdings that represented potential conflicts of interest would be transferred before his January 2017 inauguration. In early December 2016 additional details about the Carrier deal emerged, including the total number of jobs preserved in the negotiation as well as a portion slated for outsourcing by the end of 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/carrier-jobs-to-mexico-despite-trump-deal/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chase-bank-flynn-cancel-credit-cards/", "claim": "Was Michael Flynn's credit cards from Chase terminated because of concerns regarding reputation?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "08/30/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Flynn shared the image on Telegram, and claimed that \"Chase Bank has gone full blown woke!\"" ], "justification": "In late August 2021, an image started circulating on social media that supposedly showed a letter issued by Chase Bank informing retired Gen. Michael Flynn that his credit cards had been canceled due to a \"reputational risk\": This is a genuine letter sent from Chase to a member of the Flynn family. The first name on this letter has been redacted so we can't say with certainty that this letter was addressed to Gen. Flynn. A spokesperson for Chase confirmed to us that this letter was real, but added that it was sent by mistake and that this person's credit cards would not actually be closed. A spokesperson for Chase told us: \"Weve contacted our customer to let her know that we made an error and we apologized for any inconvenience this caused.\" The Chase spokesperson's use of the pronoun \"her\" leads us to believe that this letter may not have been sent to Flynn himself, but to another member of his family. The spokesperson did not elaborate. Many people encountered this letter as it was circulated on Twitter by third-party accounts. As this letter wasn't shared on the platform under Flynn's own handle (Flynn has been banned from Twitter since January 2021), it left people wondering if this letter was authentic. banned from Twitter Disinformation researcher Jim Stewartson detailed the origins of the letter in a Twitter thread. According to Stewartson, this letter was originally shared on Telegram by Qanon influencer and recently elected South Carolina GOP official Tracy Diaz (@tracybeanz). The letter was deleted shortly after it was posted along with a message stating that there had been a \"miscommunication\" about making the letter public. However, the image continued to circulate and eventually Flynn posted two messages on Telegram that seemingly confirmed the authenticity of the letter. Twitter thread Qanon influencer recently elected South Carolina GOP official two messages We archived @RealGenFlynn's Telegram posts here and here. On Aug. 30, 2021, Flynn posted an update to the situation, thanking his followers for their support and praying that \"Chase Bank and all their cancel culture partners think twice about what they are doing to destroy the fabric of our constitution.\" here here posted update to the situation Banks assess a number of risk factors when deciding whether or not to do business with someone. For example, if a person has a criminal history of fraud they may find it difficult to get a credit card. Banks also look at reputational risk, or the impact that doing business with a person or company may have on the bank's reputation. Here's how the German multinational investment bank Deutsche Bank explains their approach to \"reputational risk.\" Deutsche Bank The reputation of Deutsche Bank is founded on trust from its employees, clients, shareholders, regulators and from the public in general. Isolated events can undermine that trust and negatively impact Deutsche Banks reputation and it is therefore of the utmost importance that it is protected, for which it is the responsibility of every employee of the Bank. Reputational risk at Deutsche Bank is defined as the risk of possible damage to Deutsche Banks brand and reputation, and the associated risk to earnings, capital or liquidity arising from any association, action or inaction which could be perceived by stakeholders to be inappropriate, unethical or inconsistent with the Banks values and beliefs. Reputational risk is governed by the Reputational Risk Framework, which was established to provide consistent standards for the identification, assessment and management of reputational risk issues. Assuming this letter is real, it's possible that Chase deemed Flynn a \"reputational risk\" as he pled guilty to lying to federal officials about his contacts with a Russian ambassador in 2017 (Flynn was later pardoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump), his statements in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory, or, more recently, his comments in June 2021 that seemingly encouraged people to stage a violent coup to overthrow the U.S. government. Flynn later released a statement saying that he has never advocated for a coup. pardoned QAnon conspiracy theory encouraged people released a statement It's also possible that Chase deemed Flynn a \"reputational risk\" due to questionable financial transactions. In 2017, for example, it was reported that Flynn's consulting firm received more than $500,000 from the Turkish government while Flynn was serving as Trump's national security adviser. The New York Times reported: reported The candidate he was advising last fall was running on a platform of America First. The client he was working for last fall was paying him more than $500,000 to put Turkey first. Michael T. Flynn, who went from the campaign trail to the White House as President Trumps first national security adviser, filed papers this week acknowledging that he worked as a foreign agent last year representing the interests of the Turkish government in a dispute with the United States. The viral image truly shows a letter that was sent from Chase Bank to Gen. Flynn's family regarding credits cards that were to be canceled due to reputational risk. A spokesperson for Chase confirmed the authenticity of the letter, but said that it had been sent in error and that the account would not be closed. Updated [31 August 2021]: Status changed to \"Mixture\" after receiving a statement from Chase Bank. ", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WLDkIwm7YFU4ghexF_yq1KNccv5lwM1u" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RgXNqtgJqYBtaMoE4egIs9HUDz8ZFnj9" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Many people encountered this letter as it was circulated on Twitter by third-party accounts. As this letter wasn't shared on the platform under Flynn's own handle (Flynn has been banned from Twitter since January 2021), it left people wondering if this letter was authentic. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-bans-michael-flynn-sidney-powell-qanon-account-purge-n1253550" ] }, { "sentence": "Disinformation researcher Jim Stewartson detailed the origins of the letter in a Twitter thread. According to Stewartson, this letter was originally shared on Telegram by Qanon influencer and recently elected South Carolina GOP official Tracy Diaz (@tracybeanz). The letter was deleted shortly after it was posted along with a message stating that there had been a \"miscommunication\" about making the letter public. However, the image continued to circulate and eventually Flynn posted two messages on Telegram that seemingly confirmed the authenticity of the letter.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/jimstewartson/status/1432004168873504769", "https://theintercept.com/2021/06/27/qanon-michael-flynn-digital-soldiers/", "https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ywwv/one-of-qanons-earliest-influencers-just-got-elected-to-south-carolina-gop", "https://t.me/RealGenFlynn/634", "https://t.me/RealGenFlynn/635" ] }, { "sentence": "We archived @RealGenFlynn's Telegram posts here and here. On Aug. 30, 2021, Flynn posted an update to the situation, thanking his followers for their support and praying that \"Chase Bank and all their cancel culture partners think twice about what they are doing to destroy the fabric of our constitution.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/D2d26", "https://archive.ph/KdZPb", "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/08/flynn-post.jpg", "https://t.me/RealGenFlynn/641" ] }, { "sentence": "Banks assess a number of risk factors when deciding whether or not to do business with someone. For example, if a person has a criminal history of fraud they may find it difficult to get a credit card. Banks also look at reputational risk, or the impact that doing business with a person or company may have on the bank's reputation. Here's how the German multinational investment bank Deutsche Bank explains their approach to \"reputational risk.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.db.com/cr/en/concrete-management-of-reputational-risks.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Assuming this letter is real, it's possible that Chase deemed Flynn a \"reputational risk\" as he pled guilty to lying to federal officials about his contacts with a Russian ambassador in 2017 (Flynn was later pardoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump), his statements in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory, or, more recently, his comments in June 2021 that seemingly encouraged people to stage a violent coup to overthrow the U.S. government. Flynn later released a statement saying that he has never advocated for a coup. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/2020/11/25/823893821/trump-pardons-michael-flynn-who-pleaded-guilty-to-lying-about-russia-contact", "https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/03/25/qanon-conference-omni-dallas-hotel-memorial-day-weekend-michael-flynn-sidney-powell/", "https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/us/politics/flynn-coup-gohmert-qanon.html", "https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/31/politics/michael-flynn-qanon/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The New York Times reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/us/politics/michael-flynn-turkey.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/16/katrina-vanden-heuvel/do-most-americans-favor-hike-minimum-wage/", "claim": "The majority support (raising) the minimum wage.", "author": "Jon Greenberg", "posted": "03/16/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Call it the Democrats midterm disease. The voters who come out in presidential elections and help them win the White House tend to stay home in the off-years. Last weeks loss in Florida showed clear symptoms of the partys affliction and whether Democrats can do much about it was batted about by the pundits on the Sunday talk shows. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the liberal magazineThe Nation, argued that Democrats should take advantage of what she called a populist moment. The majority support (raising) the minimum wage, vanden Heuvel said on ABCsThis Week. More fairness, taking on a rigged system that's working against working people. We wanted to review the polls to see where the electorate stands. As a matter of simple support, plenty of opinion surveys back up vanden Heuvels claim. The latest results from aBloomberg pollshow 69 percent of the public supports raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over the next three years. ABC News and theWashington Postasked if a candidates support for raising the minimum wage would make you more likely to vote for him or her. Half of all voters said they would be more likely to vote for that candidate. Only about a fifth said they would be less likely; most of the remainder said it would make no difference in their decision. ACBS/New York Timespoll in February found 65 percent of the public favored raising the minimum wage to $10.10. So people largely support increasing the minimum wage, polls show. But polls also suggest that its not necessarily a high priority. A FebruaryGalluppoll found just 2 percent of respondents said wages were the most important issue facing the country. The gap between rich and poor, another Democratic theme, also came in at 2 percent. What voters cared most about in that survey, 23 percent of them, were jobs and cutting unemployment. Thats obviously connected to whether Americans have enough money to get by, but it isnt the same as supporting a raise in the minimum wage. AQuinnipiac Universitypoll in January had very similar results. In an open-ended question about the nations top priority for 2014, 1 percent of respondents mentioned the minimum wage, while 16 percent said jobs and unemployment, 15 percent said the economy in general, and 18 percent said health care. With jobs and the economy ranked so high, the latest findings fromABC News/Washington Postpolling show the public equally divided on which party they trust to handle the economy. About 40 percent give the nod to the Democrats and 40 percent to the Republicans. Our ruling Vanden Heuvel said most Americans support raising the minimum wage. The polls confirm it. About two-thirds of the public consistently say boosting the minimum wage to $10.10 is a good idea and as many as a half of all voters say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who backs that increase. But how much a candidates position on the minimum wage matters in the polling booth is much less clear. The minimum wage is not top of mind except for a small fraction of voters. Still, vanden Heuvel's specific claim is accurate. We rate the statement True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Elections", "PunditFact" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The majority support (raising) the minimum wage, vanden Heuvel said on ABCsThis Week. More fairness, taking on a rigged system that's working against working people.", "hrefs": [ "http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-mystery-flight-370/story?id=22914614" ] }, { "sentence": "As a matter of simple support, plenty of opinion surveys back up vanden Heuvels claim. The latest results from aBloomberg pollshow 69 percent of the public supports raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over the next three years.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pollingreport.com/work.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "ABC News and theWashington Postasked if a candidates support for raising the minimum wage would make you more likely to vote for him or her. Half of all voters said they would be more likely to vote for that candidate. Only about a fifth said they would be less likely; most of the remainder said it would make no difference in their decision.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pollingreport.com/work.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "ACBS/New York Timespoll in February found 65 percent of the public favored raising the minimum wage to $10.10.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pollingreport.com/work.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "A FebruaryGalluppoll found just 2 percent of respondents said wages were the most important issue facing the country. The gap between rich and poor, another Democratic theme, also came in at 2 percent. What voters cared most about in that survey, 23 percent of them, were jobs and cutting unemployment. Thats obviously connected to whether Americans have enough money to get by, but it isnt the same as supporting a raise in the minimum wage.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.gallup.com/poll/167450/unemployment-rises-top-problem.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "AQuinnipiac Universitypoll in January had very similar results. In an open-ended question about the nations top priority for 2014, 1 percent of respondents mentioned the minimum wage, while 16 percent said jobs and unemployment, 15 percent said the economy in general, and 18 percent said health care.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1999" ] }, { "sentence": "With jobs and the economy ranked so high, the latest findings fromABC News/Washington Postpolling show the public equally divided on which party they trust to handle the economy. About 40 percent give the nod to the Democrats and 40 percent to the Republicans.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.pollingreport.com/dvsr.htm" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brownie-points/", "claim": "Colorado Pot Shop Accepting Food Stamps - Taxpayer Funded Marijuana for Welfare Recipients", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/05/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Does a store in Colorado accept food stamps towards the purchase of food items containing marijuana?" ], "justification": " Claim: A store in Colorado accepts food stamps towards the purchase of food items containing marijuana. Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Is there a pot shop in Colorado that is taking food stamps for food items containing marijuana? Origins: On 3 January 2014, the National Report published an article positing that in Colorado (where marijuana use had just been legalized) a store had begun accepting food stamps towards the purchase of food items made with marijuana: article As of January 1st, 2014, Colorado became the first state in the nation to allow adults aged 21 or older to purchase and use marijuana for recreational use. The decision has led to excessively large lines at pot shops across the state and store owners reportedly surpassed $1 million in sales statewide on just the first day according to Denver's 9News. In all, 136 licenses have been approved by the state of Colorado for retail operations for the purposes of selling marijuana. A majority of those licenses were issued tobusinesses in Denver with just eighteen city stores completing the process in time for opening day. One of those shops, Rite Greens, located on E. Colfax Ave in Denver, has taken the steps needed to accept food stamps (now called EBT cards) for the purposes of purchasing marijuana, effectively leading to taxpayer funded marijuana for welfare recipients. Electronic Benefit Transfer cards part of the Department of Agricultures Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are typically of two general categories: food and cash benefits. [Store owner] JC Franco was able to take advantage of a loophole in the SNAP program as his shop sells a wide array of \"edible\" marijuana ranging from cookies and brownies to barbeque sauce and homemade butter. By the end of the day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered it mistaking it for a genuine news item. However, the article was just a bit of political humor from the National Report spoofing the controversy over legalized recreational marijuana use and stereotypes about recipients of government assistance. The National Report is a satirical web site that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as \"IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next,\" \"Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge,\" and \"New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples.\" The National Report's (since removed) disclaimer page states that: disclaimer National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. (NOTE: A good deal of misunderstanding about the use of EBT funds to purchase marijuana has led many readers to maintain that the article referenced above, though satirical in nature, is true in concept. We address those misconceptions in a separate article.) misconceptions Last updated: 13 September 2014 ", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1rdkcA2oOss7yXsKjkOSBdsMF3wYNYmCt", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 3 January 2014, the National Report published an article positing that in Colorado (where marijuana use had just been legalized) a store had begun accepting food stamps towards the purchase of food items made with marijuana:", "hrefs": [ "https://nationalreport.net/colorado-pot-shop-accept-food-stamps-taxpayer-funded-marijuana/" ] }, { "sentence": "The National Report is a satirical web site that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as \"IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next,\" \"Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge,\" and \"New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples.\" The National Report's (since removed) disclaimer page states that:", "hrefs": [ "/politics/graphics/disclaimer.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "(NOTE: A good deal of misunderstanding about the use of EBT funds to purchase marijuana has led many readers to maintain that the article referenced above, though satirical in nature, is true in concept. We address those misconceptions in a separate article.)", "hrefs": [ "/info/mailbag/foodstampsforpot.asp" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-helping-poor/", "claim": "Jimmy Carter on Helping the Poor", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/26/2014", "sci_digest": [ "\"Anyone unwilling to work should not eat\"?" ], "justification": "A purported quote from Jimmy Carter admonishing that \"If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't!\" sounds to many like something that former U.S. president would have said, as he has long exhibited a deep commitment to Christianity, has established himself as an international humanitarian (including founding the Carter Center, an organization dedicated to advancing human rights) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his work \"to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development\": However, as much as this sentiment might sound like something Jimmy Carter could have or would have said, he didn't originate the wording used here. The quote in the version presented in the above graphic appears to have originated with comedian John Fugelsang, who at one time presented a segment on Current TV's Viewpoint program entitled \"Viewpoint's Revoltingly Fake Christian of the Week.\" The segment for the week of 29 May 2013 targeted Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher, of whom Fugelsang said: John Fugelsang Congressman Stephen Fincher, a Republican from Tennessee, just took the Bible so far out of context he had to apply for a visa.Fincher is a fierce opponent of food aid for poor Americans. You know, like Jesus. He recently fought to cut $4.1 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. If you only watch Fox, that means 'food stamps.' And thanks to the fine work of Fincher and his colleagues, 2 million working American families, children and seniors have already been cut off from food assistance. So during a recent House agricultural committee debate, he decided to show how Christian it is to turn your back on unemployed suffering Americans by quoting one of the favorite Bible passages of revoltingly fake right-wing Christians 2 Thessalonians 3:10 \"anyone unwilling to work should not eat.\" Fincher and the GOP ... cut services for the poor and taxes for the rich. And its a free country. They're allowed. But if you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't. And that's why representative Fincher is our 'revoltingly fake Christian of the week'! ", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mOD6mAgZKbrLih5nWiiEwZjhcruHHvT_", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, as much as this sentiment might sound like something Jimmy Carter could have or would have said, he didn't originate the wording used here. The quote in the version presented in the above graphic appears to have originated with comedian John Fugelsang, who at one time presented a segment on Current TV's Viewpoint program entitled \"Viewpoint's Revoltingly Fake Christian of the Week.\" The segment for the week of 29 May 2013 targeted Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher, of whom Fugelsang said:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.blog.johnfugelsang.com/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/africa-giant-wall-of-trees-sahara/", "claim": "Are African nations implementing a massive tree barrier to halt the advance of the Sahara Desert?", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "11/29/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The Great Green Wall is an ambitious effort to tackle climate change. " ], "justification": "An ambitious effort by a group of African countries to tackle the effects of climate change and desertification has been in the works since 2007. The Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative plans to have trees extend like a belt across the Sahel region which is at the base of the Sahara, in order to prevent the expansion of the desert through climate change. since 2007 According to a meme shared with us by our readers, more than 20 African countries are a part of this effort, and the wall of trees, the meme says, will spread 7,000 km across the continent from coast to coast. This meme is largely true, though the length of the GGW varies, as the project itself is far from being completed. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the project aims to restore Africas degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in one of the worlds poorest regions, the Sahel. Once complete, the Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world stretching across the entire width of the continent. According The project aims to have the \"wall\" extend from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, by 2030. The official website for the GGW details the reason for all their efforts: extend official website The catalyst for the Great Green Wall is the daily impact of desertification and climate change that is undermining the futures of millions of communities across Africa's Sahel region. Since the 1970s, the Sahel has been heavily affected by recurrent periods of drought. These droughts have threatened the livelihoods and future of entire populations across the region. The lack of rain has led to the disappearance of livestock and the destruction of cereal crops. The great famines that rocked the Sub-Saharan region in the 80s each affected millions of people. In addition, the high population growth rate is increasing demand for food and pressure to gain access to other natural resources which are the basis for livelihoods and the survival of the rural population. Millions of people particularly rural youth are currently facing an uncertain future due to the lack of decent rural jobs and continuous loss of livelihoods due to land degradation and falling yields. But according to The Associated Press, since the projects inception in 2007, millions of the planted trees have died due to diminishing rains and rising temperatures. Only 4% of the projects original goal has been met and around $43 billion dollars is needed to complete it. Given the challenges facing them, the focus of the project has also shifted from planting just a wall of trees to a mosaic of smaller and more durable projects that emphasize community-focused solutions that support agriculture and prevent desertification. Associated Press mosaic The GGW Accelerator, announced in January 2021, detailed these changes: GGW Accelerator The Great Green Wall Initiative has evolved from its initial focus on tree planting towards a comprehensive rural development initiative aiming to transform the lives of Sahelian populations by creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across 11 countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti) . Progress has been achieved into the second decade of the initiative, with almost 18 million hectares of degraded lands restored and 350.000 jobs created across the Sahel and the Great Green Wall countries. The Accelerator also highlighted additional challenges they encountered in the process of creating the GGW which included insufficient coordination, exchange and flow of information at the regional and national level, weak organizational structures, and a lack of consideration in national environmental priorities. Accelerator Some of the changes include planting orchards and circular gardens where large trees strategically protect smaller ones. A number of these have been thriving in Senegals portion of the GGW. include According to GGWs official website, there have been a number of successes. Senegal planted around 12 million drought resistant trees in less than a decade, while 5 million hectares of degraded land was restored in Nigeria, and 15 million hectares in Ethiopia. A November 2021 report in the Nature Sustainability journal assessed the economic impact of the program and concluded that it was economically worthwhile: website November 2021 The Great Green Wall programme is a colossal initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded ecosystems across 11 countries in the region [...] We evaluated the economic costs and benefits of future land restoration projects under this programme. We applied different scenarios that account for both market-priced and non-market benefits from restored ecosystems and consider the heterogeneity of local decision-making contexts in terms of investment planning horizons, discount rates, and the time needed for the restored ecosystems to start yielding their benefits in full. The results show that every US dollar invested into land restoration yields on average US$1.2 under the base scenario, ranging from US$1.1 to US$4.4 across the scenarios. At most, ten years are needed for land restoration activities to break even from the social perspective, accounting for both market-priced and non-market ecosystem benefits. To fund all proposed land restoration activities, an investment of US$44 billion is needed under the base scenario (US$1870 billion across scenarios). The report added that Violent conflicts in the Sahel are estimated to reduce the accessibility to these degraded ecosystems from 27.9 million hectares to 14.1 million hectares. While originally only 11 countries were a part of the effort, today there are more than 20 African nations involved. You can learn more about the impact and current projects here, and in this video: 20 African nations Given that the focus of the GGW has evolved beyond just planting trees, and it is still an effort in progress, we rate this claim as true. Africas Great Green Wall Shifts Focus to Hold off Desert. Associated Press, 13 Nov. 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. Growing a World Wonder. Great Green Wall, https://www.greatgreenwall.org. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. Mirzabaev, A., Sacande, M., Motlagh, F. et al. \"Economic efficiency and targeting of the African Great Green Wall.\" Nature Sustainability, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00801-8. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021. The Great Green Wall Initiative | UNCCD. https://www.unccd.int/actions/great-green-wall-initiative. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Sl1IP3ndzZKZ1Ol33Ies8czejTWeZDm9" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "An ambitious effort by a group of African countries to tackle the effects of climate change and desertification has been in the works since 2007. The Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative plans to have trees extend like a belt across the Sahel region which is at the base of the Sahara, in order to prevent the expansion of the desert through climate change.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292" ] }, { "sentence": "This meme is largely true, though the length of the GGW varies, as the project itself is far from being completed. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the project aims to restore Africas degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in one of the worlds poorest regions, the Sahel. Once complete, the Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world stretching across the entire width of the continent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.unccd.int/actions/great-green-wall-initiative" ] }, { "sentence": "The project aims to have the \"wall\" extend from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, by 2030. The official website for the GGW details the reason for all their efforts:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292", "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/2030ambition" ] }, { "sentence": "But according to The Associated Press, since the projects inception in 2007, millions of the planted trees have died due to diminishing rains and rising temperatures. Only 4% of the projects original goal has been met and around $43 billion dollars is needed to complete it. Given the challenges facing them, the focus of the project has also shifted from planting just a wall of trees to a mosaic of smaller and more durable projects that emphasize community-focused solutions that support agriculture and prevent desertification.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292", "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/great-green-wall-accelerator" ] }, { "sentence": "The GGW Accelerator, announced in January 2021, detailed these changes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/great-green-wall-accelerator" ] }, { "sentence": "The Accelerator also highlighted additional challenges they encountered in the process of creating the GGW which included insufficient coordination, exchange and flow of information at the regional and national level, weak organizational structures, and a lack of consideration in national environmental priorities.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/great-green-wall-accelerator" ] }, { "sentence": "Some of the changes include planting orchards and circular gardens where large trees strategically protect smaller ones. A number of these have been thriving in Senegals portion of the GGW. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/13/africa-great-green-wall-521292" ] }, { "sentence": "According to GGWs official website, there have been a number of successes. Senegal planted around 12 million drought resistant trees in less than a decade, while 5 million hectares of degraded land was restored in Nigeria, and 15 million hectares in Ethiopia. A November 2021 report in the Nature Sustainability journal assessed the economic impact of the program and concluded that it was economically worthwhile:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/results", "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00801-8" ] }, { "sentence": "While originally only 11 countries were a part of the effort, today there are more than 20 African nations involved. You can learn more about the impact and current projects here, and in this video:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.greatgreenwall.org/partners" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/daily/", "claim": "Daily Snopes", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/14/2015", "sci_digest": [ "" ], "justification": "This page features a daily collection of links to news articles and web sites of interest to readers of our web site. Due to the ephemeral nature of this type of material, some of the links may expire within a few days of being posted here. Stories are chosen for inclusion here purely on the basis of their appeal to our readers; we make no claims about the reliability of information linked from this page. All of the links included here are viewable at no charge, although some publications may require a free one-time registration to access their articles. Because They Got High (21 September 2015) Because They Got High FACT CHECK: Did Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina say that half of reported rapes were women regretting something they did while high or drunk? One Misdirection (26 August 2015) One Misdirection FACT CHECK: Did Joey Fatone pen an open letter to One Direction? Boston's Nasty Snowpile Still Hasn't Melted (CityLab) Boston's Nasty Snowpile Still Hasn't Melted Were coming up on July and New England temperatures are in the 70s, yet Bostons snow doesnt seem to know that. Its still there, sitting in a cold, corpulent mound that occasionally melts just enough to discharge garbage. Woman, 88, Charged With Assaulting Police Officer (Associated Press) Woman, 88, Charged With Assaulting Police Officer An 88-year-old woman has been charged with assaulting police who responded to her home, which turned out to be the wrong address. Beekeepers Set Out to Remove a Million Bees from Home (Associated Press) Beekeepers Set Out to Remove a Million Bees from Home Beekeepers have quite the task ahead of them as they remove an estimated 1 million honey bees that have taken up residence at a home. Firefighter Accused of Reporting Fake Fire to Earn Paycheck (Associated Press) Firefighter Accused of Reporting Fake Fire to Earn Paycheck An auxiliary firefighter reported a fake fire so he could head to the scene and earn a paycheck, but a different department was dispatched instead and he is now facing charges. Handsome Gorilla Delights Female Zoo-Goers (UPI) Handsome Gorilla Delights Female Zoo-Goers Zoo officials said young women hoping to get into the good graces of the gorilla with the chiseled features and brooding poses might be disappointed to learn he has two wives of his own species, Ai and Nene. Cow Puts the MOO-ves on Comrade During Live News Broadcast (UPI) Cow Puts the MOO-ves on Comrade During Live News Broadcast A TV reporter delivering a live report from a local farm was interrupted by a pair of frisky bovines cow-pulating in the background. 8-Foot-Wide Vortex Opens Up in Lake (UPI) 8-Foot-Wide Vortex Opens Up in Lake The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shared video of an 8-foot-wide vortex that officials said could swallow a boat. Woman Trying to Kiss Llama Gets Face Full of Spit (UPI) Woman Trying to Kiss Llama Gets Face Full of Spit A woman leaning in to kiss a llama learned a valuable lesson in the form of a face full of spit. Queen's Guard Draws Gun on Tourist Who Touched Him (UPI) Queen's Guard Draws Gun on Tourist Who Touched Him A video features a tourist making an important discovery: You can mock a Queen's Guard, but don't ever touch one. Airplane Wheel Crashes Into Apartment Roof (UPI) Airplane Wheel Crashes Into Apartment Roof Aviation authorities are investigating after an airplane wheel fell from a private jet and crashed through the roof of an apartment building. Trashed Golfer Gets Head Stuck in Garbage Can (UPI) Trashed Golfer Gets Head Stuck in Garbage Can A golfer who stuck his head in a trash bin as an alcohol-fueled joke ended up with his noggin stuck in the garbage. Subway Long Jump Attempt Fails (UPI) Subway Long Jump Attempt Fails A video going viral online features a man attempting to long jump over the train tracks at a subway station and failing. Illegally Parked Car Covered in Post-Its (UPI) Illegally Parked Car Covered in Post-Its A video shows the car covered in blue and white sticky notes to draw the International Symbol of Access a stick figure in a wheelchair on the back and side of the vehicle after it was illegally parked in an accessible space. Something's Rotten: Stench from Fridge Sends 11 to Hospital (Associated Press) Something's Rotten: Stench from Fridge Sends 11 to Hospital A smelly refrigerator sent nearly a dozen people to the hospital. Men Hospitalized, Recovering After Rare Beaver Attack (Reuters) Men Hospitalized, Recovering After Rare Beaver Attack Two hikers who were assaulted by a beaver after they climbed onto its dam have been hospitalized for injuries incurred during the rare attack. Theater Switches Horror Movie for Disney Film (Associated Press) Theater Switches Horror Movie for Disney Film Parents and children settled into their seats for a new animated Disney film got a quick jolt when a horror movie came on the screen instead. Break-In Suspect Left Wallet Behind (Associated Press) Break-In Suspect Left Wallet Behind Sheriff's deputies had little trouble identifying a break-in suspect whose wallet and ID were left at the scene. 16 Police Forces Respond to Wedding Brawl (UPI) 16 Police Forces Respond to Wedding Brawl More than a dozen different police departments responded to a wedding brawl that grew violently out of control. Sex Sounds Rile Neighbors (UPI) Sex Sounds Rile Neighbors A note posted at a housing complex blasts loud lovemaking neighbors for \"Oh God\" exclamations confused by children and seniors for \"religion or suicide.\" Loose Dog at Motel Leads to Drug Arrest (Associated Press) Loose Dog at Motel Leads to Drug Arrest A loose dog at a motel led to a room with a bathtub containing marijuana and the arrest of the dog's owner. Robbers Chased Away by Shopkeeper Wielding Vacuum Cleaner (Reuters) Robbers Chased Away by Shopkeeper Wielding Vacuum Cleaner A shop assistant in a late-night convenience store chased away two armed robbers demanding money with the hose of a vacuum cleaner she was using to clean her shop. Police Apologize After Sex Talk Broadcast from Helicopter (Reuters) Police Apologize After Sex Talk Broadcast from Helicopter Police apologized after a lewd conversation about sex was broadcast from the loudspeakers of a police helicopter to a neighborhood below. Gumbo Seasoning Dispute Gets Spicy (Panama City (FL) News Herald) Gumbo Seasoning Dispute Gets Spicy A man was arrested on charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after a work squabble over gumbo seasoning quickly escalated into an armed engagement. Mermaids, Other Creatures Turn Out for Parade (Associated Press) Mermaids, Other Creatures Turn Out for Parade Tens of thousands of revelers turned out for Coney Island's 33rd annual Mermaid Parade despite gray skies and steady drizzle. Newlyweds Win $15 Million in Lottery (Associated Press) Newlyweds Win $15 Million in Lottery Newlyweds are planning to buy a house, pay off student loans and buy a truck after winning $15 million on an instant scratch-off ticket. City Slaps Car Sculpture with a Ticket (CityLab) City Slaps Car Sculpture with a Ticket There must be a traffic officer out there with either no sense of humor or an excellent one, because this weirdly bent truck an obvious work of public art just got a parking ticket. Skinny Jeans Send Woman to Hospital with Nerve Damage (UPI) Skinny Jeans Send Woman to Hospital with Nerve Damage A doctor has warned against the dangers of so-called \"skinny jeans,\" citing a patient who collapsed after a day of strenuous activity while wearing tight pants. 'Fridgehenge' Welcomes Solstice with Refrigerators (UPI) 'Fridgehenge' Welcomes Solstice with Refrigerators An appliance store owner celebrated the summer solstice by creating \"Fridgehenge,\" a Stonehenge-inspired monument made from refrigerators. Brave Kitty Stares Down Mountain Lion (Reuters) Brave Kitty Stares Down Mountain Lion A video of an unfazed, fluffy house cat staring down a large mountain lion as the predator paws at a kitchen window has gone viral. Bleating Beauties: Village Holds Goat Pageant (UPI) Bleating Beauties: Village Holds Goat Pageant A village celebrated the 645th anniversary of its founding by holding a beauty pageant for the most attractive local goats. Flight Video Catches Cat Stowing Away on Plane Wing (UPI) Flight Video Catches Cat Stowing Away on Plane Wing A pilot shared video from an ultralight plane flight featuring a feline stowaway crawling out from inside a wing after takeoff. Smuggler Hides Cigarettes in Buddha Statues (Sky News) Smuggler Hides Cigarettes in Buddha Statues Officers found five colored fiberglass statues of Buddha, all filled with cigarettes. Pilots Warned of 70,000 Homing Pigeons (Associated Press) Pilots Warned of 70,000 Homing Pigeons Airplane pilots have been advised to fly with special care after 70,000 homing pigeons were released to participate in a race back to their homes. Bank Robber Who Stopped for Biscuits Gets Prison (Associated Press) Bank Robber Who Stopped for Biscuits Gets Prison A man who was arrested for robbing a bank when he stopped to eat biscuits at a nearby restaurant will spend two to four years in prison. Man Drives Himself to Station, Asks for DUI Arrest (Associated Press) Man Drives Himself to Station, Asks for DUI Arrest A man drove under the influence of alcohol to a small-town police station, where he requested that officers arrest him. 66 Surfers Set Record for Most People Riding a Board at Once (Associated Press) 66 Surfers Set Record for Most People Riding a Board at Once Surf champions and local heroes were among those who hung loose on a custom built, 42-foot board. Father Sends Lookalike to Paternity Test (International Business Times) Father Sends Lookalike to Paternity Test A young father who did not want to pay child support was called highly manipulative in court after he sent a look-alike to his DNA paternity test. Cabbie Drives Taxi Down Three Flights of Stairs (UPI) Cabbie Drives Taxi Down Three Flights of Stairs A taxi driver who apparently got confused on a college campus became a viral star when he decided to drive his cab down three flights of stairs. ", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18tYRJ_kwz5rZ8BwBH8k1j4gxnIc8cMnJ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Because They Got High (21 September 2015)", "hrefs": [ "https://m.snopes.com/carly-fiorina-rape-comment/" ] }, { "sentence": " One Misdirection (26 August 2015)", "hrefs": [ "https://m.snopes.com/joey-fatone-one-direction-letter/" ] }, { "sentence": " Boston's Nasty Snowpile Still Hasn't Melted (CityLab)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/pxfy65a" ] }, { "sentence": " Woman, 88, Charged With Assaulting Police Officer (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p3zyhjb" ] }, { "sentence": " Beekeepers Set Out to Remove a Million Bees from Home (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p3nsxfw" ] }, { "sentence": " Firefighter Accused of Reporting Fake Fire to Earn Paycheck (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/pmtn9ku" ] }, { "sentence": " Handsome Gorilla Delights Female Zoo-Goers (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/q2njlv4" ] }, { "sentence": " Cow Puts the MOO-ves on Comrade During Live News Broadcast (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p2qc97d" ] }, { "sentence": " 8-Foot-Wide Vortex Opens Up in Lake (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nw2c9sk" ] }, { "sentence": " Woman Trying to Kiss Llama Gets Face Full of Spit (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nol4x3j" ] }, { "sentence": " Queen's Guard Draws Gun on Tourist Who Touched Him (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/ntfpg2g" ] }, { "sentence": " Airplane Wheel Crashes Into Apartment Roof (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/pw3rm5c" ] }, { "sentence": " Trashed Golfer Gets Head Stuck in Garbage Can (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/na4l54r" ] }, { "sentence": " Subway Long Jump Attempt Fails (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/qafkzqb" ] }, { "sentence": " Illegally Parked Car Covered in Post-Its (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/qy4ek2r" ] }, { "sentence": " Something's Rotten: Stench from Fridge Sends 11 to Hospital (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/psp5cn8" ] }, { "sentence": " Men Hospitalized, Recovering After Rare Beaver Attack (Reuters)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p7y98tf" ] }, { "sentence": " Theater Switches Horror Movie for Disney Film (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/qdnwp52" ] }, { "sentence": " Break-In Suspect Left Wallet Behind (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/oen9kr9" ] }, { "sentence": " 16 Police Forces Respond to Wedding Brawl (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/pr9zr3h" ] }, { "sentence": " Sex Sounds Rile Neighbors (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/poyp685" ] }, { "sentence": " Loose Dog at Motel Leads to Drug Arrest (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/qdv69jm" ] }, { "sentence": " Robbers Chased Away by Shopkeeper Wielding Vacuum Cleaner (Reuters)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nssx438" ] }, { "sentence": " Police Apologize After Sex Talk Broadcast from Helicopter (Reuters)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/q9cs2vz" ] }, { "sentence": " Gumbo Seasoning Dispute Gets Spicy (Panama City (FL) News Herald)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/otaa26d" ] }, { "sentence": " Mermaids, Other Creatures Turn Out for Parade (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p4ws3s6" ] }, { "sentence": " Newlyweds Win $15 Million in Lottery (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nu7dmhe" ] }, { "sentence": " City Slaps Car Sculpture with a Ticket (CityLab)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/o3q7rep" ] }, { "sentence": " Skinny Jeans Send Woman to Hospital with Nerve Damage (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/qad4gj6" ] }, { "sentence": " 'Fridgehenge' Welcomes Solstice with Refrigerators (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/q5c3bt8" ] }, { "sentence": " Brave Kitty Stares Down Mountain Lion (Reuters)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/q6qvkop" ] }, { "sentence": " Bleating Beauties: Village Holds Goat Pageant (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/p2v5yeg" ] }, { "sentence": " Flight Video Catches Cat Stowing Away on Plane Wing (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/n97h69n" ] }, { "sentence": " Smuggler Hides Cigarettes in Buddha Statues (Sky News)", "hrefs": [ "https://news.sky.com/story/1505263/smuggler-hides-cigarettes-in-buddha-statues" ] }, { "sentence": " Pilots Warned of 70,000 Homing Pigeons (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/ndeqluv" ] }, { "sentence": " Bank Robber Who Stopped for Biscuits Gets Prison (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nnoeo3f" ] }, { "sentence": " Man Drives Himself to Station, Asks for DUI Arrest (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/onzbeem" ] }, { "sentence": " 66 Surfers Set Record for Most People Riding a Board at Once (Associated Press)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/q29ojzs" ] }, { "sentence": " Father Sends Lookalike to Paternity Test (International Business Times)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/owte6g5" ] }, { "sentence": " Cabbie Drives Taxi Down Three Flights of Stairs (UPI)", "hrefs": [ "https://tinyurl.com/nz4a97n" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/oct/01/national-womens-law-center/there-gender-wage-gap-every-state/", "claim": "In every state, women are paid less than men.", "author": "Janel Davis", "posted": "10/01/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Women: Youve come a long way, but still have a ways to go, according to the National Womens Law Center.The NWLC revisited the gender wage gap debate last month, citing recently released federal statistics showing the difference between the earnings of men and women in the United States. Using the data, the organization devised a state-by-state ranking of womens median earnings compared with mens.In every state, women are paid less than men, the NWLC said in a Sept. 21 news release about its analysis. The liberal-leaning advocacy organization for womens issues also cited the national gender wage gap showing that women are paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to men.The organizations leaders are using the analysis to push Congress to enact the Paycheck Fairness Act to address the disparity. That legislation -- sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and supported by the Obama administration -- is intended to strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963: proposed guidelines to show employers how to evaluate jobs with a goal of eliminating inequities. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in January 2009 but failed twice in the Senate, in November 2010 and in June 2012.The gender wage gap issue has been studied for years and has been targeted through legislation including the Equal Pay Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Still, the NWLC statement about all 50 states seemed broad. Was there the possibility that in at least one state the wage gap either didnt exist or favored women? And what factors were considered to determine the gap?The two most common sources for this type of gender wage data are the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. NWLC used data from the Census Bureaus 2011 American Community Survey, released last month, to calculate wage gaps in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.Using the Community Surveys statistics, the NWLC calculated the wage gap for each state as the ratio of female and male median earnings for full-time, year-round workers. (The Community Survey classified full-time, year-round workers as those being 16 years old and over and who usually worked 35 hours or more per week.) The wage gaps are presented as the number of cents women are paid for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Using this methodology, the organizations statement is accurate.For example, Georgia ranked 13th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in order of the highest wage gaps by jurisdiction. In Georgia, the wage gap was 80.7 percent, meaning that for every dollar a man earned, women earned just under 81 cents. Georgia males earned $43,902 and women earned $35,438 annually, a difference of $8,464.In that ranking, Washington, D.C., fared the best, with women making about 90 cents for every dollar men make. In Wyoming, where the wage gap was the largest, women earned 66.6 cents for each dollar earned by men.The NWLC analysis also includes the often-used statistic that the national gender wage gap is 77 percent, or more clearly: For every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 77 cents. The national wage gap calculated by the organization is based oncensus datathat tracks full-time, year-round worker wages regardless of occupation.PolitiFact has examinedwage disparityclaimswith varying outcomes. Supporters of wage gap legislation typically cite the 77-cent figure without clarifying that the gap does not take into account other factors that could influence the figure, including occupation, employment longevity and education. The census data shows the widest gap, but other data, including hourly wages tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, yields smaller differences. UsingBLS data, women are paid 86 percent of the median hourly wages of men.So, does the NWLCs claim hold up? Based on Census Bureau data, it does appear that women are paid less than men in every state and Washington, D.C. In considering other data and influences, the wage disparity amount, specifically the national wage gap, is smaller, but still exists.We rate it True.", "issues": [ "Georgia", "Income", "Women", "Workers" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Women: Youve come a long way, but still have a ways to go, according to the National Womens Law Center.The NWLC revisited the gender wage gap debate last month, citing recently released federal statistics showing the difference between the earnings of men and women in the United States. Using the data, the organization devised a state-by-state ranking of womens median earnings compared with mens.In every state, women are paid less than men, the NWLC said in a Sept. 21 news release about its analysis. The liberal-leaning advocacy organization for womens issues also cited the national gender wage gap showing that women are paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to men.The organizations leaders are using the analysis to push Congress to enact the Paycheck Fairness Act to address the disparity. That legislation -- sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and supported by the Obama administration -- is intended to strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963: proposed guidelines to show employers how to evaluate jobs with a goal of eliminating inequities. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in January 2009 but failed twice in the Senate, in November 2010 and in June 2012.The gender wage gap issue has been studied for years and has been targeted through legislation including the Equal Pay Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Still, the NWLC statement about all 50 states seemed broad. Was there the possibility that in at least one state the wage gap either didnt exist or favored women? And what factors were considered to determine the gap?The two most common sources for this type of gender wage data are the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. NWLC used data from the Census Bureaus 2011 American Community Survey, released last month, to calculate wage gaps in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C.Using the Community Surveys statistics, the NWLC calculated the wage gap for each state as the ratio of female and male median earnings for full-time, year-round workers. (The Community Survey classified full-time, year-round workers as those being 16 years old and over and who usually worked 35 hours or more per week.) The wage gaps are presented as the number of cents women are paid for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Using this methodology, the organizations statement is accurate.For example, Georgia ranked 13th out of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in order of the highest wage gaps by jurisdiction. In Georgia, the wage gap was 80.7 percent, meaning that for every dollar a man earned, women earned just under 81 cents. Georgia males earned $43,902 and women earned $35,438 annually, a difference of $8,464.In that ranking, Washington, D.C., fared the best, with women making about 90 cents for every dollar men make. In Wyoming, where the wage gap was the largest, women earned 66.6 cents for each dollar earned by men.The NWLC analysis also includes the often-used statistic that the national gender wage gap is 77 percent, or more clearly: For every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 77 cents. The national wage gap calculated by the organization is based oncensus datathat tracks full-time, year-round worker wages regardless of occupation.PolitiFact has examinedwage disparityclaimswith varying outcomes. Supporters of wage gap legislation typically cite the 77-cent figure without clarifying that the gap does not take into account other factors that could influence the figure, including occupation, employment longevity and education. The census data shows the widest gap, but other data, including hourly wages tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, yields smaller differences. UsingBLS data, women are paid 86 percent of the median hourly wages of men.So, does the NWLCs claim hold up? Based on Census Bureau data, it does appear that women are paid less than men in every state and Washington, D.C. In considering other data and influences, the wage disparity amount, specifically the national wage gap, is smaller, but still exists.We rate it True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/american-taxpayers90-billion/", "claim": "Was an excess of $90 billion paid by U.S. taxpayers under Trump's tax legislation?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "06/11/2019", "sci_digest": [ "The IRS collected $93 billion more from taxpayers in fiscal year 2018 than 2017, but that doesn't mean it's a harbinger of things to come." ], "justification": "On 4 June 2019, Yahoo! Finance reported that as a result of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted by the Trump administration, \"the IRS pulled in an additional $93 billion for 2018 from taxpayers on individual income taxes than it did for 2017.\" With the tax law being a hot partisan topic, many readers who saw the headline online asked us whether it was true. reported In that article, Yahoo! Finance reported: The IRS collected $1.97 trillion in gross collections (the amount before refunds) for 2018. That figure stood at roughly $1.87 trillion for 2017. Refunds did increase this year but not by much. The IRS refunded about $398 billion to taxpayers for 2018. For 2017, it was roughly $386 billion. And after refunds, the IRS collected about $93 billion more from individual American taxpayers than it did in 2017. Interestingly, that number stands close to the tax break amount that corporations received from the TCJA in 2018. Last year, big businesses paid $91 billion less in taxes than they had in 2017, prior to the new laws passage. The numbers reported by Yahoo! Finance are accurate, cited from figures published by the IRS in its 2018 Data Book. Collections data for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 can be viewed in the following table, while 2017 refund data can be downloaded by clicking here: Data Book here However, it's still too early to tease out the long-term effects of the new tax law from 2018 data, according to Matthew Gardner, senior fellow and corporate tax expert at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a non-partisan nonprofit organization that researches tax policy. Republicans had wanted to tell the story about new tax cuts fueling economic growth that would offset lost revenue, while Democrats had been eager to frame the new law as a gift to the country's wealthiest individuals and large corporations at the expense of average Americans. As Yahoo! finance reporter Kristin Myer pointed out on the news outlet's show \"The First Trade,\" it appeared that taxpayers had \"filled the gap\" left by corporate tax cuts in 2018. \"I would absolutely agree that if you look at the tax bill as written, unambiguously this is a shift away from taxing corporations toward taxing individuals,\" Gardner said. Gardner is a critic of TCJA because it cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent without fixing loopholes that corporations have long exploited. \"We needed corporate tax reform, and we didnt get it. We just got corporate tax cuts,\" Gardner told us. However, irregularities that occurred in both fiscal years 2017 and 2018 can paint a misleading picture of the long-term impact of the TCJA. Among others reasons, 2017 tax filings were artificially depressed because the IRS granted filing extensions to victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Conversely, filings were up in 2018 when those delayed tax returns were finally submitted. extensions Furthermore, the law went into effect on 1 January 2018, meaning it wasn't in force for the entirety of the fiscal year, which starts in October. \"I wouldn't take these fiscal year 18 data very seriously as an indicator of what the tax cuts are doing in any sense,\" Gardner said. \"No one should expect to fully see those effects emerge in the 2018 fiscal year. We have to wait until next year to really get a look at the impact on collections.\" Politicians on both sides of the aisle were anxious to see how the new law would affect tax refunds because, as Bloomberg reported, \"Getting a tax refund is a springtime tradition that Americans love as much as Easter candy.\" And as Yahoo! observed, \"In the end, many Americans saw modest increases in their paychecks throughout the year, but didnt notice. Instead, as people filed, many bemoaned getting smaller-than-anticipated refunds or even being hit with a 'surprise' tax bill.\" didnt notice 'surprise' tax bill Democratic lawmakers seized on the lower refunds, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) stating, according to Yahoo!, that \"Many Americans depend on their tax refund to pay bills and make ends meet, but this tax season, working families will see smaller than expected returns and surprise tax bills -- because the Trump administration used smoke and mirrors in a shallow attempt to exaggerate the impact of their tax law on middle class families for political reasons.\" Myers, Kristin. \"American Taxpayers Paid Over $90 Billion More Under Trump Tax Law.\"\r Yahoo! Finance. 4 June 2019. Davison, Laura. \"Shrinking Tax Refunds Cast a Shadow on Trumps Signature Law.\"\r Bloomberg. 15 March 2019. Lee, Jasmine C. and Sara Simon. \"How Every Senator Voted on the Tax Bill.\"\r The New York Times. 19 December 2017.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10zjg_w99eJhzZr2N_SOd66K8KVXmToM_" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 4 June 2019, Yahoo! Finance reported that as a result of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted by the Trump administration, \"the IRS pulled in an additional $93 billion for 2018 from taxpayers on individual income taxes than it did for 2017.\" With the tax law being a hot partisan topic, many readers who saw the headline online asked us whether it was true.", "hrefs": [ "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-taxpayers-paid-nearly-100-billion-more-to-irs-under-trump-tax-law-194900782.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The numbers reported by Yahoo! Finance are accurate, cited from figures published by the IRS in its 2018 Data Book. Collections data for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 can be viewed in the following table, while 2017 refund data can be downloaded by clicking here:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/18databk.pdf", "https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-collections-and-refunds-by-type-of-tax-irs-data-book-table-1" ] }, { "sentence": "Among others reasons, 2017 tax filings were artificially depressed because the IRS granted filing extensions to victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Conversely, filings were up in 2018 when those delayed tax returns were finally submitted.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-gives-tax-relief-to-victims-of-hurricane-harvey-parts-of-texas-now-eligible-extension-filers-have-until-jan-31-to-file" ] }, { "sentence": "Politicians on both sides of the aisle were anxious to see how the new law would affect tax refunds because, as Bloomberg reported, \"Getting a tax refund is a springtime tradition that Americans love as much as Easter candy.\" And as Yahoo! observed, \"In the end, many Americans saw modest increases in their paychecks throughout the year, but didnt notice. Instead, as people filed, many bemoaned getting smaller-than-anticipated refunds or even being hit with a 'surprise' tax bill.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-gave-most-americans-tax-134225198.html", "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tax-scam-some-taxpayers-get-unwelcome-surprise-after-filing-returns-201206749.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-orders-2350-dollar-tax-rebate-november/", "claim": "Government Cheddar", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "11/11/2015", "sci_digest": [ "No, President Obama isn't sending us all $2,350 tax rebate checks in November. " ], "justification": " [green-label]Claim:[/green-label] President Obama has issued an executive ordergranting a $2,350 dollar tax rebateto every American who filed a tax return for 2014. [dot-false][/dot-false] [green-label]Example:[/green-label] [green-small][Collected via e-mail,November2015][/green-small] Some women at work were discussing the following: Apparently they saw on Facebook that, as an executive order by PresidentObama, the government is giving everyone who filed 2014 taxes a $2,350.00rebate/refund to be mailed out this month (November 12, 2015). I have lookedeverywhere (on the Internet) that I can think of. The only place I can findit is on a site called \"United Media Publishing\". Also, the only referenceto this that I can find on Facebook sends a person to this same article fromUnited Media Publishing. Is this true??? [green-label]Origins:[/green-label] On 14 August 2015 the web site United Media Publishing (UMP) issued an article titled \"Obama Orders 2350 Dollar Tax Rebate In November\" which reported that: The Obama administration has directed IRS director John Koskinen to have the agency prepare for one of the largest cash refund/rebate hand-outs in the history of the organization. The President has authorized by way of anexecutive order that a 2350 dollar tax rebate be issued to every American who filed a tax return in the 2014 fiscal year, irrespective of whether they paid tax or not. Update: A representative for the IRS confirms that the first tax rebate checks will go into the mail November 12th. WhileUnited Media Publishing's initial claim didn't attract much attention on social media, the highlighted portion in the above-reproduced excerpt breathed new life into the hoaxin early November 2015. Unfortunately for readers (hopeful that anunexpected $2,350 windfall was headed their way atChristmastime),United Media Publishing is nothing more than a fake news site, one that doesn't feature a disclaimer notice identifying its content as fake news. Prior fabricationsspread by UMP included aCharles Mansondeath hoax and a story aboutthousands of Christian couples filing for divorceinprotest of the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage. Charles Manson divorce [article-meta] [green-label]Last updated:[/green-label] 11 November 2015 [green-label]Originally published:[/green-label] 11 November 2015", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1owL4N3Ts83SW8IU2dciif6-z4DourOuA", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Unfortunately for readers (hopeful that anunexpected $2,350 windfall was headed their way atChristmastime),United Media Publishing is nothing more than a fake news site, one that doesn't feature a disclaimer notice identifying its content as fake news. Prior fabricationsspread by UMP included aCharles Mansondeath hoax and a story aboutthousands of Christian couples filing for divorceinprotest of the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/manson.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/christian-couples-divorce/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/levis-gun-control/", "claim": "Did Levi Strauss Announce a Partnership with Michael Bloomberg to Advocate for Gun Control?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "09/10/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Conservative web sites and the NRA gave largely accurate accounts of a September 2018 announcement by the maker of the iconic Levi's jeans." ], "justification": "In September 2018, several conservative web sites and the National Rifle Association (NRA) reported that Levi Strauss & Co., producer of the iconic Levi's brand of jeans, had partnered with businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to \"attack gun rights.\" The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) declared that Levi Strauss had left behind their \"rugged image\" and would be working with \"a billionaire oligarch in an effort to empower the government to trample upon the fundamental rights of the American people.\" The conservative LifeZette website similarly wrote that: declared LifeZette The company plans to donate $1 million over four years through grants to anti-gun groups -- including the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg-fronted group -- and will also encourage employee contributions through offering to double-match all the monies they throw toward the anti-gun campaign. On 5 September the NRA-ILA posted a meme on Facebook asserting that \"Levi Strauss turns their back on Second Amendment supporting customers\": meme It's true that Levi Strauss did announce in September 2018 they would be partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun control measures and was founded and is heavily funded by Michael Bloomberg. founded However, the accounts highlighted above included subjective (and sometimes misleading) characterizations of the company's efforts rather than objective facts. For example, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh wrote that the company was \"stepping up [their] support for gun violence prevention,\" not that they were working to \"attack gun rights.\" The latter characterization came from LifeZette and the NRA, not Levi Strauss itself. wrote Similarly, the NRA's Facebook meme claimed that the company had \"[turned] their back on Second Amendment supporting customers,\" but none of the actions announced in September 2018 related specifically to customers rather than to the issue of gun violence in general. (In 2016, the company requested that customers not bring firearms into their stores as a safety measure.) requested Finally, LifeZette wrote that Levi Strauss would be donating money towards \"anti-Second Amendment activities,\" but that is not at all how the project was characterized by Levis Strauss themselves, whose CEO stipulated that he did not favor repealing the Second Amendment. In a blog post on 4 September 2018, Levi Strauss announced three actions in support of gun violence prevention: blog post 1. The Safer Tomorrow Fund: Weve established this fund to direct more than $1 million in philanthropic grants from LS&Co. over the next four years to fuel the work of nonprofits and youth activists who are working to end gun violence in America. 2. Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety: We are partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety and executives from the business community, including Michael Bloomberg, to form a coalition of business leaders who believe that business has a critical role to play and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country. 3. Employee Support: We are doubling our usual employee donation match to organizations aligned with our Safer Tomorrow Fund. Additionally, were encouraging employees to utilize their five hours a month in paid volunteer time to get more politically active. In an op-ed column for Fortune magazine, Bergh addressed the potential concerns of gun-owning customers and stressed that he was not advocating getting rid of the Second Amendment and did not believe gun owners were irresponsible: column You may wonder why a company that doesnt manufacture or sell guns is wading into this issue, but for us, its simple. Americans shouldnt have to live in fear of gun violence. Its an issue that affects all of us -- all generations and all walks of life. So today, on top of our previous actions, Levi Strauss & Co. is lending its support for gun violence prevention in three new areas. I know that Americans, including many of our own consumers, employees, and other partners, hold a wide spectrum of views related to guns. Im not here to suggest we repeal the Second Amendment or to suggest that gun owners arent responsible. In fact, as a former U.S. Army officer, I took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. But as retired four-star general Michael Hayden once said, There are some weapons out there that frankly nobody should have access to. And actually, there are some people out there who should never have access to any weapons. We cant insulate ourselves from every threat. We cant harden every place we gather -- whether it be our schools, workplaces, shops, churches, or entertainment venues. But we can take common-sense, measurable steps -- like criminal background checks on all gun sales -- that will save lives. On the whole, the claims made by the NRA and certain conservative web sites about Levi Strauss & Co's newly-announced gun control activities were largely accurate and based on real announcements made by the company. However, these reports were colored, and at times distorted, by subjective characterizations and misleading descriptions of what Levi Strauss had actually announced. National Rifle Association, Institute for Legislative Action. \"Levi's Teams with Billionaire Michael Bloomberg to Attack Gun Rights.\"\r 7 September 2018. LifeZette. \"Levi Strauss Teams with Billionaire Michael Bloomberg to Attack Gun Rights.\"\r 9 September 2018. Ho, Catherine. \"Inside the Bloomberg-Back Gun Control Group's Effort to Defeat the NRA.\"\r The Washington Post. 20 June 2016. Bergh, Chip. \"Levi Strauss CEO: Why Business Leaders Need to Take a Stand on Gun Violence.\"\r Fortune. 4 September 2018. Levi Strauss & Co. \"Ending the Gun Violence Epidemic in America.\"\r 4 September 2018.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16eCIdBzTMkBAlkUsnUVAwbZdes_pxf6D", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) declared that Levi Strauss had left behind their \"rugged image\" and would be working with \"a billionaire oligarch in an effort to empower the government to trample upon the fundamental rights of the American people.\" The conservative LifeZette website similarly wrote that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180907/levi-s-teams-with-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-to-attack-gun-rights", "https://www.lifezette.com/2018/09/levi-strauss-teams-with-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-to-attack-gun-rights/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 5 September the NRA-ILA posted a meme on Facebook asserting that \"Levi Strauss turns their back on Second Amendment supporting customers\":", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20180910161759/https://www.facebook.com/NationalRifleAssociation/photos/a.10150117108031833/10156939976891833/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "It's true that Levi Strauss did announce in September 2018 they would be partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun control measures and was founded and is heavily funded by Michael Bloomberg.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/20/everytowns-survivors-network-stands-on-the-front-lines-of-the-gun-control-battle/" ] }, { "sentence": "However, the accounts highlighted above included subjective (and sometimes misleading) characterizations of the company's efforts rather than objective facts. For example, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh wrote that the company was \"stepping up [their] support for gun violence prevention,\" not that they were working to \"attack gun rights.\" The latter characterization came from LifeZette and the NRA, not Levi Strauss itself.", "hrefs": [ "https://fortune.com/2018/09/04/levi-strauss-gun-violence-parkland/" ] }, { "sentence": "Similarly, the NRA's Facebook meme claimed that the company had \"[turned] their back on Second Amendment supporting customers,\" but none of the actions announced in September 2018 related specifically to customers rather than to the issue of gun violence in general. (In 2016, the company requested that customers not bring firearms into their stores as a safety measure.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-letter-customers-our-weapons-policy-chip-bergh/" ] }, { "sentence": "In a blog post on 4 September 2018, Levi Strauss announced three actions in support of gun violence prevention:", "hrefs": [ "https://levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/2018/09/04/ending-gun-violence/" ] }, { "sentence": "In an op-ed column for Fortune magazine, Bergh addressed the potential concerns of gun-owning customers and stressed that he was not advocating getting rid of the Second Amendment and did not believe gun owners were irresponsible:", "hrefs": [ "https://fortune.com/2018/09/04/levi-strauss-gun-violence-parkland/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-calls-boycott-mall-america-santa-always-white-bible/", "claim": "Sarah Palin Calls to Boycott Mall of America Because 'Santa Was Always White in the Bible'", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "12/05/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A story that the former Alaska governor called for the boycott after discovering that the mall had hired its first black Santa Claus is a hoax." ], "justification": "On 3 December 2016, Politicops published an article reporting that Alaska's former governor (and 2008 vice presidential pick) Sarah Palin called for a boycott of the Mall of America after it hired a black man to play Santa, because the character was always \"white\" in the \"Bible\": article The announcement that Mall of America was welcoming its first black Santa Claus was greeted in many quarters as a good thing but, as might be expected in a country that has become increasingly more comfortable saying any racist thing that comes to mind, many were highly offended ... Among many who were offended by this move was former half-term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. The sharp-tongued Republican wasted no time in condemning the companys actions, going on social media and posting comments that called for boycotting and running Mall of America into the ground, on the basis of Santa always having been white in the Bible. No, I refuse to believe that they went this far in trying to cater to the minorities, I thought the company had some backbone but I guess I was wrong, Palin told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. She also argued that hiring a non-white Santa Claus was the last straw in corporate Americas twisting of traditional, conservative Christian values, because they realized they couldnt make any more money off of the usual scams and techniques theyve been using so far. She added, Thats why they had to come up with something new and out of the box, at least something that appeared that way in their minds. But, this proves that they have no morals and that they wont shy away from even the most blatant twisting of traditional Christian values, just so they could make more money. I understand having to make a profit in order to get by and have a good life, but I dont understand stomping on things that are holy and sacred in order to accomplish that ... Americans, especially white ones, need to boycott the company and need to run it into the ground, so that they never ever come up with such an offensive and sacrilegious idea again, Palin added. Like all items published by Politicops, (and sister sites Religionlo, Politicalo, and Politcops), the article's first paragraph referenced a real debate over the Mall of America's black Santa. However, Palin made no such remarks about a boycott, and the tacked on fabrication is standard for this particular family of fake news outlets. Articles from Newslo and its sister sites typically begin with a paragraph of fact-based information before launching into fabricated details. Santa Newslo Newslo's fake news sites often display under the lesser-known Politicops domain on social media, but all include a button allowing readers to \"show facts\" or \"hide facts\" to highlight the truthful material in the article. fake news However, all articles display by default in \"hide facts\" mode, so most readers view articles (or their headlines on social media) without embellishments marked: Prior Newslo fabrications included claims that Chris Christie thought that a female Viagra would cause an uptick in \"lesbianism\" (and separately that he voted down a gender pay parity bill for Bible-based reasons), an Alabama politician tried to implement saliva-based \"hunger tests\" for food stamp recipients, Ted Cruz affirmed he'd run as a Democrat if something affected Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Mike Pence said that if abortion was legal in cases of rape women would try to \"get raped\" in order to obtain an abortion, the father of Brock Turner lamented the absence of punishment for the victim in his son's sexual assault case, and that televangelist Pat Robertson claimed David Bowie did not die, but was kidnapped by demons. Viagra Bible-based hunger tests Ted Cruz Mike Pence Brock Turner David Bowie", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UtbhzipGgGvhkM5yQJ8cg-tYlaM4rOpX", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 3 December 2016, Politicops published an article reporting that Alaska's former governor (and 2008 vice presidential pick) Sarah Palin called for a boycott of the Mall of America after it hired a black man to play Santa, because the character was always \"white\" in the \"Bible\":", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/hCfkm/image" ] }, { "sentence": "Like all items published by Politicops, (and sister sites Religionlo, Politicalo, and Politcops), the article's first paragraph referenced a real debate over the Mall of America's black Santa. However, Palin made no such remarks about a boycott, and the tacked on fabrication is standard for this particular family of fake news outlets. Articles from Newslo and its sister sites typically begin with a paragraph of fact-based information before launching into fabricated details.", "hrefs": [ "https://fortune.com/2016/12/02/mall-of-america-black-santa/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/newslo/" ] }, { "sentence": "Newslo's fake news sites often display under the lesser-known Politicops domain on social media, but all include a button allowing readers to \"show facts\" or \"hide facts\" to highlight the truthful material in the article.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/" ] }, { "sentence": "Prior Newslo fabrications included claims that Chris Christie thought that a female Viagra would cause an uptick in \"lesbianism\" (and separately that he voted down a gender pay parity bill for Bible-based reasons), an Alabama politician tried to implement saliva-based \"hunger tests\" for food stamp recipients, Ted Cruz affirmed he'd run as a Democrat if something affected Hillary Clinton's candidacy, Mike Pence said that if abortion was legal in cases of rape women would try to \"get raped\" in order to obtain an abortion, the father of Brock Turner lamented the absence of punishment for the victim in his son's sexual assault case, and that televangelist Pat Robertson claimed David Bowie did not die, but was kidnapped by demons.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/christie-pills-women/", "https://www.snopes.com/chris-christie-vetoes-equal-pay/", "https://www.snopes.com/food-stamp-hunger-tests/", "https://www.snopes.com/ted-cruz-run-as-democrat/", "https://www.snopes.com/mike-pence-allowing-rape-victims-to-have-abortions-will-lead-to-women-trying-to-get-raped/", "https://www.snopes.com/brock-turners-father-no-punishment/", "https://www.snopes.com/pat-robertson-david-bowie/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-text-food-get-free-meals-children/", "claim": "Can sending a text with the word 'FOOD' assist in offering complimentary summer meals to children?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "06/02/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A viral message on social media contained accurate information about how to access food for kids this summer." ], "justification": "In late May 2017, Facebook users began to share a message claiming that if you send a text message to a particular phone number, you would receive the address of a nearby location where school-aged children could get free meals during the summer. The message was typically worded like this: If you have a school-aged student in need of breakfast and lunch this summer, simply text FOOD to 877877 and receive a message back with a location closest to where they can get free summer meals. Even if you aren't in need, someone else's kids are. No child deserves to go hungry, ever. This is a real phone number, a real program, and an accurate message. The text information service is run by No Kid Hungry, an initiative of the non-profit organization Share Our Strength. No Kid Hungry No Kid Hungry has access to information about tens of thousands of groups serving free meals nationwide as part of the the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Summer Food Service Program. Program Once the free meal providers register with the USDA, No Kid Hungry makes their location and hours available to the public via the 877-877 number. To use the service, text \"FOOD\" to 877-877 and enter your zip code when prompted. Spanish-speakers can also text \"COMIDA\" to 877-877. You can also locate registered, licensed free meal providers using this interactive map on the USDA website. interactive map Unfortunately, your nearest free meal provider may not be in your town. This is because, by law, sites are only allowed in areas where 50% of schoolchildren or more are eligible for free or low-cost school meals, according to the USDA. You can check whether your local area is eligible to host a Summer Food Service Program site, using this map. USDA map However, even if your neighborhood isn't eligible for a free meals provider, there is no restriction on you and your children traveling to the nearest site and getting free meals there. The summer program is federally funded and administered by the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which also runs the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program during the academic year, as well as the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. According to a spokesperson for the No Kid Hungry campaign, the Summer Food Service Program served 177 million free meals at 47,816 sites across the U.S. in 2016.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vwZESDiDULYvSHeQbEY_SMmMBAN6024J" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This is a real phone number, a real program, and an accurate message. The text information service is run by No Kid Hungry, an initiative of the non-profit organization Share Our Strength.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nokidhungry.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "No Kid Hungry has access to information about tens of thousands of groups serving free meals nationwide as part of the the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Summer Food Service Program.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program" ] }, { "sentence": "You can also locate registered, licensed free meal providers using this interactive map on the USDA website.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks" ] }, { "sentence": "Unfortunately, your nearest free meal provider may not be in your town. This is because, by law, sites are only allowed in areas where 50% of schoolchildren or more are eligible for free or low-cost school meals, according to the USDA. You can check whether your local area is eligible to host a Summer Food Service Program site, using this map.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fns.usda.gov/cacfp/about-area-eligibility", "https://www.fns.usda.gov/areaeligibility" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ben-shapiro-get-ppp-loan-forgiveness/", "claim": "Did Ben Shapiro Get PPP Loan Forgiveness?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "08/25/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Today we found out how many real estate agents in California are named \"Ben Shapiro.\"" ], "justification": "In late August 2022, the internet was awash in heated commentary abut the Biden administration's plan to forgive some federal student loan debt. plan For example, after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro voiced his opinion against student loan forgiveness, others clapped back with an accusation that he himself had received a federal loan that was later forgiven. The viral news site Uproxx, for example, published a headline that read, \"Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Hater Ben Shapiro Got His Ass Handed To Him By Someone Who Pointed Out That He Had Over $20K Of PPP Loan Debt Forgiven.\" voiced headline Many on social media shared a partial screenshot from a database tracking Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans provided by the non-profit news agency ProPublica. Here is one example from Twitter, with the Twitter user's name cropped out for privacy: The ProPublica database entry has much more information that would make it clear that the \"Ben Shapiro\" in question is not Ben Shapiro the commentator. The person with that name who received $20,832 in PPP loans is a Los Angeles real estate agent. We reached out to real estate agent Ben Shapiro for comment, and will update this story if and when we receive a response. database entry We searched both the U.S. Small Business Association's PPP database and ProPublica's database to see whether Shapiro's network of websites (The Daily Wire) received any PPP money and found no evidence that they did. We reached out to Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and will update when and if we receive a response. Shapiro called the allegation a \"lie\" in a Twitter post responding to the rumor: There is additional context to this controversy, namely that the loans in question are very different in purpose and structure. PPP loans were given out during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, with the intent of preventing businesses from shedding employees or going under. They were designed to be forgiven that is, if businesses used the money to pay workers and bills like rent and utilities, they didn't have to pay the loan back, and their debt would be considered satisfied. (Snopes received PPP money). Student loans, on the other hand, were designed to fund higher education, with the expectation that they would be paid back in full. used received", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19U7auuInJxdrKw-uM74S4VEaTNblRQxO", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late August 2022, the internet was awash in heated commentary abut the Biden administration's plan to forgive some federal student loan debt.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2022/08/24/big-student-loan-forgiveness-plan-announced-by-biden/" ] }, { "sentence": "For example, after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro voiced his opinion against student loan forgiveness, others clapped back with an accusation that he himself had received a federal loan that was later forgiven. The viral news site Uproxx, for example, published a headline that read, \"Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Hater Ben Shapiro Got His Ass Handed To Him By Someone Who Pointed Out That He Had Over $20K Of PPP Loan Debt Forgiven.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/63GpH", "https://archive.ph/vd6mt" ] }, { "sentence": "The ProPublica database entry has much more information that would make it clear that the \"Ben Shapiro\" in question is not Ben Shapiro the commentator. The person with that name who received $20,832 in PPP loans is a Los Angeles real estate agent. We reached out to real estate agent Ben Shapiro for comment, and will update this story if and when we receive a response.", "hrefs": [ "https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/loans/ben-shapiro-3071847403" ] }, { "sentence": "PPP loans were given out during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, with the intent of preventing businesses from shedding employees or going under. They were designed to be forgiven that is, if businesses used the money to pay workers and bills like rent and utilities, they didn't have to pay the loan back, and their debt would be considered satisfied. (Snopes received PPP money). Student loans, on the other hand, were designed to fund higher education, with the expectation that they would be paid back in full.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-paycheck-protection-programs-loan-forgiveness-works.html", "https://www.snopes.com/2020/05/07/snopes-ppp-loan/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/sep/13/austan-goolsbee/Goolsbee-millionaires-tax-cuts-average/", "claim": "Extending current tax rates would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.", "author": "Angie Drobnic Holan", "posted": "09/13/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Tax cuts passed under the Bush administration have been in place for close to ten years, but they will expire at the end of 2010 if Congress doesn't take action. Add in a weak economy, big government deficits, and an upcoming election, and you've got one of the most pressing policy issues of the year.President Barack Obama's administration wants to see the tax cuts made permanent for individuals who make less than $200,000 a year and couples who make less than $250,000 a year. Tax rates would go up for people who make more than that.Austan Goolsbee defended that position onThis Week with Christiane Amanpour. Goolsbee is one of Obama's top economic officials, and was recently selected to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, which counsels the president on economic policy.Obama has been quite clear, Goolsbee said, that borrowing $700 billion to extend tax cuts that average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires is the least effective bang for the buck we have.We were interested in that $100,000 number -- that extending the expiring tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.The White House pointed us to data from the Ways and Means Committee, the committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with writing tax legislation. Democrats on the committee asked the Joint Committee on Taxation for an analysis of extending the expiring tax cuts. The Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, is a nonpartisan committee with a professional staff of economists, attorneys and accountants who conduct research.The JCT crunched the numbers to generate several tables estimating tax revenues if the tax cuts expire, and how many taxpayers would be affected. The JCT found that, for those who have income of $1 million or more, extending the Bush tax cuts would mean $32.7 billion that the government would not collect in 2011. That amount would apply to 315,000 tax filers. Divide the foregone tax revenues by the number of filers, and you get $103,809, or just over $100,000, as Goolsbee said.We also checked with the Tax Policy Center, an independent, nonpartisan think tank that generates economic projections similar to those of the JCT. The Tax Policy Center found that theaverage tax increaseto millionaires and up would be $128,832. That's a bit higher than the JCT estimate, but for a complex economic analysis, it's fairly close. The center's numbers also supports Goolsbee's statement that extending the tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.To get the point of view of someone who opposes letting the current tax rates expire, we turned to the conservative Heritage Foundation. J.D. Foster said he didn't argue with the numbers, but with Goolsbee's focus on millionaires. Many of those who make more than $200,000 or $250,000 are not millionaires, and those people will see a tax increase as well.If they only intend to raise taxes on millionaires, then they need to change their proposal, Foster said. I understand it's a convenient rhetorical ploy, but its factually incorrect.This is a fair point: Goolsbee talked about a $700 billion cost, which is a general estimate for what extending the tax cuts for 10 years would cost for all higher earners, not just millionaires.We went back to the analysis and found calculations for what the Bush tax cuts are worth for other high incomes. The JCT found that for those who make between $500,000 and $1 million, the lower rates were worth an average $17,467 per tax filer, and for those who make between $200,000 and $500,000, the lower rates were worth $7,152 per tax filer. The Tax Policy Center's numberswere similar.So Goolsbee is correct that the expiring tax cuts are worth, on average, more than $100,000 for millionaires and billionaires. But the proposal the president supports would let tax cuts expire for some people who make high salaries but aren't millionaires, which Goolsbee didn't mention. So we deduct a tick from the Truth-O-Meter and rate his statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "This Week - ABC News", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Tax cuts passed under the Bush administration have been in place for close to ten years, but they will expire at the end of 2010 if Congress doesn't take action. Add in a weak economy, big government deficits, and an upcoming election, and you've got one of the most pressing policy issues of the year.President Barack Obama's administration wants to see the tax cuts made permanent for individuals who make less than $200,000 a year and couples who make less than $250,000 a year. Tax rates would go up for people who make more than that.Austan Goolsbee defended that position onThis Week with Christiane Amanpour. Goolsbee is one of Obama's top economic officials, and was recently selected to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, which counsels the president on economic policy.Obama has been quite clear, Goolsbee said, that borrowing $700 billion to extend tax cuts that average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires is the least effective bang for the buck we have.We were interested in that $100,000 number -- that extending the expiring tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.The White House pointed us to data from the Ways and Means Committee, the committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with writing tax legislation. Democrats on the committee asked the Joint Committee on Taxation for an analysis of extending the expiring tax cuts. The Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, is a nonpartisan committee with a professional staff of economists, attorneys and accountants who conduct research.The JCT crunched the numbers to generate several tables estimating tax revenues if the tax cuts expire, and how many taxpayers would be affected. The JCT found that, for those who have income of $1 million or more, extending the Bush tax cuts would mean $32.7 billion that the government would not collect in 2011. That amount would apply to 315,000 tax filers. Divide the foregone tax revenues by the number of filers, and you get $103,809, or just over $100,000, as Goolsbee said.We also checked with the Tax Policy Center, an independent, nonpartisan think tank that generates economic projections similar to those of the JCT. The Tax Policy Center found that theaverage tax increaseto millionaires and up would be $128,832. That's a bit higher than the JCT estimate, but for a complex economic analysis, it's fairly close. The center's numbers also supports Goolsbee's statement that extending the tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.To get the point of view of someone who opposes letting the current tax rates expire, we turned to the conservative Heritage Foundation. J.D. Foster said he didn't argue with the numbers, but with Goolsbee's focus on millionaires. Many of those who make more than $200,000 or $250,000 are not millionaires, and those people will see a tax increase as well.If they only intend to raise taxes on millionaires, then they need to change their proposal, Foster said. I understand it's a convenient rhetorical ploy, but its factually incorrect.This is a fair point: Goolsbee talked about a $700 billion cost, which is a general estimate for what extending the tax cuts for 10 years would cost for all higher earners, not just millionaires.We went back to the analysis and found calculations for what the Bush tax cuts are worth for other high incomes. The JCT found that for those who make between $500,000 and $1 million, the lower rates were worth an average $17,467 per tax filer, and for those who make between $200,000 and $500,000, the lower rates were worth $7,152 per tax filer. The Tax Policy Center's numberswere similar.So Goolsbee is correct that the expiring tax cuts are worth, on average, more than $100,000 for millionaires and billionaires. But the proposal the president supports would let tax cuts expire for some people who make high salaries but aren't millionaires, which Goolsbee didn't mention. So we deduct a tick from the Truth-O-Meter and rate his statement Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2728" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zebra-lion-watering-hole/", "claim": "Does This Image Show a Peaceful Meeting of a Lion and a Zebra at a Watering Hole?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/31/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Food and drink, all in the same place!" ], "justification": "Lions and zebras generally don't coexist completely peacefully in the wild. Photographs and videos of these animals together in the plains of Africa frequently depict stalking, hunting, chasing, fighting, and, of course, eating behaviors. That's probably why an image purportedly showing a lion and zebra sharing a moment of peace together at a watering hole is frequently shared with comments such as \"unbelievable but true!\": This image has been shared with a variety of captions over the years, such as \"It's not eating time,\" \"Alex and Marty\" (a reference to the animated zebra-lion friendship in the movie Madagascar), \"National Geographic: Behind the Scenes,\" and \"Morning Sam\" (a reference to an old cartoon in which Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog put their feud on hold when they clock out of work for the day): It's not eating time Alex and Marty National Geographic: Behind the Scenes Morning Sam This picture however, is not an accurate representation of a lion and a zebra enjoying a moment at a watering hole. This image was digitally created for a 2010 advertisement for Traveler's Insurance. The general conceit of the advertisement was that while animals would normally be skittish at a watering hole (as predators might be nearby), Traveler's insurance company could \"take the scary out of life\" so that customers might enjoy the world in peace. Here's the description for the advertisement via Coloribus: Coloribus: This commercial featuring baboons, lions, zebras, crocodiles, vultures and all sorts of other animals getting along famously at what would normally be a very dangerous watering hole, is the first spot in the new 'Take the scary out of life' campaign from Travelers Insurance. The viral image may look genuine when it is viewed on its own, but in the context of the commercial (where it can be glimpsed around the 10-second mark) it's more clear the representation was created with the aid of digital editing: Not only is this image a fabricated one, but the idea that watering holes serve as neutral safe-spaces for thirsty animals doesn't appear to be backed by much evidence. This idea most likely originated with, or at least was popularized by, a passage from Rudyard Kipling's The Second Jungle Book in which he described a \"water truce\" during a severe drought: water truce By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce; but water is water, and when there is but one source of supply, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs. In good seasons, when water was plentiful, those who came down to drink at the Waingunga or anywhere else, for that matter did so at the risk of their lives, and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the nights doings. This water truce played a part in Disney's live-action remake of the Jungle Book, released in 2016: Lions sometimes won't attack typical prey animals for various reasons (e.g., they're severely outnumbered; they can't match the speed of the prey without first sneaking up on it), but if a lion is hungry, the concept of a waterhole \"truce\" isn't going to stop it. A 2013 study about the predatory habits of a group of lions in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park found that the felines frequently hunted near watering holes, especially when resources were scarce, as such sites are frequented by a variety of prey: study Lion kills were located in a preferentially selected zone around artificial waterholes, suggesting that these scarce resources form passive traps for ungulate prey. Lions are stalk-and-ambush hunters that use vegetative cover for concealment during hunting and are known to ambush prey in habitats surrounding high-prey abundance areas. In the Hwange ecosystem, lion habitat selection and movements are driven by waterholes and lions appear to rotate their hunting behaviour between these different hunting grounds. Water sources are also considered crucial in lion habitat selection in the Serengeti and thought to act as passive traps for ungulates in the Kruger ecosystem. Contrary to our predictions, areas close to waterholes were highly selected for kills regardless of seasonal conditions. Conway-Smith, Erin. \"South Africa's Drought Is Bad for Hippos, Great for Lions.\"\r USA Today. 3 February 2016. \r Kipling, Rudyard. The Second Jungle Book.\r New York: Century, 1899.\r Davidson, Zeke. \"Seasonal Diet and Prey Preference of the African Lion in a Waterhole-Driven Semi-Arid Savanna.\"\r Plos One. 6 February 2013. ", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hO9maRkjkkMMwOgHoZE1N7iZ4HXWDW4Z", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This image has been shared with a variety of captions over the years, such as \"It's not eating time,\" \"Alex and Marty\" (a reference to the animated zebra-lion friendship in the movie Madagascar), \"National Geographic: Behind the Scenes,\" and \"Morning Sam\" (a reference to an old cartoon in which Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog put their feud on hold when they clock out of work for the day):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/491vwm/its_not_eating_time/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3enedd/alex_and_marty/", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2018/07/national-geographic-behind-the-scenes.jpg", "https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3yi6ls/morning_sam/" ] }, { "sentence": "Here's the description for the advertisement via Coloribus:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/tv-commercials/travelers-insurance-travelers-insurance-watering-hole-13758655/" ] }, { "sentence": "Not only is this image a fabricated one, but the idea that watering holes serve as neutral safe-spaces for thirsty animals doesn't appear to be backed by much evidence. This idea most likely originated with, or at least was popularized by, a passage from Rudyard Kipling's The Second Jungle Book in which he described a \"water truce\" during a severe drought:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1937/1937-h/1937-h.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "A 2013 study about the predatory habits of a group of lions in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park found that the felines frequently hunted near watering holes, especially when resources were scarce, as such sites are frequented by a variety of prey:", "hrefs": [ "https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055182" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kennedy-center-donate-dnc/", "claim": "Was stimulus money donated to the DNC by the Kennedy Center?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "04/01/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A viral meme suggested the performing arts center \"laundered\" money for the DNC instead of paying Center employees." ], "justification": "In late March 2020, a meme circulated on social media that falsely reported the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., had \"laundered\" COVID-19 stimulus money for the Democratic Party instead of paying its workforce, including musicians with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO):The Kennedy Center, a major venue for classical performing arts in Washington, D.C., did receive $25 million from the $2.2 trillion federal-relief package to stem financial fallout from the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. The relief package included millions earmarked to support various arts organizations. The Center also completed a privately funded $250 million renovation in late 2019 and received an appropriation in 2019 of $41 million from the U.S. government in 2019. Both examples listed in the meme, however, are unrelated to funds it received in the coronavirus-relief package. $250 million $41 million Furthermore, the Center did indeed furlough workers, including orchestral musicians, even after learning it would receive $25 million from the U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27, 2020. However, the Center, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, did not then donate $5 million of relief funds to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Under U.S. tax law, 501(c)3 organizations are legally prohibited from making \"contributions to political campaign funds.\" A spokeswoman for the Center confirmed to us that the organization made no contribution to the DNC and said the Center \"has never donated money to a political organization.\" legally According to a statement from the Center, the organization furloughed the majority of its workforce beginning April 6 through \"at least May 10, 2020.\" Even with the $25 million federal relief funds, the Center said its financial projections showed it would \"run out of cash as early as July. In order to stretch the Centers finances as long as possible, we must take immediate action to change our expense structure and preserve cash.\" The Twitter user who originated the meme followed up by clarifying that she meant the scenario as a \"hypothetical\" and not as something to be taken literally: clarifying John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.\"A Statement from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.\"\r31 March 2020. DC Federation of Musicians.\"Kennedy Center Unilaterally Cuts Off National Symphony Orchestra Musicians Pay.\"\r29 March 2020. McGlone, Peggy.\"Kennedy Center Announces 250 More Layoffs in Wake of $25 Million Federal Grant.\"\r The Washington Post.31 March 2020. Internal Revenue Service.\"The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations.\"", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1l5KzR5YXtXEeX3Oo8khrN696R9KYbrmS" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VlOax3uGHXGuWUvzCXsNc5pKAY59hfV0" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late March 2020, a meme circulated on social media that falsely reported the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., had \"laundered\" COVID-19 stimulus money for the Democratic Party instead of paying its workforce, including musicians with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO):The Kennedy Center, a major venue for classical performing arts in Washington, D.C., did receive $25 million from the $2.2 trillion federal-relief package to stem financial fallout from the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. The relief package included millions earmarked to support various arts organizations.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/03/meme-3.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The Center also completed a privately funded $250 million renovation in late 2019 and received an appropriation in 2019 of $41 million from the U.S. government in 2019. Both examples listed in the meme, however, are unrelated to funds it received in the coronavirus-relief package.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/kennedy-center-announces-250-more-layoffs-in-wake-of-25-million-federal-grant/2020/03/31/461d21ec-72b7-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html", "https://kcwebsiteprod.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/default-source/pdfs/about/kcpa_fy20-budget-justification-to-congress.pdf?sfvrsn=d9c65d92_2" ] }, { "sentence": "Furthermore, the Center did indeed furlough workers, including orchestral musicians, even after learning it would receive $25 million from the U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27, 2020. However, the Center, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, did not then donate $5 million of relief funds to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Under U.S. tax law, 501(c)3 organizations are legally prohibited from making \"contributions to political campaign funds.\" A spokeswoman for the Center confirmed to us that the organization made no contribution to the DNC and said the Center \"has never donated money to a political organization.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/the-restriction-of-political-campaign-intervention-by-section-501c3-tax-exempt-organizations" ] }, { "sentence": "The Twitter user who originated the meme followed up by clarifying that she meant the scenario as a \"hypothetical\" and not as something to be taken literally:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/YianI", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/03/tweet-1.jpg" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/sep/04/joe-pojman/anti-abortion-leader-says-texas-funding-womens-hea/", "claim": "The State of Texas is providing funding for women's health services at record-high levels, as they have recently raised it by an additional $50 million for the upcoming two years.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "09/04/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "At a Texas Capitol rally, an anti-abortion advocate suggested Texas has hit a record pace in funding womens health. Videoof the July 2015 rally showsJoe Pojmanof the Texas Alliance for Life initially saluting Republican leaders for launching investigations in reaction to stealth videos showing Planned Parenthood employees talking rather casually about donations of fetal tissue. The videos had been circulated by the California-based Center for Medical Progress,which describes itselfas a group of citizen-journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics. Next, Pojman told the crowd, to cheers and applause: I just wanted to emphasize, the state of Texas is doing its part... The state of Texas is funding womens health services at historically high levels; they just increased that level another $50 million for the next two years. Pojman noted that none of the $50 million would go to Planned Parenthood. Texas takes care of our people and Planned Parenthood is not part of that picture, he said. Legislative cuts and changes, 2011-2013 Pojmans declaration caught our attention in part because actions set in motion by the 2011 Legislature drove down family planning spending in the state budget by more than $70 million (from an existing two-year expenditure of $111 million) in 2012-13. Also in 2011, lawmakers voted to bar state family planning aid from going to health care providers affiliated with organizations that perform or promote abortions such as Planned Parenthood, whose clinics had been the Texas programs biggest provider of contraceptive care and cancer screening, serving more than 40,000 women a year. Two years later, the state's ruling Republicans passed into law a bar on most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation and mandated facilities providing abortions meet tougher health and safety standards, a move under court challenge that has caused providers to predict a substantial reduction in clinics statewide. After the 2011 actions, the federal government moved to cut off what had been a 9-to-1 match of federal to state dollars paying to provide contraceptive care for women who otherwise would qualify for Medicaid if they were to become pregnant. State health officials said the affected initiative, launched in 2005, had saved the state money$21.4 million in 2008, for instanceby reducing Medicaid-financed births. Federal aid accounted for $65 million of the money spent on the program in 2010-11. Reacting to the pending cutoff, then-Gov. Rick Perry announced state officials would assure such services were delivered through clinics not affiliated with abortion providers. The promised transition fully played out starting in 2013. So, given all this, could it be the state has set a record for expenditures on womens health? Pojmans backup cites state budgets We asked Pojman, executive director of the alliance, whichsaysit opposes the advocacy and practice of abortion (except to preserve the pregnant womans life), how he reached his historically high conclusion. By email, Pojman responded with achart, which he sourced to state budgets, indicating that nearly $285 million in state and federal funds budgeted by the 2015 Legislature for several womens health efforts in 2016-17 would exceed such spending in each of the nine previous two-year state budgets, dating to 1998-99with the previous record being $240.1 million for such programs in 2014-15. The previous low, per the chart, was $128.8 million in 2012-13. Pojmans chart attributed the touted $50 million in fresh spending to a provision in the 2016-17 budget stating the money should increase access to women's health and family planning services. In his email, Pojman told us that at the rally, he was referring to total legislatively appropriated state and federal funding, not per-person funding, on four programs providing family planning or female-specific health care such as breast and cervical cancer screenings. Conversely, he said, he wasnt including funding for perinatal care, including childbirth. Planned Parenthood, he said, provides virtually no services for pregnant women, certainly not support for childbirth, except elective abortion. Four state-overseen efforts In his email, Pojman said aFebruary 2014 Texas Health and Human Services Commission presentationamounted to a good summary of how the state spends money on womens health. From that, we pulled these thumbnails: The Texas Womens Health Program was put in place by the state starting in 2013 to provide services previously available through the defunct, federally supported Medicaid Womens Health Program. The successor program, serving women living at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, retains the same program objectives and client eligibility previously provided by WHP and has expanded program benefits to include treatment of certain sexually transmitted infections. Services offered in annual appointments include pelvic examinations and STD, diabetes, HIV, cholesterol, blood pressure and breast and cervical cancer screenings plus Pap tests, a clinical breast exam, contraceptives and family planning counseling. Family planning services, available to women of childbearing age and men living at 250 percent of the poverty level or less, offering the tests offered in the womens health program plus sterilizations. Expanded Primary Health Care, a new program, offered to women 18 and older living at or below 200 percent of the poverty level, covering the services offered in the other programs plus immunizations, mammograms, diagnostic services for women with abnormal breast or cervical cancer test results, cervical dysplasia treatment, individualized case management and option prenatal medical and dental services. Breast and Cervical Cancer Services, open to women living at or below 200 percent of the poverty level, with breast screenings for women aged 50 to 64 and cervical screenings for women aged 21 to 64. In addition to services covered by the Expanded Primary Health Care program, BCCS assists clients needing to apply to Medicaids Breast and Cervical Cancer program. In addition, a chart in the presentation included spending figures that mostly aligned with what Pojman had offered to us for fiscal 2010 through 2015--including the legislated decrease in 2012-13 and a rebound in spending budgeted for 2014-15 (which ran through August 2015): SOURCE:Presentation to Senate Committee on Health and Human Services: Texas Womens Health and Family Planning Programs,Feb. 20, 2014 (received by email from Joe Pojman, Aug. 6, 2015) Other analyses support claim Next, we asked the commission and outside experts about Pojmans rally statement. The consensus was that spending budgeted by lawmakers for 2016-17 would set a record, though some advocates cautioned this didnt mean all needs would be met and others said that not all the described programs focus only on services typically provided by family planning clinics. To our inquiry, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission emailed amore detailed chartbasically lining up with Pojmans recap. From the commissions figures, it looked to us like the appropriated 2016-17 funds for womens health services exceeded previous two-year expenditures by $40 million or more. At the the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for programs serving low-income residents, analyst Stacey Pogue said Pojman was on solid ground, though its complicated. For instance, Pogue said, the 2015 Legislature called for three womens health programs to be reorganized in 2016 into two offerings overseen by the commission and precise spending results remain to be seen. By email, Pogue pointed out a two-pagesummary of the 2016-17 state budgetprepared by theTexas Womens Healthcare Coalition, which says it promotes access to preventive health care for all Texas women working toward the vision of a state where every woman has access to the preventive and preconception care that will help her stay healthy and prepare for healthy, planned pregnancies. According to this June 2015 summary, $260.9 million in spending on womens health care budgeted by lawmakers for 2016-17 reflected an increase of $46.5 million, or 22 percent, from what was budgeted for 2014-15. We confirmed the latest figures inthe 2016-17 appropriations act approved by a Texas House-Senate conference committee; it shows $130,321,510 in budgeted spending on womens health services in the fiscal year beginning Sept. 1, 2015, and $130,548,682 for the subsequent year, totaling $260,870,192 in the biennium. As noted by Pojman, the act also says that each year, on approval of the budget board, the commission shall allocate $50 million providing primary health care services to women including but not limited to preventive health screenings such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension and STD-HIV screenings; family planning services including contraception; perinatal services; and dental services. Due to such spending, the act estimates that annually, 65,000 adults and adolescents would receive family planning services. Its that additional spending, the coalition summary indicates, that makes the budgeted spending higher despite legislated reductions in spending for family planning (a cut of $1.5 million, or nearly 4 percent) and the Texas Womens Health program (a cut of $2 million, or 3 percent). Alabama analyst Also to our inquiry, Heather Busby of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, whichsaysit focuses on guaranteeing Texans the right to make personal reproductive health decisions including contraception and safe abortions, suggested we queryKari White, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor and expert on womens health issues whos been part of aTexas-based teamstudying effects of the Texas decision barring aid to clinics affiliated with abortion providers. By phone and email, White agreed the state has allocated what looks like a record level of money to the efforts singled out by Pojman though she speculated by email the spending bump might be less dramatic than available figures suggest. The focus on funding allocated for the four programs on Pojmans list, White said, does not entirely capture how some of the womens health services historically have been paid for. For example, primary care services for women that are now covered by EPHC were previously paid for using other state-administered and federal programs (not included on Pojmans list). By not factoring these programs into funding totals in previous years, the recent increase may seem larger than it actually is. Spending per woman Also, White wrote, funding allocations do not reflect how effectively these programs are serving women. In other words, there may be more total dollars set aside for services, but since quite a bit of this new funding has been going to organizations that do not have a lot of experience with family planning, the state is spending more but not necessarily serving more women. White suggested we consider research by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes reproductive health and abortion rights. In 2013, more than 1.7 million Texas women were in need of publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies, according to a July 2015 institute reportthat started fromU.S. Census Bureau survey results. That year, the report said, publicly supported health centers provided contraceptive care to 281,170 women in Texas plus 47,390 teens. These totals amount to substantial proportionsbut not nearly allof the women in need of publicly supported contraception, the report said. For our part, we asked the commission for help estimating the number of Texas women eligible for the health services. Could it be that even with spending up, less money is available per potential beneficiary? By email, spokesman Bryan Black provided achart, drawing on U.S. Census Bureau surveys, estimating the number of female U.S. citizens aged 15-44 living in Texas at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level from 2010 through 2017--in other words, the women who most likely would qualify for the health services. Next, we calculated that some $109 per potential beneficiary was spent in 2010-11 and 2012-13; this was exceeded by the $205 per potential beneficiary appropriated by lawmakers for such programs in 2014-15 and the $236 per potential beneficiary appropriated for 2016-17. Our ruling Pojman said the state of Texas is funding womens health services at historically high levels; they just increased their level another $50 million for the next two years. Texas lawmakers this year voted to appropriate more for womens health services than before--including the $50 million bump. This includes funding for general health services such as diabetes and cholesterol screenings. It also may be meaningful that programs are under reorganization. Too, lawmakers started putting more money on the table after their actions led the federal government to cut off tens of millions of dollars for reproductive services. We rate this claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Abortion", "Health Care", "State Budget", "Women", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VMI9fZPyLU_xYhSe1ycgKg2SZCs0RxAF", "image_caption": "SOURCE:" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Videoof the July 2015 rally showsJoe Pojmanof the Texas Alliance for Life initially saluting Republican leaders for launching investigations in reaction to stealth videos showing Planned Parenthood employees talking rather casually about donations of fetal tissue. The videos had been circulated by the California-based Center for Medical Progress,which describes itselfas a group of citizen-journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as-YpoQ7Lpk&feature=youtu.be" ] }, { "sentence": "We asked Pojman, executive director of the alliance, whichsaysit opposes the advocacy and practice of abortion (except to preserve the pregnant womans life), how he reached his historically high conclusion.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.texasallianceforlife.org/about-us/" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Pojman responded with achart, which he sourced to state budgets, indicating that nearly $285 million in state and federal funds budgeted by the 2015 Legislature for several womens health efforts in 2016-17 would exceed such spending in each of the nine previous two-year state budgets, dating to 1998-99with the previous record being $240.1 million for such programs in 2014-15. The previous low, per the chart, was $128.8 million in 2012-13.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/120YsZaPSaDGSbngsiihQ0QcAbl5dlWDFQ9_Gjr2sDfY/pubhtml" ] }, { "sentence": "In his email, Pojman said aFebruary 2014 Texas Health and Human Services Commission presentationamounted to a good summary of how the state spends money on womens health. From that, we pulled these thumbnails:", "hrefs": [ "http://www.hhsc.state.tx.us/news/presentations/2014/022014-womens-health.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "SOURCE:Presentation to Senate Committee on Health and Human Services: Texas Womens Health and Family Planning Programs,Feb. 20, 2014 (received by email from Joe Pojman, Aug. 6, 2015)", "hrefs": [ "http://www.hhsc.state.tx.us/news/presentations/2014/022014-womens-health.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "To our inquiry, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission emailed amore detailed chartbasically lining up with Pojmans recap. From the commissions figures, it looked to us like the appropriated 2016-17 funds for womens health services exceeded previous two-year expenditures by $40 million or more.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HBqVXAJQqxrgzo952JXWz90j1VMHby14OJur7MtBwRM/edit?usp=sharing" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Pogue pointed out a two-pagesummary of the 2016-17 state budgetprepared by theTexas Womens Healthcare Coalition, which says it promotes access to preventive health care for all Texas women working toward the vision of a state where every woman has access to the preventive and preconception care that will help her stay healthy and prepare for healthy, planned pregnancies. According to this June 2015 summary, $260.9 million in spending on womens health care budgeted by lawmakers for 2016-17 reflected an increase of $46.5 million, or 22 percent, from what was budgeted for 2014-15.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.hf-tx.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2016-2017-Womens-Health-Budget-Digest-1.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "We confirmed the latest figures inthe 2016-17 appropriations act approved by a Texas House-Senate conference committee; it shows $130,321,510 in budgeted spending on womens health services in the fiscal year beginning Sept. 1, 2015, and $130,548,682 for the subsequent year, totaling $260,870,192 in the biennium.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Documents/Budget/Session_Code_84/HB1-Conference_Committee_Report_84.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Also to our inquiry, Heather Busby of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, whichsaysit focuses on guaranteeing Texans the right to make personal reproductive health decisions including contraception and safe abortions, suggested we queryKari White, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor and expert on womens health issues whos been part of aTexas-based teamstudying effects of the Texas decision barring aid to clinics affiliated with abortion providers.", "hrefs": [ "http://prochoicetexas.org/about-us/mission/" ] }, { "sentence": "White suggested we consider research by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes reproductive health and abortion rights. In 2013, more than 1.7 million Texas women were in need of publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies, according to a July 2015 institute reportthat started fromU.S. Census Bureau survey results. That year, the report said, publicly supported health centers provided contraceptive care to 281,170 women in Texas plus 47,390 teens. These totals amount to substantial proportionsbut not nearly allof the women in need of publicly supported contraception, the report said.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/win/contraceptive-needs-2013.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, spokesman Bryan Black provided achart, drawing on U.S. Census Bureau surveys, estimating the number of female U.S. citizens aged 15-44 living in Texas at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level from 2010 through 2017--in other words, the women who most likely would qualify for the health services. Next, we calculated that some $109 per potential beneficiary was spent in 2010-11 and 2012-13; this was exceeded by the $205 per potential beneficiary appropriated by lawmakers for such programs in 2014-15 and the $236 per potential beneficiary appropriated for 2016-17.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/199P3_e1mUVhlno8l99EcopaW2yvMKogdeuBleyJ0KwY/pubhtml" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kroger-blm-charge-receipt/", "claim": "Was there a fee for Black Lives Matter on the Kroger receipt?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "07/24/2020", "sci_digest": [ "An altered receipt misled some viewers on social media." ], "justification": "In late July 2020, Snopes readers inquired about an image circulating on social media that lead some to believe the grocery chain Kroger was collecting money for the Black Lives Matter movement from its customers. Black Lives Matter is a national racial justice movement that originated in the 2010s in response to police killings and violence against Black Americans. After Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation in the spring of 2020, Kroger did announce that through its charitable foundation, it would create a $5 million fund \"to improve social diversity, equity and inclusion.\" announce The image in question purportedly showed a Kroger receipt itemizing a carton of milk for $2.39 and a \"BLM CHARGE\" (circled in red in the photo above) of 59 cents. But Kroger isn't adding a fee to customer transactions in order to raise money for Black Lives Matter. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the image was altered from an actual receipt showing 59 cents charged for a \"change shortage.\" actual receipt As we previously reported, that 59-cent charge was added as the result of a confusing company policy regarding returning coin change amid a national coin shortage. A statement from Kroger states, \"The Federal Reserve is experiencing a significant coin shortage across the U.S., resulting from fewer coins being exchanged and spent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many retailers and businesses, we are adjusting to the temporary shortage in several ways while still accepting cash.\" previously reported As we noted, store policy on how customers receive coin change has been a point of confusion. A customer in Illinois reported that a cashier refused to return change in coin form, charging them $3 for an item that cost $2.41, resulting in the 59-cent charge on the receipt. noted Kroger spokeswoman Kristal Howard told us by email on July 24, 2020, that the policy as of this writing is that customers can use credit or debit cards, opt to have the difference loaded onto loyalty cards as credit for future purchases, provide coin change in a lane that has coins available, or round their purchase total up and donate the difference to charity. The BLM Kroger receipt hoax appears to be a classic case of \"Fauxtography,\" an altered photograph meant to spread misinformation. We therefore rate this claim Redman, Russell. \"Grocery Retailers Take Stand Against Racism.\"\r Supermarket News. 10 June 2020. MacGuill, Dan. \"Did Kroger Supermarkets Overcharge Customers Due to a Coin Shortage?\"\r Snopes.com. 23 July 2020.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cUzC5QiKL9OCpzpjItLZvm8sfVCRtAHh" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Black Lives Matter is a national racial justice movement that originated in the 2010s in response to police killings and violence against Black Americans. After Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation in the spring of 2020, Kroger did announce that through its charitable foundation, it would create a $5 million fund \"to improve social diversity, equity and inclusion.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.supermarketnews.com/issues-trends/grocery-retailers-take-stand-against-racism" ] }, { "sentence": "But Kroger isn't adding a fee to customer transactions in order to raise money for Black Lives Matter. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the image was altered from an actual receipt showing 59 cents charged for a \"change shortage.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3393686353999231&id=100000737007811&set=a.2682798118421395&source=57" ] }, { "sentence": "As we previously reported, that 59-cent charge was added as the result of a confusing company policy regarding returning coin change amid a national coin shortage. A statement from Kroger states, \"The Federal Reserve is experiencing a significant coin shortage across the U.S., resulting from fewer coins being exchanged and spent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many retailers and businesses, we are adjusting to the temporary shortage in several ways while still accepting cash.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kroger-change-overcharge-coin/" ] }, { "sentence": "As we noted, store policy on how customers receive coin change has been a point of confusion. A customer in Illinois reported that a cashier refused to return change in coin form, charging them $3 for an item that cost $2.41, resulting in the 59-cent charge on the receipt.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kroger-change-overcharge-coin/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid19-gas-pump-handles/", "claim": "Is COVID-19 Being Spread Through Gas Pumps?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/22/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Gas pump handles are one of many common objects that could be contaminated, so consumers should take reasonable precautions to avoid exposure." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Editor's note: This article was updated in August 2021 to include a new but similar iteration of the 2020 social media claims in response to the Delta variant, as well as new guidance issued by the CDC. In March 2020, during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic, social media users began sharing warnings about the virus allegedly \"spreading quickly from gas pumps.\" Such warnings cautioned readers to use gloves or paper towels while pumping gas and to discard them immediately afterward: One particular version of this class of warning attributed the advice to \"Galway Hospital\" in Ireland: In early August 2021, Snopes readers sent our team a new iteration of the claim with slightly different language that seemed to have been updated in response to the then-rampant Delta variant: Fwd: The hospital sent a message this morning that the Covid-19/delta mutant virus seems to be spreading rapidly through gasoline pumps, asking everyone to wear gloves or use paper towels when refueling and handling-please share. Please send it to everyone in your contact list. Don't leave this information to yourself. Make it available to all your family and friends As with many coronavirus-related pieces of advice, it's something of a mixed bag. We're not aware of any credible reports of COVID-19 being spread via gas pump handles (something that would likely be difficult to determine as the specific source of any particular infection). It is true that surface contact is one of the means of transmission of the novel coronavirus, and since gas pumps are objects that are typically handled by many different people throughout the course of a day -- in many places without being regularly cleaned between uses (especially in areas where self-service is the norm) -- they are a potential route for the virus to spread from person to person. surface contact The CDC issued new guidance for employees at transit stations in June 2021 in response to growing concerns about SARS-CoV-2 variants. new guidance The virus mainly spreads from person to person through respiratory droplets that are emitted when a person coughs, sneezes or talks. The virus can also be spread by touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching the face, mouth, nose, or eyes. In May 2020, the CDC shared an instructional Facebook post to inform consumers on to safely pump gas. In the post, the agency recommended using disinfecting wipes on handles and buttons before touching them, using hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol after pumping and paying, and washing hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water upon arriving at the destination. https://m.facebook.com/CDC/posts/10157908635896026/?_rdr Like door handles, grocery carts, and ATMs, many people touch gas pumps throughout the day. The chance of COVID-19 exposure at the gas pump is low, especially if Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended practices are followed, wrote the American Petroleum Institute (API) in a one-page statement. statement Research conducted by a collaboration of scientific institutions, including the National Institutes of Health and Princeton University, found that the virus can survive up to three days on some surfaces. But as API pointed out, several events would need to happen for the virus to spread from a pump to a person. Research First, a person with COVID-19, with or without symptoms, would have to emit respiratory droplets containing the virus within 6-feet of a pump or touch it with contaminated hands. The virus would then need to survive long enough for a non-COVID-19 individual to touch the surface in a way that the virus would be transferred to their hands. Lastly, the healthy individual would then have to touch their eyes, nose or mouth. While it is entirely possible to encounter SARS-CoV-2 by touching a gas pump, surface-to-surface transmission is not thought to be the primary spread of the virus. At this time, we are not aware of any studies that support the claim that the virus can be transmitted via contact with a gas pump, wrote API. However, the level of risk associated with contracting the virus from a gas pump is no different than the risk associated with touching other common surfaces like grocery store carts or door handles. But how much risk pumping gas poses relative to other ordinary day-to-day activities is difficult to determine. Consumer Reports, for example, offered advice in 2020 that was consistent with what was expressed in some social media warnings: advice For many [persons] the occasional trip to the gas station is inevitable, as is touching the pump handle and payment keypad. Pump handles and credit card keypads, which are high-touch areas, could have the virus present, which experts say can stay alive for hours or even days on hard surfaces ... [T]here are a few things you can do that will help you stay safe when you have to pump gas. Consider carrying some disposable nitrile or latex gloves in your car to use when gripping the pump handle. Short of that, you can try to use paper towels that are sometimes available at the pump or have some with you to cover your hands when you grip the handle. Invert the gloves and throw them away, and also any paper towels you might have used. Use hand sanitizer to make sure your hands are clean after youre done and before you get back into your car. On the other hand, in response o the 2020 social media posts, the Irish Petroleum Industry Association told the TheJournal.ie the following: Our members are implementing enhanced hygiene protocols in our service station shops. In line with HSE [Health and Safety Executive] advice, our workers regularly wash and sanitise their hands and the areas customers interact with such as fuel nozzles, credit card PIN pads, door handles and food areas. We are aware of messages being shared on social media and wanted to inform customers that pump handles are no more or less prone to the spread of infection than any other hard surface and to outline the significant steps we are taking to combat the spread of Covid-19 and keep our valued customers safe. Gas pumps could be considered somewhat more of a concern because consumers typically touch other surfaces -- such as the door handles and interiors of their vehicles -- immediately afterward and could thereby create yet another pathway of contamination for themselves or others. However, gas pumps are just one of many objects that multiple people commonly handle in a similar fashion during the course of a day, including ATMs, payment processing systems, shopping cart handles, and currency, all of which pose varying degrees of risk. Preston, Benjamin. \"How to Protect Yourself Against Coronavirus When Pumping Gas.\"\r Consumer Reports. 21 March 2020. Grey, Jess. \"How to Clean and Disinfect Yourself, Your Home, and Your Stuff.\"\r Wired. 19 March 2020. National Institutes of Health. \"New Coronavirus Stable for Hours on Surfaces.\"\r 17 March 2020. The Journal.ie. \"Debunked: No, 'Galway Hospital' Hasn't Circulated a Message Telling People to Wear Gloves at Petrol Pumps.\"\r 20 March 2020. Update [Aug. 5, 2021]: This article was updated to include a new iteration of the claim that circulated in response to the Delta variant, as well as to include new guidance issued by the CDC.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fabafJbiPHfu8ZF_2fEdyJBtBa3lA-5d", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NB_PGjlvwq7bjIfsjYbV8wsLT0evTR2w", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "We're not aware of any credible reports of COVID-19 being spread via gas pump handles (something that would likely be difficult to determine as the specific source of any particular infection). It is true that surface contact is one of the means of transmission of the novel coronavirus, and since gas pumps are objects that are typically handled by many different people throughout the course of a day -- in many places without being regularly cleaned between uses (especially in areas where self-service is the norm) -- they are a potential route for the virus to spread from person to person.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces" ] }, { "sentence": "The CDC issued new guidance for employees at transit stations in June 2021 in response to growing concerns about SARS-CoV-2 variants.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/organizations/transit-station-workers.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Like door handles, grocery carts, and ATMs, many people touch gas pumps throughout the day. The chance of COVID-19 exposure at the gas pump is low, especially if Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended practices are followed, wrote the American Petroleum Institute (API) in a one-page statement.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.api.org/~/media/Files/Policy/Fuels-and-Renewables/Marketing/API_CovidPumpQ_A_FactSheet_Final" ] }, { "sentence": "Research conducted by a collaboration of scientific institutions, including the National Institutes of Health and Princeton University, found that the virus can survive up to three days on some surfaces. But as API pointed out, several events would need to happen for the virus to spread from a pump to a person.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces" ] }, { "sentence": "But how much risk pumping gas poses relative to other ordinary day-to-day activities is difficult to determine. Consumer Reports, for example, offered advice in 2020 that was consistent with what was expressed in some social media warnings:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.consumerreports.org/cars-how-to-protect-yourself-against-coronavirus-when-pumping-gas/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/sep/06/choose-new-jersey/new-jersey-leads-world-number-scientists-engineers/", "claim": "We have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world.", "author": "Caryn Shinske", "posted": "09/06/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "New Jersey has long held the title of most densely populated state in the country.But the Garden State has an even more prestigious ranking, according to a recent advertisement placed by Choose: New Jersey in the Wall Street Journal.The July 30 ad reads in part: New Jersey has a rich tradition of bringing the world some very big thinking. In fact, we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making ours one of the most highly skilled and educated workforces available.Thats quite a claim for any state to make so for this fact check, we are focusing only on the statistic about scientists and engineers. And it seems Choose: New Jerseys calculations add up.Lets look at how Choose: New Jersey, a nonprofit group that markets the state to attract businesses and jobs, came up with their statistic. Choose: New Jersey is part of the Partnership For Action, the Business Action Center and state Economic Development Authority.Melissa Hensley, chief marketing officer for the group, said the group compared geographic and employment data from four organizations: the Census Bureaus American Community Survey, the CIAs World Fact Book 2012, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the National Science Board.All of it came down to an apples-to-apples comparison to the extent possible between a state and country, Hensley said.The Census Bureaus Population Reference Bureau listed New Jersey as having 260,655 scientists and engineers in 2010. That number divided by New Jerseys total land area of 8,722.58 square miles equals 29.88 scientists and engineers the highest number among all states and a list of 37 countries.I read somewhere that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U.S., so I guess you could extrapolate from that that there are more scientists per square mile than anywhere else, Brian Bell, a spokesman for the California Institute of Technology said in an e-mail. Although Massachusetts might give N.J. a run for its money. California has lots of smart people, but we have huge deserts and lots of empty space too.Bells guess is accurate.Massachusetts has the second highest number of scientists and engineers, at 23.47 per square mile, followed by Maryland, at 20.97. California is 10th on the list.A similar calculation was used for other countries by measuring the number of researchers a more broad term that includes scientists and engineers per 1,000 of employed people. Breaking that figure down and comparing it against country size, we determined that Israel tops the international list, with 5.10 scientists and engineers per square mile (Choose: New Jerseys calculations were adjusted to consider countries in square miles instead of kilometers). Rounding out the top three are Japan, at 4.46, and Belgium, at 3.16.If both lists are put together, New Jersey and 11 other U.S. states lead the world in number of engineers and scientists per square mile before Israel joins the rankings.The numbers reflect what we regularly hear from businesses considering locating or expanding in New Jersey that if a company is looking to benefit from a high concentration of very skilled talent, New Jersey is a prime location, Hensley said in response to our findings.Our rulingChoose: New Jersey said in an advertisement that we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making the states workforce one of the most skilled and highly educated.Choose: New Jersey used a variety of data to reach its conclusion, from the U.S. Census Bureau to the CIA World Fact Book and more. PolitiFact New Jersey vetted the calculations and found that the Garden State does top the world in number of scientists and engineers per square mile: 29.8.We rate this statement True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com.", "issues": [ "New Jersey", "Economy", "Jobs", "Science", "Workers" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "To comment on this story, go toNJ.com.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/09/politifact_nj_jersey_group_cla.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/happy-trails/", "claim": "U.S. Air Force Celebrates DOMA Ruling", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/27/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Photograph shows U.S. Air Force jets celebrating a Supreme Court ruling regarding the Defense of Marriage Act?" ], "justification": "Claim: Photograph shows U.S. Air Force jets celebrating a Supreme Court ruling regarding the Defense of Marriage Act. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2013] THIS PICTURE IS CIRCULATING ON FACEBOOK, STATING THAT THE US AIR FORCE SENT UP THESE JETS WITH COLORED SMOKE TO SYMBOLIZE THE GAY PRIDE FLAG, AND CELEBRATE MARRIAGE EQUALITY AS DEFINED BY THE SUPREME COURT TODAY 26 JUNE 2013. COLORS ARE ALL WRONG, AND IT LOOKS PHOTOSHOPPED. WOULD LOVE FOR IT TO BE REAL, BUT DONT WANT TO REPOST ANYTHING MISLEADING. Origins: On 26 June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of United States v. Windsor which struck down a section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that strictly defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thereby paving the way for same-sex couples who are legally married to access numerous federal privileges and programs that use marital status as a criterion for eligibility (such as Social Security survivors' benefits and the ability to file joint tax returns). Shortly afterwards, the photograph displayed above was widely circulated in social media with claims that it pictured U.S. Air Force jets participating in a celebration of the DOMA ruling, the colored smoke trails behind them symbolizing the rainbow of colors that became the standard symbol of the gay community in the 1970s. However, this image has nothing to do with a purported celebration of the DOMA ruling by the U.S. Air Force, as this same picture has been widely reproduced on numerous web sites all over the world since well before June 2013. The source of the original (as displayed on flickr) appears to bea photograph taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) Airshow in Fairford, Gloucestershire (UK), on 17 July 2010. flickr RIAT Last updated: 27 June 2013 ", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KJMQIPL_o4HtrJn293m6GclMnJJS256Z", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, this image has nothing to do with a purported celebration of the DOMA ruling by the U.S. Air Force, as this same picture has been widely reproduced on numerous web sites all over the world since well before June 2013. The source of the original (as displayed on flickr) appears to bea photograph taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) Airshow in Fairford, Gloucestershire (UK), on 17 July 2010.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.flickr.com/photos/amylloyd/4811244553/in/photostream/", "https://www.airtattoo.com/airshow" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/origins-princess-leias-hairstyle/", "claim": "The Origins of Princess Leia's Hairstyle", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "12/30/2016", "sci_digest": [ "Following Carrie Fisher's death, speculation mounted regarding the inspiration for her Princess Leia's character's iconic hair buns." ], "justification": "Following the death of Carrie Fisher, the resurgent interest in her most famous role (that of Princess Leia in Star Wars) prompted renewed attention to the subject of the inspiration behind the most distinctive aspect of her character's appearance: Princess Leia's iconic look was inspired by real-life Mexican Revolutionaries pic.twitter.com/hJFhQgm60K pic.twitter.com/hJFhQgm60K NowThis (@nowthisnews) December 29, 2016 December 29, 2016 The debate regarding Princess (later General) Leia Organa's hair, and specifically her hair buns, began in 2002 when Star Wars creator George Lucas offered this explanation about it to Time magazine: offered In the 1977 film, I was working very hard to create something different that wasnt fashion, so I went with a kind of Southwestern Pancho Villa woman revolutionary look, which is what that is. The buns are basically from the turn-of-the-century Mexico. Then it took such hits and became such a thing. But as Remezcla reported, the claim came under question when the character's hair was compared to pictures of adelitas, as women who fought in the Mexican revolution were called, that exhibited no such hairstyle: reported, adelitas Lucas revelation of the hairstyles origins only seemed to cause confusion across the internet. Some found it difficult to find photographic evidence for Lucas claims. Perhaps, they only saw images of soldaderas wearing hats. (All Star Wars historian Michael Heilemann could find were these bun-less images of adelitas.) As a result, some began to look elsewhere to find other possible explanations. bun-less images In fact, some critics argued, Leia's hair more closely resembled a traditional hairstyle worn by women of the Hopi Native American tribe. But Eric Tang, an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, added to the discussion when he posted a picture (that post being no longer publicly available on Facebook) taken from a Star Wars exhibition currently on display at the Denver Art Museum that seemingly supported the \"Mexican revolutionary\" claim. worn exhibition The museum confirmed to Snopes on 30 December 2016 that the referenced photograph was part of their exhibition, and sent us full-length pictures of the display, as well as a transcription of the audio accompanying it: Princess Leias side cinnamon-bun hairdo was one of the most iconic looks from the original \"Star Wars\" films. Some twenty years later, actress Natalie Portman wore these fake hair rolls to reprise the hairstyle as Padm Amidala in the film \"Attack of the Clones.\" Clearly, George Lucas and his team had learned a thing or two in the intervening years. While it took actress Carrie Fisher two hours to have her hair done as Leia, Portman could just pop on her side buns in a matter of minutes. But where did this unusual hairstyle originate in the first place? Look for some of the reference photos nearby. For Princess Leia in the original \"Star Wars,\" George Lucas was inspired by a traditional Hopi Native American hairstyle. For Leias mother, Padm, Lucas prequel team looked at Hopi and Mexican Revolution imagery for inspiration, and sketched even more dramatically shaped variations of the coiffure as you can see in the drawing in this display. The response to Leias hair had been so overwhelming in the 1970s and beyond, that Lucas encouraged the prequel designers to be even more outlandish, drawing everything from space mohawks to snakelike coils, hair nautilus shells, and everything in between. A museum spokesperson could not directly confirm the origin of the picture other than to say it was \"sourced from the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art archives at Skywalker Ranch.\" (We contacted Lucasfilm seeking additional information, but the film company did not respond.) However, we were able to track it down fairly easily, as it is a famous photograph of Mexican soldadera and guerrilla fighter Clara de la Rocha, as seen below (alongide her father, General Herculano de la Rocha): photograph General Clara de la Rocha is described in the book Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution as a guerilla commander who played an important role in the seizing of the city of Culiacn, Sinaloa in 1911, alongside her father. She eventually earned the rank of coronela, or colonel, in the fight against Porfirio Diaz's regime. described regime One of her descendants, Alexandra de la Rocha, told Public Radio International that she saw Tang's post about the exhibit and recounted some of the soldadera's exploits: told She actually crossed a river on horseback ... and was able to take out a power station in order to allow the rebel forces to attack during night without being seen. he was a grizzled woman, as her father was. They were mountain people, and were actually miners and owned a lot of land. They were business people. Clara de la Rocha died in 1970 in Culiacn, the site of her most famous battle. While she was certainly not the only inspiration for the Leia Organa character's hairstyle, she was by all accounts a major one. Cagle, Jess. \"So, What's the Deal with Leia's Hair?\" \r Time. 21 April 2002. Simn, Yara. \"Princess Leias Iconic Buns Were Inspired by These Revolutionary-Era Mexican Women.\" \r Remezcla. 28 December 2016. El Informador. \"Las 'Adelitas', Las Otras Revolucionarias.\" Informador. 19 November 2010. Denver Art Museum. \"Star Wars and the Power of Costume.\" \r denverartmuseum.org The de la Rocha History Project. \"Herculan y Coronela Clara de la Rocha.\" \r delarochahistory.com\r\r Public Radio International. \"The Little-Known Link Between Princess Leias Iconic Hairstyle and the Mexican Revolution.\" \r 30 December 2016. [01/23/2020]: Removed broken Facebook embed.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Q4MV4v1aT4mBI1YQ4JJ2Iv7np0421EI6", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qmuu-bOfLwNpoJ33DZTjikFRDwFW1sC5", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1nD8A5ztnA7uQuUigsrWwrAg6-sz4Uxlo", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Princess Leia's iconic look was inspired by real-life Mexican Revolutionaries pic.twitter.com/hJFhQgm60K", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/hJFhQgm60K" ] }, { "sentence": " NowThis (@nowthisnews) December 29, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/814535393043283968" ] }, { "sentence": "The debate regarding Princess (later General) Leia Organa's hair, and specifically her hair buns, began in 2002 when Star Wars creator George Lucas offered this explanation about it to Time magazine:", "hrefs": [ "https://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,232499,00.html" ] }, { "sentence": "But as Remezcla reported, the claim came under question when the character's hair was compared to pictures of adelitas, as women who fought in the Mexican revolution were called, that exhibited no such hairstyle:", "hrefs": [ "https://remezcla.com/culture/princess-leia-hair-buns/", "https://www.informador.com.mx/suplementos/2010/250106/6/las-adelitas-las-otras-revolucionarias.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Lucas revelation of the hairstyles origins only seemed to cause confusion across the internet. Some found it difficult to find photographic evidence for Lucas claims. Perhaps, they only saw images of soldaderas wearing hats. (All Star Wars historian Michael Heilemann could find were these bun-less images of adelitas.) As a result, some began to look elsewhere to find other possible explanations.", "hrefs": [ "https://static1.squarespace.com/static/4f209325d09a4f024c85b060/51277207e4b08376dc025428/51277207e4b08c2e6d1e310a/1361539594526/adelita3.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, some critics argued, Leia's hair more closely resembled a traditional hairstyle worn by women of the Hopi Native American tribe. But Eric Tang, an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, added to the discussion when he posted a picture (that post being no longer publicly available on Facebook) taken from a Star Wars exhibition currently on display at the Denver Art Museum that seemingly supported the \"Mexican revolutionary\" claim.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYj5MNy7e4", "https://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/starwars" ] }, { "sentence": "A museum spokesperson could not directly confirm the origin of the picture other than to say it was \"sourced from the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art archives at Skywalker Ranch.\" (We contacted Lucasfilm seeking additional information, but the film company did not respond.) However, we were able to track it down fairly easily, as it is a famous photograph of Mexican soldadera and guerrilla fighter Clara de la Rocha, as seen below (alongide her father, General Herculano de la Rocha):", "hrefs": [ "https://delarochahistory.com/?portfolioentry=7075", "https://sinaloamx.com/amando-de-la-rocha/" ] }, { "sentence": "Clara de la Rocha is described in the book Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution as a guerilla commander who played an important role in the seizing of the city of Culiacn, Sinaloa in 1911, alongside her father. She eventually earned the rank of coronela, or colonel, in the fight against Porfirio Diaz's regime.", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=trDKDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22clara+de+la+rocha%22+%22elena+poniatowska%22&source=bl&ots=IkekRwMnvG&sig=iHEh8EZZ_I41wNEnG6dUQRSKU8A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwguH5vZzRAhWHhFQKHRQTCgoQ6AEIPDAJ#v=onepage&q=%22clara%20de%20la%20rocha%22%20%22elena%20poniatowska%22&f=false", "https://www.britannica.com/biography/Porfirio-Diaz" ] }, { "sentence": "One of her descendants, Alexandra de la Rocha, told Public Radio International that she saw Tang's post about the exhibit and recounted some of the soldadera's exploits:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-12-29/little-known-link-between-princess-leia-s-iconic-hairstyle-and-mexican-revolution" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/oct/26/alex-sink/alex-sink-says-lawyer-backs-claims-she-didnt-know-/", "claim": "The lawyer who brought the case against NationsBank said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems.", "author": "Aaron Sharockman", "posted": "10/26/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "In their third and final gubernatorial debate on Oct. 25, 2010, Rick Scott and Alex Sink traded accusations that each has been party to fraud.Sink again hammered Scott for his time running Columbia/HCA and the hospital company's convictions and $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. But this time Scott countered with allegations that Sink was the president of NationsBank operations in Florida when that company was accused of fraud and forced to pay government fines and settle a class-action lawsuit.Unlike Scott, Sink said she had what amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card.That case, the lawyer that brought that case -- it was a class-action case against another company -- he even has said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems, Sink told CNN's John King and theSt. Petersburg Times'Adam C. Smith, the debate's moderators. What more can I say?In a separate item, we dealt with Scott's accusations. You can read that item,here. In this fact check, we'll explore Sink's rebuttal.Some quick background about the case. In 1994, while Sink was president of NationsBank's Florida operations, a stock broker with bank subsidiary NationsSecurities came forward with what he described as an orchestrated nationwide scheme to get bank customers to move investments from safe, federally insured accounts to more risky brokerage and mutual funds.NationsSecurities broker David Cray, who worked in Florida, said the bank intentionally blurred the lines between its traditional banking business and its securities business and misled customers into thinking those securities investments were protected by the bank or the federal government. The scheme permeated the entire bank, Cray, and later others, said. Brokers were given sales scripts to try to convince bank customers to move their money into more risky securities.NationsSecurities branch managers encouraged employees to use fear to sell securities. In one orientation sales meeting, a manager suggested that a broker could ask customers: Is this your risky money or safe money? If this is risky, I know a guy at Merrill or Dean Witter.And NationsBank helped NationsSecurities by providing brokers with lists of customers who had Certificates of Deposit about to mature.The bank and stock brokers pushed the mutual funds because they received more lucrative fees, Cray said.The allegations led to a class-action lawsuit from investors who lost money by unknowingly making the risky investments, which in the end lost money. The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission also began investigations. Eventually, NationsBank and NationsSecurities settled the investigations, agreeing to pay $8.1 million to investors in 2002, paying civil fines to the federal government of $6.75 million in 2000 and $6.4 million in 2002 and $4 million to the SEC in 1998. No criminal charges were ever filed.Sink says the lawyer who started the case, Jonathan Alpert of Tampa, has said Sink had nothing to do with the scheme.Here's what Alpert told theSt. Petersburg TimesandMiami Heraldin October when previously asked about Sink's role in selling the risky investments.Alex Sink could've done nothing about it. It was run out of Charlotte, said Alpert, referring to NationsBank's headquarters. I know she knew what was going on - that investments were being sold in the bank -- but that's it. And she was powerless to stop it, anyway. I had e-mails where the state presidents were being told what to do, that they had to help the securities people. They would dig into customers bank accounts to identify people who had enough money to buy securities. Charlotte said: 'This is what's going to happen in your bank lobbies and this is the way it's going to be.' They didn't say you're going to do A, B, C and D, they would say the bank cooperates fully with NationsSecurities, Alpert said. If Alex Sink were involved in it, it would be a wonderful story for the gubernatorial election. But she didn't know anything about it.Alpert, who said he voted for Sink, said she no doubt knew that riskier investments were being sold in the bank, but that she was likely not aware of the way brokers were manipulating customers to close the sales. And Sink has previously told theTimesshe had no authority or control over the securities sales. There were very, very strict firewalls between any kind of securities and brokerage operations and operations of commercial banking, she said. Those firewalls, Sink said, were the result of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking. (The act was repealed in 1999.) But that didn't prevent Sink from finding out what was going on in her bank, noted Yale University finance expert Jonathan Macey. She's the state bank president, he said. She has the authority and perhaps the responsibility to know what's going on in her lobby. The original whistle-blower in the case, former NationsSecurity broker Cray, said, I would tend not to point the finger at Alex Sink for this. Which brings us back to her statement. At the CNN/St. Petersburg Timesdebate Sink said that the lawyer who brought the case against NationsBank said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems. We think Sink is mostly quoting the lawyer in the NationsBank case, Jonathan Alpert, accurately. Alpert said Sink wasn't involved in the deceptive selling of more risky involvements through NationsSecurities and didn't know anything about the deceptive practices being employed. The companies NationsBank and NationsSecurities were managed separately. But Sink did know securities were being sold in her banks, and was in a position to voice questions or concerns about the practice if she sensed anything was being handled inappropriately. That's enough of a connection in our minds to knock this claim down one notch, and rate it Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Candidate Biography", "Ethics", "Financial Regulation", "Legal Issues", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In their third and final gubernatorial debate on Oct. 25, 2010, Rick Scott and Alex Sink traded accusations that each has been party to fraud.Sink again hammered Scott for his time running Columbia/HCA and the hospital company's convictions and $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. But this time Scott countered with allegations that Sink was the president of NationsBank operations in Florida when that company was accused of fraud and forced to pay government fines and settle a class-action lawsuit.Unlike Scott, Sink said she had what amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card.That case, the lawyer that brought that case -- it was a class-action case against another company -- he even has said publicly that Alex Sink had nothing to do with the case, had nothing to do with the situation and didn't know about the problems, Sink told CNN's John King and theSt. Petersburg Times'Adam C. Smith, the debate's moderators. What more can I say?In a separate item, we dealt with Scott's accusations. You can read that item,here. In this fact check, we'll explore Sink's rebuttal.Some quick background about the case. In 1994, while Sink was president of NationsBank's Florida operations, a stock broker with bank subsidiary NationsSecurities came forward with what he described as an orchestrated nationwide scheme to get bank customers to move investments from safe, federally insured accounts to more risky brokerage and mutual funds.NationsSecurities broker David Cray, who worked in Florida, said the bank intentionally blurred the lines between its traditional banking business and its securities business and misled customers into thinking those securities investments were protected by the bank or the federal government. The scheme permeated the entire bank, Cray, and later others, said. Brokers were given sales scripts to try to convince bank customers to move their money into more risky securities.NationsSecurities branch managers encouraged employees to use fear to sell securities. In one orientation sales meeting, a manager suggested that a broker could ask customers: Is this your risky money or safe money? If this is risky, I know a guy at Merrill or Dean Witter.And NationsBank helped NationsSecurities by providing brokers with lists of customers who had Certificates of Deposit about to mature.The bank and stock brokers pushed the mutual funds because they received more lucrative fees, Cray said.The allegations led to a class-action lawsuit from investors who lost money by unknowingly making the risky investments, which in the end lost money. The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission also began investigations. Eventually, NationsBank and NationsSecurities settled the investigations, agreeing to pay $8.1 million to investors in 2002, paying civil fines to the federal government of $6.75 million in 2000 and $6.4 million in 2002 and $4 million to the SEC in 1998. No criminal charges were ever filed.Sink says the lawyer who started the case, Jonathan Alpert of Tampa, has said Sink had nothing to do with the scheme.Here's what Alpert told theSt. Petersburg TimesandMiami Heraldin October when previously asked about Sink's role in selling the risky investments.Alex Sink could've done nothing about it. It was run out of Charlotte, said Alpert, referring to NationsBank's headquarters. I know she knew what was going on - that investments were being sold in the bank -- but that's it. And she was powerless to stop it, anyway. I had e-mails where the state presidents were being told what to do, that they had to help the securities people. They would dig into customers bank accounts to identify people who had enough money to buy securities.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/oct/26/rick-scott/alex-sink-faces-her-own-fraud-charges-cnnst-peters/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/aug/19/kevin-brady/kevin-brady-says-more-80-percent-trade-deficit-nat/", "claim": "Over 80 percent of our trade deficit today is with countries that are not trade agreement partners, that are not level playing fields for the United States.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "08/19/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, last month spoke in support of creating an Emergency Trade Deficit Commission, while noting his hopes for congressional ratification of trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The world has changed, Brady said on the House floor July 28. Its not enough to simply buy American; we have to sell American, sell our products and goods and services throughout this world. And in fact, over 80 percent of our trade deficit today is with countries that are not trade agreement partners, that are not level playing fields for the United States; thats why we push hard for those agreements. The 80 percent figure jarred a reader who urged us to give it a once-over; happy to oblige. Some background: In June, the U.S. trade deficit reached nearly $50 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Exports in June totaled $150.5 billion, imports $200.3 billion. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States has free-trade agreements meaning neither country imposes trade restrictions such as tariffs with 17 nations, which together account for 34 percent of U.S. imports and exports. The countries are Israel, Canada, Mexico, Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, Morocco, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Bahrain, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Oman and Peru. Through participation in the World Trade Organization, the United States has agreements permitting some restrictions with many nations. These include export powerhouses such as China, which from January through June 2010 was the leading exporter to the United States, with $161 billion in exported goods, according to the Census Bureau. China was followed in the exports-to-USA category by Canada, Mexico and Japan. And what of Brady's more than 80 percent breakout? Joe Kafchinski, a bureau statistician, said that from January through June, 13 percent of the nations trade deficit involved the countries that have free-trade agreements with the United States meaning 87 percent of the deficit was with nations without such agreements. Next, we wondered about Brady's statement that those agreements serve to level the playing field with other countries, trade-wise and thus reduce the U.S. trade deficit. The National Association of Manufacturers says free-trade agreements ease the export of American goods: Free trade agreements (FTAs) account for nearly one-half of U.S. manufactured goods exports, the association says on its website. They lower the price for consumer goods in the United States as well as the costs U.S. businesses pay for imported materials. Bilateral deals also open foreign markets to U.S. goods, increasing employment in those export sectors. The manufacturers note that the Census Bureau reports that over the past two years, U.S. manufacturers had a $50 billion surplus with their counterparts in FTA partner countries. Conversely, in the same time period, the U.S. trade deficit in manufacturing goods with the rest of the world was an astounding $820 billion. Put another way, the group says, 95 percent of the nations manufactured-goods deficit is with nations that do not have free-trade agreements with the United States. For labor's perspective, we contacted Jeff Vogt, global economic policy specialist for the AFL-CIO. Vogt said Chinas 2001 entry into the WTO drove up the U.S. deficit with non-free-trade nations. Regardless of which countries account for the deficit, Vogt said, the imbalance is a problem because the domestic economy benefits more from exports than imports. Vogt shared a March 2010 report by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, which focuses on the economic needs of low- and middle-income Americans. The report says the U.S. trade deficit with China increased $186 billion between 2001 and 2008. Rapidly growing imports of computer and electronic parts (including computers, parts, semiconductors, and audio-video equipment) accounted for more than 40 percent of the surge, the report says, with deficits in advanced technology products responsible for 27 percent of the U.S.-China deficit. Also, according to the report, the growth of the deficit contributed to the loss of 627,700 U.S. jobs in computer and electronic products, along with other hard-hit industrial sectors including apparel and accessories (150,200 jobs), miscellaneous manufactured goods (136,900) and fabricated metal products (108,700). But trade agreements are not all that's behind the deficit with China. The report says a major cause is currency manipulation. Unlike other currencies, the Chinese yuan does not fluctuate freely against the dollar, giving Chinese-made goods an artificial price advantage overseas. In June 2010, Chinas central bank announced that it would allow the yuan to fluctuate more, but the value of the yuan has since increased less than 1 percent, according to a news report posted online this week by FinanceAsia. Robert Scott, an economist at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute in Washington, cautioned against presuming that free-trade agreements benefit the United States, saying that depends in part on whether the other nation is as developed as the United States and has open markets. For instance, the U.S. runs a trade deficit with its free-trade neighbor Mexico, he said, dominated by a flow of manufacturing plants to the less-developed country. Free-trade agreements, Scott said, are designed to make the world safe for multinationals to outsource production forever. And in aJuly 1article on the institute's website that criticized the proposed trade agreement with South Korea as foolish, Scott wrote: History shows that such trade deals lead to rapidly growing trade deficits and job loss in the United States. Clearly, there's a difference of opinion on whether free-trade agreements are a good thing vis-a-vis the growing U.S. trade deficit, as Brady asserts. But the key statistic in Bradys statement stands up. In fact, he understates the share of our trade deficit with nations that don't have free-trade agreements with the U.S. We rate Brady's statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Trade", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Free-trade agreements, Scott said, are designed to make the world safe for multinationals to outsource production forever. And in aJuly 1article on the institute's website that criticized the proposed trade agreement with South Korea as foolish, Scott wrote: History shows that such trade deals lead to rapidly growing trade deficits and job loss in the United States.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/free_trade_agreement_with_korea_will_cost_u.s._jobs/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/jun/16/ivanka-trump/ivanka-trump-mostly-right-role-skills-gap-unfilled/", "claim": "There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country that are due in part to the skills gap.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "06/16/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "During aninterviewwithFox & Friends, Ivanka Trumpdiscussedone of the challenges of the current economy -- that job vacancies exist, but many people who arent working arent qualified to fill them. Her comments came during a week that the White House had devoted to messages about the American workforce. There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country that are due in part to the skills gap, she said. When we took a closer look, we found that Trump was generally on target, but that the impact of the skills gap -- the fact that many potential workers dont have the right qualifications to take jobs that are currently open -- is worth some explanation. On the numerical side, Trump was spot-on. Every month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics releases data from a survey called theJob Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS. One of the key statistics in the survey is job openings nationally. In the most recent month for which data is available -- April 2017 -- the survey found 6,044,000 job openings across the country. That represents the first time this statistic has ever crossed the 6 million line, going back to the earliest data reported in 2000. Since a measure of the raw number of job openings is affected by overall population growth over time, well also note that the rate of job openings -- which is adjusted for the size of the U.S. population -- also tied a record in April, reaching a level equaled only in two previous months going back to 2000. So Trump has accurately portrayed the scale of how many jobs are available today in the United States. Trump used cautious wording; Economists agree that a mismatch of skills is clearly a part of the problem, as she put it. That said, they cautioned against making the oversimplified argument that the skills gap underlies all 6 million job openings. On the one hand, some of the current job vacancies are unquestionably due to the skills gap, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. If job-seeking jobless workers and promotion-seeking but under-employed workers had exactly the right skills, many of the current job vacancies could be filled faster. At the same time, for many job openings, the barrier isnt necessarily the lack of a college degree or specialized training, he said. In many cases, the barrier can be overcome with on-the-job training and experience. There are many job openings with more modest skill requirements, Burtless said. They require the new hire to learn some extra skills to become more proficient and productive in their new jobs. A large percentage of job seekers have the capacity to learn those skills on the job pretty quickly. He added that employers who think every job opening can be filled immediately and with a perfectly trained worker are either living in a dream world or living through a Great Depression in which millions of highly trained workers are desperately seeking a job. The reality, he said, is that for most current job vacancies, the skill set of todays job seekers is sufficient to fill the great majority of the vacancies. Another economist, Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute, hastestifiedthat for many manufacturing jobs, a drag on hiring comes not only from a skills gap but also an image gap. Millennials in particular, she said, may have a tainted image of what high-tech manufacturing jobs look like today, assuming instead that they are like such jobs decades ago -- dirty, grimy, repetitive or dangerous. Survey data shows that many workers are no longer interested in manufacturing jobs and there appears to be a stigma attached to manufacturing work, she wrote. Few parents want their children to work in this industry, and manufacturing is the last career choice for people between the ages of 19 and 33. In an interview, Mathur said its difficult to tease out how much of a factor the skills gap is in todays job openings. She suggested that it may be the biggest factor -- but she also cautioned that the image gap is particularly significant for younger workers and added that other issues exist as well, including an unwillingness among some Americans to relocate to areas with jobs. And of course, even in an efficiently humming economy, any survey taken at a given point in time will find many jobs that are simply open due to transition, or what economists call churn. Many of these job openings will be due to happenstance rather than structural problems with the skills gap. Trump said, There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country that are due in part to the skills gap. The number she cites is correct, and shes right to say that the skills gap plays a role. Economists warn against overestimating the role played by the skills gap in all 6 million job openings, both because other factors play a role (such as the image gap) and because the skills barriers posed are often more modest than having to earn an academic degree or to obtain specialized training. We rate her statement True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy", "Jobs", "Workers" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1xSv8iy61ixfuM5-_CZw9YVrO_vNRnXSj", "image_caption": "Fox & Friends" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "During aninterviewwithFox & Friends, Ivanka Trumpdiscussedone of the challenges of the current economy -- that job vacancies exist, but many people who arent working arent qualified to fill them. Her comments came during a week that the White House had devoted to messages about the American workforce.", "hrefs": [ "http://video.foxnews.com/v/5467929100001/?#sp=show-clips" ] }, { "sentence": "Every month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics releases data from a survey called theJob Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS. One of the key statistics in the survey is job openings nationally.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/jlt/" ] }, { "sentence": "Another economist, Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute, hastestifiedthat for many manufacturing jobs, a drag on hiring comes not only from a skills gap but also an image gap.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Testimony-Aparna-Mathur.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/costco-free-grocery-box-scam/", "claim": "Costco 'Free Grocery Box' Scam", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/30/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Making fraudulent promises about free holiday groceries as unemployment rises during a pandemic is a surefire way to earn coal in your stocking. " ], "justification": "On Nov. 29, 2020, a Facebook page purporting to represent Costco, a chain of membership-only warehouse stores, posted a message offering a free grocery box to anyone who shared and commented on their post. The message was purportedly written by Costco's CEO Craig Jelinek (whose name was misspelled \"Jelinekand\" in this scam Facebook post due to a typo): message My name is Craig Jelinekand I'm the CEO of Costco Inc. To celebrate our 35th Birthday, Every single person who shaes and comments in the next 24hrs will get one of these Christmas Food Box delivered straight to their door on Monday 30th November. Each Food box contains groceries worth of $250 and a $35 Costco voucher. Make sure you validate your entry. Limit 1 Food box per person. This message was not posted on Costco's official page and it was not written by the company's CEO. This is a scam that was shared by an imposter Facebook page. A nearly identical version of this scam (with Aldi swapped in for Costco) was also shared on social media in November 2020. Costco has not commented on this scam offer yet, but Aldi posted a message to Facebook alerting their customers about the scam: Facebook Hey ALDI fans! Looks like another Facebook scam is making its way around. We can confirm it is a scam and the page has no affiliation with ALDI. We're sorry for any confusion this may have caused!We have been working with Facebook since yesterday to get the page taken down, but we'd love your help! Please share this post to help us spread the word and always be sure to look for the blue check mark by our name for authenticity! One indication that this \"free Costco grocery box\" offer is a scam is that it did not originate on Costco's Facebook page. Rather, this message was shared to a page called \"Costco US,\" whereas Costco's real page is called \"Costco.\" Here's a screenshot of the real page (left) that has a verified symbol and the fake page (right), which does not. Costco Social media users could have also clicked the \"Page Transparency\" button on Facebook to unearth some more details about this fake page. In this case, the page transparency button reveals that the scam \"Costco US\" page was created on Nov. 29, the same day that this \"free grocery box\" scam started to circulate. It would be unusual, to say the least, for Costco to start an entirely new page (one that its shoppers do not know about) in order to host a giveaway. A reverse image search on the included photos also shows that this page is not on the up-and-up. The image supposedly showing \"free Costco grocery boxes\" is actually several years old and did not originally show boxes adorned with the \"Costco\" logo. The original image (below) shows plain cardboard boxes. The scammers inserted a digital version of the Costco logo in order to make it seem like the store was truly giving away boxes of groceries. A similar scam involving the grocery store Aldi also used a doctored version of this image: several years old similar scam The best way to tell that this offer is a scam, however, is to ask yourself a simple question: Does it seem too good to be true? This type of scam is commonplace on social media. A fraudulent page (in this case a fake Costco page) posts an especially appealing offer (free grocery boxes) and then asks social media users to like, share, or comment on the post. This ensures that the scam message will spread to as many people as possible, which gives the fraudsters a better chance of success. \"Success,\" in this case, is people being tricked into parting with personal information, such as email addresses, passwords, or credit card numbers. We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KIdVMy_od4zXyYl_xmPWTqI_PLvsPvfP", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1QHZdVo83yIkbH_QnjV-ycrLjbCY3iLRK", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zph2NoY5qAFT6qhsp8LPdc1uskhazZx1", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UE3nmwhEqwJWn0x7q8sOhr7p59Elu6gN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The message was purportedly written by Costco's CEO Craig Jelinek (whose name was misspelled \"Jelinekand\" in this scam Facebook post due to a typo):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/costco-scam.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Costco has not commented on this scam offer yet, but Aldi posted a message to Facebook alerting their customers about the scam:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/ALDI.USA/posts/3523759304381067" ] }, { "sentence": "One indication that this \"free Costco grocery box\" offer is a scam is that it did not originate on Costco's Facebook page. Rather, this message was shared to a page called \"Costco US,\" whereas Costco's real page is called \"Costco.\" Here's a screenshot of the real page (left) that has a verified symbol and the fake page (right), which does not. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/Costco/about" ] }, { "sentence": "A reverse image search on the included photos also shows that this page is not on the up-and-up. The image supposedly showing \"free Costco grocery boxes\" is actually several years old and did not originally show boxes adorned with the \"Costco\" logo. The original image (below) shows plain cardboard boxes. The scammers inserted a digital version of the Costco logo in order to make it seem like the store was truly giving away boxes of groceries. A similar scam involving the grocery store Aldi also used a doctored version of this image:", "hrefs": [ "https://lonelypetunia.com/2013/12/25/poor-family-celebrates-christmas-morning-opening-groceries/", "https://de-reviews.com/aldi-free-food-box-scam-or-legit/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/council/news-events/bbb-scam-alerts/2017/04/scam-alert-giveaway-scam-poses-as-facebook/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/drag-queen-library/", "claim": "Did a Drag Queen in a 'Demonic' Outfit Read a Sexually Explicit Book to Children at a Public Library?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "10/18/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Right-wing web sites used alarmist language and false claims to describe a reading event at a California library." ], "justification": "In October 2017, right-wing web sites reported with a significant degree of alarm that a drag queen in a \"Satan-inspired costume\" had read to children at a California public library associated with former First Lady Michelle Obama. In their headline, Conservative Fighters falsely claimed that Xochi Mochi had read a \"sexually explicit\" book to the children. World News Daily reported: Conservative Fighters World News Daily The Michelle Obama public library in Long Beach, California, has presented to children who are part of its young readers program a huge array of diversity and inclusion agendas. In one shot. It was when Xochi Mochi arrived for a visit. That made the program pro-LGBTQ. And transgender. And drag queen-friendly. And Satanist-approved, with the characters red-tipped, demon-like horns. All to read to children for LGBTQ History Month. The right-wing Media Research Center wrote: Media Research Center In a nightmare-inducing vision that's likely spawned years of intense psychological therapy, children at the Michelle Obama Public Library in Venice Beach, California were forced to endure being read kids books by a five-horned drag queen in the most terrifying clown makeup known to man. And no, not for Halloween. For diversity. Setting aside for a moment the alarmist language used to describe this event, the Los Angeles drag performer Xochi Mochi (also known as Jorge Alcantar) did read to children at the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library in Long Beach, California, on 14 October. The reading was part of a series called Drag Queen Story Hour, which is run by the writer Michelle Tea and the literary and arts non-profit Radar Productions. Here's how the Drag Queen Story Hour web site describes the project: web site Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is just what it sounds likedrag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real. The photograph used in the reports mentioned above is authentic, and was posted to Facebook and Instagram by Xochi Mochi, who added: Instagram added I got to read to the children today and it was one of the best experiences Ive been given as a drag queen. Its so important to have representation and normalize all the letters in LGBTQIA+ in everyday lives. I saw so many excited faces it filled my heart with so much joy and hope to come back again soon! Long Beach Public Library also posted the photograph to its Twitter account, but has since deleted that tweet. (An archived version can be viewed here.) here Republican candidate for Congress Omar Navarro asked in a tweet \"what are we teaching kids in school?\" and claimed the photograph of Xochi Mochi showed \"demonic teachings.\" Setting aside the fact that the event took place at a library, not a school, the book Xochi Mochi is reading in the photograph is Todd Parr's children's book \"It's Okay to be Different,\" which includes the following lines: asked It's Okay to be Different It's okay to need some help...It's okay to be a different color...It's okay to talk about your feelings...It's okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub. The web sites also made much of the fact that Xochi Mochi's costume involved horns, though there's no evidence that those horns are \"Satan-inspired.\" They could just as well have been inspired by the Greek gods Pan or Dionysus, both of whom are often depicted with horns. Or they could simply be Xochi Mochi's own invention. Satan and other Christian demons (as well as Pan and Dionysus) are typically portrayed with two horns, rather than the five that Xochi Mochi wore. She was also wearing a pink dress and cape; a gem-encrusted necklace and bracelet; and flowers in her hair and on her cape -- all of which are hardly in keeping with Satanist or demonic symbology and suggest that -- like most drag -- Xochi Mochi's appearance was driven by playfulness and eclecticism. Contrary to Conservative Fighters's claim, there is no evidence whatsoever that Xochi Mochi read the children anything \"sexually explicit.\" Finally, Michelle Obama had no role in the event. The Conservative Fighters web site misleadingly referred to \"Michelle Obama's public library\" in its headline, suggesting that the former First Lady owns or operates the institution. She doesn't, but the library was named in her honor in September 2016. named", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gq7wVmE_yW1dOo31CMwdnSVw0lhA2BT3", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In their headline, Conservative Fighters falsely claimed that Xochi Mochi had read a \"sexually explicit\" book to the children. World News Daily reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/W4i15", "https://archive.is/jx5M0" ] }, { "sentence": "The right-wing Media Research Center wrote:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mrctv.org/blog/killer-clown-drag-queen-reads-books-kids-michelle-obama-library" ] }, { "sentence": "The reading was part of a series called Drag Queen Story Hour, which is run by the writer Michelle Tea and the literary and arts non-profit Radar Productions. Here's how the Drag Queen Story Hour web site describes the project:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dragqueenstoryhour.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "The photograph used in the reports mentioned above is authentic, and was posted to Facebook and Instagram by Xochi Mochi, who added:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/BaPjGQyH6Q0/", "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1853453524966918&set=a.1387563041555971.1073741827.100009068658282&type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "Long Beach Public Library also posted the photograph to its Twitter account, but has since deleted that tweet. (An archived version can be viewed here.)", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/TbHDW" ] }, { "sentence": "Republican candidate for Congress Omar Navarro asked in a tweet \"what are we teaching kids in school?\" and claimed the photograph of Xochi Mochi showed \"demonic teachings.\" Setting aside the fact that the event took place at a library, not a school, the book Xochi Mochi is reading in the photograph is Todd Parr's children's book \"It's Okay to be Different,\" which includes the following lines:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/RealOmarNavarro/status/919716882638192640", "https://www.amazon.com/Its-Okay-Different-Todd-Parr/dp/0316043478" ] }, { "sentence": "Finally, Michelle Obama had no role in the event. The Conservative Fighters web site misleadingly referred to \"Michelle Obama's public library\" in its headline, suggesting that the former First Lady owns or operates the institution. She doesn't, but the library was named in her honor in September 2016.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.lbpl.org/locations/north/new_north_neighborhood_library.asp" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/missouri-schools-death-waiver/", "claim": "Were parents in Missouri schools mandated to sign COVID-19 liability waivers?", "author": "Madison Dapcevich", "posted": "07/16/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Discussions around when and how schools would reopen during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic sparked a few controversies." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In July 2020, social media posts and news reports claimed that a Missouri school district asked parents to sign COVID-19 death waivers in advance of the academic school year. news reports The waiver went viral after a Twitter user shared it. shared The focus on the word death came from an article published by online tabloid Raw Story that extrapolated language from the waiver meant to release Hazelwood School District (HSD) in Missouri from legal liabilities in the event a child dies in any way related to COVID-19. Raw Story While it is true that HSD issued a waiver related to COVID-19, Anthony Kiekow, HSD director of communication and public relations, told Snopes that parents would only be required to sign if their child planned on participating in summer athletic programs. The waiver asked that a parent confirm their acknowledgment of the public health crisis related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and confirmed that they would not allow a child to participate in programs if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19 or had been exposed to anyone diagnosed with the disease or awaiting test results. It further notes: Anthony Kiekow waiver The undersigned agrees to release, discharge, hold harmless and indemnify the Hazelwood School District, its agents, employees, officers, Board of Education members, insurers and others acting on the Districts behalf (the Releasees), of and from any and all claims, demands, causes of action and/or legal liabilities for injuries to or death of my child occurring during, or resulting from, or participation in the above-mentioned program or activity and related in any way to COVID-19, even if the cause, damages or injuries are alleged to be the fault of or alleged to be caused by the negligence or carelessness of the Releasees. Such verbiage is not uncommon in school athletic waivers and headlines referring to the document as a COVID-19 death waiver were sensationalizing and largely misleading, added Kiekow. The waiver was created by the Missouri United School Insurance Council (MUSIC), a non-profit program that provides insurance coverage for Missouri public schools and community colleges. Snopes spoke with MUSIC Executive Director Mark Stockwell who said that the organization supplied all member school districts with two waiver templates recommended for summer athletic programs and not necessarily for those that take place during the academic school year. Kiekow confirmed that the waiver was sent in late June 2020 and was intended for parents whose students typically participate in summer athletics. He noted that required athletic waivers and documents from the previous school year were very different from this waiver, but that language related to COVID-19 is likely to be the new norm for sports. MUSIC Mark Stockwell two waiver templates For the 2020-21 school year, the district announced that it would be offering families the option of selecting 100% virtual school or a blended option that includes both virtual and in-person learning. A statement issued by HSD further reads that: statement Parents who want their child to participate in athletics are asked to sign a waiver. This years waiver includes language about COVID-19 to ensure that parents can make an informed decision Our district has implemented unprecedented safety precautions in all of our buildings; however, it is important for parents to understand that school districts can only mitigate the risk of COVID-19. No district, organization, or business can offer 100% protection against exposure to a global pandemic. Visit the Centers for Disease Control website for more information about COVID-19. Parents of HSD students who choose to allow their children to attend in-person class would not be required to sign a COVID-19 waiver. When asked why HSD adopted this policy, Keikow replied via text message that athletics are optional and that a waiver for in-person instruction is just not something that were requiring. EdCounsel, a Missouri-based law firm that represents over 200 public school districts, wrote in a blog post that state law is not clear on whether school districts can require that families sign a COVID-19 waiver for students attending in-person instruction, but liability waivers for extracurricular activities are largely exempt. EdCounsel blog post While liability waivers for normal classes may be suspect, extracurricular activities are a different matter, wrote EdCounsel attorney Tom Smith. (Snopes attempted to contact Smith for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.) Extracurricular activities are a privilege, not a right; and districts have the legal authority to place certain restrictions on participation in these activities so long as the restrictions are uniformly applied and do not target a protected class. Tom Smith Under Missouri law, eligible students have a legal right to free public education and requiring that a parent or guardian sign a waiver as a condition of attendance would arguably interfere with that right. Even so, some schools and facilities around the United States have adopted similar waivers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly as many states have seen a spike in cases during the 2020 summer. Turlock Unified School District in California issued a similar waiver asking all persons participating in its activities during this pandemic sign an assumption of risk and waiver of liability. The YMCA of Minnesotas Greater Twin Cities also issued a waiver for adults and children who use its services and programs. spike in cases similar waiver waiver The HSD waiver was just one of many documents that come in a summer athletic packet and the school district said that it would continue to follow guidance from state and public health officials for the upcoming 2020-21 academic year. In mid-July 2020, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released guidelines for reopening schools across the state but did not issue statewide mandates. released guidelines I want to thank all of the medical experts across the state who contributed to this guidance. We are confident that if schools implement this guidance, they CAN safely reopen this fall, wrote Gov. Mike Parson in a Facebook post. Facebook post Ultimately, individual school districts and jurisdictions have the authority to implement their own preventative measures. Edwards, David. \"Missouri School District Asks Parents to Sign COVID-19 Death Waiver for Children.\"\r Raw Story. 14 July 2020. Missouri Department of Health & Senior Service, Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education. \"Missouri School Reopening Guidance Frequently Asked Health-Related COVID-19 Questions.\"\r 9 July 2020. Smith, Tom. \"Liability Waivers in the Wake of COVID-19.\"\r EdCounsel School Attorneys. 6 July 2020.", "issues": [ "liability" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wUuqvXuedrS3UFJdXRAhil-6-R6ExwbU" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In July 2020, social media posts and news reports claimed that a Missouri school district asked parents to sign COVID-19 death waivers in advance of the academic school year.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/missouri-school-district-forces-parents-to-sign-19-waiver-for-children/" ] }, { "sentence": "The waiver went viral after a Twitter user shared it.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/Nsd4s" ] }, { "sentence": "The focus on the word death came from an article published by online tabloid Raw Story that extrapolated language from the waiver meant to release Hazelwood School District (HSD) in Missouri from legal liabilities in the event a child dies in any way related to COVID-19.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/MVTd7" ] }, { "sentence": "While it is true that HSD issued a waiver related to COVID-19, Anthony Kiekow, HSD director of communication and public relations, told Snopes that parents would only be required to sign if their child planned on participating in summer athletic programs. The waiver asked that a parent confirm their acknowledgment of the public health crisis related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and confirmed that they would not allow a child to participate in programs if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19 or had been exposed to anyone diagnosed with the disease or awaiting test results. It further notes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.hazelwoodschools.org/Page/7841", "https://www.scribd.com/document/469269622/vn0j03kcnocpw0-Hazelwood-Parent-Waiver-docx#page=1&fullscreen=1" ] }, { "sentence": "The waiver was created by the Missouri United School Insurance Council (MUSIC), a non-profit program that provides insurance coverage for Missouri public schools and community colleges. Snopes spoke with MUSIC Executive Director Mark Stockwell who said that the organization supplied all member school districts with two waiver templates recommended for summer athletic programs and not necessarily for those that take place during the academic school year. Kiekow confirmed that the waiver was sent in late June 2020 and was intended for parents whose students typically participate in summer athletics. He noted that required athletic waivers and documents from the previous school year were very different from this waiver, but that language related to COVID-19 is likely to be the new norm for sports.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.musicprogram.org/", "https://www.musicprogram.org/about/", "https://www.musicprogram.org/covid-19-waivers-and-best-practices/" ] }, { "sentence": "For the 2020-21 school year, the district announced that it would be offering families the option of selecting 100% virtual school or a blended option that includes both virtual and in-person learning. A statement issued by HSD further reads that:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/VVZXD" ] }, { "sentence": "EdCounsel, a Missouri-based law firm that represents over 200 public school districts, wrote in a blog post that state law is not clear on whether school districts can require that families sign a COVID-19 waiver for students attending in-person instruction, but liability waivers for extracurricular activities are largely exempt.", "hrefs": [ "https://edcounsel.law/", "https://edcounsel.law/2020/07/06/liability-waivers-in-the-wake-of-covid-19/" ] }, { "sentence": "While liability waivers for normal classes may be suspect, extracurricular activities are a different matter, wrote EdCounsel attorney Tom Smith. (Snopes attempted to contact Smith for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.) Extracurricular activities are a privilege, not a right; and districts have the legal authority to place certain restrictions on participation in these activities so long as the restrictions are uniformly applied and do not target a protected class.", "hrefs": [ "https://edcounsel.law/tom-smith-bio/" ] }, { "sentence": "Under Missouri law, eligible students have a legal right to free public education and requiring that a parent or guardian sign a waiver as a condition of attendance would arguably interfere with that right. Even so, some schools and facilities around the United States have adopted similar waivers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly as many states have seen a spike in cases during the 2020 summer. Turlock Unified School District in California issued a similar waiver asking all persons participating in its activities during this pandemic sign an assumption of risk and waiver of liability. The YMCA of Minnesotas Greater Twin Cities also issued a waiver for adults and children who use its services and programs.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/06/24/us-coronavirus-cases-surge-highest-level-in-two-months/", "https://www.turlock.k12.ca.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=4874&dataid=9723&FileName=TUSD%20COVID19%20Athletic%20Activities%20Waiver%20of%20Liability.pdf", "https://www.co.sherburne.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/4784/Covid-19-waiver-PDF" ] }, { "sentence": "The HSD waiver was just one of many documents that come in a summer athletic packet and the school district said that it would continue to follow guidance from state and public health officials for the upcoming 2020-21 academic year. In mid-July 2020, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released guidelines for reopening schools across the state but did not issue statewide mandates.", "hrefs": [ "https://dese.mo.gov/sites/default/files/COVID-MO-K12-Reopening-Guidance.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "I want to thank all of the medical experts across the state who contributed to this guidance. We are confident that if schools implement this guidance, they CAN safely reopen this fall, wrote Gov. Mike Parson in a Facebook post.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/YrPLi" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/methane-tax-cattle-pigs/", "claim": "Does 2021 Infrastructure Bill Include 'Methane Tax' on Cattle, Pigs?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "11/02/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin said Democratic proposals for a \"methane tax\" would \"run ranchers out of business.\" But do his claims stack up?" ], "justification": "In October and November 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of social media posts that claimed that the Build Back Better Act, a major budget and infrastructure bill, contained a \"methane tax\" of around $2,600 per head of cattle, and around $500 per swine, per year. For example, one widely-shared Facebook post claimed: widely-shared Facebook post \"Were you aware the $3.5 Trillion Human Infrastructure package includes an animal agriculture tax of $2,600!! per head of cattle? $500 for swine!!!...\" The post contained a photograph of a column written by U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma. In the column, which was also posted to his website on Sep. 22, Mullin claimed that: posted to his website on Sep. 22 In an attempt to eliminate fossil fuels, this legislation [the Build Back Better Act] would impose a fee on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry. We all know that a fee is just a tax and that consumers are the ones who will pay for it. The tax is estimated to cost $6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine each year. That is more than what the animals are worth, itll run ranchers out of business. Mullin's description of the provisions of the bill was inaccurate, as were the numerous social media posts based on it. At the time those claims were made, and as of Nov. 2, 2021, the Build Back Better Act did not contain a tax or fee on methane that would equate to thousands of dollars per head of cattle, or hundreds of dollars per head of swine. As a result, we are issuing a rating of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, is a 2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill, and has been the subject of intensive negotiations during the fall of 2021. Section 30114 of the legislation provides for a \"methane fee,\" but it applies only to \"petroleum and natural gas systems,\" and not the agriculture sector. Therefore, Mullin's claim that \"this legislation would impose a 'fee' on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry\" is false. 2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill A spokesperson for Mullin told Politifact that the congressman was referring to an amendment to the bill, proposed by Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would have explicitly stipulated that the methane fee does not apply to agriculture. Democrats voted down that proposal, on the basis that the text of the legislation already explicitly stipulated that the fee related only to oil and gas production. told Politifact amendment While expressing concern about hypothetical future actions on the part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the spokesperson effectively acknowledged that the Build Back Better Act does not currently do what Mullin claimed it did: \"While the language specifies the oil and gas industry, it also references EPAs greenhouse gas inventory and leaves too much room for the EPA to expand its regulatory reach.\" The same spokesperson also told Politifact that the key figures from Mullin's op-ed \"$6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine\" came from an analysis prepared by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). However, the AFBF later issued its own news release, clarifying that the analysis was conducted in order to address an entirely hypothetical question, namely what the effect of a methane tax would be if it were applied to the agriculture industry a proposal that no participants in Congressional negotiations have so far made. In that Sept. 30 news release, AFBF Vice President Sam Kieffer said: Sept. 30 news release Over the summer, American Farm Bureau economists conducted an analysis, at the request of Congressional committee staff, to determine the potential impact if agriculture were to be included in legislation imposing such a tax. We did so based on the formula set forth in legislative proposals that impose a methane tax on the oil and gas sectors. ...While we oppose any tax on methane, Farm Bureau is grateful to lawmakers for recognizing the thin margins in agriculture and that such a tax would undoubtedly put family farms out of business. We are especially grateful to the Senate for passing an amendment that specifically exempts agriculture. That Senate amendment was one proposed by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and passed by a vote of 66-33 on Aug. 10. It prohibited \"the imposition of new Federal methane requirements on livestock.\" passed by a vote of 66-33 on Aug. 10", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-kvDFKtVGCay7iKH6sCRJ_O8EqSDRW1e", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "For example, one widely-shared Facebook post claimed:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/Ub2SL" ] }, { "sentence": "The post contained a photograph of a column written by U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma. In the column, which was also posted to his website on Sep. 22, Mullin claimed that:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/f3rOH" ] }, { "sentence": "H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, is a 2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill, and has been the subject of intensive negotiations during the fall of 2021. Section 30114 of the legislation provides for a \"methane fee,\" but it applies only to \"petroleum and natural gas systems,\" and not the agriculture sector. Therefore, Mullin's claim that \"this legislation would impose a 'fee' on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry\" is false. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5376/text" ] }, { "sentence": "A spokesperson for Mullin told Politifact that the congressman was referring to an amendment to the bill, proposed by Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would have explicitly stipulated that the methane fee does not apply to agriculture. Democrats voted down that proposal, on the basis that the text of the legislation already explicitly stipulated that the fee related only to oil and gas production. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/MiGuJ", "https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=114039" ] }, { "sentence": "In that Sept. 30 news release, AFBF Vice President Sam Kieffer said:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/tgxww" ] }, { "sentence": "That Senate amendment was one proposed by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and passed by a vote of 66-33 on Aug. 10. It prohibited \"the imposition of new Federal methane requirements on livestock.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/penhn" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-impeachment-dow-jones/", "claim": "Was there any instance of Donald Trump suggesting that the current president should be impeached if the Dow Jones declines by 1,000 points within a span of two days?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "10/12/2018", "sci_digest": [ "We found a few reasons to be skeptical of this tweet. " ], "justification": "Editor's note: Fact-checking whether Trump tweeted about 'Dow Joans' and presidents being shot out of a cannon? That's over here. here Between 10 and 11 October 2018, the Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped 1,378 points in value. Along with significant losses in other market indices (such as the S&P 500), this decline prompted sober and informed analysis, but also partisan criticism of President Donald Trump, who has set a precedent of claiming credit for positive stock market trends. analysis claiming credit Against that background, critics of the president shared what appeared to be a screenshot of a tweet from 2012 in which Trump supposedly proclaimed, \"If the Dow drops 1,000 points in two days the President should be impeached immediately!\" RETWEET AND LIKE TO SPREAD THIS OLD TRUMP TWEET! pic.twitter.com/GwsJl189pn pic.twitter.com/GwsJl189pn Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 11, 2018 October 11, 2018 Since the Dow Jones had indeed dropped by more than 1,000 points in two days (the argument went), President Trump, in accordance with his own pronouncement, ought to be removed from office, or even resign. This was advocated with great gusto on Twitter in the aftermath of the October 2018 loss: The Dow has dropped 1,377 points in the last two days. Oh @realDonaldTrump, your self from six years ago would like a word with you. Alternatively, you could save us all a lot of time and money and just resign immediately. pic.twitter.com/x1mw31pvMR @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/x1mw31pvMR Stephen Schwartz (@AtomicAnalyst) October 12, 2018 October 12, 2018 Sooo, @realDonaldTrump..... @realDonaldTrump For a 2-day trump slump of minus-1,300 to the Dow, by your \"logic\" you should be impeached immediately AND thrown in jail! #Sad pic.twitter.com/qLJUuctGvD #Sad pic.twitter.com/qLJUuctGvD BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) October 12, 2018 October 12, 2018 @realDonaldTrump impeach Trump .. Dow is down 1,300 points https://t.co/31MNdEkePB @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/31MNdEkePB alex taye (@ChakluTaye) October 12, 2018 October 12, 2018 But there is no record of Trump having posted such a tweet on 6 November 2012, or on any other date. Since it's conceivable that he published it then deleted it, we can't reach a definitive conclusion as to whether or not it is genuine. However, there are good reasons to doubt its authenticity. no record Firstly, it is strikingly similar to another tweet which was revealed to have been a hoax in February 2018, after another massive loss for the Dow Jones. On that occasion, Shaun Usher -- who runs the popular \"Letters of Note\" blog -- admitted to having fabricated an \"old Trump tweet\" from 2015, in which the presidential candidate was supposed to have proclaimed: hoax loss If the Dow Joans [sic] ever falls more than 1000 \"points\" in a Single Day the sitting president should be \"loaded\" into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun at TREMENDOUS SPEED! No excuses! Secondly, there is no record of the 2012 tweet existing before 11 October 2018. The earliest instance we could find was the purported screenshot posted on that date by Twitter user Travis Allen. Despite searching Twitter and online news archives from 2012 onward, we did not find a single reference to Trump advocating the impeachment of the U.S. president in the event of a significant stock market drop. Twitter Nobody made reference to such a tweet despite almost six years passing -- not even when the Dow Jones dropped 1,175 points on 5 February 2018. Also, we could find no variances in screenshots of the purported tweet. Every instance shows the same number of retweets and likes, and the same set of thumbnail avatars. Additional screenshots displaying variations in the number of retweets and likes, and/or different avatars, would at least suggest that someone besides Travis Allen had taken note of the tweet and kept a record of it (although that, in itself, would not amount to definitive corroboration). As it stands, the case for the tweet's authenticity rests entirely on a sole Twitter user (out of hundreds of millions) having taken a screenshot of it between 6 November 2012 and 11 October 2018, before it could have been deleted. Finally, the person who posted the earliest known instance of the tweet has a history of posting anti-Trump \"sharebait,\" a fact that casts even more reasonable doubt on its authenticity. Allen's own 11 October tweet implores readers to \"retweet and like to spread this old Trump tweet.\" This effort to garner shares and engagement is a common feature of his Twitter account. In the week leading up to the \"Dow Jones\" screenshot, Allen published nine tweets that included requests that readers share and like his content. For example: Remember when Trump said he was going to build the Wall and make Mexico pay for it? ??? RT and like if you remember! Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 9, 2018 October 9, 2018 Many many people are saying that Brett Kavanaugh is the WORST SUPREME COURT NOMINEE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! Retweet and like if you agree! Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 4, 2018 October 4, 2018 The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two leading figures in the movement to end sexual violence as a weapon of war. Remember when #MAGA thought Trump was going to get the Nobel Peace Prize for getting a picture with Kim Jong Un? ??? #MAGA RT if you remember! pic.twitter.com/lChHDFAwMj pic.twitter.com/lChHDFAwMj Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 5, 2018 October 5, 2018 A pattern of posting partisan sharebait does not prove that Allen's \"Dow Jones\" tweet was fake, but it justifies further skepticism about its authenticity. We sent Allen a message asking him whether he fabricated the tweet, and, if not, whether he could provide the date on which he captured a screenshot of it, its URL, or an archive link to it. We did not receive a response. Chang, Sue; Vlastelica, Ryan. \"U.S. Stocks Close Lower as Dow Drops Nearly 1,400 Points in 2 Days.\"\r Marketwatch. 11 October 2018. Rampell, Catherine. \"The Stock Market Under Trump vs. Obama.\"\r The Washington Post. 1 May 2018. Palma, Bethania. \"Did Trump Tweet That the President Should Be Shot Out of a Cannon If the Stock Market Tanked?\"\r Snopes.com. 5 February 2018. Phipps, Claire; Wearden, Graeme; Fletcher, Nick. \"Australian and Asian Stock Markets Slide After Dow Suffers Biggest One-Day Points Fall -- As It Happened.\"\r The Guardian. 6 February 2018.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CyxFVN487XOJwKtLssZIqN6DgzIcJ5XO" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Editor's note: Fact-checking whether Trump tweeted about 'Dow Joans' and presidents being shot out of a cannon? That's over here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-dow-jones-tweet/" ] }, { "sentence": "Between 10 and 11 October 2018, the Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped 1,378 points in value. Along with significant losses in other market indices (such as the S&P 500), this decline prompted sober and informed analysis, but also partisan criticism of President Donald Trump, who has set a precedent of claiming credit for positive stock market trends. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-down-more-than-200-points-as-wall-street-looks-to-build-on-losses-2018-10-11", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2018/05/01/the-stock-market-under-trump-vs-obama/?utm_term=.1956c2ece4a9" ] }, { "sentence": "RETWEET AND LIKE TO SPREAD THIS OLD TRUMP TWEET! pic.twitter.com/GwsJl189pn", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/GwsJl189pn" ] }, { "sentence": " Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 11, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TravisAllen02/status/1050471245236658177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Oh @realDonaldTrump, your self from six years ago would like a word with you. Alternatively, you could save us all a lot of time and money and just resign immediately. pic.twitter.com/x1mw31pvMR", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/x1mw31pvMR" ] }, { "sentence": " Stephen Schwartz (@AtomicAnalyst) October 12, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1050577911034580993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Sooo, @realDonaldTrump.....", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "For a 2-day trump slump of minus-1,300 to the Dow, by your \"logic\" you should be impeached immediately AND thrown in jail! #Sad pic.twitter.com/qLJUuctGvD", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/Sad?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/qLJUuctGvD" ] }, { "sentence": " BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) October 12, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1050593636025421824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "@realDonaldTrump impeach Trump .. Dow is down 1,300 points https://t.co/31MNdEkePB", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/31MNdEkePB" ] }, { "sentence": " alex taye (@ChakluTaye) October 12, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ChakluTaye/status/1050543978989400064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "But there is no record of Trump having posted such a tweet on 6 November 2012, or on any other date. Since it's conceivable that he published it then deleted it, we can't reach a definitive conclusion as to whether or not it is genuine. However, there are good reasons to doubt its authenticity.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=from%3Arealdonaldtrump%20since%3A2012-11-05%20until%3A2012-11-07&src=typd&lang=en" ] }, { "sentence": "Firstly, it is strikingly similar to another tweet which was revealed to have been a hoax in February 2018, after another massive loss for the Dow Jones. On that occasion, Shaun Usher -- who runs the popular \"Letters of Note\" blog -- admitted to having fabricated an \"old Trump tweet\" from 2015, in which the presidential candidate was supposed to have proclaimed: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-dow-jones-tweet/", "https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/feb/05/stock-markets-slide-global-sell-off-service-sector-bitcoin-business-live" ] }, { "sentence": " ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2018/02/atweet.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Secondly, there is no record of the 2012 tweet existing before 11 October 2018. The earliest instance we could find was the purported screenshot posted on that date by Twitter user Travis Allen. Despite searching Twitter and online news archives from 2012 onward, we did not find a single reference to Trump advocating the impeachment of the U.S. president in the event of a significant stock market drop.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=%22If%20the%20Dow%20drops%201%2C000%20points%20in%20two%20days%22%20since%3A2006-03-21%20until%3A2018-10-10&src=typd&lang=en" ] }, { "sentence": " Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 9, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TravisAllen02/status/1049798986519990278?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": " Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 4, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TravisAllen02/status/1047901735711399937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Remember when #MAGA thought Trump was going to get the Nobel Peace Prize for getting a picture with Kim Jong Un? ???", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "RT if you remember! pic.twitter.com/lChHDFAwMj", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/lChHDFAwMj" ] }, { "sentence": " Travis Allen ? (@TravisAllen02) October 5, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/TravisAllen02/status/1048169592152055810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fired-for-being-gay/", "claim": "Fired for Being Gay", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/10/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Map shows states in which employees can be 'fired for being gay.'" ], "justification": "Claim: Map shows states in which employees can be \"fired for being gay.\" PARTLY Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2013] I saw a map of states where you can be fired for being gay. Is this true? Origins: The map displayed above identifies twenty-nine states (shown in red) where, according to the accompanying title, \"you can be fired for being gay.\" This map is \"true\" in the broad sense that it identifies states which do not currently have statewide laws prohibiting all employers from engaging in discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but it is not the case that those states are all completely devoid protections against that form of discrimination. Anti-discrimination laws typically address not just discrimination in the termination of employees but also in other job-related aspects, such as hiring, promotion, job assignment, and compensation. In general, employees who work on an at-will basis may (with some narrow exceptions) be terminated without cause at-will and without their employers incurring legal liability. However, members of certain protected classes may not be discriminated against in employment for reasons related to the characteristics that make them members of those classes (e.g., sex, race, religion, national origin, age). Since the U.S. has not yet enacted national regulations establishing sexual orientation as a protected class, most employees who have such protection are afforded it on the basis of state laws. protected classes While the twenty-nine states shown in red above may currently lack statewide laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, it is not true that all employers in all of those states may freely fire employees \"for being gay.\" Some of those red states have laws which protect public (i.e., government) employees from sexual orientation discrimination (but not those who work in the private sector), some of those states have laws passed at county or city levels which protect employees in those local areas from such discrimination, and some of those states protect public employees from employment discrimination through means other than laws (e.g., executive orders, administrative orders, personnel regulations). Maps like the ones displayed below present more detailed representations (at both the statewide and local levels) of the status of laws banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in the United States: Last updated: 10 April 2013 ", "issues": [ "liability" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mnK-Bp_FHhEzlf4EBLAeDVoOdajjuATz", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cB1BD_Poua1a1on3ufJRmCwqEwo5NzYm", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/US_counties_and_cities_with_sexual_orientation_and_gender_identity_protection.svg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Anti-discrimination laws typically address not just discrimination in the termination of employees but also in other job-related aspects, such as hiring, promotion, job assignment, and compensation. In general, employees who work on an at-will basis may (with some narrow exceptions) be terminated without cause ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/labor/at-will-employment-overview.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "and without their employers incurring legal liability. However, members of certain protected classes may not be discriminated against in employment for reasons related to the characteristics that make them members of those classes (e.g., sex, race, religion, national origin, age). Since the U.S. has not yet enacted national regulations establishing sexual orientation as a protected class, most employees who have such protection are afforded it on the basis of state laws. ", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jul/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-isnt-winging-it-complaint-about-air-f/", "claim": "Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.", "author": "C. Eugene Emery Jr.", "posted": "07/07/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "It's a political fact of life: Incumbency has its perks. You're already in a position of power. Name recognition is not a problem. And, if you're president, your arrival at a venue whether for campaign reasons or not is bound to generate headlines. That's the underlying complaint of a tweet presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sent out July 5 as his presumptive Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was preparing to join President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One for a campaign trip to North Carolina. Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, Trump said. We wondered if it was true that the trip was going to be made at taxpayer expense. To some degree, it is. And that's out of necessity. The president doesn't stop being president just because he's campaigning for himself or someone else. Even if he flew to a campaign stop on a commercial jet, he would need a host of support services and personnel to keep him connected and in charge. And that doesn't include the requirements for security. Thus, the president always uses Air Force One, which is one of two specially designed Boeing 747s built in 1986 to include a command center, a medical suite, bedroom, office, two food preparation galleys, and plenty of room for staff and reporters. It's not cheap to operate. According to CNN, the Air Force was reporting two years ago it cost $206,337 an hour to operate the jet. It's not clear what that covers. A General Accounting Officeanalysisof three overseas presidential trips in 1998 reported an hourly cost of $34,400, which would be $50,700 per hourin 2016 dollars. Technically, if the president makes a campaign trip, the campaign or the political party is supposed to reimburse the government for use of the plane to some degree. (The full cost is not reimbursed because some of the costs are directly connected to the responsibilities of being president.) These days,the amountis the price of chartering a 737, which is a bit over $11,000 an hour, according to theWashington Post.Prior to 2010, the required reimbursement was nothing more than the cost of a first-class ticket on a commercial airline. When you have someone traveling on behalf of a campaign, such as Clinton and any staffers who might be accompanying her, the accounting can get even more complicated. But how it's calculated by the White House Airlift Operations office isn't known. The government does not release details of how it figures such costs, and that's been a secret going back to the 1970s,according to CNN. The amount is even more complicated when the president mixes business with politics, such as flying somewhere to give a policy speech or performing another official act but also spending time attending a purely political event, such as a fundraiser. (The North Carolina appearance, in contrast, was purely political.) How much taxpayers end up paying when business is mixed with politics isn't clear because, once again, the formula for calculating the share paid by the campaign and the government is secret. The White House Counsel's office makes a determination on how political a trip is,according to Time magazine. Mark Knoller, the CBS News White House correspondent who has been tracking presidential trips for years, noted in a tweet that presidents have repeatedly told the press that such costs will not be revealed. > Prior administrations also refused, he noted in a followup tweet. But they didn't claim to be most transparent Admins ever. The closest you can get to getting an estimate is to see what the campaigns pay the government. For his re-election in 2004, George W. Bush's campaign paid just under $1 million, according to thePost. But that was when the cost was based on a first-class commercial airline ticket. By 2012, after the rules were changed to be based on chartering a 737, Obama spent just over $3 million. In this case, Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said the campaign will cover its portion of the costs, although he indicated those costs had not been determined. The Trump campaign didn't respond to an email, but Trump is well aware that campaigns are required, by federal law, to reimburse for expenses. During his trip to Scotland last month, Trump went to great lengths to repeatedly state that federal law requires his campaign to pay for everything, even if it's the use of a conference room in Trump Towers, which he said he would gladly let his campaign use for free. I'm forced, you know, legally, I have to pay myself back,he said. If I use one of my resorts in the United States and we have a press conference or something, by law I have to pay myself back. Our ruling Trump said, Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by Obama and Clinton. How people define a fortune is somewhat subjective, and details about how the costs of using the presidential plane are determined are secret. But based on the information available, it's clear that the campaign is only going to be picking up a small fraction of the $200,000-plus hourly costs of using the plane, with taxpayers footing the bill for the rest. Because Trump's statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rate it Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aa60cf08-a414-40d2-b91a-70999d4188a2", "issues": [ "National", "Campaign Finance", "Elections", "History", "Government Regulation", "Transparency", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "According to CNN, the Air Force was reporting two years ago it cost $206,337 an hour to operate the jet. It's not clear what that covers. A General Accounting Officeanalysisof three overseas presidential trips in 1998 reported an hourly cost of $34,400, which would be $50,700 per hourin 2016 dollars.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/politics/obama-clinton-air-force-one-trump/" ] }, { "sentence": "These days,the amountis the price of chartering a 737, which is a bit over $11,000 an hour, according to theWashington Post.Prior to 2010, the required reimbursement was nothing more than the cost of a first-class ticket on a commercial airline.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/presidential-vs-political-trips-a-blurry-line-for-obama.html" ] }, { "sentence": "But how it's calculated by the White House Airlift Operations office isn't known. The government does not release details of how it figures such costs, and that's been a secret going back to the 1970s,according to CNN.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/politics/obama-clinton-air-force-one-trump/" ] }, { "sentence": "How much taxpayers end up paying when business is mixed with politics isn't clear because, once again, the formula for calculating the share paid by the campaign and the government is secret. The White House Counsel's office makes a determination on how political a trip is,according to Time magazine.", "hrefs": [ "http://time.com/4393917/hillary-clinton-air-force-one-cost/" ] }, { "sentence": "I'm forced, you know, legally, I have to pay myself back,he said. If I use one of my resorts in the United States and we have a press conference or something, by law I have to pay myself back.", "hrefs": [ "https://youtu.be/_zjYWi4stPI?t=34m23s" ] }, { "sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aa60cf08-a414-40d2-b91a-70999d4188a2", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aa60cf08-a414-40d2-b91a-70999d4188a2" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jennifer-aniston-iwo-jima/", "claim": "Did Jennifer Aniston Criticize Gay Rights Activists Over Iwo Jima Comparisons?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/28/2015", "sci_digest": [ "It wasn't the actress who wrote that gay rights activists should be ashamed for comparing themselves to those who fought at Iwo Jima." ], "justification": "On 27 June 2015, a Facebook post purportedly made by actress Jennifer Aniston comparing gay rights activists to soldiers caused a stir on social media: post Within a few days, Aniston's supposed Facebook post had been shared more than 200,000 times, with many users who encountered it vowing to boycott the actress' movies over her alleged viewpoint. The above-displayed post, however, was not made by Jennifer Aniston. The \"Jennifer Aniston\" Facebook page is not affiliated in any way with Jennifer Aniston the actress. Similar to other \"like farming\" scams, this \"Jennifer Aniston\" Facebook page employs sexy photos of the actress, inspirational quotes, and other shareable content in order to increase user engagement. The site's purpose, however, has nothing to do with presenting visitors first-hand information about the actress. (Indeed, most of the links provided on this Facebook simply point to videos uploaded to YouTube by user Sam00962.) like farming In fact, the substance of the post attributed to Aniston came from \"DV Dan,\" the admin of the Dysfunctional Veterans web site, who wrote of it: Dysfunctional Veterans With the major publicity of the Iwo Jima/gay pride flag comparison photo going viral, it is a disappointment to me that, what appeared to be Jennifer Anistons account is receiving all the attention from a powerful statement stolen from my original post. It is why, when the post was stolen by the owner of this Jennifer Aniston account, I made the comment that I did not appreciate the post being taken from my page DV Dan without any credit. As the statement was made by myself, an actual U.S. Marine Veteran, it would have been nice to direct that attention to a much higher cause than gossip. Such as the fight we continue to face daily in the Veteran community. Our goal with Dysfunctional Veterans, DV Farm, DV Radio, and DV TV is to bring awareness to the estimated 23 a day. Suicide prevention and veteran support is something that actually needs the national attention behind it, not the color of a celebrity dress. As I made the post I did based on how I felt the depiction of the pride flag being raised in that manner disrespected the Marines and Navy Corpsman that fought, bled, and gave the ultimate sacrifice during WWII. The original post had been pulled due to constant reporting of it, and I was getting messages from veterans who felt offended by the depiction. They were offended due to not reading my words condemning the picture, they just saw the image and, like myself, knew it was wrong. I will state again that I have nothing against the LGBT community, however as it is their right to publicly call out what they find offensive to their cause. It is my same right to express what I feel is offensive to the veteran community. As it is also their right to portray Art in any fashion, there should have been more respect and consideration given toward the Men and Women that protect those constitutional rights. You may not agree with my views on this issue, however, one should not be hypocritical in the ways others express their views. Hate can be a two way street, not one with a one way sign. I hope the real Jennifer Aniston will see this message and contact me as she is gaining a lot of support for my statement. It would be a nice gesture to show her what we do within the DV community to bring both humor and seriousness into Veteran lives through the Dysfunctional Veterans Facebook Page. Along with that, it would be great to show her how we work with Battle In Distress to combat the 23-a-day and reduce that number down to 0. ", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1n80_v2u1NYmyMFc-r7FI4XuSAoRoDF_V", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 27 June 2015, a Facebook post purportedly made by actress Jennifer Aniston comparing gay rights activists to soldiers caused a stir on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/218606074817980/photos/a.224264644252123.66323.218606074817980/1025219854156594/?type=1&permPage=1" ] }, { "sentence": "The \"Jennifer Aniston\" Facebook page is not affiliated in any way with Jennifer Aniston the actress. Similar to other \"like farming\" scams, this \"Jennifer Aniston\" Facebook page employs sexy photos of the actress, inspirational quotes, and other shareable content in order to increase user engagement. The site's purpose, however, has nothing to do with presenting visitors first-hand information about the actress. (Indeed, most of the links provided on this Facebook simply point to videos uploaded to YouTube by user Sam00962.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/eminemfacebook.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, the substance of the post attributed to Aniston came from \"DV Dan,\" the admin of the Dysfunctional Veterans web site, who wrote of it:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dysfunctionalveterans.com/dv-dans-official-response/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-good-news-list-accurate/", "claim": "Is This 'Good News' List About the COVID-19 Pandemic Accurate?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/19/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A few bright spots do indeed shine amid the doom and gloom of the new coronavirus. " ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Things appeared pretty bleak in March 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus disease continued to spread across the globe. Businesses and restaurants were being shut down, people were asked to stay inside their homes, and the stock market was crashing. But, according to viral list on social media, it wasn't all bad news. On March 16, a Facebook post that supposedly highlighted some \"good news\" about COVID-19 started to spread online: post How about some good news? - China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them. - Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. Combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Retonovir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. They are going to suggest same medicine, globally. - Researchers of the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus. - A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days in Wuhan, China. - Apple reopens all 42 china stores, - Cleveland Clinic developed a COVID-19 test that gives results in hours, not days. - Good news from South Korea, where the number of new cases is declining. - Italy is hit hard, experts say, only because they have the oldest population in Europe. - Scientists in Israel likely to announce the development of a coronavirus vaccine. - 3 Maryland coronavirus patients fully recovered; able to return to everyday life. - A network of Canadian scientists are making excellent progress in Covid-19 research. - A San Diego biotech company is developing a Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with Duke University and National University of Singapore. - Tulsa County's first positive COVID-19 case has recovered. This individual has had two negative tests, which is the indicator of recovery. - All 7 patients who were getting treated for at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi have recovered. - Plasma from newly recovered patients from Covid -19 can treat others infected by Covid-19. So it's not all bad news. Let's care for each other and stay focused on safety of those most vulnerable. We're not sure who wrote this Facebook post. The earliest version we could find was posted by Dr. James Fedich, but we've come across several other variations of the list across social media. We reached out to Fedich to confirm authorship but we have not yet heard back. More importantly, this list appears to be generally accurate. Some of the statements are missing some context, are a bit exaggerated, or appear to be little more than wishful thinking, so let's take a brief look at each of the claims individually: China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them. China built several temporary hospitals in order to care for people sickened by COVID-19. On March 11, journalists reported that these hospitals were shut down as the spread of the disease started to slow. On March 19, China reported no new locally transmitted cases had been reported for the first time since the start of the pandemic: reported Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. Combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Retonovir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. They are going to suggest same medicine, globally. The Economic Times reported that the combination of two anti-HIV drugs had proven crucial to the treatment of coronavirus patients. India's Union of Health Ministry revised its guidelines to recommend the use of \"anti-HIV drug combinations Lopinavir and Ritonavir on a case-to-case basis depending upon the severity of the condition of a patient having coronavirus infection.\" reported recommend But it's unclear how effective these drugs will end up being or if they will be implemented in treatment worldwide. Researchers of the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus. The Dutch newspaper NL Times reported that \"a team of ten scientific researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and Utrecht University\" reported that they discovered an \"antibody capable of fending off an infection by the Covid-19 variant of coronavirus.\" reported This may prove to be a big step in developing a vaccine for COVID-19. A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days in Wuhan, China. The Independent reported on March 11 that a 103-year-old woman named Zhang Guangfen contracted the disease in Wuhan, China. Guangfen was treated for six days at the hospital before being released. Dr. Zeng Yulan told reporters that the centenarian's quick recovery was likely due to the fact that she had no underlying health conditions. reported Apple reopens all 42 China stores. Although China was once the epicenter of this pandemic, the country managed to get a handle on the situation, and as of this writing cases in the country continue to drop. On March 13, 2020, Apple announced that it was reopening all 42 of its stores in China. Reuters reported: \"Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is reopening all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday [March 13], a company spokesman said, more than a month after they were shut in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.\" reported Cleveland Clinic developed a COVID-19 test that gives results in hours, not days. The MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, announced on March 16 that it can test COVID-19 samples at its laboratory and get the results in just two hours. These tests, however, were in very limited supply: MetroHealth CEO and President Akram Boutros, MD, FACHE, said: \"Supplies are very limited, and testing at this time must be reserved for the hospitalized patients who are critically ill and those who have had direct contact with them.\" Good news from South Korea, where the number of new cases is declining. While COVID-19 continues, currently, to spread in places like the United States, some other countries have managed to \"flatten the curve\" and suppress the spread of the disease. Science Magazine wrote on March 17: \"Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control.\" Science Magazine One reason for South Korea's success, according to CNN, is that the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in a population of relatively young, non-smoking women. CNN Italy is hit hard, experts say, only because they have the oldest population in Europe. While South Korea may have benefited from this disease impacting its young population first, Italy, on the other hand, has one of the oldest populations on earth. Wired reported: \"Italy has been hit particularly hard, with some 2,000 deaths thus far. Overwhelmed hospital staffers have had to make devastating decisions about who to treat and who they must let perish. The reason why Italy is suffering so badly, write University of Oxford researchers in a new paper in the journal Demographic Science, may be twofold: The country has the second-oldest population on earth, and its young tend to mingle more often with the elderly, like their grandparents. Such demographic research will be critical in facing down the threat elsewhere, as more countries grapple with a deadly pandemic thats just getting started and we learn more about how the virus is transmitted within families and communities.\" reported Scientists in Israel likely to announce the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Haaretz reported on March 18 that \"scientists at Israels Institute for Biological Research\" have made a \"significant breakthrough,\" and that they could announce in the next few days that they have completed development of a vaccine. reported Haaretz said: \"According to medical sources, the scientists have recently had a significant breakthrough in understanding the biological mechanism and qualities of the virus, including better diagnostic capability, production of antibodies for those who already have the virus and development of a vaccine.\" However, it will still be awhile before this vaccine reaches a larger population. Haaretz added: \"The development process requires a series of tests and experiments that may last many months before the vaccination is deemed effective or safe to use.\" 3 Maryland coronavirus patients fully recovered; able to return to everyday life. Fox 5 DC reported on March 14 that Maryland's first three coronavirus patients had all recovered and were returning to their homes. reported The news outlet wrote: \"On Friday, Montgomery Countys Chief Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles told FOX 5 the first three people to test positive for Coronavirus in the state of Maryland have recovered and are able to resume their normal lives.\" A network of Canadian scientists are making excellent progress in Covid-19 research. The Montreal Gazette reported on March 13 that the country's scientists were making progress on COVID-19 research as they were able to isolate a copy of the coronavirus. reported \"A team of Canadian researchers from Ontario has isolated and grown copies of the coronavirus, the agent responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19 that has spread worldwide,\" the Gazette said. \"The isolated virus will help researchers in Canada and across the world develop better diagnostic testing, treatments and vaccines, and to gain a fuller understanding of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).\" A San Diego biotech company is developing a Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with Duke University and National University of Singapore. A CBS TV station reported on March 12 that the San Diego biotech company Arcturus Therapeutics was working on a COVID-19 vaccine. The outlet reported: \"As the race to develop a vaccine for coronavirus / COVID-19 continues globally, the San Diego based biotech company, Arcturus Therapeutics, is working on creating one at its Torrey Pines lab ... The biotech company is working with Duke NUS- Medical School, a partnership between Duke University and the National University of Singapore.\" Tulsa County's first positive COVID-19 case has recovered. This individual has had two negative tests, which is the indicator of recovery. Tulsa World reported on March 12 that the county's first coronavirus case had fully recovered. The Tulsa Health Department reported the good news on Facebook: reported reported All 7 patients who were getting treated for at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi have recovered. The Hindu reported on March 14 that seven coronavirus patients at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi had recovered from the disease, writing: \"Safdarjung Hospital, which is treating a bulk of COVID-19 patients here in the Capital has reported that seven of the positive cases currently admitted in the hospital have recovered but are yet to be discharged.\" reported Plasma from newly recovered patients from Covid-19 can treat others infected by Covid-19. The final item on this list refers to an experimental treatment. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that the FDA was experimenting with a new COVID-19 treatment involving the plasma from a person who recovered from the disease: Tech Crunch reported: reported Hahn also highlighted another experimental treatment possibility that the FDA is investigating: Using plasma derived from blood taken from coronavirus patients who have recovered, and injecting that into other patients in an attempt to potentially jump start their own immune response. Theres a cross-agency effort about something called convalescent plasma, he said. This is a pretty exciting area. And again, this is something that we have given assistance to other countries with as this crisis has developed, so FDA has been working for some time on this. If youve been exposed to coronavirus and youre better, you dont have the virus in your blood. We could collect the blood now, this is a possible treatment. This is not a proven treatment, I just want to emphasize that, [but we would] collect the blood, concentrate that and have the ability, once its pathogen-free, that is virus-free, be able to give that to other patients and the immunoglobulins, the immune response could potentially provide a benefit to patients. In Summary The claims on the popular \"good news\" list are generally accurate and supported by credible news reports. The number of new cases in China and South Korea have dropped since the pandemic began, enough so that China has closed its temporary hospitals. A number of patients have also successfully recovered from the disease, and several organizations are working on vaccines for COVID-19. However, at the time of this writing (March 19, 2020), this \"good news\" should not be taken as proof that this pandemic is soon coming to an end. Health officials in the United States continue to urge citizens to practice \"social distancing,\" and it's likely that we won't see a worldwide rollout of an effective vaccine until mid-2021. vaccine The Hindu. \"Seven Recover at Safdarjung Hospital, Yet to be Discharged.\" 14 March 2020. Normile, Dennis. \"Coronavirus Cases Have Dropped Sharply in South Korea. Whats the Secret to its Success?.\"\r Science Magazine. 17 March 2020. Sepkowitz, Kent. \"Why South Korea Has So Few Coronavirus Deaths While Italy Has So Many.\"\r CNN. 17 March 2020. Simon, Matt. \"Why the Coronavirus Hit Italy So Hard.\"\r Wired. 17 March 2020. Efrati, Ido; Levinson, Chaim. \"Israeli Research Center to Announce It Developed Coronavirus Vaccine, Sources Say.\"\r Haaretz. 18 March 2020. Ramirez, Stephanie. \"3 Maryland Coronavirus Patients Fully Recovered; Able to Return to Everyday Life.\"\r Fox 5 DC. 14 March 2020. Breummer, Rene. \"Coronavirus: Canadian Researchers Make Progress Toward Vaccine.\" Montreal Gazette. 13 March 2020. Tulsa World. \"Finally Some Good News: First Tulsa County COVID-19 Patient Has Recovered, Health Department Says.\"\r 12 March 2020. Etherington, Darrell. \"FDA Testing Coronavirus Treatments, Including Chloroquine, Plasma from Recovered COVID-19 Patients,\"\r Tech Crunch. 19 March 2020. Lovelace Jr., Berkeley. \"First Human Trial for Coronavirus Vaccine Begins Monday in the US.\"\r CNBC. 16 March 2020. Cleveland.com. \"MetroHealth Now Testing for Coronavirus.\"\r 17 March 2020. Dalton, Jane. \"Coronavirus: Wuhan Doctors Celebrate Closure of Last Temporary Hospital After Dramatic Fall in Cases in China.\"\r The Independent. 15 March 2020. Economic Times. \"Combination of Two Anti-HIV Drugs Proved Crucial in Coronavirus Treatment, Rajasthan Official.\"\r 16 March 2020. India Today. \"Coronavirus: Health Ministry Recommends Anti-HIV Drug Combination Lopinavir-Ritonavir on Case-to-Case Basis.\"\r 17 March 2020. Newmark, Zack. \"Dutch Researchers First to Find COVID-19 Antibodies: Report.\"\r The NL Times. 14 March 2020. Giordano, Chiara. \"Coronavirus: 103-year-old Woman Becomes Oldest Person to Beat Disease.\"\r The Independent. 11 March 2020. Reuters. \"Apple Says Reopening All its Branded Stores in China.\"\r 12 March 2020.", "issues": [ "stock market" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "On March 16, a Facebook post that supposedly highlighted some \"good news\" about COVID-19 started to spread online:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/drfedich/posts/10157405767104545" ] }, { "sentence": "China built several temporary hospitals in order to care for people sickened by COVID-19. On March 11, journalists reported that these hospitals were shut down as the spread of the disease started to slow. On March 19, China reported no new locally transmitted cases had been reported for the first time since the start of the pandemic:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-masks-video-doctors-nurses-hospital-a9402631.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Economic Times reported that the combination of two anti-HIV drugs had proven crucial to the treatment of coronavirus patients. India's Union of Health Ministry revised its guidelines to recommend the use of \"anti-HIV drug combinations Lopinavir and Ritonavir on a case-to-case basis depending upon the severity of the condition of a patient having coronavirus infection.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/combination-of-two-anti-hiv-drugs-proved-crucial-in-coronavirus-treatment-rajasthan-official/articleshow/74653762.cms", "https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/coronavirus-health-ministry-recommends-anti-hiv-drug-combination-lopinavir-ritonavir-case-to-case-basis-1656488-2020-03-17" ] }, { "sentence": "The Dutch newspaper NL Times reported that \"a team of ten scientific researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and Utrecht University\" reported that they discovered an \"antibody capable of fending off an infection by the Covid-19 variant of coronavirus.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://nltimes.nl/2020/03/14/dutch-researchers-first-find-covid-19-antibodies-report" ] }, { "sentence": "The Independent reported on March 11 that a 103-year-old woman named Zhang Guangfen contracted the disease in Wuhan, China. Guangfen was treated for six days at the hospital before being released. Dr. Zeng Yulan told reporters that the centenarian's quick recovery was likely due to the fact that she had no underlying health conditions. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-latest-103-year-old-woman-recovers-wuhan-hubei-china-a9393991.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Reuters reported: \"Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is reopening all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday [March 13], a company spokesman said, more than a month after they were shut in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-apple-china/apple-says-reopening-all-its-branded-stores-in-china-idUSKBN20Z3VX" ] }, { "sentence": "Science Magazine wrote on March 17: \"Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success" ] }, { "sentence": "One reason for South Korea's success, according to CNN, is that the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in a population of relatively young, non-smoking women. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/opinions/south-korea-italy-coronavirus-survivability-sepkowitz/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Wired reported: \"Italy has been hit particularly hard, with some 2,000 deaths thus far. Overwhelmed hospital staffers have had to make devastating decisions about who to treat and who they must let perish. The reason why Italy is suffering so badly, write University of Oxford researchers in a new paper in the journal Demographic Science, may be twofold: The country has the second-oldest population on earth, and its young tend to mingle more often with the elderly, like their grandparents. Such demographic research will be critical in facing down the threat elsewhere, as more countries grapple with a deadly pandemic thats just getting started and we learn more about how the virus is transmitted within families and communities.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wired.com/story/why-the-coronavirus-hit-italy-so-hard/" ] }, { "sentence": "Haaretz reported on March 18 that \"scientists at Israels Institute for Biological Research\" have made a \"significant breakthrough,\" and that they could announce in the next few days that they have completed development of a vaccine. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-coronavirus-vaccine-israel-biological-research-institute-develope-1.8665074" ] }, { "sentence": "Fox 5 DC reported on March 14 that Maryland's first three coronavirus patients had all recovered and were returning to their homes. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fox5dc.com/news/3-maryland-coronavirus-patients-fully-recovered-able-to-return-to-everyday-life" ] }, { "sentence": "The Montreal Gazette reported on March 13 that the country's scientists were making progress on COVID-19 research as they were able to isolate a copy of the coronavirus. ", "hrefs": [ "https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/coronavirus-canadian-researchers-make-progress-toward-vaccine" ] }, { "sentence": "Tulsa World reported on March 12 that the county's first coronavirus case had fully recovered. The Tulsa Health Department reported the good news on Facebook:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/finally-some-good-news-first-tulsa-county-covid--patient/article_8ecc6602-7270-5d2e-97f4-840cd253dc55.html", "https://www.facebook.com/TulsaHealth/posts/2751661854889405" ] }, { "sentence": "The Hindu reported on March 14 that seven coronavirus patients at Safdarjung hospital in New Delhi had recovered from the disease, writing: \"Safdarjung Hospital, which is treating a bulk of COVID-19 patients here in the Capital has reported that seven of the positive cases currently admitted in the hospital have recovered but are yet to be discharged.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/seven-recover-at-safdarjung-hospital-yet-to-be-discharged/article31064785.ece" ] }, { "sentence": "Tech Crunch reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/fda-testing-coronavirus-treatments-including-chloroquine-plasma-from-recovered-covid-19-patients/" ] }, { "sentence": "The claims on the popular \"good news\" list are generally accurate and supported by credible news reports. The number of new cases in China and South Korea have dropped since the pandemic began, enough so that China has closed its temporary hospitals. A number of patients have also successfully recovered from the disease, and several organizations are working on vaccines for COVID-19. However, at the time of this writing (March 19, 2020), this \"good news\" should not be taken as proof that this pandemic is soon coming to an end. Health officials in the United States continue to urge citizens to practice \"social distancing,\" and it's likely that we won't see a worldwide rollout of an effective vaccine until mid-2021. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/first-human-trial-for-coronavirus-vaccine-begins-monday-in-the-us.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/weather-or-not/", "claim": "Did a Weather Channel Co-Founder Disprove Climate Change?", "author": "Snopes Staff", "posted": "06/20/2008", "sci_digest": [ "Comments by Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman supposedly refute global warming, but they were not an accurate analysis of climate change science." ], "justification": "On 1 June 2017, President Donald Trump announced that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international accord that seeks to \"bring all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.\" Many environmentalists, scientists, politicians, and others criticized President Trump's decision, one entity among that group of dissenters being the web site of the Weather Channel, which was altered in ways that clearly indicated disagreement with the President's announcement: This form of protest might have seemed all the more surprising given that the Weather Channel's co-founder has long disputed the concept of anthropogenic global warming. John Coleman, who passed away in January 2018, was a former television weather forecaster who worked in that field for over six decades, at a number of different TV stations across the U.S., until he suddenly retired from his last job at KUSI-TV in San Diego in April 2014. Coleman pioneered the use of such now-standard TV weather forecasting elements as onscreen satellite technology and computer graphics, and he was also instrumental in the founding of The Weather Channel (TWC) on cable television, serving as that channel's CEO and President during its establishment and its first year of operation. John Coleman also became, in later years, an outspoken critic of the global warming issue, stating that his epiphany came while he was viewing a football game in 2007: critic The Eagles were playing the Cowboys in Philadelphia on Sunday Night Football, and as a gesture of environmental awareness it was \"Green is Universal\" week at NBC-Universal the studio lights were cut for portions of the pre-game and half-time shows. Coleman, who had been growing increasingly skeptical about global warming for more than a decade, finally snapped. \"I couldnt take it anymore,\" said. \"I did a Howard Beale.\" In November 2007 Coleman penned a widely-reproduced essay in which he labeled global warming \"the greatest scam in history\" and \"a manufactured crisis,\" and he delivered a speech in that same vein to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce in June 2008: essay speech You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalists attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam. The future of our civilization lies in the balance. That's the battle cry of the High Priest of Global Warming Al Gore and his fellow, agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming. According to Mr. Gore the polar ice caps will collapse and melt and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities making 100 million of us refugees. Vice President Gore tells us numerous Pacific islands will be totally submerged and uninhabitable. He tells us global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos. He tells us global warming will turn hurricanes into super storms, produce droughts, wipe out the polar bears and result in bleaching of coral reefs. He tells us tropical diseases will spread to mid latitudes and heat waves will kill tens of thousands. He preaches to us that we must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels or face the dire consequences. The future of our civilization is in the balance. With a preacher's zeal, Mr. Gore sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet. Here is my rebuttal. There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankinds activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces. [Rest of speech here.] here Although this item is superficially \"true\" in the sense that the words quoted above were indeed written by John Coleman, the statement that they \"refute\" global warming (i.e., prove it to be false) is something of an exaggeration. As Coleman's critics have noted, he did not hold a degree in climatology or any related discipline, nor did he study or conduct any research in that field; he merely parroted arguments advanced by others: Both Fox News and CNN have recently invited John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel and former TV meteorologist, to express his views about climate change to their national audiences. Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and Im not even sure he knows what he actually believes. To begin, Coleman hasn't published a single peer-reviewed paper pertaining to climate change science. His career, a successful and distinguished one, was in TV weather for over half a century, prior to his retirement in San Diego last April. If you watch Coleman on-camera, his skill is obvious. He speaks with authority, injects an irreverent sense of humor and knows how to connect with his viewer. But a climate scientist, he is not. His position further demonstrates an incredible lack of respect and regard for scores of intelligent, hard-working climate scientists, some of whom are politically conservative, who have dedicated their careers to objectively examining data and publishing research that indicate human-induced warming. Moreover, much of Coleman's criticism of climate change dealt with impugning the motives of those engaged in that discipline rather than refuting the science behind their work: For the many Americans who don't understand the difference between weather the short-term behavior of the atmosphere and climate the broader system in which weather happens Coleman's professional background made him a genuine authority on global warming. It was an impression that Coleman encouraged. Global warming \"is not something you 'believe in,'\" he wrote in his essay. \"It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise.\" Except that it wasn't. Coleman had spent half a century in the trenches of TV weathercasting; he had once been an accredited meteorologist, and remained a virtuoso forecaster. But his work was more a highly technical art than a science. His degree, received fifty years earlier at the University of Illinois, was in journalism. And then there was the fact that the research that Coleman was rejecting wasn't \"the science of meteorology\" at all it was the science of climatology, a field in which Coleman had spent no time whatsoever. Skepticism is, of course, the core value of scientific inquiry. But the essay that Coleman published would have more properly been termed rejectionism. Coleman wasn't arguing against the integrity of a particular conclusion based on careful original research something that would have constituted useful scientific skepticism. Instead, he went after the motives of the scientists themselves. Climate researchers, he wrote, \"look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.\" Critics of Coleman who do study and work in the field of climate science have produced detailed line-by-line rebuttals of his arguments against global warming. rebuttals Homans, Charles. \"Hot Air.\"\r Columbia Journalism Review. 7 January 2010.\r Peterson, Carla. \"Forecast for John Coleman: Retirement.\"\r U-T San Diego. 10 April 2014. Weyrich, Paul M. \"A False Frenzy on Global Warming \"\r CNSNews. 11 July 2008. Samenow, Jason. \"Why Does Anyone Pay Attention to John Coleman, Weather Channel Co-Founder, on Climate Change?\"\r The Washington Post. 3 November 2014.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1e7bcTPzB5gDEWHW-G_dufMhctNAj7ttj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "John Coleman also became, in later years, an outspoken critic of the global warming issue, stating that his epiphany came while he was viewing a football game in 2007:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20090201041739/https://kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In November 2007 Coleman penned a widely-reproduced essay in which he labeled global warming \"the greatest scam in history\" and \"a manufactured crisis,\" and he delivered a speech in that same vein to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce in June 2008:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.undergroundnotes.com/Warming.htm", "https://web.archive.org/web/20080615013734/https://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html" ] }, { "sentence": "[Rest of speech here.]", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20080615013734/https://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Critics of Coleman who do study and work in the field of climate science have produced detailed line-by-line rebuttals of his arguments against global warming.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.uscentrist.org/about/issues/environment/john_coleman/the-amazing-story-behind-the-global-warming-scam" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/300000-wisconsin-voters-turned-away-due-to-voter-id-laws/", "claim": "300,000 Wisconsin Voters 'Turned Away' Due to Voter ID Laws?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "11/14/2016", "sci_digest": [ "According to a viral tweet, hundreds of thousands of voters were turned away from the polls in a close Wisconsin race because they did not have voter identification." ], "justification": "On 10 November 2016, journalist Dan Arel published a tweet claiming Donald Trump had won the state of Wisconsin by 27,000 votes, adding that 300,000 Wisconsin voters were \"turned away\" by the state's voter identification laws: Trump won Wisconsin by 27,000 votes. 300,000 voters were turned away by the states strict Voter ID law. There is your \"rigged\" election. Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016 November 10, 2016 Many social media users sought citations for both claims (one involving the margin of Trump's Wisconsin victory, and the other the number of voters purportedly turned away). As of 14 November 2016, Trump's votes in Wisconsin were tallied at 1,409,427 to Hillary Clinton's 1,382,210 (a margin of 27,257 votes): margin That figure made it into a New York Times article about voter identification laws and their effects on voting outcomes, but the far more attention-grabbing 300,000 voters being denied at the polls part did not. When asked about a source for those numbers, Arel tweeted: article @SpartaDTD Not sure if I replied to you or not yet. https://t.co/O6gCIiD82W Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016 @SpartaDTD https://t.co/O6gCIiD82W November 10, 2016 2nd paragraph. 3000,000 voters lacked the necessary ID. You read like you vote. https://t.co/qlBNsXpOOX https://t.co/qlBNsXpOOX Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016 November 10, 2016 The article Arel cited claimed that: claimed Well likely never know how many people were kept from the polls by restrictions like voter-ID laws, cuts to early voting, and barriers to voter registration. But at the very least this should have been a question that many more people were looking into. For example, 27,000 votes currently separate Trump and Clinton in Wisconsin, where 300,000 registered voters, according to a federal court, lacked strict forms of voter ID. Voter turnout in Wisconsin was at its lowest levels in 20 years and decreased 13 percent in Milwaukee, where 70 percent of the states African-American population lives, according to Daniel Nichanian of the University of Chicago. I documented stories of voters in Wisconsinincluding a 99-year-old manwho made two trips to the polls and one to the DMV on Election Day just to be able to vote, while others decided not to vote at all because they were denied IDs. The piece in turn linked to a 29 September 2016 article on the same web site about the difficulty of obtaining voter identification in the state of Wisconsin, but nowhere in that article did the 300,000 number appear. A second link led to a 29 April 2014 Wisconsin court ruling against voter ID laws: article court ruling For the reasons stated, IT IS ORDERED that the named Defendants and Defendants officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and all those acting in concert or participation with them, or having actual or implicit knowledge of this Order by personal service or otherwise, are hereby permanently enjoined from conditioning a persons access to a ballot, either in-person or absentee, on that persons presenting a form of photo identification. A section of that ruling gauged that roughly 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin did not possess sufficient identification to vote at the time that the ruling was issued in April 2014, but it did not suggest that all 300,000 had tried and failed to vote at any point: section In light of the fact that a substantial number of the 300,000 plus voters who lack an ID are low income, Act 23's burdens must be assessed with reference to them rather than with reference to a typical middle- or upper-class voter. Although the latter voter may have little trouble obtaining an ID, he or she is not the type of voter who will need to obtain one in order to comply with Act 23. Thus, in the discussion that follows, I identify the burdens associated with obtaining a qualifying photo ID and explain how they will impact low-income voters. Given the obstacles identified above, it is likely that a substantial number of the 300,000 plus voters who lack a qualifying ID will be deterred from voting. Although not every voter will face all of these obstacles, many voters will face some of them, particularly those who are low income. And the evidence at trial showed that even small obstacles will be enough to deter many individuals who lack an ID from voting. The courts found not that 300,000 people were actively \"turned away\" as of April 2014, but rather that that number of registered voters possibly faced what the court deemed to be undue burdens obtaining the necessary identification to vote: There is no way to determine exactly how many people Act 23 will prevent or deter from voting without considering the individual circumstances of each of the 300,000 plus citizens who lack an ID. But no matter how imprecise my estimate may be, it is absolutely clear that Act23 will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes. On 26 October 2016, the New York Times provided updated information about voter ID laws in Wisconsin. Although some barriers to voting remain, the paper found many of the controversial provisions had been overturned: about It seemed a clear victory for voting rights advocates in July when a federal court invalidated much of Wisconsins restrictive elections law, concluding that it discriminated against minorities by requiring voters to produce photo identification cards that blacks and Latinos too often lack. The remedy was straightforward: Henceforth, the state was to promptly issue a credential valid as a voting ID to any person who applied for one. But this month when Treasure Collins visited one of the Wisconsin motor vehicle offices that issue IDs, she found something entirely different. I brought everything my mom told me I would need: my school ID, a copy of my birth certificate, my Social Security number, said Ms. Collins, 18. But they told me I needed an original copy of my birth certificate. An original copy, all the way from Illinois. While Donald J. Trump repeatedly claims that the election is rigged against him, voting rights groups are increasingly battling something more concrete in this years ferocious wars over access to the ballot box: Despite a string of court victories against restrictive voting laws passed by Republican legislatures, even when voting rights groups win in court, they are at risk of losing on the ground. The 300,000 figure originated with a court's estimate of how many voters were potentially impacted by a voter ID law as it stood in April 2014, but by October 2016, changes had been made to that law. Moreover, even if the 300,000 figure was an accurate estimate of Wisconsin residents who back in 2014 possibly could not vote because they did not have the correct identification, that number was not a head count of residents who actually did (or would have) set out to vote on 8 November 2016 only to be turned away. Berman, Ari. \"The GOPs Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016.\"\r The Nation. 9 November 2016. Berman, Ari. \"Wisconsin Is Systematically Failing to Provide the Photo Ids Required to Vote in November.\"\r The Nation. 29 September 2016. Bialik, Carl. \"Voter Turnout Fell, Especially in States That Clinton Won.\"\r FiveThirtyEight. 11 November 2016. Wallace, Gregory and Robert Yoon. \"Voter Turnout at 20-Year Low in 2016.\"\r CNN. 12 November 2016. Wines, Michael. \"After a Fraught Election, Questions Over the Impact of a Balky Voting Process.\"\r The New York Times. 12 November 2016. Wines, Michael. \"As ID Laws Fall, Voters See New Barriers Rise.\"\r The New York Times. 25 October 2016. United States District Court Eastern District of Wisconsin. \"Frank v. Walker.\"\r 29 April 2014. Wisconsin State Legislature. \"2011 Wisconsin Act 23.\"\r 25 May 2011.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1IuILF3de0Ua7xrAvc9jSiNY1IIeJPktI", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/danarel/status/796568268962021376" ] }, { "sentence": "Many social media users sought citations for both claims (one involving the margin of Trump's Wisconsin victory, and the other the number of voters purportedly turned away). As of 14 November 2016, Trump's votes in Wisconsin were tallied at 1,409,427 to Hillary Clinton's 1,382,210 (a margin of 27,257 votes): ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/UWSZK" ] }, { "sentence": "That figure made it into a New York Times article about voter identification laws and their effects on voting outcomes, but the far more attention-grabbing 300,000 voters being denied at the polls part did not. When asked about a source for those numbers, Arel tweeted: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/politics/voter-registration-election-2016.html" ] }, { "sentence": "@SpartaDTD Not sure if I replied to you or not yet. https://t.co/O6gCIiD82W Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/SpartaDTD", "https://t.co/O6gCIiD82W", "https://twitter.com/danarel/status/796830187157536769" ] }, { "sentence": "You read like you vote. https://t.co/qlBNsXpOOX", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/qlBNsXpOOX" ] }, { "sentence": " Dan Arel (@danarel) November 10, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/danarel/status/796575483047485440" ] }, { "sentence": "The article Arel cited claimed that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/" ] }, { "sentence": "The piece in turn linked to a 29 September 2016 article on the same web site about the difficulty of obtaining voter identification in the state of Wisconsin, but nowhere in that article did the 300,000 number appear. A second link led to a 29 April 2014 Wisconsin court ruling against voter ID laws:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsin-is-systematically-failing-to-provide-the-photo-ids-required-to-vote-in-november/", "https://www.scribd.com/document/221004483/WiscVoterID-195-Decision" ] }, { "sentence": "A section of that ruling gauged that roughly 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin did not possess sufficient identification to vote at the time that the ruling was issued in April 2014, but it did not suggest that all 300,000 had tried and failed to vote at any point:", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/acts/23" ] }, { "sentence": "On 26 October 2016, the New York Times provided updated information about voter ID laws in Wisconsin. Although some barriers to voting remain, the paper found many of the controversial provisions had been overturned:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/elections/voter-id-laws.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jun/11/jason-carter/tax-policy-hurts-georgia-senator-says/", "claim": "We (Georgia) collect fewer state taxes per capita than any other state although state taxes are low, Georgia is the eighth-most-dependent state on the federal government.", "author": "Janel Davis", "posted": "06/11/2013", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "State Sen. Jason Carter -- grandson of former Georgia governor and former President Jimmy Carter -- was theguest speakerat a Marietta Rotary Club meeting last month. In Republican-dominated Cobb County, the Decatur Democrat delivered a speech that veered from the traditional GOP message. Carter told the attendees that continual shrinkage of the government -- which has been a conservative standard -- is hurting Georgia in the long run. We collect fewer state taxes per capita than any other state. We have won the small-government competition, he said. ... And although state taxes are low, Georgia is the eighth-most-dependent state on the federal government. Is Georgia collecting fewer state taxes while receiving lots of federal government funds on the back end? PolitiFact Georgia decided to look into it. Carter told us that The Marietta Daily Journal, where we first saw his Rotary Club comments, left out part of his statement. He told the crowd that his tax and dependency claims were based on information from the Tax Foundation, Carter told PolitiFact Georgia in a phone interview. He also cited an Atlanta Journal-Constitutionarticleas a second source for his dependency claim. The discussion was about the difference in the levels of government. And while weve shrunk the federal government, weve increased the burden on the state and local governments, Carter said. The key is the state government taxes. We found the Tax Foundation statistics that Carter cited in the organizations Facts and Figures report of state tax data, released in March. The report, by the nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, includes state tax and federal dependency data for fiscal year 2011. According to the charts, Georgia ranked last with $1,639 in state taxes collected per capita. (Georgias2010 populationwas about 9.7 million.) The chart is based on the census definition of state tax collections, Tax Foundation officials told us. The next closest state was South Carolina at $1,650. Alaska collected the most state taxes per capita at $7,708. A second Tax Foundation chart, also for fiscal 2011, showed that Georgia also ranked last in the amount of state revenue collected per capita, at $3,807. The revenue data include the taxes levied by the state as well as other general revenue used to operate, such as licenses, fees and transfers from the federal government. We next went to the Census Bureaus state government tax collectionssummary report, released in April, for fiscal 2012 data. Governing magazine, which covers politics, policy and management issues of state and local governments,aggregatedthe census data. We compiled Governings data into a spreadsheet and found that Georgia ranked second-to-last for the lowest total state taxes per capita, at $1,711.44. New Hampshire ranked last at $1,675.94 taxes collected per capita. So Carters tax claim was correct in fiscal 2011 but off a bit for the following fiscal year. On the second part of his claim, Carter again used Tax Foundation data, along with anAJC storypublished about a week before his Rotary Club speech. The Tax Foundation used figures from the Census Bureau to determine states dependence on the federal government. The organization divided each states intergovernmental revenue, or grants and other aid received from the federal government, into the states general revenue, which includes all tax revenue. Those calculations, also in the Facts and Figures 2013 report, showed that Georgia was the ninth-most-dependent state in the nation in fiscal 2011. Federal aid accounted for about 41 percent of general revenue. Mississippi was the most dependent, getting 49 percent of its revenue from the federal government; Alaska was the least dependent with 24 percent. The AJC story reported that about 31.6 percent, about $12 billion, of Georgias state agency spending was made up of federal funds in fiscal 2012, according to the papers review of budget records. The paper found that Georgia has been using federal money to fill budget gaps created by shrinking tax collections and higher demand for state services such as Medicaid. Georgia legislators have discussed forming a committee to study the states federal government dependence. To sum up, Carter said that the Peach State collects fewer state taxes per capita than any other state, yet is the eighth-most-dependent state on the federal government. Based on Tax Foundation and census data for fiscal 2011, Carter is correct on his tax collection claim. Advance the data forward a year and Georgia moves up a step in its collections for fiscal 2012. On federal government dependence, analysis of census data shows that Georgia was the ninth-most-dependent state in fiscal 2011. Carters overall point is that Georgia is fostering a smaller state government but at the same time relying heavily on federal funds. He seems correct on that point. But his calculations were slightly off. We rated his claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Georgia", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "State Sen. Jason Carter -- grandson of former Georgia governor and former President Jimmy Carter -- was theguest speakerat a Marietta Rotary Club meeting last month.", "hrefs": [ "http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/22724282/article-Carter-gave-club-a-peek-at---his-party%E2%80%99s-future" ] }, { "sentence": "Carter told us that The Marietta Daily Journal, where we first saw his Rotary Club comments, left out part of his statement. He told the crowd that his tax and dependency claims were based on information from the Tax Foundation, Carter told PolitiFact Georgia in a phone interview. He also cited an Atlanta Journal-Constitutionarticleas a second source for his dependency claim.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/state-depends-on-federal-money/nXwTs/" ] }, { "sentence": "We found the Tax Foundation statistics that Carter cited in the organizations Facts and Figures report of state tax data, released in March. The report, by the nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, includes state tax and federal dependency data for fiscal year 2011.", "hrefs": [ "http://taxfoundation.org/article/facts-figures-2013-how-does-your-state-compare" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the charts, Georgia ranked last with $1,639 in state taxes collected per capita.(Georgias2010 populationwas about 9.7 million.) The chart is based on the census definition of state tax collections, Tax Foundation officials told us. The next closest state was South Carolina at $1,650. Alaska collected the most state taxes per capita at $7,708.", "hrefs": [ "http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13000.html" ] }, { "sentence": "We next went to the Census Bureaus state government tax collectionssummary report, released in April, for fiscal 2012 data. Governing magazine, which covers politics, policy and management issues of state and local governments,aggregatedthe census data. We compiled Governings data into a spreadsheet and found that Georgia ranked second-to-last for the lowest total state taxes per capita, at $1,711.44. New Hampshire ranked last at $1,675.94 taxes collected per capita.", "hrefs": [ "http://www2.census.gov/govs/statetax/2012stcreport.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "On the second part of his claim, Carter again used Tax Foundation data, along with anAJC storypublished about a week before his Rotary Club speech.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/state-depends-on-federal-money/nXwTs/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cummings-obama-records-sealed/", "claim": "Did U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings Write a Bill to Keep All of Barack Obama's Records Sealed?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/07/2019", "sci_digest": [ "H.R. 1233 was intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to \"keep Obamas records sealed.\"" ], "justification": "On 26 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. That bill, sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, was described in a press release as one that \"modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the Presidents 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records.\" H.R. 1233 press release A meme that circulated in 2019, during a period of controversy over Congress' attempts to obtain access to some of President Donald Trump's records (such as his tax returns), held that Cummings' bill had been intended to \"keep all of [Barack] Obama's records sealed\": First of all, the above meme plays on the false premise that years after the end of Obama's presidency, a number of his key personal records remain \"sealed\" that is, records that would ordinarily be accessible by the public have been restricted via court orders (see example below of such records): In fact, most of Obama's primary personal records have either long been available to the public (e.g., Illinois state Senate records, Selective Service registration); are restricted from public access due to existing federal laws that apply to all Americans (e.g., college records); or simply aren't known to exist (baptismal record, college thesis). Illinois state Senate records Selective Service registration college records Moreover, H.R. 1233 applies only to federal records (i.e., records \"made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business\"), and none of the record types listed above with the exception of Obama's Selective Service registration, which has been public for many years now is federal in nature. In fact, H.R. 1233 included a number of provisions to facilitate and strengthen the ability of the U.S. government to collect, preserve, and release federal records in a timely fashion, not to promote keeping them \"sealed\": Strengthening the Federal Records Act by expanding the definition of Federal records to clearly include electronic records. This is the first change to the definition of a Federal record since the enactment of the act in 1950. Confirming that Federal electronic records will be transferred to the National Archives in electronic form. Granting the Archivist of the United States final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record. Authorizing the early transfer of permanent electronic Federal and Presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the President. Clarifying the responsibilities of Federal government officials when using non-government email systems. Empowering the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal. Codifying procedures by which former and incumbent Presidents review Presidential records for constitutional privileges. Formerly, this process was controlled by an Executive Order subject to change by different administrations. The one tiny grain of truth in this claim is that Cummings' bill included a provision allowing a former or current President 60 days to review and contest potential public disclosure of any \"presidential record not previously made available.\" However, that provision applies to all Presidents (former and current); such claims must be made based on grounds of constitutionally based privilege; and privilege claims are subject to being overriden by the incumbent president or by court order: Amends the Presidential Records Act to require the Archivist of the United States, upon determining to make publicly available any presidential record not previously made available, to: (1) promptly provide written notice of such determination to the former President during whose term of office the record was created, to the incumbent President, and to the public; and (2) make such record available to the public within 60 days, except any record with respect to which the Archivist receives notification from a former or incumbent President of a claim of constitutionally-based privilege against disclosure. Prohibits the Archivist from making a record that is subject to such a claim publicly available unless: (1) the incumbent President withdraws a decision upholding the claim, or (2) the Archivist is otherwise directed to do so by a final court order that is not subject to appeal. As the National Coalition for History noted, H.R. 1233 followed from Obama's efforts early in his administration to strengthen public access to presidential records: National Coalition for History For over a decade, the National Coalition for History has been a lead advocate for enactment of Presidential Records Act (PRA) reform legislation. The organization was a plaintiff with other historical and archival groups in a federal lawsuit that sought to have an Executive Order (EO) issued by President George W. Bush, which severely limited public access to presidential records, declared invalid. On January 21, 2009, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administrations Executive Order 13233. The language in the Obama Executive Order 13489 is similar to an EO issued by President Reagan in 1989 which was also in effect during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan executive order was revoked when President Bush issued EO 13233 in November 2001. Executive Order 13233 Executive Order 13489 Unfortunately, without the passage of legislation there [was] nothing to prevent a future chief executive from reinstituting onerous restrictions on access or extending the privilege beyond that of the incumbent and former-president as President Bush did. To put this issue to rest, legislation (HR 1233) was introduced in the House in 2013 creating a framework that would enable former presidents to request continued restricted access on a very narrow basis, in essence codifying the Reagan and Obama administration rules. HR 1233 imposes a time limit in which a former president must assert any claim of privilege upon a determination of the Archivist to make available to the public a record of that former president. The bill also establishes processes for managing the disclosure of records upon the assertion of privilege by a former president, and grants to the incumbent president the power to decide whether or not to uphold any privilege claim of a former president, absent a court order to the contrary. In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to \"keep Obamas records sealed.\" The National Coalition for History. \"HR 1233 'Presidential and Federal Records Act.'\"\r Accessed 7 May 2019. Congress.gov. \"Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014.\"\r Accessed 6 May 2019. National Archives. \"Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Records Management.\"\r Accessed 7 May 2019. National Archives. \"National Archives Welcomes Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014.\"\r 1 December 2014.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gZQq7UTWEg1hSVWIdNTwQGhBb3vSYkKE", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bJFA_LZ7Noxo7LXIrGuQEh3dtdzldTnD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 26 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. That bill, sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, was described in a press release as one that \"modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the Presidents 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1233", "https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2015/nr15-23.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, most of Obama's primary personal records have either long been available to the public (e.g., Illinois state Senate records, Selective Service registration); are restricted from public access due to existing federal laws that apply to all Americans (e.g., college records); or simply aren't known to exist (baptismal record, college thesis).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/politics/20obama.html", "https://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2013/09/selective-service-confirms-obama-registration/", "https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As the National Coalition for History noted, H.R. 1233 followed from Obama's efforts early in his administration to strengthen public access to presidential records:", "hrefs": [ "https://historycoalition.org/advocacy-archive/hr-1233-presidential-and-federal-records-act-amendments/" ] }, { "sentence": "On January 21, 2009, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administrations Executive Order 13233. The language in the Obama Executive Order 13489 is similar to an EO issued by President Reagan in 1989 which was also in effect during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan executive order was revoked when President Bush issued EO 13233 in November 2001.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2001-11-05/pdf/01-27917.pdf", "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2009-01-26/pdf/E9-1712.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bloc-the-vote/", "claim": "President Obama Wants Mandatory Voting?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/19/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: President Obama has proposed a constitutional amendment to make voting mandatory in the U.S." ], "justification": " Claim: President Obama has proposed a constitutional amendment to make voting mandatory in the U.S. Example: [Collected via Twitter, March 2015] Obama believes voting should be MANDATORYGovernment TELLING you what to do#WakeUpAmerica Now Obama wants a Constitutional amendment to make voting mandatoryThink about it. Why? Don't mess with my Constitution, just obey it. Obama proposes a constitutional amendment, making voting mandatory. I wish this were fake, but it's very real. When a right is forced upon people by law it is no longer a right, but an infringement upon their rights as free citizens #mandatoryvoting Origins: On 18 March 2015, President Obama appeared before the City Club of Cleveland at the Cleveland Convention Center to discuss civic issues such as middle-class economics and manufacturing. In the course of a discussion about the how money influences elections, President Obama mentioned that mandatory voting was one strategy that could be employed to try to offset the of political spending: appeared \"Other countries have mandatory voting,\" Mr. Obama said at a town hall-style event in Cleveland, Ohio, citing places like Australia. \"It would be transformative if everybody voted that would counteract money more than anything.\" The president continued, \"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily toward immigrant groups and minorities ... There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls.\" Although he suggested that adopting mandatory voting rules could be a feasible \"short-term\" solution to the problem of money in politics, President Obama stopped short of actually calling for a constitutional amendment to bring that requirement about, saying only that in the long term it would be \"fun\" to go through the extensive process of adopting a constitutional amendment. Nonetheless, \"news\" outlets such as the Washington Times published superficial reports of the President's remarks under misleading headlines such as \"Obama calls for mandatory voting in U.S.\" published As of November 2014, there are 11 countries that have and enforce mandatory voting rules, most notably Australia: Australia adopted compulsory voting in 1924 after turnout plunged from more than 70 percent in 1919 to less than 60 percent in 1922. By contrast, recent turnout by eligible voters in U.S. presidential election years has barely cracked 60 percent; in midterm elections, it has been hovering in the low 40s. Australians who fail to vote can be fined (or, in theory, jailed for repeated no-shows). Interestingly, the mandate to vote is overwhelmingly popular, with about three-fourths of those polled supporting the requirement. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus opined in a column on the subject that it was unlikely the United States would follow Australia's example: unlikely The United States is not about to go the way of Australia. The same partisan forces that agitate for voter ID laws or less opportunity for early voting hours would block any change on the assumption that it would work to their electoral disadvantage. Last updated: 19 March 2015 \"Mandatory Voting? Obama Says It Would Be 'Transformative'.\" Associated Press. 18 March 2015. ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://i.imgur.com/V3cYCbe.png", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://i.imgur.com/A351mIw.png", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 18 March 2015, President Obama appeared before the City Club of Cleveland at the Cleveland Convention Center to discuss civic issues such as middle-class economics and manufacturing. In the course of a discussion about the how money influences elections, President Obama mentioned that mandatory voting was one strategy that could be employed to try to offset the of political spending:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.c-span.org/video/?324895-1/president-obama-remarks-cleveland-middle-class-economics" ] }, { "sentence": "Although he suggested that adopting mandatory voting rules could be a feasible \"short-term\" solution to the problem of money in politics, President Obama stopped short of actually calling for a constitutional amendment to bring that requirement about, saying only that in the long term it would be \"fun\" to go through the extensive process of adopting a constitutional amendment. Nonetheless, \"news\" outlets such as the Washington Times published superficial reports of the President's remarks under misleading headlines such as \"Obama calls for mandatory voting in U.S.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/e7yz" ] }, { "sentence": "Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus opined in a column on the subject that it was unlikely the United States would follow Australia's example:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-a-case-for-compulsory-voting/2014/11/04/9b486afe-6463-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-mcafees-whackd-tattoo/", "claim": "The tattoo on John McAfee's arm with the word '$WHACKD' is sparking theories of conspiracy.", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "06/25/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The former tech entrepreneur was found dead in his prison cell hours after Spain approved his extradition to the U.S. to face tax evasion charges. " ], "justification": "If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services atsuicidepreventionlifeline.orgto connect to a trained crisis counselor. suicidepreventionlifeline.org On June 24, 2021,John McAfee, an eccentric security software pioneer, was found dead in his prison cell hours after Spain approved his extradition to the United States to face tax evasion charges. While officials from the Catalan government said in a statement that \"everything points to death by suicide,\" social media users started sharing the hashtag #McAfeedidntkillhimself and pointed to a 2019 tweet in which Mcafee showed a \"$WHACKD\" tattoo as evidence. found dead in his prison cell This is a genuine tweet from McAfee. The security software pioneer truly had the \"$WHACKD\" tattooed on his arm (you can see another image of the tattoo here) and he truly did write \"If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd\" in a tweet. tattoo here However, this message from November 2019 was more than a year before McAfee was facing the very real possibility that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. While McAfee's November 2019 tweet may have summed up his mentality at the time, it does not necessarily provide any insight into his state of mind at the time of his death. November 2019 It should also be noted that McAfee did not get this tattoo solely to signal that he was not suicidal. This tattoo also promoted a cryptocurrency token on the now defunct website McAfeedex.com. McAfee promoted this cryptocurrency token on his site by connecting it to another death, that of Jeffrey Epstein, which many have claimed (with little evidence) was an assassination disguised as a suicide. cryptocurrency token Jeffrey Epstein McAfee, 75, was arrested in Spain in October 2020 as he was about to board a plane to Turkey. McAfee was wanted in the United States for various tax evasion charges. The BBC reported: BBC reported In October 2020, John McAfee was arrested in Spain when he was about to board a plane to Turkey, and accused of failing to file tax returns for four years, despite earning millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story. The US justice department alleged that McAfee evaded tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees. He was also accused of concealing assets, including a yacht and real estate property, also in other people's names. McAfee was being held in a jail near Barcelona while he awaited extradition. On June 24, 2021, a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States where he would face charges. If convicted, McAfee could have been sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison. could have been sentenced Hours after McAfee's extradition was approved, however, the software pioneer was found dead in his prison cell. The Justice Department for the government of Catalonia said that an autopsy would be conducted before officially determining a cause of death. At the moment, however, the Spanish government says that \"everything points to death by suicide.\" autopsy McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, also told Reuters that McAfee died by suicide. Reuters British-born U.S. technology entrepreneur John McAfee died on Wednesday by suicide in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish high court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters. McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the anti-virus software pioneer died by hanging as his nine months in prison brought him to despair.", "issues": [ "liability" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cAlEQBACfVTl3zuPiu8MiHVTgweLXHGH" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services atsuicidepreventionlifeline.orgto connect to a trained crisis counselor. ", "hrefs": [ "http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "On June 24, 2021,John McAfee, an eccentric security software pioneer, was found dead in his prison cell hours after Spain approved his extradition to the United States to face tax evasion charges. While officials from the Catalan government said in a statement that \"everything points to death by suicide,\" social media users started sharing the hashtag #McAfeedidntkillhimself and pointed to a 2019 tweet in which Mcafee showed a \"$WHACKD\" tattoo as evidence.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/john-mcafee-europe-fugitives-software-science-fe748982c673aa33196d4368669f2074" ] }, { "sentence": " ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/mcafee-2019-tweet.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "This is a genuine tweet from McAfee. The security software pioneer truly had the \"$WHACKD\" tattooed on his arm (you can see another image of the tattoo here) and he truly did write \"If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd\" in a tweet. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/06/mcfee-may-2020-tweet.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "However, this message from November 2019 was more than a year before McAfee was facing the very real possibility that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. While McAfee's November 2019 tweet may have summed up his mentality at the time, it does not necessarily provide any insight into his state of mind at the time of his death. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1200864283766251521" ] }, { "sentence": "It should also be noted that McAfee did not get this tattoo solely to signal that he was not suicidal. This tattoo also promoted a cryptocurrency token on the now defunct website McAfeedex.com. McAfee promoted this cryptocurrency token on his site by connecting it to another death, that of Jeffrey Epstein, which many have claimed (with little evidence) was an assassination disguised as a suicide. ", "hrefs": [ "https://heavy.com/news/john-mcafee-tweet-suicide-myself/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/08/16/medical-examiner-confirms-epstein-death-a-suicide-by-hanging/" ] }, { "sentence": "McAfee, 75, was arrested in Spain in October 2020 as he was about to board a plane to Turkey. McAfee was wanted in the United States for various tax evasion charges. The BBC reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57589822" ] }, { "sentence": "McAfee was being held in a jail near Barcelona while he awaited extradition. On June 24, 2021, a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States where he would face charges. If convicted, McAfee could have been sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/06/23/john-mcafee-dead-spain-prison-antivirus-software-founder/5326068001/" ] }, { "sentence": "Hours after McAfee's extradition was approved, however, the software pioneer was found dead in his prison cell. The Justice Department for the government of Catalonia said that an autopsy would be conducted before officially determining a cause of death. At the moment, however, the Spanish government says that \"everything points to death by suicide.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jun/24/lawyer-death-of-john-mcafee-surprised-the-us-mogul/" ] }, { "sentence": "McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, also told Reuters that McAfee died by suicide. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/john-mcafee-found-dead-prison-after-spanish-court-allows-extradition-2021-06-23/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/veto-for-the-crony/", "claim": "Obama to Outlaw .223 Ammunition (M855) Through Executive Action", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/26/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: The BATF plans to ban 'green tip' ammunition due to an executive order issued by President Obama." ], "justification": " Claim: The BATF plans to ban \"green tip\" ammunition due to an executive order issued by President Obama. : : The BATF has proposed a reclassification of \"5.56mm constituent projectiles of SS109 and M855 cartridges\" from \"primarily used for sporting purposes\" to\"armor piercing ammunition.\" : President Obama initiated the proposed reclassification, or codified it through executive order. Examples: [Collected via Twitter, February 2015] Obama just bypassed congress to ban .223 ammo. Obama illegal executive order to ban AR-15 ammo on March 16th. All Patriots, speak out for 2nd Amendment Rights HERE Backdoor #Obama# #executive #ammo ban on ar15 in partnership with the #ATF. obviously don't take #oath seriously @SpeakerBoehner Third Gun Control Exec Order This Year.Of course Congress will just sit on their thumbs and pivot. Origins: On 13 February 2015, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) released a document [PDF] that proposed the reclassification of \"5.56mm constituent projectiles of SS109 and M855 cartridges\" from the category of \"primarily used for sporting purposes\" to that of \"armor piercing ammunition.\" The 17-page document was titled PDF \"ATF FRAMEWORK FOR DETERMINING WHETHER CERTAIN PROJECTILES ARE 'PRIMARILY INTENDED FOR SPORTING PURPOSES' WITHIN THE MEANING OF 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(C)\" and uploaded to ATF.gov, in part to enable interested parties to review it and submit comments before 16 March 2015. ATF.gov The proposal cited the Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-408, known as \"LEOPA\") and referenced discussions with law enforcement agencies across the country about whether \"green tip\" ammunition could reasonably be construed an exempt form of sporting ammo under the 1986 guidelines. The publicly available document noted that handguns made to employ the potentially affected ammunition were not available to civilians at the time the exemption was initially granted, and that the ammo type in question did not appear to meet the standard for a sporting purpose exemption: Applying the sporting purposes framework set-forth above, the 5.56mm projectile that ATF exempted in 1986 does not qualify for an exemption because that projectile when loaded into SS109 and M855 cartridges may be used in a handgun other than a single-shot handgun. Specifically, 5.56mm projectiles loaded into the SS109 and M855 cartridges are commonly used Framework for Deciding Sporting Purpose Ammunition pursuant to 18 USC 921(a) in both \"AR-type\" rifles and \"AR-type\" handguns. The AR platform is the semi-automatic version of the M16 machinegun originally designed for and used by the military. The AR-based handguns and rifles utilize the same magazines and share identical receivers. These AR-type handguns were not commercially available when the armor piercing ammunition exemption was granted in 1986. To ensure consistency, upon final implementation of the sporting purpose framework outlined above, ATF must withdraw the exemptions for 5.56 mm \"green tip\" ammunition, including both the SS109 and M855 cartridges. The ATF's proposal was immediately controversial, particularly among gun rights advocates. On 14 February 2015, a guns and ammunition retailer published a blog post titled \"Obama to Outlaw .223 Ammunition (M855) Through Executive Action\": titled It is doubtful that anyone reading this article will truly be surprised that Obama and his cronies in key government posts are trying to once again de facto suppress our Second Amendment rights. They were not able to make it happen through the legislature, but Obama has his phone and his pen. Currently, it seems the President is using both to target gun owners, specifically owners of AR-15s. If you can't outlaw the guns, get rid of the ammunition. The popularity of the AR-15/MSR is the reason it is a target of the Obama administration. The latest assault on the Second Amendment came after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) unexpectedly announced on Friday the 13th that it intends to ban commonplace M855 ball ammunition as \"armor piercing ammunition.\" Instead of going through the legislative process as intended, President Obama is using his executive authority to once again impose gun control measures. Another blogger published an entry on 19 February 2015 that made similar claims: published President Obama is taking executive action to bypass Congressional authority and the will of the American people. This time the objective is backdoor gun control. Obama is trying to justify the proposal by arguing that the M855 ball, the most widely used .233-caliber round, is \"armor-piercing\" and cannot be used in handguns, per the Gun Control Act of 1968 amended by Congress in 1986. He is also claiming that the ammunition in the AR-15 and similar rifles puts the lives of police officers at risk. While it's true that the ATF proposed a ban on \"green tip\" ammunition in February 2015, President Obama was not involved through executive action of any description. The ATF described the proposal as the result of a long-term examination, several years in the making, of whether the ammunition fit the criteria for an exemption for sporting purposes: In light of recent developments in the firearm and ammunition marketplace, ATF sought input from industry, law enforcement organizations, and the general public on the application of the unique \"sporting purpose\" exemption set forth in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(C). In November 2012, ATF held four meetings with interested parties representing law enforcement, the firearms and ammunition industries, and non-governmental organizations. In addition, after completion of these meetings, ATF also solicited and accepted comments from the general public through December 31, 2012. All of that input was considered in interpreting the meaning of the statutory language, and developing the framework described below. On 10 March 2015, the ATF released a statement confirming that the reclassification proposal was halted indefinitely due to overwhelming public commentary opposing it: statement Notice to those Commenting on the Armor Piercing Ammunition Exemption Framework Thank you for your interest in ATF's proposed framework for determining whether certain projectiles are \"primarily intended for sporting purposes\" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(C). The informal comment period will close on Monday, March 16, 2015. ATF has already received more than 80,000 comments, which will be made publicly available as soon as practicable. Although ATF endeavored to create a proposal that reflected a good faith interpretation of the law and balanced the interests of law enforcement, industry, and sportsmen, the vast majority of the comments received to date are critical of the framework, and include issues that deserve further study. Accordingly, ATF will not at this time seek to issue a final framework. After the close of the comment period, ATF will process the comments received, further evaluate the issues raised therein, and provide additional open and transparent process (for example, through additional proposals and opportunities for comment) before proceeding with any framework. Last updated: 10 March 2015 ", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://i.imgur.com/ZhZGEmm.jpg", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://i.imgur.com/QuLsCr4.jpg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 13 February 2015, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) released a document [PDF] that proposed the reclassification of \"5.56mm constituent projectiles of SS109 and M855 cartridges\" from the category of \"primarily used for sporting purposes\" to that of \"armor piercing ammunition.\" The 17-page document was titled ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.atf.gov/sites/default/files/assets/Library/Notices/atf_framework_for_determining_whether_certain_projectiles_are_primarily_intended_for_sporting_purposes.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "\"ATF FRAMEWORK FOR DETERMINING WHETHER CERTAIN PROJECTILES ARE 'PRIMARILY INTENDED FOR SPORTING PURPOSES' WITHIN THE MEANING OF 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(17)(C)\" and uploaded to ATF.gov, in part to enable interested parties to review it and submit comments before 16 March 2015.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.atf.gov" ] }, { "sentence": "The ATF's proposal was immediately controversial, particularly among gun rights advocates. On 14 February 2015, a guns and ammunition retailer published a blog post titled \"Obama to Outlaw .223 Ammunition (M855) Through Executive Action\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/dvcw" ] }, { "sentence": "Another blogger published an entry on 19 February 2015 that made similar claims:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/dvcy" ] }, { "sentence": "On 10 March 2015, the ATF released a statement confirming that the reclassification proposal was halted indefinitely due to overwhelming public commentary opposing it:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/HQATF/posts/1613630078848862" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/maria-raped-child/", "claim": "False Message Promises Donations for the Care of a Raped Child Named Maria", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "10/30/2010", "sci_digest": [ "Hoax claims Dell Hospital will donate 15 cents towards the care of Maria, a raped child, every time a particular text message is forwarded." ], "justification": "An entreaty to help save the life of a victimized child who had been raped by an AIDS-positive attacker began circulating as a cell phone text message in June 2010. At that time, the message being zinged from phone to phone represented the rapist being sought with a photograph of an African American male bearing gold teeth: This guy raped a five year old little girl. He ruined her life, she is alive & in the hospital can't move and can never have children, or a normal life. This guy goes by different names he is in hiding & has AIDS. The girl came out positive. Please help us catch this animal. Every time this message is fwd the Dell Hospital will donate $.15 to Maria's medication & treatment. Please don't hesitate to fwd this. It could've been you're daughter or sister. God bless. Thank you!. Forward this to as many people as possible. In October 2010, the hoax underwent a revival when it was circulated anew, that time accompanied by the photo of a Hispanic male sporting multiple tattoos. Since 2014, this Facebook post has been shared more than 77,000 times. A second post from 2016 has been shared more than 82,000 times with a different photograph: this Facebook post second post There was no such child: the whole thing was a leg-pull, said Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas: said A false text message has been circulating that describes an incident involving a 5-year old girl. The message states that every time you forward it to someone, Dell Children's Medical Center will donate 15 cents to cover the child's healthcare expenses. This message is spam and is in no way affiliated with Dell Children's Medical Center or the Seton Family of Hospitals. If you receive this message, please delete it. As demonstrated so aptly by public efforts to provide relief to earthquake victims in Haiti, beneficences initiated by cell phone generally involve a tracking and billing mechanism that requires participants to text a specific short word or phrase to a particular (five-digit) number, not the willy-nilly forwarding of a explanatory narrative to as many people as possible. Haiti In 2009 we began to note that \"Forward this message to help fund medical care for a sick or dying child\" appeals were beginning to appear as cell phone text messages as well as being passed in e-mail. That trend continues into the present, with the \"shot 14-year-old boy\" just another iteration of the same basic hoax that falsely claims the American Cancer Society, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or some other large entity will donate a predetermined amount of money every time a particular message is forwarded. Such leg-pulls have been circulating via e-mail since 1997. hoax Typically, a large charity is named as the benefactor standing ready to direct monies towards the costs of medical care for the languishing child, but various corporations have also been fingered for this role in other iterations of the hoax, such as AOL and ZDNet in the Rachel Arlington leg pull (brain cancer sufferer in need of an operation) and McDonald's and Pizza Hut in the Justin Mallory prank (epileptic in need of long-term care). Rachel Arlington Justin Mallory Everyone wants to help sick children get better, and the thought of a little boy or girl suffering from some dread disease or infirmity because people couldn't be bothered to forward a message tugs straight at the heartstrings. Problem is, hoaxsters know that, and they play upon these very human drives for their personal amusement. Once again, that is the case here: Well-intentioned forwarding does nothing towards helping a sick child; it does, however, make the day of some prankster. If you want to make a difference in a sick child's life, the best way is still the old-fashioned one: donate your money or your time, don't passively share a worthless message. KEYE-TV [Austin]. \"Text Messages About Dell Children's Med Center Donations Are False.\"\r 22 June 2010. Roser, Mary Ann. \"Seton Alerts Public That Text Message to Help 'Raped' Child Is Bogus.\"\r The [Austin] Statesman. 22 June 2010. This story was updated on June 4, 2019 to add a second viral Facebook post.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1l3r5Nnul8AhGqeVER5myQgvhBiZzUKwX", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In October 2010, the hoax underwent a revival when it was circulated anew, that time accompanied by the photo of a Hispanic male sporting multiple tattoos. Since 2014, this Facebook post has been shared more than 77,000 times. A second post from 2016 has been shared more than 82,000 times with a different photograph:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=754780977947827&set=a.105552569537341&type=3&theater", "https://archive.fo/yaThU" ] }, { "sentence": "There was no such child: the whole thing was a leg-pull, said Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20101225014913/https://www.dellchildrens.net/about_us/news/2010/10/29/alert_spam_text_message_makes_false_claim" ] }, { "sentence": "As demonstrated so aptly by public efforts to provide relief to earthquake victims in Haiti, beneficences initiated by cell phone generally involve a tracking and billing mechanism that requires participants to text a specific short word or phrase to a particular (five-digit) number, not the willy-nilly forwarding of a explanatory narrative to as many people as possible.", "hrefs": [ "/inboxer/charity/haiti.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2009 we began to note that \"Forward this message to help fund medical care for a sick or dying child\" appeals were beginning to appear as cell phone text messages as well as being passed in e-mail. That trend continues into the present, with the \"shot 14-year-old boy\" just another iteration of the same basic hoax that falsely claims the American Cancer Society, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or some other large entity will donate a predetermined amount of money every time a particular message is forwarded. Such leg-pulls have been circulating via e-mail since 1997.", "hrefs": [ "/inboxer/medical/cancer.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Typically, a large charity is named as the benefactor standing ready to direct monies towards the costs of medical care for the languishing child, but various corporations have also been fingered for this role in other iterations of the hoax, such as AOL and ZDNet in the Rachel Arlington leg pull (brain cancer sufferer in need of an operation) and McDonald's and Pizza Hut in the Justin Mallory prank (epileptic in need of long-term care).", "hrefs": [ "/inboxer/medical/arlington.asp", "/inboxer/medical/mallory.asp" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/usps-closing-due-to-covid-19/", "claim": "Is the USPS going to close soon due to the impact of COVID-19?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/29/2020", "sci_digest": [ "For many Americans who fear leaving their homes during the pandemic, the Postal Service is a lifeline." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In April 2020, during an unprecedented interruption to the U.S. economy due to social-distancing restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, the United States Postal Service (USPS) remained in operation. Canvassing city streets and rural roads with packages of prescriptions, food, and bills, the mail carriers provided a lifeline for many Americans who feared leaving their homes during the pandemic. COVID-19 Under the U.S. Constitution, the federally run Postal Service must serve all Americans equally regardless of where they live. But with a novel virus plaguing the country spreading from person to person that commitment to service came at a cost: 1,800 USPS employees had either tested positive for or were suspected to have caught COVID-19 as of April 25, according to the National Association of Letter Carriers. And more than 40 such workers had died. U.S. Constitution National Association of Letter Carriers The virus' toll on employees' health was not the only pandemic-fueled problem for leaders of the Postal Service; a decline in mail deliveries a leading source of revenue for the agency due to business shutdowns raised worries that the national mail carrier would not economically recover from a coronavirus recession. From high-profile Democrats in Washington, D.C., to less-known musicians who said they rely on USPS to help them run independent labels, supporters across the country took to Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit to call attention to what they feared were limited days left for USPS. Reddit Many of the social media posts included calls to action. Supporters rushed to buy stamps, hoping any type of profit boost would stave off a collapse, or urged people to contact U.S. lawmakers and tell them to help the Postal Service with federal funds. As of April 28, almost 390,000 people had signed an online petition on Change.org to express their support for USPS, while more than 440,000 people had endorsed an open letter using an automated texting service (texted \"USPS\" to 50409) that promised to contact congressional representatives on behalf of petitioners. The letter states: rushed to buy stamps online petition on Change.org automated texting service In the age of COVID-19, having a healthy and strong postal service is more important than ever. More and more Americans are relying on the USPS to deliver medicines, food, and essentials now that social distancing is a matter of life and death. Seeing those pleas online, numerous people contacted Snopes to investigate the validity of the claim that the national mail carrier was, indeed, on the brink of closure due to the pandemic. The claim is multi-faceted, asserting that USPS could shutter soon, and that the coronavirus pandemic would be the reason why. To get to the root of each assertion, we began by analyzing the history of funding for USPS which is an independent executive agency and has not received taxpayer funding in decades and changes in how Americans rely on it. As online communication advanced between 2010 and 2020, USPS' volume of first-class and marketing mail decreased a problem for the agency's bottom line because stamps and other postal products to send that type of mail make lucrative profit margins. Meanwhile, private competitors such as Amazon and FedEx grew in popularity and reach, raising USPS' package volume because the agency contracts with them (often for what's called the \"last mile\" of deliveries in rural or remote areas). Such shipments for the USPS increased from 3.1 billion in 2010 to 6.2 billion in 2018, federal data show. federal data But market trends aside, the agency for years has run in the red, with a total of $143 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt as of fall 2018 (an amount that is double its annual revenue), according to the U.S Government Accountability Office. The debt, in large part, is a result of a congressional mandate on how the agency must fund retiree pensions and health benefits for employees. In 2006, under the George W. Bush' presidential administration and a Republican-led Congress, the federal government enacted the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which forced USPS to add up what it expected to spend on the benefits over the next 50 years and then prepay that amount between 2007 and 2016. The math rounded out to an expense of about $5.6 billion annually. But in 2012, the agency began defaulting on the payments. U.S Government Accountability Office congressional mandate Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act $5.6 billion annually That history aside, the pandemic is only hurting the agency's already-troubled financial situation. Addressing a group of congressional lawmakers in earlyApril 9, Postmaster General Megan Brennan said mail volume had dropped 30 percent in the early days of the crisis, and that she expected that decline to reach 50 percent by the end of June. For this fiscal year, which runs from October 2019 to September 2020, she said the Postal Service was preparing for a $13 billion revenue shortfall due \"directly to COVID-19\" in 2020 and an additional $54.3 billion in losses over 10 years. April 9 Considering those projections, she said the agency could \"run out of cash this fiscal year\" (or the end of September) without federal intervention. \"The sudden drop in mail volumes, our most profitable revenue stream, is steep and may never fully recover,\" she later told The New York Times. Further details on the potential downturn were unknown; it was not explained where, or to what extent, regions may first notice interrupted USPS service due to the profit loss, nor if the agency would maintain its existing payroll of some 640,000 employees or close all together. Using the COVID-19 outbreak in their rationale, some lawmakers primarily U.S. House Democrats attempted to rally support for and extend more federal money to help USPS in spring 2020. Among leaders of the public outcry was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., who is a member of the House government operations committee that oversees the Postal Service. He told the Washington Post: Washington Post \"Im so frustrated at how difficult it has been for a long time to galvanize attention and action around an essential service,' he said. 'And maybe the pandemic forces us all to refocus on this service and how essential it is and how we need to fix it while we can before it gets into critical condition.\" The requests came to a head in March 2020 during negotiations over a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Initially, lawmakers agreed to set aside $13 billion in federal dollars for USPS that the agency would not have to repay. But purportedly at the urging of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and aids to U.S. President Donald Trump, congressional leaders removed that provision from the CARES Act while leaving its funding boosts to help small businesses, passenger airlines and air cargo carriers, and most U.S. taxpayers via one-time stimulus checks, among other provisions that aimed to jump-start the economy. COVID-19 economic relief package, one-time stimulus checks According to a senior Trump administration official and a congressional official, Trump would have vetoed the entire bill if it had contained any such funding to help the postal agency, The Washington Post reported. \"We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it,\" the Trump administration official said. The Washington Post In last-round debates over what to include in the CARES Act, however, a bipartisan pair of senators (Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.) proposed what some federal leaders considered a compromise between Trump and USPS advocates: a $10 billion loan to help the agency cover operating expenses through the spring of 2020. Trump signed the CARES Act into law on March 27, including the provision that read: CARES Act But, as of mid-April, the Postal Service did not have access to the funds. Despite Trump's approval of the legislation, the USPS-specific provision required additional signatures from both him and Mnuchin before the agency could request the loan money. While signing off on other aspects of the federal stimulus bill on April 24, Trump said he will not sign the loan unless the service fulfills his long-standing request to raise prices on shipping and postal materials to cover its debt a call to action based on a false assertion that the service loses money by delivering for Amazon. (Government analysts have said that type of price change could lead to private delivery competitors swooping in on USPS' business and, perhaps, offering cheaper prices for easy city routes and less options for rural Americans, and it would only raise a marginal amount of new revenue compared to USPS' total debt.) At the signing, Trump said: did not on April 24 not sign the loan false assertion Trump said The Postal Service is a joke because theyre handing out packages for Amazon and other Internet companies. And every time they bring a package, they lose money on it ... The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times. ... If they dont raise the price, Im not signing anything. Hours later, he followed up with a tweet: followed up But for House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the $10 billion loan is just the tip of the iceberg to get the Postal Service on solid financial footing and maintain existing functions beyond September 2020. \"They dont need more debt capacity, they need debt forgiveness,\" said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York who chairs the House committee that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, to a news outlet for federal workers. Carolyn Maloney federal workers. In a future stimulus package to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, several lawmakers in April proposed an $89 billion bailout for USPS including $25 billion to offset lost revenue from declining shipments during the pandemic, $25 billion to modernize the agency's aging infrastructure, a $25 billion loan and a new system for paying $14 billion in debt. The Trump-appointed Postal Service Board of Governors, which includes three Republicans and two Democrats, unanimously approved of the request. 'The Postal Service is holding on for dear life,' Maloney said in a statement. ''Unless Congress and the White House provide meaningful relief in the next stimulus bill, the Postal Service could cease to exist.' said in a statement But as of mid-April, the U.S. Treasury secretary suggested that if lawmakers fulfilled any such funding requests in the next COVID-19 stimulus package, the language to help the USPS \"would amount to a poison pill,\" the Post reported. A congressional staffer told the newspaper the Republican-led Senate would not vote to extend more federal dollars to an agency \"unlikely to make good on its borrowing\". For decades, conservative Republicans have pushed for USPS to privatize its delivery services, a move they argue would appropriately remove government from a service that should be left to the private commercial market. Meanwhile, opponents fear dismantling universal mail service would disproportionately affect millions of Americans who live in rural areas, where private companies such as FedEx and UPS either charge higher rates or do no shipments at all. appropriately remove government millions of Americans Since the early days of his presidential election, Trump has taken aim at the Postal Service, once calling the agency Amazon's \"delivery boy\" in a tweet. Some lawmakers, postal union representatives, and other supporters worry those types of remarks are a political performance behind the longstanding effort to push the mail carrier toward privatization which the federal government could do by leveraging federal-loan dollars or forcing USPS to file bankruptcy. delivery boy toward privatization 'Right now, I see a big danger for our country in the form of the administrations interest in privatizing the post office,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters after Trump called USPS 'a joke' on April 24. 'This is just about somebody on the outside making money off the post office instead of recognizing the important role [it] plays.' told reporters Among those services, USPS and its database of every American's postal information plays a critical role in local, state, and federal elections. About one-third of states allow voters to cast ballots by mail in elections if they have certain disabilities or travel plans for Election Day, while a handful of states allow all residents to mail in their ballots. But in 2020, under rules to limit in-person contact, lawmakers are exploring proposals that would establish vote-by-mail systems in all states for the year's presidential election. Trump has long opposed vote-by-mail initiatives, falsely claiming that they lead to an increase in voter fraud. He has stated: If the U.S. transitioned to all-mail voting, \"you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again,\" yet election experts have said there is no evidence to support that argument. falsely claiming stated In sum, given the Postal Service's massive debt before the global COVID-19 outbreak, as well as the opportunities by federal leaders to provide economic relief for USPS, and USPS leaders' lack of clarity on what would happen if the agency did \"run out of cash\" this year, we rate this claim \"Mixture.\" Anderson, Sarah, et. al. How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis And How to Fix it.\r Institute for Policy Studies. 15 July 2019.\r\r Associated Press. Advocates start work to save post office.\r 18 February 2017. Benen, Steve. On USPS, Trump peddles false claim, impertinent threat.\r MSNBC. 27 April 2020. Bogage, Jacob. White House rejects bailout for U.S. Postal Service battered by coronavirus.\r Washington Post. 11 April 2020. Colvin, Jill. Trump convenes task force to study US Postal Service.\r Associated Press. 13 April 2018. Congress.gov. H.R. 6407 - Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.\r 109th Congress. Accessed 27 April 2020. Congress.gov. H.R. 2382 - USPS Fairness Act.\r 116th Congress. Accessed 27 April 2020. Epstein, Reid J. and Saul, Stephanie. Does Vote-by-Mail Favor Democrats? No. Its a False Argument by Trump.\r New York Times. 10 April 2020. Fandos, Nicholas and Tankersley, Jim. Coronavirus Is Threatening One of Governments Steadiest Services: The Mail.\r The New York Times. 9 April 2020. Fredericks, Bob. Trump calls US Postal Service a joke, says it needs to raise rates.\r New York Post. 24 April 2020. Goodkind, Nicole. Joe Biden may be the USPSs only hopeif it can survive until November.\r Fortune. 27 April 2020. Goodkind, Nicole. USPS warns it might have to shutter by June as $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package provides no funding.\r Fortune. 30 March 2020. Heckman, Jory. USPS reports postal employees deaths from coronavirus, not immune to financial downturn.\r Federal news Network. 1 April 2020. Institute for Policy Studies. Who Would Pay the Biggest Price for Postal Privatization?\r December 2018. Jameel, Maryam. Letter Carriers Say the Postal Service Pressured Them to Deliver Mail Despite Coronavirus Symptoms and Often Without Hand Sanitizer.\r ProPublica. 18 March 2020. LaRocco, Lori Ann. The Truth About The Post Offices Financial Mess.\r CNBC. 24 October 2011. Lewis, Sophie. US Postal Service could shut down by June, lawmakers warn.\r CBS News. 3 April 2020. Maloney, Carolyn. House Democrats Act Rapidly to Save Postal Service from Bankruptcy As a Result of Coronavirus Crisis.\r Committee on Oversight and Reform. 23 March 2020. Mosley, Tonya and Raphelson, Samantha. U.S. Postal Service Stands To Suffer Huge Losses From Coronavirus Pandemic.\r WBUR. 21 April 2020. New York Times Editorial Board. Whats an Essential Service in a Pandemic? The Post Office.\r New York Times. 14 April 2020. Norden, Lawrence, et. al. Estimated Costs of Covid-19 Election Resiliency Measures.\r Brennan Center. 18 April 2020. Panetta, Grace. Trump reportedly rejected approving a bailout package that would rescue the US Postal Service, and it could be a disaster for states trying to expand voting by mail.\r Business Insider. 12 April 2020. Pecorin, Allison. Partisan battle erupts over US Postal Service as some look to mail-in ballots amid pandemic.\r ABC News. 28 April 2020. Premack, Rachel. Lawmakers are sounding the alarm on the coronavirus shuttering the USPS by June and it could mean chaos for your Amazon deliveries.\r Business Insider. 25 March 2020. Rein, Lisa and Bogage, Jacob. Trump says he will block coronavirus aid for U.S. Postal Service if it doesnt hike prices immediately.\r Washington Post. 24 April 2020. Rolando, Fredric. Statement by NALC President Fredric Rolando: The Postal Service is vital in this crisis.\r National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO. 27 March 2020. USPS. Service Alerts.\r 24 April 2020. United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General. Update for Measuring Pension and Retiree Health Benefits Liabilities.\r 2 May 2017. Task Force on the United States Postal System. United States Postal Service: A sustainable Path Forward.\r 4 December 2018. Wise, Lindsay and Andrews, Natalie. Democrats Push for Voting by Mail Amid Coronavirus Pandemic.\r Wall Street Journal. 1 April 2020. Winegrove, Josh and Fabian, Jordan. Trump Says Joke Postal Service Should Boost Rates for Amazon.\r Bloomberg. 24 April 2020. Committee on Oversight and Reform. Postmaster General Warns Committee of Dire Consequences Without Congressional Action.\r Committee on Oversight and Reform. 9 April 2020. Congress.gov. H.R.748 CARES Act.\r Accessed 28 April 2020. This report was updated on Aug. 19, 2020, to say the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act forced the USPS to add up what it expected to spend on the benefits over the next 50 years, not 75 years.\r\r", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jhz7SJ4iTm1SqCKu-mVaazmiZWIZiVVb" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1i0y8df5_3V2pcQ-TGamPXyHZ7htiUBtZ" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1M-z3GM642e8sOr4I4ZB-s8SgqeGlakCi" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In April 2020, during an unprecedented interruption to the U.S. economy due to social-distancing restrictions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, the United States Postal Service (USPS) remained in operation. Canvassing city streets and rural roads with packages of prescriptions, food, and bills, the mail carriers provided a lifeline for many Americans who feared leaving their homes during the pandemic.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/new-coronavirus-collection/" ] }, { "sentence": "Under the U.S. Constitution, the federally run Postal Service must serve all Americans equally regardless of where they live. But with a novel virus plaguing the country spreading from person to person that commitment to service came at a cost: 1,800 USPS employees had either tested positive for or were suspected to have caught COVID-19 as of April 25, according to the National Association of Letter Carriers. And more than 40 such workers had died.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript", "https://www.nalc.org/news/nalc-updates/body/4-25-20-statement.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The virus' toll on employees' health was not the only pandemic-fueled problem for leaders of the Postal Service; a decline in mail deliveries a leading source of revenue for the agency due to business shutdowns raised worries that the national mail carrier would not economically recover from a coronavirus recession. From high-profile Democrats in Washington, D.C., to less-known musicians who said they rely on USPS to help them run independent labels, supporters across the country took to Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit to call attention to what they feared were limited days left for USPS.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/g09lqa/whats_up_with_text_usps_to_50409_trending_on/" ] }, { "sentence": "Many of the social media posts included calls to action. Supporters rushed to buy stamps, hoping any type of profit boost would stave off a collapse, or urged people to contact U.S. lawmakers and tell them to help the Postal Service with federal funds. As of April 28, almost 390,000 people had signed an online petition on Change.org to express their support for USPS, while more than 440,000 people had endorsed an open letter using an automated texting service (texted \"USPS\" to 50409) that promised to contact congressional representatives on behalf of petitioners. The letter states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/14/834336341/hoping-to-save-the-postal-service-people-rush-to-buy-stamps", "https://www.change.org/p/save-the-usps/u/26335211", "https://resist.bot/" ] }, { "sentence": "As online communication advanced between 2010 and 2020, USPS' volume of first-class and marketing mail decreased a problem for the agency's bottom line because stamps and other postal products to send that type of mail make lucrative profit margins. Meanwhile, private competitors such as Amazon and FedEx grew in popularity and reach, raising USPS' package volume because the agency contracts with them (often for what's called the \"last mile\" of deliveries in rural or remote areas). Such shipments for the USPS increased from 3.1 billion in 2010 to 6.2 billion in 2018, federal data show.", "hrefs": [ "https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/USPS_A_Sustainable_Path_Forward_report_12-04-2018.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "But market trends aside, the agency for years has run in the red, with a total of $143 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt as of fall 2018 (an amount that is double its annual revenue), according to the U.S Government Accountability Office. The debt, in large part, is a result of a congressional mandate on how the agency must fund retiree pensions and health benefits for employees. In 2006, under the George W. Bush' presidential administration and a Republican-led Congress, the federal government enacted the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which forced USPS to add up what it expected to spend on the benefits over the next 50 years and then prepay that amount between 2007 and 2016. The math rounded out to an expense of about $5.6 billion annually. But in 2012, the agency began defaulting on the payments.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/us_postal_service_financial_viability/issue_summary", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407", "https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/update-measuring-pension-and-retiree-health-benefits-liabilities/" ] }, { "sentence": "That history aside, the pandemic is only hurting the agency's already-troubled financial situation. Addressing a group of congressional lawmakers in earlyApril 9, Postmaster General Megan Brennan said mail volume had dropped 30 percent in the early days of the crisis, and that she expected that decline to reach 50 percent by the end of June. For this fiscal year, which runs from October 2019 to September 2020, she said the Postal Service was preparing for a $13 billion revenue shortfall due \"directly to COVID-19\" in 2020 and an additional $54.3 billion in losses over 10 years.", "hrefs": [ "https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/postmaster-general-warns-committee-of-dire-consequences-without-congressional" ] }, { "sentence": "Using the COVID-19 outbreak in their rationale, some lawmakers primarily U.S. House Democrats attempted to rally support for and extend more federal money to help USPS in spring 2020. Among leaders of the public outcry was Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., who is a member of the House government operations committee that oversees the Postal Service. He told the Washington Post:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/11/post-office-bailout-trump/" ] }, { "sentence": "The requests came to a head in March 2020 during negotiations over a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Initially, lawmakers agreed to set aside $13 billion in federal dollars for USPS that the agency would not have to repay. But purportedly at the urging of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and aids to U.S. President Donald Trump, congressional leaders removed that provision from the CARES Act while leaving its funding boosts to help small businesses, passenger airlines and air cargo carriers, and most U.S. taxpayers via one-time stimulus checks, among other provisions that aimed to jump-start the economy.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-millionaires-stimulus-checks/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-millionaires-stimulus-checks/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to a senior Trump administration official and a congressional official, Trump would have vetoed the entire bill if it had contained any such funding to help the postal agency, The Washington Post reported. \"We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it,\" the Trump administration official said.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/11/post-office-bailout-trump/?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_source=reddit.com" ] }, { "sentence": "In last-round debates over what to include in the CARES Act, however, a bipartisan pair of senators (Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.) proposed what some federal leaders considered a compromise between Trump and USPS advocates: a $10 billion loan to help the agency cover operating expenses through the spring of 2020. Trump signed the CARES Act into law on March 27, including the provision that read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/text#toc-H01E28A58DD1E4BD0856501D34883AC7E" ] }, { "sentence": "But, as of mid-April, the Postal Service did not have access to the funds. Despite Trump's approval of the legislation, the USPS-specific provision required additional signatures from both him and Mnuchin before the agency could request the loan money. While signing off on other aspects of the federal stimulus bill on April 24, Trump said he will not sign the loan unless the service fulfills his long-standing request to raise prices on shipping and postal materials to cover its debt a call to action based on a false assertion that the service loses money by delivering for Amazon. (Government analysts have said that type of price change could lead to private delivery competitors swooping in on USPS' business and, perhaps, offering cheaper prices for easy city routes and less options for rural Americans, and it would only raise a marginal amount of new revenue compared to USPS' total debt.) At the signing, Trump said:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/24/trumps-new-rage-attack-post-office-could-hurt-his-voters-most/", "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-ceremony-h-r-266-paycheck-protection-program-health-care-enhancement-act/", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/10-billion-treasury-loan-usps/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/amazon-bankrupting-united-states-postal-service/", "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-ceremony-h-r-266-paycheck-protection-program-health-care-enhancement-act/" ] }, { "sentence": "Hours later, he followed up with a tweet:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/usps-trump-peddles-false-claim-impertinent-threat-n1193216" ] }, { "sentence": "But for House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the $10 billion loan is just the tip of the iceberg to get the Postal Service on solid financial footing and maintain existing functions beyond September 2020. \"They dont need more debt capacity, they need debt forgiveness,\" said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York who chairs the House committee that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, to a news outlet for federal workers.", "hrefs": [ "https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-democrats-act-rapidly-to-save-postal-service-from-bankruptcy-as-a-result", "https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2020/04/usps-reports-postal-employees-deaths-from-coronavirus-not-immune-to-financial-impact/" ] }, { "sentence": "'The Postal Service is holding on for dear life,' Maloney said in a statement. ''Unless Congress and the White House provide meaningful relief in the next stimulus bill, the Postal Service could cease to exist.'", "hrefs": [ "https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/postmaster-general-warns-committee-of-dire-consequences-without-congressional" ] }, { "sentence": "For decades, conservative Republicans have pushed for USPS to privatize its delivery services, a move they argue would appropriately remove government from a service that should be left to the private commercial market. Meanwhile, opponents fear dismantling universal mail service would disproportionately affect millions of Americans who live in rural areas, where private companies such as FedEx and UPS either charge higher rates or do no shipments at all.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/usps", "https://inequality.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IPS-Price-of-Privatization.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Since the early days of his presidential election, Trump has taken aim at the Postal Service, once calling the agency Amazon's \"delivery boy\" in a tweet. Some lawmakers, postal union representatives, and other supporters worry those types of remarks are a political performance behind the longstanding effort to push the mail carrier toward privatization which the federal government could do by leveraging federal-loan dollars or forcing USPS to file bankruptcy.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/981168344924536832?lang=en", "https://www.performance.gov/GovReform/Reform-and-Reorg-Plan-Final.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "'Right now, I see a big danger for our country in the form of the administrations interest in privatizing the post office,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters after Trump called USPS 'a joke' on April 24. 'This is just about somebody on the outside making money off the post office instead of recognizing the important role [it] plays.'", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/04/24/trump-postal-service-loan-treasury/" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump has long opposed vote-by-mail initiatives, falsely claiming that they lead to an increase in voter fraud. He has stated: If the U.S. transitioned to all-mail voting, \"you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again,\" yet election experts have said there is no evidence to support that argument.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/article/mail-in-voting-explained.html", "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/us/politics/vote-by-mail.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/home-alone-ticket-thrown-away/", "claim": "Was Kevin's Ticket Thrown Away in 'Home Alone'?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/19/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Eagle-eyed viewers spotted an American Airlines ticket in the trash in the 1990 Christmas movie \"Home Alone.\"" ], "justification": "It's been more than three decades since the original \"Home Alone\" film was released. However, fans of the 1990 movie were still noticing details they may have missed in past viewings, like the fate of Kevin's airline ticket. details We previously reported that the black-and-white gangster films depicted in \"Home Alone\" and \"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York\" were not real classics. We also published a story about the fact that Catherine O'Hara was the same actress who played both Kate McCallister (Kevin's mother in \"Home Alone\") as well as Moira Rose on the TV series \"Schitt's Creek.\" The news may not have shocked some of O'Hara's fans, but the number of likes, comments, and shares on various TikTok videos showed that not everyone realized she played both characters. were not real classics story Speaking of the McCallisters, we decided to take another closer look at \"Home Alone\" after a TikTok video purported to shine a light on an obscure detail: the fate of Kevin's airline ticket. TikTok video In the plot for \"Home Alone,\" the young Kevin McCallister is accidentally left at home while the rest of his family flies to Paris for a Christmas vacation. A series of events allows the mishap to occur, and one of those was the loss of his airplane ticket: The TikTok video was posted by @scouseblu on Dec. 17, 2020. The Twitter account @FilmEasterEggs considered the moment to be an Easter egg: posted @FilmEasterEggs Some responded saying they already knew about the ticket being thrown into the garbage, while others expressed surprise: One Twitter user claimed that the airplane ticket going into the trash was an \"integral plot point,\" which was potentially questionable: In \"Home Alone,\" the McCallister family runs through the airport and hands their stack of tickets to a gate agent. However, the gate agent did not appear to look at the tickets, but she did conduct a headcount as they walked to the airplane. While the videos from TikTok and Twitter showed the ticket going in the trash, preceding shots showed a row of cups in front of the tickets and passports: Courtesy: 20th Century Fox After Kevin attacks his older brother Buzz for eating all of the cheese pizza, the stack of tickets and passports are briefly visible for a split second before several cups of milk all come crashing down: Courtesy: 20th Century Fox Milk was mentioned in the scene by Kate and was likely chosen by writers because of its ability for the white color to obscure the ticket during cleanup. The stack of tickets and passports all got soaked, but only Kevin's ticket made it in the trash. Freeform aired double features of \"Home Alone\" and \"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York\" multiple times in December 2020. Some of the showings included interesting tidbits about the films, in what the Disney-owned channel called its \"Pop'n Knowledge Edition.\" One of those tidbits popped onscreen the moment that Kevin's ticket was thrown in the trash. Freeform also partially edited a sceneout of the sequel \"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.\" partially edited a scene", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1GJgO4y4VdafZFnb8fzKNfTcFELmtzN1G", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qMOR8lYwBE5_mcCH-_D-ibqBXBYK18fl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "It's been more than three decades since the original \"Home Alone\" film was released. However, fans of the 1990 movie were still noticing details they may have missed in past viewings, like the fate of Kevin's airline ticket.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/home-alone-lost-in-fact-checks/" ] }, { "sentence": "We previously reported that the black-and-white gangster films depicted in \"Home Alone\" and \"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York\" were not real classics. We also published a story about the fact that Catherine O'Hara was the same actress who played both Kate McCallister (Kevin's mother in \"Home Alone\") as well as Moira Rose on the TV series \"Schitt's Creek.\" The news may not have shocked some of O'Hara's fans, but the number of likes, comments, and shares on various TikTok videos showed that not everyone realized she played both characters.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/angels-with-filthy-souls-real/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/moira-rose-home-alone/" ] }, { "sentence": "Speaking of the McCallisters, we decided to take another closer look at \"Home Alone\" after a TikTok video purported to shine a light on an obscure detail: the fate of Kevin's airline ticket.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tiktok.com/@scouseblu/video/6907207099147652354" ] }, { "sentence": "The TikTok video was posted by @scouseblu on Dec. 17, 2020. The Twitter account @FilmEasterEggs considered the moment to be an Easter egg:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tiktok.com/@scouseblu/video/6907207099147652354", "https://twitter.com/FilmEasterEggs/status/1205373468717379585" ] }, { "sentence": " Courtesy: 20th Century Fox", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/12/ticket-cups-home-alone.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": " Courtesy: 20th Century Fox", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/12/tickets-dry-home-alone.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Freeform also partially edited a sceneout of the sequel \"Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/home-alone-world-trade-center/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-caucasian-fee/", "claim": "No, McDonald's Isn't Charging a 'Caucasian' Service Fee", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "01/23/2022", "sci_digest": [ "A faked image mocked up to look like a message from the restaurant chain circulated online." ], "justification": "Curious about how Snopes' writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We've collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing. help explain let us know In January 2022, an image circulated online allegedly alerting Caucasian customers of the fast food chain McDonald's that they would be required to pay an additional fee: \"As an insurance measure, due in part to the recent coup attempt of the Capital (sic) earlier this year, all Caucasian customers are required to pay an additional fee of $1.50 per transaction.\" McDonald's has no such policy, but the image appears to be a variation of a similar internet post. In 2012, a similar image with similar wording circulated online claiming that McDonald's was instituting an additional $1.50 fee on Black customers. claiming Mikkelson, David. \"FACT CHECK: Did a McDonalds Impose a Surcharge on African-American Customers to Cover Robbery Insurance? Snopes, 24 Jan. 2012, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/self-insured/.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18dUyygIvws_AKCYsm999FEwXK7tIx7YB", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Curious about how Snopes' writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We've collected some posts that help explain how we do what we do. Happy reading and let us know what else you might be interested in knowing.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-ing-101-fact-checkers/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2012, a similar image with similar wording circulated online claiming that McDonald's was instituting an additional $1.50 fee on Black customers.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/self-insured/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/nov/28/jim-skaggs/austin-area-activist-says-austin-has-fastest-growi/", "claim": "Austin is burdened by the fastest-growing tax increases of any major city in the nation.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "11/28/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "An activist expressed elation after Austin voters rejected a $1 billion rail-and-roads proposition, going on to say the rail part of the plan would have been a financial headache. Jim Skaggs, founder ofCitizens Against Rail Taxes, told the Austin Monitor for a Nov. 5, 2014,news story, that the rail costs would have been imposed on a community already burdened by the fastest-growing tax increases of any major city in the nation. Mark Nathan, a consultant to Lets Go Austin, which advocated for the proposition, asked us to check Skaggs claim. All aboard! To our inquiry, Skaggs said by email he believes he learned of Austins dubious status from anAustin Business Journalstory. I do not have time to research it at the moment, Skaggs wrote Nov. 5, 2014. City spokeswoman: Mild ratechanges We hunted unsuccessfully for such a story while to our nudge, a city spokeswoman, Melissa Alvarado,said by emailthe city does not track taxes in other jurisdictions. Alvarado also pointed us to a city chart showing its property tax rate mostly sliding from 1993 through 2009 and increasing or holding steady since: Source:Austin, Texas, Approved Budget 2013-14, Volume 1,page 19 (downloaded Nov. 24, 2014) Alvarado continued: Please keep in mind the city is only one taxing jurisdiction. Theres also the county, school district, health district and then more, depending on where exactly someone lives. Also, she said, appraisals are a factor for taxes, not just the tax rate. (She noted the 2015 tax rate is the same as the 2014 rate.) Indeed, surging property values are a driver in local government revenues, theAustin American-Statesmanhas noted; of late, an April 2014 news story quoted Travis Countys chief appraiser, Marya Crigler, saying taxable residential values a homes market value minus property-tax exemptions were up an average of 8 percent for 2014. Changes in those values, the story said, influence government spending plans. Austin versus other big Texas cities Our search for a breakdown of changes in taxes among U.S. cities led us to analyst James Quintero of the conservative-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation, who pointed out by email that since 2008, according to a graph in the city of Austinsproposed fiscal 2015 budget, Austin residents have experienced a bigger burst in their share of income paid in city property taxes than residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio or Houston. Specifically, Quintero said, the percentage of median family income spent on property tax bills for median-value homes in the Austin area represented a little less than 1.1 percent in fiscal 2008. In fiscal 2014, that figure had increased to just under 1.5 percent, representing an increase of 0.4 percent. The other big Texas cities demonstrated smaller increases over the period. National comparisons Then again, Skaggs said Austins tax increases were No. 1 among major cities nationally. We turned to Beverly Kerr, lead researcher for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, who sifted information compiled by the Cambridge, Mass.-basedLincoln Institute of Land Policy. The institute, which focuses on property valuation and taxation policy, urban planning and development, land economics and property rights, annually issues a 50-state property-tax comparison study. Kerr, drawing fromthe latest study, issued in March 2014 by the center and the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, emailed us charts indicating numerous cities had significant property tax hikes in recent years and also that by one gauge, Austin ranked close to No. 1 nationally in its increases compared with the most-populous cities. One institute analysis looked at how much revenue per resident different cities have taken in. Our takeaways: From 2006 to 2011, per-person property tax revenue collected in Austin by all local government units (including school districts, the city and the county) decreased 4 percent, as measured in constant 2011 dollars. Then again, per-person revenue from city property taxes alone went up 6 percent; Austin ranked 35th among the 50 largest cities for that rate of increase. Higher rates of increase were recorded by cities including Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Chicago, which had a 60 percent spike in per-person property tax revenue. Over a longer span, 2001 to 2011, Austin ranked 27th nationally for its 26 percent increase in per-person revenue from city property taxes. The Texas capital was outpaced in percentage growth by cities including San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, New York and Los Angeles. Austin experienced a 2 percent increase in per-person revenue from all taxes from 2006 to 2011, ranking 25th in this way. Its increase trailed hikes occurring in the more populous cities of San Jose, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Another institute breakdown highlighted by Kerr shows Austin ranking among cities with the greatest increases in taxes on a median-valued home. Our snapshots: From 2009 to 2013, Austins effective tax rate on a median-priced home increased from 1.93 percent to 2.22 percent; that bump amounted to the 11th-greatest increase (0.29 points) in the 50 biggest cities. As of that year, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Jacksonville and Chicago were the cities more populous than Austin that ranked higher by this indicator. In this instance, the effective rate is not the rate by which a government unit can generate the revenue it raised the year before. Rather, the study defines the effective rate as the total tax on a median-priced home divided by its total value, which takes into account variations in assessment rates and value exemptions across localities. While Austins effective tax rate in 2013 was ahead of its rate in 2009, it was less than the 2.44 percent rate of 2005. In 2013, property taxes on a median-value Austin home ran $1,049 ahead of those taxes on such a home in 2005, up nearly 26 percent. That percentage increase placed Austin 10th nationally in this way behind Portland, San Jose, Denver, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Albuquerque, Columbus and Cleveland -- and only San Jose, Portland and Philadelphia had greater dollar increases than Austin. Among, say, the 15 largest cities as of that time, Austin ranked third behind San Jose and Philadelphia for the percent change in net tax 2005-2013. Over a shorter period, 2009-2013, Phoenix, San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Jacksonville experienced greater increases in net property tax on a median-value home. (Dallas, Chicago, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston and Indianapolis had smaller increases.) Our ruling Skaggs said Austin has the fastest-growing tax increases of any major U.S. city. Among the nations largest cities, Austin appears to have had the third-fastest growth in its property-tax bite on a median-valued home from 2005 to 2013. It seems reasonable to speculate local taxpayers feel the pinch. However, Skaggs didnt provide nor did we find a sign of Austin ranking first in tax growth among the countrys major cities. We rate the statement False. FALSE The statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "City Budget", "City Government", "Taxes", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dtUv03PeNifEUomlWS2mBN_r7HPtyOET", "image_caption": "Austin Business Journal" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Jim Skaggs, founder ofCitizens Against Rail Taxes, told the Austin Monitor for a Nov. 5, 2014,news story, that the rail costs would have been imposed on a community already burdened by the fastest-growing tax increases of any major city in the nation.", "hrefs": [ "http://norailtax.com/" ] }, { "sentence": "We hunted unsuccessfully for such a story while to our nudge, a city spokeswoman, Melissa Alvarado,said by emailthe city does not track taxes in other jurisdictions. Alvarado also pointed us to a city chart showing its property tax rate mostly sliding from 1993 through 2009 and increasing or holding steady since:", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oZ-JG6rm5PZKkRS2cQCjzIj-y-aLDDaCAkRrJBHVCQM/pub" ] }, { "sentence": "Source:Austin, Texas, Approved Budget 2013-14, Volume 1,page 19 (downloaded Nov. 24, 2014)", "hrefs": [ "https://assets.austintexas.gov/budget/13-14/downloads/fy14_approved_volume_I.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Indeed, surging property values are a driver in local government revenues, theAustin American-Statesmanhas noted; of late, an April 2014 news story quoted Travis Countys chief appraiser, Marya Crigler, saying taxable residential values a homes market value minus property-tax exemptions were up an average of 8 percent for 2014. Changes in those values, the story said, influence government spending plans.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.mystatesman.com/news/business/travis-county-taxable-home-values-rise-8/nfg25/#a1241da4.257409.735561" ] }, { "sentence": "Our search for a breakdown of changes in taxes among U.S. cities led us to analyst James Quintero of the conservative-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation, who pointed out by email that since 2008, according to a graph in the city of Austinsproposed fiscal 2015 budget, Austin residents have experienced a bigger burst in their share of income paid in city property taxes than residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio or Houston.", "hrefs": [ "https://assets.austintexas.gov/budget/14-15/downloads/FY15_Proposed_Budget_Vol_1.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "We turned to Beverly Kerr, lead researcher for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, who sifted information compiled by the Cambridge, Mass.-basedLincoln Institute of Land Policy. The institute, which focuses on property valuation and taxation policy, urban planning and development, land economics and property rights, annually issues a 50-state property-tax comparison study.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lincolninst.edu/aboutlincoln/" ] }, { "sentence": "Kerr, drawing fromthe latest study, issued in March 2014 by the center and the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, emailed us charts indicating numerous cities had significant property tax hikes in recent years and also that by one gauge, Austin ranked close to No. 1 nationally in its increases compared with the most-populous cities.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/significant-features-property-tax/upload/sources/ContentPages/documents/Pay_2013_PT_Report_National_FINAL.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/advice-and-descent/", "claim": "Obama's Fannie Mae Economic Advisors", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/18/2008", "sci_digest": [ "Did three former Fannie Mae executives serve the Obama campaign as economic advisors?" ], "justification": "Claim: Three former Fannie Mae executives served on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign as chief economic advisors. Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street. Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, 'Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that 'mistakes were made' and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.' Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. Raines left with a 'golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. The Government noted, 'The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.' These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits. Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard 'was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a 'stable pattern of earnings' at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, 'Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,' On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million! Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million.' Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS - HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE - THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street? Origins: When one of the hottest issues of a presidential campaign is the meltdown of the mortgage lending industry and the collapse of the economy, a candidate's having economic advisors on his staff who are strongly associated with the system and practices that helped create the current mess likely wouldn't sit well with the public. That's the premise of the above-quoted e-mail, which claimed that three men formerly associated with the Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly known as \"Fannie Mae\") were serving as \"chief economic advisors\" with the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama. However, although some of these men had at least tangential connections to the Obama campaign at one time or another, none of them had ongoing roles with that campaign as chief economic advisors. Franklin Raines, who formerly headed the budget office for the Clinton administration, became the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company when he took over at Fannie Mae\" in 1999. Raines, who had earned $20 million in salary and bonuses from Fannie Mae in 2003, resigned from his CEO position in 2004 after regulators determined that the company had violated accounting rules and created an illusory $9 billion in past profit. Raines had some dealings with the Obama campaign, but he never held any actual position within the campaign (much less as its \"chief economic advisor\"), and his involvement with it was not nearly as substantial as implied above. As the Washington Post reported when a McCain campaign commercial attempted to link Raines with the Democratic candidate, the whole substance of the connection between the two men was that Raines \"had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign\" in which they talked about \"general housing and economy issues.\" reported commercial Franklin Raines' predecessor, James A. Johnson, (former chief of staff to Vice President Walter F. Mondale), was CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. After Johnson left the company, regulators later discovered that Fannie Mae had engaged in fraudulent accounting practices in 1998 which manipulated its earnings so that executives could earn performance bonuses (up to $1.9 million in Johnson's case) they would not otherwise have been entitled to. discovered In May 2008, Senator Obama tapped James Johnson to be one member of a three-person panel tasked with vetting potential vice-presidential running mates. Johnson (who was not serving as an economic advisor to the Obama campaign) resigned from that position shortly afterwards when news accounts reported that he had received more than $2 million in home loans at below average market rates from Countrywide Financial (a partner of Fannie Mae). Tim Howard, the former CFO (chief financial officer) of Fannie Mae, was caught up in the same accounting scandal that undid Franklin Raines, and (like Raines) resigned from the company in 2004. We found no substantive connection between Tim Howard and the Obama campaign, however, much less any information supporting the claim that Howard was ever a \"Chief Economic Advisor to Obama.\" Last updated: 3 January 2012 Smith, Elliot Blair. \"Former Fannie Mae Execs May Face Investigation.\" USA Today. 14 June 2006. Superville, Darlene. \"Rise and Fall of Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines.\" San Diego Union-Tribune. 30 December 2004. Weisman, Jonathan and David S. Hilzenrath. \"Obama's Choice of Insider Draws Fire.\" The Washington Post. 11 June 2008 (p. A1). The Washington Post. \"Linking Obama to Ex-Fannie Mae Chief Is a Stretch.\" 20 September 2008.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Raines had some dealings with the Obama campaign, but he never held any actual position within the campaign (much less as its \"chief economic advisor\"), and his involvement with it was not nearly as substantial as implied above. As the Washington Post reported when a McCain campaign commercial attempted to link Raines with the Democratic candidate, the whole substance of the connection between the two men was that Raines \"had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign\" in which they talked about \"general housing and economy issues.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903604.html", "https://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/19/_the_ad_obama_has.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Franklin Raines' predecessor, James A. Johnson, (former chief of staff to Vice President Walter F. Mondale), was CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. After Johnson left the company, regulators later discovered that Fannie Mae had engaged in fraudulent accounting practices in 1998 which manipulated its earnings so that executives could earn performance bonuses (up to $1.9 million in Johnson's case) they would not otherwise have been entitled to.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/FNMSPECIALEXAM.PDF" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brett-kavanaugh-employers-polygraph/", "claim": "Did Brett Kavanaugh Rule That Employers Can Accept Polygraph Tests as 'Gospel'?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/02/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A 2016 appeal for which Kavanaugh wrote the decision has no bearing on the use of polygraph tests by employers." ], "justification": "One of the many elements of the contentious U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the autumn of 2018 was the disclosure that the woman who had accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in 1982, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, had taken and passed a polygraph examination. This facet of the confirmation brouhaha prompted debates about whether Judge Kavanaugh should similarly subject himself to polygraph examination, and about the reliability of such tests in general. (Kavanaugh responded to a question about whether he would take such a test by saying that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to do, while pointing out that polygraph examinations are inadmissible in federal court because they are \"unreliable.\") polygraph One of the pieces of evidence enlisted in support of one side of those debates was a claim that Judge Kavanaugh had once supposedly ruled in a case that \"polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions\": The case referred to here was Sack v. Department of Defense Sack v. Department of Defense The underlying lawsuit was filed by Kathryn Sack, a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, who was appealing the Department of Defense's (DOD) denial of her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for various DOD reports about the government's use of polygraph examinations and related documents, which she wanted to use for her dissertation on polygraph bias. In order to justify their denial of Sack's requests, the DOD had to show that the records and information sought by her were \"compiled for law enforcement purposes\" and that their production would \"disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations\" and reasonably \"risk circumvention of the law\" -- thereby meeting the standards of FOIA Exemption 7E. Exemption 7E The court sided with the DOD in denying Sack's FOIA requests, holding that FOIA Exemption 7E should apply. In Kavanaugh's opinion for the court, he noted that \"the reports about polygraph use were compiled for law enforcement purposes,\" because law enforcement agencies use them for functions such as \"test[ing] the credibility of witnesses and criminal defendants\" and \"screen[ing] applicants for security clearances,\" and therefore \"the reports help ensure that law enforcement officers optimally use an important law enforcement tool.\" Kavanaugh also noted that the reports requested by Sack identify deficiencies in law enforcement agencies polygraph programs, and therefore releasing those reports could allow criminal suspects and others to subvert polygraph examinations. Nothing in Judge Kavanaugh's opinion addressed whether \"polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions.\" He merely observed, for the purposes of a very specific legal ruling, that the federal government sometimes uses polygraph tests for the purposes of screening applicants; he offered no judgment or opinion about their reliability or how they should or could be regarded by employers. U.S. Department of Justice. \"Exemption 7(E).\"\r Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act. Accessed 2 October 2018. Justia. \"Sack v. DOD, No. 14-5039 (D.C. Cir. 2016).\"\r 20 May 2016. Hayes, Christal. \"Here's the Polygraph Test Christine Blasey Ford Took on Her Allegations Against Kavanaugh.\"\r USA Today. 26 September 2018.\r Kupfer, Theodore. \"A False Charge on Polygraphs.\"\r National Review. 28 September 2018.\r", "issues": [ "liability" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1iXdKw9_kn2N-0dMrrW2n8X97JhxCXQHD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "One of the many elements of the contentious U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the autumn of 2018 was the disclosure that the woman who had accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in 1982, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, had taken and passed a polygraph examination. This facet of the confirmation brouhaha prompted debates about whether Judge Kavanaugh should similarly subject himself to polygraph examination, and about the reliability of such tests in general. (Kavanaugh responded to a question about whether he would take such a test by saying that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to do, while pointing out that polygraph examinations are inadmissible in federal court because they are \"unreliable.\")", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/26/christine-blasey-fords-polygraph-test-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-allegations/1434270002/" ] }, { "sentence": "The case referred to here was Sack v. Department of Defense", "hrefs": [ "https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/14-5039/14-5039-2016-05-20.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In order to justify their denial of Sack's requests, the DOD had to show that the records and information sought by her were \"compiled for law enforcement purposes\" and that their production would \"disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations\" and reasonably \"risk circumvention of the law\" -- thereby meeting the standards of FOIA Exemption 7E. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/exemption7e_0.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/security-guard/", "claim": "Visa Fraud Investigation Scam", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "12/23/2003", "sci_digest": [ "Scam: Callers pretend to be fraud investigation agents for Visa and MasterCard in order to obtain credit card security codes." ], "justification": " Scam: Callers pretend to be fraud investigation agents for Visa and MasterCard in order to obtain credit card security codes. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2003] We all receive emails all the time regarding one scam or another; but last week I REALLY DID get scammed! Both VISA and MasterCard told me that this scam is currently being worked throughout the Midwest, with some variance as to the product or amount, and if you are called, just hang up. My husband was called on Wednesday from \"VISA\" and I was called in Thursday from \"MasterCard\". It worked like this: Person calling says, \"This is Carl Patterson (any name) and I'm calling from the Security and Fraud department at VISA. My Badge number is 12460. Your card has been flagged for an unusual purchase pattern, and I'm calling to verify. This would be on your VISA card issued by 5/3 bank. Did you purchase an Anti-Telemarketing Device for $497.99 from a marketing company based in Arizona?\" When you say \"No\". The caller continues with, \"Then we will be issuing a credit to your account. This is a company we have been watching and the charges range from $297 to $497, just under the $500 purchase pattern that flags most cards. Before your next statement, the credit will be sent to (gives you your address), is that correct?\" You say, \"Yes\". The caller continues ... \"I will be starting a fraud investigation. If you have any questions, you should call the 800 number listed on your card 1-800-VISA and ask for Security. you will need to refer to this Control #\". Then gives you a 6 digit number. \"Do you need me to read it again?\" Caller then says he \"needs to verify you are in possession of your card. Turn the card over. There are 7 numbers; first 4 are 1234 (whatever) the next 3 are the security numbers that verify you are in possession of the card. These are the numbers you use to make internet purchases to prove you have the card. Read me the 3 numbers.\" Then he says \"That is correct. I just needed toverify that the card has not been lost or stolen, and that you still have your card. Do you have any other questions? Don't hesitate to call back if you do.\" You actually say very little, and they never ask for or tell you the card number. But after we were called on Wednesday, we called back within 20 minutes to ask a question. Are we glad we did! The REAL VISA security dept. told us it was a scam and in the last 15 minutes a new purchase of $497.99 WAS put on our card. Long story made short ... we made a real fraud report and closed the VISA card and they are reissuing as a new number. What the scam wants is the 3 digit number and that once the charge goes through, they keep charging every few days. By the time you get your statement, you think the credit is coming, and then its harder to actually file a fraud report. The real VISA reinforced that they will never ask for anything on the card (they already know). What makes this more remarkable is that on Thursday, I got a call from \"Jason Richardson of MasterCard\" with a word for word repeat of the VISA Scam. This time I didn't let him finish. I hung up. We filed a police report (as instructed by VISA), and they said they are taking several of these reports daily and to tell friends, relatives and coworkers. Origins: There are five points we generally try to apply in evaluating warnings about possible criminal schemes or activities: 1) Is the phenomenon outlined in the warning technically possible as described? 2) Is the phenomenon outlined in the warning plausible? (That is, some criminal schemes are technically possible, but they're too difficult, cumbersome, or expensive to plausibly enact on anything more than a very limited basis.) 3) Are there any verifiable instances of people having been victimized in the manner described by the warning? 4) Is there evidence that the criminal activity described in the warning is widespread? 5) Is the criminal activity described in the warning something the average person might fall victim to? The scheme outlined in the message quoted above might be categorized as a \"social engineering\" scam a technique which preys upon people's unquestioning acceptance of authority and willingness to cooperate in order to extract from them sensitive information (such as computer passwords or credit card numbers). In this case the scammers' target data are the three-digit security codes found on the back of MasterCard and Visa cards. Just as the Internet and other technologies have greatly expanded the possibilities for making credit card purchases without the need to physically present a card to the seller, so have they created additional opportunities for identity thieves to make profitable use of purloined credit card numbers. After getting their hands on credit card numbers (often through such simple expedients as rummaging through trash to find discarded receipts or statements), crooks can then employ a variety of means (e.g., mail order, phone order, Internet purchases, posing as merchants) in order to obtain money and merchandise by charging against the cardholder's account even though the credit card itself remains snugly inside the cardholder's wallet. The victim may not even know anything is amiss until he receives his next statement in the mail several weeks later. Although safeguards have been enacted to catch most of these types of fraud, they're often defeated by a combination of lax security and clever crooks who know how to work around them. One of the those safeguards is the addition of three-digit security codes (known as CVC2 or CVV2 codes) to every MasterCard and Visa card, codes which are indent-printed in the signature panels on the backs of the cards but are not encoded in the magnetic stripes and do not print on sales receipts. Many vendors cannot process credit card transactions without obtaining these security codes from their customers, thereby ensuring that persons placing orders have physical possession of the cards being used (and haven't simply scammed the sixteen-digit account numbers imprinted on the front of cards somehow). Thus the scheme described above might be used by identity thieves who have managed to collect credit card numbers but need to obtain the associated security codes in order to process charges against the accounts. So, back to our five points: 1) Is this possible? Yes, it's possible that scammers might get hold of credit card numbers and then use the technique described above to obtain security codes and process phony transactions against the accounts. 2) Is this plausible? The scam as described above is not extraordinarily difficult or expensive to pull off; all it requires is access to a telephone and the establishment of a merchant account for processing credit card transactions. It also assumes the scammer already has the names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers (plus expiration dates) of his victims, but that information might be obtained in a variety of ways (such as breaking into and stealing customer data from merchant web sites). Whether the same scammer could process more than a handful of phony charges before complaints caused his merchant account to be shut down is problematic, though, and most credit card issuers now have checks in place to prevent the shipping of merchandise to anywhere other than the card's registered billing address and other \"card not present\" (CNP scams). CNP 3) Are there known instances of this occurring? We talked with a representative of MasterCard, who told us that although she couldn't verify the specific details of the message reproduced above, this type of scam does occur and isn't new; it's been going on ever since MasterCard started putting CVC2 security codes on all its cards back in 1997. (Visa did not add CVV2 codes on all their credit cards until 2001.) She also reiterated that MasterCard would not ask a cardholder to disclose security codes or provide any information verifying physical possession of a card; any such inquiries regarding security matters would come from the financial institution that issued the credit card, not from MasterCard itself. 4) Is this a widespread phenomenon? Unfortunately, neither MasterCard nor VISA would provide us with any statistics regarding the specific scam described here or confirm any actual instances of its occurrence (other than to note that using the telephone to trick cardholders into divulging their security codes is a type of fraud that has been occurring for several years and is ongoing). However, numerous readers have informed us they've received calls from persons identifying themselves as fraud investigation agents and asking for sensitive personal data, so (even allowing for the possibility that some of those calls were actually legitimate) we'd have to say anecdotal evidence indicates this scam is still being perpetrated, if only infrequently. 5) Is this something that might affect the average person? Yes, anyone who holds a credit card is a potential victim of this type of fraud. The best protection against these types of telephone schemes for obtaining sensitive credit card information is to always verify the identities of the people with whom you speak. If you have security questions or concerns about your credit card, call the financial institution who issued your card directly. If someone contacts you by phone about your credit card, ask the caller to provide his name, department, and extension, then hang up and call him back through the phone number listed on your credit card or billing statement. Additional information: Recognizing Credit Card Fraud (Consumer @ction) Last updated: 1 April 2015 ", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NdTjyQ2nj-knI7DZSaq03x-XJuMBcX07", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-5p5HiWTntPv3V0mXGM6elNC1T3pK6jn", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OkbwKdbrbqoJ4Dr6zGoT0KfnxXLKhUzN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "2) Is this plausible? The scam as described above is not extraordinarily difficult or expensive to pull off; all it requires is access to a telephone and the establishment of a merchant account for processing credit card transactions. It also assumes the scammer already has the names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers (plus expiration dates) of his victims, but that information might be obtained in a variety of ways (such as breaking into and stealing customer data from merchant web sites). Whether the same scammer could process more than a handful of phony charges before complaints caused his merchant account to be shut down is problematic, though, and most credit card issuers now have checks in place to prevent the shipping of merchandise to anywhere other than the card's registered billing address and other \"card not present\" (CNP scams).", "hrefs": [ "/crime/fraud/cnp.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Recognizing Credit Card Fraud (Consumer @ction)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.consumer-action.org/english/articles/recognizing_credit_card_fraud_english" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jfk-senate-frontrunner/", "claim": "Was JFK Jr. a U.S. Senate Frontrunner Before His 'Suspicious' Plane Crash?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "08/29/2016", "sci_digest": [ "John F. Kennedy Jr. was not a candidate in New York's U.S. Senate race before dying in a July 1999 plane crash, clearing the way for Hillary Clinton to win the seat." ], "justification": "John F. Kennedy Jr. was a popular public figure from his childhood until he died in a plane crash at the age of 38 in 1999. While there is never a shortage of conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedys, or for that matter, the Clintons, an unfounded rumor circulating in political circles during the 2016 presidential election claimed that John-John was on the cusp of a successful U.S. Senate bid until Hillary Clinton threw her hat in the ring with the insinuation that Kennedy was killed to clear the way for her candidacy: There is no evidence that Kennedy had definitively decided to stage a U.S. Senate run in 1999 in the face of Hillary Clinton's similar interest in the New York seat. Days after Kennedy's 16 July 1999 death, the New York Daily News ran a story quoting two unnamed friends of Kennedy's who stated that Kennedy had mulled over running for the seat about to be vacated by retiring Senator Daniel Moynihan but had already dropped the idea when Hillary Clinton also expressed interest in it: story Earlier this year, in one of the best-kept secrets in state politics, Kennedy considered seeking the seat of retiring Sen. Daniel Moynihan in 2000, friends confirmed. The idea became moot once First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton signaled her interest in running, but the two friends said they expected the son of the slain President eventually would have jumped into politics as a candidate. The friend who expected Kennedy to seek office in the \"foreseeable future\" also told of speaking with Kennedy earlier this year about the Moynihan seat. \"I asked him was he casually thinking about it, or was he serious. He sort of said, 'I'm not sure. Let me think about it. But the second friend called Kennedy's interest \"pretty serious,\" adding: \"I think he was intrigued by the idea ... Would he have decided in the end to go for it? I don't know. But he was clearly thinking about it. He talked to a few people about it. Then the Hillary thing ended it pretty quickly. Clinton won the Senate election on 7 November 2000, beating Republican Rick Lazio more than a year after Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 33, and his sister-in-law, Lauren G. Bessette, 34, in the crash of the single-engine plane he was flying to Martha's Vineyard. won The implication that the Clintons had somehow engineered the death of Kennedy Jr. to prevent him from challenging her in her first bid for elective office is contradicted by the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) report on the accident, which assigned the probable cause to pilot error: report The probable cause of the accident, as stated in the accident report, is: The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night. There was nothing suspicious about the circumstances of the crash. Kennedy was an inexperienced pilot, and he chose to take his plane up despite questionable weather that caused haze to obscure the view of the horizon. The New York Times reported in 2000 that one of his instructors had offered to accompany him on the flight, but he declined. Kennedy only had about 72 flying hours logged without an instructor at the time of the accident: reported Weather reports on the night of the crash July 16, 1999 cited haze or mist and visibility as low as four miles. Pilots who flew over the Cape Cod-Martha's Vineyard area that night reported serious haze; one told investigators he had flown over Martha's Vineyard and thought there was a power failure on the island, because he could not see any lights. It's not inconceivable that the Kennedy family at one time eyed the seat being vacated by Moynihan. JFK Jr.'s death seemed to put a final nail in the coffin of the Kennedy myth known as \"Camelot\" and the family's political star power, but a 25 July 1999 Washington Post article on the family's future political prospects suggested that his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who did not \"conveniently\" die), had been approached about entering the New York senatorial race: article But there are suggestions among liberal Democrats it is a fervent desire that [Joseph P. Kennedy II's] brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 45, might become a candidate. The environmental lawyer from the Hudson River Valley has some of the electricity of his martyred father, and has said in the past that he could be interested in being governor of New York. According to one Kennedy insider, leading Democrats unsuccessfully approached RFK Jr. to run for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. John Kennedy Jr. had won the nation's heart when at two years old he was seen on camera saluting his father's coffin during the nationally televised funeral procession after President Kennedy's November 1963 assassination. Nicknamed John-John, he grew up handsome and charismatic and was thus seen as a potential heir to the family's glory days of political influence and celebrity. While his death was untimely and no doubt a tragedy, it was ruled an accident. And though Kennedy may have been personally popular and polled well, it is misleading to describe him as a \"frontrunner\" in a Senate race in which he was never actually a candidate.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1i3plBuM5OlqSNjADfq4GumXKD02qXdEj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "There is no evidence that Kennedy had definitively decided to stage a U.S. Senate run in 1999 in the face of Hillary Clinton's similar interest in the New York seat. Days after Kennedy's 16 July 1999 death, the New York Daily News ran a story quoting two unnamed friends of Kennedy's who stated that Kennedy had mulled over running for the seat about to be vacated by retiring Senator Daniel Moynihan but had already dropped the idea when Hillary Clinton also expressed interest in it:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/jfk-jr-mulled-run-senate-2000-article-1.847866" ] }, { "sentence": "Clinton won the Senate election on 7 November 2000, beating Republican Rick Lazio more than a year after Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, 33, and his sister-in-law, Lauren G. Bessette, 34, in the crash of the single-engine plane he was flying to Martha's Vineyard.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.c-span.org/video/?160364-1/new-york-senatorial-election" ] }, { "sentence": "The implication that the Clintons had somehow engineered the death of Kennedy Jr. to prevent him from challenging her in her first bid for elective office is contradicted by the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) report on the accident, which assigned the probable cause to pilot error:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NTSB_NTSB_releases_final_report_on_investigation_of_crash_of_aircraft_piloted_by_John_F._Kennedy_Jr.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "There was nothing suspicious about the circumstances of the crash. Kennedy was an inexperienced pilot, and he chose to take his plane up despite questionable weather that caused haze to obscure the view of the horizon. The New York Times reported in 2000 that one of his instructors had offered to accompany him on the flight, but he declined. Kennedy only had about 72 flying hours logged without an instructor at the time of the accident:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/07/nyregion/safety-board-blames-pilot-error-in-crash-of-kennedy-plane.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It's not inconceivable that the Kennedy family at one time eyed the seat being vacated by Moynihan. JFK Jr.'s death seemed to put a final nail in the coffin of the Kennedy myth known as \"Camelot\" and the family's political star power, but a 25 July 1999 Washington Post article on the family's future political prospects suggested that his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who did not \"conveniently\" die), had been approached about entering the New York senatorial race:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/jfkjr/stories/kennedy072599.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cedar-point-coupon-scam/", "claim": "Deceptive Scheme Involving Complimentary Cedar Point Tickets", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "07/11/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Cedar Point amusement park warned Facebook users that a digital coupon for free tickets was a scam." ], "justification": "In July 2019, Facebook users began encountering posts offering four free tickets to the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, billed as \"The Roller Coaster Capital of the World,\" in honor of the park's supposed 50th anniversary: Cedar Point (which has actually been operating since 1870 and thus is far more than 50 years old) is not offering free digital ticket vouchers via social media, however -- such posts were just another iteration of the Company Anniversary Free Product Scams that have plagued the internet for years. Company Anniversary Free Product Scams The company's official Facebook page posted a warning to let customers know the free ticket offer was a scam and that any legitimate \"promotions from Cedar Point will be posted through our official social channels or a reputable partner\": A Better Business Bureauarticle provides customers tips about avoiding survey and coupon scams operating in this fashion: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. ", "issues": [ "banking" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PEIzLp_yLfvXURwMeOV1S0SvmMIZbHVg" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Cedar Point (which has actually been operating since 1870 and thus is far more than 50 years old) is not offering free digital ticket vouchers via social media, however -- such posts were just another iteration of the Company Anniversary Free Product Scams that have plagued the internet for years.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/company-anniversary-free-product-scam/" ] }, { "sentence": "A Better Business Bureauarticle provides customers tips about avoiding survey and coupon scams operating in this fashion:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/indy/news-events/news-releases/2016/07/survey-scams/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobodys-fuel/", "claim": "Innovative Carburiser of Miracles", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "12/07/1999", "sci_digest": [ "A miraculous car that gets 200 miles to the gallon is sold by mistake then reclaimed by the factory and is never seen again." ], "justification": " Claim: A miraculous car that gets 200 miles to the gallon is sold by mistake then reclaimed by the factory and is never seen again. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 1999] A retiring General Motors employee, after many years of service, receives a car as a retirement gift. (as well as a nice pension, etc.). So he is given permission to select a car from the lot there at the factory. He selects a Chevrolet Caprice, a big, luxury car. After receiving it, he is satisfied with his choice. After all, who wouldn't enjoy driving around in a roomy, comfortable car. After driving it for a while, he noticed something quite odd ... a car like this usually consumes a substantial amount of fuel, but the gas gauge hardly moves at all. After a few weeks, he gets suspicious. Things like this don't happen. Being the company man he is, he returns it to the factory. Explaining this to the service tech must've caused some strange looks, but they took it in anyway. After he got his car back, he noticed it got the typical gas mileage of a comparable car. Could've this car had some secret \"modifications\" that allowed him to drive for weeks, on the same tank of gas? Detroit's automakers have purportedly seized, er.. bought out patents of items that improve gasoline mileage like the 100 mpg carburetor, etc. Maybe the R&D department at GM put this theory to practice, and this was an example. [Collected via e-mail, 1997] A couple journeys from Western Canada to Detroit to buy a new car and presumably save shipping costs while having a vacation in the States at the same time. Driving back to the prairies, they find to their astonishment that the gas gauge is not moving down to \"empty\" even though they've been driving for hours. Arriving home some thousands of miles away from Detroit, they have only refilled the tank once or twice. A few days after returning, the husband looks out at his driveway in the morning to find two mysterious men tinkering with his car (the hood is up). Running out, they race off; he checks under the hood, finds nothing amiss, and concludes it's just vandals or would-be thieves whom he was fortunate to apprehend before any damage was done. BUT, when they drive the car, they find their gas mileage is now normal. Variations: The miraculous car legend ends one of four ways: Mysterious men appear and tinker with the engine, rendering the car no different than any other. The car is reclaimed by the factory. If the owner afterwards gets the same car back (sometimes it's replaced outright with another vehicle), it now gets ordinary gas mileage. No-nonsense business types show up to make a fabulous offer for the car, which is accepted. The owner wakes up one morning to find the car vanished without a trace. Origins: The legend of the miracle high-mileage automobile has been around longer than most of our readers, with a version set it Philadelphia having appeared in a 1948 newspaper. (Even at that time, the story proved unverifiable, with the article's writer identifying it as such and passing it along only as an example of a current rumor sweeping through the community.) Since that early sighting of more than half a century ago, the legend has gone on to enthrall audience after audience as each couple of years sees it pop up anew. Its origins are as strange as the story itself. Between 1928 and 1935, Charles Nelson Pogue, an inventor from Canada, applied for numerous patents for what he claimed was a new type of carburetor that supposedly completely vaporized gasoline before introducing it to the cylinders, thereby extracting a great deal more energy from the fuel. According to the Pogue patent description, fuel was introduced into the engine in this vaporous \"dry\" state rather than in the normal droplet-laden \"wet\" state, thus combining more readily with air, making it burn with far greater efficiency. Better combustion combined with the raising of the engine's operating temperature from 160F to 180F were said to be responsible for vastly improved fuel economy. So much for the techno-talk. The Pogue carburetor was touted as getting 200+ miles to the gallon. Glowing reports about this miracle of ingenuity's making a 1,879 mile trip on 14.5 gallons appeared in the May 1936 issue of Canadian AutomotiveTrade magazine, reports which Pogue later denied. A manager of a Winnipeg auto dealership claimed he had driven a Pogue-equipped car 217 miles on a gallon of gasoline. A different dealer principal claimed to have driven 26 miles on a pint of fuel. The story snowballed onward from those breathless testimonials as one rumor quickly followed on the heels of another. Thieves were reputed to have broken into Pogue's shop and made off with three of his carburetors. There was talk of armed guards and wolfhounds guarding the shop and the now-famous inventor. Wealthy backers (from Winnipeg or Toronto, depending on whom you heard the story from) were rumored to be bankrolling Pogue, but the arrangements mysteriously fell through. Ford of Canada was said to have bought the invention outright. All in all it was a very exciting time. Alas, one can get by on mere smoke and mirrors for only so long. Those with sense enough to not be deafened by the hyperbole were not long kept at bay with tales of wolfhounds, thieves, and mysterious briefcase-toting moneymen. They wanted to see the carburetor. That, of course, was never permitted. No one reputable was allowed to see the mechanical miracle in action, let alone have a chance to measure its results. After the initial excitement over Pogue's 1936 announcement had faded, more serious types began to openly doubt that the carburetor would work as described. In the December 1936 issue of Automotive Industries magazine, its engineering editor, P.M. Heldt, said of a sketch of the Pogue carburetor: \"The sketch fails to show any features hitherto unknown in carburetor practice, and absolutely gives no warrant for crediting the remarkable results claimed.\" Other journalists were beginning to voice similar opinions. In response to calls to put up or shut up, Pogue's miracle carburetor was heard of no more. Faced with the choice of believing someone had made claims his invention couldn't later live up to or that a monied bad guy had bought up a technology to forever keep it off the market, at least some chose to believe the suppression theory. That the carburetor never made it to the public, they said, was proof enough of its existence. Those 1930s news stories breathlessly trumpeting Pogue's miracle of technology form the basis of the economical carburetor legend now before us. As gas prices fluctuate, our dependence on fossil fuels is driven home time and again. Who wouldn't long for a miracle of engineering that would free us from the tyranny of the gas pump? And thus the groundwork for belief is laid. As sometimes happens in the world of urban legends, desire for something to be true transforms a rumor into certainty that this very thing is fact. Over the years, our legend about a 200 mpg car has bobbed to the surface in community after community, been debunked in numerous respected publications, and bobbed right back up in the wake of those debunkings. The need to believe in this wondrous technology and the evil car manufacturers who are deliberately withholding it from the market appears too strong to combat. A bit of rational thought should be all that's needed to lay this legend to rest. Why would the car manufacturers at all care about keeping such a technological advance away from consumers? Unlike the petroleum companies, they've no vested interest in how much fuel a car uses. An automaker's self interest is best served by getting the newest irresistible technology to the consumer before his competitors do. If any one of them possessed the secret of the 200 mpg car, he'd have rushed it into production, hoping to beat his competitors to the punch. Those who are tempted to believe the Evil Government is responsible for keeping this miracle out of our hands should reflect for a moment on the current state of world politics. The government of the United States would like nothing better than to throw off the yoke of dependence upon foreign oil. A miraculous carburetor would grant that freedom, allowing Americans to continue to enjoy current levels of use without the need to go hat in hand to OPEC or even those dastardly Canadians. The domestic supply would be more than enough. Though rarely is this tale told about anything other than a gas-miserly carburetor, this version describes a miraculous lightbulb: It was around 1920, shortly after he had married, when the old man originally purchased the light bulb from a small store in town. It appeared to be a normal light bulb. However, when after sixty years it was still going strong, he decided to write to the manufacturers and tell them of this remarkable phenomenon. By return a reply came from the company indicating that they were very interested in the bulb and would like to send someone to see it. Eventually, one of the directors of the firm called and, instead of just showing interest, offered to buy it for 1,000. The old man, of course, refused, as the light bulb had given him good service. However, his curiousity was certainly aroused why so much money for his light bulb? The director could provide no plausible explanation as to why they were willing to offer so much for the bulb, so the old man decided to explore this mystery further. With the help of a solicitor friend he did a little investigating and discovered that in the 1920s this particular light-bulb manufacturer had bought and tested the patent for an everlasting bulb. Only a few of these bulbs were made and the company, finding the invention worked, destroyed the bulbs and suppressed the idea after all, it would have put them out of business. Unknown to the company one of the lights had accidentally become mixed up with a batch of ordinary bulbs and this was the light bulb which had lit the old man's kitchen for the past sixty years. (Sometimes lore collides with reality: A long-lived light bulb has been burning since 1901 and currently lights a fire station in Livermore, California.) light bulb Barbara \"gasoline allied\" Mikkelson Origins: The legend about the need to suppress the steam-driven carburetor that can produce 200 mpg to protect the oil industry surfaces in an episode of the TV series Spoils of Babylon (\"The Foundling: The War Within; original air date 9 January 2014). Last updated: 26 June 2014 The Mexican Pet Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 175-178). The Vanishing Hitchhiker Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 114-115). The Tumour in the Whale Dorson, Richard. American Folklore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959 (p. 253). American Folklore Ellis, William and Alan E. Mays. \"Art Linkletter and the Contemporary Legend.\" FOAFTale News. June 1994 (pp. 1-10). Morgan, Hal and Kerry Tucker. Rumor! New York: Penguin Books, 1984. ISBN 0-14-007036-2 (pp. 123-125). Rumor! Smith, Paul. The Book of Nasty Legends. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. ISBN 0-00-636856-5 (pp. 9, 67). The Book of Nasty Legends Vance, Bill. \"Was Winnipeg Inventor Victim of Oil Barons?\" The Toronto Star. 17 April 1993 (p. H2). The Complete and Totally Book of Urban Legends Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (pp. 85, 106). Spiders in the Hairdo The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 22). The Big Book of Urban Legends", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1TsF0zPbJWnbR4I1zb38zGDSXZt3gyzdH" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16RRioMl_Chwx1loLVUPyoJ7y2IQPnBej" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "(Sometimes lore collides with reality: A long-lived light bulb has been burning since 1901 and currently lights a fire station in Livermore, California.)", "hrefs": [ "/science/lightbulb.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 175-178).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393951693?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393951693" ] }, { "sentence": " Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 114-115).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0715613146?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0715613146" ] }, { "sentence": " Dorson, Richard. American Folklore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959 (p. 253).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226158594?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0226158594" ] }, { "sentence": " Morgan, Hal and Kerry Tucker. Rumor! New York: Penguin Books, 1984. ISBN 0-14-007036-2 (pp. 123-125). ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140070362?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0140070362" ] }, { "sentence": " Smith, Paul. The Book of Nasty Legends. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. ISBN 0-00-636856-5 (pp. 9, 67). ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0710201400?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0710201400" ] }, { "sentence": " Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (pp. 85, 106).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874835259?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0874835259" ] }, { "sentence": " The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 22).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1563891654?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1563891654" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-lyme-disease/", "claim": "Did Sarah Palin Say People with Lyme Disease Should Stop Eating Limes?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "05/08/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Proposed changes to health care laws revived an old meme attributing a phony quote about Lyme disease to Sarah Palin." ], "justification": "In May 2017, the Affordable Care Act (more popularly known as Obamacare) returned to the news thanks to a Congressional vote to attempt to change the health insurance law. Those developments resurrected a meme that attributed the following quote to former Alaska governor and one-time vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin: news Obamacare has already made people less responsible for their own health. Like, if you don't want limes disease, then don't eat so many limes. Is that so tough? Although the precise origin of the meme was not immediately apparent, we were able to find that it was published at least as early as June 2014 by Facebook pages such as Republican BS and FreeDumb Nation: Republican BS FreeDumb Nation The meme bears a faint watermark, which is difficult to spot (it's located at the mid-to-lower right hand corner or the image) but is associated with the satire page Christians for Michele Bachmann. Christians for Michele Bachmann The same watermark can be more clearly seen on another image created by the same satirical Facebook page (original background art credited to @the_pizzacat on Instagram): @the_pizzacat on Instagram Nothing that comes from this page is intended to be taken seriously including the quote attributed to Palin.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1AgRa_ogzRk4J_pMemrVoGHoQT1SU0NUR", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NeL54g19okfZk53cUIrERJUrgl01m9xj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In May 2017, the Affordable Care Act (more popularly known as Obamacare) returned to the news thanks to a Congressional vote to attempt to change the health insurance law. Those developments resurrected a meme that attributed the following quote to former Alaska governor and one-time vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/health-care-determine-progress-agenda" ] }, { "sentence": "Although the precise origin of the meme was not immediately apparent, we were able to find that it was published at least as early as June 2014 by Facebook pages such as Republican BS and FreeDumb Nation:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/144062462452221/photos/a.144068529118281.1073741828.144062462452221/264151663776633/?type=3&theater", "https://www.facebook.com/510402215656914/photos/a.523051701058632.123701.510402215656914/790306964333103/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "The meme bears a faint watermark, which is difficult to spot (it's located at the mid-to-lower right hand corner or the image) but is associated with the satire page Christians for Michele Bachmann. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/dinobones.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "The same watermark can be more clearly seen on another image created by the same satirical Facebook page (original background art credited to @the_pizzacat on Instagram):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/the_pizzacat/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/red-lobster-closing/", "claim": "Red Lobster Closing?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "12/31/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Is the Red Lobster chain about to close its doors and go out of business for good?" ], "justification": " Claim: The Red Lobster chain is about to close its doors and go out of business for good. Example: [Collected via Facebook, December 2013] Is Red Lobster closing? Origins: Red Lobster is the ubiquitous casual dining restaurant chain operated by Darden Restaurants of Orlando, Florida, which boasts over seven hundred outlets worldwide, including (in addition to the United States) operations in Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Japan. In September 2013, the Darden Restaurants corporation (which also owns the Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Capital Grille and Seasons 52 restaurant chains) reported disappointing financial results, including a 37.6% decrease in earnings per share and a $41 million drop in net earnings. A fair chunk of those disappointing financial results were attributed to the poor performance of the Red Lobster chain, which saw a 5.2% decline in sales relative to the same quarter of the previous year, and a 3.8% decline in same-restaurant traffic. These results prompted Darden, under pressure from investors, to announce in mid-December 2013 that they planned to separate themselves from the Red Lobster chain by selling it or spinning it off as a separate company: Under pressure from an activist hedge fund, Darden announced that it would dispose of the chain that gave it life Red Lobster as one of several steps meant to bolster its stock price. The company plans to shed Red Lobster through a tax-free spinoff to shareholders, but would be interested in a sale if it could raise more money. Darden's plan follows months of questions and pressure from investors and analysts over how it planned to bring back consumers after the recession. Darden is one of the biggest companies in the casual dining industry, with a market value of $6.7 billion, but its core chains have had stagnant growth. Though Red Lobster served as the basis for the Darden empire, it has become less important to the company over time. Members of the management team said that they expected same-restaurant sales for the chain to fall 4 to 5 percent this year. Separating the low-growth brand would let its new management team focus on running the company for its significant cash flows, while letting the rest of the company focus on its other brands' needs, including different marketing and pricing strategies. This announcement about Red Lobster's future was interpreted by some casual news consumers as meaning that the Red Lobster chain would imminently be going out of business, but a Darden spokesman quickly moved to quell such rumors: The Red Lobster restaurant chain brushed aside reports that it will be closing its doors. Rich Jeffers, a spokesman for Darden Restaurants Inc., which owns the chain, said the rumor may have started after the website LA Weekly published a story that the company faced an \"uncertain future.\" A torrent of tweets and other online media followed with reports that the chain was closing. \"We are not closing any restaurants,\" Jeffers [said]. The confusion may also be linked to Darden's announcement that it plans to sell or spin off the Red Lobster chain into a separate company. Several months later, in May 2014, Darden Restaurants announced that they had agreed to sell the Red Lobster chain to Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 billion: Darden Restaurants announced that private equity firm Golden Gate Capital has agreed to buy seafood chain Red Lobster for $2.1 billion in cash. In December [2013] the restaurant group revealed plans to release its oldest but worst performing segment into the wild. The initial plan was to create two independent companies, but after considering a number of structures ranging from selling to a strategic partner to giving up the real estate assets while holding onto the brand Darden concluded the Golden Gate deal would create the most value, the company said in a statement. Nonetheless, as The Motley Fool warned back in December 2013, Darden's shedding of Red Lobster could still possibly sound a death knell for the chain: The Motley Fool It's not so much that Red Lobster is a damaged brand, but rather that its results reflect all too closely the trends seen all across the casual-dining sector. Releasing it back into the wild on its own may only cause the restaurant chain to fail. It's clear Red Lobster can't compete on its own yet, and until it can find a way to bring diners back to the restaurant, it would be foolhardy to cast it off. It's possible that economic circumstances may lead to the closure of some Red Lobster outlets in upcoming years, or even the eventual demise of the chain itself. But those possibilities are currently only speculative and uncertain; there's no definitive reason to expect that the entire chain will be closing its doors anytime soon. Last updated: 16 May 2014 Kim, Susanna. \"Red Lobster Says It's Not Closing Its 705 Restaurants.\" ABC News. 27 December 2013. McGrath, Maggie. \"Red Lobster and Olive Garden Drag Darden Lower.\" Forbes. 20 September 2013. Sharf, Samantha. \"Red Lobster Caught by Golden Gate Capital for $2.1 Billion.\" Forbes. 16 May 2014.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=136S55S1Qn1w--0x89QdyQ7KqYomVk5-a", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Nonetheless, as The Motley Fool warned back in December 2013, Darden's shedding of Red Lobster could still possibly sound a death knell for the chain:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/12/30/the-sharks-are-circling-red-lobster.aspx" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/sep/28/ron-johnson/sen-ron-johnson-says-deficits-under-obama-total-53/", "claim": "Deficit spending exploded during the Obama administration to $5.3 trillion over four years, compared to $2 trillion in eight years under President George W. Bush.", "author": "Dave Umhoefer", "posted": "09/28/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Remember those nerdychartsthat Ross Perot flashed during his third-party run for president in 1992?The Texas billionaires visual aids warned of the perils of Americas mounting government debt.Twenty years later, Wisconsins junior U.S. Senator, RepublicanRon Johnson, is taking a page from Perot as he acts as a surrogate for Mitt Romney and advocates for a spending slowdown.Explaining one of hisdigital chartsduring a Sept. 11, 2012 campaign stop in Sheboygan, Johnson ripped Obama forsayinghis administrations proposedBuffett ruletax plan for million-dollar earners would stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.I havent yet publicly called President Obama a liar, Johnsontold his audience. But Im saying he lies. Slight diplomatic difference.Johnson said the Buffett rule would raise just $5 billion a year. Hes right, as PolitiFact Ohio found in ratingTruea claim by Sen. Rob Portman that it would bring in less than $5 billion per year. ... Enough to pay one weeks interest on the national debt.Johnsons presentation uses a chart to contrast the Buffett Rules revenue potential to the deficits accumulated under Obama (2009-2012) and over the two terms of his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush (2001-2008).The chart shows deficits totalling $2 trillion in eight years under Bush, and $5.3 trillion under Obama in just four years. A caption on the chart says those deficits exploded during the Obama administration.Is Johnson right on the deficit numbers and their rapid growth?As backup, Johnsons campaign cited numbers from the White HousesOffice of Management and Budget.The figures show red-ink budgets in seven of eight years that coincide with Bushs term. The annual deficits totalled $820 billion in his first term and nearly $1.2 trillion in his second.Add them up and theres the $2 trillion figure cited by Johnson.That same White House table shows four years of deficits for 2009-12, the time frame that coincides with the Obama era, ranging from $1.29 trillion to $1.4 trillion. The total, including estimated figures for 2012, is $5.33 trillion.Thats nearly triple the Bush deficit figure, in half the time.It seems simple, with the numbers and the trend matching up with Perots, er, Johnsons chart.We wish it were that simple.But there is considerable disagreement in academic and political circles over how to assign responsibility to presidents for spending and deficits.Using the same table and a slightly different approach can put a somewhat different spin on the trend line -- though we found no scenario under which the Bush-era deficits top those under Obama.Heres why.The big question any researcher faces is when to start and end the clock when looking at spending and deficit by presidents.It would be tidy to start the clock on Inauguration Day, but the federal budget year begins Oct. 1. That means an incoming president inherits a budget-in-progress from his predecessor, though he often makes changes.That timing mismatch makes a pretty big difference, for example, in pinning deficit numbers on Bush and Obama.To wit: Democrat Bill Clintons last budget, for fiscal 2001, resulted in a surplus of $128 billion -- the last black-ink budget on record. But Johnson attributed that surplus to Bush, who entered office Jan. 20, 2001. Johnson argues that once elected the budget can be changed by the new president.Similarly, on the back end of the Bush years, Johnson gives the eye-popping 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion all to Obama -- even though Obama was working with Bushs last budget, which took effect in October 2008, during the final months of Bushs second term.That methodology becomes even more important when you consider that just before Bush left office, the deficit for fiscal year 2009 already was projected to be $1.2 trillion, according to the scorekeeping agency for Congress, as reported byPolitiFact.So, Johnson attributes the 2009 deficit entirely to Obama even though much it was already anticipated before the Democrats inauguration. (By the end of the 2009 fiscal year, the deficit rose to $1.4 trillion in part due to Obamas economic stimulus plan).What about Johnsons methodology?We asked three experts who closely follow the budget, and each said there is no consensus on how to attribute the overlapping budget years.Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said apportioning responsibility is really tricky.Looking at what has happened -- budget deficit-wise -- during the Bush and the Obama presidencies doesnt tell the whole picture because of the differences of the fiscal year and impacts of policies that were enacted prior to either of them assuming office, Ellis wrote in an email.Still, Ellis said he considered Johnsons numbers correct even if the presentation was simplistic.Whats more, there are some extra complicating factors unique to the Bush-Obama changeover, such as how best to parcel out the deficit blame for such things as Bushs major tax cuts and Obamas more modest tax trims, two wars that overlap their presidencies, two recessions, a Wall Street bailout that each supported, and major new programs under each (Medicare prescription drugs, stimulus).The Great Recession of 2007-2009, which fueled deficits when tax collections fell, also overlapped the two presidencies.Jason Peuquet, research director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Johnsons numbers were defensible. He suggested looking at theincrease in debt-- as opposed to deficits -- because it can be tracked to the day a president starts and ends a term.By that measure, we found a $4.9 trillion increase in gross public debt in Bushs two terms vs. $5.4 trillion so far in Obamas single term.Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said there is no good answer to your question that is going to satisfy everyone.Our ratingJohnsons chart showed $2 trillion in deficits under Bush and $5.3 trillion under Obama, and concluded that deficits exploded during the Obama administration.The numbers check out, but comparing presidents budget records is not as simple as Johnsons chart suggests. For instance, Bush owns some debatable piece of the Obama deficits.We rate Johnsons claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Debt", "Deficit", "Federal Budget", "Taxes", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Remember those nerdychartsthat Ross Perot flashed during his third-party run for president in 1992?The Texas billionaires visual aids warned of the perils of Americas mounting government debt.Twenty years later, Wisconsins junior U.S. Senator, RepublicanRon Johnson, is taking a page from Perot as he acts as a surrogate for Mitt Romney and advocates for a spending slowdown.Explaining one of hisdigital chartsduring a Sept. 11, 2012 campaign stop in Sheboygan, Johnson ripped Obama forsayinghis administrations proposedBuffett ruletax plan for million-dollar earners would stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.I havent yet publicly called President Obama a liar, Johnsontold his audience. But Im saying he lies. Slight diplomatic difference.Johnson said the Buffett rule would raise just $5 billion a year. Hes right, as PolitiFact Ohio found in ratingTruea claim by Sen. Rob Portman that it would bring in less than $5 billion per year. ... Enough to pay one weeks interest on the national debt.Johnsons presentation uses a chart to contrast the Buffett Rules revenue potential to the deficits accumulated under Obama (2009-2012) and over the two terms of his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush (2001-2008).The chart shows deficits totalling $2 trillion in eight years under Bush, and $5.3 trillion under Obama in just four years. A caption on the chart says those deficits exploded during the Obama administration.Is Johnson right on the deficit numbers and their rapid growth?As backup, Johnsons campaign cited numbers from the White HousesOffice of Management and Budget.The figures show red-ink budgets in seven of eight years that coincide with Bushs term. The annual deficits totalled $820 billion in his first term and nearly $1.2 trillion in his second.Add them up and theres the $2 trillion figure cited by Johnson.That same White House table shows four years of deficits for 2009-12, the time frame that coincides with the Obama era, ranging from $1.29 trillion to $1.4 trillion. The total, including estimated figures for 2012, is $5.33 trillion.Thats nearly triple the Bush deficit figure, in half the time.It seems simple, with the numbers and the trend matching up with Perots, er, Johnsons chart.We wish it were that simple.But there is considerable disagreement in academic and political circles over how to assign responsibility to presidents for spending and deficits.Using the same table and a slightly different approach can put a somewhat different spin on the trend line -- though we found no scenario under which the Bush-era deficits top those under Obama.Heres why.The big question any researcher faces is when to start and end the clock when looking at spending and deficit by presidents.It would be tidy to start the clock on Inauguration Day, but the federal budget year begins Oct. 1. That means an incoming president inherits a budget-in-progress from his predecessor, though he often makes changes.That timing mismatch makes a pretty big difference, for example, in pinning deficit numbers on Bush and Obama.To wit: Democrat Bill Clintons last budget, for fiscal 2001, resulted in a surplus of $128 billion -- the last black-ink budget on record. But Johnson attributed that surplus to Bush, who entered office Jan. 20, 2001. Johnson argues that once elected the budget can be changed by the new president.Similarly, on the back end of the Bush years, Johnson gives the eye-popping 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion all to Obama -- even though Obama was working with Bushs last budget, which took effect in October 2008, during the final months of Bushs second term.That methodology becomes even more important when you consider that just before Bush left office, the deficit for fiscal year 2009 already was projected to be $1.2 trillion, according to the scorekeeping agency for Congress, as reported byPolitiFact.So, Johnson attributes the 2009 deficit entirely to Obama even though much it was already anticipated before the Democrats inauguration. (By the end of the 2009 fiscal year, the deficit rose to $1.4 trillion in part due to Obamas economic stimulus plan).What about Johnsons methodology?We asked three experts who closely follow the budget, and each said there is no consensus on how to attribute the overlapping budget years.Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said apportioning responsibility is really tricky.Looking at what has happened -- budget deficit-wise -- during the Bush and the Obama presidencies doesnt tell the whole picture because of the differences of the fiscal year and impacts of policies that were enacted prior to either of them assuming office, Ellis wrote in an email.Still, Ellis said he considered Johnsons numbers correct even if the presentation was simplistic.Whats more, there are some extra complicating factors unique to the Bush-Obama changeover, such as how best to parcel out the deficit blame for such things as Bushs major tax cuts and Obamas more modest tax trims, two wars that overlap their presidencies, two recessions, a Wall Street bailout that each supported, and major new programs under each (Medicare prescription drugs, stimulus).The Great Recession of 2007-2009, which fueled deficits when tax collections fell, also overlapped the two presidencies.Jason Peuquet, research director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Johnsons numbers were defensible. He suggested looking at theincrease in debt-- as opposed to deficits -- because it can be tracked to the day a president starts and ends a term.By that measure, we found a $4.9 trillion increase in gross public debt in Bushs two terms vs. $5.4 trillion so far in Obamas single term.Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said there is no good answer to your question that is going to satisfy everyone.Our ratingJohnsons chart showed $2 trillion in deficits under Bush and $5.3 trillion under Obama, and concluded that deficits exploded during the Obama administration.The numbers check out, but comparing presidents budget records is not as simple as Johnsons chart suggests. For instance, Bush owns some debatable piece of the Obama deficits.We rate Johnsons claim Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/search?q=ross+perot+charts&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=5J7&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=0F5bULmjFabU2AWshYHIDw&ved=0CCAQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=612" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/savings-bonds-refunds/", "claim": "Income Tax Refunds Issued as Savings Bonds", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/26/2010", "sci_digest": [ "Will all U.S. federal income tax refunds paid in 2010 will be issued in the form of U.S. savings bonds?" ], "justification": "Claim: By default, all U.S. federal income tax refunds paid in 2010 will be issued in the form of U.S. savings bonds. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, January 2010] Please be aware that when filing your income taxes for 2009 earnings, the IRS has decided that all refunds due clients will be paid in US Savings Bonds unless you choose to \"opt out\". So watch carefully and find the area on the forms or inform your preparer of your intentions regarding this. I would think that MOST PEOPLE would not want to receive savings bonds as opposed to a refund check in the event of a refund comingto them. Origins: Income taxes are a subject of near universal agreement: Nobody likes paying them, nearly everyone thinks they're too high, and many folks are disgruntled that they have to pay their taxes in advance (through payroll withholding) and wait until the following year for the government to refund any overage. To most, it would be adding insult to injury if, as suggested above, the government stopped issuing income tax refunds in cash (via check or direct deposit) and instead started paying them out in the form of U.S. savings bonds (especially since savings bonds generally cannot be redeemed for their full value until the purchaser has held them for one year). However, the described refund switch isn't happening this year; someone has misinterpreted the introduction of a new option as a system-wide change to be imposed on everyone by default. In his weekly radio address of 5 September 2009, President Obama announced new initiatives for retirement savings, one of which was the following: radio We'll make it easier for people to save their federal tax refunds, which 100 million families receive. Today, if you have a retirement account, you can have your refund deposited directly into your account. With this change, we'll make it easier for those without retirement plans to save their refunds as well. You'll be able to check a box on your tax return to receive your refund as a savings bond. But taxpayer participation in the described initiative isn't a mandatory or default plan, and (for now, at least) it isn't as simple as \"checking a box on your tax return.\" For refunds to be issued in 2010, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has implemented a program under which taxpayers may opt to receive part or all of their refunds (up to $5,000) in the form of U.S. Treasury Bonds. This program is described in the \"Buying Savings Bonds\" section of the IRS' informational page entitled \"Taxpayers Can Now Use Refunds to Buy Savings Bonds\": program page This year, a taxpayer for the first time can request a portion of his refund be used to buy up to $5,000 in low-risk, liquid Treasury I Bonds, which earn interest and protect owners against inflation. The resulting bonds will be issued in the taxpayer's name. If the refund is a joint refund, the bonds will be issued in the names of both taxpayers. No beneficiary may be selected. The taxpayer need not have a TreasuryDirect account to purchase I Bonds using this option. You can buy Savings Bonds in denominations of $50, $100, $200, $500 and $1,000. You buy them at face value, meaning if you pay $50 using your refund, you get a $50 Savings Bond. In any single calendar year, you can buy up to a total of $5,000 of U.S. savings bonds of any series whether using your refund or some other method. If you buy $250 or less of Savings Bonds with your refund, then $50 Savings Bonds will be issued. If the amount is over $250, then $50 Savings Bonds will be issued up to $250 and the fewest possible additional Savings Bonds will be issued for the remaining amount. Follow the instructions on Form 8888 to tell the IRS to make a direct deposit of the amount you designate to an IRA, to buy U.S. savings bonds, or to a savings account or other savings vehicle. As noted in that description, the program for receiving refunds via savings bonds is an option taxpayers can request to participate in; not a default applied to everyone except those who specifically take action to opt out of it. Taxpayers who wish to take part in this new program must proactively indicate their desire to do so by filling out and submitting IRS Form 8888 with their returns. Form 8888 Additional changes may be coming in future years, but taxpayers filing federal income tax returns in 2010 for income earned in 2009 need not \"watch carefully\" to avoid receiving their refunds as savings bonds. Last updated: 26 January 2010 Liberto, Jennifer. \"Obama to Workers: We'll Help You Save.\" CNNMoney.com. 5 September 2009. Nicklaus, David. \"How to Promote Savings? The Humble Savings Bond Is Part of the Answer.\" St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 9 September 2009. Rosato, Donna. \"Help Consumers Save More of Their Dough.\" Money. January 2010. Tompor, Susan. \"Put Away Debt, Put Money Into Savings.\" Detroit Free Press. 7 January 2010. Trumbull, Mark. \"Uncle Sam Wants You to Save More Money.\" The Christian Science Monitor. 5 September 2009.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In his weekly radio address of 5 September 2009, President Obama announced new initiatives for retirement savings, one of which was the following:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Weekly-Address-President-Obama-Announces-New-Initiatives-for-Retirement-Savings/" ] }, { "sentence": "But taxpayer participation in the described initiative isn't a mandatory or default plan, and (for now, at least) it isn't as simple as \"checking a box on your tax return.\" For refunds to be issued in 2010, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has implemented a program under which taxpayers may opt to receive part or all of their refunds (up to $5,000) in the form of U.S. Treasury Bonds. This program is described in the \"Buying Savings Bonds\" section of the IRS' informational page entitled \"Taxpayers Can Now Use Refunds to Buy Savings Bonds\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=217868,00.html", "https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=217791,00.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As noted in that description, the program for receiving refunds via savings bonds is an option taxpayers can request to participate in; not a default applied to everyone except those who specifically take action to opt out of it. Taxpayers who wish to take part in this new program must proactively indicate their desire to do so by filling out and submitting IRS Form 8888 with their returns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8888.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/sep/25/jennifer-shilling/sen-jennifer-shilling-says-closed-voucher-school-r/", "claim": "A voucher school that closed after 9 days this year collected $5.4 million in taxpayer subsidies since first opening.", "author": "James B. Nelson", "posted": "09/25/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Less than two weeks into the 2015-16 school year, Milwaukee voucher school Daughters of the Father Christian Academy closed its doors, sending the families of about 150 kids on a scramble to find a new school. In the wake of the closing -- triggered by a state Department of Public Instruction order questioning the qualifications of school administrators -- Democratic opponents of vouchers cited it as evidence that the program needed better oversight. Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) tweeted: GOP voucher school that closed after 9 days this year collected $5.4 million in taxpayer subsidies since first opening. Is she right? About the program Voucher schools are private schools, usually religiously affiliated, that receive taxpayer dollars to pay for the tuition of lower-income students. As part of the 2015-17 state budget, the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker raised the limit on how many students statewide can participate in the program. The program, which began in Milwaukee, had been extended statewide two years earlier. About 26,900 Milwaukee students are enrolled in voucher schools, according to the Department of Public Instruction and the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. In addition, there are about 1,700 students in Racine and 1,000 statewide who were part of the program in the 2014-15 school year. The Milwaukee program cost about $191 million. Other schools statewide cost an additional $22 million Supporters say voucher schools give parents a valuable choice of where to send their children, particularly where local public schools may be low-performing. Critics say the voucher program is a drain on public school budgets and the private schools do not always adhere to the same educational standards. What about Daughters of the Father? Shillings claim seems pretty straightforward. But her tweet can read as saying the school had received the money and then quickly closed. In other words, that the school was new and the $5.4 million was immediately lost to taxpayers. But thats not exactly what happened. Daughters of the Father first opened its doors in 2007-08 and had just begun its ninth year. Records show it had 153 students in 2014-15 and through the states voucher program received about $7,200 that year for each student. That tallies out to more than $1.1 million. The school ran into financial trouble that led to canceled bus service at the end of the school year. In aMay 14, 2015 press releaseexecutive director Doris Pinkley blamed lower-than-expected enrollment. After a change in the schools leadership, the state Department of Public Instruction determined the school had failed to comply with statutory and administrative rules governing participation in the voucher program. The department issued an orderAug. 4, 2015banning the school from participating in the voucher program because the school did not have a qualified administrator on staff. The principal had only an expired substitute teacher's license. The $5.4 million represents the total the school has received since its inception. In all, the state has terminated 57 schools from the voucher program since the 2003-04 academic year, although some of them were schools that ceased operating on their own. Those schools had been paid a total of $176 million. Our rating Shilling tweeted that the Daughters of the Father Christian Academy closed after 9 days this year collected $5.4 million in taxpayer subsidies since first opening. The school did not just open its doors, receive $5.4 million and quickly close. The school had operated for eight years. The money represents the amount received since it opened. We rate the claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "State Budget", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The school ran into financial trouble that led to canceled bus service at the end of the school year. In aMay 14, 2015 press releaseexecutive director Doris Pinkley blamed lower-than-expected enrollment.", "hrefs": [ "https://localtvwiti.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/letter-to-fox6.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The department issued an orderAug. 4, 2015banning the school from participating in the voucher program because the school did not have a qualified administrator on staff. The principal had only an expired substitute teacher's license.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/state-moves-to-bar-milwaukee-school-from-voucher-program-b99555372z1-321584951.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/turtle-misshapen-rubber-band/", "claim": "Turtle Misshapen Due to Being Caught in Rubber Band for 19 Years?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "01/03/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A turtle now residing at a wildlife refuge in Los Angeles was found with a plastic ring around its midsection, giving it a figure-eight shape." ], "justification": "Since at least 2008, a troubling image of a turtle with a drastically deformed shell has been circulating online, with multiple web sites employing it to illustrate posts about the dangers of plastic pollution in the oceans. The image shows a brown-colored turtle with a shell constricted in the middle, giving her a figure-eight shape: circulating This image captures a snapping turtle named Mae West who currently resides at the STAR Eco Station in Los Angeles, California, where she is in good health. A representative from the station, which operates a wildlife rescue and environmental science museum, told us Mae West was rescuednearly two decades ago after she was discovered with a plastic milk jug ring around her midsection, although though it was unclear exactly how long the ring had been in place: In 2000, she was discovered in Louisiana with a plastic milk jug ring around the width of her shell. In addition to having an extremely narrow midsection, she was also found to be carrying several eggs at the time. The handler in Louisiana decided that she was no longer able to care for her and arranged to haveMaeplaced at the Eco Station. Some of the blogsposting this image in early 2017 incorrectly claimed the turtle had been caught in a rubber band from an early age, causing her to grow abnormally. Mae West was brought to her current home after being cared for by an anti-pollution non-profit called The 5 Gyers Institute, also based in Los Angeles. The image shown above was used in a 2009 Earth Day report by Oprah Winfrey discussing the effects of plastic pollution on marine life: used Sadly, the type of deformity afflicting Mae West isn't unique. Another famous turtle is living with a similar human-caused deformity: Peanut, a red-eared slider turtle who was rescued and nursed to health after being discovered entrapped in a plastic six-pack ring, has often been misidentified as Mae West (and vice-versa) in photographs. Peanut Peanut was found in Missouri in 1993 and taken to a zoo, where the plastic ring was removed from his midsection. The turtle (who was for years mistakenly believed to be female) is currently under the care of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Photographs provided by the department show he does indeed resemble a peanut: Despite his deformation, Peanut has also managed to live a long and healthy life and is now believed to be a senior terrapin at 32 or 33 years old, said Dan Zarlenga, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Had he not been found and cared for by humans, Peanut probably would not have survived for long in the wild. Eriksen, Marcus.\"Meet the Famous Turtle With a Serious Plastic Problem.\"\rPlanet Experts.6 July 2015. Missouri Department of Conservation.\"The Story of Peanut the Turtle.\" Monks, Kieron. \"The Plastic Plague: Can Our Oceans Be Saved From Environmental Ruin?\rCNN.2 September 2016. Moore, Charles.\"Choking the Oceans With Plastic.\"\rThe New York Times.25 August 2015.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ZOquQJiMnCmnYqhX39WLPipeXJdmZZ6V", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zhveCLta6eQxmcCTcsVThNuC_Wle1UqU", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Since at least 2008, a troubling image of a turtle with a drastically deformed shell has been circulating online, with multiple web sites employing it to illustrate posts about the dangers of plastic pollution in the oceans. The image shows a brown-colored turtle with a shell constricted in the middle, giving her a figure-eight shape:", "hrefs": [ "https://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=50998" ] }, { "sentence": "Mae West was brought to her current home after being cared for by an anti-pollution non-profit called The 5 Gyers Institute, also based in Los Angeles. The image shown above was used in a 2009 Earth Day report by Oprah Winfrey discussing the effects of plastic pollution on marine life:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVESX5HCq-s" ] }, { "sentence": "Sadly, the type of deformity afflicting Mae West isn't unique. Another famous turtle is living with a similar human-caused deformity: Peanut, a red-eared slider turtle who was rescued and nursed to health after being discovered entrapped in a plastic six-pack ring, has often been misidentified as Mae West (and vice-versa) in photographs.", "hrefs": [ "https://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=50998" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/basketbull/", "claim": "3-on-3 Basketball at the 2016 Olympics?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/16/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: The IOC has announced that 3-on-3 basketball will be an official sport at the 2016 Olympics." ], "justification": " Claim: The IOC has announced 3-on-3 basketball will be an official sport at the 2016 Olympics. Example: [Collected via Twitter, January 2015] The 2016 Olympics will feature 3-on-3 basketball. Who would you chose? pic.twitter.com/4VZhxLLy2i pic.twitter.com/4VZhxLLy2i BALL UP NBA (@BallUpNBA) January 15, 2015 January 15, 2015 Origins: On 14 January 2015, the satirical Australian web site Betoota Advocate published a fake news article claiming 3-on-3 basketball would be an officially sanctioned sport at the 2016 Summer Olympics: published After decades of pressure and debate, as well as an official application submitted by the International Basketball Federation, the IOC have this week confirmed that a three-men-a-side basketball variant will be included as a part of the official event program for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The final decision was made quietly during an annual committee meeting late last month. After nearly a decade of exploring different options, the International Olympic Committees executive board have confirmed that they will to go ahead with the proposal despite the fact that the request would result in a higher number of athletes and increased number of medals, thereby adding to the cost and complexity of the Games. While the Betoota Advocate's article was shared only a few hundred times on social media, the rumor about 3-on-3 basketball's becoming an official Olympic sport received a viral push when Deadspin reported the hoax as real news: reported The IOC has officially added a new half-court 3-on-3 basketball event to the competitions to be held in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This rules. Right away, you'll have to throw a big bucket of calm down on your head because, as the IOC put it in a 2012 letter discussing its interest in 3-on-3, a large part of the impetus is to focus more on the amateurism of sports and get the event away from being \"somewhat of an exhibition for the American NBA.\" When reporter Kyle Wagner realized his mistake, he added an update at the top of the article stating he had been duped by a satire site: Nah, this isn't happening. I wrote a post based on a satire website, which is just about the dumbest way to f*ck up. Sorry. F*ck me. Woulda been cool though. Last updated: 16 January 2015", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1tZCuxdfXrwwGjBitFWjZiMJI1j5bWHPI", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The 2016 Olympics will feature 3-on-3 basketball. Who would you chose? pic.twitter.com/4VZhxLLy2i", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/4VZhxLLy2i" ] }, { "sentence": " BALL UP NBA (@BallUpNBA) January 15, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/BallUpNBA/status/555525256140836864" ] }, { "sentence": "Origins: On 14 January 2015, the satirical Australian web site Betoota Advocate published a fake news article claiming 3-on-3 basketball would be an officially sanctioned sport at the 2016 Summer Olympics:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.betootaadvocate.com/sports/ioc-confirms-3-on-3-basketball-to-be-trialled-at-2016-rio-olympics/" ] }, { "sentence": "While the Betoota Advocate's article was shared only a few hundred times on social media, the rumor about 3-on-3 basketball's becoming an official Olympic sport received a viral push when Deadspin reported the hoax as real news:", "hrefs": [ "https://deadspin.com/whoa-the-2016-olympics-will-have-3-on-3-basketball-1679490551" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-first-ku-klux-klan-slogan/", "claim": "Was 'America First' a Slogan of the Ku Klux Klan?", "author": "David Emery", "posted": "02/09/2018", "sci_digest": [ "The white supremacist group made frequent use of the slogan more recently embraced by President Donald Trump, though they did not, as some claim, invent it." ], "justification": "Early on in his bid for the United States presidency, Donald Trump adopted a catchphrase that encapsulated his entire political philosophy in just two words: \"America first.\" The slogan was front and center in Trump's first major foreign policy speech as a candidate in April 2016: speech My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. It has to be first. Has to be. That will be the foundation of every single decision that I will make. America first will be the major and overriding theme of my administration. He then used the phrase to characterize his planned approach to immigration policy, which would be much more restrictive than policies of the previous few decades: characterize We need a system that serves our needs, not the needs of others. Remember, under a Trump administration it's called America first. Remember that. To choose immigrants based on merit. Merit, skill, and proficiency. Doesn't that sound nice? And to establish new immigration controls to boost wages and to ensure that open jobs are offered to American workers first. It would also become the centerpiece of Trump's inauguration address in January 2017: address We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first, America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. In addition to figuring prominently in his speeches, \"America first\" has turned up regularly in Trump's tweets, often paired with his other favorite rallying cry, \"Make America great again\": cry In trade, military and EVERYTHING else, it will be AMERICA FIRST! This will quickly lead to our ultimate goal: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2016 May 23, 2016 A vote to CUT TAXES is a vote to PUT AMERICA FIRST. It is time to take care of OUR WORKERS, to protect OUR COMMUNITIES, and to REBUILD OUR GREAT COUNTRY! https://t.co/wW3QNxcCHf pic.twitter.com/sRL2yRK6k2 https://t.co/wW3QNxcCHf pic.twitter.com/sRL2yRK6k2 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017 November 29, 2017 As Trump's critics have accurately observed, the president did not invent the phrase \"America First,\" nor was he the first public figure to sloganize it. More to the point, they say, many of the social and political contexts in which it has been used in the past were unsavory. The Anti-Defamation League noted in an April 2016 statement urging Trump to reconsider his use of it that \"America First\" was associated before and during World War II with an isolationist political organization some of whose members openly displayed pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic tendencies: statement The most noteworthy leader of the \"America First Committee\" was Charles Lindbergh, who sympathized with the Nazis and whose rhetoric was characterized by anti-Semitism and offensive stereotypes, including assertions that Jews posed a threat to the U.S. because of their influence in motion pictures, radio, the press, and the government. \"The undercurrents of anti-Semitism and bigotry that characterized the America First movement including the assumption that Jews who opposed the movement had their own agenda and were not acting in Americas best interest is fortunately not a major concern today, said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. However, for many Americans, the term America First will always be associated with and tainted by this history. In a political season that already has prompted a national conversation about civility and tolerance, choosing a call to action historically associated with incivility and intolerance seems ill-advised.\" Other Trump critics identify the slogan with the infamous white supremacist hate group the Ku Klux Klan, one of whose ex-leaders, David Duke, himself ran for public office in 2016 on an \"America first\" platform. Social media memes critical of Trump's enthusiasm for the slogan use archival images and Klan memorabilia to make the point that its history is anything but innocuous: platform The images above are authentic. The photo of KKK members marching with an \"America first\" banner dates from the 1920s and can be found in the Getty Images archive. The Ku Klux Klan \"coin\" (actually a token) bearing the slogans \"America First\" and \"Preserve Racial Purity\" on one face and \"The Invisible Empire\" on the other was struck in 1965 to celebrate the centennial of the KKK's founding, numismatists say, although it was never officially endorsed by the organization. archive say The phrase \"America first\" also appears in Klan literature as part of a longer credo, \"America first, last and forever,\" or its variant \"America first, last and always,\" as uttered by a KKK speaker quoted in the Binghamton, New York Press and Sun-Bulletin in 1923: \"I stand for America first, last and always,\" the speaker began. \"I am opposed to any organization which tries to bring in foreign and alien ideals.\" Another variant is enshrined in an \"Imperial Proclamation\" submitted as evidence during a Congressional hearing on the Klan's activities in 1921: hearing [The Klan] stands for America first first in thought, first in affections, and first in the galaxy of nations. The Stars and Stripes forever above all other and every kind of government in the whole world. Despite their embrace of the slogan, however, there is no evidence that the Ku Klux Klan invented it, as has sometimes been alleged. There are instances of its use by politicians predating any examples we've found directly attributable to the Klan. President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election on an \"America first\" platform in 1916, for example, in that instance using the phrase to remind voters that his isolationist stance had kept U.S. troops out of the burgeoning conflict in Europe (never mind that he abandoned that position and sent them to fight in World War I during his second term). A popular song called \"America First!\" was dedicated to Wilson and published in 1917. using America First! For that matter, Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding, and William McKinley all used the catchphrase at one time or another to promote isolationist and/or protectionist foreign policies (we found an instance of McKinley being touted as having an \"America first\" agenda as long ago as 1896). In sum, the political slogan \"America First\" has a pedigree stretching back more than a hundred years, with connotations ranging from anti-expansionism and trade protectionism to outright racism and anti-Semitism. Although it has been trumpeted over time by hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, its use does not automatically confer the most heinous of those attitudes on the user although given its less savory associations, one wonders why any informed person would embrace it today. Beckwith, Ryan Teague. \"Read Donald Trump's 'America First' Foreign Policy Speech.\"\rTime. 27 April 2016. Blake, Aaron. \"Trump's Full Inauguration Speech Transcript, Annotated.\"\rThe Washington Post. 20 January 2017. Bump, Philip. \"Here's What Donald Trump Said in His Big Immigration Speech, Annotated.\"\rThe Washington Post. 31 August 2016. Grinolds, Dick. \"More on the Invisible Empire Tokens.\"\rE-Sylum. 11 June 2017. Nelson, Libby. \"America First\": Donald Trump's Slogan Has a Deeply Bigoted Backstory.\"\rVox. 1 September 2016. Rauchway, Eric. \"President Trump's 'America First' Slogan Was Popularized by Nazi Sympathizers.\"\rThe Washington Post. 20 January 2017. Albany Evening Herald. \"Mysterious Ku Klux Klan Organizing Quietly.\"\r15 August 1921. Anti-Defamation League. \"ADL Urges Donald Trump to Reconsider 'America First' in Foreign Policy Approach.\"\r28 April 2016. Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin. \"Near Riot Ensues in Chase After Citizen Who Upholds Klan.\"\r28 August 1923. Getty Images. \"Ku Klux Klan 'American First Parade.\"\rAccessed 9 February 2018. U.S. Government Printing Office. \"The Ku Klux Klan: Hearings Before the Committee on Rules, House of Representatives.\"\r1921.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1h_vyhxFH2ETvNVJGWudfGTT3ZHc2kPa6", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The slogan was front and center in Trump's first major foreign policy speech as a candidate in April 2016:", "hrefs": [ "https://time.com/4309786/read-donald-trumps-america-first-foreign-policy-speech/" ] }, { "sentence": "He then used the phrase to characterize his planned approach to immigration policy, which would be much more restrictive than policies of the previous few decades:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/31/heres-what-donald-trump-said-in-his-big-immigration-speech-annotated/?utm_term=.5ac8ef9410c9" ] }, { "sentence": "It would also become the centerpiece of Trump's inauguration address in January 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition to figuring prominently in his speeches, \"America first\" has turned up regularly in Trump's tweets, often paired with his other favorite rallying cry, \"Make America great again\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/make-germany-great-again/" ] }, { "sentence": " Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 23, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/734742416494845952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "A vote to CUT TAXES is a vote to PUT AMERICA FIRST. It is time to take care of OUR WORKERS, to protect OUR COMMUNITIES, and to REBUILD OUR GREAT COUNTRY! https://t.co/wW3QNxcCHf pic.twitter.com/sRL2yRK6k2", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/wW3QNxcCHf", "https://t.co/sRL2yRK6k2" ] }, { "sentence": " Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/936014271858831361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "The Anti-Defamation League noted in an April 2016 statement urging Trump to reconsider his use of it that \"America First\" was associated before and during World War II with an isolationist political organization some of whose members openly displayed pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic tendencies:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-urges-donald-trump-to-reconsider-america-first-in-foreign-policy-approach#.WIJKWxsrKUk?referrer=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-inaugural-address-america-first_us_588248c1e4b096b4a2315af0?j8zvejdqn3tyb9" ] }, { "sentence": "Other Trump critics identify the slogan with the infamous white supremacist hate group the Ku Klux Klan, one of whose ex-leaders, David Duke, himself ran for public office in 2016 on an \"America first\" platform. Social media memes critical of Trump's enthusiasm for the slogan use archival images and Klan memorabilia to make the point that its history is anything but innocuous:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/eB16Q" ] }, { "sentence": "The images above are authentic. The photo of KKK members marching with an \"America first\" banner dates from the 1920s and can be found in the Getty Images archive. The Ku Klux Klan \"coin\" (actually a token) bearing the slogans \"America First\" and \"Preserve Racial Purity\" on one face and \"The Invisible Empire\" on the other was struck in 1965 to celebrate the centennial of the KKK's founding, numismatists say, although it was never officially endorsed by the organization.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/license/514702614", "https://nnp.wustl.edu/Library/Periodical/514153" ] }, { "sentence": "Another variant is enshrined in an \"Imperial Proclamation\" submitted as evidence during a Congressional hearing on the Klan's activities in 1921:", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=Qg4pAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election on an \"America first\" platform in 1916, for example, in that instance using the phrase to remind voters that his isolationist stance had kept U.S. troops out of the burgeoning conflict in Europe (never mind that he abandoned that position and sent them to fight in World War I during his second term). A popular song called \"America First!\" was dedicated to Wilson and published in 1917.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/programs/cmd/blogs/posters_and_election_propaganda/america_first/#.WIlxICMrJuU", "https://www.loc.gov/item/2009440345/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jan/10/glenn-hegar/glenn-hegar-says-benefit-lower-gas-prices-equivale/", "claim": "The average taxpayer will see the equivalent of a 2 percent pay raise as a result of low fuel prices.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "01/10/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A reader noted Republican Glenn Hegars upbeat comments about plummeting oil prices and requested a fact check. Hegar, the former state senator elected Texas state comptroller in 2014, told reporters early this year there are benefits to falling oil prices. Lower fuel costs should reduce the price of importing goods, which is great for consumers and, ultimately, our economy, Hegar said, according to anAustin American-Statesmannews story. In fact, the average taxpayer will see the equivalent of a 2 percent pay raise as a result of low fuel prices. The same story noted the price of oil had fallen about 50 percent since June 2014 to just more than $50 a barrel. And are lower fuel prices equivalent to a 2 percent pay raise for taxpayers? By email, Hegar spokesman Chris Bryan said Hegar drew that percentage from a December 2014news storyin the Economist magazine. The story said, in part: Cheaper oil should act like a shot of adrenalin to global growth. A $40 price cut shifts some $1.3 trillion from producers to consumers. The typical American motorist, who spent $3,000 in 2013 at the pumps, might be $800 a year better offequivalent to a 2% pay rise. The magazine didnt engage with our inquiry about how its figures were worked up. We went on to query James Hamilton, a University of California, San Diego, economistquoted by theWall Street Journalin November 2014saying lower gas prices relative to the average of the past three years will in effect put an extra $108 billion into U.S. consumers pockets, generating a nearly 0.8 percent increase in disposable personal income. By email, Hamilton pointed us to his Dec. 21, 2014, blog post stating: The average U.S. retail price of gasoline right now is about $2.40 a gallon. Last year, in 2013, American consumers and businesses bought135 billion gallonsof gasoline, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at an average price of$3.60 a gallon, he wrote. Hamilton wrote: If gasoline prices stay where they are and if we buy the same number of gallons of gasoline this year as last, that leaves us with an additional $160 billion to spend over the course of the year on other items. If we restate the total savings for U.S. consumers and businesses in terms of the116 million U.S. households, that works out to almost $1,400 per household. We checked his bottom-line figure$1,400 per householdand compared it to what the U.S. Census Bureau estimates to have been the median household income for the U.S. and Texas, respectively, from 2009 through 2013. In Texas, the estimated $1,400 in unspent money shakes out to a 2.7 percent increase on the median income of $51,900. Nationally, it would amount to a 2.6 percent increase from the median household income of $53,046. Also, EIA spokesman Jonathan Cogan noted by email that in December 2014, the agencypredictedthe average U.S. household would spend about $550 less on gasoline in 2015 than in 2014 due to falling gas prices and more fuel-efficient cars and truckswhich would be 1 percent of the median household income in Texas. Our ruling Hegar said the average taxpayer will see the equivalent of a 2 percent pay raise as a result of low fuel prices. Provided gas prices dont go back up, that percentage seems in the ballpark for how much Texans could save on gas compared to what they spent, though it's also possible to get to higher and lower projections. We rate this statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Gas Prices", "Income", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "By email, Hegar spokesman Chris Bryan said Hegar drew that percentage from a December 2014news storyin the Economist magazine. The story said, in part: Cheaper oil should act like a shot of adrenalin to global growth. A $40 price cut shifts some $1.3 trillion from producers to consumers. The typical American motorist, who spent $3,000 in 2013 at the pumps, might be $800 a year better offequivalent to a 2% pay rise.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21635472-economics-oil-have-changed-some-businesses-will-go-bust-market-will-be" ] }, { "sentence": "The magazine didnt engage with our inquiry about how its figures were worked up. We went on to query James Hamilton, a University of California, San Diego, economistquoted by theWall Street Journalin November 2014saying lower gas prices relative to the average of the past three years will in effect put an extra $108 billion into U.S. consumers pockets, generating a nearly 0.8 percent increase in disposable personal income.", "hrefs": [ "http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/11/28/oil-prices-the-good-the-better-the-ugly/" ] }, { "sentence": "By email, Hamilton pointed us to his Dec. 21, 2014, blog post stating: The average U.S. retail price of gasoline right now is about $2.40 a gallon. Last year, in 2013, American consumers and businesses bought135 billion gallonsof gasoline, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at an average price of$3.60 a gallon, he wrote.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Hamilton wrote: If gasoline prices stay where they are and if we buy the same number of gallons of gasoline this year as last, that leaves us with an additional $160 billion to spend over the course of the year on other items. If we restate the total savings for U.S. consumers and businesses in terms of the116 million U.S. households, that works out to almost $1,400 per household.", "hrefs": [ "http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Also, EIA spokesman Jonathan Cogan noted by email that in December 2014, the agencypredictedthe average U.S. household would spend about $550 less on gasoline in 2015 than in 2014 due to falling gas prices and more fuel-efficient cars and truckswhich would be 1 percent of the median household income in Texas.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19211" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loreal-beagle-testing/", "claim": "L'Oreal Beagle Testing", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "05/26/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A viral Facebook image purportedly depicts a beagle blinded by L'Oreal cosmetics testing, but the image was previously linked with a separate and unrelated controversy in Brazil." ], "justification": "On 24 May 2016, a Facebook user published the above-reproduced image of a partially blinded beagle, along with the claim that it represented the harmful effects of cosmetics testing on animals: published claim When cosmetics companies like L'Oreal want to test their products, they often use beagles. They take the potentially toxic ingredients in their products and stick them in the puppy's eye in large doses to test how much of a product is needed to cause harm. When they finish, they remove the Beagle's eye and start again on the other eye. When the beagle runs out of eyes, they kill him. This is why we never support animal testing companies. The photograph caused alarm and concern among animal lovers worried about whether the beagle's injuries were truly inflicted by L'Oreal (or any other cosmetics brand). A reverse image search revealed that the photograph had appeared years earlier on Portuguese-language web sites, with many English-language sites later using the same image to blame Mary Kay, Avon, or Procter & Gamble for the beagle's injuries: earlier blame This doleful image was earlier published on a Brazilian web site, where it was identified as having been taken in the city of So Roque in relation to a controversy involving animal testing at the Instituto Royal laboratory, and it was also posted to Instagram in connection with rumors linked to that laboratory and location: published Instagram An article published in the Brazilian version of the Epoch Times reported that the lab in question had been closed after protests by animal rights supporters and stated that the institute tested \"cosmetics and cleaning products\" of unspecified origin: article The Royal Institute announced it is ending the activities of the laboratory in So Roque, in the state of So Paulo. The decision comes after the release of 178 beagle dogs, used in laboratory tests for cosmetics and cleaning products, by protesters. The case was widely reported and generated discussions on ethics related to the use of animals in testing. The institute has been investigated by prosecutors since 2012 for their mistreatment of animals. A 2013 news article also reported on the beagle controversy but made no specific mention of cosmetics testing at the lab in question: article A group of animal rights activists have been camped in front of the Royal Institute in So Roque (SP) since they stormed the headquarters of the laboratory, which conducts research for the pharmaceutical and veterinary industries, among others. The protesters, including members of the Black Bloc SP, accused the company of the ill-treatment of beagle dogs used in research. Protests against the Royal Institute began just last year. Activists claim that the company practices irregularities and criminal acts against animals ... The Royal Institute defends their research on their web site and says they respect all national and international standards in dealing with dogs in the laboratory. The company is an Oscip (Civil Society Organization of Public Interest) and receives public money thanks to the support of funding agencies for scientific research. Animal advocates say the company does not have licenses and permits for the activities it performs. Contemporaneous articles mentioned \"cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing,\" and a blog post claimed the contraceptive Norplant was among the products tested on the since-liberated beagles. Scientists who worked for the lab lamented the loss of a decade of research in the clashes with animal rights activists: articles pharmaceutical research For the scientific director of the Royal Institute, Joo Antnio Pegas Henry, the damage is incalculable. John Anthony said that the biggest problem was not the liberation of animals, but rather the destruction of the building, material, and especially of their research. \"[The activists] destroyed the laboratory, including computers holding research data. We can fix the material damage, but the damage to science is incalculable. There was material that was in its final stages after a ten-year study. Everything was lost,\" says John Anthony. According to the coordinator of the National Council of Animal Experimentation Control (Concea), Marcelo Marcos Morales, the institute in So Roque is the most important laboratory of the country in relation to such experimentation. While the precise origin of the beagle photograph purportedly linked to L'Oreal research is unknown, the image was originally circulated as one linked to a 2012 controversy involving the since-closed Instituto Royal of So Roque. Testing carried out at the lab while it was operational was not restricted to cosmetics, and most reports named pharmaceutical and household products as the primary substances researched at the Institute. The photograph has long since been repurposed to claim a number of popular cosmetics brands such as MAC, Avon, Mary Kay, and Head & Shoulders were responsible for the beagle's injuries. On L'Oreal's web site, the brand discloses their policy on animal testing, a position a representative for L'Oreal reiterated to us on 27 May 2016: discloses LOral no longer tests on animals any of its products or any of its ingredients, anywhere in the world. Nor does LOral delegate this task to others. The rare exception allowed is if regulatory authorities demand it for safety or regulatory purposes. This image was not the first spurious animal testing rumor attached L'Oreal on social media. Previously, a photograph of a sick rabbit unrelated to animal testing was circulated alongside claims that the animal was also a victim of cruel experiments carried out by L'Oreal. L'Oreal Lungarzo, Carlos Alberto. \"O Que O Instituto Royal?\"\r RevistaForum. 31 October 2013. Menezes, Bruno. \"Instituto Royal Fecha Laboratrio Em So Roque.\"\r The Epoch Times. 7 November 2013. Globo. \"Aps Denncia De Maus-Tratos, Grupo Invade Laboratrio E leva Ces Beagle.\"\r 18 October 2013. Globo. \"Alm De 178 Beagles, Sete Coelhos Tambm Foram Levados de Empresa.\"\r 18 October 2013. Globo. \"Invaso Ao Prdio Do Instituto Royal Em So Roque Completa Um Ano.\"\r 18 October 2014. Veja. \"Laboratrio No Interior De So Paulo Invadido Por Ativistas.\"\r 18 October 2013.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zWgvDi6RNB6kQxLbJza81DKhsLAk2aqb", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vgtba4kIVQldthJ00pqmkfGiNWyqYXfe", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1M7W8Fz8nf6UvYcEaoeHraGwcKIFttqU8", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 24 May 2016, a Facebook user published the above-reproduced image of a partially blinded beagle, along with the claim that it represented the harmful effects of cosmetics testing on animals:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208437491448409&set=a.1660685010556.84877.1640107580&type=3&theater", "https://archive.is/4rBT9" ] }, { "sentence": "The photograph caused alarm and concern among animal lovers worried about whether the beagle's injuries were truly inflicted by L'Oreal (or any other cosmetics brand). A reverse image search revealed that the photograph had appeared years earlier on Portuguese-language web sites, with many English-language sites later using the same image to blame Mary Kay, Avon, or Procter & Gamble for the beagle's injuries:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tineye.com/search/ab9fb8fb0f10731849e431360ac7c7c76a8fe23d/", "https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436849232584700417/" ] }, { "sentence": "This doleful image was earlier published on a Brazilian web site, where it was identified as having been taken in the city of So Roque in relation to a controversy involving animal testing at the Instituto Royal laboratory, and it was also posted to Instagram in connection with rumors linked to that laboratory and location:", "hrefs": [ "https://umaincertaantropologia.org/tag/animais-de-laboratorio/", "https://www.instagram.com/p/fm2DrjvJL4/" ] }, { "sentence": "An article published in the Brazilian version of the Epoch Times reported that the lab in question had been closed after protests by animal rights supporters and stated that the institute tested \"cosmetics and cleaning products\" of unspecified origin:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.epochtimes.com.br/instituto-royal-fecha-laboratorio-sao-roque/" ] }, { "sentence": "A 2013 news article also reported on the beagle controversy but made no specific mention of cosmetics testing at the lab in question:", "hrefs": [ "https://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/brasil/laboratorio-no-interior-de-sao-paulo-e-invadido-por-ativistas" ] }, { "sentence": "Contemporaneous articles mentioned \"cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing,\" and a blog post claimed the contraceptive Norplant was among the products tested on the since-liberated beagles. Scientists who worked for the lab lamented the loss of a decade of research in the clashes with animal rights activists:", "hrefs": [ "https://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/sorocaba-jundiai/noticia/2013/10/ativistas-invadem-e-levam-caes-de-laboratorio-suspeito-de-maus-tratos.html", "https://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/sorocaba-jundiai/noticia/2014/10/invasao-ao-predio-do-instituto-royal-em-sao-roque-completa-um-ano.html", "https://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/sorocaba-jundiai/noticia/2013/10/alem-de-178-beagles-sete-coelhos-tambem-foram-levados-de-empresa.html" ] }, { "sentence": "On L'Oreal's web site, the brand discloses their policy on animal testing, a position a representative for L'Oreal reiterated to us on 27 May 2016:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.loreal.com/sustainability/l'or%C3%A9al-answers/the-question-of-animal-testing/frequently-asked-questions" ] }, { "sentence": "This image was not the first spurious animal testing rumor attached L'Oreal on social media. Previously, a photograph of a sick rabbit unrelated to animal testing was circulated alongside claims that the animal was also a victim of cruel experiments carried out by L'Oreal.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/critters/cruelty/lorealbunny.asp" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/altered-states/", "claim": "Redrawn Map of the United States", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/30/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Is the federal government planning to eliminate 16 states from the U.S.?" ], "justification": " Claim: The federal government is planning to eliminate 16 states from the U.S. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] The America you know and love could look completely different in a matter of weeks. Under a plan circulating the D.C. corridor right now, up to 16 states are at risk to be terminated due to epic fiscal mismanagement. These states would simply be wiped from existence and merged into their neighbors. We've even seen the redrawn map of the U.S. and it's nothing less than terrifying. California may be forced to become a part of Mexico without any state strong enough to absorb it! Origins: This item about a plan \"circulating the D.C. corridor right now\" to eliminate 16 states from the U.S. is nothing but more of the usual financial scarelore put out in conjunction with an investment come-on by the folks at Wall Street Daily. This latest panic piece is offered in a Wall Street Daily video featuring a number of talking heads issuing scary-sounding statements about how the \"U.S. government is only months away from a total financial collapse,\" then lurches head-on into tinfoil hat territory by describing some nebulous plan supposedly being hatched in Washington (by whom, exactly, is never explained) to carve the United States into ten economic regions, eliminating 16 states in the process by merging them into neighboring states (and, apparently, getting rid of a 17th state by kicking Hawaii out of the U.S. altogether). video And according to Wall Street Daily, this remarkable, radical transformation of the United States, which hasn't yet been discussed, proposed, or voted upon by Congress, and which has somehow escaped the notice of the entire of the U.S. news media (other than Wall Street Daily, of course), is going into effect in a mere matter of weeks, by 15 October 2013: Not surprisingly, this \"redrawn map of the United States\" just happens to correspond exactly with a map of administrative regions for the government agency most frequently mentioned in crazy conspiracy theories, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): FEMA Aside from its sheer ridiculousness, this purported scheme for the federal government to enact a forcible redrawing the United States has a major problem in that it isn't possible, because the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits it. Article IV, Section 3 of that document declares that states cannot be formed from, or merged with, other states without the consent of both Congress and the legislatures of the affected states: declares New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress. So, if this is nothing but nonsense, what's the point to it? The point is that if you make up a bunch of stuff that sounds sufficiently alarming, and you promote your product as something that will help protect people against this scary thing that isn't really happening, you might be able to lure some gullible folks into sending their money (i.e., a \"very limited, introductory offer\" price of $49.50, plus a yearly \"discounted rate\" of $79) to you: money It's crucial that you obtain a copy of the redrawn map of the United States and spread the word quickly about its existence. Circulate it amongst your friends and family. Let them know that this threat is real. That soon, the very state that they call their home... where they've raised their family, paid taxes and planned their future in, may soon no longer exist. Whether or not your state is targeted for termination, its essential that you begin taking steps, such as the ones contained inside the Mayflower Maneuver, to best position yourself for the future. And that means staying informed continually about this developing situation. Last updated: 18 September 2013 ", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://www.chancescoggins.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/us-flag-600x200.jpg", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wLe5LN4HRoO3z2wO1I902s2yAHmVn_mp", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/images/fema_regional_map.jpg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " is offered in a Wall Street Daily video featuring a number of talking heads issuing scary-sounding statements about how the \"U.S. government is only months away from a total financial collapse,\" then lurches head-on into tinfoil hat territory by describing some nebulous plan supposedly being hatched in Washington (by whom, exactly, is never explained) to carve the United States into ten economic regions, eliminating 16 states in the process by merging them into neighboring states (and, apparently, getting rid of a 17th state by kicking Hawaii out of the U.S. altogether). ", "hrefs": [ "https://pro.wsdinsider.com/WCXFEDLIFEPRCLOU/LWCXP900/" ] }, { "sentence": "Not surprisingly, this \"redrawn map of the United States\" just happens to correspond exactly with a map of administrative regions for the government agency most frequently mentioned in crazy conspiracy theories, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fema.gov/regional-operations" ] }, { "sentence": "Aside from its sheer ridiculousness, this purported scheme for the federal government to enact a forcible redrawing the United States has a major problem in that it isn't possible, because the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits it. Article IV, Section 3 of that document declares that states cannot be formed from, or merged with, other states without the consent of both Congress and the legislatures of the affected states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiv" ] }, { "sentence": "So, if this is nothing but nonsense, what's the point to it? The point is that if you make up a bunch of stuff that sounds sufficiently alarming, and you promote your product as something that will help protect people against this scary thing that isn't really happening, you might be able to lure some gullible folks into sending their money (i.e., a \"very limited, introductory offer\" price of $49.50, plus a yearly \"discounted rate\" of $79) to you:", "hrefs": [ "https://orders.wsdinsider.com/WCXFEDLIFEPRCLOU/LWCXP900/index.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/may/03/ted-cruz/yep-donald-trump-gave-12k-jerry-brown-gavin-newsom/", "claim": "Here in California, Donald Trump has given $12,000 to Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris.", "author": "Chris Nichols", "posted": "05/03/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": " Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is no ally of California Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. But Cruz is hoping to paint his rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, as a political friend of Brown and two other top Democrats in the Golden State: Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris. Here in California,Donald Trumphas given $12,000 toJerry Brown,Gavin Newsomand Kamala Harris, Cruz said during his speech on April 30 at the California Republican Party Convention south of San Francisco. Cruz went on to tell the GOP California audience: Yall are experiencing first-hand the consequences of those misguided liberal policies. We wondered if Cruzs claim about Trump funding three top California Democrats was correct? And if so, how recently had Trump helped out these Democrats? Our research Turns out, Cruzs claim is accurate, based on campaign finance data on the California Secretary of Stateswebsite. But Trumps donations to the Democrats arent recent. The GOP frontrunner contributed $3,500 to Browns run for state attorney general, making donations in 2004 and 2006. He gave $2,500 to Newsoms 2009 truncated run for governor. And he chipped in a total of $6,000 to Harris in 2011 and 2013 for her successful re-election campaign for attorney general. Source: California Secretary of State's website Trump has acknowledged financing both Republicans and Democrats during his long business career, all to gain political influence. Records show he gave $25,000 to the California Republican Party in 2005 and $12,000 to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the states former Republican governor, a couple years later. What Cruz doesnt mention about Trumps donations to the Democrats is that they took place before Trumps run for the GOP presidential nomination. A Cruz campaign press release included a timeline for the donations, but we are fact-checking what Cruz said during his speech. Our ruling Ted Cruz said Donald Trump gave $12,000 to three top California Democrats, including Gov. Jerry Brown. Campaign finance data show Cruzs claim is accurate. But Cruz leaves out the fact that the donations to the California governor took place a decade ago, before the Democrat ran for re-election to the states top office. Trumps contributions to the other Democrats took place in 2009, 2011 and 2013. In the end, we rate the claim Mostly True. -------- MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "issues": [ "Campaign Finance", "Elections", "California" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FUk7JlmVg8RlH6naS2Aj4aVPbbZSky0j", "image_caption": "Source: California Secretary of State's website" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Here in California,Donald Trumphas given $12,000 toJerry Brown,Gavin Newsomand Kamala Harris, Cruz said during his speech on April 30 at the California Republican Party Convention south of San Francisco.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/" ] }, { "sentence": "Turns out, Cruzs claim is accurate, based on campaign finance data on the California Secretary of Stateswebsite.", "hrefs": [ "http://powersearch.sos.ca.gov/advanced.php" ] }, { "sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/giant-irish-dog-photo/", "claim": "Real, Vintage Photo of a Giant Irish Dog?", "author": "Aleksandra Wrona", "posted": "09/12/2023", "sci_digest": [ "\"That's impressive photoshopping for 1902,\" one Reddit user commented.\r\r" ], "justification": "The Irish wolfhound,renowned for its large size,is a breed that has captured the hearts of many dog enthusiasts around the world. In September 2023, a photograph allegedly captured in 1902 and depicting what appeared to be such a wolfhound but instead sometimes calling it the \"last giant Irish Greyhound\" went viral on social media. (We should note there is no \"Irish Greyhound\" breed; however, greyhounds exist and can be found, among other places, at Ireland's famousracing competitions.) Irish wolfhound viral social media greyhounds racing competitions No sure if this belongs herebyu/Xconvik inmegalophobia No sure if this belongs here u/Xconvik megalophobia Although some users claimed the in-question image was generated by AI, others were amazed at the dog's size. For instance, the image was posted on the AI Generated Nonsense Facebook page with the caption, \"The last giant Irish grey hound.\" posted We used Google reverse image search to track down the source of the image. One post from Sept. 3, 2023, shared on 9GAG,an online platform and social media website,read, \"A good boy, the last giant Irish wolfhound in 1902.\" However, in the comments section we found a remark from the author's account that admitted the picture was created with Midjourney,a generative artificial intelligence (AI) program: image search post Hi, I'm op, I put in the tag AI. I made this with Midjourney. (@themaskedgypsi) themaskedgypsi We then found the image was originally posted on Aug. 31, 2023, on the Facebook group Cursed AI, by Antoine Jo. The group's name and description also indicated the picture was AI-generated: posted Beware, these creations may haunt your dreams and unravel your sanity. Step into the eerie world of AI-generated cursed art, where machines possess powers to create twisted and terrifying masterpieces. Join our community of art lovers with a taste for the strange and share your twisted creations. These disturbingly beautiful images crafted by AI will leave you questioning the very nature of technology and its place in our world. Enter at your own risk. Moreover, AI or Notand Illuminarty tools confirmed our findings. AI or Not Illuminarty (AI or Not screenshot) If you don't want to be misled byAI-generatedimages and videos, you should read our tipshere. AI-generated here", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Gzg4vVSkSAg3ZegVgqcnBbY8xG2s7tPz", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The Irish wolfhound,renowned for its large size,is a breed that has captured the hearts of many dog enthusiasts around the world. In September 2023, a photograph allegedly captured in 1902 and depicting what appeared to be such a wolfhound but instead sometimes calling it the \"last giant Irish Greyhound\" went viral on social media. (We should note there is no \"Irish Greyhound\" breed; however, greyhounds exist and can be found, among other places, at Ireland's famousracing competitions.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/irish-wolfhound/", "https://imgur.com/gallery/mRKns1G", "https://9gag.com/gag/ajVGAzg", "https://www.tiktok.com/@carolynanne9/video/7276134404857138475", "https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/greyhound/", "https://www.grireland.ie/" ] }, { "sentence": "No sure if this belongs herebyu/Xconvik inmegalophobia", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/megalophobia/comments/16c8vcv/no_sure_if_this_belongs_here/", "https://www.reddit.com/user/Xconvik/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/megalophobia/" ] }, { "sentence": "Although some users claimed the in-question image was generated by AI, others were amazed at the dog's size. For instance, the image was posted on the AI Generated Nonsense Facebook page with the caption, \"The last giant Irish grey hound.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=281021594683722&set=ecnf.100083276495557" ] }, { "sentence": "We used Google reverse image search to track down the source of the image. One post from Sept. 3, 2023, shared on 9GAG,an online platform and social media website,read, \"A good boy, the last giant Irish wolfhound in 1902.\" However, in the comments section we found a remark from the author's account that admitted the picture was created with Midjourney,a generative artificial intelligence (AI) program:", "hrefs": [ "https://images.google.com/", "https://9gag.com/gag/ajVGAzg" ] }, { "sentence": "Hi, I'm op, I put in the tag AI. I made this with Midjourney. (@themaskedgypsi)", "hrefs": [ "https://9gag.com/u/themaskedgypsi" ] }, { "sentence": "We then found the image was originally posted on Aug. 31, 2023, on the Facebook group Cursed AI, by Antoine Jo. The group's name and description also indicated the picture was AI-generated:", "hrefs": [ "https://m.facebook.com/groups/cursedaiwtf/permalink/1346002309341582/" ] }, { "sentence": "Moreover, AI or Notand Illuminarty tools confirmed our findings.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aiornot.com/#home", "https://app.illuminarty.ai/" ] }, { "sentence": "If you don't want to be misled byAI-generatedimages and videos, you should read our tipshere.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/search/AI-generated/", "https://www.snopes.com/articles/464595/artificial-intelligence-media-literacy/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/posture-pins-chinese-officers/", "claim": "Are Pins Placed in the Collars of Chinese Officers to Correct Posture?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "08/26/2019", "sci_digest": [ "It's definitely difficult to slouch when a needle is poking you in the neck. " ], "justification": "On Aug. 26, 2019, the Twitter account Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) posted a photograph that supposedly showed \"how Chinese soldiers keep their posture\" by placing a pin or needle in their uniform collars with the point facing toward the neck skin: This is how Chinese soldiers keep their posture. pic.twitter.com/WU8Y9DDLf5 pic.twitter.com/WU8Y9DDLf5 Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) August 26, 2019 August 26, 2019 This is a genuine photograph. It was taken in Beijing in February 2012 and shows a Chinese paramilitary policeman preparing for the National People's Congress. The picture is available via Getty Images with the following caption: A pin, used for training purposes, is placed on the collar of a Chinese paramilitary policeman undergoing a drill to prepare for the upcoming National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on February 28, 2012. China's parliament, the National People's Congress, is set to open its annual session on March 5. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images) While this is a genuine photograph of a pin being used to correct posture, this is not a training method that all soldiers have to endure. A 2009 article from The New York Times indicated that this is a corrective measure for soldiers whose postures aren't up to standards (emphasis ours): The New York Times The Olympics that dazzled spectators last year showed Chinas knack for meticulous preparation. Participants in the Thursday parade have engaged in similarly intense drills for months, according to reports in the Chinese news media. Soldiers have practiced endless hours to hold their rifles at precisely the same level. Photos show their instructors holding threads as rifle guides, or sticking needles in soldiers shirt collars, pointed at their necks, to correct poor posture. They have trained to stand motionless for a solid hour, to refrain from swaying during the second hour and not to collapse after three hours, reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency. We found one other photograph from Getty Images showing a Chinese officer with a pin being placed in his collar in an attempt to correct posture. The following picture is available with the caption: \"An officer sticks a needle in the collar of a paramilitary policeman to correct his posture during a training session in Hefei, Anhui province September 13, 2009.VCP (Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images).\" caption LaFraniere, Sharon. \"No Detail Is Overlooked as China Prepares to Celebrate.\" \r The New York Times. 28 September 2009.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1L3EIhQgR0-_WMEZFWkm6KxNg8IPv-Uoo", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This is how Chinese soldiers keep their posture. pic.twitter.com/WU8Y9DDLf5", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/WU8Y9DDLf5" ] }, { "sentence": " Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) August 26, 2019", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/myth_vs_facts/status/1165887459676192768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "While this is a genuine photograph of a pin being used to correct posture, this is not a training method that all soldiers have to endure. A 2009 article from The New York Times indicated that this is a corrective measure for soldiers whose postures aren't up to standards (emphasis ours):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/world/asia/29beijing.html" ] }, { "sentence": "We found one other photograph from Getty Images showing a Chinese officer with a pin being placed in his collar in an attempt to correct posture. The following picture is available with the caption: \"An officer sticks a needle in the collar of a paramilitary policeman to correct his posture during a training session in Hefei, Anhui province September 13, 2009.VCP (Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images).\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-officer-sticks-a-needle-in-the-collar-of-a-paramilitary-news-photo/539622604" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nz-prime-minister-massacre-aid/", "claim": "Did New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern Don a Hijab and Offer Aid to Families of Massacre Victims?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "03/18/2019", "sci_digest": [ "New Zealand was rocked by grief following a massacre at two mosques perpetrated by a suspected white supremacist." ], "justification": "In mid-March 2019, the social media network The Other 98% shared a meme featuring an image of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and text lauding her actions in the face of a deadly massacre targeting the Muslim community in the city of Christchurch: meme Readers who were justifiably suspicious of content in a meme generated by a partisan source asked us whether its statements were true, and they were. Ardern garnered praise for guiding her country through grief in the wake of a mass shooting that claimed the lives of 50 people at two mosques on 15 March 2019 while Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian suspected of being a white supremacist, was charged in the slayings. partisan source Ardern did wear a hijab, or veil, while honoring victims of the massacre. Professional news photographers captured images of Ardern wearing a gold-trimmed, black head covering during her 16 March 2019 visit to the Canterbury Refugee Centre: photographers NZ Prime Minister @jacindaardern is a remarkable leader. Here, she addresses mourners after the #Christchurch terrorist attack. ? pic.twitter.com/ccaiG6H0Fg @jacindaardern #Christchurch pic.twitter.com/ccaiG6H0Fg news.com.au (@newscomauHQ) March 18, 2019 March 18, 2019 It is also true that Ardern confirmed victims and their families would receive financial assistance from the New Zealand government, although it might be a reach to claim she personally offered such assistance. But in a speech given on 17 March 2019, Ardern assured victims that New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), an agency that provides financial assistance to anyone in New Zealand who is injured in an accident, would be on hand to help them: speech ACC is putting more staff on the ground in Christchurch, working alongside the Ministry of Social Development at the community hub at Hagley. For ACC -- as Ive said before immigration status is not a factor -- it is based on the event happening here in New Zealand. In an event such as this -- murder or manslaughter -- the family is eligible for a funeral grant of around $10,000. There are also one-off payments for the deceaseds partner, children and dependents, ongoing assistance provisions for things like childcare and of course compensation for the loss of income. MSD [Ministry of Social Development] is providing standard forms of financial assistance also, such as helping with immediate needs and things like one-off grants for food payments. It will also be working with individuals and families to consider ongoing needs, such as benefit support. The country is currently making preparations for funerals for the 50 deceased victims. preparations Garrand, Danielle. \"New Zealand Helping to Pay Christchurch Shooting Victims' Funerals, Regardless of Immigration Status.\"\r CBS News. 17 March 2019. Beehive.govt.nz. \"PM Statement on Christchurch Shooting.\"\r 17 March 2019. The Straits Times. \"New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern Wants to Discuss Live-Streaming with Facebook After Mosque Attacks.\"\r 17 March 2019. Fifield, Anna. \"New Zealands Prime Minister Receives Worldwide Praise for Her Response to the Mosque Shootings.\"\r The Washington Post. 18 March 2019.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RYJWLEb-B9DHiBtgNMSphuBEOVViV2Nl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In mid-March 2019, the social media network The Other 98% shared a meme featuring an image of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and text lauding her actions in the face of a deadly massacre targeting the Muslim community in the city of Christchurch:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/photos/a.115969958413991/3133097783367845" ] }, { "sentence": "Readers who were justifiably suspicious of content in a meme generated by a partisan source asked us whether its statements were true, and they were. Ardern garnered praise for guiding her country through grief in the wake of a mass shooting that claimed the lives of 50 people at two mosques on 15 March 2019 while Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian suspected of being a white supremacist, was charged in the slayings.", "hrefs": [ "https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-other-98/" ] }, { "sentence": "Ardern did wear a hijab, or veil, while honoring victims of the massacre. Professional news photographers captured images of Ardern wearing a gold-trimmed, black head covering during her 16 March 2019 visit to the Canterbury Refugee Centre:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-zealand-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-speaks-with-a-news-photo/1130848723" ] }, { "sentence": "NZ Prime Minister @jacindaardern is a remarkable leader. Here, she addresses mourners after the #Christchurch terrorist attack. ? pic.twitter.com/ccaiG6H0Fg", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/jacindaardern?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://twitter.com/hashtag/Christchurch?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/ccaiG6H0Fg" ] }, { "sentence": " news.com.au (@newscomauHQ) March 18, 2019", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/newscomauHQ/status/1107432204416671749?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "But in a speech given on 17 March 2019, Ardern assured victims that New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), an agency that provides financial assistance to anyone in New Zealand who is injured in an accident, would be on hand to help them:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/pm-statement-christchurch-shooting-%E2%80%93-4pm-17-march" ] }, { "sentence": "The country is currently making preparations for funerals for the 50 deceased victims.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12213855" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zero-dollars-and-zero-sense/", "claim": "No cost at all.", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "10/21/1999", "sci_digest": [ "Man battles a $0.00 charge that won't go away." ], "justification": " Claim: Man battles $0.00 charge that won't go away. LEGEND Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 1998] In March 1992 a man living in Newtown near Boston Massachusetts received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another and threw that one away too. The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they'd take care of it. The following month our hero decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases he found that his card had been cancelled. He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Finally giving in he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all. A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt. The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead. What a world? (country NSW... (New South Wales.. Australia))... On Thursday, 24 January 2002, Derek Guille broadcast this story on his afternoon program on ABC radio. In March, 1999, a man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in NSW received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another bill and threw that one away too. The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his gas line if he didn't send them $0.00 by return mail. He called them, talked to them, and they said it was a computer error and they would take care of it. The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome gas line figuring that if there was usage on the account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament. However, when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off. He called the gas company who apologised for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to them the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake, so he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00. This bill also stated that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Finally, giving in, he thought he would beat the company at their own game and mailed them a cheque [check] for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the gas company nothing at all. A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation called our hapless friend and asked him what he was doing writing cheque for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank manager replied that the $0.00 cheque had caused their cheque processing software to fail. The bank could therefore not process ANY cheques they had received from ANY of their customers that day because the cheque for $0.00 had caused the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the gas company claiming that his cheque has bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a cheque by return mail they would take immediate steps to recover the debt. At this point, the man decided to file a debt harassment claim against the gas company. It took him nearly 2 hours to convince the clerks at the local courthouse that he was not joking. They subsequently assisted him in the drafting of statements which were considered substantive evidence of the aggravation and difficulties he had been forced to endure during this debacle. The matter was heard in the Magistrate's Court in Mudgee and the outcome was this: The gas company was ordered to: [1] Immediately rectify their computerised accounts system or show cause, within 10 days, why the matter should not be referred to a higher court for consideration under Company Law. [2] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by the man. [3] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by all the Westpac clients whose cheques had been bounced on the day our friend's had been. [4] Pay the claimant's court costs; and [5] Pay the claimant a total of $1500 per month for the 5 month period March to July inclusive as compensation for the aggravation they had caused their client to suffer. And all this over $0.00. This story can also be viewed on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) website. Who employed these idiots?? Origins: This wacky tale of billing technology gone horribly wrong first appeared on the Internet in July 1997. It's pointless to ask if this e-mailed tale is a true story because not enough details were provided in the text to give anyone much hope of tracking this specific version to a source. We're told this happened in 1992 to a man in Newtown, Massachussetts, but there is no such town. (There is a Newton, however, in that area.) Neither the man nor the credit card company are named, adding to the difficulties of finding out if the particulars of this story are real. Later versions of the same e-mail omitted the name of the town and altered the text to \"A man living near Boston ...\" Even later versions re-inserted the name of the town, this time changing it to Newton. In 2003 it reappeared as a tale about a man living in Australia. It's best we forget about trying to find this mystery man and instead look at the story. There's nothing implausible about receiving a zero-sum statement; people get them all the time. What elevates this particular cyber-version into the realm of legend are the additional details tacked on after that event. This story works as an engaging piece of fiction because of the mounting sense of frustration the victim endures as the people he turns to for help prove incapable of undoing what a machine has done. He finally (he thinks) figures a way to beat the machine at its own game by sending a $0.00 check to pay the $0.00 bill, but in doing so causes his bank's computer to hit the bricks and his check to bounce, prompting yet another dunning notice from the credit card company. It's great tale, but it's probably not a real one: It's unlikely that a zero-dollar check could or did cause a financial institution's computers to crash. If that were all it took, people looking for a few extra days before checks they'd written cleared their accounts (or pranksters merely seeking to wreak industrial havoc) would have routinely deposited zero-dollar checks in order to bring banking systems to their knees. Variations on this story have been around for years. This one comes from a 1970 joke book: Winning a battle with a computer system is getting to be more fun than sneaking into the subway through an exit gate used to be when we were kids. Let's give a great big hand to latest winner Jerome T. Parker. Mr. Parker, for reasons unknown to him, received a bill from an oil company for several consecutive months for $0.00. He laughingly showed the bills to friends and waited for the bills to stop coming. When he got one marked \"Final Notice,\" however, plus a threat to turn the account over to a notoriously tough collection agency, he wrote out a check for no dollars and no cents, signed his name thereto, and mailed it to the oil company with a note saying, \"This pays my account in full.\" Damned if he didn't get a form letter in return thanking him for his patronage. The reason for this tale's growing popularity of late may well have been captured in the first line of that 1970 example: \"Winning a battle with a computer system.\" As computers come to play ever-increasing roles in our lives, so grows our resentment of them. We fear the thought of someday falling at their mercy, and the $0.00 story expresses this anxiety. In this Kafka-esque tale, the hero is unable to get any of the humans he speaks with to unravel the mess and ultimately has to resort to playing the computer's game to beat it. Chilling thought, that, and we fear that is indeed the way our world is going. In August 1999, Ann Landers ran the following letter from a reader: DEAR ANN LANDERS: When I read your column about outrageous billing statements, I decided to send you my story. When I was in college, I took out guaranteed student loans. After graduation, while still repaying the loans, I was informed that they had defaulted and had been turned over to the state collection agency. I had no idea why. It took seven years of letter writing, hiring a lawyer and appealing to my congressperson to straighten out the mess. It turned out that my file at the bank had fallen behind a filing cabinet. Can you believe it? It actually happened. I am not making this up. The U.S. Department of Education dropped all penalty charges, and I paid off the balance in full. End of story, right? Wrong. Keep reading. After the loan was cleared up, I began to receive billing letters from the Department of Education. What was so funny, was that the bills reported no balance due no principal, penalties or interest. But the letters began none too cordially with, \"Warning-Warning-Warning! Your scheduled payment is seriously overdue!\" The letters contained several threats about the consequences if I didn't pay off my zero balance immediately. Go figure. I received no fewer than 11 of these threatening letters, and wouldn't be surprised if there are more in the pipeline. In October 1999 another of Ann's reader's came forward to tell her $0.00 tale: Dear Ann: I just read the letter from C.M. in Milpitas, Calif., who said the Department of Education lost her file and kept billing her for her student loan. After the mess was finally straightened out, she received bills demanding she pay a balance of $0. That's right zero dollars. This happened to me as well. A financial-aid adviser told me that the quickest way to solve the problem was to ''pay'' the bill, so I wrote a cheque for $0. This is the only to stop the computer from sending statement letters. Calling customer services is useless because they don't always communicate with the billing departments. Since I sent that cheque, I have not been bothered. But get this the billing department actually tried to cash it. Can $0.00 billings occur? Ask a bookkeeper who has dealt with a computerized receivables system that generates finance charges but does not round off the amounts. In a situation where an overdue account has attracted a finance charge, such bills can occur when the customer pays his bill. As far as the computer is concerned, a debt of < 1 still exists, so the program sends this information to the printer at statement printing time. However, because the program has also been coded not to print fractional cent amounts, it spits out a $0.00 statement. (The same reasoning applies to one person's online explanation of why Yahoo! sent him a payment check for $0.00.) explanation In the now-vanished world where competent bookkeepers oversaw the receivables process, such oddities were caught before they were mailed out, and a reversing entry to cancel the fractional finance charge was entered to soothe the electronic beast. In the modern world, statements are all too often automatically stuffed into window envelopes (by yet more machines!), franked, and mailed, and accounting personnel think a reversing entry is something one performs to back into a parking space. One would hope that when matters reach the \"telephone for help\" stage they get straightened out, but then I still believe in the myth of the competent bookkeeper. Barbara \"debit taunt of 1977\" Mikkelson Last updated: 27 June 2014 Landers, Ann. \"Ann Landers.\" 13 October 1999 [syndicated column]. Landers, Ann. \"Ann Landers.\" 18 August 1999 [syndicated column].", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hMDwWg-4zdAW1pYOgIElpqUGbcGtc59y" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Can $0.00 billings occur? Ask a bookkeeper who has dealt with a computerized receivables system that generates finance charges but does not round off the amounts. In a situation where an overdue account has attracted a finance charge, such bills can occur when the customer pays his bill. As far as the computer is concerned, a debt of < 1 still exists, so the program sends this information to the printer at statement printing time. However, because the program has also been coded not to print fractional cent amounts, it spits out a $0.00 statement. (The same reasoning applies to one person's online explanation of why Yahoo! sent him a payment check for $0.00.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.statisticsblog.com/2010/06/data-is-dumb-try-to-be-smart/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/voice-of-experience/", "claim": "Voice of Experience", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "08/11/2006", "sci_digest": [ "Native American warns U.S. vice-president about American immigration policy." ], "justification": "Legend: Native American warns U.S. vice-president about American immigration policy. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Food for Thought ... Recently someone was browsing through the 40th Anniversary Issue of Reader's Digest (dated Feb. 1962) and came across this reprint from the Washington News. And found it quite interesting considering our current debates! The Quote: \"Vice President Lyndon Johnson received the following message from an Indian (Native American) on a reservation: 'Be careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours.'\" Origins: Whenever the debate about U.S. immigration policy flares anew, many debaters quickly rush into one of two camps: those who believe that a flood of illegal immigrants is undermining the American economy and culture, and those who assert that America's foundations were built upon the bedrock of immigration, and that all U.S. residents other than Native Americans are themselves immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. That last point is common fodder for humor, with many jokes playing on the notion of \"Indians\" sagely and sardonically cautioning \"white men\" (or others) to avoid the same dangers they themselves faced from the European settlers who colonized the North American continent. (A familiar anecdote about a subversive greeting provided to NASA officials by a Navajo is a sample of this form.) NASA The example reproduced above was mined from the same vein, a joke that enjoyed brief currency in the American press during the early summer of 1961, primarily through its retelling by Representative E.Y. Berry of South Dakota. In true urban legend fashion, even though the tale was spread by a single source, in just a few weeks' time it was reproduced in multiple versions with differing details. For example, on 2 July 1961, the Washington Post ran it this way: As Rep. E. Y. Berry tells it, Chief Ben Wildhorse, a South Dakota Sioux, came to Washington and was given an audience by the Vice President. The Chief's advice to the Vice President: \"Young man, be careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours.\" In this instance the Native American is identified by name and tribe, but the vice-president is referenced only by position. (Most people, as in the Reader's Digest example quoted above, simply filled in the name of the then-current vice-president, Lyndon Johnson.) Three weeks later, the Chicago Daily Tribune printed the same item, only in a slightly more elaborate version that didn't name the Indian chief and had the Sioux offering his advice to Lyndon Johnson's predecessor in the vice-presidency, Richard Nixon: Rep. E .Y. Berry recalls the time a Sioux Indian chief from South Dakota called on former Vice President Nixon to discuss tribal land matters. As he was leaving the Vice President's office, the chief said he had some advice to impart. \"Be careful with your immigration laws,\" the Indian said, \"unfortunately, we were careless with ours.\" The same story had appeared a month earlier in the Chicago Defender, in yet another version that again identified the Sioux chieftain (but gave him a different name); had him imparting his wisdom to Nixon's predecessor, the late Alben Barkley; and classified the tale as \"an old Indian proverb\": Rep. E .Y. Berry Monday repeated an old Indian proverb for the edification of Congressmen studying immigration problems. Sioux chieftain Ben American Horse, Berry said, once advised the late Vice President Alben W. Barkley to \"be careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours.\" Finally, a 1965 version combined elements of both this anecdote and the NASA/Navajo joke referenced earlier in this article: Many people no doubt remember the aging Sioux Indian Chief Ben American Horse's well-known remark to the late Alben Barkley, Harry Truman's vice president. \"Young man, let me give you a little advice,\" said the chief. \"Be careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours.\" A sequel to this, which might have been prompted by the Gemini flights, is now suggested by [South Dakota] Sen. Karl Mundt. A Sioux Indian from South Dakota wrote Mundt wanting to know \"why you white people want to go to the moon. There is no Indian land to take away up there!\" For what it's worth, Ben American Horse was a real Sioux chieftain, and he did visit Washington in 1955, when Alben Barkley was a U.S. senator and Richard Nixon was vice-president. However, we couldn't find any contemporaneous news accounts that reported his making (to either man) the \"immigration\" remark attributed to him all such accounts we turned up dated from 1961 or later, after Barkley was dead and Nixon was out of office. Last updated: 11 August 2006 Sources: Albright, Robert C. \"Lone Sunbeam Pierces Pall of Off-Year Loss.\" The Washington Post. 2 July 1961 (p. E1). Gabbett, Harry. \"Visiting Sioux Chief Pays His Disrespects to Things.\" The Washington Post. 8 March 1955 (p. 27). Trohan, Walter. \"Washington Scrapbook.\" Chicago Daily Tribune. 23 July 1961 (p. 22). Indiana Evening Gazette. \"Litterbug in Trouble with Him.\" 11 September 1965 (p. 8). United Press International. \"Chuckles in the News.\" Chicago Daily Defender. 28 June 1961 (p. 19).", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "American economy and culture, and those who assert that America's foundations were built upon the bedrock of immigration, and that all U.S. residents other than Native Americans are themselves immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. That last point is common fodder for humor, with many jokes playing on the notion of \"Indians\" sagely and sardonically cautioning \"white men\" (or others) to avoid the same dangers they themselves faced from the European settlers who colonized the North American continent. (A familiar anecdote about a subversive greeting provided to NASA officials by a Navajo is a sample of this form.)", "hrefs": [ "/humor/jokes/moonshot.asp" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/total-collapse-wind-solar-germany/", "claim": "Did 'Total Collapse' in Wind and Solar Energy Leave Germans in Need of Coal-Fired Power?", "author": "Madison Dapcevich", "posted": "02/19/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The European nation is heralded as a leader in wind and solar energy production." ], "justification": "As Texas struggled with statewide rolling blackouts and much of the United States experienced a potent arctic storm with frigid temperatures and unprecedented ice and snow in February 2021, social media users speculated that frozen wind turbines in Texas played a major role in power outages there (false). And across the world, others argued that Germany's renewable energy sources, wind and solar, failed that country, requiring greater output from nuclear and coal production to make up the difference. experienced unprecedented ice and snow false The allegation stemmed from an article published by Stop These Things (STT), an anti-wind website that the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch said promotes anecdotes and pseudoscience intended to cast doubt on the effectiveness of wind energy. The STT report cited a pseudoscientific blog post published by NoTricksZone on Jan. 28, 2021, by Pierre Goselin titled, Berlin on the Brink! Winter Blackouts Loom As Coal Plants Run At 100% Capacity, Struggle to Keep Lights On. Similar claims were shared on Reddit and other publications, including World News Era. STT said blog post Jan. 28, 2021 Berlin on the Brink! Winter Blackouts Loom As Coal Plants Run At 100% Capacity, Struggle to Keep Lights On Reddit World News Era While it is true that solar panels and wind turbines can suffer during periods of extreme cold and high snow pilings, it is not accurate to say that Germany experienced a total collapse of power. It is also inaccurate to say that coal and nuclear power were required to step up to make up the difference. In particular, NoTricksZone cited a video produced by German national broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) that had reportedly been taken down by the channel but was reuploaded to YouTube by wind energy protest group Vernunftkraft.du. NoTricksZone said that in the video, Daniel Bartig, a mechanic at the LEAG Lausitz power plant, said that he was skeptical that green energy can do the job and that the greatest share of power is currently coming from coal. Harald Schwarz, professor of power distribution at the University of Cottbus, said that he is very skeptical of wind and solar energy doing the job: YouTube With this supply of wind and photovoltaic energy, its between 0 and 2 or 3 percent that is de facto zero. You can see it in many diagrams that we have days, weeks, in the year where we have neither wind nor PV. Especially this time for example there is no wind and PV, and there are often times when the wind is very miniscule. These are things, I must say, that have been physically established and known for centuries, and weve simply totally neglected this during the green energies discussion. While our emails to RBB, Schwarz and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy went unanswered, an investigation into Germanys power grid in early 2021 revealed that such claims were largely unfounded. Germany is heralded as a leader in wind and solar power. In 2013, leaders launched Energiewende, a movement to shift the power grid to a more efficient and carbon-neutral system, eliminate electricity generated from nuclear by 2022, and fully phase out coal by 2038. And movements in early 2021 continued a shift from nuclear, as well as coal and oil, to a more diversified system. As of December 2019, about 12% of Germanys electricity came from nuclear energy produced at seven reactors, while over 40% of electricity came from coal, according to the World Nuclear Association, an international organization that promotes nuclear power. By and large, coal was the largest source of power generation in 2019, according to a 2020 report published by the International Energy Agency. World Nuclear Association International Energy Agency Those numbers shifted slightly in 2020, according to preliminary data published by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), which found that 44.6% of energy sourced in Germany in 2020 was from renewables nearly a quarter of which was produced by onshore and offshore wind, and 8.9% of which was solar, reported Clean Energy Wire. Clean Energy Wire But other energy sources still hold a share in that total. Natural gas made up 16.2%, while nuclear clocked in around 11.4%, and hard coal 7.5%, so its not out of the ordinary for Germany to be getting its energy from coal and nuclear sources, particularly in the winter. The largest issue with Germanys power grid, according to the IEA, is that most of the wind capacity is located in the northern region whereas most of the demand is in urban regions to the south and transporting wind power can be a difficult and arduous task. According to STT report, Germanys millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice and were thus rendered useless: So much for the transition to an all wind and sun powered future aka the Energiewende. Despite being the object of consternation and much vilification over the last 20 years, Germanys coal-fired plants are now being appreciated for what they are: truly meaningful power generation sources, available on demand, whatever the weather. With a Nationwide blackout a heartbeat away, the German obsession with unreliable wind and solar is like a time bomb set to explode. It is true that solar panels require sunlight to produce energy and that being covered in snow can hamper their efficiency, but that doesnt mean that they are rendered useless. Most solar panels are tilted at an angle, so snow will slide off on its own. And if it doesnt, caretakers will simply remove the snow without damaging the panels, according to the solar industry company Energy Sage. Cold, sunny weather is actually good for panels. Winter months are actually good for solar energy production, as long as your panels arent covered by snow. Like most electronics, solar panels function more efficiently in cold conditions than in hot, wrote the solar industry experts. This means that your panels will produce more power for each precious hour of sunshine during the short days of winter. wrote And according to the U.S. Department of Energy, a little snow has little impact on solar panels. While heavy snow can limit the amount of energy produced, light is still able to move through the snow even when panels are completely covered by snow, they can still generate energy. U.S. Department of Energy The biggest threat to solar panels from heavy snowfall is weight, which can put stress on the delicate system and photovoltaic panels, which are responsible for generating electricity via sunlight. The TSS report also claimed that freezing weather has halted 30,000 wind turbines, which could in part be true. Turbines use wind to make electricity when it rotates the blades around a rotor, which spins a generator to create electricity. But when there is an accumulation of ice on these blades, an increased load can reduce power and damage the blades. spins Cold weather can also shut down equipment, and in places that are ill-equipped for chilly temperatures, this can slow down energy production. But NoTricksZone reported that 30,000 wind turbines in Germany were largely out of operation, and in a world 100% reliant on green energies, this would mean near 100% darkness at home. Snopes did not find evidence to confirm that tens of thousands of turbines were out of operation; neither is it true that Germany is fully dependent on green energies yet.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14IrwEARSAsWx0kEQB1b3I9--g2cPmIPS", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "As Texas struggled with statewide rolling blackouts and much of the United States experienced a potent arctic storm with frigid temperatures and unprecedented ice and snow in February 2021, social media users speculated that frozen wind turbines in Texas played a major role in power outages there (false). And across the world, others argued that Germany's renewable energy sources, wind and solar, failed that country, requiring greater output from nuclear and coal production to make up the difference.", "hrefs": [ "https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147941/extreme-winter-weather-causes-us-blackouts#:~:text=A%20potent%20arctic%20weather%20system,millions%20of%20people%20without%20power.", "https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/us/winter-storm-today.html", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-turbines-texas-power-outages/" ] }, { "sentence": "The allegation stemmed from an article published by Stop These Things (STT), an anti-wind website that the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch said promotes anecdotes and pseudoscience intended to cast doubt on the effectiveness of wind energy. The STT report cited a pseudoscientific blog post published by NoTricksZone on Jan. 28, 2021, by Pierre Goselin titled, Berlin on the Brink! Winter Blackouts Loom As Coal Plants Run At 100% Capacity, Struggle to Keep Lights On. Similar claims were shared on Reddit and other publications, including World News Era.", "hrefs": [ "https://stopthesethings.com/2021/02/09/coal-comfort-total-collapse-in-wind-solar-output-leaves-freezing-germans-desperate-for-coal-fired-power/", "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/%22Stop_These_Things%22", "https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/notrickszone/", "https://archive.is/NH8m8", "https://notrickszone.com/2021/01/28/berlin-on-the-brink-blackouts-loom-as-coal-plants-running-at-100-capacity-struggle-to-keep-lights-on-in/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/lgymcy/coal_comfort_total_collapse_in_wind_solar_output/", "https://worldnewsera.com/news/startups/germanys-green-energy-failure-germany-turns-back-to-coal-and-natural-gas-as-millions-of-its-solar-panels-are-blanketed-in-snow-and-ice-tech-news-startup/" ] }, { "sentence": "In particular, NoTricksZone cited a video produced by German national broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) that had reportedly been taken down by the channel but was reuploaded to YouTube by wind energy protest group Vernunftkraft.du. NoTricksZone said that in the video, Daniel Bartig, a mechanic at the LEAG Lausitz power plant, said that he was skeptical that green energy can do the job and that the greatest share of power is currently coming from coal. Harald Schwarz, professor of power distribution at the University of Cottbus, said that he is very skeptical of wind and solar energy doing the job:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgYubOxsjmI" ] }, { "sentence": "As of December 2019, about 12% of Germanys electricity came from nuclear energy produced at seven reactors, while over 40% of electricity came from coal, according to the World Nuclear Association, an international organization that promotes nuclear power. By and large, coal was the largest source of power generation in 2019, according to a 2020 report published by the International Energy Agency.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx", "https://www.iea.org/reports/germany-2020" ] }, { "sentence": "Those numbers shifted slightly in 2020, according to preliminary data published by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), which found that 44.6% of energy sourced in Germany in 2020 was from renewables nearly a quarter of which was produced by onshore and offshore wind, and 8.9% of which was solar, reported Clean Energy Wire.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts" ] }, { "sentence": "Cold, sunny weather is actually good for panels. Winter months are actually good for solar energy production, as long as your panels arent covered by snow. Like most electronics, solar panels function more efficiently in cold conditions than in hot, wrote the solar industry experts. This means that your panels will produce more power for each precious hour of sunshine during the short days of winter.", "hrefs": [ "https://news.energysage.com/solar-panels-in-winter-weather-snow-affect-power-production/#:~:text=Solar%20panels%20need%20sunlight%20to,but%20that%20can%20take%20time." ] }, { "sentence": "And according to the U.S. Department of Energy, a little snow has little impact on solar panels. While heavy snow can limit the amount of energy produced, light is still able to move through the snow even when panels are completely covered by snow, they can still generate energy.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/let-it-snow-how-solar-panels-can-thrive-winter-weather" ] }, { "sentence": "The TSS report also claimed that freezing weather has halted 30,000 wind turbines, which could in part be true. Turbines use wind to make electricity when it rotates the blades around a rotor, which spins a generator to create electricity. But when there is an accumulation of ice on these blades, an increased load can reduce power and damage the blades.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-work#:~:text=Wind%20turbines%20work%20on%20a,a%20generator%2C%20which%20creates%20electricity." ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/webs-spun-by-lsd-tripping-spiders/", "claim": "Was One of These Webs Spun by an LSD-Tripping Spider?", "author": "Madison Dapcevich", "posted": "11/20/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Like humans, the cognitive abilities of spiders appear to be impaired by drugs. " ], "justification": "Orb-weaving spiders are known for their meticulous ability to create suspended, intricate wheel-shaped webs characterized by nearly parallel grids that have inspired Halloween decorations for decades. How well a web is constructed can determine the likelihood that its weaver will survive. likelihood And decades of scientific research have revealed that when a spider is under the influence of drugs, its web can take on a variety of uncharacteristic shapes and patterns. decades scientific research A reverse image search revealed that the photographs featured in the tweet in question have been shared to the internet more than 100 times, including a viral Reddit post posted in May 2021. reverse image search May 2021 Though the above images are authentic, they were not all included as part of a 1995 NASA experiment (more on what exactly NASA funded later). In the decades following studies surrounding the web-weaving skills of hallucinating spiders, social media users have mixed and matched photographs taken during various research projects and, in some cases, have erroneously described the details of such work. Since at least the 1950s, scientists have conducted experiments exploring the effects of various drugs on spiders, the first of which resulted in a 1954 piece titled Spider Webs and Drugs published in Scientific American. Among the first of those researchers was Peter Witt, a Swiss pharmacologist who studied how drugs impact the cognitive effects of drugs on the geometry of orb spider webs. 1950s Spider Webs and Drugs Peter Witt In particular, the photograph depicting the web of an acid-tripping spider is authentic, but it was not published as part of the 1995 NASA research nor was it connected with Witt, who died at the age of 80 three years later. The photograph was published in a 1957 article published in the American fashion journal Gravure Magazine with an accompanying caption that read, Web built after administration of d-lysergic acid diethylamide (lsd). Gravure Magazine The image from Twitter (left) is compared to the image published on Witt's website (right). To get a spider to take acid, a medical student at the time provided an ingenious solution. The drug was mixed in a sugar solution which was then injected into a small fly. A tuning fork was used and the vibrations set up in the signal thread were the clue to the bait. Apparently the mixture was delicious because there was no problem about getting him [the spider] to take the bait, read the Gravure Magazine article. The 1957 research noted that spiders on LSD seemed unaware of outside influences and concentrated on the job. An interesting parallel, the writers noted, when compared to a person who has ingested a hallucinogen and has a very rich inner life and seems out of contact with reality. With depressants they forgot to finish what they had started and the result was a very ineffective food-gathering device. Humans react in much the same way, read the article. Then again, the researchers also injected spiders with the blood serum taken from catatonic people diagnosed with schizophrenia which they said caused the spiders to withdrew from all activity and exhibited only feeble attempts at spinning or none at all. Thankfully, science is an ever-evolving study. Witt, who was also a mental health researcher and consultant to NASA, said in 1973 that the testing was done in part to determine how spiders spinning inside the orbit of a space station would be impacted by zero gravity and the stress of space travel study the effects of drugs on mental health, plus environment, on the web building of spiders and how the changes relate to human behavior patterns And in the decades that followed, NASA also took a keen interest in adding onto Witts research. On April 1, 1994, NASA researchers David Noever, Raymond Cronise and Rachna Relwani published a four-paragraph description of an experiment called Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity in a 124-page issue of NASA Tech Briefs. Researchers describe having similarly used spiders as a means to test toxic chemicals at a less costlier alternative, and to avert potential conflicts with the recent animal-rights legislation issues. But the 1995 study, which has been archived here, only published a graphic that depicted the effects of marijuana, Benzedrine, caffeine, and chloral hydrate not LSD. Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity here NASA NASA Spiders recorded in the NASA study were either left sober or were given an unspecified dose of marijuana, Benzedrine, caffeine, or chloral hydrate. However, it did not appear that the arachnids had been given LSD or speed, as the popular meme suggested. The changes in webs reflect the degree of toxicity of a substance. The more the chemical, the more deformed a web in comparison with a normal web, wrote NASA. Each image was digitized and processed by an image-data analysis program that computed measures of cellular structures of each web, including the area, perimeter, and radii of its cells. It appears that one of the most telling measures of toxicity is a decrease in comparison with a normal web of the numbers of completed sides in the cell: the greater the toxicity, the more sides the spider fails to complete, wrote the study authors. Clipped From The Times Recorder. The Times Recorder, 10 May 1973, p. 21. Did NASA Give Spiders Drugs to See How They Would Affect Web-Spinning? Poynter, 13 Dec. 2019, https://www.poynter.org/tfcn/2019/did-nasa-give-spiders-drugs-to-see-how-they-would-affect-web-spinning/. D-Lysergaure-Diathlamid (LSD 25) EXPERIENTIA - Dr. Peter N Witt. https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/d-lysergaure-diathlamid-lsd-25-experientia/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. Dr Peter Witt - Spiders, Drugs and Human Behavior. Dr. Peter N Witt, https://www.drpeterwitt.com/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. He Spins at NightGRAVURE MAGAZINE - Dr. Peter N Witt. https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/he-spins-at-night-gravure-magazine/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. Narendra_17. In 1995 a Group of NASA Scientists Studied the Effects of Various Drugs on Spiders, Specifically on the Way They Weave Their Webs. R/Interestingasfuck, 19 Apr. 2021, www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/mtrjnk/in_1995_a_group_of_nasa_scientists_studied_the/. ---. In 1995 a Group of NASA Scientists Studied the Effects of Various Drugs on Spiders, Specifically on the Way They Weave Their Webs. R/Interestingasfuck, 19 Apr. 2021, www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/mtrjnk/in_1995_a_group_of_nasa_scientists_studied_the/. NASA Tech Briefs, April 1995. Apr. 1995. ntrs.nasa.gov, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20100033433.Noever, David A., et al. Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity. NASA Tech Briefs, vol. 19, no. 4, Apr. 1995. ntrs.nasa.gov, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19950065352. Peter Witt Biography - Spiders, Drugs and Human Behavior. Dr. Peter N Witt, https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/peter-witt-biography/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. Schizophrenic Spider Webs LSD 1967. The Times, 2 Nov. 1967, p. 1.Soler, Alejandro, and Ramn Zaera. The Secondary Frame in Spider Orb Webs: The Detail That Makes the Difference. Scientific Reports, vol. 6, no. 1, Aug. 2016, p. 31265. www.nature.com, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep31265. Space Spiders Bug SkylabThe News and Observer - Dr. Peter N Witt. https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/space-spiders-bug-skylabthe-news-and-observer/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. Spiders on Speed Get Weaving. New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619750-500-spiders-on-speed-get-weaving/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/search/5c8f3332f4b5bc3a91255ed0e91722ac2516f2d5?sort=score&order=desc&page=1. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. https://twitter.com/latestinspace/status/1432827827691401224. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021. Witt, Peter. Spider Webs and Drugs. Scientific American, vol. 191, no. 6, 1954, pp. 8087.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vqSHepKFx3X4gTixFnevNLHTKD8EFEQV", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BSz5SV2qIc4yTjvZqUZJSuqb-S3YUNA3", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Orb-weaving spiders are known for their meticulous ability to create suspended, intricate wheel-shaped webs characterized by nearly parallel grids that have inspired Halloween decorations for decades. How well a web is constructed can determine the likelihood that its weaver will survive.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nature.com/articles/srep31265" ] }, { "sentence": "And decades of scientific research have revealed that when a spider is under the influence of drugs, its web can take on a variety of uncharacteristic shapes and patterns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/70999004/schizophrenic-spider-webs-lsd-1967/", "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/88812979/the-times-recorder/" ] }, { "sentence": "A reverse image search revealed that the photographs featured in the tweet in question have been shared to the internet more than 100 times, including a viral Reddit post posted in May 2021.", "hrefs": [ "https://tineye.com/search/5c8f3332f4b5bc3a91255ed0e91722ac2516f2d5?sort=score&order=desc&page=1", "https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/mtrjnk/in_1995_a_group_of_nasa_scientists_studied_the/" ] }, { "sentence": "Since at least the 1950s, scientists have conducted experiments exploring the effects of various drugs on spiders, the first of which resulted in a 1954 piece titled Spider Webs and Drugs published in Scientific American. Among the first of those researchers was Peter Witt, a Swiss pharmacologist who studied how drugs impact the cognitive effects of drugs on the geometry of orb spider webs.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/d-lysergaure-diathlamid-lsd-25-experientia/", "https://www.jstor.org/stable/24943711?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents", "https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/peter-witt-biography/" ] }, { "sentence": "In particular, the photograph depicting the web of an acid-tripping spider is authentic, but it was not published as part of the 1995 NASA research nor was it connected with Witt, who died at the age of 80 three years later. The photograph was published in a 1957 article published in the American fashion journal Gravure Magazine with an accompanying caption that read, Web built after administration of d-lysergic acid diethylamide (lsd).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.drpeterwitt.com/project/he-spins-at-night-gravure-magazine/" ] }, { "sentence": " The image from Twitter (left) is compared to the image published on Witt's website (right).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-12-at-12.26.29-PM.png" ] }, { "sentence": "And in the decades that followed, NASA also took a keen interest in adding onto Witts research. On April 1, 1994, NASA researchers David Noever, Raymond Cronise and Rachna Relwani published a four-paragraph description of an experiment called Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity in a 124-page issue of NASA Tech Briefs. Researchers describe having similarly used spiders as a means to test toxic chemicals at a less costlier alternative, and to avert potential conflicts with the recent animal-rights legislation issues. But the 1995 study, which has been archived here, only published a graphic that depicted the effects of marijuana, Benzedrine, caffeine, and chloral hydrate not LSD.", "hrefs": [ "https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19950065352", "https://web.archive.org/web/20070704003310/http:/science.nasa.gov/faq/NASA%20Tech%20Brief.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": " NASA", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/11/Screen-Shot-2021-11-12-at-10.10.46-AM.png", "https://web.archive.org/web/20070704003310/http:/science.nasa.gov/faq/NASA%20Tech%20Brief.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tiger-and-piglets/", "claim": "Do These Photographs Show a Tiger Nursing Piglets?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/01/2006", "sci_digest": [ "Photos purportedly show a mother tiger at a California zoo who nursed a group of piglets after her own cubs died." ], "justification": "As often happens, an item about a tiger's nursing piglets appears to be a case in which someone came across some unusual photographs with no explanatory context and decided to make up his own background story. The pictures are real, but the accompanying explanation about a mother tiger in California being given piglets to ease her through a depression stemming from the loss of her own cubs is nothing but fiction: In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth. The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve. After checking with many other zoos across the country, The depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only \"orphans\" that could be found quickly, were a litter of wiener pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops? Take a look ... These pictures were actually taken in 2004 not in California, but at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand. Although the Sriracha Tiger Zoo hosted one of the world's most successful tiger breeding programs, unlike most western zoos it also offered circus- and carnival-like shows, exhibits, and interactions, including (as evidenced here) the mixture of adults and young of quite different species in the same enclosures, as described by the AWI Quarterly, a publication of the Animal Welfare Institute: Sriracha Tiger Zoo AWI Quarterly The Sriracha Tiger Zoo, an hour outside of Bangkok, Thailand, is truly an amazing place. Boasting more than 400 tigers, a handful of Asian elephants, piles of crocodiles, camels, snakes and other exotic animals, the zoo has some intriguing, yet troubling exhibits. In one glass room, a farrowing crate entombed a pig who, lying on her side, nourished both her piglets and tiger cubs. Across the hall, another glass room housed a female tiger, who fed piglets adorned in tiger-print costumes. This incongruous display was replicated elsewhere, where enclosures housed tigers, pigs, and dogs together. In another area, a visitor could feed milk to a young tiger resting on his or her lap a young tiger still in possession of his claws ... There was a tiger circus, not dissimilar from a circus anywhere else: tigers leaping through rings of fire, walking across a double tightrope, parading around the ring on hind legs, and riding around on the back of the horse. The mixture of tiger and piglets depicted in these images therefore was not something undertaken for functional reasons, but rather as a common form of visual entertainment provided by the zoo for the amusement of its visitors. According to the Pattaya Mail, these tiger-pig nursing relationships have also been reciprocated to the extent that the mother tiger shown suckling piglets was herself nursed by a sow: Pattaya Mail Visitors recently witnessed some bizarre feeding habits of the zoo's most famous inhabitants. A two-year-old female pig named Benjamaj is a blended pedigree of parents, Land-Less and Las-White, that were imported from Norway. Benjamaj is a kind and maternal porky. She has taken 4 baby tigers under her care and along with 3 tiny piglets is nursing the tigers as though she were their mum. She loves those cats and they love her back. Unbelieving, wide-eyed tourists pressed their noses up to the cage to get a better look. As they moved on to the next cage they were in for another surprise, as there, a great Royal Bengal tigress was lolling on her side and suckling 6 tiny piglets. 'Momma' tiger Saimai is two years old and as a baby was suckled by a pig until she was 4 months old. This democratic start in life allowed her to form a loving relationship with other pigs and even a dog. Food in the wild, maybe but at the zoo, tourists who witness these amazing scenes come away with food for thought. Although these pictures might appear charming and innocent, the AWI noted back in 2004 that there may be a darker side to the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, as press reports stated that Sriracha was under investigation for illegally breeding protected wildlife for commercial export and had been implicated in the sale of a hundred tigers to China (where there is strong demand for tiger body parts for use in traditional Chinese medicines). The AWI also noted that in late 2004 the zoo was closed for a month when between 80 and 100 tigers died or were euthanized due to an avian influenza (probably spread via the raw chicken carcasses fed to the tigers) that swept through the facility. Roberts, Adam M. \"Too Close for Comfort.\"\r AWI Quarterly. Winter 2005. Battaya Mail. \"Unseen Thailand Amazing Sites at Sriracha Tiger Zoo.\"\r 9 May 2003.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16o-sfXzGf1ZxTNnW3jLer-WkE-KiqslU", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LwEgM2Jytfz8EMrxymU4pyQej83OYmLB", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "These pictures were actually taken in 2004 not in California, but at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand. Although the Sriracha Tiger Zoo hosted one of the world's most successful tiger breeding programs, unlike most western zoos it also offered circus- and carnival-like shows, exhibits, and interactions, including (as evidenced here) the mixture of adults and young of quite different species in the same enclosures, as described by the AWI Quarterly, a publication of the Animal Welfare Institute:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tigerzoo.com/", "https://www.awionline.org/ht/d/ContentDetails/i/1907" ] }, { "sentence": "The mixture of tiger and piglets depicted in these images therefore was not something undertaken for functional reasons, but rather as a common form of visual entertainment provided by the zoo for the amusement of its visitors. According to the Pattaya Mail, these tiger-pig nursing relationships have also been reciprocated to the extent that the mother tiger shown suckling piglets was herself nursed by a sow:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pattayamail.com/510/features.shtml#hd2" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/breonna-taylor-statue-smashed/", "claim": "Was a Breonna Taylor Statue Smashed in Oakland?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "12/29/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The ceramic bust bore a plaque reading, \"Say her name: Breonna Taylor.\"" ], "justification": "In December 2020, roughly nine months after Louisville police fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her apartment during a botched drug raid, a ceramic artist erected a statue memorializing the 26-year-old Black woman in downtown Oakland, California. But shortly after the bust's installation near City Hall, reports surfaced online alleging a person or group had smashed the sculpture into several pieces. Breonna Taylor botched drug raid The reports were true. About two weeks after sculptor Leo Carson of the Bay Area placed the sculpture in the downtown plaza to support the Black Lives Matter movement, the ceramic memorial was found significantly damaged on Dec. 26, and the Oakland Police Department was investigating the vandalism, according to news reports and Carson's posts online. was investigating news reports In an Instagram post and GoFundMe page to fundraise for a new statue, Carson called the damage \"an act of racist aggression.\" Instagram post GoFundMe page The artist's GoFundMe page titled, \"Rebuild the Breonna Taylor Sculpture in DT Oakland,\" read: After spending months creating this artwork it was incredible to see the community and neighbors taking photos and enjoying it. Now I am devastated and enraged to see it in pieces. This was an act of racist aggression and we need to show them we will not stand for it. The police department had not identified any suspects nor a possible motive for the destruction as of this writing. Sharing a news story and Carson's online fundraiser, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf denounced the vandalism in a Dec. 28 tweet, writing: \"It's a vicious attack against the light + justice sought in Breonna Taylor's name. We will keep moving forward; Oakland will not tolerate acts of hatred.\" news story tweet At the time of this report, Carson's online fundraiser had surpassed its goal of $5,000 for a new bronze statue \"to prevent further damage\" and claimed to donate the excess funds to Taylor's family. For a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding Taylor's death, which was at the center of protests against racism and police brutality in summer 2020, see our investigation here. circumstances see our investigation here", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1DIT0Je5ptdVUkZeVA_a0V6jeO5aH-qO7", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RZhQ4Fkqx5a6f5vzJ8IeTSVLIU9aDPzU", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In December 2020, roughly nine months after Louisville police fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her apartment during a botched drug raid, a ceramic artist erected a statue memorializing the 26-year-old Black woman in downtown Oakland, California. But shortly after the bust's installation near City Hall, reports surfaced online alleging a person or group had smashed the sculpture into several pieces.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/10/14/investigating-breonna-taylor/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/06/11/breonna-taylor-police-report-gives-few-details-some-wrong/" ] }, { "sentence": "About two weeks after sculptor Leo Carson of the Bay Area placed the sculpture in the downtown plaza to support the Black Lives Matter movement, the ceramic memorial was found significantly damaged on Dec. 26, and the Oakland Police Department was investigating the vandalism, according to news reports and Carson's posts online.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/us/breonna-taylor-statue-vandalized.html", "https://www.kqed.org/news/11852863/vandalism-oakland-bust-of-breonna-taylor-broken-into-pieces" ] }, { "sentence": "In an Instagram post and GoFundMe page to fundraise for a new statue, Carson called the damage \"an act of racist aggression.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/CJWmRDFpV2I/", "https://www.gofundme.com/f/rebuild-the-breonna-taylor-sculpture-in-dt-oakland" ] }, { "sentence": "Sharing a news story and Carson's online fundraiser, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf denounced the vandalism in a Dec. 28 tweet, writing: \"It's a vicious attack against the light + justice sought in Breonna Taylor's name. We will keep moving forward; Oakland will not tolerate acts of hatred.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/After-Breonna-Taylor-sculpture-smashed-in-15830875.php", "https://twitter.com/LibbySchaaf/status/1343606782367735808" ] }, { "sentence": "For a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding Taylor's death, which was at the center of protests against racism and police brutality in summer 2020, see our investigation here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/10/02/breonna-taylor-grand-jury-proceedings-released/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/10/14/investigating-breonna-taylor/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/feb/27/bobby-jindal/bobby-jindal-says-louisianas-growth-has-outpaced-n/", "claim": "Our economy (in Louisiana) has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "02/27/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Louisianas Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, attracted some media attention recently while attending an annual meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington. At a press event after meeting President Barack Obama with a bipartisan group of governors,Jindal said, The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that. That prompted Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, to come to the microphone and call it a breach of the traditional bipartisan decorum for such events. Jindal, a potential Republican presidential candidate, hit the airwaves again two days later when he was interviewed on MSNBCsMorning Joe. Panelist Mike Barnicle asked Jindal to defend his own economic record: The last time the Census Bureau checked the per capita income of Louisiana, you were 47th lowest in the United States, not all under your watch. What have you done, as governor, to bring in all these better paying jobs and boost your people's per capita income? Jindal responded, Well, the great thing is, we're doing exactly what the president has not. Cut taxes, reform debt, make some investment in workforce training, make it easier for businesses to create jobs. And here's the record. In Louisiana, we now have more people working, highest incomes in our state's history. Larger population than ever before. And the president can't say all those things about the country. Our economy has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession. We wondered whether its correct that Louisiana has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession. When we asked Jindals office for more detail, they said he had been comparing the growth in inflation-adjusted gross domestic product for his state and the nation since 2007 -- a year he chose because it was the baseline year before he began his first term as governor. We looked at the numbers and found that Jindal actually understated the comparison. Between 2007 and 2012 (the last year for which data is available), inflation-adjusted GDP grew by 2.5 percent nationally, but by 6.4 percent in Louisiana. This definitely supports Jindals claim. However, well note a caveat: While the timespan Jindal used certainly makes sense given his tenure as governor, its not the only way to define since the national recession -- the words he used in the MSNBC interview. The recessionofficially beganin December 2007 and ended in June 2009. So if you want to look at the period since the recession, one could just as easily use the range 2008-12, 2009-12 or 2010-12. So lets look at how these date ranges stack up. For 2008-12, Jindal would also be correct. During that period, Louisiana growth (7.9 percent) easily outpaced United States growth (3.2 percent). But hed be wrong for 2009-12, when United States growth (6.7 percent) exceeded Louisiana growth (4.6 percent). And hed also be wrong for 2010-12, when the United States economy grew (4.1 percent) and the Louisiana economy actually shrank (by 1.2 percent). United States growth also exceeded Louisiana growth between 2011 and 2012 -- 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent. Perhaps an easier way to look at it is to compare the year-over-year growth in GDP for Louisiana and the United States. The more robust statistic for each year is listed in bold. 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 United States -0.7 -3.3 +2.4 +1.6 +2.5 Louisiana -1.4 +3.2 +5.8 -2.6 +1.5 If you look at it this way, the United States economy has grown faster (or shrunk less) in three of these years, compared to two years when the Louisiana economy did better, which undercuts Jindals claim. This doesnt surprise John Francis, an economist at Louisiana Tech. Louisiana's economy is highly dependent on the energy sector which, no matter where in the business cycle we lie, is always in demand, he said. So, when the economy is in a recession, we tend to do better than average. When the economy is doing better, energy demand is somewhat higher, but not dramatically so. So when the economy is doing well, we lag behind the U.S. average. I suspect that we were doing better when the economy was in the heart of the Great Recession, but we have fallen behind as the overall economy has rebounded. However, Jindals camp draws the following analogy: In a football game between the United States team and the Louisiana team, the winner would be the one who ended up with more points, not the one who won more quarters. By any objective analysis, Louisiana has outperformed the national economy since January 2008, said Michael Reed, a spokesman for Jindal. Our ruling Jindal said, Our economy (in Louisiana) has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession. The time frame Jindals office said he used -- from 2007 to 2012 -- is a reasonable one, and using that period does make his claim accurate. However, its worth remembering that taking one crack at the numbers can tell an incomplete story. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "At a press event after meeting President Barack Obama with a bipartisan group of governors,Jindal said, The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that. That prompted Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, to come to the microphone and call it a breach of the traditional bipartisan decorum for such events.", "hrefs": [ "http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/02/24/jindal-at-the-white-house-the-obama-economy-is-now-the-minimum-wage-economy/" ] }, { "sentence": "The recessionofficially beganin December 2007 and ended in June 2009. So if you want to look at the period since the recession, one could just as easily use the range 2008-12, 2009-12 or 2010-12. So lets look at how these date ranges stack up.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cadbury-free-chocolate-hampers/", "claim": "Is Cadbury distributing chocolate hampers for free?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "12/10/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Another giveaway scam was circulated on Facebook in December 2020. " ], "justification": "In December 2020, some social media users encountered a message claiming that Cadbury was giving away hampers (or baskets) filled with chocolate to celebrate its 70th anniversary. This was not a genuine message from the famous confectionary company, however. It was just another social media scam. Here's an example of one such message that circulated on WhatsApp: A similar scam circulated on Facebook. That message claimed that everyone who shared and commented on the post would get a \"Cadbury Hamper delivered to their door\" in celebration of the company's 126th anniversary. message This type of scam is common on social media. Users are asked to share and comment on the content in order to ensure that it gets spread to as many people as possible, and then users are asked to provide personal information, such as email addresses or even credit card numbers, under the guise of completing a \"survey\" or some other questionnaire. We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. This Cadbury scam has been circulating in various forms on social media since at least 2018. The company addressed these fraudulent posts in a November 2020 message on Facebook: message Weve been made aware of a circulating post on social media, claiming to offer consumers a hamper of free Cadbury products. We can confirm that this has not been generated by us & would urge you to not interact or share personal information through the post. Your security is our priority & were working with the relevant organisations to ensure this is resolved. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wRN0iS1WTeWd-OBDTWBnjgk1Fu9ZlP44" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1kYgeDXjK5YVv2OWsTFOw-Yc_HQzMOhy-" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15G-bhRKdM8rP7uhmz82Y5zYmzsJxxfPG" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A similar scam circulated on Facebook. That message claimed that everyone who shared and commented on the post would get a \"Cadbury Hamper delivered to their door\" in celebration of the company's 126th anniversary.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wsfm.com.au/lifestyle/warning-issued-over-free-cadbury-hamper-scam-on-facebook/" ] }, { "sentence": "This Cadbury scam has been circulating in various forms on social media since at least 2018. The company addressed these fraudulent posts in a November 2020 message on Facebook:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/CadburyUK/posts/3461971313899930" ] }, { "sentence": "The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/council/news-events/bbb-scam-alerts/2017/04/scam-alert-giveaway-scam-poses-as-facebook/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/may/03/wisconsin-freedom-alliance/do-s-legislator-get-daily-stipend-just-showing/", "claim": "Wisconsin politicians get daily expense payments even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel, and no receipts are required for them to get paid.", "author": "Dave Umhoefer", "posted": "05/03/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "TheWisconsin Freedom Alliance, a conservative political group, splashed into the news briefly in 2016 when itfunded ads criticizing various Republican state Senate candidatesduring primary campaigns. Now the group is back with acampaigncharging that taxpayers are on the hook for bloated pensions, salaries and other benefits for state lawmakers of all political stripes. In an April 2017radio ad, the alliance ripped a practice that pays Wisconsin state lawmakers a per-diem amount when they travel to the Capitol for business. Did you know state politicians can collect their per diems even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel? No receipts are required for them to get paid. No receipts! Its the honor system for politicians paying themselves. Does that sound like a good idea? Is that the way the system works? The benefit Legislators in most states qualify for per-diems. In many cases they receive more than Wisconsin lawmakers can get. That hasnt prevented the per-diems from coming under occasional attack in Wisconsin. They top out at $115 a day for state senators, and $78.50 a day (and $157 for an overnight) for Assembly members. In2016, overall payments to Assembly members ranged from a low of $916 to state Rep. Nancy VanderMeer (R-Tomah) to a high of $9,591 to state Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), the Assembly minority leader. In total, the 99 Assembly members received $484,504. The 33 senators received $200,860 in 2016. The payments ranged from $2,024.00 to state Sen. Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls) to $14,256 to state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), the majority leader. Lawmakers living close to Madison qualify for lower per-diem rates. Lawmakers base salary is $50,950. The Wisconsin law governing the benefit says legislators shall be entitled to an allowance for expenses incurred for food and lodging for each day that he or she is in Madison on legislative business. (italics ours). So, if the allowance is tied to spending on food and lodging, is it possible, as the alliance contended, that it is paid even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel? Michael Flaherty, executive director of the Freedom Alliance, cited a Dec. 30, 2016 story by the USA Today Network-Wisconsin, headlinedMadison lawmakers max out hometown perk. The story said Lawmakers can collect the money as income without spending a dime on meals, lodging or gas. No receipts of expenses are required to get paid. The no-receipts claim is on target, according to the clerks for the Senate and Assembly. Lawmakers are not asked to itemize. As for whether a lawmaker who skips meals and drives home to sleep can still get a per diem, the answer is, yes, thats possible. But its impossible to say how often that happens, given the loose accounting system. Its a benefit, an allowance, said Senate Chief ClerkJeff Renk. In Renks opinion, despite the statutes talk of expenses incurred, lawmakers who incur no expense while collecting a per diem are not violating the law. The perk is so automatic that lawmakers, at the beginning of a two-year legislative session, choose whether to receive the maximum daily reimbursement for days they travel to Madison within that period. Thats how the law was written. All they have to do to collect is confirm their appearances by entering a mark in a computer program. One piece of the groups claim requires a minor clarification. Travel costs in the form of mileage are reimbursed separately from the per-diem payments. Our rating The Wisconsin Freedom Alliance claimed that state lawmakers get daily expense payments even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel, and no receipts are required for them to get paid. Per diems are built on an honor system that requires no documentation that any travel or lodging expense has been incurred. Travel costs, though, have nothing to do with per diems, and some clarification is necessary here because no one can say how often lawmakers get the per diem without spending anything. We rate the claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Immigration", "Income", "State Budget", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "TheWisconsin Freedom Alliance, a conservative political group, splashed into the news briefly in 2016 when itfunded ads criticizing various Republican state Senate candidatesduring primary campaigns.", "hrefs": [ "https://wisconsinfreedomalliance.com/" ] }, { "sentence": "Now the group is back with acampaigncharging that taxpayers are on the hook for bloated pensions, salaries and other benefits for state lawmakers of all political stripes.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wisconsinpensionscandal.com/" ] }, { "sentence": "In an April 2017radio ad, the alliance ripped a practice that pays Wisconsin state lawmakers a per-diem amount when they travel to the Capitol for business.", "hrefs": [ "https://soundcloud.com/user-692636228" ] }, { "sentence": "In2016, overall payments to Assembly members ranged from a low of $916 to state Rep. Nancy VanderMeer (R-Tomah) to a high of $9,591 to state Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), the Assembly minority leader. In total, the 99 Assembly members received $484,504.", "hrefs": [ "http://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/acc/media/1159/2016perdiemreport.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Michael Flaherty, executive director of the Freedom Alliance, cited a Dec. 30, 2016 story by the USA Today Network-Wisconsin, headlinedMadison lawmakers max out hometown perk.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/12/30/madison-lawmakers-max-out-hometown-perk/95110338/" ] }, { "sentence": "Its a benefit, an allowance, said Senate Chief ClerkJeff Renk.", "hrefs": [ "http://legis.wisconsin.gov/senate/scc/senate-chief-clerk-staff/jeff-renk/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iphone-journaling-suggestions-discoverable/", "claim": "Do an iPhone's 'Journaling Suggestions' Settings Reveal Your Name and Location to Strangers?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "03/01/2024", "sci_digest": [ "A viral warning was shared on Facebook in early 2024 that said a relatively new app named Journal posed a possible criminal threat to iPhone users." ], "justification": "On Dec. 11, 2023, Apple released its iOS 17.2 update for iPhone devices. That fresh software update came with the launch of the new private diary app that the company named Journal. As often happens with new or updated electronic devices and features, the launch prompted unfounded rumors warning that the app presented serious privacy and/or security hazards to users. \"Journal, a new iPhone app available today, helps users reflect and practice gratitude through journaling, which has been shown to improve wellbeing,\" the company's announcement read. \"With Journal, users can capture and write about everyday moments and special events in their lives, and include photos, videos, audio recordings, locations and more to create rich memories. On-device machine learning provides private, personalized suggestions to inspire journal entries and customizable notifications help users develop their writing habits.\" announcement On Jan. 2, 2024, the official YouTube channel for Apple Support posted a video showing how iPhone users can easily get started with the new app. video Included with the Journal app is the ability to receive suggestions for entries that could possibly be written about, as the video above mentions. For users who have installed iOS 17.2 or later, those suggestion types are listed under Settings > Privacy and Security > Journaling Suggestions. They include Activity (your workouts and exercise), Media (podcasts and music you listen to), Contacts (people you message and call), Photos (library, memories and shared photos) and Significant Locations (places where you spend time). These five settings are enabled by default. Users who write their private entries in Journal can also receive suggestions associated with people who were nearby to them during the day. Two such settings are Prefer Suggestions with Others, which includes \"moments you share with your contacts or large groups,\" and Discoverable by Others, which is described as \"[allowing] others to detect your are nearby to help prioritize their suggestions.\" These two settings are also enabled by default. The top and bottom of the suggestions settings. Regarding the latter setting, Discoverable by Others, in February 2024 it became the subject of a viral Facebook rumor. A search of Facebook for the words \"Journaling Suggestions\" found no shortage of scared users warning their friends of the purported threat posed by the privacy setting. search Those users commonly shared an image that displayed the following text: ALERT. If you have an iPhone, this is important! After my latest update, there was a new feature downloaded called \"Journaling,\" and it's under \"Settings,\" \"Privacy and Security\" and then scroll all the way down and there's a new \"feature\" called \"Journaling Suggestions.\" Look for the \"DISCOVERABLE BY OTHERS\" toggle. I bet it's toggled to ON, and it let's anyone near you know your FULL NAME and EXACTLY where you're geo located. Go toggle that OFF!! I'm typing all of this. This is messed up big time. Share with your friends if they're iPhone. Very scary stuff!! PSA ... CHECK YOUR IPHONES. However, this Facebook rumor was false. This was nothing more than the latest rumor about iPhone privacy settings to lead a long scrolling of commenters to say that they're going to turn the setting off \"just to be safe.\" Just two inches above the same Discoverable by Others toggle that so many users were choosing to manually disable, Apple included a link that led to more information on a page named \"Journaling Suggestions & Privacy.\" page On that page, Apple specified that suggestions for the Journal app use Bluetooth a short-range communication method. Also, the technology \"[detects] the number of devices and contacts around you without storing which of these specific contacts were around.\" In other words, there was no indication that strangers would be allowed to see a name or track a person's location. The page read as follows: Nearby People Journaling Suggestions may also use contextual information to determine which suggestions may be more meaningful or relevant to you. Journaling Suggestions uses Bluetooth to detect the number of devices and contacts around you without storing which of these specific contacts were around. This information is used to improve and prioritize your suggestions. It is stored on device, and is not shared with Apple. You can choose not to allow Journaling Suggestions to use the number of devices and contacts around you to prioritize your suggestions by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tapping to turn off Prefer Suggestions with Others. You can also control whether your contacts include you in their number of nearby contacts by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, then tapping to turn off Discoverable by Others. If you disable Discoverable by Others and choose not to be included in your contacts' counts, Prefer Suggestions with Others will also be disabled and Journaling Suggestions will not detect how many devices and contacts are around you to improve or prioritize your suggestions. Snopes emailed Apple to ask about this rumor and will update this story if we receive a response. For further reading, we previously reported about a very similar social media scare that also involved iPhones, privacy and a misunderstood feature. reported \"Apple Launches Journal App, a New App for Reflecting on Everyday Moments.\" Apple Newsroom, 11 Dec. 2023, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/12/apple-launches-journal-app-a-new-app-for-reflecting-on-everyday-moments/. \"How to Use Journal on Your iPhone.\" YouTube, Apple Support, 2 Jan. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EtNDO-JDME. \"Legal - Journaling Suggestions & Privacy - Apple.\" Apple Legal, https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/journaling-suggestions/. MacRumors. \"Hands-On With the New Journal App in the iOS 17.2 Beta.\" MacRumors Forums, 26 Oct. 2023, https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/26/ios-17-2-journal-app-hands-on/. Peterson, Jake. \"Don't Worry, Apple's Journal App Probably Isn't a Privacy Nightmare.\" Lifehacker, 29 Feb. 2024, https://lifehacker.com/tech/apples-journal-app-discoverable-by-others. Whitney, Lance. \"Write It Out: How to Use Apple's Journal App in iOS 17.\" PCMAG, 15 Dec. 2023, https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/use-apple-journal-app-iphone-write-it-out.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=158rIHRGqhuMy7c-w-fGjgT-8K0057I53", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sUenprSHrX8zj9uLpVJCyPR6_fEk6zIY", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "\"Journal, a new iPhone app available today, helps users reflect and practice gratitude through journaling, which has been shown to improve wellbeing,\" the company's announcement read. \"With Journal, users can capture and write about everyday moments and special events in their lives, and include photos, videos, audio recordings, locations and more to create rich memories. On-device machine learning provides private, personalized suggestions to inspire journal entries and customizable notifications help users develop their writing habits.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/12/apple-launches-journal-app-a-new-app-for-reflecting-on-everyday-moments/" ] }, { "sentence": "On Jan. 2, 2024, the official YouTube channel for Apple Support posted a video showing how iPhone users can easily get started with the new app.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EtNDO-JDME" ] }, { "sentence": "Regarding the latter setting, Discoverable by Others, in February 2024 it became the subject of a viral Facebook rumor. A search of Facebook for the words \"Journaling Suggestions\" found no shortage of scared users warning their friends of the purported threat posed by the privacy setting.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=journaling%20suggestions" ] }, { "sentence": "Just two inches above the same Discoverable by Others toggle that so many users were choosing to manually disable, Apple included a link that led to more information on a page named \"Journaling Suggestions & Privacy.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/journaling-suggestions/" ] }, { "sentence": "For further reading, we previously reported about a very similar social media scare that also involved iPhones, privacy and a misunderstood feature.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iphone-namedrop-warning/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jun/16/dave-brat/brat-says-entitlement-and-debt-payments-will-consu/", "claim": "In just 17 years, spending for Social Security, federal health care and interest on the debt will exceed ALL tax revenue!", "author": "Warren Fiske", "posted": "06/16/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "The day of financial reckoning is near, says U.S. Rep. Dave Brat. In just 17 years, spending for Social Security, federal health care and interest on the debt will exceed ALL tax revenue! Brat, R-7th, wrote in a May 29Facebook post. That would mean no money for defense or domestic programs unless Uncle Sam wanted to put these items on his already overburdened credit card. Continuing down this path of rampant federal spending and debt expansion is not an option, Brat wrote. It will push us ever closer to fiscal crisis. Getting our spending under control and working to balance our budget must begin now. We wondered whether the 17-year warning -- also being sounded by the Republican leadership on the House Budget Committee, on which Brat serves -- is accurate. Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for Brat, said the claim is based on figures published by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in its 2014 Long-Term Budget Outlook, issued last July. It contains two scenarios that could happen if Congress doesnt take strong action to reduce deficits. The first one assumes that all the major U.S. budget laws in July 2014 will remain in effect. That means Congress will continue sequestration which sets limits on defense and domestic spending, allows a buffet of popular tax cuts to expire as scheduled and doesnt adjust tax brackets to soften inflationary increases in workers earnings. Under these assumptions, the CBO says spending on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and debt interest will top tax revenues in 2044. As bleak as that might seem, theres an alternative scenario thats even gloomier. This is the one Brat embraces. It essentially assumes that Congress will lack the courage to continue unpopular budget policies and, as a result, spending will go up and many taxes will do down. The alternative scenario supposes that Congress will abandon sequestration and continue to extend tax cuts that are scheduled to expire -- most notably tax breaks on research and development, first-year capital investments costs and income gained through foreign corporations in nations with high tax rates. Under these assumptions, the CBO says spending on Social Security, federal health care and debt interest would exceed taxes in 2031. Thats 16 years from now. Is it fair for Brat to focus on the worst scenario? Two analysts told us yes, noting Congress already has a history of relenting on deficit-reducing policies. For example, Congress voted in 2013 to permanently extend the bulk of income tax cuts that were approved during the presidency of George W. Bush. The cuts were originally slated to expire in 2010. The alternative fiscal scenario understands how some of the tough choices Congress needs to make conflict with promises members have made to their constituents, said Eugene Steuerle, an economist at the Urban Institute. Most people who would have to pick between the two scenarios would say Congress would most likely use the alternative one. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, called Brats statement credible. A major point in the CBO report is that the day of reckoning is avoidable if Congress can break its standoff between Republicans, including Brat, who oppose tax increases, and Democrats who oppose cuts to entitlement programs. The report says, To put the federal budget on a sustainable path for the long term, lawmakers would have to make significant changes to tax and spending policies: reducing spending for large benefit programs below the projected levels, letting revenues rise more than they would under current law, or adopting some combination of those approaches. Our ruling Brat says that under the current U.S. path, In just 17 years, spending for Social Security, federal health care and interest on the federal debt will exceed all tax revenue. A CBO report concludes that, in a worst-case scenario in which Congress resumes its old habits of cutting taxes and raising spending, this could happen in 2031 -- 16 years from now. Under a somewhat rosier scenario, in which current budget policies are kept in effect, the U.S. would hit bottom in 2044. Brats focus on the bleaker outlook is defensible because Congress this century has not shown great fiscal discipline. Were dealing with scenarios, however, and Brats statement would have been more accurate if he acknowledged from the outset that the U.S. could run out of tax money for many major programs instead of saying it will. No doubt, however, the U.S. is on a risky fiscal path. We rate Brats statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Debt", "Federal Budget", "Taxes", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In just 17 years, spending for Social Security, federal health care and interest on the debt will exceed ALL tax revenue! Brat, R-7th, wrote in a May 29Facebook post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/RepDaveBrat" ] }, { "sentence": "Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for Brat, said the claim is based on figures published by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in its 2014 Long-Term Budget Outlook, issued last July. It contains two scenarios that could happen if Congress doesnt take strong action to reduce deficits.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45471" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crowded-train-station-ukraine/", "claim": "Is This Photo of Crowded Train Station from 2022 or 1941?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/11/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Images from Ukraine in 2022 have reminded many of the scenes during the start of the Holocaust in 1941. " ], "justification": "In the days after Russia launched a deadly invasion on Ukraine, a photograph started circulating on social media that supposedly showed hundreds people on a crowded train station platform attempting to flee the country. The photograph was frequently shared with a caption stating: \"This is not a photo from 1941. This is a photo from March 2022.\" This photograph was truly taken in early 2022 during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The caption accompanying the photograph appears to compare the current situation in Ukraine to the millions of people across Europe who were forced to flee Nazi aggression during World War II and the Holocaust. In the BBC's March 2022 coverage of Ukraine's modern-day refugees, they noted that the scene was reminiscent of what these people's grandparents experienced roughly 80 years ago: BBC's March 2022 coverage of Ukraine's modern-day refugees On the westbound platforms, the refugees huddle in crowded corridors and stairwells hoping to board trains that will take them to safety in Poland, Hungary or Slovakia. Among them are groups of Roma Gypsies who come from Kharkiv, where Russian shelling is killing civilians. Like everybody else they fled only with what they could carry, an assortment of holdalls and rucksacks. In Lviv, these scenes summon up the restive ghosts of Europe's past. The city is filled with people whose parents or grandparents experienced genocide and totalitarianism in the last century. Tens of thousands of Roma were murdered by the Nazis during World War Two. The above-displayed photograph was taken in Kharkiv, Ukraine, as millions of people were attempting to flee the country. Tim Mak, NPR's investigative correspondent in Ukraine, was one of the first to share the picture online. Mak said the news organization received the picture from an aide to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNydj7j0mxQHere's another report from NBC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLsy4h_WYyoNBC News reported that more than 2 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia's invasion. It's unclear how many passed through this specific train station. The exact death toll in Ukraine is also hard to pin down. A U.S. official told CBS News on March 10, about two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, that thousands of Ukrainians civilians and soldiers had already been killed. CBS News Thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are also believed to have been killed over the past two weeks. The U.S. official said 2,000-4,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed. In the city of Mariupol where an airstrike hit a maternity hospital on Wednesday some 1,200 people have died over the course of Russia's nine-day siege of the city, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office said, according to The Associated Press. A similar rumor was circulated online about Ukraine's Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater. That rumor featured two photographs, one taken recently in 2022 and another taken during World War II: https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1500751560166588416?s=21These photographs are both real and taken during the referenced times. Another photograph showing defense measures outside of the Odessa Opera House in Ukraine during World War II can be seen here. Several news reports have featured the defensive measures outside of this historical building in 2022, including the following video of Odessa opera singers taking a moment to sing in between filling up sand bags and handing out rations: Odessa Opera House in Ukraine during World War II can be seen here Engel: Terrified Crowds Rush To Kyiv Train Station To Escape City. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLsy4h_WYyo. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Occupation of Kiev United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1939-1941/occupation-of-kiev. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Ukraine: People Fleeing Country Gather at Kharkiv Train Station. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNydj7j0mxQ. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Up to 6,000 Russians May Have Been Killed in Ukraine so Far, U.S. Official Estimates. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invasion/. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Video: Ukrainian Man Describes Fleeing from Kharkiv with His Family - CNN Video. www.cnn.com, https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/09/ukraine-russia-kharkiv-refugees-interview-ctw-intl-vpx.cnn. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Why Is the U.K. Slow to Accept Ukrainian Refugees? NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/2-million-flee-ukraine-nations-face-scrutiny-response-refugee-crisis-rcna17920. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. Farmer, Ben, et al. Theatre of War: Odesas Opera Staff Join Ukraine Resistance Effort. The Telegraph, 9 Mar. 2022. www.telegraph.co.uk, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/theatre-war-odesas-opera-staff-join-ukraine-resistance-effort/. History of the Theatre. Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, https://operahouse.od.ua/en/about/history/. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. It Is Terrible: For Ukraines Jews and Roma, War Revives Old Traumas. BBC News, 4 Mar. 2022. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60613433.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bkQW9lXGdb32Z77aqwiUOSwkkinhsNih", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The caption accompanying the photograph appears to compare the current situation in Ukraine to the millions of people across Europe who were forced to flee Nazi aggression during World War II and the Holocaust. In the BBC's March 2022 coverage of Ukraine's modern-day refugees, they noted that the scene was reminiscent of what these people's grandparents experienced roughly 80 years ago:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60613433" ] }, { "sentence": "The exact death toll in Ukraine is also hard to pin down. A U.S. official told CBS News on March 10, about two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, that thousands of Ukrainians civilians and soldiers had already been killed. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-death-toll-invasion/" ] }, { "sentence": "https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1500751560166588416?s=21These photographs are both real and taken during the referenced times. Another photograph showing defense measures outside of the Odessa Opera House in Ukraine during World War II can be seen here. Several news reports have featured the defensive measures outside of this historical building in 2022, including the following video of Odessa opera singers taking a moment to sing in between filling up sand bags and handing out rations: ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210503000611/https://archodessa.com/pictures/opera-theatre.history-defence_2.jpg" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photo-obama-nazi-salute/", "claim": "The photo does not depict a crowd saluting Obama with the Nazi gesture.", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/08/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph of a crowd with their hands raised in front of Obama was circulated with misleading information." ], "justification": "Shortly after Donald Trump asked his supporters on to raise their hands and pledge that they would vote for him in the 2016 Presidential election(drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany), an image purportedly showing President Obama making a similar requestfrom a crowd began circulating online. While the image is real, it does not show President Obama asking his supporters to pledge allegiance to him. This photograph was takenin Columbus, Ohio in November 2008, and shows a crowd raising their hands after Obama asked how many people in the audience made less than $250,000 per year: taken People raise their hands as Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il) asks the audience how many of them make less then $250,000 dollars a year, as he speaks during a campaign rally at Ohio State House November 2, 2008 in Columbus, Ohio. Obama continues to campaign against Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as Election Day draws near. A video on PBS showed President Obama asking the audience to raise their hands if they made less than $250,000: Let me just see a show of hands. How many people make less than $250,000 a year? Raise your hands. All right, now, I want you to be very clear here. Here are the facts. There was another report in the New York Times this morning that laid out the fact that I give much more relief to middle-income people and also that I will not raise taxes for anybody making under $250,000 a year, not your capital gains tax, not your payroll tax, not your income tax, no taxes. The middle class doesn't need a tax hike. I want to give you a tax cut. So don't be confused by what John McCain says. My tax rates will be lower than they were under Ronald Reagan. ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=129BvMxY0CwxIRnMr8g37OolZmvbkksze" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "While the image is real, it does not show President Obama asking his supporters to pledge allegiance to him. This photograph was takenin Columbus, Ohio in November 2008, and shows a crowd raising their hands after Obama asked how many people in the audience made less than $250,000 per year:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-raise-their-hands-as-democratic-presidential-nominee-news-photo/83532963" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/air-fryer-fire-facebook/", "claim": "Did a Power Surge in a Plugged-In Air Fryer Cause a Fire, as Claimed in Viral Facebook Post?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "11/30/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Readers asked us to verify the contents of a Facebook post that described a purported fire hazard involving air fryers and power surges." ], "justification": "On June 18, 2022, Facebook user Cindy Jennings posted that her kitchen had experienced what appeared in a picture to be a large fire. According to her post, the fire was caused by a plugged-in air fryer that had undergone a power surge when electricity was turned back on inside her home. \"So please unplug your air fryers when not in use,\" the end of the post read. Readers asked us if this story was true, as it was being copied and pasted by other users. The post in question was being copied and pasted as follows: FROM CINDY- Ughhh, the one thing i wanted to tell everyone in my last post but I forgot to tell you my minds not working right yet. But, what caused this was our air fryer. We left it plugged in and when the electric came back on it surged through it. We even had it plugged into a special outlet for protection- it failed anyway what i wanted to tell you was the fire inspector said this was the 6th air fryer fires he's had to do, they (firefighters) are trying to get air fryer companies looked into because of all the fires. So please unplug your air fryers when not in use Note: Jennings' post mentioned a previous post. However, that previous post was not visible to users who were not her Facebook friends. We looked to verify three key pieces of information for the readers who asked us to look into this story. We wanted to confirm that a power surge in an air fryer, which was said to have been plugged in with a surge protection product, was the cause of a fire inside Jennings' home. Second, we looked to verify with firefighters whom she said she spoke with that they had seen several air fryer fires just like this one, and that they were trying to get the problem looked at by investigators. We also wanted to find more details about any past recalls of air fryers. According to publicly-viewable information on Jennings' Facebook profile, she appeared to live inSurfside Beach, South Carolina. We attempted to reach out by phone and email using contact information that we found online. We also sent her a message through Messenger. One of our questions would be to ask if the fire she described occurred in the town listed on her profile, or if it had happened elsewhere. We did not receive any responses. In the case that the kitchen fire involving the air fryer and the power surge did happen in Surfside Beach, we contacted theSurfside Beach Fire Department. On the day after we first published this story, we spoke by phone with Keith Williams, the department's fire marshal. \"We can find no calls that we have ran that would have been in this nature,\" Williams told us. \"We can't find a call in our county database or in our municipal database that would match up to this call Ms. Jennings would have had.\" By email, Williams also added that he would bring the supposed incident up at an upcoming fire marshal meeting for Horry County, in order to find out if any other members were aware of an air fryer fire under the name of Jennings. After finding no luck with our Surfside Beach search, we noticed that Jennings' profile also mentioned that she was apparently originally \"from Chesterville, Ohio.\" An online search for Jennings' name on the public-information website WhitePages.com showed a person with the same name supposedly residing in Marengo, Ohio. The listing showedan address at a mobile home park named Bennington Springs. Chesterville and Marengo are both located within the jurisdiction of the Big Walnut Joint Fire District. On the Facebook page for the Big Walnut Joint Fire District, a post was made on the morning of June 15, just three days before the air fryer fire post from Jennings. The post said that a storm had caused a power loss in the area. It also mentioned that there had been a structure fire at the Bennington Springs mobile home park. This information seemed to line up with the details in Jennings' post. post post Big Walnut Joint Fire District has been busy the last 24 hours, as a result of the storm and power loss we have responded to 18 calls for service including 2 structure fires. 1st fire was with Fredericktown Fire on Yankee Road, and 2nd in Bennington Springs mobile home park. Many of our members have gone almost 24 hours with no sleep. We want to thank the community for continuing to support the Big Walnut Fire District so we can be there for you in times like this. We soon received confirmation from the fire department that Jennings' story was true. Here's what a spokesperson for the Big Walnut Joint Fire District had to say via email: Our department, Big Walnut Joint Fire District, did have a fire on 6/14/2022 at Bennington Springs mobile home park. The picture you included is that scene. It was following a power outage that was county wide due to several tornadoes. The power had been returned to the area approximately three hours prior to the fire. The residents had left the occupancy prior to the power returning. Our investigator, who is with multiple agencies, did rule the cause as the air fryer. This is the only fire our department has experienced with the origin being an air fryer. He stated there have been others - that is from his experience at other departments. This individual is no longer with our department. I do not know the final findings declared by their insurance investigator. The air fryer had been left plugged in to a standard residential GFIoutlet. The extension cord [visible in the picture] was for the refrigerator which was being powered by a generator. With the mystery solved, we were also curious to find information on air fryer recalls that had occurred in 2022. On April 21, 2022, Best Buy recalled around 772,000 Insignia air fryers and air fryer ovens, saying it was because they could \"overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.\" Later, on Oct. 13, 2022, NewAirrecalled 11,750 of its own Magic Chef air fryers too, also because of the same reason.It's unclear what make and model of air fryer appeared in the picture posted by Jennings. recalled recalled Note: We also found this picture and story being discussed and shared in other posts on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. shared Reddit Twitter Facebook \"Best Buy Recalls Insignia Air Fryers and Air Fryer Ovens Due to Fire and Burn Hazards.\" U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 21 Apr. 2022, https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Best-Buy-Recalls-Insignia-Air-Fryers-and-Air-Fryer-Ovens-Due-to-Fire-and-Burn-Hazards. \"Big Walnut Joint Fire District.\"Facebook, 15 June 2022, https://www.facebook.com/bwjfd/posts/pfbid0XpieRQdCq8y6MrHNpKzkc3BSmRNZgm2qHD8tvkhefAA5Snr1jWdjCoirhkQ2H9TWl. ---. https://www.bwjfd.org/. Jennings, Cindy. Facebook, 18 June 2022, https://www.facebook.com/cindy.jennings.7798/posts/pfbid02o56oU9vsVh7nwphhcwyVXyz3YcTxq91thTYXMk8uLLigFPSjRvcLv3hFnJJm5JbUl. \"Newair Recalls Magic Chef Air Fryers Due to Fire and Burn Hazards.\" U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 13 Oct. 2022, https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2023/Newair-Recalls-Magic-Chef-Air-Fryers-Due-to-Fire-and-Burn-Hazards. Surfside Beach Fire. https://www.surfsidebeach.org/182/Fire. White Pages. https://www.whitepages.com/. Dec. 1, 2022: This story was updated after the fire marshal for the Surfside Beach Fire Department responded to our inquiry to let us know they found no record of an air fryer fire under the name of Jennings. Dec. 1, 2022: This story was updated after we found a link between an address in Ohio and a Facebook post from the Big Walnut Joint Fire District. Dec. 5, 2022: This story has been updated from \"Research In Progress\" to \"True\" after we established with the Big Walnut Joint Fire District that the story was true.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1C_n4epVv3X530Zlc9hICw--5ceOvh65n", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On the Facebook page for the Big Walnut Joint Fire District, a post was made on the morning of June 15, just three days before the air fryer fire post from Jennings. The post said that a storm had caused a power loss in the area. It also mentioned that there had been a structure fire at the Bennington Springs mobile home park. This information seemed to line up with the details in Jennings' post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/bwjfd/posts/pfbid0XpieRQdCq8y6MrHNpKzkc3BSmRNZgm2qHD8tvkhefAA5Snr1jWdjCoirhkQ2H9TWl", "https://archive.ph/xtvyE" ] }, { "sentence": "On April 21, 2022, Best Buy recalled around 772,000 Insignia air fryers and air fryer ovens, saying it was because they could \"overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.\" Later, on Oct. 13, 2022, NewAirrecalled 11,750 of its own Magic Chef air fryers too, also because of the same reason.It's unclear what make and model of air fryer appeared in the picture posted by Jennings.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Best-Buy-Recalls-Insignia-Air-Fryers-and-Air-Fryer-Ovens-Due-to-Fire-and-Burn-Hazards", "https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2023/Newair-Recalls-Magic-Chef-Air-Fryers-Due-to-Fire-and-Burn-Hazards" ] }, { "sentence": "Note: We also found this picture and story being discussed and shared in other posts on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02ZA9Yo7UMTFQoqDtj8EM9sEErV3pVBerAjmiziPNfhWcBATmBsrCEefjdfDVdzA5Fl&id=100064402611161", "https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/z2wy89/does_this_make_any_sense_at_all/", "https://mobile.twitter.com/TheStewBailey/status/1596486244388708353", "https://www.facebook.com/oldhamneighbourhoodwatch/posts/pfbid02gQPVpyh7pUXb8MvTgya3R9ao99K5Qe3UQnPhnzBX4Emor2wiyb7bVusNGrQQpTyGl" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vroom-with-a-phew/", "claim": "Death Car", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "12/31/1998", "sci_digest": [ "Used car is rendered unsellable because of the smell of the dead body of its previous owner" ], "justification": "Claim: No buyers can be found for a beautiful but cheap car because of the horrible smell that permeates it. LEGEND Origins: The story is told of a car sold for a fantastically low price, its only flaw being a persistent disagreeable odor. Someone had met the Grim Reaper in it and the remains were not discovered for many months. The smell clinging to the car was that of decomposed flesh; no amount of washing or scubbing would make it go away. Buyer after buyer was lured by the bargain, but each of them invariably returned the car. The possible source for this \"death car\" legend is explained in a 1959 book on folklore: In 1953 I was collecting Negro folklore in the tiny community of Mecosta in central Michigan, where a colony ofcolored people had Settled on the sand barrens shortly after the Civil War. Called on to speak on folklorebefore the crowd that gathered on Old Settlers Day, I related the case of the depreciated Buick, as an instance of contemporary folklore. That evening some of the young fellows pulled me aside and politely explained that the incident had occurred in their town. A white man named Demings, who owned a 1929 Model-A Ford, committed suicide in it in 1938, after his girl, Nellie Boyers, had a spat with him on a date. He chinked up all the cracks under the seat and on the floorboards with concrete, and then sniffed a hose he had connected to his tailpipe, while the motor ran. This was in August, and the car and the body were not found until hunting season in October. A guide kept returning to the spot where Demings had pulled the car off the road into the brush, and seeing the car would say, 'That fellow's always hunting when I am.' Finally he investigated. This Model-A was painted all over with birds and fish, and was quite an eye-catcher. A user-car dealer in Remus sold the car to Clifford Cross, who tried every expedient to eradicate the smell. He reupholstered and fumigated the interior, in vain, and finally had to drive around in midwinter with the windows wide open. At length he turned the car in for junk. I talked with Clifford Cross and his friends who had ridden in the Ford. Here was the first verified case of the Death Car. Did this modern big-city legend originate with an actual incident in a hamlet of two hundred people in a rural Negro community and by the devious ways of folklore spread to Michigan's metropolises, and then to other states? Unlikely as it seems, the evidence from many variants, compared through the historical-geographical method of tracing folktales, calls for an affirmative answer. Though this would appear to be the beginning of the legend, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand said of it, \"Richard M. Dorson thought he had traced 'The Death Car' to a 1938 incident in the small town of Mecosta, Michigan, but later study turned up prototypical elements earlier in Europe.\" Though the make of the car continues to update as time marches on (Model A, Buick, Cadillac, Corvette, Jaguar), astute readers will note that the vehicle is almost always described both as new and of a model deemed to be highly desirable in the time of the story's telling. Unsellable or not, this is yet another of the \"cheap car\" legends in which a young lad's wet dream of a car is sold at a bargain basement price. (Another legend of this genre can be found on our $50 Porsche page.) $50 Porsche Various homilies can be guessed at as the moral of the tale. \"You get what you pay for\" and \"Don't attempt to profit from another's misfortune\" being but two. Gail de Vos provides us with an especially intriguing one: The offensive smell is perhaps not only the smell of death but that of filthy lucre. The prestigious sports car symbolizes wealth; the legends suggests that the only way working-class people can obtain such a product is if it is defective in other words, if it stinks. Barbara \"heaven scent\" Mikkelson Sightings: An episode of television's Seinfeld (\"The Smelly Car,\" original air date 15 April 1993) featured a car whose stink (from a valet's B.O, not a decaying corpse) made it undriveable and unsellable. More smelly cars (of the rotting flesh variety) can be found in the movies Christine (1983) and Mr. Wrong (New Zealand, 1985). Christine Mr. Wrong Last updated: 12 March 2011 The Baby Train Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Choking Doberman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. ISBN 0-393-30321-7 (pp. 212-213). The Choking Doberman Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Mexican Pet. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. ISBN 0-393-30542-2 (pp. 12-13). The Mexican Pet Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 20-22). The Vanishing Hitchhiker Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Study of American Folklore. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. ISBN 0-393-97223-2 (p. 208). The Study of American Folklore Czubala, Dionizjusz. \"The Death Car; Polish and Russian Examples.\" FOAFTale News. March 1992 (pp. 2-5). de Vos, Gail. Tales, Rumors and Gossip. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1996. ISBN 1-56308-190-3 (pp. 109-112). Tales, Rumors and Gossip Dorson, Richard. American Folklore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961 (pp. 250-252). American Folklore Emrich, Duncan. Folklore on the American Land. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. ISBN 0-31623-721-3 (p. 338). Folklore on the American Land Smith, Paul. The Book of Nasty Legends. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. ISBN 0-00-636856-5 (p. 79). The Book of Nasty Legends The Big Book of Urban Legends", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1knW2FvL9qQGDFvxBTg4cmFCmRf0nkPOG", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Though the make of the car continues to update as time marches on (Model A, Buick, Cadillac, Corvette, Jaguar), astute readers will note that the vehicle is almost always described both as new and of a model deemed to be highly desirable in the time of the story's telling. Unsellable or not, this is yet another of the \"cheap car\" legends in which a young lad's wet dream of a car is sold at a bargain basement price. (Another legend of this genre can be found on our $50 Porsche page.) ", "hrefs": [ "/love/revenge/porsche.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Sightings: An episode of television's Seinfeld (\"The Smelly Car,\" original air date 15 April 1993) featured a car whose stink (from a valet's B.O, not a decaying corpse) made it undriveable and unsellable. More smelly cars (of the rotting flesh variety) can be found in the movies Christine (1983) and Mr. Wrong (New Zealand, 1985).", "hrefs": [ "https://us.imdb.com/Title?0085333", "https://us.imdb.com/Title?0089630" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Choking Doberman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. ISBN 0-393-30321-7 (pp. 212-213).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393303217?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393303217" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Mexican Pet. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. ISBN 0-393-30542-2 (pp. 12-13).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393305422?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393305422" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 20-22).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393951693?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393951693" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Study of American Folklore. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. ISBN 0-393-97223-2 (p. 208).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393972232?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0393972232" ] }, { "sentence": " de Vos, Gail. Tales, Rumors and Gossip. Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1996. ISBN 1-56308-190-3 (pp. 109-112).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1563081903?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1563081903" ] }, { "sentence": " Dorson, Richard. American Folklore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961 (pp. 250-252).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226158594?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0226158594" ] }, { "sentence": " Emrich, Duncan. Folklore on the American Land. Boston: Little, Brown, 1972. ISBN 0-31623-721-3 (p. 338). ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316237213?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316237213" ] }, { "sentence": " Smith, Paul. The Book of Nasty Legends. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. ISBN 0-00-636856-5 (p. 79). ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0710201400?ie=UTF8&tag=urbanlegendsrefe&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0710201400" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/athletes-fainting-covid-19-vaccine/", "claim": "Does Video Show Athletes Fainting Due to COVID-19 Vaccine?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/30/2021", "sci_digest": [ "A series of fear-mongering videos were circulated on social media with unsubstantiated and false claims. " ], "justification": "In November 2021, rumors claiming that an unusual number of athletes had fainted or collapsed in the last year were widely circulated online. These rumors were often accompanied by fear-mongering captions that warned people against receiving COVID-19 vaccines. One video, for example, was accompanied by messages such as \"Not normal ... Boost at your own [peril],\" \"#ATHLETES IN ALL SPORTS ARE DROPPING DEAD AND THE MASTERS FORCE VACCINES ON US ALL,\" and \"Vaccines dropping them daily. Sick world.\" Not normal ... Boost at your own [peril] #ATHLETES IN ALL SPORTS ARE DROPPING DEAD AND THE MASTERS FORCE VACCINES ON US ALL Vaccines dropping them daily. Sick world This video does not show vaccine injuries or people fainting due to the COVID-19 vaccine. While this video shows real incidents from 2021, none of these incidents has been connected to the COVID-19 vaccine, other plausible explanations (such as dehydration or heat exhaustion) have been offered for these incidents, and a few of the clips in this video show athletes who were not vaccinated. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine has resulted in an increase in fainting incidents. The above-displayed video features seven fainting incidents. We've been able to source six of the seven clips. None of the fainting incidents we were able to find more information on were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. Here's what these clips show, starting with the first one: The first clip shows Denmark's Christian Eriksen collapsing during the Euro 2020 in June 2021 after suffering a cardiac arrest. While this incident has been used by anti-vaxxers to stir up fear over the COVID-19 vaccine, Eriksen was not vaccinated. Inter Milan team director Giuseppe Marotta said: \"He didn't have COVID and wasn't vaccinated either.\" Giuseppe Marotta said The second clip shows Chinelle Henry and Chedean Nation, two West Indies cricket players who fainted during a match in July 2021. While both players were taken off the field in stretchers, neither required hospitalization.; While an exact cause for this incident was not given, labeling this a vaccine injury is pure speculation. Furthermore, both players returned to the field a few days later to compete. returned to the field Both players had collapsed on the field in separate incidents during the second T20I on Friday, but were back with the team on Sunday, the day of the third game. In separate messages posted on Twitter, both said they didn't have any hospital stay or restrictions imposed on them. \"I just want to thank you guys for all your concern and well wishes, and I am doing well. No hospital stay, no restrictions. Now I'm just focused on going out there and getting the series 3-nil,\" Henry said. The third clip shows Moussa Dembele, a striker for Atletico Madrid, who collapsed during training in March 2021. Diario AS reported that Dembele fainted after a \"sudden drop in blood pressure\" but that there were no other complications. Dembele was not hospitalized and after being examined by the team's doctors drove his own car home from the field. There's no evidence that this incident was related to a COVID-19 vaccine. It's worth noting, however, that Dembele tested positive for COVID-19 a month before this incident. Goal.com reported: Goal.com reported The former Lyon forward is the fourth player with the Liga leaders to have to self-isolate, and could miss the Champions League clash with Chelsea Atletico Madrid have received their second coronavirus blow in as many days after striker Moussa Dembele tested positive, following team-mate Joao Felix. The fourth clip shows Jack Draper, a young British tennis player, suffering from a bout of heat exhaustion at the Miami Open in March 2021. As was the case with Dembele above, it's possible that COVID-19, not a COVID-19 vaccine, contributed to this medical episode. Draper said that he was diagnosed with coronavirus in January and that the lingering effects of the disease, in addition to the heat, may have contributed to his collapse. Draper said: Draper said \"I was out for two weeks with COVID in January ... I didn't move a muscle and that was after pre-season as well, so I put in a really good pre-season and then I didn't play so it's been a rough start to the year [...] I got it, it's obviously an extremely aggressive virus and you can catch it from anywhere, but I got it and it did affect me quite badly for seven days. I had bad symptoms and then I recovered pretty quickly from there, but it definitely had an effect on me. I've put in loads of great training since then, so it's no excuse, but did it have an effect on me at the time? Probably. With a lot of these things you don't know how much it really affects you.\" The fifth clip in this video is the one we know the least about. It doesn't appear to be a professional badminton event. Rather, this clip appears to come from a security camera at a recreational facility. Project Comprova, a collaboration of more than a dozen news outlets around Brazil, found that this video was likely shot somewhere in Malaysia. Little is known about this incident at the time, however, so we can't say exactly what happened here. What we can say, however, is that those claiming that this shows a \"vaccine injury\" are doing so without evidence. Project Comprova The sixth clip shows Charles Bulu, a Ghanaian referee, collapsing in March 2021 during the final minutes of an Africa Cup match between Cote d'Ivoire and Ethiopia. Goal.com reported that Bulu was initially appointed as the fourth official, but had to step in as the main referee after a colleague tested positive for COVID-19. Goal.com reported Bulu, who was treated at a hospital according to theGhana Football Association, told the Daily Graphic, a Ghanaian newspaper, that the incident was related to a poor diet, a lack of sleep, dehydration, and excessive heat: Ghana Football Association, I didn't eat quite well both at breakfast and lunch, hoping that I would rather take in some banana just before the game, only to arrive at the Match Officials' dressing room to realise that no such provision had been made, despite we requesting for it. [...] I could not take in as much water as my body needed and with the heat and intensity of the game, I began feeling dehydrated by the 68th minute, but unfortunately, there was no Fourth Referee to step in. I was hoping I could hold on till the next water break which was around the 75th minute, but before then I just blacked out. The final clip in this video compilation shows Bert Smith as he collapsed during a March Madness game in April 2021. Smith was taken off the floor on a stretcher but he didn't require immediate hospitalization. Hours later, as a precaution, Smith decided to visit a hospital, fearing that he may have a concussion. While smith did not have a concussion, the doctors did find that he had a blood clot. The Indy Star reported that Smith was put on blood thinners and was released a few days later. It's unclear what caused the blood clot, but Smith did test positive for COVID-19 a few months earlier. reported Smith was admitted into Methodist and put on blood thinners. Two days later, clot gone, he was discharged. Where did it come from? Nobody can say. Smith tested positive for the coronavirus in August, but doctors can't say whether there's a correlation between COVID-19 and his blood clot. An athlete fainting is not a particularly rare occurrence. According to The Athletic, a player faints on the football pitch every four days. But is the problem getting worse due to COVID-19? player faints on the football pitch every four days While the above-displayed video does not show athletes who fainted or collapsed from the COVID-19 vaccine, it does show various athletes fainting in 2021. There's not enough evidence to say whether or not fainting incidents are becoming more common due to the pandemic, but here are a few things to consider. First, people infected by COVID-19 mayexperience \"long Covid,\" or lingering symptoms from the disease after the initial infection subsides. These symptoms may include shortness of breath, fatigue, and heart palpitations. Second, one of the rare side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine is Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the British regulator for drugs and vaccines, told Reuters that this is a rare side effect and its symptoms are often mild. symptoms may include shortness \"Myocarditis or pericarditis remains a very rare potential risk with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the events reported are typically mild with individuals usually recovering within a short time with standard treatment and rest. The current evidence does not suggest that sporting exercise is a contributing risk for these very rare events.\" Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, told the Telegraph that athletes diagnosed with COVID-19 are at a greater risk of having a heart condition than those who get the COVID-19 vaccine: Telegraph \"Whilst vaccine induced myocarditis has been reported in children and young adults following the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it's actually quite rare ... The risk of myocarditis, myocarditis-type injury to the heart, or other cardiovascular complications is much greater if you get Covid-19. That's why it's important to avoid Covid-19, and the best way to do that is to stay up-to-date with your vaccine doses. At the moment, there's not enough evidence to suggest any connection between COVID-19, or COVID-19 vaccines, and an increase in fainting incidents. When Reuters asked FIFA about this rumor, the soccer organization said that it was not \"aware of a rise in episodes of cardiac arrests\" and that there had not been any cases \"flagged in relation to individuals receiving a COVID vaccine.\" Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO Association, Ghana Football. Public Announcement: Referee Charles Bulu Is Doing Well. https://www.ghanafa.org/public-announcement-referee-charles-bulu-is-doing-well. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"British Teenager Jack Draper Collapses with Apparent Heat Exhaustion at Miami Open.\" Sky Sports, https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/12110/12256229/british-teenager-jack-draper-collapses-with-apparent-heat-exhaustion-at-miami-open. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. Charles Bulu: Referee in Stable Condition after Collapsing during Cote d'Ivoire versus Ethiopia Match | Goal.Com. https://www.goal.com/en/news/charles-bulu-fifa-referee-in-stable-condition-after/140om1o7bbfd41r6tnuue97tra. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. ---. https://www.goal.com/en/news/charles-bulu-fifa-referee-in-stable-condition-after/140om1o7bbfd41r6tnuue97tra. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"Chinelle Henry, Chedean Nation Taken to Hospital after Collapsing during West Indies-Pakistan Women's T20I.\" ESPNcricinfo, https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/wi-vs-pak-2nd-women-s-t20-chinelle-henry-chedean-nation-taken-to-hospital-after-collapsing-during-match-1268505. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"Dembl sufre un desmayo durante el entrenamiento.\" AS.com, 23 Mar. 2021, https://as.com/futbol/2021/03/23/primera/1616520284_574257.html. \"Fact Check-No Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Are Linked to Athletes Collapsing or Dying from Myocarditis.\" Reuters, 29 Nov. 2021. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-sport-idUSL1N2SK160. \"---.\" Reuters, 29 Nov. 2021. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-sport-idUSL1N2SK160. \"I'm Fully Fit and Back on Duty Referee Bulu.\" Graphic Online, https://www.graphic.com.gh/sports/sports-news/i-m-fully-fit-and-back-on-duty-referee-bulu.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"Inter Director Says Eriksen Did Not Have COVID and Was Not Vaccinated.\" Reuters, 13 June 2021, https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/eriksens-former-cardiologist-says-he-had-no-history-heart-concerns-2021-06-13/. Millar, Colin. \"Moussa Dembele Returns to Atletico Madrid Training Days after Collapsing.\" Football Espana, 26 Mar. 2021, https://www.football-espana.net/2021/03/26/moussa-dembele-returns-to-atletico-madrid-training-days-after-collapsing. Morgan, Tom. \"Covid a More Likely Cause of Surge in Footballers Collapsing with Heart Problems than Vaccines, Scientists Believe.\" The Telegraph, 26 Nov. 2021. www.telegraph.co.uk, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/26/scientists-rebuff-irresponsible-claims-pundits-say-covid-likely/. \"Moussa Dembele: Atletico Madrid Striker Collapses in Training and Requires Medical Attention.\" Sky Sports, https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11838/12254909/moussa-dembele-atletico-madrid-striker-collapses-in-training-and-requires-medical-attention. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"No h relao entre casos de mal sbito em atletas e vacinas contra covid.\" Projeto Comprova, https://projetocomprova.com.br/publicaes/nao-ha-relacao-entre-casos-de-mal-subito-em-atletas-e-vacinas-contra-covid/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"---.\" Estado Verifica, https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/estadao-verifica/atletas-mal-subito-vacina/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"NCAA Tournament Referee Who Collapsed during Elite Eight Game Says Medical Incident Saved His Life.\" CBSSports.Com, https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-referee-who-collapsed-during-elite-eight-game-says-medical-incident-saved-his-life/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. \"Referee Bert Smith's Fall in Men's NCAA Tournament Game Didn't Kill Him. It Saved His Life.\" Indianapolis Star, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2021/04/09/ncaa-tournament-referee-bert-smith-collapse-game-saved-life/7148461002/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021. Taylor, Daniel. \"A Man Collapses on a Football Pitch Once Every Four Days. Is the Threat of Cardiac Arrest Getting Worse?\" The Athletic, https://theathletic.com/2963733/2021/11/19/someone-collapses-football-pitch-every-four-days/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2021.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=13U05HpJ_eQmRLwXaQ-UwSznHl4Ka4WOs", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1eEBGTGNmm3JcO6QYMQZZu_5fi1rKaiRP", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YOIecIZgaSkxbYKNQVCwrqP1_rIt94Pw", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1onNFGg_QJS_QpfQkA43-yfPRj01MkxRN", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1u7c4wfUZ_t8UCqH1VAXpx6KW0OGXpKDB", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "One video, for example, was accompanied by messages such as \"Not normal ... Boost at your own [peril],\" \"#ATHLETES IN ALL SPORTS ARE DROPPING DEAD AND THE MASTERS FORCE VACCINES ON US ALL,\" and \"Vaccines dropping them daily. Sick world.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/mu1_amanda/status/1457804525427908608", "https://twitter.com/PeterConstant/status/1457806743103287304", "https://twitter.com/Lol76922903/status/1457881727456714752" ] }, { "sentence": "Inter Milan team director Giuseppe Marotta said: \"He didn't have COVID and wasn't vaccinated either.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/eriksens-former-cardiologist-says-he-had-no-history-heart-concerns-2021-06-13/" ] }, { "sentence": "While an exact cause for this incident was not given, labeling this a vaccine injury is pure speculation. Furthermore, both players returned to the field a few days later to compete.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/wi-w-vs-pak-w-2021-chinelle-henry-chedean-nation-back-with-west-indies-women-after-collapsing-in-second-t20i-1268625" ] }, { "sentence": "There's no evidence that this incident was related to a COVID-19 vaccine. It's worth noting, however, that Dembele tested positive for COVID-19 a month before this incident. Goal.com reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/atletico-madrid-dembele-positive-covid-19-joao-felix/12cnjkhddwi911o47ge5299647" ] }, { "sentence": "Draper said that he was diagnosed with coronavirus in January and that the lingering effects of the disease, in addition to the heat, may have contributed to his collapse. Draper said:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/12110/12256551/jack-draper-says-its-been-a-rough-start-to-the-year-after-catching-covid-19" ] }, { "sentence": "Project Comprova, a collaboration of more than a dozen news outlets around Brazil, found that this video was likely shot somewhere in Malaysia. Little is known about this incident at the time, however, so we can't say exactly what happened here. What we can say, however, is that those claiming that this shows a \"vaccine injury\" are doing so without evidence.", "hrefs": [ "https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/estadao-verifica/atletas-mal-subito-vacina/" ] }, { "sentence": "The sixth clip shows Charles Bulu, a Ghanaian referee, collapsing in March 2021 during the final minutes of an Africa Cup match between Cote d'Ivoire and Ethiopia. Goal.com reported that Bulu was initially appointed as the fourth official, but had to step in as the main referee after a colleague tested positive for COVID-19.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.goal.com/en/news/charles-bulu-fifa-referee-in-stable-condition-after/140om1o7bbfd41r6tnuue97tra" ] }, { "sentence": "Bulu, who was treated at a hospital according to theGhana Football Association, told the Daily Graphic, a Ghanaian newspaper, that the incident was related to a poor diet, a lack of sleep, dehydration, and excessive heat:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ghanafa.org/public-announcement-referee-charles-bulu-is-doing-well" ] }, { "sentence": "The Indy Star reported that Smith was put on blood thinners and was released a few days later. It's unclear what caused the blood clot, but Smith did test positive for COVID-19 a few months earlier.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2021/04/09/ncaa-tournament-referee-bert-smith-collapse-game-saved-life/7148461002/" ] }, { "sentence": "An athlete fainting is not a particularly rare occurrence. According to The Athletic, a player faints on the football pitch every four days. But is the problem getting worse due to COVID-19?", "hrefs": [ "https://theathletic.com/2963733/2021/11/19/someone-collapses-football-pitch-every-four-days/" ] }, { "sentence": "First, people infected by COVID-19 mayexperience \"long Covid,\" or lingering symptoms from the disease after the initial infection subsides. These symptoms may include shortness of breath, fatigue, and heart palpitations. Second, one of the rare side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine is Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the British regulator for drugs and vaccines, told Reuters that this is a rare side effect and its symptoms are often mild.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, told the Telegraph that athletes diagnosed with COVID-19 are at a greater risk of having a heart condition than those who get the COVID-19 vaccine:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/26/scientists-rebuff-irresponsible-claims-pundits-say-covid-likely/" ] }, { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-biden-america-meme/", "claim": "Viral Grocery Store Meme Uses 2018 Photo To Illustrate 'Biden's America'", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "10/14/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Not only were the pictures misleading, but the meme used a broad brush to place blame for supply chain issues." ], "justification": "On Oct. 12, 2021, a Facebook user posted a meme that purported to compare grocery store shelves as they appeared in \"Trump's America\" vs. \"Biden's America.\" The meme was somewhat similar to another one we previously reported about on the subject of gas prices. posted a meme previously reported about Both were highly misleading. The meme was shared 50,000 times in the first 48 hours. In reality, the photograph of fully-stocked grocery store shelves labeled \"Trump's America\" was captured in 2012. At the time, former U.S. President Barack Obama was in the White House. Also, it wasn't even taken in the U.S. According to the Wikimedia Commons caption, it was shot at a Coles Supermarket at Westfield Southland Shopping Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Wikimedia Commons caption https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Faced_products_on_a_supermarket_shelf.JPG Meanwhile, the second picture showing nearly empty shelves that was labeled \"Biden's America\" was captured while former President Donald Trump was in office. According to MyHorryNews.com, which publishes local news for South Carolina, it was shot after a hurricane in September 2018. The caption read: \"Randy Spivey, Hills manager, concerned about when he can get his shelves restocked after Hurricane Florence and the flood that hit the area recently.\" According to MyHorryNews.com caption https://www.myhorrynews.com/news/local/loris/customers-find-bare-shelves-after-storm-passes/article_c4ea1ab2-c0c4-11e8-b9da-176624af8143.html Presidents of both parties have been faced with natural disasters like Hurricane Florence that emptied some store shelves in impacted areas for temporary periods of time. Further, readers may recall that shelves were emptied of popular foods and other goods at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The New York Times attributed the empty shelves to \"panic shopping.\" attributed the empty shelves March 14, 2020. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images) The misleading Facebook meme was apparently posted in reaction to a shipping container logjam that was also occurring in October 2021. shipping container logjam According to The Associated Press, it led to \"mass shortages\" of goods \"and delays that have caused a longer than expected bout of inflation.\" According to The Associated Press Businesses were worrying about monthslong delays for shipping containers in June, yet the administration only formed its supply chain task force that month and named a port envoy on Aug. 27 to address the challenge. Ports are also just one piece of the puzzle, Biden said. The country needs more truck drivers, private retailers to step up and better infrastructure, as well as a supply chain that can less easily be disrupted by pandemics and extreme weather. The president is trying to use the predicament as a selling point for his policy plans that undergoing congressional scrutiny. We need to take a longer view and invest in building greater resiliency to withstand the kinds of shocks weve seen over and over, year in and year out, the risk of pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, weather disruptions, he said. The sense of uncertainty is beginning to consume the attention of many Americans. As for what caused the supply chain issues in the first place, the Los Angeles Times described the root of the problem in the simplest way: the COVID-19 pandemic. described COVID-19 pandemic The Times published that \"the pandemic whirled up a toxic brew of forces that triggered and then exacerbated the shipping logjam.\" The first blow came when many of the Chinese plants that build parts or assemble goods for global manufacturers were shut down by coronavirus outbreaks. Similar disruptions soon spread across the globe, affecting both manufacturers and the logistics companies that ship, store and deliver their goods. After a brief COVID-related recession, however, demand for goods grew quickly, as people shifted to online buying and took up new habits (a surge in home-improvement projects, for example, boosted demand for appliances and construction materials). ... The pandemic is not entirely to blame. Robert Handfield, the Bank of America professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State University, said that \"warehouse, distribution, and truck driver shortages were bad before COVID.\" But the pandemic made the shortfall dramatically worse. The Washington Post also published an interview with Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, who said that \"the United States is 'decades behind' foreign ports in getting carriers, terminals, and shippers to provide each other access to commercial data for planning purposes.\" published In sum, the viral Facebook meme that purported to display \"Trump's America\" vs. \"Biden's America\" showed pictures from the wrong presidential terms, and one of them wasn't even captured in the U.S. Further, it appeared to be attempting to score political points on a much larger problem.", "issues": [ "inflation" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cuBRMgxMvy44MjmK3GMCnuk9GHV4yl_f", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KGYnyAy4OtyQVzQW-StSO-9dZxeqpTgw", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Oct. 12, 2021, a Facebook user posted a meme that purported to compare grocery store shelves as they appeared in \"Trump's America\" vs. \"Biden's America.\" The meme was somewhat similar to another one we previously reported about on the subject of gas prices.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/thomas.odum.3/posts/4825030720862595", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-biden-gas-prices-meme/" ] }, { "sentence": " The meme was shared 50,000 times in the first 48 hours.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/10/trump-biden-america-meme-square-miscaptioned.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Also, it wasn't even taken in the U.S. According to the Wikimedia Commons caption, it was shot at a Coles Supermarket at Westfield Southland Shopping Centre in Melbourne, Australia.", "hrefs": [ "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Faced_products_on_a_supermarket_shelf.JPG", "https://archive.ph/7BuGO" ] }, { "sentence": "Meanwhile, the second picture showing nearly empty shelves that was labeled \"Biden's America\" was captured while former President Donald Trump was in office. According to MyHorryNews.com, which publishes local news for South Carolina, it was shot after a hurricane in September 2018. The caption read: \"Randy Spivey, Hills manager, concerned about when he can get his shelves restocked after Hurricane Florence and the flood that hit the area recently.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.myhorrynews.com/news/local/loris/customers-find-bare-shelves-after-storm-passes/article_c4ea1ab2-c0c4-11e8-b9da-176624af8143.html", "https://archive.ph/5nGRN" ] }, { "sentence": "Presidents of both parties have been faced with natural disasters like Hurricane Florence that emptied some store shelves in impacted areas for temporary periods of time. Further, readers may recall that shelves were emptied of popular foods and other goods at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The New York Times attributed the empty shelves to \"panic shopping.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/nyregion/coronavirus-panic-buying.html" ] }, { "sentence": " March 14, 2020. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/10/costco-toilet-paper-march-2020-scaled.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The misleading Facebook meme was apparently posted in reaction to a shipping container logjam that was also occurring in October 2021.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/10/13/aim-to-ease-supply-chain-bottlenecks-with-la-port-going-247/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to The Associated Press, it led to \"mass shortages\" of goods \"and delays that have caused a longer than expected bout of inflation.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-business-los-angeles-health-48ff262b882a37308e4a3f15934b2ee4" ] }, { "sentence": "As for what caused the supply chain issues in the first place, the Los Angeles Times described the root of the problem in the simplest way: the COVID-19 pandemic.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-10-13/the-global-supply-chain-is-a-mess-what-does-that-mean-for-you", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Washington Post also published an interview with Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, who said that \"the United States is 'decades behind' foreign ports in getting carriers, terminals, and shippers to provide each other access to commercial data for planning purposes.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/supply-chain-issues/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/general-electric/", "claim": "General Electric China Move", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "08/18/2011", "sci_digest": [ "General Electric is moving its x-ray division from Wisconsin to China?" ], "justification": "Claim: General Electric is moving its x-ray division and headquarters from Wisconsin to China. : General Electric is moving its x-ray division to China.General Electric is moving its x-ray division business headquarters to China. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, August 2011] General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wis., to Beijing. In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year, but paid no taxes the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the United States. So let me get this straight. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs. If this doesn't show you the total lack of leadership of this President, I don't know what does. Origins: In July 2011, General Electric Co. (GE) announced that it was moving its X-ray business headquarters, consisting of four executives, from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to Beijing, China, a move intended \"in part at helping develop more medical equipment specifically for the Chinese market.\" GE did not announce that it was moving the x-ray division itself to China and said they did not expect the move to result in any job losses among the 120 employees currently employed at the General Electric X-ray unit based in Waukesha, Wisconsin: General Electric Co. said it is moving its X-ray business headquarters to China to accelerate sales in the country's fast-growing health-care market, the latest sign of China's growing importance to the giant U.S. conglomerate. The X-ray unit will be the company's first business to be based in China. The business has already begun the move which includes the unit's chief executive and three other members of its executive team and expects to complete the process by year end, said Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Global X-Ray. The senior leadership team's move to Beijing is aimed in part at helping develop more medical equipment specifically for the Chinese market, Ms. LeGrand told a news briefing Monday. GE said it doesn't expect the move to result in any job losses in the U.S., where the unit has been based in Waukesha, Wis. The Wisconsin X-ray division has 120 employees. The company also said it is too early to say how many employees it will hire for the unit's new Beijing headquarters. \"As the company grows more global, it's increasingly important for us to become close to our customers,\" Ms. LeGrand said, adding that she expects 20% to 25% of GE Healthcare's X-ray products to be developed in China during the next three to five years for sale around the world. As China's market has boomed for a range of products, a small but growing number of companies have moved senior executives to the country or sent them for extended stints. Intel Corp. in May said Sean Maloney, one of its best-known senior executives, would move to China from Silicon Valley to oversee the chip giant's operations here. Bayer AG unit Bayer Healthcare moved its general medicine headquarters from Germany to Beijing in March, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. of the U.S. temporarily moved its headquarters to Shanghai for five weeks starting last month. GE has long placed high hopes on China, with CEO Jeffrey Immelt in 2008 calling it the company's \"second home market.\" In January, the company finalized a deal with state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China to inject much of GE's civilian avionics business into a 50-50 joint venture based in China. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is the chair of the 26-member President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He was appointed to that position by President Barack Obama in January 2011, six months prior to GE's announcement of their plans to establish an x-ray division headquarters in China. Jeffrey Immelt President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness Last updated: 28 July 2012 Clark, Jim. \"Jobs Council Outlines Steps to Improve Economy.\" coloradoan.com. 31 July 2011.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is the chair of the 26-member President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He was appointed to that position by President Barack Obama in January 2011, six months prior to GE's announcement of their plans to establish an x-ray division headquarters in China.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/advisory-boards/jobs-council/members/immelt", "https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/advisory-boards/jobs-council" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kalinin-k7-heavy-bomber/", "claim": "Did the Kalinin K-7 Heavy Bomber Appear in Actual Color Photos?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "03/20/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The pictures in question purportedly showed the Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber, an old Russian aircraft developed in the 1930s." ], "justification": "Since at least 2010, a set of awe-inspiring pictures have been shared in email forwards and on social media. The color photographs purportedly show the Russian Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber. One of the pictures was even displayed in a paid online advertisement: email forwards The massive aircraft certainly looked quite heavy. (Courtesy: Levin) However, while the Kalinin K-7 was once a real aircraft from the 1930s, the color pictures in question showed 3-D artist renderings. The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber is seen from another angle in a 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin) We were able to find the original website that hosted the original images, but it wasn't easy. At first, we thought it might be a fan-created 3-D model for the \"Battlefield V\" video game, as one of the color pictures appeared in the /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit. However, this was incorrect. /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit Lots of reading of old blogs and message boards, combined with reverse image searching, finally led us to the original source. Thanks to a tip from englishrussia.com, we found the source to be a person using the handle \"Levin.\" tip On the original page, which appeared to be from 2007, Levin wrote that his work had been misunderstood: original page In view of the fact that this work is discussed at various serious forums on aviation and military affairs, and it is being discussed, apparently, without a clear understanding of the purpose of this work and the attitude of the author himself (i.e. me) to what he did here, I want to warn you in advance - everything that lies below is nothing more than the usual techno-fantasy, techno-utopia, if you like - techno-absurdity. There are no serious applications on my part for something that can fly, and there cannot be. This work is an attempt to reproduce, quite possibly taking place in reality in the 30s, an attempt by some hypothetical and not quite healthy and poorly educated designer to build such an absurdity with state money. I can even assume that as a result, this hypothetical poor fellow-designer was again hypothetically arrested and soon shot for senseless waste of folk funds on an especially large scale. ))) And the main task from the point of view of technical reliability here was only to comply with the technical style of those years, so that the engines and other parts did not look taken from other eras. So if there is something worth discussing for aviation connoisseurs, then only this moment is the correspondence of the appearance of the parts and the whole structure in general to the level of aviation development in the early 30s of the 20th century. Levin also confirmed that Adobe Photoshop was not used in the process to make the renders. \"This is not Photoshop. This is 3-D, three-dimensional models.\" WarHistoryOnline.com published the history of the real Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber, which was smaller than what was displayed for the 3-D renderings. \"The Kalinin K-7 was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s,\" the website read. \"It was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets.\" published The real Kalinin K-7 was large, but not as massive as the aircraft seen in the 3-D renderings. Unfortunately, the aircraft had a brief history. On Nov. 21, 1933, the aircraft crashed. crashed A flight crew stands in front of a Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber. According to WarHistoryOnline.com, the accident \"killed 14 people aboard and one on the ground.\" The K-7 first flew on 11 August 1933. The very brief first flight showed instability and serious vibration caused by the airframe resonating with the engine frequency. The solution to this was thought to be to shorten and strengthen the tail booms, little being known then about the natural frequencies of structures and their response to vibration. The aircraft completed seven test flights before a crash due to structural failure of one of the tail booms on 21 November 1933. The project was eventually scrapped in 1935. No known color photographs of the aircraft exist today. Levin, the 3-D artist, published more of his computer-generated work on his old website. One of them showed quite the battle in the skies: The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber battles an unidentified foe in this 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin) In sum, the Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber was real. However, color pictures that appeared in email forwards, social media, and ads were nothing more than 3-D renderings. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1SODNj6SLZhRoNNh4NiN1gcZFs-oHngyV", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1QjQ0oJYzvHvzSEi2IvEOP62IUiHXVtbO", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WUvXXVnkzbXkvs_PqLKze98ZTbalztfo", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dGi8zR5gT_FH1uzJa8L37hfb2HOxl-hQ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1N43AwwpNQN2irZdH659kNlJwx5pXX1Dy", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Since at least 2010, a set of awe-inspiring pictures have been shared in email forwards and on social media. The color photographs purportedly show the Russian Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber. One of the pictures was even displayed in a paid online advertisement:", "hrefs": [ "https://cyberworldfrauds.blogspot.com/2010/05/email-hoax-containing-russian-k-7-heavy.html" ] }, { "sentence": " The massive aircraft certainly looked quite heavy. (Courtesy: Levin)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/03/20-biggest-planes.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": " The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber is seen from another angle in a 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/03/kalinin-k7-levin-2.jpeg" ] }, { "sentence": "We were able to find the original website that hosted the original images, but it wasn't easy. At first, we thought it might be a fan-created 3-D model for the \"Battlefield V\" video game, as one of the color pictures appeared in the /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit. However, this was incorrect.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/BattlefieldV/comments/cdu8rh/coming_soon_100000_requisition_points_k7_heavy/" ] }, { "sentence": "Lots of reading of old blogs and message boards, combined with reverse image searching, finally led us to the original source. Thanks to a tip from englishrussia.com, we found the source to be a person using the handle \"Levin.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://englishrussia.com/2009/01/25/russian-flying-fortresses/" ] }, { "sentence": "On the original page, which appeared to be from 2007, Levin wrote that his work had been misunderstood:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rusring.net/~levin/k7/k777.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "WarHistoryOnline.com published the history of the real Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber, which was smaller than what was displayed for the 3-D renderings. \"The Kalinin K-7 was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s,\" the website read. \"It was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/seriously-the-kalinin-k-7-bomber-actually-took-to-the-air.html" ] }, { "sentence": " The real Kalinin K-7 was large, but not as massive as the aircraft seen in the 3-D renderings.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/03/kalinin-k7-real-1.jpeg" ] }, { "sentence": "Unfortunately, the aircraft had a brief history. On Nov. 21, 1933, the aircraft crashed.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/seriously-the-kalinin-k-7-bomber-actually-took-to-the-air.html" ] }, { "sentence": " A flight crew stands in front of a Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/03/kalinin-k7-real-2.jpeg" ] }, { "sentence": " The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber battles an unidentified foe in this 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/03/kalinin-k7-levin-3.jpeg" ] }, { "sentence": "Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising \"arbitrage.\" The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/contact" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/text-count-me-to-89800/", "claim": "Should You Text 'Count Me' to 89800 to Support the Women's March?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "01/23/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A third-party organization has urged Women's March participants to text \"COUNT ME\" to 89800 to be tallied, but the event's organizers have not endorsed the effort." ], "justification": "The Women's March on Washington event that took place on 21 January 2017 far exceeded the expectations of its organizers, drawing approximately 500,000 participants in Washington, D.C., and perhaps two million more in other cities across the U.S. and around the world. cities Not long after the marches concluded, word spread that march organizers were asking attendees to text \"COUNT ME\" to 89800 in order for their presence at that event to be tallied: If you participated in a #WomensMarch in any city anywhere, or even virtually, text COUNT ME to 89800! pic.twitter.com/ZY32GWU5Ru #WomensMarch pic.twitter.com/ZY32GWU5Ru Sriya Sarkar (@sriyasarkar7) January 23, 2017 January 23, 2017 Various versions of the exhortation were shared by celebrities as well as satellite Women's March events, some of them subsequently deleted: satellite Adding to the confusing the matter was a tweet published and then deleted by the official Women's March account, disavowing the \"text 89800\" message: The Seattle Privacy Coalition took note of the viral message and expressed reservations about its legitimacy: Seattle Privacy Coalition Please don't text to 89800 or any other number to confirm your participation in Womxn's March or any other: https://t.co/0oQq6cODox Seattle Privacy (@SeattlePrivacy) January 23, 2017 https://t.co/0oQq6cODox January 23, 2017 That tweet linked to marketing communications company TxtWire's \"89800 Mobile Terms & Conditions\" page, which is the most detailed information we've been able to locate about the texting 89800 program so far: page Program DescriptionThe program sends subscribers alerts regarding promotions, coupons, and time sensitive deals from local businesses. To opt-in, Text DEALMEIN to 89800. 8 msgs/mo. Msg&data rates may apply. To opt-out, Text STOP to 89800. An opt-out confirmation message will be sent back to you. To request support, Text HELP to 89800 or email us at support@txtwire.com. The effort appears to be spearheaded by the It's Time Network, a group professing to be an \"inclusive community of people and organizations working collaboratively to accelerate the full empowerment of women and girls in order to achieve gender equity, evolve democracy and build fair economies that regenerate the Earth.\" That organization began promoting the \"text 89800\" initiative on 21 January 2017: promoting Calling all marchers! Text COUNT ME to 89800 to be counted as a #WomensMarch participant & share with friends. @womensmarch pic.twitter.com/HJTMyWbFke #WomensMarch @womensmarch pic.twitter.com/HJTMyWbFke It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 21, 2017 January 21, 2017 In a subsequent series of tweets, the group acknowledged that the effort was undertaken independently by the It's Time Network and not specifically by Women's March organizers: @DoNotGoGently We organized the count in support of march organizers. Please find more information here: https://t.co/QiEqejncJD It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017 @DoNotGoGently https://t.co/QiEqejncJD January 22, 2017 @ptexpat All data will be given to march organizers -- we set the count up as a service to support their efforts: https://t.co/QiEqejncJD @ptexpat https://t.co/QiEqejncJD It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017 January 22, 2017 @gotagirlcrush That was not our intention & we apologize for the confusion. We set up the count in support of march organizers' efforts. It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017 @gotagirlcrush January 22, 2017 We have been unable to locate any march organizers officially endorsing the \"text COUNT ME to 89800\" message campaign. Although some satellite marches retweeted information about the program, details such as who was attempting to collect a headcount and for what purposes remained unclear. We have contacted the official Women's March via e-mail and social media to inquire about the text campaign but have not yet received a response. It's Time Network. \"Women's March on Washington.\"\r Accessed 23 January 2017. TxtWire. \"89800 Mobile Terms & Conditions.\"\r Accessed 23 January 2017.", "issues": [ "equity" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14ILrvgswRFWYcxZo1Yh8iSxNLJQrUE7h", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Oe_GtStgxMBZN1xuoN6V-Sg0O9pwOrdA", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The Women's March on Washington event that took place on 21 January 2017 far exceeded the expectations of its organizers, drawing approximately 500,000 participants in Washington, D.C., and perhaps two million more in other cities across the U.S. and around the world.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-21/global-womens-marches-kick-off-in-new-zealand,-australia/8200236" ] }, { "sentence": "If you participated in a #WomensMarch in any city anywhere, or even virtually, text COUNT ME to 89800! pic.twitter.com/ZY32GWU5Ru", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomensMarch?src=hash", "https://t.co/ZY32GWU5Ru" ] }, { "sentence": " Sriya Sarkar (@sriyasarkar7) January 23, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/sriyasarkar7/status/823541344861876224" ] }, { "sentence": "Various versions of the exhortation were shared by celebrities as well as satellite Women's March events, some of them subsequently deleted: ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/r6tz0" ] }, { "sentence": "The Seattle Privacy Coalition took note of the viral message and expressed reservations about its legitimacy: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.seattleprivacy.org/about/" ] }, { "sentence": "Please don't text to 89800 or any other number to confirm your participation in Womxn's March or any other: https://t.co/0oQq6cODox Seattle Privacy (@SeattlePrivacy) January 23, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/0oQq6cODox", "https://twitter.com/SeattlePrivacy/status/823373990395682816" ] }, { "sentence": "That tweet linked to marketing communications company TxtWire's \"89800 Mobile Terms & Conditions\" page, which is the most detailed information we've been able to locate about the texting 89800 program so far:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.txtwire.com/sc/c89800/" ] }, { "sentence": "The effort appears to be spearheaded by the It's Time Network, a group professing to be an \"inclusive community of people and organizations working collaboratively to accelerate the full empowerment of women and girls in order to achieve gender equity, evolve democracy and build fair economies that regenerate the Earth.\" That organization began promoting the \"text 89800\" initiative on 21 January 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.itstimenetwork.org/womens_march_on_washington" ] }, { "sentence": "Calling all marchers! Text COUNT ME to 89800 to be counted as a #WomensMarch participant & share with friends. @womensmarch pic.twitter.com/HJTMyWbFke", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomensMarch?src=hash", "https://twitter.com/womensmarch", "https://t.co/HJTMyWbFke" ] }, { "sentence": " It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 21, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ItsTimeNetwork/status/822825584988405760" ] }, { "sentence": "@DoNotGoGently We organized the count in support of march organizers. Please find more information here: https://t.co/QiEqejncJD It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/DoNotGoGently", "https://t.co/QiEqejncJD", "https://twitter.com/ItsTimeNetwork/status/823282354508668929" ] }, { "sentence": "@ptexpat All data will be given to march organizers -- we set the count up as a service to support their efforts: https://t.co/QiEqejncJD", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ptexpat", "https://t.co/QiEqejncJD" ] }, { "sentence": " It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ItsTimeNetwork/status/823292201761382402" ] }, { "sentence": "@gotagirlcrush That was not our intention & we apologize for the confusion. We set up the count in support of march organizers' efforts. It's Time Network (@ItsTimeNetwork) January 22, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/gotagirlcrush", "https://twitter.com/ItsTimeNetwork/status/823293134926921728" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coffee-collusion/", "claim": "Starbucks and Monsanto are taking legal action against the state of Vermont.", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "11/04/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Is Starbucks teaming up with Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont for the right to avoid GMO labels?" ], "justification": " Claim: Starbucks has joined Monsanto in a lawsuit against Vermont to avoid the implementation of GMO labeling regulations. : Starbucks is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group challenging Vermont over GMO labeling requirements. Starbucks has joined forces with Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont over GMO labeling requirements. Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2014] Starbucks doesn't think you have the right to know what's in your coffee. So it's teamed up with Monsanto to sue the small U.S. state of Vermont to stop you from finding out. Origins: In November 2014, a petition claiming coffee giant Starbucks had \"teamed up\" with agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto to sue the state of Vermont over a GMO (genetically modified organism) labeling law began to circulate heavily on social media sites. Given the massive popularity of Starbucks and broad worry over genetically modified foods, the petition caused concern amid many Starbucks drinkers over whether their daily latte habit was somehow funding big agribusiness bullies. General consumer unease with what are often unclear links between large corporations as well as growing distaste for massive food conglomerates made the claim particularly unsettling to many social media users. Most consumers lack the luxury to make all their own foods and drinks at home, and to some extent, we all place our trust in large companies to do right by their customers in choosing safe ingredients and not abusing their financial strength by bullying less-powerful entities. A quick scan of Twitter reveals widespread belief Starbucks has suddenly decided to abandon its socially and nutritionally conscious consumer base to join forces with Monsanto, but is that really the case? Most of the chatter points back to the petition, initiated by a group called SumOfUs. On its Facebook about page, SumOfUs describes its mission: SumOfUs We are a movement of consumers, investors and workers counterbalancing the power of large corporations to forge a just, sustainable path for the global economy. The relevant petition can be found on the SumOfUs website: SumOfUs Starbucks doesn't think you have the right to know what's in your coffee. So it's teamed up with Monsanto to sue the small U.S. state of Vermont to stop you from finding out. Hiding behind the shadowy Grocery Manufacturers' Association, Starbucks is part of a lawsuit that's aiming to block a landmark law that requires genetically-modified ingredients be labeled. Amazingly, they are claiming it's an assault on their corporate right to free speech. Even a local Vermont company, Green Mountain Coffee, has joined in. The quoted portion makes it clear Starbucks isn't the entity driving the lawsuit at which the petition takes aim. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a large food industry group of which Starbucks is one of more than 300 members, is the trade organization behind the litigation in question. To call the group \"shadowy\" is somewhat misleading: GMA has a web site that presents their clear stance on the issue of genetically modified foods and labeling and that included a 2014 membership directory openly listing Starbucks and Monsanto as members. (The online membership directory link is no longer accessible from GMA's web site, and the organization did not respond to our inquiry about it.) web site membership directory The petition explains (in essence) why Starbucks has been singled out among GMA-affiliated companies as a target of consumer pressure: SumOfUs members have already chipped in to support Vermont's legal defense fund, and we need to keep it up. Monsanto might not care what we think but Starbucks does. If we can generate enough attention, we can push Starbucks to withdraw its support for the lawsuit, and then force other companies to do the same. Sign the petition to tell Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee to withdraw their support for the lawsuit against Vermont, and stop fighting accurate food labeling. Vermont is a small, entirely rural state with just 600,000 people. It's a classic David and Goliath fight Vermont vs. Monsanto and Starbucks, some of the most powerful corporations in the world. The petition references Vermont's Act 120, voted upon in April 2014 and signed into law on 8 May 2014. Under the provisions of the new law, Vermont is poised to became the first state to require labeling of all foods containing genetically modified ingredients by 1 July 2016. Act 120 On 13 June 2014, the GMA issued a press release stating its intent to challenge the law in Vermont, positing the law was unconstitutional and citing the First Amendment. In its statement, the trade group expressed concern more states would follow Vermont's lead and adversely affect the food industry by imposing labeling standards that serve no health or safety interest: press release Today, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), along with the Snack Food Association, International Dairy Foods Association and the National Association of Manufacturers, filed a complaint in federal district court in Vermont challenging the state's mandatory GMO labeling law. GMA issued the following statement in conjunction with the legal filing. \"Vermont's mandatory GMO labeling law Act 120 is a costly and misguided measure that will set the nation on a path toward a 50-state patchwork of GMO labeling policies that do nothing to advance the health and safety of consumers. Act 120 exceeds the state's authority under the United States Constitution and in light of this, GMA has filed a complaint in federal district court in Vermont seeking to enjoin this senseless mandate. \"Act 120 imposes burdensome new speech requirements and restrictions that will affect, by Vermont's count, eight out of every ten foods at the grocery store. Yet Vermont has effectively conceded this law has no basis in health, safety, or science. That is why a number of product categories, including milk, meat, restaurant items and alcohol, are exempt from the law. This means that many foods containing GMO ingredients will not actually disclose that fact. \"The First Amendment dictates that when speech is involved, Vermont policymakers cannot merely act as a pass-through for the fads and controversies of the day. It must point to a truly \"governmental\" interest, not just a political one. And the Constitution prohibits Vermont from regulating nationwide distribution and labeling practices that facilitate interstate commerce. That is the sole province of the federal government. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency have both the mandate and expertise to incorporate the views of all the stakeholders at each link in the chain from farm to fork.\" On 9 November 2014, musician Neil Young stated that he was no longer going to patronize Starbucks due to the GMA lawsuit. On 15 November 2014, Starbucks addressed the claims. The coffee chain sent a tweet with a link to a longer statement: Neil Young Starbucks is not a part of Monsanto's GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA Starbucks News (@Starbucksnews) November 16, 2014 Starbucks is not a part of Monsanto's GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA Starbucks News (@Starbucksnews) November 16, 2014 November 16, 2014 The statement indicated Starbucks asked the petition be edited to reflect their position and lack of involvement in the lawsuit against the state of Vermont: Starbucks is not a part of any lawsuit pertaining to GMO labeling nor have we provided funding for any campaign. And Starbucks is not aligned with Monsanto to stop food labeling or block Vermont State law. The petition claiming that Starbucks is part of this litigation is completely false and we have asked the petitioners to correct their description of our position. Starbucks has not taken a position on the issue of GMO labeling. As a company with stores and a product presence in every state, we prefer a national solution. Grocery Manufacturers Association spokesman Brian Kennedy said that Starbucks is an \"affiliate member\" of the GMA and is not involved in actions such as the Vermont lawsuit: As an affiliate member, [Starbucks] is not involved in any policy, governance, or legal work with the Association, which includes the lawsuit in Vermont. In summary: Although Starbucks is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the lawsuit targeted by the petition was initiated by that group and not by Starbucks or Monsanto; and direct collusion between Starbucks and Monsanto on the issue is neither evident nor germane to the dispute between the state of Vermont and the GMA. Last updated: 17 November 2014 ", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18m_m9aGMq9GKnG_GndEUrh9D3nZOk_QR" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=142y-cIEJ9rwuFlRdoWh9dXmB6wUBb3WT" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A quick scan of Twitter reveals widespread belief Starbucks has suddenly decided to abandon its socially and nutritionally conscious consumer base to join forces with Monsanto, but is that really the case? Most of the chatter points back to the petition, initiated by a group called SumOfUs. On its Facebook about page, SumOfUs describes its mission:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/pages/SumOfUs/181924628560212?sk=info" ] }, { "sentence": "The relevant petition can be found on the SumOfUs website:", "hrefs": [ "https://action.sumofus.org/a/starbucks-gmo-gma/3/5/?sub=fb" ] }, { "sentence": "The quoted portion makes it clear Starbucks isn't the entity driving the lawsuit at which the petition takes aim. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a large food industry group of which Starbucks is one of more than 300 members, is the trade organization behind the litigation in question. To call the group \"shadowy\" is somewhat misleading: GMA has a web site that presents their clear stance on the issue of genetically modified foods and labeling and that included a 2014 membership directory openly listing Starbucks and Monsanto as members. (The online membership directory link is no longer accessible from GMA's web site, and the organization did not respond to our inquiry about it.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gmabrands.com/", "https://web.archive.org/web/20131226021050/https://www.gmaonline.org/forms/MemberDirectory/viewMemberDirectoryAll" ] }, { "sentence": "The petition references Vermont's Act 120, voted upon in April 2014 and signed into law on 8 May 2014. Under the provisions of the new law, Vermont is poised to became the first state to require labeling of all foods containing genetically modified ingredients by 1 July 2016.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.leg.state.vt.us/database/status/summary.cfm?Bill=H.0112" ] }, { "sentence": "On 13 June 2014, the GMA issued a press release stating its intent to challenge the law in Vermont, positing the law was unconstitutional and citing the First Amendment. In its statement, the trade group expressed concern more states would follow Vermont's lead and adversely affect the food industry by imposing labeling standards that serve no health or safety interest:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gmaonline.org/news-events/newsroom/gma-files-lawsuit-to-overturn-vermonts-unconstitutional-mandatory-gmo-label/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 9 November 2014, musician Neil Young stated that he was no longer going to patronize Starbucks due to the GMA lawsuit. On 15 November 2014, Starbucks addressed the claims. The coffee chain sent a tweet with a link to a longer statement:", "hrefs": [ "https://neilyoung.com/?frontpage=true" ] }, { "sentence": "Starbucks is not a part of Monsanto's GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA Starbucks News (@Starbucksnews) November 16, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA", "https://twitter.com/Starbucksnews/status/533811197863546880" ] }, { "sentence": "Starbucks is not a part of Monsanto's GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/mEsQHqukMA" ] }, { "sentence": " Starbucks News (@Starbucksnews) November 16, 2014", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Starbucksnews/status/533811197863546880" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/oct/05/david-axelrod/david-axelrod-says-typical-white-male-worker-earns/", "claim": "The typical white male worker in this country is making in real terms what he was making in 1973 and the average worker is making what they were making in 1996.", "author": "John Gregg", "posted": "10/05/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "As the 2012 elections loom and President Barack Obama pushes for his jobs plan, a key issue is how middle-class families have fared over the past generation.Obama and other Democrats would like to see the Bush-era tax cuts expire for couples making more than $250,000 and also raise taxes on hedge-fund millionaires paying relatively low capital gains tax rates. For their part, Republicans claim Obama is engaging in class warfare against job creators.In a Sept. 27, 2011 speech at St. Anselm Colleges New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, David Axelrod, one of Obamas top strategists, said there has been a hollowing out of the middle class in this country in recent decades as wages have essentially flat-lined for many workers.There was a census report just a couple of weeks ago, and what it said was that the average white male worker, the typical white male worker in this country, is making in real terms what he was making in 1973, said Axelrod, a former White House aide and now a senior adviser to Obamas political campaign. In total, the average worker is making what they were making in 1996, but we know prices havent gone along accordingly.If true, thats quite a ride back in time. Asked for substantiation, Katie Hogan of the Obama campaign referred us to a U.S. Censusreportreleased last month, and articles in theNew York Timesand theNew Yorkerwebsite crunching some of the numbers.The report itself didnt have the precise numbers to back up Axelrods first claim -- that the typical white male worker made the same amount -- adjusted for inflation -- in 1973, when Richard Nixon occupied the White House.But a related censusspreadsheetshows that real wages have not only failed to grow but have actually declined slightly for white males working year-round and full time. But first, a semantic point near and dear to the heart of economists. Even though Axelrod said average in his statement, its clear by his subsequent use of the word typical and the reports to which we were referred that median income, not the mean, is what applies here.In 2010, according to census data, the median earnings for a full-time white male worker were $50,074. By comparison, in 1973, the median for that category, in 2010 dollars, was $50,513. So Axelrod not only was correct that white men were no better off, adjusted for inflation, in 2010 than they were 37 years ago, they were taking home about $8.44 less per week.And when measured by the purchasing power of those dollars, the gap is even bigger. Because wages havent kept up with prices, as Axelrod asserted, the typical white male worker's purchasing power has eroded by almost 11.5 percent in 37 years.Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said Axelrods statement about white male workers is unambiguously true, and that wages havent kept up with major gains in productivity.The growing wealth of the country actually didnt translate into higher standards of living or wages for typical workers, she said. Where it [the wealth] went was to the top.In the second part of Axelrods statement -- that the average worker is making what they were making in 1996 -- it appears that the Obama strategist got some numbers mixed up.A censustableshows that median earnings for all full-time workers who clocked at least 50 weeks of labor increased by about 7 percent in real terms between 1996 and 2010, to $41,919. This came as earnings by women, and their participation in the labor force, grew at a faster rate than that of men, though the female-to-male earnings ratio was still 77.4 cents to the dollar in 2010.Given the report Hogan, the Obama campaign press aide, cited, however, along with a number widely reported in the press last month, what Axelrod apparently was referring to when he spoke of average workers making what they did in 1996 were census numbers that showed total household income, adjusted for inflation, has barely increased. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, only a $333 increase, or 0.7 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars from 1996.Some important factors are at play in household income numbers. For starters, households are smaller now, meaning there are fewer wage-earners to be counted. But womens participation in the labor market has also increased. What that means, essentially, is that wage-earners in middle-class American households are working more to maintain the same level of income.One of the ways families made up the difference was more work, Shierholz said of the stagnant wage issue. Its largely an hours story.A paper Shierholz co-authored after the new census numbers were released also showed that median income for working-age households fell by more than 10 percent in the past decade, to $55,276.Given such factors, she said the second half of Axelrods statement captures the flavor of what the EPI and others have labeled a lost decade in terms of income.Our ruling Axelrod was on the money in talking about the erosion of earnings for white male workers since the early 1970s, and basically on track in comparing how things stand today for the typical American family compared to 1996. We rate his statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy", "New Hampshire 2012", "Workers" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "As the 2012 elections loom and President Barack Obama pushes for his jobs plan, a key issue is how middle-class families have fared over the past generation.Obama and other Democrats would like to see the Bush-era tax cuts expire for couples making more than $250,000 and also raise taxes on hedge-fund millionaires paying relatively low capital gains tax rates. For their part, Republicans claim Obama is engaging in class warfare against job creators.In a Sept. 27, 2011 speech at St. Anselm Colleges New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, David Axelrod, one of Obamas top strategists, said there has been a hollowing out of the middle class in this country in recent decades as wages have essentially flat-lined for many workers.There was a census report just a couple of weeks ago, and what it said was that the average white male worker, the typical white male worker in this country, is making in real terms what he was making in 1973, said Axelrod, a former White House aide and now a senior adviser to Obamas political campaign. In total, the average worker is making what they were making in 1996, but we know prices havent gone along accordingly.If true, thats quite a ride back in time. Asked for substantiation, Katie Hogan of the Obama campaign referred us to a U.S. Censusreportreleased last month, and articles in theNew York Timesand theNew Yorkerwebsite crunching some of the numbers.The report itself didnt have the precise numbers to back up Axelrods first claim -- that the typical white male worker made the same amount -- adjusted for inflation -- in 1973, when Richard Nixon occupied the White House.But a related censusspreadsheetshows that real wages have not only failed to grow but have actually declined slightly for white males working year-round and full time.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p60-239.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "But first, a semantic point near and dear to the heart of economists. Even though Axelrod said average in his statement, its clear by his subsequent use of the word typical and the reports to which we were referred that median income, not the mean, is what applies here.In 2010, according to census data, the median earnings for a full-time white male worker were $50,074. By comparison, in 1973, the median for that category, in 2010 dollars, was $50,513. So Axelrod not only was correct that white men were no better off, adjusted for inflation, in 2010 than they were 37 years ago, they were taking home about $8.44 less per week.And when measured by the purchasing power of those dollars, the gap is even bigger. Because wages havent kept up with prices, as Axelrod asserted, the typical white male worker's purchasing power has eroded by almost 11.5 percent in 37 years.Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said Axelrods statement about white male workers is unambiguously true, and that wages havent kept up with major gains in productivity.The growing wealth of the country actually didnt translate into higher standards of living or wages for typical workers, she said. Where it [the wealth] went was to the top.In the second part of Axelrods statement -- that the average worker is making what they were making in 1996 -- it appears that the Obama strategist got some numbers mixed up.A censustableshows that median earnings for all full-time workers who clocked at least 50 weeks of labor increased by about 7 percent in real terms between 1996 and 2010, to $41,919. This came as earnings by women, and their participation in the labor force, grew at a faster rate than that of men, though the female-to-male earnings ratio was still 77.4 cents to the dollar in 2010.Given the report Hogan, the Obama campaign press aide, cited, however, along with a number widely reported in the press last month, what Axelrod apparently was referring to when he spoke of average workers making what they did in 1996 were census numbers that showed total household income, adjusted for inflation, has barely increased. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, only a $333 increase, or 0.7 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars from 1996.Some important factors are at play in household income numbers. For starters, households are smaller now, meaning there are fewer wage-earners to be counted. But womens participation in the labor market has also increased. What that means, essentially, is that wage-earners in middle-class American households are working more to maintain the same level of income.One of the ways families made up the difference was more work, Shierholz said of the stagnant wage issue. Its largely an hours story.A paper Shierholz co-authored after the new census numbers were released also showed that median income for working-age households fell by more than 10 percent in the past decade, to $55,276.Given such factors, she said the second half of Axelrods statement captures the flavor of what the EPI and others have labeled a lost decade in terms of income.Our ruling", "hrefs": [ "http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/2010/P43AR_2010.xls" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stimulus-homeowners-facebook/", "claim": "Be cautious of fraudulent schemes promising a '$3,600 Stimulus for Homeowners'.", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/07/2021", "sci_digest": [ "It might not be a good sign when the bottom of a brand new website displays a list of \"disclaimers\" in small print addressed to \"Facebook reviewers and 3rd party fact checkers.\"" ], "justification": "We advise all readers, as well as their friends and family, to beware of Facebook ads that promise a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" for homeowners in the amount of $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, $3,800, or another similar dollar figure. The posts featured pictures of U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and members of Congress, among others. Some ads also mentioned the term, \"mortgage refinance stimulus.\" Examples of some of the Facebook ads. The ads gave the appearance that Biden and the U.S. government voted through a plan to provide $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, $3,800, or another similar amount of money as a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" in the form of check payments to help homeowners. The pictures and text perhaps looked and felt similar to the previous COVID-19 economic impact payments and child tax credit payments that Americans became familiar with in 2020 and 2021. Those genuine payments came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. economic impact payments child tax credit payments However, there is no federal plan to distribute $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" checks to homeowners. Facebook users who clicked on the ads were led to websites that were not operated by the government. From there, they all appeared to lead to a central page: GovHomePrograms.com. This website included a brief survey that asked questions about finances, home value, and mortgage status. The forms also asked for a name, email address, phone number, and mailing address. GovHomePrograms.com We filled out the forms and were then led to one or more lenders that could help future homeowners to buy a house or current homeowners to refinance a mortgage. There was no evidence that the Facebook ads led to a way for homeowners to obtain a $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" payment from the government. According to GovHomePrograms.com's terms of service and privacy policy pages, its parent company was RateMarketplace.com. Plateau Data Services, LLC was also mentioned in the documentation. terms of service privacy policy RateMarketplace.com One page led to EnhancedRefiNow.com instead of GovHomePrograms.com. Its parent company appeared to be LMB Mortgage Services, Inc., also known as LowerMyBills.com. EnhancedRefiNow.com As of December 2021, at least eight Facebook pages named American Savings Tips, Wise American Solution, Clever American Choices, New American Community, US Relief, StraightFix, Homeowners of America, and Our Best American Life had spent around $200,000 on advertising since late October to promote the ads. One of the biggest spenders was Wise American Solution, which had spent nearly $60,000 alone in early December, as of Dec. 13. American Savings Tips Wise American Solution Clever American Choices New American Community US Relief StraightFix Homeowners of America Our Best American Life spent In other words, at least millions of Facebook users had been served the ads from these pages on Facebook or Instagram. The American Savings Tips Facebook page spent nearly $60,000 on ads between Oct. 27 and Dec. 7. It also misleadingly showed a picture of a U.S. Treasury check for $3,600. The Facebook pages and their corresponding websites were all brand new and were created in either October or November 2021. Another page named Helpers Today also pushed similar ads about a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" for homeowners. Helpers Today Several hours after we started investigating Clever American Choices, its Facebook page became unavailable. It's unclear why this happened within those few hours and not at any time in previous weeks. According to its advertising information, Clever American Choices was \"deleted\" after violating Facebook's advertising policies. It had spent at least $45,209 on Facebook ads between Nov. 21 and Dec. 7. The other pages also showed advertising violations. advertising information advertising violations After we clicked on one of the Facebook ads and landed on a website, we noticed this message at the bottom: \"THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE.\" at the bottom We also found a list of \"disclaimers\" in small print spaced far below the end of most of the body of the page that was meant \"for Facebook reviewers and 3rd party fact checkers.\" One of the lines attempted to clarify why words like \"government\" and \"Biden\" were used in the copy: 5. \"Government\" , \"Biden\" , \"New Administration\" , \"Relief\" - assume multiple citations below from the following article: \"Biden's $10 billion in financial assistance is expected to be available in 2022.\" https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-signed-10-billion-mortgage-133000243.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-signed-10-billion-mortgage-133000243.html It's true that the Biden administration previously created a Homeowners Assistance Fund that's meant to \"provide states with $10 billion to help struggling homeowners catch up on their mortgage payments and utility costs.\" It's also true that the assistance was still being given out by various states as of November 2021. But nowhere in this plan did we find anything about a $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" plan for homeowners in the same way that past stimulus checks worked, as the Facebook ads appeared to hint at. Homeowners Assistance Fund still being given out One of the posts on Clever American Choices originally read: \"This was featured on FoxNews [sic] last night. All I did was enter my zip and now I'm getting $3,600 back in savings. It was free to check, Just Enter Zip!\" read A seemingly endless number of Facebook users then submitted their ZIP codes in the comments under the ads instead of on the resulting website, perhaps believing this would lead to them being contacted to receive a $3,600 check. Not only did this ad show a fake \"Homeowner Relief Card,\" but members of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet can be seen sitting in the photograph captured in Congress. Aside from the ZIP code comments, the remarks with the most likes caught our eye. For example, a user named Jackie said: \"This was featured in CNN yesterday so I guess I could try it since my neighbors already got theirs.\" Other ads mentioned C-SPAN. We found no record of CNN, Fox News, or C-SPAN recently broadcasting news of a specific $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" for homeowners. Also, no one's \"neighbors already got\" a $3,600 stimulus check payment, because they don't exist. These comments likely convinced quite a few people to give away their personal information. Ben commented: \"Wow! I've never seen anything like this before! Thank god that I saw it today so I can signup.\" Matt remarked: \"Heard about this program form [sic] my neighbor. They got the check yesterday so I tried it and received a notification that my check will be here this week!\" We also saw the same names making the same comments in multiple ads. It's unclear if these people worked for the websites or companies that were affiliated with the posts. We reached out to the Better Business Bureau and AARP for comment on these ads and websites. The BBB responded and told us that this is what they would refer to as a classic \"government imposter scam.\" A BBB spokesperson told us: \"Without further research, its hard to tell if this is just a way to get homeowners to apply for refinancing, or if the motive is fraud. Consumers are being asked to share personally identifiable information (PII), and thats a huge red flag because it is everything needed for identity theft. The fact that the domains are new is another red flag. BBB advises consumers never to share personal information with someone who has solicited them, whether through email, social media ad, text, etc., but to carefully vet any new company that needs PII.\" In a study, the BBB found that these sorts of scams increased in 2020 and 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic. They also sent over a page about government grant scams and a scam alert about stimulus checks. study government grant scams a scam alert about stimulus checks We also heard from Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. In an email, Stokes told us: \"It is safe to say that ads that pitch free money from the government are government grant scams and the internet, particularly Facebook, is teeming with them. Sometimes youll see your Facebook friends share the information, claim they got money from a grant, and encourage you to get your free money, too. Often that means the friends Facebook account has been hacked. Whether it is a scammer or an actual company, you should report the ads to the FTC. These sites often ask for you to share your personal information, which can be dangerous for the person entering it.\" AARP In sum, the Facebook ads that promised a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" for homeowners simply appeared to be a way to route future homeowners to lenders or to show current homeowners where they could refinance their mortgages. With guidance from the BBB and AARP on identifying this as a \"government imposter scam\" or \"government grant scam,\" we have rated this story accordingly with the \"Scam\" rating. The rating for this fact check was changed from \"False\" to \"Scam\" after we received guidance in a response from the Better Business Bureau and AARP. We also added several more Facebook pages and updated the advertising dollar figure to be around $200,000.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jCdLvY0uIIxapfbzlcto74kmWXvd-7f7" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10r5hy_nc2TANogBIhSUkUjbDParfIhum" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EfZLKjDm63aI9lSjlRBZlht-V5Z39yaS" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Fi7RwN6wfMvl1kTwDqhYKJAeZwG2XQzp" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Examples of some of the Facebook ads.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/12/3600-stimulus-homeowners-ads.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The ads gave the appearance that Biden and the U.S. government voted through a plan to provide $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, $3,800, or another similar amount of money as a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" in the form of check payments to help homeowners. The pictures and text perhaps looked and felt similar to the previous COVID-19 economic impact payments and child tax credit payments that Americans became familiar with in 2020 and 2021. Those genuine payments came directly from the Internal Revenue Service.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payment-information-center", "https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/advance-child-tax-credit-payments-in-2021" ] }, { "sentence": "Facebook users who clicked on the ads were led to websites that were not operated by the government. From there, they all appeared to lead to a central page: GovHomePrograms.com. This website included a brief survey that asked questions about finances, home value, and mortgage status. The forms also asked for a name, email address, phone number, and mailing address.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/8yggs" ] }, { "sentence": "According to GovHomePrograms.com's terms of service and privacy policy pages, its parent company was RateMarketplace.com. Plateau Data Services, LLC was also mentioned in the documentation.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/FbuGj", "https://archive.ph/RZ9SZ", "https://archive.ph/8GJ35" ] }, { "sentence": "One page led to EnhancedRefiNow.com instead of GovHomePrograms.com. Its parent company appeared to be LMB Mortgage Services, Inc., also known as LowerMyBills.com.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/Jm0fJ" ] }, { "sentence": "As of December 2021, at least eight Facebook pages named American Savings Tips, Wise American Solution, Clever American Choices, New American Community, US Relief, StraightFix, Homeowners of America, and Our Best American Life had spent around $200,000 on advertising since late October to promote the ads. One of the biggest spenders was Wise American Solution, which had spent nearly $60,000 alone in early December, as of Dec. 13.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/RrkJ1", "https://archive.ph/JBGo6", "https://archive.ph/O7IwV", "https://archive.ph/LD3kA", "https://archive.ph/dmHLk", "https://archive.ph/PvYi0", "https://archive.ph/9UebN", "https://archive.ph/x8pht", "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=103608112160479&search_type=page&media_type=all" ] }, { "sentence": " The American Savings Tips Facebook page spent nearly $60,000 on ads between Oct. 27 and Dec. 7. It also misleadingly showed a picture of a U.S. Treasury check for $3,600.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/12/american-savings-tips-ad.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The Facebook pages and their corresponding websites were all brand new and were created in either October or November 2021. Another page named Helpers Today also pushed similar ads about a \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" for homeowners.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/31HKZ" ] }, { "sentence": "Several hours after we started investigating Clever American Choices, its Facebook page became unavailable. It's unclear why this happened within those few hours and not at any time in previous weeks. According to its advertising information, Clever American Choices was \"deleted\" after violating Facebook's advertising policies. It had spent at least $45,209 on Facebook ads between Nov. 21 and Dec. 7. The other pages also showed advertising violations.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=100746185766874&search_type=page&media_type=all", "https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=104189448733958&search_type=page&media_type=all" ] }, { "sentence": "After we clicked on one of the Facebook ads and landed on a website, we noticed this message at the bottom: \"THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/fpGtk" ] }, { "sentence": "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-signed-10-billion-mortgage-133000243.html", "hrefs": [ "https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-signed-10-billion-mortgage-133000243.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It's true that the Biden administration previously created a Homeowners Assistance Fund that's meant to \"provide states with $10 billion to help struggling homeowners catch up on their mortgage payments and utility costs.\" It's also true that the assistance was still being given out by various states as of November 2021. But nowhere in this plan did we find anything about a $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 \"stimulus\" or \"savings\" plan for homeowners in the same way that past stimulus checks worked, as the Facebook ads appeared to hint at.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/16/fact-sheet-biden-administration-announces-extension-of-covid-19-forbearance-and-foreclosure-protections-for-homeowners/", "https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/business/mortgage-assistance-homeowners.html" ] }, { "sentence": "One of the posts on Clever American Choices originally read: \"This was featured on FoxNews [sic] last night. All I did was enter my zip and now I'm getting $3,600 back in savings. It was free to check, Just Enter Zip!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/O7IwV" ] }, { "sentence": " Not only did this ad show a fake \"Homeowner Relief Card,\" but members of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet can be seen sitting in the photograph captured in Congress.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/12/clever-american-choices-ad.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": " These comments likely convinced quite a few people to give away their personal information.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/12/clever-american-choices-comments.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "In a study, the BBB found that these sorts of scams increased in 2020 and 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic. They also sent over a page about government grant scams and a scam alert about stimulus checks.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22776-government-impostors-press-release", "https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/16920-bbb-tip-government-grant-scam", "https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/21774-scam-alert-government-relief-checks-trigger-latest-coronavirus-scam" ] }, { "sentence": "We also heard from Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. In an email, Stokes told us: \"It is safe to say that ads that pitch free money from the government are government grant scams and the internet, particularly Facebook, is teeming with them. Sometimes youll see your Facebook friends share the information, claim they got money from a grant, and encourage you to get your free money, too. Often that means the friends Facebook account has been hacked. Whether it is a scammer or an actual company, you should report the ads to the FTC. These sites often ask for you to share your personal information, which can be dangerous for the person entering it.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/government-grants.html?intcmp=AE-FWN-LIB2-POS3" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-the-u-s-global-trade-deficit-really-800-billion/", "claim": "Is the United States' Global Trade Deficit Really $800 Billion?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "03/09/2018", "sci_digest": [ "President Donald Trump's statements on the subject leave out the country's $244 billion services surplus." ], "justification": "On 8 March 2018 President Donald Trump repeated an often-derided claim regarding the U.S. trade deficit during a press conference in the White House. The president said that the country currently has a global trade deficit of $800 billion a statement he has reportedly made more than 50 times since 2015. The remark at the press confrence came one day after he repeated the claim on his Twitter account. However, as news outlets have pointed out, that figure leaves out the fact that the U.S. has a trade surplus. As a report released by the Commerce Department shows, the actual deficit is $566 billion: reportedly repeated outlets released The report said: The 2017 increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $57.5 billion or 7.6 percent to $810.0 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $3.7 billion or 1.5 percent to $244.0 billion. A report published by the White House in February 2018 stated that the U.S. economy has become more dependent on trade involving \"private service-producing industries\" such as engineering, travel, and finance among others: published Travel (including that for educational purposes) has constituted the largest share of U.S. services exports. Services trade between countries has continued to grow given declining travel costs, improvements in telecommunications, and growth in online services that allow, for example, computer coding to take place in remote locations. This allows the United States to export high-skilled services to other countries that do not share ourexpertise and training advantages. Focusing on trade of tangible goods alone, the report added, ignored the country's \"comparative advantage\" in service-related trade. Trump reiterated his misleading claim on the same day he officially imposed tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on steel and aluminum, respectively. Mexico and Canada the country's partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement are exempted from those tariffs, and other countries will be allowed to petition for separate exemptions. The president's plan to impose the tariffs led to the resignation of White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn on 6 March 2018. imposed resignation The Trump administration said that the tariffs will take effect on 23 March 2018. said Qiu, Linda. \"President Trumps Exaggerated and Misleading Claims on Trade.\"\r New York Times. 6 March 2018. Associated Press. Fact Check: Is Trump Right About the Size of Trade Deficit?\"\r Accessed via CBS News. 8 March 2018. Liptak, Kevin and Diamond, Jeremy. \"US Allies are Upset. The Top Economist Quit. Trump Doesn't Care.\"\r CNN. 8 March 2018. Alemany, Jacqueline. \"Trump Tariffs Exempt Canada and Mexico.\"\r CBS News. 8 March 2018. Horsely, Scott. \"White House Economic Adviser Gary Cohn Quits.\"\r NPR. 6 March 2018.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Lg6hS0PZw5Uh7-sZsLxxlQJ43UcAGzgw", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The president said that the country currently has a global trade deficit of $800 billion a statement he has reportedly made more than 50 times since 2015. The remark at the press confrence came one day after he repeated the claim on his Twitter account. However, as news outlets have pointed out, that figure leaves out the fact that the U.S. has a trade surplus. As a report released by the Commerce Department shows, the actual deficit is $566 billion:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/us/politics/07dc-tradefacts.html", "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/971349864125788160", "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-trade-deficit-fact-check-2018-03-08/", "https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/2018/pdf/trad1217.pdf#page=3" ] }, { "sentence": "A report published by the White House in February 2018 stated that the U.S. economy has become more dependent on trade involving \"private service-producing industries\" such as engineering, travel, and finance among others:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ERP_2018_Final-FINAL.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump reiterated his misleading claim on the same day he officially imposed tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on steel and aluminum, respectively. Mexico and Canada the country's partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement are exempted from those tariffs, and other countries will be allowed to petition for separate exemptions. The president's plan to impose the tariffs led to the resignation of White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn on 6 March 2018.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/08/politics/tariff-donald-trump-national-security/index.html", "https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/585786755/white-house-economic-adviser-gary-cohn-quits" ] }, { "sentence": "The Trump administration said that the tariffs will take effect on 23 March 2018.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tariffs-will-exempt-canada-and-mexico/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/my-fair-lady-2/", "claim": "Did Audrey Hepburn Author These 'Beauty Tips'?", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "05/16/2001", "sci_digest": [ "\"For attractive lips, speak with words of kindness,\" the viral quote begins." ], "justification": "internet users iterations following quote For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, youll find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode, but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives and the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years. Image via Pinterest. Proving that even the famous go in for glurge, Hepburn, who died in 1993, was not the original author of the quoted list of beauty tips. However, she considered the quote one of her favorites and quoted it in public a number of times. Its true author was humorist Sam Levenson (who said, \"Insanity is hereditary: You can get it from your children\"). glurge However this confusion started over who wrote the piece, it's clear Hepburn never had a hand in any of it beyond repeating a favorite essay in public, always carefully crediting its author. That some have now come to think of this as \"her\" list is a regrettable misattribution. Biographies of Hepburn maintain that, as a 13-year-old, she did indeed serve as a courier and occasional secret messenger for the Resistance in World Word II (like many other children in Holland), carrying messages and illegal leaflets stuffed into her socks and shoes. Biographies In addition to her fabled acting career, which included the 1953 Best Actress Oscar for \"Roman Holiday,\" Hepburn was a long-time activist for charitable causes and, in 1988, was named the official spokesperson for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Roman Holiday United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund When asked in January 1992 if she had any personal beauty secrets besides Levenson's philosophical tips, she said, \"If I had them, I'd make a fortune. But I know what helps health, lots of sleep, lots of fresh air, and a lot of help from Estee Lauder.\" Donnally, Trish. \"This Beauty Shares Her Tips.\"The San Francisco Chronicle. 27 January 1992 (p. D5). This article was updated to meet Snopes' current standards for article formatting and include recent examples of the claim.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sIQdnxANJJqqXITOTm_3sYWq_PsfEzX7", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Image via Pinterest.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2012/05/e7811948d270bafe144c63ad4656ed18.jpeg" ] }, { "sentence": "Proving that even the famous go in for glurge, Hepburn, who died in 1993, was not the original author of the quoted list of beauty tips. However, she considered the quote one of her favorites and quoted it in public a number of times. Its true author was humorist Sam Levenson (who said, \"Insanity is hereditary: You can get it from your children\").", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/glurge-gallery/" ] }, { "sentence": "Biographies of Hepburn maintain that, as a 13-year-old, she did indeed serve as a courier and occasional secret messenger for the Resistance in World Word II (like many other children in Holland), carrying messages and illegal leaflets stuffed into her socks and shoes.", "hrefs": [ "https://time.com/5582729/audrey-hepburn-world-war-ii/" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition to her fabled acting career, which included the 1953 Best Actress Oscar for \"Roman Holiday,\" Hepburn was a long-time activist for charitable causes and, in 1988, was named the official spokesperson for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046250/", "https://www.unicef.org/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-admin-seizing-ppe/", "claim": "Did the Trump Admin Seize COVID-19 Protective Equipment from States?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/24/2020", "sci_digest": [ "An urgent shortage persists of N95 masks and other supplies in U.S. medical facilities. " ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As the U.S. federal government and states clashed over how to respond to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, workers on the frontlines of helping virus patients reported widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 masks and gowns. Hospital and state leaders described a chaotic and highly competitive market for securing supplies from vendors disarray that critics of President Donald Trump blamed on his ad-hoc approach to addressing the shortfall. COVID-19 ad-hoc shortfall Meanwhile, several news reports surfaced, claiming federal officials seized PPE shipments from local agencies or stopped the deals between vendors and states by offering higher bids. Snopes received numerous inquiries from readers about the validity of the assertion. To get to the root of the claim, we first researched from where the news reports originated. From The New York Times to the Boston Globe to The Intelligencer (a blog within New York magazine), several media outlets highlighted the experience of Dr. Andrew W. Artenstein, an infectious disease physician in Springfield, Massachusetts, who said the pandemic has forced him into PPE supply-chain work. On April 17, 2020, he published a letter in a peer-reviewed medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, about his apparent travails of getting a large shipment of face masks and respirators from a warehouse in a mid-Atlantic state. (He told The New York Times he would not publicize the location of the transaction out of fear of jeopardizing his relationship with the supply vendor.) The letter read: The New York Times Boston Globe The Intelligencer letter Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health systems urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure. It is unclear why federal officials may have targeted the Massachusetts delivery or where they would have allegedly redirected the supplies. Citing a policy of not confirming or denying specific investigations, the FBI declined to comment on Artenstein's account in an April 20 New York Times story, saying only that the agency had been working to ensure that PPE \"is not being unlawfully distributed or hoarded\" during the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, the Boston Globe could not reach the Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses FEMA, to comment on the doctor's story. story Though widely circulated online, Artenstein's story was not the only report of federal interference in the procurement of PPE in spring 2020. On April 7, the Los Angeles Times reported health care officials in seven states said the federal government seized their shipments and did not give guidance on how or if the local agencies would someday get the supplies they ordered. \"Are they stockpiling this stuff? Are they distributing it? We dont know,\" one unidentified official told the LA Times. \"And are we going to ever get any of it back if we need supplies? It would be nice to know these things. reported Additionally, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told The New York Times that FEMA stepped in at the last minute of a deal the city had with \"one of its usual suppliers\" to buy 1 million masks; a New Jersey county official told local media an order of 35,000 N95 and other masks were \"commandeered\" by the federal government; and a leader of the private health care company Kaiser Permanente told staff members that the company had found 20 million masks to purchase, \"but the feds actually seized that shipment before we were able to acquire it,\" the Times reported. The same news story said: local media Kaiser Permanente In Massachusetts, state leaders said they had confirmed a vast order of personal protective equipment for their health workers; then the Trump administration took control of the shipments. In Kentucky, the head of a hospital system told members of Congress that his broker had pulled out of an agreement to deliver four shipments of desperately needed medical gear after the supplies were commandeered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado thought his state had secured 500 ventilators before they were swept up by FEMA. Adding to those reports are worries by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker that if he publicly discusses how he's obtaining masks and gloves for his state, federal officials may catch wind and seize the materials, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. \"The supply chain has been likened to the wild West, and once you have purchased supplies, ensuring they get to the state is another herculean feat,\" a spokesperson for the governor told the news outlet. Chicago Sun-Times likened to the wild West, The reports began surfacing around the time the Trump administration launched a new public-private partnership to quickly distribute mass shipments of protective gear to the U.S. from factories overseas. The so-called Project Airbridge initiative (championed by Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser) came after repeated requests from the president for states to handle the supply issue themselves, allegations from some local leaders that the federal government was distributing the equipment unfairly, and Trump choosing FEMA to replace the Department of Health and Human Services as the leading agency to respond to the crisis, a move that changed how states submit formal requests for supplies from the national stockpile. some local leaders national stockpile. Explaining the spring 2020 initiative, FEMA said in a statement that the agency redirects roughly half of each international shipment to U.S. locations it has deemed in highest need, using COVID-19 data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Simultaneously, the agency said it is sending the remainder of orders to businesses, health care facilities and counties that have placed orders in the past. statement Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Yet despite the claims from state and hospital leaders, the federal government has not explicitly said it is confiscating or blocking PPE orders at the local level nor explained why it would. It also has not outlined a long-range plan for the alleged intervention efforts, or how the supplies would be divvied up. FEMA officials' response to the allegations include, in chronological order: Gov. Charlie Baker confiscated masks Given the amount of reports from state officials and health care leaders claiming that federal officials seized or blocked PPE orders, and those accounts' level of specificity and apparent validity, we rate this claim \"true\" with the caveat that the intervention efforts appear to be a part of a broader distribution plan that purportedly aims to get supplies to regions with the most urgent needs. Arango, Tim, et al. Doctors and Governors Vie for Masks in Cloak-and-Dagger Deals.\r The New York Times. 20 April 2020. Artenstein, Andrew. In Pursue of PPE.\r New England Journal of Medicine. 17 April 2020. Rosen, Andy. Mass. hospital executive says he was questioned by FBI while buying equipment.\r Boston Globe. 19 April 2020. Healy, Beth. Miscommunication, Missing Supplies Strain COVID-19 Coordination Between Mass. And FEMA.\r WBUR. 11 April 2020. Wallace-Wells, David. The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals from Getting Coronavirus PPE.\r New York Intelligencer. 19 April 2020. FEMA. FEMA COVID-19 Supply Chain Task Force: Supply Chain Stabilization.\r 8 April 2020. WCVB. 3 million masks ordered by Massachusetts were confiscated in Port of New York, leading to creative alternative.\r 2 April 2020. Main, Frank. Pritzker arranging secret flights from China to bring millions of masks and gloves to Illinois.\r Chicago Sun-Times. 14 April 2020. Bowman, Bill. Feds Take All Of Countys 35,000 Mask Order Targeted For Health Care Workers.\r Franklin Reporter and Advocate. 3 April 2020. Nicas, Jack and Kanno-Youngs, Zolan. Swept Up by FEMA: Complicated Medical Supply System Sows Confusion.\r The New York Times. 6 April 2020. Olorunnipa, Toluse, et. al. Governors plead for medical equipment from federal stockpile plagued by shortages and confusion.\r The Washington Post. 31 March 2020. Rose, Joel. A War For Medical Supplies: States Say FEMA Wins By Poaching Orders.\r National Public Radio. 15 April 2020.\r\r DePillis, Lydia. Heres Why Florida Got All the Emergency Medical Supplies It Requested While Other States Did Not.\r ProPublica. 20 March 2020. Levey, Noam. Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word.\r Los Angeles Times. 7 April 2020.\r\r", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1W0iG8VCK2ppKiITL0t3GHLkzsYeYxDM9", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "As the U.S. federal government and states clashed over how to respond to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, workers on the frontlines of helping virus patients reported widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 masks and gowns. Hospital and state leaders described a chaotic and highly competitive market for securing supplies from vendors disarray that critics of President Donald Trump blamed on his ad-hoc approach to addressing the shortfall.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/governors-plead-for-medical-equipment-from-federal-stockpile-plagued-by-shortages-and-confusion/2020/03/31/18aadda0-728d-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-coronavirus-masks/" ] }, { "sentence": "To get to the root of the claim, we first researched from where the news reports originated. From The New York Times to the Boston Globe to The Intelligencer (a blog within New York magazine), several media outlets highlighted the experience of Dr. Andrew W. Artenstein, an infectious disease physician in Springfield, Massachusetts, who said the pandemic has forced him into PPE supply-chain work. On April 17, 2020, he published a letter in a peer-reviewed medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, about his apparent travails of getting a large shipment of face masks and respirators from a warehouse in a mid-Atlantic state. (He told The New York Times he would not publicize the location of the transaction out of fear of jeopardizing his relationship with the supply vendor.) The letter read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/coronavirus-states-masks.html", "https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/19/nation/mass-hospital-executive-says-he-was-questioned-by-fbi-while-buying-equipment/", "https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html?fbclid=IwAR20M0RD-pTXU6jn0ebmLBg0445l5NcOY4b9uhihXAhH3eTqZE7OS-tvt30", "https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025?page=2#article_comments'" ] }, { "sentence": "It is unclear why federal officials may have targeted the Massachusetts delivery or where they would have allegedly redirected the supplies. Citing a policy of not confirming or denying specific investigations, the FBI declined to comment on Artenstein's account in an April 20 New York Times story, saying only that the agency had been working to ensure that PPE \"is not being unlawfully distributed or hoarded\" during the coronavirus pandemic. Additionally, the Boston Globe could not reach the Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses FEMA, to comment on the doctor's story.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/coronavirus-states-masks.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Though widely circulated online, Artenstein's story was not the only report of federal interference in the procurement of PPE in spring 2020. On April 7, the Los Angeles Times reported health care officials in seven states said the federal government seized their shipments and did not give guidance on how or if the local agencies would someday get the supplies they ordered. \"Are they stockpiling this stuff? Are they distributing it? We dont know,\" one unidentified official told the LA Times. \"And are we going to ever get any of it back if we need supplies? It would be nice to know these things.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies" ] }, { "sentence": "Additionally, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told The New York Times that FEMA stepped in at the last minute of a deal the city had with \"one of its usual suppliers\" to buy 1 million masks; a New Jersey county official told local media an order of 35,000 N95 and other masks were \"commandeered\" by the federal government; and a leader of the private health care company Kaiser Permanente told staff members that the company had found 20 million masks to purchase, \"but the feds actually seized that shipment before we were able to acquire it,\" the Times reported. The same news story said:", "hrefs": [ "https://franklinreporter.com/feds-take-all-of-countys-35000-mask-order-targeted-for-health-care-workers/", "https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "Adding to those reports are worries by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker that if he publicly discusses how he's obtaining masks and gloves for his state, federal officials may catch wind and seize the materials, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. \"The supply chain has been likened to the wild West, and once you have purchased supplies, ensuring they get to the state is another herculean feat,\" a spokesperson for the governor told the news outlet. ", "hrefs": [ "https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/14/21221459/pritzker-secret-flights-china-illinois-ppe-trump-coronavirus", "https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/3/21207488/coronavirus-illinois-medical-supplies-wild-west" ] }, { "sentence": "The reports began surfacing around the time the Trump administration launched a new public-private partnership to quickly distribute mass shipments of protective gear to the U.S. from factories overseas. The so-called Project Airbridge initiative (championed by Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser) came after repeated requests from the president for states to handle the supply issue themselves, allegations from some local leaders that the federal government was distributing the equipment unfairly, and Trump choosing FEMA to replace the Department of Health and Human Services as the leading agency to respond to the crisis, a move that changed how states submit formal requests for supplies from the national stockpile.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.propublica.org/article/heres-why-florida-got-all-the-emergency-medical-supplies-it-requested-while-other-states-did-not", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stockpile-website-change-kushner/" ] }, { "sentence": "Explaining the spring 2020 initiative, FEMA said in a statement that the agency redirects roughly half of each international shipment to U.S. locations it has deemed in highest need, using COVID-19 data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Simultaneously, the agency said it is sending the remainder of orders to businesses, health care facilities and counties that have placed orders in the past.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/04/08/fema-covid-19-supply-chain-task-force-supply-chain-stabilization", "https://www.cdc.gov/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/girl-scout-cookies-planned-parenthood/", "claim": "Do Girl Scout Cookie Proceeds Fund Planned Parenthood?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "01/21/2016", "sci_digest": [ " The claim that Girl Scout Cookie sales fund Planned Parenthood became popular in mid-2015 and early 2016." ], "justification": "For several years, social media users have shared tweets and memes claiming that funds from the sale of Girl Scout Cookies are distributed to Planned Parenthood, often posting such items with hashtags such as \"#cookiecott\" to promote the rumor: How did we end up with a crooked eyed snake salesman Leader, selling nothing but snake oil to Americans? Tiffiny Bond (@RedHatGeek) April 8, 2015 April 8, 2015 @KazmierskiR don't even get me started on Girl Scout cookies where portion goes to PP don't buy cookies write a check to the troop @KazmierskiR QThePatriots+++ (@patriotswanted) December 23, 2015 December 23, 2015 An opinion piece dated March 22, 2018 on LifeNews.com encouraged readers to \"say no\" to Girl Scout cookies over \"ties\" to Planned Parenthood (although it did not repeat the claim that proceeds of cookie sales go to fund that organization). LifeNews.com The claim that Girl Scout Cookie sales fund Planned Parenthood became popular in mid-2015 and early 2016, likely due in part to a series of questionable viral videos targeting the latter organizationcirculated in the summer of 2015. However, the rumor had previously spread widely in 2012, after Fox News reprinted a (since-deleted) opinion piece from LifeSiteNews that stated (in part): videos opinion piece When our sweet little neighbor in her brown camp uniform came knocking on our door this year, we had to say no. I told her mother that I didnt want to hurt Katies feelings, but I couldnt support the Girl Scout cookie sale anymore because Id learned too much about the organizers agenda, primarily their support for abortion and partnership with Planned Parenthood ... Several years ago. a quarter of the Girl Scout councils nationwide admitted to partnering with Planned Parenthood, the nations abortion giant. When questioned about the affiliation on NBCs Today Show, Girl Scout CEO Kathy Cloninger had no compunction in confirming it. In fact, what then-Girl Scout CEO Kathy Cloninger said on NBC's Today show back in 2012 was that Planned Parenthood was one of several organizations (including church communities and YMCAs) that the Girl Scouts worked with \"to bring information-based sex education programs to girls. Cloninger did not state (or imply) that any financial support relationship existed between the two organizations. We contacted the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) to determine whether any portion of the rumor was true. They responded to say thatno proceeds have ever been donatedfrom the sale of Girl Scout Cookies toPlanned Parenthood. The Girl Scout Cookies section of the Girl Scouts website's FAQ declares that all revenue raised from cookie sales goes to the local Girl Scout councils and troops, not outside organizations: Girl Scout Cookies Q: Does any part of Girl Scout Cookie Program revenue support organizations other than the local Girl Scout council? A: One hundred percent of the net proceeds from Girl Scout Cookie sales is retained by the originating council and troop to power amazing experiences for girls and influential girl-led community projects. Girl Scout troops set goals for how to spend their proceeds on program-related activities, such as paying their own way to a community event or museum or funding other program outings. Girl Scout troops may also choose to use proceeds to purchase materials for a Take Action or service project to benefit the community. The Social Issues portion of the FAQ also states that GSUSA \"does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood\": Social Issues A 12 March 2015New York Times compendium piece addressed the rumor and found it lacking: piece In recent years, conservative groups have challenged the organization even held cookiecotts over critics claims that it supports abortion. One Indiana lawmaker in 2012 went so far as to say the Girl Scouts were quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood. cookiecotts One Indiana lawmaker in 2012 The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. does have a legislative agenda. Reducing bullying and increasing girls involvement in science, technology, engineering and math are among issues on its website. issues Not on the list: abortion, or any social issues. abortion, or any social issues Anna Maria Chvez, the chief executive of the national group, responded to critics last year, denying any relationship with Planned Parenthood. responded to critics A box of Girl Scout cookies is not a political statement, she said. As Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, their financial statements are by law made freely available to the public, along with their annual report. financial statements annual report Hassan, Adeel. \"Your Thursday Briefing.\"\r The New York Times. 12 March 2015.\r\r Ruse, Cathy Cleaver. \"Say No to Girl Scout Cookies.\"\r LifeSiteNews. 17 January 2012.\r Harrington, Elizabeth. \"Pelosi: Girl Scouts' Relationship with Planned Parenthood Very Valuable.\"\r CNSNews.com 1 February 2012.\r Updated with information about a more recent example of the claim.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vYWUn8Do3pVM6ImOtqn4SThwX2axzpEO", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Tiffiny Bond (@RedHatGeek) April 8, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/RedHatGeek/status/585837258189602816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "@KazmierskiR don't even get me started on Girl Scout cookies where portion goes to PP don't buy cookies write a check to the troop", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/KazmierskiR?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": " QThePatriots+++ (@patriotswanted) December 23, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/patriotswanted/status/679686742404919296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "An opinion piece dated March 22, 2018 on LifeNews.com encouraged readers to \"say no\" to Girl Scout cookies over \"ties\" to Planned Parenthood (although it did not repeat the claim that proceeds of cookie sales go to fund that organization). ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.lifenews.com/2018/03/22/say-no-to-girl-scout-cookies-because-of-their-ties-to-planned-parenthood/" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim that Girl Scout Cookie sales fund Planned Parenthood became popular in mid-2015 and early 2016, likely due in part to a series of questionable viral videos targeting the latter organizationcirculated in the summer of 2015. However, the rumor had previously spread widely in 2012, after Fox News reprinted a (since-deleted) opinion piece from LifeSiteNews that stated (in part):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/debunked-planned-parenthood-videos-led-attack-activists-article-1.2448839", "https://web.archive.org/web/20120119112528/https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/say-no-to-girl-scout-cookies" ] }, { "sentence": "The Girl Scout Cookies section of the Girl Scouts website's FAQ declares that all revenue raised from cookie sales goes to the local Girl Scout councils and troops, not outside organizations:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/all-about-cookies/FAQs.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Social Issues portion of the FAQ also states that GSUSA \"does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.girlscouts.org/en/faq/faq/social-issues.html" ] }, { "sentence": "A 12 March 2015New York Times compendium piece addressed the rumor and found it lacking:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/nytnow/latest-news-ferguson-police-shooting-secret-service-crash-girl-scouts-birthday.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In recent years, conservative groups have challenged the organization even held cookiecotts over critics claims that it supports abortion. One Indiana lawmaker in 2012 went so far as to say the Girl Scouts were quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/02/19/girl-scout-cookie-boycott-abortion/5609149/", "https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73167.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. does have a legislative agenda. Reducing bullying and increasing girls involvement in science, technology, engineering and math are among issues on its website.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/advocacy/legislative/" ] }, { "sentence": "Not on the list: abortion, or any social issues.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.girlscouts.org/program/basics/faith/faqs.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Anna Maria Chvez, the chief executive of the national group, responded to critics last year, denying any relationship with Planned Parenthood.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/girl-scout-cookies-boycott-conservatives-104487_full.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, their financial statements are by law made freely available to the public, along with their annual report.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsusa/forms-and-documents/about-girl-scouts/facts/GSUSA-2017_Audited_Financial_Statements.pdf", "https://www.girlscouts.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsusa/forms-and-documents/about-girl-scouts/facts/GSUSA_Annual-Report_FY2017.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prostitute-gerda-puridle-eyelashes/", "claim": "Was it the case that Gerda Puridle, a prostitute, created artificial eyelashes for the purpose of safeguarding her eyes?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "02/03/2021", "sci_digest": [ "WARNING: This history lesson begins with a decidely NSFW meme." ], "justification": "In January 2021, the website America's Best Pics shared a meme claiming that a prostitute named \"Gerda Puridle\" invented long eyelashes in 1880s: shared The woman in this picture was not a prostitute, her name was not Gerda Puridle, and the claim about the origins of artificial eyelashes was made up out of whole cloth. The woman featured in this meme is Alice Regnault, a French actress and novelist who rose to prominence in the 1870s. This photograph appears to have been taken by French photographer Gaspard-Flix Tournachon (better known as \"Nadar\") circa 1879. It was included in a guide published a few years later called \"Les Actrices de Paris\" (The Actresses of Paris) by Emile Bergerat: appears to have been taken Here's how Regnault was described in \"Les Actrices de Paris\" (translated via Google and edited for clarity): \"An intelligent and flexible actress who, through commitment and hard work, has managed to escape a reputation as a 'pretty woman' where the love of the masses kept her, as in a prison. So has the fine and elegant Mademoiselle Rgnault proven herself, for some time now.\" While Regnault laid claim to titles such as actress, novelist, and journalist, she did not invent elongated eyelashes. According to beauty magazine Marie Claire, humans were tinkering with and beautifying their eyelashes in ancient Egypt, though it wasn't until the late 1800s that people figured out that they could lengthen their eyelashes with human hair. An 1882 volume of \"Medical Record\" explained the process of creating artificial eyelashes: Marie Claire Medical Record False Eyelashes - Labouchere says in Truth: The Parisians have found out how to make false eyelashes. I do not speak of the vulgar and well-known trick of darkening the rim round the eye with all kinds of dirty composition, or the more artistic plan of doing so to the inside of the lid. No, they actually draw a fine needle, threaded with dark hair, through the skin of the eyelid, forming long loops, and after the process if over - I am told it is a painless one - a splendid dark fringe veils the coquette's eyes.\" While the practice of artificially elongating eyelashes started in the late 1800s, the first patent for an artificial eyelash wasn't secured until 1911. Here's a look at inventor Anna Taylor's artificial eyelash patent: Despite the fact that artificial eyelashes have been around since the late 1800s, and that Taylor filed a patent in 1911, many people credit filmmaker D.W. Griffith for popularizing artificial eyelashes with his 1916 film \"Intolerance.\" The New York Times reported: reported One day in 1916, while filming \"Intolerance,\" D. W. Griffith studied an actress in a Babylonian costume and felt something wasn't right. Seena Owen's eyes, he said, should be twice as large and \"supernatural.\" He ordered his wigmaker to use spirit gum to glue a pair of lashes made from human hair onto Owen's eyelids. \"One morning she arrived at the studio with her eyes swollen nearly shut,\" the actress Lillian Gish, who was also in the movie, wrote in her memoir. \"Fortunately, Mr. Griffith had already shot the important scenes.\" Within a decade, false lashes became standard equipment for actresses and for flappers who imitated the \"baby doll\" eyes that they saw on-screen. Gish claimed that Griffith invented false eyelashes, but like many Hollywood legends, this one proves to be not exactly true. In 1911, a Canadian woman named Anna Taylor received a U.S. patent for the artificial eyelash; hers was a crescent of fabric implanted with tiny hairs. And even before that, hairdressers and makeup artists tried a similar trick. A German named Charles Nestle (nee Karl Nessler) manufactured false lashes in the early 20th century and used the profit from sales to finance his next invention the permanent wave. By 1915, Nestle had opened a New York hair-perming salon on East 49th Street, with lashes as his sideline. Nestle promoted false eyelashes as a guard against the glare of electric lights and hired chorus girls to bat their eyes at customers. To some men of the era, it was as if a booby trap had been introduced in the war between the sexes. \"When a fair young thing looks at you mistily through her long, curling lashes, do not fall for it until you investigate,\" warned one columnist in 1921. \"The long, curling eyelashes may not be hers, except by right of purchase.\" In short, the claim that a prostitute named Gerda Puridle invented elongated eyelashes is completely made up out of whole cloth.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15RlR3kgu_-SJajjua8LanHVFLp5kAfzv" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_9ln8kM6Qc24-yySkVw3Wi3_O7pvZHBe" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10rdquf9pJ7yhB-1onCkFbciyBRusnWbi" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Fw5dHCrYm-ZZ3OF6Ju5HrN8YhiZU1Mkc" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zeQV_BOH7qLFoyCCkvbg_nodo38e1nr7" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In January 2021, the website America's Best Pics shared a meme claiming that a prostitute named \"Gerda Puridle\" invented long eyelashes in 1880s:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210203214218/https://americasbestpics.com/picture/did-you-know-that-in-1882-london-prostitute-gerda-puridle-ekaaSvUJ8" ] }, { "sentence": "The woman featured in this meme is Alice Regnault, a French actress and novelist who rose to prominence in the 1870s. This photograph appears to have been taken by French photographer Gaspard-Flix Tournachon (better known as \"Nadar\") circa 1879. It was included in a guide published a few years later called \"Les Actrices de Paris\" (The Actresses of Paris) by Emile Bergerat:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.abebooks.com/photographs/ALICE-REGNAULT-NADAR/18596412704/bd" ] }, { "sentence": "While Regnault laid claim to titles such as actress, novelist, and journalist, she did not invent elongated eyelashes. According to beauty magazine Marie Claire, humans were tinkering with and beautifying their eyelashes in ancient Egypt, though it wasn't until the late 1800s that people figured out that they could lengthen their eyelashes with human hair. An 1882 volume of \"Medical Record\" explained the process of creating artificial eyelashes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marieclaire.com/beauty/news/a13574/the-history-of-women-and-their-eyelashes/", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Medical_Record/cVlYAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1" ] }, { "sentence": "Despite the fact that artificial eyelashes have been around since the late 1800s, and that Taylor filed a patent in 1911, many people credit filmmaker D.W. Griffith for popularizing artificial eyelashes with his 1916 film \"Intolerance.\" The New York Times reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/magazine/who-made-those-false-eyelashes.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/media-silence-national-debt-trump/", "claim": "'Media Silence' on $12B Reduction to the National Debt During Trump's First Month?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "02/27/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Although President Trump cited accurate national debt figures in a tweet, the newsworthiness of that information was questionable." ], "justification": "On 25 February 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted to complain that the news media were not reporting his success in reducing the national debt during his first month in office: tweeted The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 February 25, 2017 As noted by news media from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, the tweet appeared closely after a \"Fox & Friends\" segment in which guest (and former presidential candidate) Herman Cain reported the same numbers. That story appeared to have its origins in a post on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit (\"Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month\") which took credit for the Trump tweet in an update to their story. Los Angeles Times Washington Post took credit There are two claims implicit in the tweet. The first claim is simply the factual nature of the figures reported. The second is that the numbers represent an item worthy of coverage. The numbers are factual in a literal sense, according to the online debt history search application offered by the US Treasury Department: application Though the numbers regarding the debt at the end of Trumps and President Obamas first month are factual, their significance as a reportable bit of information or as an indicator of the impact or success of Trumps policies is questionable. Speaking to CBS News, Maya MacGuineas, director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, said: said It is true the debt outstanding declined by $12 billion in the first month of Donald Trumps presidency. We applaud the president for focusing on the debt as an important metric of success and economic health, but would point out that the improvement this early in his term has to do with normal fluctuations in spending and revenues rather than new policies he has implemented. Indeed, in terms of newsworthiness (or lack thereof), sporadic reductions of the debt are not uncommon (in red, below) on a month-to-month basis, according to The \"Monthly Statement of the Public Debt of the United States\" reports released during the course of President Obama's second term in office: reports In fact, the Washington Posts Wonkblog reports that, even on a day-to-day basis, fluctuations even greater than the one Trump referenced are not unheard of: reports The Gateway Pundit article says that the change in debt under Trump translates to a 0.1 percent reduction in the U.S. debt burden. Actually, it's .06 percent between Jan. 20 and Feb. 21 a very small change. (The national debt has gone up or down by as much .19 percent on single days this year.) Secondly, there are few mechanisms by which any actions Trump has taken as president would affect the national debt thus far, as he has not signed into law any financial measures related to federal borrowing. While there are arguments to be made that other factors related to Trumps presidency could affect the debt, the Post has said it is unlikely, and also impossible to quantify: Its impossible to know whether Trumps election has really had time to filter through to concretely affect the economy. Congress has not passed any of his policies yet. The stock market has certainly continued to boom, but it was already rising before the election. While it's possible anticipation of tax cuts or regulatory relief is heating up the economy and leading to increased government receipts, investors might also be choosing not to sell assets to avoid current capital gains tax rates and waiting to see whether the Republican-dominated Congress successfully slashes rates. Keith Hennessey, a former director of the U.S. National Economic Council appointed by George W. Bush, wrote a hypothetical memo to Congress analyzing the 45th Presidents tweet. In this document, he stated that neither Obama nor Trump had any effect on the national debt in their first month in office: hypothetical memo document Government borrowing in January and February is the byproduct of spending and tax policies set by Congress the year before. President Obama signed the fiscal stimulus law on February 17, 2009, but it took months before that began to change government cash flows and borrowing requirements. President Trump has so far not measurably affected fiscal policy in general or government borrowing in specific. Its unfair to assign any responsibility for borrowing in the first month to either president. Hennessey added that it is equally unfair to compare the 2009 economic situation with the 2017 one: GDP was plummeting when President Obama took office. Tax revenues were down, automatic stabilizer payments (e.g., unemployment insurance and safety net spending) were up, and funds were being spent from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In early 2009 government was borrowing a lot because the economy was weak, not because of President Obamas policies. In contrast, the U.S. economy is now growing. The smaller borrowing requirement for this month is mostly a result of this economic difference, and may also in part be simply an artifact of choosing such a short timeframe for comparison. More to the point, however, the fact that the day-to-day and month-to-month fluctuations of the national debt are so volatile, he argued, is why analysts dont typically look at the data for these time periods, accordingo to Hennessey: Had the president / Mr. Cain ended his timeframe one day earlier this tweet would have been invalid and debt would have increased (by just $1 B) in the first month. This is why analysts look at debt on an annual basis rather than daily/weekly/monthly. It should also be noted that, as the Fox and Friends segment aired on one of the nations most popular national cable news networks, \"the media\" did indeed report on this story. The reason it didnt pick up much steam is that the numbers were not newsworthy because they were taken out of context and are likely irrelevant to President Trump's actions in office. UPDATE: 28 February 2017 -- Modified the status of this article to \"\" to better explicate the difference between the accuracy of the debt figures and their newsworthiness. Hennessey, Keith. \"Memorandum for a Member of Congress: The Presidents Debt Tweet.\"\r keithhennessey.com. 25 February 2017. Swanson, Ava. \"Trump Is Upset the Media Is Not Reporting a Meaningless Statistic About the National Debt.\"\r The Washington Post. 25 February 2017. Hoft, Jim. \"Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month UPDATE: Trump Tweets Our Numbers\"\r thegatewaypundit.com. 23 February 2017. treasurydirect.gov. \"The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.\" Shabad, Rebecca. \"Fact-Checking Trump's Claim About Debt Dropping by $12b in Last Month.\"\r thegatewaypundit.com. 25 February 2017. treasurydirect.gov. \"Monthly Statement of the Public Debt (MSPD) and Downloadable Files.\" Morin, Rebecca. \"Former Economic Council Director Derides Trump's Debt Tweet.\"\r Poltico. 25 February 2017. Wilber, Del Quentin. \"Trump Brags About the National Debt, But His Comparison Is Misleading.\"\r Los Angeles Times. 25 February 2027.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15e1-oPxsitMwZ9sPJFbtCAaXWABcZdF7", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1MxYUKTZY6YiwrGU5W73H_q8NspWPzz2h", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 25 February 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted to complain that the news media were not reporting his success in reducing the national debt during his first month in office:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/aj46B" ] }, { "sentence": " Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/835479283699224576" ] }, { "sentence": "As noted by news media from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, the tweet appeared closely after a \"Fox & Friends\" segment in which guest (and former presidential candidate) Herman Cain reported the same numbers. That story appeared to have its origins in a post on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit (\"Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month\") which took credit for the Trump tweet in an update to their story.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-trump-brags-about-the-national-1488062173-htmlstory.html", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/25/trump-is-upset-the-media-is-not-reporting-a-meaningless-statistic-about-the-national-debt/", "https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/02/trump-cuts-us-debt-burden-by-12-billion-in-his-first-month/" ] }, { "sentence": "The numbers are factual in a literal sense, according to the online debt history search application offered by the US Treasury Department:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/debttothepenny.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Though the numbers regarding the debt at the end of Trumps and President Obamas first month are factual, their significance as a reportable bit of information or as an indicator of the impact or success of Trumps policies is questionable. Speaking to CBS News, Maya MacGuineas, director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, said:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-checking-trumps-claim-about-debt-dropping-by-12b-in-last-month/" ] }, { "sentence": "Indeed, in terms of newsworthiness (or lack thereof), sporadic reductions of the debt are not uncommon (in red, below) on a month-to-month basis, according to The \"Monthly Statement of the Public Debt of the United States\" reports released during the course of President Obama's second term in office:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-27-at-12.24.33-PM.png", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-27-at-1.55.50-PM.png" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, the Washington Posts Wonkblog reports that, even on a day-to-day basis, fluctuations even greater than the one Trump referenced are not unheard of:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/25/trump-is-upset-the-media-is-not-reporting-a-meaningless-statistic-about-the-national-debt/" ] }, { "sentence": "Keith Hennessey, a former director of the U.S. National Economic Council appointed by George W. Bush, wrote a hypothetical memo to Congress analyzing the 45th Presidents tweet. In this document, he stated that neither Obama nor Trump had any effect on the national debt in their first month in office:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-debt-tweet-keith-hennessey-nec-235396", "https://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/reponse-to-debt-tweet-2.pdf" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/mar/24/terry-mcauliffe/mcauliffe-right-va-sends-most-agricultural-product/", "claim": "Virginia now is the number one exporter of (agricultural) products to Cuba. We have now jumped to number one.", "author": "Sean Gorman", "posted": "03/24/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Gov. Terry McAuliffe sees Cuba as a land of opportunity. Amid President Barack Obamas historic trip to Cuba this past week, McAuliffe said in an interview that Virginia already has made impressive headway in tapping the island nations export market. Virginia now is the number one exporter of ag (agricultural) products to Cuba, McAuliffe said during a March 21 MSNBC interview. We have now jumped to number one. In January, the governor returned from a trip to Cuba aimed at bolstering the commonwealths commercial ties with the nation. The U.S. still has a decades-long embargo on most trade with Cuba. But a 2000 law allows limited exports of agricultural products and medical equipment. In 2014, Obama re-established formal diplomatic relations with Cuba. McAuliffe supports ending the trade embargo. Brian Coy, the governors spokesman, pointed us to a Feb. 12 news release where McAuliffeannouncedthat last year Virginia exported $41.6 million in agricultural goods to Cuba, all of it soybeans and soybean meal. In past years, Virginia also has shipped apples, poultry and beef. McAuliffe said the 2015 export tally was the most that any state had sent to Cuba that year. We tracked down the same trade figures through an onlinedatabaseprovided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It shows that in 2015, Virginias $41.6 million indeed was the most of any state, followed by Georgia, which had $30.9 million in agricultural exports to Cuba; and Florida, which had $29.9 million in exports. Rounding out the top five agricultural exporters to Cuba were Alabama and Louisiana. Altogether, the U.S. exported nearly $150 million in agricultural goods to Cuba last year. A 2015articlefrom the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond noted Virginias farm exports accounted for 28 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports last year, compared with the 21 percent share for Georgia and 20 percent share for Florida. Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana generally have dominated the share of U.S. exports to Cuba since 2011. McAuliffe is correct that the 2015 figures are a turnabout of sorts for Virginia. In 2012, the state had $65.6 million in agricultural exports to Cuba, and that fell to $24.9 million in 2014, ranking it fifth behind those other four Southern states. Last year was the first time Virginia reached the goal of becoming the top agricultural exporter to Cuba, said Todd Haymore, the states secretary of agriculture and forestry. Haymore told us Virginia and other Southern states proximity to Cuba provides an advantage in tapping the Cuban market. Other factors helped, he said. For example, Georgia has focused on expanding an agricultural export facility in Savannah, Haymore said. Florida, meanwhile, has extensive port operations, the secretary said. Haymore said a significant share of Virginias agricultural exports to Cuba were produced in the commonwealth, although he added that Virginias ports also ship products that originate from other states, including Maryland and North Carolina. This year, it looks like Virginia has some serious competition if it wants to retain its billing as the top agricultural exporter to Cuba. Figures from January, the only month for which export figures are available so far this year, show that Louisiana sent $17.9 million in agricultural exports to Cuba that month, and Alabama sent $2.1 million. Virginias $1.7 million ranked third. While Virginia has seen its exports to Cuba go up and down and then back up in recent years, its been a different story for U.S. trade to the island nation. The total value of all U.S. exports to Cuba actually has been waning, even amid White House overtures to open trade. U.S. exports to Cuba dropped from $464.5 million in 2012 to $180.3 million last year, according to figures from the U.S. Commerce Department. Our ruling McAuliffe said Virginia is the top exporter of agricultural products to Cuba. The numbers from the latest year available back his claim. We rate his statement True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Trade", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Brian Coy, the governors spokesman, pointed us to a Feb. 12 news release where McAuliffeannouncedthat last year Virginia exported $41.6 million in agricultural goods to Cuba, all of it soybeans and soybean meal. In past years, Virginia also has shipped apples, poultry and beef. McAuliffe said the 2015 export tally was the most that any state had sent to Cuba that year.", "hrefs": [ "https://governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/newsarticle?articleId=14115" ] }, { "sentence": "We tracked down the same trade figures through an onlinedatabaseprovided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It shows that in 2015, Virginias $41.6 million indeed was the most of any state, followed by Georgia, which had $30.9 million in agricultural exports to Cuba; and Florida, which had $29.9 million in exports.", "hrefs": [ "http://apps.fas.usda.gov/GATS/default.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "A 2015articlefrom the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond noted Virginias farm exports accounted for 28 percent of all U.S. agricultural exports last year, compared with the 21 percent share for Georgia and 20 percent share for Florida.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/richmondfedorg/publications/research/econ_focus/2015/q3/pdf/feature1.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spiraling-village-in-iran/", "claim": "Real Photo of a 'Spiraling Village' in Iran?", "author": "Taija PerryCook", "posted": "01/29/2024", "sci_digest": [ "Trick of the eye or trick of AI?" ], "justification": "On Dec. 10, 2023, Instagram account @hamidreza.edalatnia posted a series of eight images. Each image contained a spiral pattern, taking shape in either the architecture, greenery, or surrounding landscapes. The images, particularly the first one, went viral with multiple accounts across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook picking up the images, with or without credit to the original account. @hamidreza.edalatnia Instagram Twitter Facebook One such viral post (with 110,836 likes, as of this writing) published by Instagram account @national_archeology, was flooded with comments from users who claimed the images were AI-generated. \"Please stop posting AI images, we want to learn about history here,\" one wrote. One such viral post @national_archeology View this post on Instagram A post shared by national archaeology (@national_archaeology) A post shared by national archaeology (@national_archaeology) The images were, in fact, AI-generated. The original account that posted the images captioned them: \"'Re-envisioning Iranian urban landscape through spiral pattern' | AI, Stable diffusion, Controlnet.\" When we reached out to the account for comment, the owner of the account responded: \"Yes the series of the images called: re-envisioning Iranian urban landscape through spiral pattern originally generated by me using AI stable diffusion.\" View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hamidreza Edalatnia (@hamidreza.edalatnia) A post shared by Hamidreza Edalatnia (@hamidreza.edalatnia) According to the biography section of this account, its owner graduated from Danish university Det Kongelige Akademi and is currently based in Hamburg, Germany. The account features many such AI-generated images, some depicting the geographic shape of Iran in different forms, as well as Iran's famous Azadi Tower in various renderings. Lastly, when the first image was run through AI-detection software Hive, the result was 99.6% likely to be AI-generated, as seen below. (Image via Hive) We've previously reported on other AI-generated imagery, such as R. Kelly doing shows in prison and U.S. President Joe Biden wrapped in a bubble suit. R. Kelly doing shows in prison U.S. President Joe Biden wrapped in a bubble suit. ControlNet. https://huggingface.co/docs/diffusers/using-diffusers/controlnet. Accessed 29 Jan. 2024. Det Kongelige Akademi.Royal Danish Academy, 5 Aug. 2014, https://kglakademi.dk/det-kongelige-akademi. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C2ZMXARrO7T/?img_index=1. Accessed 29 Jan. 2024. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fhamidreza.edalatnia%2F%3Fimg_index%3D1. Accessed 29 Jan. 2024.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18lslipYuwol1-9HSfRMWnMTxwmmH-g0A", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Dec. 10, 2023, Instagram account @hamidreza.edalatnia posted a series of eight images. Each image contained a spiral pattern, taking shape in either the architecture, greenery, or surrounding landscapes. The images, particularly the first one, went viral with multiple accounts across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook picking up the images, with or without credit to the original account.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/hamidreza.edalatnia/", "https://www.instagram.com/archidesiign/p/C2jmaDhNw_k/?img_index=1", "https://twitter.com/smartpaveke/status/1745339018210922655", "https://m.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122153736332029996&set=a.122114120930029996" ] }, { "sentence": "One such viral post (with 110,836 likes, as of this writing) published by Instagram account @national_archeology, was flooded with comments from users who claimed the images were AI-generated. \"Please stop posting AI images, we want to learn about history here,\" one wrote.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/C2ZMXARrO7T/?img_index=1", "https://www.instagram.com/national_archaeology/?img_index=1" ] }, { "sentence": "A post shared by national archaeology (@national_archaeology)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/C2ZMXARrO7T/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" ] }, { "sentence": "A post shared by Hamidreza Edalatnia (@hamidreza.edalatnia)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/C0q9MDStlWn/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" ] }, { "sentence": "We've previously reported on other AI-generated imagery, such as R. Kelly doing shows in prison and U.S. President Joe Biden wrapped in a bubble suit.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/r-kelly-shows-in-prison/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-bubble-wrap-suit/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/jan/07/brent-larkin/columnist-brent-larkins-claim-about-1935-steam-tra/", "claim": "Says the 3C Corridor train would have taken an hour and 15 minutes longer to carry passengers across Ohio than it would have taken on a New York Central train in 1935.", "author": "Tom Feran", "posted": "01/07/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "If former Gov. Ted Strickland had used a theme song in his unsuccessful re-election bid, it might have been I've Been Working on the Railroad.Jobs were the biggest issue of the fall campaign, and Strickland said that thousands would be created by his plan for a 3C Corridor passenger rail system linking Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He described Gov.-elect John Kasichs intention to kill the plan and return a $400 million federal grant as tragic and a job-killer.Critics of the plan claimed that its employment potential was exaggerated, its ridership forecasts were too optimistic and its cost projections too low.Ultimately, Plain Dealer columnist and former editorial director Brent Larkin wrote: Voters never warmed to the idea of spending hundreds of millions on a passenger rail project that would have taken riders from Cleveland to Cincinnati over a period an hour and 15 minutes longer than it would have taken on a New York Central train in 1935.We dont usually look at remarks from columnists, but that comment stopped PolitiFact Ohio in its tracks.We knew that the 3C Corridor was not a high-speed rail plan. We had not realized it was more like a trip back in time.So PolitiFact Ohio asked Larkin where he got his figures.He referred us first to a year-old feasibility report on the proposed Cleveland-to-Columbus-to- Cincinnati Amtrak service.This is the schedule Amtrak said it would run, and the schedule Ohio included as part of its application to the feds for the $400 million, Larkin said. No other schedule was ever formally provided to the feds.The proposed schedule shows a 255-mile Cleveland to Cincinnati trip taking 6-1/2 hours. The first daily train would leave Cleveland at 6:30 a.m. and arrive in Cincinnati at 1 p.m.Larkin then shared a railroad timetable from New York Central Lines, effective Feb 3, 1935. It showed a departure time of 3:10 p.m. from Cincinnati and an arrival in Cleveland of 8:20 p.m., for a travel time of 5 hours 10 minutes -- an hour and 20 minutes faster than the 3C line.Criticism of the 3C as snail rail with an average speed of 39 mph started as soon as the project was proposed.The Ohio Department of Transportation responded in September with a new average estimate of 50 mph and speed up to 79. It shortened the Cleveland-to-Cincinnati trip to 5 hours 12 minutes.But, not so fast.As an October story in the Columbus Dispatch noted, ODOT itself had said a year earlier that the trip couldn't be made in less than 5 hours 20 minutes -- even if the trains didn't stop. ODOTs revised schedule hadn't even been seen by the three freight lines that own the tracks the 3C passenger trains would use, putting its feasibility in serious doubt.And, no matter how weak or strong its support, the optimistic revision still comes up longer than the best rail time of 1935.The schedules speak for themselves, Larkin said.We rate his statement as True.", "issues": [ "Ohio", "Economy", "Jobs", "Stimulus", "Transportation" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/google-clinton-epstein/", "claim": "Did Google Remove Photos of Bill Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein from Search Results?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/10/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Did Google also \"scrub\" these photos from Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, and Duck Duck Go?" ], "justification": "In July 2019, registered sex offender and hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on charges relating to the sex trafficking of minors. In addition to the severity of the alleged crimes, Epstein's arrest made headlines due to his connections to well-known public figures and politicians, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. arrested The news of Epstein's arrest sent political partisans into overdrive as they attempted to show that politicians on their side were less involved with Epstein than politicians on the other side. So when images of President Trump with Epstein were published by news outlets and circulated on social media, his defenders were upset not to see similar images of Bill Clinton with Epstein being given equal prominence. This led to a rumor that Google was \"scrubbing,\" \"removing,\" or \"deindexing\" images of Clinton and Epstein together from search results as part of a cover-up to protect the Clintons. images of President Trump with Epstein Twitter users Paul Sperry, Jack Murphy, and BNL News all claimed, without evidence, that images of Epstein and Clinton together had been removed from Google's search results, and their tweets were collectively shared thousands of times over: Paul Sperry Jack Murphy BNL News These claims are without merit. These tweets provided no evidence that images of Clinton with Epstein could be found on Google prior to the latter's arrest in July 2019, nor any proof that Google had removed these alleged images from their search results in the aftermath of Epstein's incarceration. In fact, they provided no evidence that photographs of Clinton with Epstein even existed at all. Twitter user Robert Barnes inflated this rumor by claiming that while Google wouldn't show photographs of Epstein and Clinton together, such images were findable using other search engines, such as DuckDuckGo: Robert Barnes This simply wasn't the case. We searched for images of Clinton together with Epstein on Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex. The results for all five of these search engines were similar, with none of them turning up a genuine photograph of Epstein together with Clinton: Google: Yahoo: Bing: DuckDuckGo: Yandex: A spokesperson for Google told us that no images of Epstein or Clinton were removed from their search results and that the company did not make any manual changes to its algorithm to alter which images would be displayed for related searches. We also checked right-leaning websites such as Breitbart, the National Review, and the Daily Caller to see if they had published any pictures of this pair together, but yet again we came up empty-handed. Of course, the lack of pictures doesn't mean that Bill Clinton didn't have a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The former president reportedly took several trips on Epstein's private jet, and in 1995 Clinton and Epstein were both on the guest list for a \"small dinner party\" hosted by Revlon mogul Ron Perelman to raise funds for the Democratic National Convention: relationship several trips At the time this article was originally written, images of Clinton and Epstein together didn't turn up in searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, or Duck Duck Go. That changed, however, after Snopes uncovered a photograph of Epstein and Clinton that was published in a 2003 print edition of Vanity Fair magazine. The claim that Google is censoring these images can further be debunked by examining the company's search results in the days following the publication of our article. On July 23, 2019, shortly after we published an image of Clinton with Epstein, it appeared on the front page of Google's search results: uncovered Prokop, Andrew. \"Jeffrey Epsteins Connections to Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Explained.\"\r Vox. 9 July 2019. Bryant, Nick. \"Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaires Sex Jet.\"\r Gawker. 22 January 2015. Karni, Annie and Maggie Haberman. \"Jeffrey Epstein Was a Terrific Guy, Donald Trump Once Said. Now Hes 'Not a Fan.'\"\r The New York Times. 9 July 2019. Danner, Chas et al. \"Everything We Know About the Sex Crimes Case Against Jeffrey Epstein.\"\r New York Magazine. 8 July 2019.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1y82AtsTXu5v2Kipe7hNC2f5sNMhHBvXp", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OybeahQWHhWteqGpBCtyetWCCODUNg8r", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10lL_ViRXgnwINiGyVT0kTuhp2cJVvmBD", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1XPAP4-O1yaJ-1OlEQ1EApTfwY4XL8cFf", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vbYlTZsvzoOUDTRFYlDuN4hNfHiI4nvo", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mBJHcwrywigw9HUGEN0sMIVZ1FBVgPzn", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1iz8mLd2oMlxrr95hfovzsZEgyI6llX2A", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=12Qz8TfA5ziKgFoYMrsftouw2NlVr1uGS", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qFJYBWjEGbSt-n3Fj2vM52ktn3Dvrbie", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?id=134172214&width=700&height=613&crop=1014_3762_2014_2093&rotation=0&brightness=0&contrast=0&invert=0&ts=1562792274&h=35190beae8b3204d173a8175ad25dbaa", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LjN03SGLtkf9zsm_xklyDzbbks6il0Gx", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In July 2019, registered sex offender and hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on charges relating to the sex trafficking of minors. In addition to the severity of the alleged crimes, Epstein's arrest made headlines due to his connections to well-known public figures and politicians, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton.", "hrefs": [ "https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/all-we-know-about-the-new-case-against-jeffrey-epstein.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The news of Epstein's arrest sent political partisans into overdrive as they attempted to show that politicians on their side were less involved with Epstein than politicians on the other side. So when images of President Trump with Epstein were published by news outlets and circulated on social media, his defenders were upset not to see similar images of Bill Clinton with Epstein being given equal prominence. This led to a rumor that Google was \"scrubbing,\" \"removing,\" or \"deindexing\" images of Clinton and Epstein together from search results as part of a cover-up to protect the Clintons.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-epstein.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Twitter users Paul Sperry, Jack Murphy, and BNL News all claimed, without evidence, that images of Epstein and Clinton together had been removed from Google's search results, and their tweets were collectively shared thousands of times over:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.fo/9iH8F", "https://archive.fo/t7WiS", "https://archive.fo/HZgwf" ] }, { "sentence": "Twitter user Robert Barnes inflated this rumor by claiming that while Google wouldn't show photographs of Epstein and Clinton together, such images were findable using other search engines, such as DuckDuckGo:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.fo/qzg3A" ] }, { "sentence": "Google: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/google.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Yahoo: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/yahoo.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Bing: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/bing.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "DuckDuckGo: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/duck-duck-go.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Yandex: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/yandex.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Of course, the lack of pictures doesn't mean that Bill Clinton didn't have a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The former president reportedly took several trips on Epstein's private jet, and in 1995 Clinton and Epstein were both on the guest list for a \"small dinner party\" hosted by Revlon mogul Ron Perelman to raise funds for the Democratic National Convention:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.vox.com/2019/7/9/20686347/jeffrey-epstein-trump-bill-clinton", "https://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971" ] }, { "sentence": "At the time this article was originally written, images of Clinton and Epstein together didn't turn up in searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, or Duck Duck Go. That changed, however, after Snopes uncovered a photograph of Epstein and Clinton that was published in a 2003 print edition of Vanity Fair magazine. The claim that Google is censoring these images can further be debunked by examining the company's search results in the days following the publication of our article. On July 23, 2019, shortly after we published an image of Clinton with Epstein, it appeared on the front page of Google's search results:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-clinton-with-jeffrey-epstein/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jews-ordered-to-register-in-ukraine/", "claim": "Jews Ordered to Register in East Ukraine?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/17/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Have Jews in eastern Ukraine been ordered to register with the government?" ], "justification": "Claim: Jews in eastern Ukraine have been ordered to register with the government. : A small group of people in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk passed out leaflets ordering local Jews to register with the government. The government of Ukraine has officially ordered Jews in that country to register. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, April 2014] Is this true? 'Jews must register or face deportation,' demands a flyer signed by Donetsk's pro-Russian interim government and handed out Passover evening in the eastern Ukraine city. Origins: On 16 April 2014, English-language news media (picking up on accounts from Israeli news media) began reporting that Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk (where some government buildings had been seized by pro-Russian separatists advocating for independence from Ukraine following Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula) had been given leaflets ordering them to \"register\" with the (unrecognized) Donetsk government, declare their assets, and pay a registration fee or face severe penalties (including loss of citizenship and deportation). Some of the leaflets were posted near a local synagogue; others were reportedly distributed outside a Jewish center by \"three unidentified men wearing balaclavas and carrying the flag of the Russian Federation\": Jews in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk where pro-Russian militants have taken over government buildings were told they have to \"register\" with the Ukrainians who are trying to make the city become part of Russia, according to Israeli media. Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee \"or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated,\" reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website. Donetsk is the site of an \"anti-terrorist\" operation by the Ukraine government, which has moved military columns into the region to force out militants who are demanding a referendum be held on joining Russia. Exactly who distributed the leaflets, and why, is still unclear. The material purportedly bore the signature of Denis Pushilin, supposedly the self-proclaimed leader of the pro-Russian separatist group, but he has maintained that his group had nothing to do with the leaflets and that they were put out by someone else to discredit the separatists as being anti-Semitic: maintained Novosti Donbassa reported that the leaflet was distributed by \"three unidentified men wearing balaclavas and carrying the flag of the Russian Federation\" with the aim of causing a conflict, then \"to blame the attack on separatists\". The authenticity of the leaflet could not be independently verified. The purported anti-Semitic leaflet comes after a UN investigation found that ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine intentionally seized on exaggerated reports of attacks by Ukrainian nationalists to justify Russian involvement in the region. The report also dismissed the fears of the far right Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), which has been at the forefront of the Ukraine revolution and accused of acts of violence against ethnic Russians, as \"disproportionate\". Pushilin has denied the Novosti Donbassa's report and assured reporters that the flyer is not from his organisation. In the event, it appears that whoever distributed the leaflets simply fabricated the alarming documents for the purpose of yanking people's chains, generating negative publicity, and/or making some money, without having either the means or the intent of actually enforcing the provisions outlined therein: But even if it looked like the start of some racist purge, the flier was more likely part of an ill-conceived extortion plot or a propaganda ploy against the separatists. For one thing, the sign-off at the bottom of the flier \"Yours, the People's Governor of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin\" seemed off. This was a reference to the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, which was formed a week and a half ago by a group of armed separatists who seized the headquarters of the regional government. Theirs is perhaps the smallest breakaway republic in the world, as its territory is confined to that one building and a small patch of the plaza around it. Since April 7, they have barricaded themselves inside with a cache of weapons and demanded a referendum on secession from Ukraine. At the bottom of the flier was a reproduction of the stamp these separatists use on the press badges they have issued to journalists. Denis Pushilin, however, is not the man who calls himself the \"Peoples Governor\" of this pseudo-state. That would be Pavel Gubarev, who bestowed that title on himself in early March, during a separatist rally in the center of Donetsk. Three days later, he was arrested on charges of separatism and taken to jail in Kiev, where he remains. The alleged author of the anti-Semitic flier, Pushilin, is his ally and comrade-in-arms. But he has never gone by the title of \"Peoples Governor.\" (His preferred title is the \"co-chairman of the temporary coalition government\" that he and his allies declared inside that building.) For his part, Pushilin denied that he or his organization had anything to do with these fliers. \"In reality this is a fake, and a pretty unsuccessful one,\" Pushilin said. \"It was all done with Photoshop.\" Suspicion fell on their political opponents as soon as the fliers started making the rounds online. Dmitro Tkachenko, who helped organize a large rally in Donetsk to support the unity of Ukraine, called the flier \"a brilliant piece of disinformation\" against the separatists. Asked if one of his fellow activists for Ukrainian unity could have staged it, Tkachenko says it's possible. \"But this is a sophisticated trick, and to be honest, I dont think any of our folks are that smart,\" he [said]. More likely, Tkachenko says, the fliers were the work of an opportunistic splinter group, from separatists who just want to make money from their newfound impunity. Over the past week, they have managed to seize numerous government buildings in Donetsk, most recently the city hall, without any resistance from the police. \"But their movement is very divided,\" says Tkachenko. It includes various groups of armed thugs who answer to no single leader. So it's quite possible that some of the more entrepreneurial goons among them just felt like making a bit of extortion money on the side. Last updated: 17 April 2014 Mezzofiore, Gianluca. \"Donetsk Pro-Russians Order Jews to 'Register or be Deported'.\" International Business Times. 16 April 2014. Shuster, Simon. \"Ukraine's 'Jew Register' Either a Hoax or a Crude Extortion Scheme.\" Time. 17 April 2014.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fFAFeLa61t49_kpq2eREgFZa4cBBK_Yo", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15VGRHZ58-kkSV_h_2sniDQzK-mRDXeSM", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Exactly who distributed the leaflets, and why, is still unclear. The material purportedly bore the signature of Denis Pushilin, supposedly the self-proclaimed leader of the pro-Russian separatist group, but he has maintained that his group had nothing to do with the leaflets and that they were put out by someone else to discredit the separatists as being anti-Semitic:", "hrefs": [ "https://evreiskiy.kiev.ua/v-donecke-razdali-nacistskuju-13077.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-americans/", "claim": "Gordon Sinclair 'The Americans'", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/17/2001", "sci_digest": [ "Did Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair deliver a stirring pro-American editorial?" ], "justification": "Claim: Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair delivered a stirring, pro-American editorial in 1973. . Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1999] Good reading, from a Toronto newspaper's editorial page! Widespread, but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record: This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States Dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar, or the Douglas DC-10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon not once, but several times and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the American who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those. Origins: On 5 June 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair decided he'd had enough of the stream of criticism and negative press recently directed at the United States of America by foreign journalists (primarily over America's long military involvement in Vietnam, which had ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords six months earlier). When he arrived at radio station CFRB in Toronto that morning, he spent twenty minutes dashing off a two-page editorial defending the USA against its carping critics which he then delivered in a defiant, indignant tone during his \"Let's Be Personal\" spot at 11:45 AM that day. The unusualness of any foreign correspondent even one from a country with such close ties to the U.S. as Canada delivering such a caustic commentary about those who would dare to criticize the U.S. is best demonstrated by the fact that even more than thirty years later, a generation of Americans too young to remember Sinclair's broadcast doubt that this piece (which has been circulating on the Internet in the slightly-altered form quoted above as something \"recently\" printed in a Toronto newspaper) is genuine. It is real, and it received a great deal of attention in its day. After Sinclair's editorial was rebroadcast by a few American radio stations, it spread like wildfire all over the country. It was played again and again (often superimposed over a piece of inspirational music such as \"Battle Hymn of the Republic\" or \"Bridge Over Troubled Water\"), read into the Congressional Record multiple times, and finally released on a record (titled \"The Americans\"), with all royalties donated to the American Red Cross. (A radio broadcaster in the Windsor/Detroit area named Byron MacGregor recorded and released a version of the piece as well.) It gained additional currency when it was dusted off and circulated anew in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001. Sinclair passed away in 1984, but he will long be remembered on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border both for his contributions to journalism, and for his loudly proclaiming a friendship that few at the time were willing to embrace. Additional information: Gordon Sinclair's 'The Americans' (Canadian Communications Foundation) Text and recording of 'The Americans' (Canadian Communications Foundation) Last updated: 21 July 2005 Sources: Canfield, Jack, et al. Chicken Soup for the Soul of America. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2002. ISBN 0-7573-0007-3 (pp.197-199). Chicken Soup for the Soul of America", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16qEKVf2T0QXx3nM3Bn8CP82ADt_sewBG", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Gordon Sinclair's 'The Americans' (Canadian Communications Foundation)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.broadcasting-history.ca/news/unique/american.html" ] }, { "sentence": " Text and recording of 'The Americans' (Canadian Communications Foundation)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.broadcasting-history.ca/news/unique/am_text.html" ] }, { "sentence": " Sources: Canfield, Jack, et al. Chicken Soup for the Soul of America. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc., 2002. ISBN 0-7573-0007-3 (pp.197-199).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0757300073/ref=ase_urbanlegendsrefeA" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eminent-domain/", "claim": "Federal authorities have granted China the power of eminent domain.", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/02/2009", "sci_digest": [ "The U.S. government has agreed to allow China to exercise 'eminent domain' as collateral for American debt.?" ], "justification": "Claim: The U.S. government has agreed to allow China to exercise \"eminent domain\" as collateral for American debt. Example: [Turner, February 2009] The United States of America has tendered to China a written agreement which grants to the People's Republic of China, an option to exercise Eminent Domain within the USA, as collateral for China's continued purchase of US Treasury Notes and existing US Currency reserves! On February 11, Bloomberg Business News reported that China was seeking \"guarantees\" for its US Government debt (Story Here), and it now appears they got it. Well placed senior sources at the US Embassy in Beijing CONFIRM the formal written agreement was delivered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her recent trip to China. This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take inside the USA land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities to satisfy the financial obligations of the US government. [Rest of article here.] here Origins: The large amount of U.S. debt held by foreign countries such as China has long concerned many Americans, and especially so with the current climate of economic turmoil. As the Washington Post noted: China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt, which helped finance the spending binge the United States went on before the current economic crisis. Some experts have expressed concern that China's substantial holding of U.S. debt gives it increased leverage in dealings with Washington because any halt in Chinese purchases would make it more difficult to finance the government bailout and stimulus packages. Likewise, as Bloomberg news reported, some Chinese officals have opined that China should ask the U.S. for some economic guarantees as a prerequisite for additional purchases of U.S. securities: China will ask for a guarantee that the U.S. will support the dollar's exchange rate and make sure China's dollar-denominated assets are safe,\" said He [Zhicheng, an economist at Agricultural Bank of China]. But that's as far as the truth of the item cited in the example block above goes. The notion that the U.S. has agreed to guarantee its foreign debt by granting China permission to enact \"eminent domain\" and \"physically take land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities\" from the U.S. isn't even a sensible claim. The concept of \"eminent domain\" in the United States refers to the right of the government to seize private property for public use in exchange for payment of fair market value. (The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution mandates that \"private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.\") Thus the idea of enacting eminent domain as a form of debt repayment or guarantee isn't logical: It's akin to a debtor's offering to settle a $5,000 debt by agreeing to sell his creditor $5,000 worth of jewelry for $5,000 at the end of the day, the debtor hasn't given up anything, and his creditor still hasn't collected anything on his original loan amount. mandates Moreover, Executive Order 13406 (\"Protecting the Property Rights of the American People\") states that the the federal government must limit its use of the taking of private property \"to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation\" and \"not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.\" 13406 Aside from functional arguments, the common sense test applies: If the U.S. government had actually guaranteed, in writing, that China could seize private property within the U.S. to satisfy the financial obligations of the U.S. government, that information would be the biggest new story of the day. So who is reporting this news? Not any legitimate news outlet the story appears only in the blog of former radio host Hal Turner (who has previously presented fictitious tales of politically outrageous subjects as actual occurrences, such as proffering fake Amero coins as proof of a secret conspiracy to merge the U.S., Mexico, and Canada into a single entity) and in hundreds of identical Internet replications. Hal Turner Amero Last updated: 8 March 2009 Corsi, Jerome R. \"Did Hillary Really Pledge U.S. Homes to China?\" WorldNetDaily. 2 March 2009. Kessler, Glenn. \"Clinton Urges Continued Investment in U.S.\" Washington Post. 23 February 2009 (p. A12).", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "[Rest of article here.]", "hrefs": [ "https://www.halturnershow.blogspot.com/2009/02/feds-grant-eminent-domain-as-collateral.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The concept of \"eminent domain\" in the United States refers to the right of the government to seize private property for public use in exchange for payment of fair market value. (The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution mandates that \"private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.\") Thus the idea of enacting eminent domain as a form of debt repayment or guarantee isn't logical: It's akin to a debtor's offering to settle a $5,000 debt by agreeing to sell his creditor $5,000 worth of jewelry for $5,000 at the end of the day, the debtor hasn't given up anything, and his creditor still hasn't collected anything on his original loan amount.", "hrefs": [ "https://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Moreover, Executive Order 13406 (\"Protecting the Property Rights of the American People\") states that the the federal government must limit its use of the taking of private property \"to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation\" and \"not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20060924023227/https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060623-10.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Aside from functional arguments, the common sense test applies: If the U.S. government had actually guaranteed, in writing, that China could seize private property within the U.S. to satisfy the financial obligations of the U.S. government, that information would be the biggest new story of the day. So who is reporting this news? Not any legitimate news outlet the story appears only in the blog of former radio host Hal Turner (who has previously presented fictitious tales of politically outrageous subjects as actual occurrences, such as proffering fake Amero coins as proof of a secret conspiracy to merge the U.S., Mexico, and Canada into a single entity) and in hundreds of identical Internet replications.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner", "/politics/business/amero.asp" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charles-krauthammer/", "claim": "Charles Krauthammer's perspective on President Obama", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/27/2009", "sci_digest": [ "Message summarizes Charles Krauthammer's talk at the Center of the American Experiment?" ], "justification": "Claim: Message accurately summarizes Charles Krauthammer's talk at the Center of the American Experiment. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2009] A friend went to hear Charles Krauthammer. He listened with 25 others in a closed room. What he says here, is NOT 2nd-hand but 1st. You would do well to read and pass this along to EVERYBODY that loves his country. This is VERY serious for the direction of our country. The ramifications are staggering for us & our children. To my Friends & Associates: Last Monday was a profound evening, hearing Dr. Charles Krauthammer speak to the Center for the American Experiment. He is brilliant intellectual, seasoned & articulate. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, and never resorts to emotions or personal insults. He is NOT a fearmonger nor an extremist in his comments and views. He is a fiscal conservative, and has a Pulitzer prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post. The entire room was held spellbound during his talk. I have shared this with many of you and several have asked me to summarize his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally. Even 2 Dems at my table agreed with everything he said! If you feel like forwarding this to those who are open minded and have not 'drunk the Kool-Aid', feel free. A summary of his comments: 1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a 'cool customer' who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's 'behind the mask'. Taking down the Clinton dynasty from a political neophyte was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time. 2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES! 3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to 'level the playing field' with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada. 4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, & NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada. God forbid. 5. He's surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they're going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama's not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says. 6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States, but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America, as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies! 7. He's now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not 'come due' until after he's reelected in 2012. He'd like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Mr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist. 8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. We're 'pining' for another Reagan, but there'll never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she's to be a serious candidate in the future. We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and states' rights. 9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We're spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyper inflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package . These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above. 10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of 'change' caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising is was as close as it was. 11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it'll be a dogfight. It'll all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington and Congress. There's a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues and can reclaim our country, before it's far too late. Origins: Dr. Charles Krauthammer is a political commentator and syndicated newspaper columnist whose work earned a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1987. The article quoted above supposedly provides a second-hand accounting of the substance of remarks Dr. Krauthammer made regarding President Obama during a 1 June 2009 talk at the Annual Dinner of the Center of the American Experiment. Pulitzer Prize Annual Dinner No transcript or recording of Dr. Krauthammer's remarks on that occasion is available to compare against the above-quoted summary, as Dr. Krauthammer \"does not disseminate comments made at private events,\" so it's difficult to objectively determine how much of the e-mailed account conforms to what Krauthammer actually said and how much of the account reflects the subjective viewpoint of its anonymous author. Dr. Krauthammer himself said, in a statement posted to the Center of the American Experiment's web site, that: statement This account is neither accurate nor authoritative. My views on Obama are well known. I've explained them in a series of five columns. This email is somebody putting his own ideological stamp and spin on my views. One giveaway of the superimposition of someone else's views on mine is the rather amusing use of phrases that I never use. To take just a few examples randomly: \"God forbid,\" \"far left secular progressive,\" \"this is the first president ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!\" \"no country had ever spent themselves into prosperity,\" and, the real doozy, \"states rights.\" My views are clearly spelled out in that series of columns and subsequent writings. Anyone who wants to know my views should consult those and not this email. Articles by Charles Krauthammer that directly explicate his views on President Obama are listed below: Obama: The Grand Strategy April 24, 2009 Obama: The Grand Strategy April 24, 2009 The Sting, In Four Parts April 17, 2009 The Sting, In Four Parts April 17, 2009 Obamas Ultimate Agenda April 3, 2009 Obamas Ultimate Agenda April 3, 2009 The Great Non Sequitur March 6, 2009 The Great Non Sequitur March 6, 2009 The Obamaist Manifesto February 27, 2009 The Obamaist Manifesto February 27, 2009 Last updated: 29 June 2009 ", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Dr. Charles Krauthammer is a political commentator and syndicated newspaper columnist whose work earned a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1987. The article quoted above supposedly provides a second-hand accounting of the substance of remarks Dr. Krauthammer made regarding President Obama during a 1 June 2009 talk at the Annual Dinner of the Center of the American Experiment.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/opinions/krauthammer.htm", "https://www.americanexperiment.org/events/2009/2009-06-01.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "No transcript or recording of Dr. Krauthammer's remarks on that occasion is available to compare against the above-quoted summary, as Dr. Krauthammer \"does not disseminate comments made at private events,\" so it's difficult to objectively determine how much of the e-mailed account conforms to what Krauthammer actually said and how much of the account reflects the subjective viewpoint of its anonymous author. Dr. Krauthammer himself said, in a statement posted to the Center of the American Experiment's web site, that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.americanexperiment.org/publications/commentaries/krauthammer-response" ] }, { "sentence": "Obama: The Grand Strategy April 24, 2009", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042302983.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Sting, In Four Parts April 17, 2009", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041603379.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Obamas Ultimate Agenda April 3, 2009", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040203287.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Great Non Sequitur March 6, 2009 ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030502951.html" ] }, { "sentence": " The Obamaist Manifesto February 27, 2009", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022602908.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-hard-drive-destruction/", "claim": "Clinton Paid 'Hard Drive Destruction' Company", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/06/2016", "sci_digest": [ "Hillary Clinton's campaign made payments to data destruction companies, but no evidence links those services to her controversial use of a private e-mail server." ], "justification": "On 3 May 2016, web site the Washington Free Beacon published an article provocativelytitled \"Clinton Campaign Made Payments to Hard Drive and Document Destruction Company\" (and subtitled \"Payments could have purchased destruction of 14 hard drives\"). The article reported that the Hillary Clinton campaign made payments totaling $187 to a document destruction company (American Document Destruction, Inc.) in February and March of 2016. The article implied (without directly stating) that the Clinton campaign might have spent the funds on destroying disk drives involved in the controversy surrounding Clinton's use of private, home-based servers and accounts for official business she conducted while serving as U.S. secretary of state: controversy The Hillary Clinton campaign made multiple payments to a company that specializes in hard drive and document destruction, campaign finance records show. The payments, which were recorded in February and March of 2016, went to the Nevada-based American Document Destruction, Inc., which claims expertise in destroying hard drives or anything else that a hard drive can come from. Our hard drive destruction procedures take place either at your site or at our secure facility in Sparks, NV, the companys website states. This decision is yours to decide based on cost and convenience to you. In either situation, the hard drive will be destroyed by a shredding. Nowhere did the Washington Free Beacon article offer any evidence that the services provided by American Document Destruction, Inc. to the Clinton campaign involved the destruction of hard drives or data from the private server she used while serving as secretary as state. In fact, the article didn't even offer any evidence that the provided services involved the destruction of hard drives at all (rather than paper documents). It simply noted that the Clinton campaign paid American Document Destruction, Inc. an amount of money that would have covered the costs of destroying 14 hard drives or shredding 37.4 cubic feet of paper (or, presumably, some combination of the two). A follow-up article from another news outletreported that Clinton's campaign also paid $50 to Shredco, a company that provides safe disposal of paper documents. outlet It's extremely unlikely either of these companies were involved in destroying material related to Clinton's use of a private e-mail server, for a number of reasons. First of all, the expenditures were openly reported to the Federal Election Commission, an unlikely move for a campaign furtively involved in destroying evidence relating to a federal investigation: Second, anyone seeking to destroy sensitive information related to a high-level federal investigation probably wouldn't trust the task to businesses who charged only a few hundred dollars for the service, rather than to much more expensive (and presumably more private and secure) outfits. Moreover, even though Bernie Sanders' campaign wasn't embroiled in an e-mail controversy, his campaign paid nearly three times as much as Clinton's did for similar services: paid Former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz also contracted for shredding services in the same timeframe: timeframe Paying for data destruction services is hardly suspect for an organization that processes thousands of donations each month, as the Hillary Clinton campaign does. Personal information from donors (such as credit card numbers) would, if printed or stored on hard drives, need to be securely destroyed to protect those donors. And given Bernie Sanders' repeated insistence that the average donation made to his campaign is $27, it seems reasonablethat his organization would also be contracting for similar services and paying for a higher volume of shreddable transactions than the Clinton campaign. Bier, Jeryl. \"Hillary Clinton Campaign Paid Second Document Destruction Company.\"\rThe Weekly Standard. 5 May 2016. Schmidt, Michael S. \"Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email Account at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.\"\rThe New York Times. 2 March 2015. Schoffstall, Joe. \"Clinton Campaign Made Payments to Hard Drive Aand Document Destruction Company.\"\rThe Washington Free Beacon. 3 May 2016. Federal Election Commission. \"Selected Presidential Reports for the 2016 March Monthly.\"\rMarch 2016.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1DUoMn6aKvf-6vjWuvwwIq4oLrt0iMUu2", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1G0bB2hJqSMWO56JCm23YBnKZMOO0_upb", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_dIsRTDmT9N8uemRi5m2nZ96jWqKV2Nj", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fGvCI8BU8GK7MvA-m4yL28CQGmbMmxvl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The article implied (without directly stating) that the Clinton campaign might have spent the funds on destroying disk drives involved in the controversy surrounding Clinton's use of private, home-based servers and accounts for official business she conducted while serving as U.S. secretary of state:", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy" ] }, { "sentence": "A follow-up article from another news outletreported that Clinton's campaign also paid $50 to Shredco, a company that provides safe disposal of paper documents.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.weeklystandard.com/hillary-clinton-campaign-paid-second-document-destruction-company/article/2002242" ] }, { "sentence": "Moreover, even though Bernie Sanders' campaign wasn't embroiled in an e-mail controversy, his campaign paid nearly three times as much as Clinton's did for similar services:", "hrefs": [ "https://docquery.fec.gov/pres/2016/M3/C00577130/B_PAYEE_C00577130.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz also contracted for shredding services in the same timeframe:", "hrefs": [ "https://docquery.fec.gov/pres/2016/M3/C00574624/B_PAYEE_C00574624.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oranges-injected-hiv/", "claim": "Oranges Injected with HIV?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/25/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: Oranges from Libya have been injected with HIV-positive blood and pose a danger of infection." ], "justification": "On 24 February 2015, a Facebook user posted a photograph of what appeared to be sliced oranges with red veining or discoloration. According to the user, the citrus fruits depicted were imported from Libya, seized in Algeria, and had been injected with the blood of an HIV-positive person: The immigration services of Algeria recovered a large quantity of these oranges coming from Libya. These oranges were injected with positive tested Hiv & AIDS blood. Please share this msg & warn people of d dangers involved. The image appended to the post had previously appeared on a Facebook page on 19 February 2015, but the tone of that version was far more skeptical. The earlier posting observed that rumors about the oranges varied, and that the source of the photograph was not known. Prior to that, a version of the rumor was posted to a message board on 19 December 2014 and similarly claimed the oranges were tainted with HIV-positive blood. appeared message board Regardless of the origin of the image, the underlying claim is not plausible. Even if oranges shipped from Libya (or elsewhere) to Algeria were injected with HIV, no threat would be posed by that sort of contamination. As we noted in discussion of earlier rumors about tainted fruit, HIV cannot be transmitted in the manner described: tainted fruit transmitted Except for rare cases in which children consumed food that was pre-chewed by an HIV-infected caregiver, HIV has not been spread through food. The virus does not live long outside the body. You cannot get it from consuming food handled by an HIV-infected person; even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Plausibility notwithstanding, rumors about unwitting folks engaged in otherwise low-risk activities contracting HIV have circulated for decades. Similar versions involved a booby-trapped gas pump, deliberately tainted ketchup dispensers, and adulterated pizza purposefully contaminated with infected bodily fluids. gas pump ketchup pizza Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \"HIV Transmission.\"", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aEUduEaFHEAAkS0GWoX56Ch3I6AslPSh", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The image appended to the post had previously appeared on a Facebook page on 19 February 2015, but the tone of that version was far more skeptical. The earlier posting observed that rumors about the oranges varied, and that the source of the photograph was not known. Prior to that, a version of the rumor was posted to a message board on 19 December 2014 and similarly claimed the oranges were tainted with HIV-positive blood.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/infoconstantine25/photos/a.297741813574184.95792.297552166926482/1011172718897753/?type=1&theater", "https://montada.journal-panorama.com/showthread.asp?t=962" ] }, { "sentence": "Regardless of the origin of the image, the underlying claim is not plausible. Even if oranges shipped from Libya (or elsewhere) to Algeria were injected with HIV, no threat would be posed by that sort of contamination. As we noted in discussion of earlier rumors about tainted fruit, HIV cannot be transmitted in the manner described:", "hrefs": [ "/horrors/food/pineapple.asp", "https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/transmission.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Plausibility notwithstanding, rumors about unwitting folks engaged in otherwise low-risk activities contracting HIV have circulated for decades. Similar versions involved a booby-trapped gas pump, deliberately tainted ketchup dispensers, and adulterated pizza purposefully contaminated with infected bodily fluids.", "hrefs": [ "/horrors/mayhem/gaspump.asp", "/horrors/food/ketchup.asp", "/horrors/food/semen.asp" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/marine-wedding/", "claim": "Is This a Severely Wounded Marine's Wedding Photograph?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/04/2013", "sci_digest": [ "One of the most iconic modern images demonstrates the potential costs of military service in wartime." ], "justification": "Three days before Christmas of 2004, Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was on a routine patrol during his second tour of duty in Iraq when a suicide bomber blew up near his truck. The blast took off a portion of his left arm and three fingers from his other hand, fractured his jaw, left him blind in one eye, shattered his skull, and melted most of the skin off his head. Sgt. Ziegel was in a coma for months afterwards and spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, where he underwent more than 50 operations including the fitting of a plastic cap for his skull and the surgical reconstruction of his face with holes for his missing ears and nose. The London Times described the transformation of Sgt. Ziegel's experience into what seemed to be a modern day fairy tale: The fairy tale goes like this: they are high-school sweethearts from a small town, Metamora, Illinois, in the American Midwest. He graduates from high school, becomes a US marine and is sent to Iraq. When he returns, they get engaged. He proposes before he leaves for his second tour. She is 18; he is 21. She can't wait for him to come home. The tour is cut short. A suicide bomber blows up near his truck and he suffers horrific, life-changing injuries. A day later he is in San Antonio, Texas, at the Brooke Army Medical Center. She leaves her home town for the first time to fly there with his mother so they can be by his side. She is there for him. His injuries are severe. He will have numerous operations and she will stand by him throughout. It will be a year and a half before they all go home. In the meantime, she will move in with his mother. The homecoming is a triumph. He is a hero and she is his heroine. Their commitment to each other is inspiring and rock-solid. They get married. She is now 21 and he is 24. The wedding takes place on October 7, 2006, and that date is declared a state holiday. Renee and Tyler Ziegel Day. Their romance is covered by The Sunday Times Magazine. They plan to have a family. Love conquers all. During the period between Ty's convalescence and his marriage to Rene Kline, photographer Nina Berman, on assignment for People magazine, visited him three separate times and recorded a series of photographs chronicling his recovery, homecoming and wedding day. One of those photographs was an iconic image shown which in 2006 won in the portraiture category of the World Press Photo contest, the most prestigious international award for photojournalism -- yet it was questioned by some social media users when they encountered it with no explanatory context: photographs I wanted to know if there's any way to tell if this photo is accurate? It's circulating Facebook right now with a caption of \"This man served our country. Like for respect\". But, the girl in the photo, why does she look so unamused? Shouldn't she be smiling? And her face looks very pixelated. I would love to know more on the backstory if possible. The photograph was described as follows by Lindsay Beyerstein for a 2007 Salon article: article A young couple stands side by side facing the camera. There are all the usual accouterments: the frosted, school-photo backdrop, the red bouquet precisely matched to the red trim on the bride's white gown. The groom wears a decorated dress uniform. It could be any couple in any town except that the groom's features have literally been melted off. He has no nose, no chin, no ears and no hair. His head appears to attach directly to his shoulders, and his face is so badly burned that it's a struggle to decipher his expression. The bride's expression is equally opaque. Some people think she looks stunned. Others describe her expression as anxious, or even fearful. Her mouth turns down slightly at the edges, but her wide brown eyes gaze straight ahead and something about the set of her jaw suggests resolve. Some viewers strenuously deny that there's anything unusual about the young woman's countenance at all. In that article, Nina Berman also described the circumstances under which the photograph was taken: It was their wedding day. Before they went to the high school where they were married, they went to a commercial portrait studio. I normally don't find those commercial studio pictures very interesting. They seem fake. People just put on a happy face. But then I thought, this is a different wedding picture, isn't it? So I kind of stepped back. I thought, it's the same as having someone with their body blasted off in a high school yearbook. Rituals like this, young people getting married, if this doesn't say that this war is having an impact, I don't know what does. It just cries out to people hey, this war is real. There's a very palpable reality to this war in certain communities. It's right there, not in the cities or on the coasts. Most people in the media and the cultural elite don't know anyone in the military. My whole goal is to say, hey, this war is not some kind of abstract thing. Unfortunately, difficulties in the marriage proved too much for the couple to overcome, and Ty and Rene were divorced in January 2008: The fairy tale, as we know it, was not meant to be. They were too young to be married. Too young to process the possibility that what led them into a lifelong commitment was a desire for certainty in an uncertain world. There is no mystery, no implosion, no tragic conclusion. There were factors that added up. Factors that at the time they could not have foreseen. That a marriage would not offset the consequences of Ty's injuries. That it would not compensate for the loss and the grief felt by a young woman losing her father. Everyone suspected it was too soon that maybe it wasn't right. But nobody spoke out. Others, strangers, projected onto them what they needed to believe. They were larger than life. When we heard their story, we put ourselves in their shoes, imagining what we would do in the same situation. Renee personified the courage and strength we hoped we would have. But she was 18 years old. And neither is prone to introspection. They weren't people who asked why. Between the two of them, they had so much life experience, but the emotional narrative of their lives never caught up. What made us think it would? Why did we have such high hopes for them in the first place? Nobody really ever knew Ty and Renee. Not even Ty and Renee. But this is not the end. They emerged from the marriage with warmth and affection for each other not anger and recrimination. She was there when he needed her most; she showed up and stood by him. That is more than many people will ever have in a marriage. It is something they will always share. Ty Ziegel passed away in December 2012: A Metamora Iraq War veteran, who became a symbol of survival after a car bomb explosion, has died. Family members say 30-year-old Ty Ziegel died after falling on ice. Angela Cochran, Ziegels girlfriend, said he has been an inspiration in the three months since they began dating. \"You can ask him anything about his scars, his time in Iraq, how everything happened; hes like an open book,\" said Cochran. \"He was willing to share stories. Thats what makes him so inspiring. Hes not trying to hide.\" Testimony given at a coroner's inquest several months later revealed that Ty's death had been the result of heroin and alcohol intoxication rather than injuries sustained in a fall. Beyerstein, Lindsay. \"The Face of War.\"\r Salon. 10 March 2007.\r\r Kramer, Linda and Richard Jerome. \"Coming Home: A Love Story.\"\r People. 13 November 2006.\r\r Leve, Ariel. \"Tyler Ziegel and Renee: One Year On.\"\r The [London] Times. 11 May 2008.\r\r Pitzke, Marc. \"Images from the Dark Side of War.\"\r Spiegel. 30 August 2007.\r\r Probst, Emily and Wayne Drash. \"WWII Vet: Wounded Marine's Story 'Broke My Heart.'\"\r CNN. 6 December 2007.\r\r [Peoria] Journal Star. \"Iraq War Veteran Died from Mix of Drugs and Alcohol.\"\r 3 May 2013.\r\r WEEK-TV [East Peoria, IL]. \"Iraq War Veteran from Metamora Dies.\"\r 29 December 2012.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_LRNlE4pMFCYkQ0eIwAGlmqZJ72PlCZC", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "During the period between Ty's convalescence and his marriage to Rene Kline, photographer Nina Berman, on assignment for People magazine, visited him three separate times and recorded a series of photographs chronicling his recovery, homecoming and wedding day. One of those photographs was an iconic image shown which in 2006 won in the portraiture category of the World Press Photo contest, the most prestigious international award for photojournalism -- yet it was questioned by some social media users when they encountered it with no explanatory context:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ninaberman.com/marine-wedding" ] }, { "sentence": "The photograph was described as follows by Lindsay Beyerstein for a 2007 Salon article:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.salon.com/2007/03/10/berman_photo/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/missouri-republicans-pass-law-lowering-minimum-wage/", "claim": "Was a law passed by Missouri Republicans that reduced the St. Louis minimum wage from $10 to $7.70?", "author": "David Emery", "posted": "07/25/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Missouri's Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law in May 2017 rolling back a minimum wage increase enacted by the city of St. Louis." ], "justification": "In mid-2018, a meme widely shared on social media decried the passage of legislation by Missouri Republicans that allegedly lowered the minimum wage in St. Louis from $10 to $7.70. The $2.30 reduction in pay, the viral graphic warned, would harm more than 35,000 workers and their families: Although the subject matter was already a year old by the time the meme was brought to our attention (the legislative change didn't \"just\" happen), it describes an event that really did occur. What it lacks, obviously, is context. The minimum wage is a perennial topic of debate in American politics. Although public opinion polls indicate general bipartisan support for minimum wage increases perceived as reasonable, partisan disagreement remains not only over what constitutes a reasonable minimum wage level, but over who should set it (local, state, or federal governments), and whether or not it should even exist. polls disagreement Proponents say a minimum wage is necessary to ensure livable earnings for workers with the least bargaining power. A minimum wage that is at least indexed to inflation, they argue, reduces wage inequality, as well as injecting money into the economy and creating jobs by increasing consumer spending. Opponents argue that a too-high minimum wage hurts businesses and increases unemployment by forcing employers to lay off workers they can't afford. It also shuts younger and unskilled workers out of the workforce, they claim, because employers are unwilling to pay them higher wages. As of 2017, the U.S. federal minimum wage stood at $7.25 an hour, an amount that hadn't budged in eight years despite increases in the cost of living. For that reason, at least 29 states (including Missouri) had established state-wide minimum wages above the federal floor. Individual cities and counties took action as well, in many cases adopting local ordinances that raised minimum wages even higher than those set by their states. minimum wage One place this latter action occurred was St. Louis, Missouri, where city officials decided in 2015 that the minimum hourly wage needed to be raised to $10 ($2.30 above than the state-mandated minimum of $7.70), with another increase (to $11) set to go into effect in 2018. The ordinance, which did not apply to small businesses employing fewer than 15 workers or grossing less than $500,000 a year, was intended to raise the standard of living for the lowest wage earners in a city where the poverty rate was twice the national average, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: report The increase in St. Louis will give an immediate raise to an estimated 35,000 workers who will make, on average, $2,400 more each year, said Paul Sonn, general counsel for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for a higher minimum wage. That is enough to make a real difference for a waitress or a nursing home worker who is trying to get by on less than $18,000 a year. Though its implementation was delayed for two years because of legal challenges by business groups, St. Louis's $10 wage floor finally took effect in May 2017, instantly adding an average of $200 a month to the incomes of tens of thousands of workers. Missouri governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, had been opposed to the increase all along, arguing that it would \"kill jobs\" and \"take money out of people's pockets.\" A Republican lawmaker, Jason Chipman, introduced a bill (HB 1194) that would pre-empt local minimum wage laws everywhere in the state. Days after the St. Louis ordinance went into effect, the Republican-dominated Missouri legislature passed the pre-emption bill in a party line vote, effectively overriding the local ordinance. When the bill became law at the end of August, St. Louis's minimum wage reverted to $7.70, the same as the state's. HB 1194 Some disagreement remains over how many workers were actually affected by the changes in St. Louis's minimum wage. The meme cited a number (35,000 workers) taken from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which attributed the estimate to the non-profit National Employment Law Project (NELP). However, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis came up with a different estimate based on a distinction between resident and non-resident minimum-wage workers. Observing that \"only one-third of the workers in St. Louis City are city residents, and less than half of the city workers earning less than $10 per hour are residents,\" the researchers calculated that approximately 20,000 St. Louis residents saw an impact on their earnings. Including non-residents, they estimated that around 32,500 workers were affected, a slightly lower number than that estimated by NELP. estimate different On 1 January 2018, Missouri increased their statewide minimum wage by 15 cents, to $7.85 per hour. In May, a ballot initiative was proposed to raise the minimum wage to $8.60 in 2019 and an additional 85 cents per year thereafter, until it reaches $12 by 2023. increased initiative Achenbach, Erin. \"Missouri Businesses and Workers Submit Signatures for Minimum Wage Ballot Initiative.\"\r St. Louis Public Radio. 2 May 2018. Barker, Jacob. \"With State Law Set to Preempt St. Louis Minimum Wage, Groups Push for Missouri-wide Hike.\"\r St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 28 August 2017. Bernstein, Jared and John Schmitt. \"The Impact of the Minimum Wage.\"\r Economic Policy Institute. 1 June 2000. Bernthal, Jeff. \"Minimum Wage Increases Across Missouri.\"\r KTVI-TV. 1 January 2018. Bott, Celeste. \"St. Louis $10 Minimum Wage Will Revert Back to $7.70 in August, Greitens Announces.\"\r St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1 July 2017. Elis, Niv. \"Poll: Bipartisan Majority Supports Raising Minimum Wage.\"\r The Hill. 1 June 2017. Hirsch, Mitchell. \"Missouri Lawmakers to Lowest-Paid Workers in St. Louis: We're Taking Back Your Raises.\"\r National Employment Law Project. 19 May 2017. McDermott, Kevin. \"After Two Years of Wrangling, St. Louis' New $10 Minimum Wage Could Be in Effect Within Days.\"\r St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 2 May 2017. Noguchi, Yuki. \"As Cities Raise Minimum Wages, Many States Are Rolling Them Back.\"\r National Public Radio. 18 July 2017. Weller, Chris. \"St. Louis' Minimum Wage Has Dropped After Missouri's Governor Said Increasing It to $10 Would Take 'Money Out of People's Pockets.'\"\r Business Insider. 29 August 2017. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. \"Whom Would St. Louis' Minimum Wage Hike Have Impacted?\"\r 20 July 2017. Pew Research Center. \"States with Minimum Wages Higher than the $7.25/Hr Federal Standard.\"\r 3 January 2017. ProCon.org. \"Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?\"\r 25 April 2018.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HoSVaOjpAGOBzbSKRbfc81RwT0qcxSKI" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The minimum wage is a perennial topic of debate in American politics. Although public opinion polls indicate general bipartisan support for minimum wage increases perceived as reasonable, partisan disagreement remains not only over what constitutes a reasonable minimum wage level, but over who should set it (local, state, or federal governments), and whether or not it should even exist.", "hrefs": [ "https://thehill.com/homenews/335837-poll-bipartisan-majority-supports-raising-minimum-wage", "https://minimum-wage.procon.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "As of 2017, the U.S. federal minimum wage stood at $7.25 an hour, an amount that hadn't budged in eight years despite increases in the cost of living. For that reason, at least 29 states (including Missouri) had established state-wide minimum wages above the federal floor. Individual cities and counties took action as well, in many cases adopting local ordinances that raised minimum wages even higher than those set by their states.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/minimumwage" ] }, { "sentence": "The ordinance, which did not apply to small businesses employing fewer than 15 workers or grossing less than $500,000 a year, was intended to raise the standard of living for the lowest wage earners in a city where the poverty rate was twice the national average, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.stltoday.com/business/after-two-years-of-wrangling-st-louis-new-minimum-wage/article_b51e5da2-a540-57d4-9a6f-f453e74dcf96.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Missouri governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, had been opposed to the increase all along, arguing that it would \"kill jobs\" and \"take money out of people's pockets.\" A Republican lawmaker, Jason Chipman, introduced a bill (HB 1194) that would pre-empt local minimum wage laws everywhere in the state. Days after the St. Louis ordinance went into effect, the Republican-dominated Missouri legislature passed the pre-emption bill in a party line vote, effectively overriding the local ordinance. When the bill became law at the end of August, St. Louis's minimum wage reverted to $7.70, the same as the state's.", "hrefs": [ "https://house.mo.gov/Bill.aspx?bill=HB1194&year=2017&code=R" ] }, { "sentence": "Some disagreement remains over how many workers were actually affected by the changes in St. Louis's minimum wage. The meme cited a number (35,000 workers) taken from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which attributed the estimate to the non-profit National Employment Law Project (NELP). However, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis came up with a different estimate based on a distinction between resident and non-resident minimum-wage workers. Observing that \"only one-third of the workers in St. Louis City are city residents, and less than half of the city workers earning less than $10 per hour are residents,\" the researchers calculated that approximately 20,000 St. Louis residents saw an impact on their earnings. Including non-residents, they estimated that around 32,500 workers were affected, a slightly lower number than that estimated by NELP.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nelp.org/blog/missouri-lawmakers-to-lowest-paid-workers-in-st-louis-were-taking-back-your-raises/", "https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/july/whom-st-louis-minimum-wage-hike-impacted" ] }, { "sentence": "On 1 January 2018, Missouri increased their statewide minimum wage by 15 cents, to $7.85 per hour. In May, a ballot initiative was proposed to raise the minimum wage to $8.60 in 2019 and an additional 85 cents per year thereafter, until it reaches $12 by 2023.", "hrefs": [ "https://fox2now.com/2018/01/01/minimum-wage-increases-across-missouri/", "https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/missouri-businesses-and-workers-submit-signatures-minimum-wage-ballot-initiative#stream/0" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/asteroid-warning-april-2020/", "claim": "Will an Asteroid Hit Earth in April 2020?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/04/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Clickbait headlines continue to stoke fears about \"doomsday asteroids.\"" ], "justification": "On April 29, 2020, a large asteroid is expected to fly by earth at a distance of approximately 4 million miles. That may be of interest to stargazers, but the previous sentence isn't very alarming or attention-grabbing. Yet many media outlets wrote headlines about this incoming asteroid as if it posed an immediate and catastrophic threat to the planet. An article in the Daily Express, for instance, was headlined: \"Asteroid warning: NASA tracks a 4KM asteroid approach - Could end civilisation if it hits.\" The site used a similar message when promoting this article on Twitter: headlined While these headlines may bring clicks, they also may lead readers to falsely believe that this asteroid poses an immediate threat to life on Earth. That isn't the case. While Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) will approach Earth in April 2020, the asteroid is not expected to come within 3.9 million miles of the planet. NASA is constantly monitoring the skies for asteroids and meteors that pose a potential threat to Earth. When these near-Earth objects (NEOs) are discovered, NASA monitors them to find out when they will approach Earth, how fast they will be traveling, how large they are, and how close they will get. All of this data is publicly available on the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) website. Center for Near Earth Object Studies Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) was first discovered (as its name implies) in 1998, so this asteroid isn't making a sudden and scary appearance above Earth. NASA has been monitoring it for more than two decades and has learned quite a bit. For instance, the asteroid is relatively large with a diameter between 1.1 and 2.5 miles, and it will be traveling at just under 20,000 mph when it makes its closest approach to Earth. discovered While an asteroid of this size would cause catastrophic damage if it hit Earth, there's practically no chance that will happen in April 2020. According to NASA, this asteroid won't come within 3.9 million miles of Earth. In other words, it will approach no closer than about 16 times the distance between us and the moon. Asteroid Watch, the official Twitter account of the CNEOS, attempted to quell fears about this asteroid, writing that it will \"safely pass\" Earth and that NASA did not issue a \"warning\" about a possible catastrophic collision. Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) is not currently listed on NASA's list of potential future Earth impact events. Twitter account potential future Earth impact events CNEOS writes (emphasis ours): CNEOS On a daily basis, about one hundred tons of interplanetary material drifts down to the Earths surface. Most of the smallest interplanetary particles that reach the Earths surface are the tiny dust particles that are released by comets as their ices vaporize in the solar neighborhood. The vast majority of the larger interplanetary material that reaches the Earths surface originates as the collision fragments of asteroids that have run into one another some eons ago. With an average interval of about 10,000 years, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 100 meters would be expected to reach the Earths surface and cause local disasters or produce the tidal waves that can inundate low lying coastal areas. On an average of every several hundred thousand years or so, asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters. In this case, the impact debris would spread throughout the Earths atmosphere so that plant life would suffer from acid rain, partial blocking of sunlight, and from the firestorms resulting from heated impact debris raining back down upon the Earths surface. Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches. It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterize their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories. [...] No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs. Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted. At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them. NASA is currently tracking about 20,000 NEOs. While these objects routinely pass by Earth without incident, every now and again a media outlet will write an outlandish story about how one of these objects is posed to wipe out life on earth. While we've seen several of these fear-mongering rumors over the years, these \"doomsday\" asteroids never seem to arrive. fear-mongering rumors years Kettley, Sebastian. \"Asteroid Warning: NASA Tracks a 4KM Asteroid Approach - Could End Civilisation if it Hits.\"\r Daily Express. 4 March 2020. Strickland, Ashley. \"Large Asteroid Will Fly by the Earth Next Month, But Won't Hit Us, Reassures NASA.\"\r CNN. 3 March 2020.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1q0KQ517aM-hTKc_zy0WUmKIza2Um4Hhj", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hP_M1qNiXLMtAPJ9ZmRvjAXCPANedEU_", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "An article in the Daily Express, for instance, was headlined: \"Asteroid warning: NASA tracks a 4KM asteroid approach - Could end civilisation if it hits.\" The site used a similar message when promoting this article on Twitter: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1249990/Asteroid-warning-NASA-tracks-4KM-killer-asteroid-hit-Earth-end-civilisation-asteroid-news" ] }, { "sentence": "NASA is constantly monitoring the skies for asteroids and meteors that pose a potential threat to Earth. When these near-Earth objects (NEOs) are discovered, NASA monitors them to find out when they will approach Earth, how fast they will be traveling, how large they are, and how close they will get. All of this data is publicly available on the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) website. ", "hrefs": [ "https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/" ] }, { "sentence": "Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) was first discovered (as its name implies) in 1998, so this asteroid isn't making a sudden and scary appearance above Earth. NASA has been monitoring it for more than two decades and has learned quite a bit. For instance, the asteroid is relatively large with a diameter between 1.1 and 2.5 miles, and it will be traveling at just under 20,000 mph when it makes its closest approach to Earth. ", "hrefs": [ "https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=52768" ] }, { "sentence": "Asteroid Watch, the official Twitter account of the CNEOS, attempted to quell fears about this asteroid, writing that it will \"safely pass\" Earth and that NASA did not issue a \"warning\" about a possible catastrophic collision. Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) is not currently listed on NASA's list of potential future Earth impact events. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AsteroidWatch/status/1235247560110927873", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/03/asteroid-watch.png", "https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/" ] }, { "sentence": "CNEOS writes (emphasis ours): ", "hrefs": [ "https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/target_earth.html" ] }, { "sentence": "NASA is currently tracking about 20,000 NEOs. While these objects routinely pass by Earth without incident, every now and again a media outlet will write an outlandish story about how one of these objects is posed to wipe out life on earth. While we've seen several of these fear-mongering rumors over the years, these \"doomsday\" asteroids never seem to arrive. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/asteroid-hit-earth-on-christmas/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-a-doomsday-asteroid-destroy-earth-in-february-2017/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/asteroid-christmas-eve/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/barefoot-wine-giveaway/", "claim": ": Barefoot Cellars is Giving Away Free Cases of Wine", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/25/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Barefoot Cellars isn't giving away free cases of wine for their 50th anniversary. It's a survey scam." ], "justification": "Claim: Barefoot Cellars is giving away a limited number of free cases of wine to Facebook users who like and share a post. Origins:In October2015, links began circulating on Facebook promisingusers a free case of Barefoot Cellars wine as a celebration of the brand's 50th anniversary: The embedded links involved a variety of URLs, some of which included entirely unrelated scam-bait terms like \"iTunes\" and \"Apple.\" Users who clicked through to claim their purported free case of Barefoot wine were routed to a pagereading \"Barefoot Wine is Giving FREE Cases of Wine to celebrate 50th Anniversary (230 Left),\" which clonedthe style of Facebook-based content (but was hosted on a non-Facebook URL): As noted, URLs visible in the posts didn't point to any credible domains or sites linked to Barefoot Cellars. By now,most social media users are familiar withsurvey scams: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait by scammers(seeking personal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users). Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauillustrated how folks might spot and avoid bad actors utilizing the reputations of brands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Last updated: 25 October 2015 Originally published: 25 October 2015", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Gvloj9NG04wfoe1lJZb2Ud0Oxso0xvDj", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1u3hqCJzjEuAlOTq8_dhFwNaWiXXwS3yA", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "By now,most social media users are familiar withsurvey scams: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait by scammers(seeking personal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/kohlsgiftcard.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/costco.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/homedepot.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/lowes.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/krogercard.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/bestbuy.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/macys.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/olivegarden.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/publix.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/target.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/walmart.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/nothing.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauillustrated how folks might spot and avoid bad actors utilizing the reputations of brands on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/07/customer-survey-scam-lures-victims-with-gift-card/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ellen-degeneres-facebook-giveaway/", "claim": "Is Ellen DeGeneres Holding a Facebook Giveaway?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "11/02/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Don't fall for scams that use counterfeit Facebook accounts to falsely associate themselves with celebrities." ], "justification": "Several times over the last few years social Facebook posts have appeared proposing that users who followed instructions to \"like\" and \"share\" them could win myriad prizes in a purported giveaway sponsored by Ellen DeGeneres: Facebook posts The Ellen DeGeneres Show does run segments involving prize giveaways that may have online components, including ties to official social media accounts, but not ones involving randomly choosing viewers who \"like\" and \"share\" posts stemming from counterfeit Facebook accounts such as the one shown above. prize giveaways Any legitimate promotional offer using Facebook should be tied to an account bearing a blue badge indicating the account has been verified by Facebook as authentic:As we have noted on previous pages about similar hoaxes, these counterfeit promotional posts exhibit a number of red flags, primarily that the underlying pages are not endorsed by any official channel associated with Ellen DeGeneres:The first clue that the giveaways following this format are not on the up-and-up is that the pages to which Facebook users are directed are ones created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only are the secondary Facebook pages involved new, they are also not linked with automobile companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure, but no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment is discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims.The aim of schemes such as the celebrity giveaway hoaxes are typically to rapidly build a large Facebook following in order to sell pages with high \"like\" counts to third parties. While such hoaxes appear to present little risk to participants, liking and sharing the false information is not entirely safe: in addition to advancing the interests of and encouraging social media scammers, page likes potentially enable user data mining by scammers. And in some cases, the giveaway hoaxes lure victims into downloading malware-bearing files. Any legitimate promotional offer using Facebook should be tied to an account bearing a blue badge indicating the account has been verified by Facebook as authentic: blue badge As we have noted on previous pages about similar hoaxes, these counterfeit promotional posts exhibit a number of red flags, primarily that the underlying pages are not endorsed by any official channel associated with Ellen DeGeneres: hoaxes The first clue that the giveaways following this format are not on the up-and-up is that the pages to which Facebook users are directed are ones created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only are the secondary Facebook pages involved new, they are also not linked with automobile companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure, but no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment is discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims. The aim of schemes such as the celebrity giveaway hoaxes are typically to rapidly build a large Facebook following in order to sell pages with high \"like\" counts to third parties. While such hoaxes appear to present little risk to participants, liking and sharing the false information is not entirely safe: in addition to advancing the interests of and encouraging social media scammers, page likes potentially enable user data mining by scammers. And in some cases, the giveaway hoaxes lure victims into downloading malware-bearing files.", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1I5nksmpRS4iFDb353k2sNIc8aR0Lop2q", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19z65y0QyNC28wmO6FvuXXlS1fjIeagEe", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Several times over the last few years social Facebook posts have appeared proposing that users who followed instructions to \"like\" and \"share\" them could win myriad prizes in a purported giveaway sponsored by Ellen DeGeneres:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/EApjI" ] }, { "sentence": "The Ellen DeGeneres Show does run segments involving prize giveaways that may have online components, including ties to official social media accounts, but not ones involving randomly choosing viewers who \"like\" and \"share\" posts stemming from counterfeit Facebook accounts such as the one shown above.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.eonline.com/news/898280/12-priceless-audience-reactions-from-ellen-degeneres-12-days-of-giveaways-spectacular" ] }, { "sentence": "Any legitimate promotional offer using Facebook should be tied to an account bearing a blue badge indicating the account has been verified by Facebook as authentic:As we have noted on previous pages about similar hoaxes, these counterfeit promotional posts exhibit a number of red flags, primarily that the underlying pages are not endorsed by any official channel associated with Ellen DeGeneres:The first clue that the giveaways following this format are not on the up-and-up is that the pages to which Facebook users are directed are ones created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only are the secondary Facebook pages involved new, they are also not linked with automobile companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure, but no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment is discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims.The aim of schemes such as the celebrity giveaway hoaxes are typically to rapidly build a large Facebook following in order to sell pages with high \"like\" counts to third parties. While such hoaxes appear to present little risk to participants, liking and sharing the false information is not entirely safe: in addition to advancing the interests of and encouraging social media scammers, page likes potentially enable user data mining by scammers. And in some cases, the giveaway hoaxes lure victims into downloading malware-bearing files.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/help/1288173394636262", "https://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/cargiveaway.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Any legitimate promotional offer using Facebook should be tied to an account bearing a blue badge indicating the account has been verified by Facebook as authentic:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/help/1288173394636262" ] }, { "sentence": "As we have noted on previous pages about similar hoaxes, these counterfeit promotional posts exhibit a number of red flags, primarily that the underlying pages are not endorsed by any official channel associated with Ellen DeGeneres:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/cargiveaway.asp" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hidden-tax-credit-journalists/", "claim": "Is there a 'Secret Tax Credit' that covers fifty percent of journalists' pay?", "author": "Madison Dapcevich", "posted": "01/18/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Spoiler alert: The news media do not write, regulate, or pass legislation." ], "justification": "As the federal government debated the contents of the high-profile Build Back Better infrastructure bill in late fall 2021, social media memes portrayed what was said to be elements of the legislation. One such claim asserted that a journalism tax credit would allot funds of up to half of a journalists salary, or a maximum of $50,000 annually. Some media publications and social media users inaccurately reflected the contents of the bill and exactly how the tax credit works. social media One such report came in September 2021, by the right-leaning publication The Daily Signal, which claimed that the media hid a secret in $3.5 trillion spending bill. right-leaning The Daily Signal Theres one piece of the $3.5 trillion spending bill that the media is unlikely to tell you abouttheir bailout. The massive, bloated $3.5 billion spending bill has so much pork that fiscal hawks could eat it for weeks. One piece that hasnt received much attention yet is a special journalism tax credit equal to 50% of the salary of each journalistup to $50,000 per journalist annually. Yes, thats correct, your tax dollars would be paying 50% of the salary of many journalists, whether you like their reporting or not. First, such claims are misleading. The news media do not write, regulate, or pass legislation, and therefore, could not hide additional funds in a spending bill. It is true that in fall 2021, two pieces of legislation each introduced in the House and Senate aimed to create a tax credit that would incentivize local news subscriptions and advertising, as well as credit local publications that employed journalists for a limited time up to a certain amount. However, the legislation was ultimately excluded from the infrastructure spending bill, and memes depicting its core components are somewhat misleading. As we have previously reported, just because legislation is introduced does not mean that it will be passed and enforced. Furthermore, the bill language as presented above was not included in the high-profile Build Back Better (BBB) infrastructure bill that has been at the heart of a congressional stop-and-go debate. In short, similar language was introduced in the BBB (more on those exact nuances later), but the tax credit was not included in its final passage. A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of income tax owed. If approved, that credit would essentially lower the income tax owed by local newsrooms. As is the case with most legislation, the bill was not as cut-and-dry as the meme made it out to be and was instead made up of three major components that were outlined in detail by the Nieman Journalism Lab. The three points were summarized in a letter issued by the office of the U.S. Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, who co-sponsored the bill. Nieman Journalism Lab letter There were differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Below is the language for the House's H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which was introduced in June 2021. Local Journalism Sustainability Act This bill allows individual and business taxpayers tax credits for the support of local newspapers and media. Specifically, individual taxpayers may claim an income tax credit up to $250 for a local newspaper subscription. The bill also allows local newspaper employers a payroll tax credit for wages paid to an employee for service as a local news journalist and certain small businesses a tax credit for local newspaper and media advertising expenses. That version of the bill did not move past the House Committee on Ways and Means and was ultimately dropped; but it was proposed again by the Senate in November 2021 under S.2434., reported by Poynter at the time. It read: S.2434 Poynter This bill allows individual taxpayers a tax credit up to $250 in any taxable year for subscriptions to one or more local newspapers for the taxpayer's personal use. It also allows a local news journalist employer a payroll credit for wages paid to local news journalists. The bill allows certain small businesses a tax credit for amounts paid for advertising in a local newspaper or through a broadcast of a radio or television station serving a local community. Roughly speaking, the credit would have cost around $1 billion in the first year, and as News Media Alliance pointed out, the bipartisan legislation was only available to local news organizations with 51% or more of its audience in a state or single area within a 200-mile radius of the news operation. Regardless, neither body passed the legislation. pointed out We also read through the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed Congress in Dec 2021 and has since become law. (The entire bill can be viewed here and here.) A word search revealed that there was no mention of journalism, and nearly all mentions of the word media referred to ways in which the government could conduct advertising or outreach, like the example below: passed Congress here here Screengrab/Govtracks.org Govtracks.org Although some publications mischaracterized the contents of the proposed legislation and failed to mention that it was not passed by Congress, it is true that the bill as it was introduced included allocating a tax credit to, at least in part, subsidize the salaries of some local journalists. As such, we have rated this claim as Mixture. Sources Boyle, Paul J. Bipartisan Bill Introduced to Provide Tax Incentives in Support of Local Journalism. News Media Alliance, 22 July 2020, https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/bipartisan-bill-introduced-to-provide-tax-incentives-in-support-of-local-journalism/. Cantwell, Maria. Local Journalism Sustainability Act. S.2434, 22 July 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2434?s=1&r=17. Local Journalism Sustainability Act . https://www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Local%20Journalism%20Sustainability%20Act%20One%20Page%20Summary%20July%2023%202021.pdf. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Https://Twitter.Com/Alaskanpatriot_/Status/1441416781747212305. Twitter, https://twitter.com/alaskanpatriot_/status/1441416781747212305. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Local Journalism Sustainability Act . H.R.3940, 16 June 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3940/actions?r=86&s=1. Some Questions (and Answers) about the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. Nieman Lab, https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/09/some-questions-and-answers-about-the-local-journalism-sustainability-act/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. Text of H.R. 3684: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Passed Congress Version). GovTrack.Us, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. GovTrack.Us, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022. The Tax Credit to Pay the Salaries of Local Journalists Is Back in the Budget Bill. Poynter, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2021/the-tax-credit-to-pay-the-salaries-of-local-journalists-is-back-in-the-budget-bill/. You Searched for the Daily Signal. Media Bias/Fact Check, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/search/the daily signal/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2022.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15flaQVC1_8wYDFZL41HoQYSaL81ZgsW6" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Some media publications and social media users inaccurately reflected the contents of the bill and exactly how the tax credit works.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AlaskanPatriot_/status/1441416781747212305" ] }, { "sentence": "One such report came in September 2021, by the right-leaning publication The Daily Signal, which claimed that the media hid a secret in $3.5 trillion spending bill.", "hrefs": [ "https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/?s=the+daily+signal", "https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/09/22/the-media-hides-a-secret-in-the-3-5-trillion-bill/" ] }, { "sentence": "A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of income tax owed. If approved, that credit would essentially lower the income tax owed by local newsrooms. As is the case with most legislation, the bill was not as cut-and-dry as the meme made it out to be and was instead made up of three major components that were outlined in detail by the Nieman Journalism Lab. The three points were summarized in a letter issued by the office of the U.S. Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, who co-sponsored the bill.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/09/some-questions-and-answers-about-the-local-journalism-sustainability-act/", "https://www.cantwell.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Local Journalism Sustainability Act One Page Summary July 23 2021.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "There were differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Below is the language for the House's H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which was introduced in June 2021.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3940?s=1&r=86" ] }, { "sentence": "That version of the bill did not move past the House Committee on Ways and Means and was ultimately dropped; but it was proposed again by the Senate in November 2021 under S.2434., reported by Poynter at the time. It read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2434?s=1&r=17", "https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2021/the-tax-credit-to-pay-the-salaries-of-local-journalists-is-back-in-the-budget-bill/" ] }, { "sentence": "Roughly speaking, the credit would have cost around $1 billion in the first year, and as News Media Alliance pointed out, the bipartisan legislation was only available to local news organizations with 51% or more of its audience in a state or single area within a 200-mile radius of the news operation. Regardless, neither body passed the legislation.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/bipartisan-bill-introduced-to-provide-tax-incentives-in-support-of-local-journalism/" ] }, { "sentence": "We also read through the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed Congress in Dec 2021 and has since become law. (The entire bill can be viewed here and here.) A word search revealed that there was no mention of journalism, and nearly all mentions of the word media referred to ways in which the government could conduct advertising or outreach, like the example below:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684", "https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text" ] }, { "sentence": " Screengrab/Govtracks.org", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/01/Screen-Shot-2022-01-18-at-9.05.13-AM.png", "https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr3684/text" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nostradamus-king-charles-harry/", "claim": "Did Nostradamus Predict Charles Would Abdicate, Leave Harry the Throne?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "09/15/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Claiming 16th-century French astrologer Nostradamus predicted various world events is a never-ending pastime for some." ], "justification": "In the wake of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, 2022, various hoaxes and misinformation circulated online. hoaxes misinformation These included a misleading claim that the supposed source of many a prophecy, Nostradamus, foresaw the year Elizabeth would die, and that her heir, King Charles III, would abdicate, leaving an unexpected royal on the throne. Nostradamus is the commonly used name of Michel de Nostredame, a 16th-century Frenchman best known in the modern era for being trotted out during global news events, with enthusiasts claiming he predicted them with uncanny accuracy. Nostradamus was falsely credited with predicting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., for example, and also the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster. trotted out falsely credited and also In the case of misinformation spreading in September 2022, not only did some claim he predicted with accuracy the year in which Elizabeth would die, but also that he foresaw the crowning of Prince Harry as king. Neither is true, as we will explain. \"A shocking new interpretation of the prophecies of Nostradamus says that King Charless reign could be very short with the bombshell suggestion Prince Harry could take the throne,\" reported the U.K. tabloid The Daily Star. reported Meanwhile, many shared on social media a screenshot from the 2005 book, \"Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies for the Future,\" by British author Mario Reading. Here is an image of the screenshot being posted: We point to the words\"new interpretation\" in the Daily Star's article because it's the operative phrase. The source of the rumor is simply Reading's interpretation of material written by Nostradamus, as seen in the screenshot from his book above. Nostradamus made no predictions specific to British royalty in 2022. The idea that Harry, the second son of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana, would leapfrog over his older brother William and become king can be seen at the bottom of the page in the image above. The reason it drew so much attention was because Reading, who died in 2017, appears to have accurately speculated about what year Elizabeth would die. The preamble is that Queen Elizabeth II will die, circa 2022, at the age of around ninety-six, five years short of her mothers term of life, Reading wrote. But Reading also erroneously predicted, based on Nostradamus' writings, that when Charles took the throne, the Commonwealth an international association made up of nations like Canada and Jamaica, most of which were once under British rule would no longer exist. That is not the case. international association Reading went on to interpret Nostradamus as predicting that when Charles took the throne, the pressure on him, together with his advanced age and opposition from some Brits who were angered by his 1996 divorce from Diana, would be overwhelming. And that would lead him to vacate his role. Reading claimed Nostradamus \"makes it very clear\" that the man to replace Charles will be an unexpected one. Reading guesses that means William won't take the throne, for whatever reason, and that the next in line would be Harry. This was all speculation, however. Reading included the writing of Nostradamus (called a quatrain) at the top of his chapter. But Nostradamus' writing is vague, and makes no mention of a specific country or ruler. Here is a screenshot from the Google Books version of Reading's work, in which he offers the quatrain and his translation into English: chapter version Because the actual writing of Nostradamus is vague, we cannot say Nostradamus predicted the circumstances around Elizabeth's death, and we can hardly say he foresaw events that haven't yet happened (and may well never happen). At the very best, we can say that British author Mario Reading accurately guessed the year that Queen Elizabeth II would die. A note of context: Europe's kings and queens during the life of Nostradamus were contextually very different than the U.K.'s modern royals. If King Charles III \"abdicates,\" it wouldn't exactly spark a bloody power grab, as illustrated by the gory HBO series \"Game of Thrones,\" which is loosely based on medieval power struggles. Modern day royalty in the U.K. is more of a formality than an actual seat of power. It would be an intrigue, no doubt, but would probably have little consequence in the daily lives of U.K. citizens. Moran, Michael. Nostradamus Prediction That Charles Will Abdicate and mystery King Will Reign. Dailystar.Co.Uk, 12 Sept. 2022, https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/nostradamus-predicted-charles-abdicate-mystery-27973773. Reading, Mario. Nostradamus: The Complete Prophesies for the Future. Watkins Media Limited, 2015.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15Csqw5_WKKP10dhGiMsuM6iOJpY8uP6I", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CvABPmdvkeybO6lj9BX8t_VCd83DP9gj", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the wake of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, 2022, various hoaxes and misinformation circulated online. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-rock-queen-tweets/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/queen-elizabeth-kick-some-ass/" ] }, { "sentence": "Nostradamus is the commonly used name of Michel de Nostredame, a 16th-century Frenchman best known in the modern era for being trotted out during global news events, with enthusiasts claiming he predicted them with uncanny accuracy. Nostradamus was falsely credited with predicting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., for example, and also the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/nostradamus-didnt-predict-that/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nostradamus-911-prediction/?collection-id=211003", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/columbia-disaster/?collection-id=211003" ] }, { "sentence": "\"A shocking new interpretation of the prophecies of Nostradamus says that King Charless reign could be very short with the bombshell suggestion Prince Harry could take the throne,\" reported the U.K. tabloid The Daily Star.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/ISN9e" ] }, { "sentence": "But Reading also erroneously predicted, based on Nostradamus' writings, that when Charles took the throne, the Commonwealth an international association made up of nations like Canada and Jamaica, most of which were once under British rule would no longer exist. That is not the case.", "hrefs": [ "https://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries" ] }, { "sentence": "This was all speculation, however. Reading included the writing of Nostradamus (called a quatrain) at the top of his chapter. But Nostradamus' writing is vague, and makes no mention of a specific country or ruler. Here is a screenshot from the Google Books version of Reading's work, in which he offers the quatrain and his translation into English:", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=iXs8CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT113&lpg=PT113&dq=this+quatrain+will+come+as+no+surprise+to+the+british+people&source=bl&ots=mxGwBSQ73G&sig=ACfU3U0hAUjjGCz8MxgydeUmnMWwML99mw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrnq7V55f6AhUkLEQIHfWdDe4Q6AF6BAgKEAM#v=onepage&q=this%20quatrain%20will%20come%20as%20no%20surprise%20to%20the%20british%20people&f=false", "https://books.google.com/books/publisher/content?id=iXs8CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT112&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&ots=mxGwBSQ73G&sig=ACfU3U1VAA8wwNjLtixzC5dd_1vscfEwVQ&w=1280" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/long-distance-bill-revenge/", "claim": "Long Distance Bill Revenge", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/22/2000", "sci_digest": [ "Woman gets revenge on former boyfriend by calling long-distance number and leaving his phone off the hook." ], "justification": "This typical female revenge legend, describing a woman's effective (but non-violent) way of striking back at her (former) partner, has been around since at least 1981. Legends such as these (see The $50 Porsche, for example) often feature a clever method of causing financial loss without the destruction of property: The $50 Porsche Examples: [Smith, 1986] A young couple living in the Bristol area had been having marital problems. Most of it was caused by the husband's bad temper and the fighting and constant arguing that had been going on for several months. Things finally came to a head one morning when the husband, just before he left on a three week business trip, told his wife they were finished and she had better get out of his house for good before he returned. When he arrived home his wife had gone, leaving the house in an awful mess. While he was clearing up he noticed that the telephone was off the hook. He replaced it and thought no more about it. Several weeks later the quarterly telephone bill arrived. It was astronomical running into several thousands of pounds. He immediately queried it, only to be told that the phone had been connected to the speaking weather report in Australia for a three week period. [Marsano, 1987] In Hollywood a man dumped his live-in girlfriend by telling her that he was off on a business trip and expected her to have cleared out of the house by the time he returned. Pretty cold, guy. The woman left, but when the man returned, he learned that she had found what Paul Simon might call the fifty-first way to leave your lover. The house was in good order, and the only thing was that the phone was off the hook. When he picked it up, he heard incomprehensible babbling, so he hung up. When his next phone bill arrived, it explained a couple of things. The strange language he had heard was Japanese, and it was giving the correct time. It had been giving the correct time enough to run up a bill of $80,000. Variations: Sightings: An episode of the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses (\"The Second Time Around,\" original air date 29 September 1981) features the evicted woman leaving a note announcing she's dialed the speaking clock in America. Eskapa, Roy. Bizarre Sex. London: Quartet Books, 1987 ISBN 0-7043-2518-7 (pp. 82). Fiery, Ann. The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends Philadelphia: Running Press Books, 2001. ISBN 0-7624-107404 (pp. 81-86). The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (p. 97). Spiders in the Hairdo The Big Book of Urban Legends New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 183). The Big Book of Urban Legends Barreca, Regina. Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even.\r New York: Harmony Books, 1995. ISBN 0-517-59757-8 (p. 45). Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even Brunvand, Jan Harold. \rCurses! Broiled Again!\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-30711-5; (pp. 216-217). Curses! Broiled Again! Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be True.\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 79-80). Too Good To Be True Hardy, David. What a Mistake!\r Secaucus, NJ: Octopus Books, 1983 ISBN 1-55521-164-X (p. 78). Marsano, William. Man Suffocated By Potatoes.\r New York: Signet, 1987. (pp. 149-150). Smith, Paul. The Book of Nastier Legends.\r London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. ISBN 0-7102-0573-2  . (p. 85). The Book of Nastier Legends", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aVe93DqcQqFvntP8uZq4DsBfqv9U7yVZ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This typical female revenge legend, describing a woman's effective (but non-violent) way of striking back at her (former) partner, has been around since at least 1981. Legends such as these (see The $50 Porsche, for example) often feature a clever method of causing financial loss without the destruction of property:", "hrefs": [ "/love/revenge/porsche.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Fiery, Ann. The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends Philadelphia: Running Press Books, 2001. ISBN 0-7624-107404 (pp. 81-86).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/children/totally.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (p. 97).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/children/spiders.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " The Big Book of Urban Legends New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 183).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/bigbook.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Barreca, Regina. Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even.\r New York: Harmony Books, 1995. ISBN 0-517-59757-8 (p. 45).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/misc/revenge.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Brunvand, Jan Harold. \rCurses! Broiled Again!\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-30711-5; (pp. 216-217).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/curses.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be True.\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 79-80).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/toogood.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Smith, Paul. The Book of Nastier Legends.\r London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. ISBN 0-7102-0573-2  . (p. 85).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sources/nastier.htm" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/johns-hopkins-coronavirus-map/", "claim": "Does Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Map Contain Malware?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "03/13/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Malicious actors often attempt to spread malware by disguising it as information from credible sources." ], "justification": "In March 2020, as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus grew into a global pandemic, worried citizens of the world took to the internet in search of information about the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19. They turned to organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to get an accurate picture of how fast the disease was spreading, where cases were being reported, and what they should do to keep themselves (and their communities) safe. CDC WHO Johns Hopkins University also provided a valuable resource in the form of a real-time map that showed how the disease was spreading around the globe. At the time of this writing, the map from Hopkins' Coronavirus Research Center shows 137,445 total confirmed cases that have resulted in just over 5,000 deaths. This is a genuine map from Johns Hopkins that is safe to access here. here Unfortunately, malicious actors saw the heightened concerns about COVID-19 as an opportunity to start spreading misinformation and malware. On March 9, 2020, Reason Security released a report stating that maps similar to the one above were being used to trick people into downloading malware: report As global awareness of a Coronavirus pandemic gradually gives way to full out panic, and as governments begin ramping up their efforts to combat the virus and protect its citizens, global news agencies find themselves racing to answer the publics demand for accurate information about new Corona related infections, deaths, transmissions, etc. This demand creates a vulnerability that malicious actors have quickly taken advantage of by spreading malware disguised as a Coronavirus map. Reason Labs cybersecurity researcher, Shai Alfasi, found and analyzed this malware that had weaponized coronavirus map applications in order to steal credentials such as user names, passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information that is stored in the users browser. Attackers can use this information for many other operations as well, such as selling it on the deep web or for gaining access to bank accounts or social media. Hacker News explained that this malware attack targets people who are searching for any maps about COVID-19 and tricks them into downloading a map with a file that runs a malicious application on the user's computer. Once downloaded, the map appears similar to the legitimate map from Johns Hopkins shown above, but the software will actually compromise the computer and attempt to steal personal information, such as passwords and credit card information. explained The malware attack specifically aims to target those who are looking for cartographic presentations of the spread of COVID-19 on the Internet, and tricks them to download and run a malicious application that, on its front-end, shows a map loaded from a legit online source but in the background compromises the computer. The real map from Johns Hopkins is viewable online and does not require you to download any software to use it. You can access the real-time tracking map by visiting this website. This is the official URL from Johns Hopkins, and no indication exists that this site is unsafe or infected with malware. website ESRI, the company that provided the geographic information system (GIS) software to create Johns Hopkins' real-time coronavirus tracking map, attempted to clear up some of the confusion in a blog post. The company explained that the real online map found on Johns Hopkins' site \"does NOT contain any malware (and NEVER contained malware).\" The reports from Hacker News and the like are referring to a scam that uses an impostor version of the Hopkins map to trick users into downloading malware. ESRI writes (emphasis ours): writes An increasing number of articles have been published on the Internet with unclear and sometimes misleading information concerning one of the primary dashboards for awareness concerning the spread of the Coronavirus. To be clear, the online map posted by Johns Hopkins University at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html does NOT contain any malware (and NEVER contained malware). This popular dashboard web application is hosted by Esri as part of our ArcGIS Online offering. The confusion comes from an issue where a malicious person created a downloadable Windows-based application containing malware whose display is practically identical to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus browser-based dashboard (see comparison figure below). Whomever posted the malicious downloadable app is attempting to take advantage of the hype around the Coronavirus, but it requires the user to either download the app executable, or it could be distributed by email for the user to then install onto their local Windows system. The malicious app once downloaded and installed deploys malware called AZORult which is designed to steal credentials in the background (among other activities). To make the user think they are getting a Coronavirus map viewer, the app calls the URL of the Johns Hopkins dashboard and displays the results inside the application window. Bottom-line, you are fine browsing the Coronavirus dashboard on the web with your browser as no software needs to be downloaded. If you come across someone offering a Coronavirus dashboard where you need to download software to view it, dont use it! In summary, a real-time map that tracks the spread of COVID-19 around the globe is available to view on the Johns Hopkins University website. This map is safe to use and does not require you to download any software. If you encounter an email or social media post that asks you to download a similar map, be cautious. It's likely someone is attempting to trick you into downloading a piece of malware. website Sullivan, Mark. \"Cybercrooks See the Coronavirus as an Opportunity to Steal From You.\"\r Fast Company. 12 March 2020. Reason Blog. \"COVID-19, Info Stealer & the Map of Threats Threat Analysis Report.\"\r 9 March 2020. Wei, Wang. \"Beware of 'Coronavirus Maps' It's a Malware Infecting PCs to Steal Passwords.\"\r Hacker News. 11 March 2020. Young, Michael. \"Coronavirus Downloadable Malware Map App Clarification.\"\r ESRI. 12 March 2020. Frost, Natasha. \"This Interactive Map From Johns Hopkins University Shows the Effects of Coronavirus in Real Time.\"\r Quartz. 7 March 2020.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CxNsk-5Iddy7qPyPQUgX89dESBMhCTyD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In March 2020, as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus grew into a global pandemic, worried citizens of the world took to the internet in search of information about the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19. They turned to organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to get an accurate picture of how fast the disease was spreading, where cases were being reported, and what they should do to keep themselves (and their communities) safe.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html", "https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus" ] }, { "sentence": "This is a genuine map from Johns Hopkins that is safe to access here.", "hrefs": [ "https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Unfortunately, malicious actors saw the heightened concerns about COVID-19 as an opportunity to start spreading misinformation and malware. On March 9, 2020, Reason Security released a report stating that maps similar to the one above were being used to trick people into downloading malware: ", "hrefs": [ "https://blog.reasonsecurity.com/2020/03/09/covid-19-info-stealer-the-map-of-threats-threat-analysis-report/" ] }, { "sentence": "Hacker News explained that this malware attack targets people who are searching for any maps about COVID-19 and tricks them into downloading a map with a file that runs a malicious application on the user's computer. Once downloaded, the map appears similar to the legitimate map from Johns Hopkins shown above, but the software will actually compromise the computer and attempt to steal personal information, such as passwords and credit card information. ", "hrefs": [ "https://thehackernews.com/2020/03/coronavirus-maps-covid-19.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The real map from Johns Hopkins is viewable online and does not require you to download any software to use it. You can access the real-time tracking map by visiting this website. This is the official URL from Johns Hopkins, and no indication exists that this site is unsafe or infected with malware. ", "hrefs": [ "https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" ] }, { "sentence": "ESRI writes (emphasis ours):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-online/administration/coronavirus-downloadable-malware-map-app-clarification/" ] }, { "sentence": "In summary, a real-time map that tracks the spread of COVID-19 around the globe is available to view on the Johns Hopkins University website. This map is safe to use and does not require you to download any software. If you encounter an email or social media post that asks you to download a similar map, be cautious. It's likely someone is attempting to trick you into downloading a piece of malware. ", "hrefs": [ "https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/darkness-quote-mlk/", "claim": "Did MLK Say 'Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness; Only Light Can Do That'?", "author": "Taija PerryCook", "posted": "01/21/2024", "sci_digest": [ "The late Rev. King is frequently misquoted on the internet, and, as always, we're here to clear it up." ], "justification": "The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., known for his eloquence and ability to mobilize the masses throughout the Civil Rights era, is often incorrectly credited for quotes that he never said. One of the most famous lines attributed to King is typically quoted as \"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.\" Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In January 2024, this quote was even posted on the official X (formerly Twitter) page of the State of Israel. \"???????? ?????? ????? ??? ????????, ???? ????? ??? ?? ????. ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????, ???? ???? ??? ?? ????.\" - ?????? ?????? ???? ??. Today we mark Martin Luther King pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r Israel ?? (@Israel) January 15, 2024 January 15, 2024 These words were indeed written by King. However, for more than a decade now, there has been confusion as to the precise wording of the quote. In 2011, following the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, a version of the quote went viral on the internet. It stated: \"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.\" Given that if followed the controversial killing of bin Laden, the quote spread across the internet at an impressive reach, especially for the time. Penn Jillette, a famous magician and outspoken libertarian, tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers, and it only continued to go viral from there. tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers Questions about whether the quote was presented accurately were picked up by The Atlantic, NPR, and other news outlets. They found the wording was correct except for the very first sentence, which was not found in King's speeches or writings: \"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.\" The Atlantic NPR As it turns out, however, Jillette was only a perpetuator not the originator of the erroneous version of the quote. Before Jillette shared it, Facebook user Jessica Dovey quoted the King passage correctly on her status, but prefaced it with a sentence expressing her own personal thoughts: \"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.\" She distinguished her own thoughts from King's via an opening quotation mark, which was dropped somewhere along the line as it picked up internet traction. on her status (Image via The Atlantic) The complete quote by King, which can be found in his 1963 book \"Strength to Love,\" read as follows: \"Strength to Love,\" Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says Love your enemies, he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemiesor else? The chain reaction of evilhate begetting hate, wars producing more warsmust be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Commenters on Israel's X post quoting King were quick to point to a clarification provided by Bernice King, MLK's youngest daughter, on Oct. 31, 2023, in regard to her father's stance on Israel. ? Amy: Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israels bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released https://t.co/haahcqcuAf https://t.co/haahcqcuAf Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 1, 2023 November 1, 2023 We've previously written on other rumors related to King, including whether the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself and whether King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth. rumors related to King the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth. Grant, Drew. Penn Jillette Explains the Fake Martin Luther King Jr.: I Made a Mistake.Salon, 3 May 2011, https://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/fake_mlj_quote_osama_death/. Https://Twitter.Com/BerniceKing/Status/1719524029600612666.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1719524029600612666. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Https://Twitter.Com/Israel/Status/1746912379667890196.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1746912379667890196. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Jr, Martin Luther King.Strength to Love. Beacon Press, 2019. Loving Your Enemies, Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. McArdle, Megan. Anatomy of a Fake Quotation.The Atlantic, 3 May 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/. Peralta, Eyder. As The Bin Laden Story Raced Online, A Tale Of Two Misattributed Quotes.NPR, 3 May 2011.NPR, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/04/135965263/as-the-bin-laden-story-raced-online-a-tale-of-two-misattributed-quotes. 5 Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes People Think He Said but Actually Didnt.Yahoo News, 17 Jan. 2016, http://news.yahoo.com/5-martin-luther-king-jr-121303266.html.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=12bZJBtAAkE1DuplRaR5XE7v_s1XiPo6F", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., known for his eloquence and ability to mobilize the masses throughout the Civil Rights era, is often incorrectly credited for quotes that he never said. One of the most famous lines attributed to King is typically quoted as \"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/martin-luther-king-jr/" ] }, { "sentence": "Today we mark Martin Luther King pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/QJaIbnF42r" ] }, { "sentence": " Israel ?? (@Israel) January 15, 2024", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1746912379667890196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Given that if followed the controversial killing of bin Laden, the quote spread across the internet at an impressive reach, especially for the time. Penn Jillette, a famous magician and outspoken libertarian, tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers, and it only continued to go viral from there.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/fake_mlj_quote_osama_death/" ] }, { "sentence": "Questions about whether the quote was presented accurately were picked up by The Atlantic, NPR, and other news outlets. They found the wording was correct except for the very first sentence, which was not found in King's speeches or writings: \"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/", "https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/04/135965263/as-the-bin-laden-story-raced-online-a-tale-of-two-misattributed-quotes" ] }, { "sentence": "As it turns out, however, Jillette was only a perpetuator not the originator of the erroneous version of the quote. Before Jillette shared it, Facebook user Jessica Dovey quoted the King passage correctly on her status, but prefaced it with a sentence expressing her own personal thoughts: \"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.\" She distinguished her own thoughts from King's via an opening quotation mark, which was dropped somewhere along the line as it picked up internet traction.", "hrefs": [ "https://i.imgur.com/cqtjw.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The complete quote by King, which can be found in his 1963 book \"Strength to Love,\" read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Strength_to_Love/FHKEDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=I%20will%20mourn%20the%20loss%20of%20thousands%20of%20precious%20lives,%20but%20I%20will%20not%20rejoice%20in%20the%20death%20of%20one,%20not%20even%20an%20enemy." ] }, { "sentence": "I am certain he would call for Israels bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released https://t.co/haahcqcuAf", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/haahcqcuAf" ] }, { "sentence": " Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 1, 2023", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1719524029600612666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "We've previously written on other rumors related to King, including whether the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself and whether King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/martin-luther-king-day-2024/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mlk-fbi-letter-kill-himself/?collection=465970", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/martin-luther-king-jr-hospital-bill-julia-roberts/?collection=465970" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/truckers-strike-thanksgiving/", "claim": "Are US Truckers Planning a Nationwide Strike Over Thanksgiving?", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "11/13/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Organizing large-scale strikes ranges from difficult to nearly impossible for the trucking industry in its current form. " ], "justification": "In the aftermath of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, many online spoke up to support current President Donald Trump, including groups of truckers. Members of the private Facebook group, Stop the Tires 2020, called for a nationwide truckers' shutdown to protest among other things Bidens environmental policies that will include a transition to renewable energy sources. aftermath truckers transition The group which as of the time of writing had grown to more than 68,000 members since its founding on Nov. 6, 2020 planned a strike for Nov. 11, 2020, Veterans Day, and if that was ineffective, would continue the strike from Nov. 26 to 29, 2020, during the Thanksgiving holidays. According to a post from one of the group's administrators: group planned Tiktok videos of individuals stating they were truckers and describing their plans to strike on the aforementioned dates also went viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=fTaPCcyqaG0&app=desktop Snopes readers asked us if such strikes were indeed taking place, and if they would impact the delivery of basic food and necessities. We learned that a number of truckers claimed to have participated in the Veterans Day strike. But the actual effectiveness of the past strikes as well as the upcoming ones are yet to be determined. Before looking at the nature and effectiveness of these strikes we had to determine whether nationwide and industry-wide strikes were even likely for U.S.-based truckers. The answer is complicated. A report from Business Insider looked at laws from the administration of President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s that resulted in a decline in wages, and the eventual decline in union membership in the trucking industry. Deregulation laws were justified because they reportedly saved consumers money, but at the cost of truckers wages and working conditions. Hourly wages for heavy and trailer-truck drivers have steadily gone down since then. Business Insider Deregulation laws saved consumers Unions also lost much of their power and membership. A few decades ago, large numbers of truckers were unionized and carried out successful strikes in the '70s. The Teamsters, a labor union that once boasted more than 2 million truckers as members, now has around 75,000 members. And with more independent truckers and companies it is considered extremely challenging to wrangle that many truckers together, because they have neither the time nor resources. Case in point, in April 2019: Tens of thousands of truck drivers planned a work stoppage in a much-hyped Black Smoke Matters protest, but ultimately only a smattering of people in different locations participated. Unions successful strikes challenging April 2019: On Nov. 11, and even after that date had passed, dozens of members of Stop the Tires 2020 posted pictures on the private group claiming they were participating in a strike by refusing to drive. Some of their posts are below: But there was little evidence that these stoppages had any impact. WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroits local station, reported on Nov. 11, So far, the call for a one-day strike seems to be all talk, as the trucking industry is humming along. Truckers the station interviewed were not participating, but stated that the strikers concerns made sense, and should be taken seriously: WWJ Newsradio 950 Larry Fuentes, the manager of a large logistics company in metro Detroit told WWJ his truckers have not joined it, but \"I can have some understanding of what they're coming for. Their livelihoods are at stake.\" He added that a strike would devastate the industry. Samuel Ford, a truck driver from Brownstown, Mich., added that he hasn't joined it, but the drivers in the strike group have a point. \"Truckers are very often overlooked ... But they do have a very significant say-so over how this country is run,\" he said. Not all truckers are part of these particular anti-Biden strikes. After the election results were announced on Nov. 7, 2020, the American Trucking Associations released a statement congratulating Biden and calling for more infrastructure investment. American Trucking Associations Other groups that claimed to strike said they were not defending any one political party, but wanted to improve their working conditions and wages. Over the summer truckers also organized to protest decreased freight rates and working conditions during the pandemic. groups the summer Indeed, before the elections, the truckers running the supply chain for United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) that supplies Whole Foods and other grocery stores in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut threatened to strike over what they said was UNFI's failure to comply with COVID-19 safety guidelines. The truckers, represented by Teamsters, along with workers at distribution centers in California, said the company was not providing workers with adequate protective equipment, including face masks, and disinfecting and cleaning workspaces. But they reached an agreement with the company by early November. threatened agreement Since, as of this writing, the strikes planned for late-November are yet to happen, their effectiveness is still to be determined. We will keep an eye on the events and post an update once we have more information. UPDATE Nov. 18, 2020: Stop the Tires 2020 creator Jeremy Rewoldt called off the Thanksgiving holiday work stoppage, saying \"Now is not the time.\" In an appearance on a video blog, he admitted that he had previously made an \"emotion-based decision based on a presumed result of the election that hasnt been certified yet.\" He added that the administrative team had fractured over disagreements around the purpose of their Facebook group, and he posted on the page: \"When this group was made the intentions were to talk and BS amongst a few, if not a couple hundred, people, my friends and others included. What I though was going to be a few hundred turned into 75K people who I now had to voice for. The group's profile image, on Nov. 18, said \"Delayed.\" called off profile image", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ADT-mzE8XO3XHpH7pTolsUydtqP9cKUO", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VzrusuULOewluhoJnqhFItpxkkcvt_IA", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zYoFQ8DbQ-ppFvTHjrDGObHxCDFlFaiH", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Gu8iJ-kAdVFsg5BDBWsT2_f-eY4DLpU-", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1p9Bl4vleJmEZ_UzBPzGS996rwf1bXZ6w", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the aftermath of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, many online spoke up to support current President Donald Trump, including groups of truckers. Members of the private Facebook group, Stop the Tires 2020, called for a nationwide truckers' shutdown to protest among other things Bidens environmental policies that will include a transition to renewable energy sources.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54909817", "https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/truckers-plan-strike-over-biden-possibly-banning-fracking-tout-trumps-protecting-blue-collar-workers", "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-biden-what-is-fracking/" ] }, { "sentence": "The group which as of the time of writing had grown to more than 68,000 members since its founding on Nov. 6, 2020 planned a strike for Nov. 11, 2020, Veterans Day, and if that was ineffective, would continue the strike from Nov. 26 to 29, 2020, during the Thanksgiving holidays. According to a post from one of the group's administrators: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/groups/stopthetires2020/about", "https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/truckers-plan-strike-over-biden-possibly-banning-fracking-tout-trumps-protecting-blue-collar-workers", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-12.40.22-PM.png" ] }, { "sentence": "Before looking at the nature and effectiveness of these strikes we had to determine whether nationwide and industry-wide strikes were even likely for U.S.-based truckers. The answer is complicated. A report from Business Insider looked at laws from the administration of President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s that resulted in a decline in wages, and the eventual decline in union membership in the trucking industry. Deregulation laws were justified because they reportedly saved consumers money, but at the cost of truckers wages and working conditions. Hourly wages for heavy and trailer-truck drivers have steadily gone down since then.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-truck-driver-truckers-strike-reasons-2019-10?r=US&IR=T", "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-01-op-52465-story.html", "https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-truck-driver-truckers-strike-reasons-2019-10?r=US&IR=T" ] }, { "sentence": "Unions also lost much of their power and membership. A few decades ago, large numbers of truckers were unionized and carried out successful strikes in the '70s. The Teamsters, a labor union that once boasted more than 2 million truckers as members, now has around 75,000 members. And with more independent truckers and companies it is considered extremely challenging to wrangle that many truckers together, because they have neither the time nor resources. Case in point, in April 2019: Tens of thousands of truck drivers planned a work stoppage in a much-hyped Black Smoke Matters protest, but ultimately only a smattering of people in different locations participated.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/truck-drivers-held-protest-over-industry-issues-2019-4", "https://www.history.com/news/oil-crisis-1973-truck-strike?fbclid=IwAR3kUbw2GeEW53XG2v9Q5YO9YSsOqv-DHj8D1zbCX8inTtKPRGWYW-ft6HE", "https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-truck-driver-truckers-strike-reasons-2019-10?r=US&IR=T", "https://www.businessinsider.com/truck-drivers-held-protest-over-industry-issues-2019-4" ] }, { "sentence": " ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/Screen-Shot-2020-11-13-at-12.35.01-PM-r.png" ] }, { "sentence": "But there was little evidence that these stoppages had any impact. WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroits local station, reported on Nov. 11, So far, the call for a one-day strike seems to be all talk, as the trucking industry is humming along. Truckers the station interviewed were not participating, but stated that the strikers concerns made sense, and should be taken seriously:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.radio.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/trucker-group-threatens-nationwide-strike-over-biden-electio" ] }, { "sentence": "Not all truckers are part of these particular anti-Biden strikes. After the election results were announced on Nov. 7, 2020, the American Trucking Associations released a statement congratulating Biden and calling for more infrastructure investment.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.trucking.org/news-insights/trucking-industry-congratulates-president-elect-biden-campaign-victory" ] }, { "sentence": "Other groups that claimed to strike said they were not defending any one political party, but wanted to improve their working conditions and wages. Over the summer truckers also organized to protest decreased freight rates and working conditions during the pandemic.", "hrefs": [ "https://cdllife.com/2020/truck-drivers-may-be-threatening-to-strike-in-wake-of-election-coronavirus-regulations/", "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/strikes-erupt-us-essential-workers-demand-better-protection-amid-pandemic" ] }, { "sentence": "Indeed, before the elections, the truckers running the supply chain for United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) that supplies Whole Foods and other grocery stores in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut threatened to strike over what they said was UNFI's failure to comply with COVID-19 safety guidelines. The truckers, represented by Teamsters, along with workers at distribution centers in California, said the company was not providing workers with adequate protective equipment, including face masks, and disinfecting and cleaning workspaces. But they reached an agreement with the company by early November.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.trucker.com/drivers/article/21147450/tristate-truckers-reach-agreement-before-strike", "https://www.trucker.com/drivers/article/21147450/tristate-truckers-reach-agreement-before-strike" ] }, { "sentence": "UPDATE Nov. 18, 2020: Stop the Tires 2020 creator Jeremy Rewoldt called off the Thanksgiving holiday work stoppage, saying \"Now is not the time.\" In an appearance on a video blog, he admitted that he had previously made an \"emotion-based decision based on a presumed result of the election that hasnt been certified yet.\" He added that the administrative team had fractured over disagreements around the purpose of their Facebook group, and he posted on the page: \"When this group was made the intentions were to talk and BS amongst a few, if not a couple hundred, people, my friends and others included. What I though was going to be a few hundred turned into 75K people who I now had to voice for. The group's profile image, on Nov. 18, said \"Delayed.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thetrucker.com/trucking-news/the-nation/stop-the-tires-2020-calls-off-thanksgiving-weekend-work-stoppage#:~:text=Stop%20the%20Tires%202020%20calls%20off%20Thanksgiving%20weekend%20work%20stoppage,-By&text=The%20Founder%20of%20the%20Stop,Now%20is%20not%20the%20time.%E2%80%9D", "https://www.facebook.com/stopthetires/photos/p.119407046643496/119407046643496" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nancy-pelosi-crime-family/", "claim": "Is the 'Nancy Pelosi Crime Family' meme true to the facts?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "01/29/2019", "sci_digest": [ "And where does the 'Pelosi Crime Family' fall on a scale of 'innocent' to 'Gambino'?" ], "justification": "An image graphic supposedly documenting the various misdeeds of the \"Pelosi Crime Family\" -- including perjury, securities fraud, and simply being rich -- was circulated on social media in January 2019. We've examined each of the accusations leveled within against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her husband, her father, her brother, and her son individually and found them to be largely overstated, misrepresented, or based on unreliable information: Was Nancy Pelosi's father, Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., a constant companion of Benjamin \"Benny Tratta\" Magliano? Status: UNPROVEN The facts: This claim is a verbatim reproduction of the introductory paragraph of a June 2015 blog post published on the Typepad blog \"Bitterqueen\" by Phillip Crawford, Jr., the author of the 2015 book The Mafia and the Gay, which was reportedly based on FBI files obtained pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Bitterqueen The Mafia and the Gay Crawford wrote that Peter Galiano, a boxer who was caught up in a draft-dodging scheme in the 1940s, told federal agents in 1947 that D'Alesandro was a \"constant companion\" of the Boston mobster. When the FBI examined these associations in 1961, however, before D'Alesandro received a presidential appointment to the Federal Renegotiation Board, Galiano said that his statements were based on rumor and hearsay and that he couldn't recall where he had come across that information: 1947: Peter C. Galiano, Baltimore, Maryland, advised that Thomas D'Alesandro was a constant companion of John Cataneo, Benjamin Magliano, also known as Benny Trotta, and [redacted], who were described as \"local big-time gamblers.\" Mr. Galiano stated that these individuals had worked hard for Thomas D'Alesandro's re-election to Congress and in his campaign at that time to become Mayor of Baltimore. Peter C. Galiano, Baltimore, Maryland, advised during the current investigation that his previous statements were based only on rumor and hearsay. He stated that he could not recall who gave him this information or whether or not there was any truth to the allegations. He further explained that he was never well acquainted with any of the men he had mentioned and had no personal knowledge of their affairs. Galiano wasn't the only person to accuse D'Alesandro of having ties to the Boston mob, but those allegations were never officially corroborated and they never resulted in any charges being brought against D'Alesandro. In fact, D'Alesandro was appointed to the Federal Renegotiation Board by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 despite an FBI investigation into those alleged associations. Does Nancy Pelosi own Goat Hill Pizza, a restaurant suspected of harboring trafficking? Status: The Facts: Nancy Pelosi does not own a pizza parlor, and Goat Hill Pizza is not suspected of harboring child trafficking by any law enforcement agencies. This claim first started circulating in 2016 as part of a larger nonsensical and repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory known as \"Pizzagate,\" in which online trolls asserted that innocuous words such as \"pizza\" and \"cheese\" were actually code words referring to child sex trafficking. Although this conspiracy theory was largely focused on the Washington, D.C,. pizza parlor \"Comet Ping Pong,\" Pelosi was also accused of running her own pedophilia ring back in San Francisco out of Goat Hill Pizza. 2016 Pizzagate code words Why? Because a single document from 2004 listed \"Philip@GoatHill.com\" as the email address for Nancy Pelosi. While conspiracy theorists may contend that this tidbit of information is somehow proof that a high-profile politician was running a pedophilia ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor, a much more plausible (and far less sensational) explanation is evident: it was a filing error. 2004 Philip DeAndrade co-founded Goat Hill Pizza in the 1970s, but by 1987 he was working on Nancy Pelosi's staff. It's likely that DeAndrade accidentally put his own email address, instead of Pelosi's, into a form. Regardless, one spurious appearance of an email address can in no way be construed as proof that Pelosi owns a pizza parlor. Furthermore, the only persons who have suspected this pizza parlor of facilitating child trafficking are online conspiracy theorists and not genuine law enforcement agencies. staff Did Nancy Pelosi hold a secret fundraiser for Islamist and Hamas-linked groups? Status: The Facts: Despite the wording suggesting that Pelosi hosted a \"secret fundraiser\" to for Islamist- and Hamas-linked groups, this claim refers to a fundraiser held for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The Islamist and Hamas-linked groups portion of the claim is largely based on the fact that Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), attended the fundraiser. A number of other Muslim groups were also reportedly in attendance at the fundraiser, along with Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress. The Daily Caller was among the first to draw attention to Awad's attendance at this fundraiser: Daily Caller Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi headlined a high-dollar fundraiser in May that was attended by U.S.-based Islamist groups and individuals linked by the U.S. government to the Hamas jihad group and to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood movement. The donors at the undisclosed May 16 event included Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Investigative Project on Terrorism. The CAIR group was named an unindicted conspirator in a 2007 trial of a Hamas money-smuggling group. While it's true that CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator during the 2007 case of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), an Islamic charity eventually convicted of funding Islamic militant groups, CAIR was not charged with any criminal activity in connection with that case. Furthermore, CAIR was one of nearly 250 organizations who were given the \"unindicted co-conspirator\" label during the HLF case: 250 organizations CAIR is an aggressive Muslim civil liberties organization, modeled on the Anti Defamation League, that has made it a target for criticism. It was indeed named as an unindicted co-conspirator or joint venturer in the Holy Land Foundation case -- an Islamic charity that in 2008 was convicted of funding Islamic militant groups. But CAIR was not alone in that designation; nearly 250 other organizations and individuals were also named. The federal government said the organizations were included on the list in order to produce evidence at the trial, but the district court and a federal appeals court later ruled that it had been a mistake to make the list public. The New York Times also reported that \"unindicted co-conspirators\" on this list were not charged with any crimes: reported Technically, the prosecution can introduce statements made by any individual or organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator without such statements being dismissed as hearsay. Those on the list have not been charged with anything, but they are concerned that the label of unindicted co-conspirator will forever taint them, particularly if the Holy Land group is convicted, and that they will have no legal recourse. CAIR, of course, also denied having links to any terrorist organizations. denied So Pelosi and other Democrats held a Democratic fundraiser in 2012 that was attended by a number of leaders from various Muslim groups. While some critics may label groups such as CAIR as \"Hamas-linked,\" that label is disputed. Was Nancy Pelosi's son, Paul Pelosi, Jr., charged with securities fraud? Status: false The Facts: In July 2014, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced they were bringing fraud charges against four individuals involved with the company Natural Blue Resources Inc. Although Paul Pelosi, Jr. did work for that company, he was not one of the individuals charged with securities fraud by the SEC, who didn't even mention Pelosi Jr.'s name when they first announced the charges: announced The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against four individuals and a microcap company for concealing from investors that two lawbreakers ran the company. According to the SECs orders instituting administrative proceedings, the mission of Natural Blue Resources Inc. was to create, acquire, or otherwise invest in environmentally-friendly companies, including an initiative to locate, purify, and sell water recovered from underground aquifers in New Mexico and other areas with depleting water resources. What investors didnt know was that two individuals with prior law violations -- James E. Cohen and Joseph Corazzi -- secretly controlled the operational and management decisions of Natural Blue while calling themselves outside consultants. This arrangement enabled them to be de facto officers of Natural Blue and personally profit from the company without disclosing their past brushes with the law to investors. Cohen, who lives in Windermere, Fla., was previously incarcerated for financial fraud. Corazzi, who resides in Albuquerque, N.M., was previously charged with violating federal securities laws and permanently barred from acting as an officer or director of a public company ... The other two individuals charged in the case are Toney Anaya and Erik Perry, who were former chief executive officers at Natural Blue. The SECs orders find that they misled investors by failing to disclose that Cohen and Corazzi were running the company in spite of their criminal or disciplinary histories. Subsequent SEC filings listed Paul Pelosi, Jr. as President and Board member of Natural Blue from 24 August 2009 to 10 January 2010. So Nancy Pelosi's son was involved with a company that was charged with securities fraud years later, he was never personally charged with a crime. filings Was Nancy Pelosi's brother, Franklin D. Roosevelt D'Alesandro, charged with lying during a rape trial? Status: The Facts: Nancy Pelosi's brother, Franklin D. Roosevelt D'Alesandro, was charged with perjury during a rape trial in the 1950s. However, he was eventually acquitted of those charges. acquitted In 1953, D'Alesandro and 13 other youths went on trial in Baltimore for \"moral charges\" involving two young girls, aged 11 and 14. D'Alesandro, who was 20 at the time and was charged with statutory rape, testified that he had never seen the victims before. Although he was eventually acquitted of the rape charges (he was the only defendant to be acquitted during the trials), he was later charged with perjury. trial The Denton Journal reported at the time that \"The perjury charge resulted from that trial. The state contended D'Alesandro lied in denying he had ever seen the girls before, or had been in a car with three other youths who testified at their trials he was with them.\" reported Just as with the rape charges, however, D'Alesandro was eventually acquitted of the perjury charges: A jury of four women and eight men deliberated 6 hour and 16 minutes here last night before acquitting Franklin Roosevelt D'Alesandro, 21-year-old son of Baltimore's mayor, of a perjury charge. The \"not guilty\" verdict, delivered in a loud voice by Mrs. Stella B. Hughes, jury foreman, to a tension-taught crowd in Wicomico County Circuit Court, ended a 5-day trial. Young D'Alesandro, calm and poised throughout the long hours of testimony and argument and seemingly endless wait on the verdict, was jubilant when he heard the decision. After receiving a kiss on the hand from his fiancee and hugs and kisses from his crying mother, D'Alesandro planted a kiss on the cheek of Joseph Sherbow, former Baltimore Circuit Court judge, who headed the defense staff. It was Sherbow who successfully defended young D'Alesandro on a statutory rape charge in Baltimore last November when he was the only one of 16 defendents to be acquitted in a series of morals trials resulting from sex charges brought by two young girl cousins .. \"In order to acquit this defendant,\" Asst. State's Atty. J Harold Grady said. \"You must be convinced these eight witness who appeared before you entered into a conspiracy and made up their story out of whole cloth.\" The defense countered that the only evidence of contraindications came from a \"parade of trash.\" Chief witness for the defense Mary Ann Jankowski, 20-year-old petite blonde fiancee of the defendant. She testified that at the time of the alleged sex offenses last July, young D'Alessandro spent every evening with her and her parents. Although it's possible that D'Alessandro's political power had something to do with his acquittal (whether directly or indirectly), the fact of the matter is that he was found not guilty of any crimes. Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul has a net worth of over $200 million? Status: UNPROVEN The Facts: Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul is indeed a successful businessman and investor, but the claim that he has a net worth of $202 million (which has nothing to do with criminal activity) appears to be based on a misreading of a 2015 article published by the National Review. The conservative publication reported at the time that Pelosi (not specifically her husband) listed assets worth between $43.4 million and $202 million on her 2014 financial disclosure forms: National Review Though financial-disclosure forms list only ranges of assets and liabilities, Pelosi listed between $42.4 million and $199.5 million in assets in 2013, which was enough for Bloomberg Business to deem her the richest member of House leadership from either party. By 2014, she and her husband, investment banker Paul Pelosi, were doing even better: She reported between $43.4 million and $202 million in assets. The \"Pelosi Crime Family\" meme refers to the highest possible figure within a very broad range and incorrectly refers to this number as Pelosi's net worth. However, the figure actually states the estimated value of Pelosi's assets and doesn't offset it with other financial aspects such as debt: [T]he financial disclosures dont just show substantial assets -- the Pelosis have gone into lots of debt, too. Pelosi and her husband are currently paying mortgages on seven properties, totaling between approximately $9.8 million and $46.5 million in 2014, likely accruing big tax savings in the process. The couple also opened home-equity lines of credit on four of these properties, adding between approximately $1.7 million and $6.5 million to their liabilities. A 2015 Politico article reported Pelosi's net worth at around $30 million. $30 million Sherman, Jake. \"Boehner's Condo, Pelosi's Vineyard: A Peek at Leaders' Wealth.\"\r Politico. 15 June 2015. Denton Journal. \"Wicomic Jury Acquits D'Alesandro of Perjury.\"\r 28 May 1954. Rogers, Brooke \"Nancy Pelosis Life in the 0.1 Percent.\"\r The National Review. 1 July 2015. Munro, Neil. \"Pelosi Holds Secret Fundraiser with Islamists, Hamas-Linked Groups.\"\r The Daily Caller. 2 November 2012. The News. \"Youths Trial Underway In Baltimore.\"\r 30 October 1953. SEC.gov. \"SEC Announces Charges in Scheme to Secretly Enable Lawbreakers to Run Microcap Company.\"\r 16 July 2014. SEC.gov. \"SEC Announces Charges in Scheme to Secretly Enable Lawbreakers to Run Microcap Company.\"\r 16 July 2014. Kessler, Glenn. \"The King Hearings: Is CAIR a 'Terrorist Organization?'\"\r The Washington Post. 10 March 2011. Lindsey, Robert. \"20 Years After a 'Summer of Love,' Haight-Ashbury Looks Back.\"\r The New York Times. 2 July 1987. Aischm Gergor. \"Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories.\"\r The New York Times. 10 December 2016. Crawford, Phillip. \"FBI Files: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's Father Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. Was 'Constant Companion' of Notorious Mobster Benjamin Magliano.\"\r BitterQueen. 4 July 2015.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1yV-IPQJTzFOYiYqLpK6-zaoz6H6erpCP" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The facts: This claim is a verbatim reproduction of the introductory paragraph of a June 2015 blog post published on the Typepad blog \"Bitterqueen\" by Phillip Crawford, Jr., the author of the 2015 book The Mafia and the Gay, which was reportedly based on FBI files obtained pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).", "hrefs": [ "https://bitterqueen.typepad.com/friends_of_ours/2015/07/fbi-files-congresswoman-nancy-pelosis-father-thomas-dalesandro-jr-was-constant-companion-of-notoriou.html", "https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gqmym3/how-the-mafia-once-controlled-the-new-york-gay-scene-616" ] }, { "sentence": "This claim first started circulating in 2016 as part of a larger nonsensical and repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory known as \"Pizzagate,\" in which online trolls asserted that innocuous words such as \"pizza\" and \"cheese\" were actually code words referring to child sex trafficking. Although this conspiracy theory was largely focused on the Washington, D.C,. pizza parlor \"Comet Ping Pong,\" Pelosi was also accused of running her own pedophilia ring back in San Francisco out of Goat Hill Pizza.", "hrefs": [ "https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1442209", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pizzagate-conspiracy/", "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/10/business/media/pizzagate.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Why? Because a single document from 2004 listed \"Philip@GoatHill.com\" as the email address for Nancy Pelosi. While conspiracy theorists may contend that this tidbit of information is somehow proof that a high-profile politician was running a pedophilia ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor, a much more plausible (and far less sensational) explanation is evident: it was a filing error.", "hrefs": [ "https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-elections/2004-general/list_of_elected_candidates.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Philip DeAndrade co-founded Goat Hill Pizza in the 1970s, but by 1987 he was working on Nancy Pelosi's staff. It's likely that DeAndrade accidentally put his own email address, instead of Pelosi's, into a form. Regardless, one spurious appearance of an email address can in no way be construed as proof that Pelosi owns a pizza parlor. Furthermore, the only persons who have suspected this pizza parlor of facilitating child trafficking are online conspiracy theorists and not genuine law enforcement agencies.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/02/us/20-years-after-a-summer-of-love-haight-ashbury-looks-back.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Daily Caller was among the first to draw attention to Awad's attendance at this fundraiser:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/ZG3Z4" ] }, { "sentence": "While it's true that CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator during the 2007 case of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), an Islamic charity eventually convicted of funding Islamic militant groups, CAIR was not charged with any criminal activity in connection with that case. Furthermore, CAIR was one of nearly 250 organizations who were given the \"unindicted co-conspirator\" label during the HLF case:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-king-hearings-is-cair-a-terrorist-organization/2011/03/10/AB3AdTQ_blog.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The New York Times also reported that \"unindicted co-conspirators\" on this list were not charged with any crimes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/us/16charity.html" ] }, { "sentence": "CAIR, of course, also denied having links to any terrorist organizations.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cair.com/dispelling_rumors_about_cair" ] }, { "sentence": "The Facts: In July 2014, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced they were bringing fraud charges against four individuals involved with the company Natural Blue Resources Inc. Although Paul Pelosi, Jr. did work for that company, he was not one of the individuals charged with securities fraud by the SEC, who didn't even mention Pelosi Jr.'s name when they first announced the charges:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2014-137" ] }, { "sentence": "Subsequent SEC filings listed Paul Pelosi, Jr. as President and Board member of Natural Blue from 24 August 2009 to 10 January 2010. So Nancy Pelosi's son was involved with a company that was charged with securities fraud years later, he was never personally charged with a crime.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sec.gov/alj/aljdec/2015/id863cff.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The Facts: Nancy Pelosi's brother, Franklin D. Roosevelt D'Alesandro, was charged with perjury during a rape trial in the 1950s. However, he was eventually acquitted of those charges.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2007-02-22-0702220127-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In 1953, D'Alesandro and 13 other youths went on trial in Baltimore for \"moral charges\" involving two young girls, aged 11 and 14. D'Alesandro, who was 20 at the time and was charged with statutory rape, testified that he had never seen the victims before. Although he was eventually acquitted of the rape charges (he was the only defendant to be acquitted during the trials), he was later charged with perjury.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27797009/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Denton Journal reported at the time that \"The perjury charge resulted from that trial. The state contended D'Alesandro lied in denying he had ever seen the girls before, or had been in a car with three other youths who testified at their trials he was with them.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27797131/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Facts: Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul is indeed a successful businessman and investor, but the claim that he has a net worth of $202 million (which has nothing to do with criminal activity) appears to be based on a misreading of a 2015 article published by the National Review. The conservative publication reported at the time that Pelosi (not specifically her husband) listed assets worth between $43.4 million and $202 million on her 2014 financial disclosure forms:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/07/nancy-pelosi-wealth-liberal-hypocrisy/" ] }, { "sentence": "A 2015 Politico article reported Pelosi's net worth at around $30 million.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/john-boehner-net-worth-nancy-pelosi-net-worth-congress-members-119008" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bait-of-the-union/", "claim": "Was Rebekah Erler, a guest at the State of the Union address, deliberately placed or organized?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/22/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: State of the Union address guest Rebekah Erler has been revealed as a 'Democratic operative.'" ], "justification": " Claim: After the 2015 State of the Union address, Obama family guest Rebekah Erler was revealed to be a Democratic operative. : Rebekah Erler listed previous work as a staffer on the campaign of Democratic Senator Patty Murray. Erler is a planted \"Democratic operative\" whose background was uncovered after the State of the Union address in January 2015. Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] Rebekah Erler was a Democratic campaign staffer? Was she a plant in the SOTU speech? Origins: On 20 January 2015, as President Barack Obama touched on a number of current issues in the annual State of the Union address, among his talking points was the economy and its effects on average Americans. President Obama referenced a 36-year-old woman in attendance named Rebekah Erler, whom he described as an American parent struggling to make ends meet after the economic downturn adversely affected her husband Ben's construction business. Erler was mentioned early on in President Obama's address, as he broached the issue of the economy: Seven years ago, Rebekah and Ben Erler of Minneapolis were newlyweds. She waited tables. He worked construction. Their first child, Jack, was on the way. They were young and in love in America, and it doesn't get much better than that. \"If only we had known,\" Rebekah wrote to me last spring, \"what was about to happen to the housing and construction market.\" As the crisis worsened, Ben's business dried up, so he took what jobs he could find, even if they kept him on the road for long stretches of time. Rebekah took out student loans, enrolled in community college, and retrained for a new career. They sacrificed for each other. And slowly, it paid off. They bought their first home. They had a second son, Henry. Rebekah got a better job, and then a raise. Ben is back in construction and home for dinner every night. \"It is amazing,\" Rebekah wrote, \"what you can bounce back from when you have to ... we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.\" We are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times. America, Rebekah and Ben's story is our story. They represent the millions who have worked hard, and scrimped, and sacrificed, and retooled. He mentioned Erler again as the speech concluded: I want our actions to tell every child, in every neighborhood: your life matters, and we are as committed to improving your life chances as we are for our own kids. I want them to grow up in a country where a young mom like Rebekah can sit down and write a letter to her President with a story to sum up these past six years: \"It is amazing what you can bounce back from when you have to ... we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.\" Erler's appearance at the 2015 State of the Union address was supplemented by a biography published to the White House blog that included background information on why Erler was invited to the address: biography Rebekah wrote the President last March to share what her family had been through together and to detail the rising cost of doing right for her family, from groceries to student loan payments to child care. Erler was among several middle class Americans with whom President Obama met personally in the summer of 2014 as a response to letters they'd written to him about their lives. In July 2014, a picture of President Obama dining with Erler in Minnesota was published to the White House blog along with details about other citizens whom the President had met during the summer: Lately, the Bear has been loose a lot, and this week will be no different. The President is hitting the road on a three-day swing to Colorado and Texas, where he will meet with Americans who've written him letters and whose stories their challenges and successes resonate with folks from across the country. The day after the [2014] State of the Union, a woman named Alex received a raise, allowing her to pay rent and afford groceries without worry. Alex's boss was inspired by the President's call and increased her wage right away. Earlier this year, Alex wrote the President to say \"thank you.\" Tonight, the President will deliver his reply in person when he meets Alex for dinner in Denver. And tomorrow, she'll introduce the President before his remarks in Denver. Erler was not mentioned by name in the text of that blog post, but she was identified in a caption that accompanied its image: \"President Barack Obama has lunch with Rebekah Erler at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis, Minn., June 26, 2014. Erler is a 36-year-old working wife and mother of two pre-school aged boys who had written the President a letter about economic difficulties.\" blog post Immediately after President Obama's June 2014 meeting with Erler, Republicans in Minnesota published a press release titled \"BUSTED: Obama Walks in Shoes of Former Democrat Campaign Staffer.\" A Reuters article published on 26 June 2014 included details about Erler's work history culled from her now-unavailable LinkedIn page: titled article After Obama chatted with Rebekah Erler, 36, over a cheese-filled \"Jucy Lucy\" hamburger at the dark-paneled Matt's Bar in Minneapolis, he drove to a city park where 350 invited participants were waiting. Erler, whose LinkedIn profile shows she was once a field organizer for Democratic Senator Patty Murray, wrote to Obama earlier this year to express her frustrations about the economy. Erler's LinkedIn page is either private or has since been deleted, but the claim Erler is a \"Democratic operative\" is somewhat misleading. Those identifying her as such refer to her as a former \"field staffer\" for the campaign of Patty Murray, a Democrat who represents the state of Washington in the U.S. Senate. Field staffers are generally the Patty Murray lowest ranking workers on the field team of any campaign, and Murray's state campaign has no exceptional link to the Obama administration. lowest ranking So while Erler may have worked for a time as a low-level campaign staffer for a Senator in Washington state, no evidence has been turned up suggesting her political involvement transcended that experience, that she is a \"Democratic operative\" or \"plant\" who furtively carries out tasks to further the agenda of that party, did not in fact come to President Obama's attention because she (like many other people) wrote a letter to him, or the circumstances of her life she described to him in that letter (which he referenced in the State of the Union address) were untruthful. The one hundred senators in the United States Congress employ hundreds (if not thousands) of people on their campaign staffs at any given time. Erler's prior work on a single Senate candidate's campaign was not a secret after she first met with President Obama in June 2014, and there's no indication her work in that capacity was of note. Nor has any evidence been presented that shows Erler was involved with politics in any paid position after she moved to Minnesota. Ultimately, Erler was not exposed as a \"plant\" following the State of the Union address, as her connection to the campaign of Sen. Patty Murray was widely publicized in June 2014. If Erler's authenticity was a concern for the Obama administration, they had six months of warning to put forth a different example but still chose Erler despite significant prior coverage of her work experience as a one-time field staffer. Last updated: 22 January 2015", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CVJxDedCq7CaNYQFujKON4B0h3HnVR2G" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-FJD31Qx3dwphCSZmgBlderxJY-6vmGr" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1MSA2LF5Ii__QM2u6S0V6ixNW7TDFrc4i" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Erler's appearance at the 2015 State of the Union address was supplemented by a biography published to the White House blog that included background information on why Erler was invited to the address:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/19/meet-rebekah-erler-guest-first-lady-state-union" ] }, { "sentence": "Erler was not mentioned by name in the text of that blog post, but she was identified in a caption that accompanied its image: \"President Barack Obama has lunch with Rebekah Erler at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis, Minn., June 26, 2014. Erler is a 36-year-old working wife and mother of two pre-school aged boys who had written the President a letter about economic difficulties.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/08/denver-austin-bear-loose-again" ] }, { "sentence": "Immediately after President Obama's June 2014 meeting with Erler, Republicans in Minnesota published a press release titled \"BUSTED: Obama Walks in Shoes of Former Democrat Campaign Staffer.\" A Reuters article published on 26 June 2014 included details about Erler's work history culled from her now-unavailable LinkedIn page:", "hrefs": [ "https://mngop.com/busted/", "https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/26/us-usa-obama-roadtrip-idUSKBN0F10C320140626" ] }, { "sentence": "Erler's LinkedIn page is either private or has since been deleted, but the claim Erler is a \"Democratic operative\" is somewhat misleading. Those identifying her as such refer to her as a former \"field staffer\" for the campaign of Patty Murray, a Democrat who represents the state of Washington in the U.S. Senate. Field staffers are generally the ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.murray.senate.gov/public/" ] }, { "sentence": "lowest ranking workers on the field team of any campaign, and Murray's state campaign has no exceptional link to the Obama administration.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_campaign_staff#Field_department" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/samsung-dog-skinning-machine/", "claim": "Samsung's Dog-Skinning Machine", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/26/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A graphic calling for a boycott of Samsung products over allegations of animal abuse is based on faulty information." ], "justification": "A call to boycott the South Korean multinational conglomerate Samsung (best known in the U.S. for their electronics products) has been widely shared over the company's alleged involvement in the manufacture and sale of a device purportedly used to skin dogs alive for food preparation: These machines are manufactured by Samsung to ripped the hair off dogs while they are still alive in the machine as it spins! Samsung supplies these machines to vendors and dog meat traders. Not only is Samsung actively helping the barbaric practice of dog eating to continue but are also contributing to the suffering of thousands of dogs that are being tortured and killed, by being boiled, blow torched or skinned alive, the most horrific brutal methods possible by the dog meat butchers. Samsung does not care! Their interest is only in profit. The device pictured in the graphic is real, but the accompanying description of it is inaccurate. This device is not manufactured or sold by Samsung, and it was not used to skin a live dog. The photograph of the dog carcass was taken by Swiss documentary photographer Didier Ruef in South Korea in 2002, who noted the device was being used to eliminate the fur from an already-dead dog: photograph South Korea. Kimje area. Dog's slaughter for meat. A machine spins the dead dog to get rid of its fur. While the notion of eating dog meat may be appalling to most westerners, Ruef observed that \"dog meat is a delicatessen [sic] of Korean traditional cooking\" and the dish known as Bosintang is \"made of dog meat cooked in a soup with various spices and vegetables.\" observed The machine depicted in the photograph probably wasn't designed for the sole purpose of skinning dogs. It closely resembles a contraption that is commonly used to de-feather slaughtered chickens and can readily be purchased commercially (although the version displayed here appears to be a homemade version). homemade So what does Samsung have to do with any of this? A petition posted to Change.org calls on major companies, such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Amazon, Samsung, and LG to help stop the \"heinous butchering and eating\" of dogs in South Korea. Although these companies do not directly contribute to the culinary habits of South Koreans, the petition holds that by remaining neutral, these companies are condoning the act of eating dogs: petition Bishop Desmond Tutu said, If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. As a major retailer of Samsung and LG products, you have the power to influence the S. Korean government to end the horrific cruelty that is perpetrated against innocent dogs and cats of South Korea. It's possible that whoever created the graphic seen here misread the petition and mistakenly associated the manufacture of the pictured machine with Samsung. ", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1tmFvLI8SBq-qLMeMWEz0IMjFzXafrBN_", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The device pictured in the graphic is real, but the accompanying description of it is inaccurate. This device is not manufactured or sold by Samsung, and it was not used to skin a live dog. The photograph of the dog carcass was taken by Swiss documentary photographer Didier Ruef in South Korea in 2002, who noted the device was being used to eliminate the fur from an already-dead dog:", "hrefs": [ "https://didierruef.photoshelter.com/image/I0000u5hQq7dfACg" ] }, { "sentence": "While the notion of eating dog meat may be appalling to most westerners, Ruef observed that \"dog meat is a delicatessen [sic] of Korean traditional cooking\" and the dish known as Bosintang is \"made of dog meat cooked in a soup with various spices and vegetables.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://didierruef.photoshelter.com/image?&_bqG=3&_bqH=eJxtT11LwzAU_TXriy_bw8QN8pDmXrvQJtF8FPIUitvqECezQ4a_3twytKiBnJyPnISryvLysv2oN6dH3TS6Ox4ut5vhc8_rfr24Wy_mc9oZZQIn2Patv9l158OxL2RywD3OlqVSsyWwiQFABsDEinmRSWe28XcV_1bx_6qQPo6f.RwTESZob2OSzpA0VqLOmTSapHTJYoPcIVzlw1Q7Yz2zXNfFOGDiGtg58.DQJgks0PDtaVjFCl87pXLUSusDbxKvUItIl4okyiTzw7l6peGb2vsfqohy4dmw696fnot2bFcjCsIvMLxzOw--&GI_ID=" ] }, { "sentence": "The machine depicted in the photograph probably wasn't designed for the sole purpose of skinning dogs. It closely resembles a contraption that is commonly used to de-feather slaughtered chickens and can readily be purchased commercially (although the version displayed here appears to be a homemade version). ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg4nAKYoD3Y" ] }, { "sentence": "So what does Samsung have to do with any of this? A petition posted to Change.org calls on major companies, such as AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Amazon, Samsung, and LG to help stop the \"heinous butchering and eating\" of dogs in South Korea. Although these companies do not directly contribute to the culinary habits of South Koreans, the petition holds that by remaining neutral, these companies are condoning the act of eating dogs:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.change.org/p/all-samsung-lg-retailers-help-stop-heinous-butchering-of-dogs-in-s-korea-boycott-samsung-lg" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-chickfila-voucher/", "claim": "Scam Alert: Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden Facebook Vouchers", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "03/15/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Viral Facebook posts on multiple pages and profiles claimed to offer a \"meal for two with drinks voucher offer for everyone!\"" ], "justification": "In early March 2022, we reviewed several reader emails that inquired about purported voucher offers for Olive Garden and Chick-fil-A on Facebook. The posts on multiple Facebook profiles and pages showed pictures of food at both restaurants and claimed to provide a \"meal for two with drinks\" for \"everyone.\" Olive Garden Chick-fil-A Facebook However, these were not legitimate offers. The fake voucher offer for Chick-fil-A appeared on facebook.com/ChickFans as well as other profiles and pages. This page is not managed by the fast food chicken chain: Chick-fil-A facebook.com/ChickFans This was the first step of a scam. We recommend reporting posts like these to Facebook. The post read as follows: Hello everyone Im Michael Gorham. I am very happy to announce Im the new CEO of Chick-Fil-A. Id like to start my new job off with a good deed for everyone as I know recent times have been tough which is why Im going to be rewarding everyone who shares&comments in the next 24 hours with a voucher to get meal for two at any Chick-Fil-A for lunch or dinner. To be clear, Andrew Truett Cathy is the CEO of Chick-fil-A, not someone named \"Michael Gorham.\" Andrew Truett Cathy Chick-fil-A Several helpful readers sent in screenshots of the purported voucher offer for Olive Garden. It was similar to the posts for Chick-fil-A, and had been going around since at least September 2021: Olive Garden Chick-fil-A This did not come from a legitimate Facebook page. The scam Facebook posts with the fake \"meal for two with drinks\" voucher offer for Olive Garden read as follows: Olive Garden Meal for two with drinks voucher offer for everyone! I'm Dave George, the president of Olive Garden. I know times have been tough so to help everyone out I have a special surprise for everyone who shares&comments then. Every person who does this by Sep 28th can get a voucher. Each voucher can be used at any Olive Garden restaurant to get a meal for two with drinks! Olive Garden Olive Garden Not only was there no voucher since it was a scam, but also Dave George hasn't been with Olive Garden since he retired in 2020. As of early 2022, the company's president was Dan Kiernan. Olive Garden he retired in 2020 Dan Kiernan After users commented on the above posts, the scammers directed them to other posts that looked like the one below: These scams have been going around since at least 2021. Notice that the post pictured above has photographs for Olive Garden but also a Chick-fil-A profile picture in the top-left corner. This indicated that the Facebook accounts that were involved had managed scams for both restaurant chains. The post read: Olive Garden Chick-fil-A #CONGRATULATIONS For those of you who have received comments from us, you have a chance to win them.To Enter???Step 1 = Like and ShareStep 2 = Enter here ? (link removed) ?Step 3 = coment DONELike and share our page below??????god bless you Upon clicking the link in the posts something we advise readers against doing we were led to rewardgiantztesters.com and then promotionsonlineusa.com. These websites appeared to lead to endless offers and surveys. Similar websites can also potentially lead to attempts for phishing, identity theft, or other similar outcomes. According to multiple pages we found that were pushing the same scams, these pages and profiles that promised the fake offers for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden may have been managed from Vietnam and Indonesia. multiple pages we found same scams Chick-fil-A Olive Garden Several of the profiles named \"Olive Garden Fans\" that are linked in the paragraph above appeared to have switched profile pictures from Olive Garden to Chick-fil-A to run one or both scams. Olive Garden Chick-fil-A Some of the profiles and pages that displayed the scams showed other businesses as well. The scammers appeared to also push fake voucher offers for Costco, Texas Roadhouse, and KFC. appeared to also push fake voucher offers Costco Texas Roadhouse KFC In sum, no, Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden were not giving away vouchers, gift cards, or anything else on Facebook that included a \"meal for two with drinks voucher offer.\" This was a scam. The official Facebook pages for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden feature blue verified badges. This symbol is an indication that a page is genuine. Chick-fil-A Olive Garden Chick-fil-A Olive Garden verified badges", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ClvenPycCmE2cRsCtlAYj56u3DEjau1d", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sDEX3Bj-U296wDWUff9eKHlBorf91OgA", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10Fw3hgp7nfQMxtluOMq9l04CNTp6G4bs", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In early March 2022, we reviewed several reader emails that inquired about purported voucher offers for Olive Garden and Chick-fil-A on Facebook. The posts on multiple Facebook profiles and pages showed pictures of food at both restaurants and claimed to provide a \"meal for two with drinks\" for \"everyone.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://snopes.com/tag/olive-garden", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-sunday-tradition/", "https://snopes.com/tag/facebook" ] }, { "sentence": "The fake voucher offer for Chick-fil-A appeared on facebook.com/ChickFans as well as other profiles and pages. This page is not managed by the fast food chicken chain:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-long-lines-lawsuit/", "https://archive.ph/OQaa5" ] }, { "sentence": " This was the first step of a scam. We recommend reporting posts like these to Facebook.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/03/chick-fil-a-voucher-scam-post.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "To be clear, Andrew Truett Cathy is the CEO of Chick-fil-A, not someone named \"Michael Gorham.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.chick-fil-a.com/stories/news/andrew-truett-cathy-named-third-chief-executive-officer-of-chick-fil-a-inc", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-tiktok-nuggets-recipe/" ] }, { "sentence": "Several helpful readers sent in screenshots of the purported voucher offer for Olive Garden. It was similar to the posts for Chick-fil-A, and had been going around since at least September 2021:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/articles/397177/abandoned-olive-garden/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/11/04/chick-fil-a-mistakenly-backs-sundays-national-sandwich-day/" ] }, { "sentence": " This did not come from a legitimate Facebook page.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/03/olive-garden-voucher-facebook-post.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "The scam Facebook posts with the fake \"meal for two with drinks\" voucher offer for Olive Garden read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-closing/" ] }, { "sentence": "I'm Dave George, the president of Olive Garden. I know times have been tough so to help everyone out I have a special surprise for everyone who shares&comments then. Every person who does this by Sep 28th can get a voucher. Each voucher can be used at any Olive Garden restaurant to get a meal for two with drinks!", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/12/olive-garden-ejects-cop-gun/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-flag-policy/" ] }, { "sentence": "Not only was there no voucher since it was a scam, but also Dave George hasn't been with Olive Garden since he retired in 2020. As of early 2022, the company's president was Dan Kiernan.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muslim-refugees-olive-garden/", "https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/dardens-operations-specialist-dave-george-retire", "https://www.darden.com/our-company/executive-leadership/dan-kiernan" ] }, { "sentence": " These scams have been going around since at least 2021.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/03/olive-garden-fans-steps-voucher.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "Notice that the post pictured above has photographs for Olive Garden but also a Chick-fil-A profile picture in the top-left corner. This indicated that the Facebook accounts that were involved had managed scams for both restaurant chains. The post read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-planned-parenthood/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/my-pleasure-chick-fil-a/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to multiple pages we found that were pushing the same scams, these pages and profiles that promised the fake offers for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden may have been managed from Vietnam and Indonesia.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/LIwGR", "https://archive.ph/YxbTx", "https://archive.ph/JCQ7C", "https://archive.ph/XubkZ", "https://archive.ph/coay3", "https://archive.ph/MKP9H", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-coupon-scam/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-trump-reelection/" ] }, { "sentence": "Several of the profiles named \"Olive Garden Fans\" that are linked in the paragraph above appeared to have switched profile pictures from Olive Garden to Chick-fil-A to run one or both scams.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden/", "https://archive.ph/OQaa5" ] }, { "sentence": "Some of the profiles and pages that displayed the scams showed other businesses as well. The scammers appeared to also push fake voucher offers for Costco, Texas Roadhouse, and KFC.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/t0MDM", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/costco/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/texas-roadhouse/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/kfc/" ] }, { "sentence": "In sum, no, Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden were not giving away vouchers, gift cards, or anything else on Facebook that included a \"meal for two with drinks voucher offer.\" This was a scam. The official Facebook pages for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden feature blue verified badges. This symbol is an indication that a page is genuine.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-gay-marriage/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/olive-garden-capitol-riot-hannity/", "https://www.facebook.com/ChickfilA/", "https://www.facebook.com/OliveGarden/", "https://www.facebook.com/help/196050490547892" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-covid-fundraising/", "claim": "Was COVID diagnosis of Trump used by his campaign to raise $421 million?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "10/02/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The requested dollar amount is a little suspicious. " ], "justification": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 2, 2020, shortly after news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump had tested positive for COVID-19, an image supposedly showing an email from his presidential campaign asking supporters to donate to Trump's recovery started going viral on social media: This email did not originate with the Trump campaign. Snopes' staff members who subscribe to the Trump team's campaign emails did not receive this request. The @TrumpEmail Twitter account, which monitors political emails from the Trump team, also reported that this email did not originate with the president's campaign: In addition to the fact that this email did not land in our inbox, the message also makes a somewhat suspicious request for a very precise monetary figure: $421 million. This is the same amount, according to The New York Times' report on the president's tax returns, that Trump appears to be personally responsible for in loans and debt. report The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Trump campaign have also confirmed that this email did not originate with them. RNC spokeswoman Mandi Merritt told PolitiFact: \"That is a fake.\" PolitiFact Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne; McIntire, Mike. \"Long-Concealed Records Show Trump's Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance.\"\r New York Times. 2 October 2020. Funke, Daniel. \"Trump Did Not Ask Supporters for $421 Million.\"\r Politifact. 2 October 2020.", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VO2RmeUsAG04lGBi8iQeqOUF3Vu8RR6a" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/" ] }, { "sentence": "This email did not originate with the Trump campaign. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/10/Copy-of-FEATURED-IMAGE-1200-Pixels-4.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition to the fact that this email did not land in our inbox, the message also makes a somewhat suspicious request for a very precise monetary figure: $421 million. This is the same amount, according to The New York Times' report on the president's tax returns, that Trump appears to be personally responsible for in loans and debt. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Trump campaign have also confirmed that this email did not originate with them. RNC spokeswoman Mandi Merritt told PolitiFact: \"That is a fake.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/02/tweets/trump-did-not-ask-supporters-421-million-help-him-/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/aug/17/julian-castro/julian-castro-says-california-besting-texas-creati/", "claim": "Today California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas.", "author": "Emma Hinchliffe", "posted": "08/17/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Ever-proud Texas has lately been bested in job gains and economic oomph by California, a Texas Democrat pokes. Julin Castro, the U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, brought up California during the Texas Democratic Partys state convention after noting that as governor, Republican Rick Perry taunted the west coast state for its economy not matching his home states pace. Today,the former San Antonio mayor told reportersJune 17, 2016, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. Maybe what we need to do is trade in Gov. Jerry Brown, of California, for Gov. Greg Abbott and get better results. Castro made a similar declaration in his evening keynote speech,telling delegates: This is what happens when a party doesnt believe in government in the first place but has absolute power over its people for decades. You know, they used to brag that Texas was doing so much better than big bad liberal California. But Texas Republicans managed to bungle that too. Because today California is kicking our butt in job development and economic growth. Castros backup Wondering how Castro reached his conclusion, we heard back from Manny Garcia, a state party official, who said by email that Castro drew on news stories and government data to find Texas trailing. Garcia also provided what he described as Castros personally preparedbackup document. Over the 12 months starting in June 2015, Castros footnoted document notes, Texas added an estimated 171,800 seasonally adjusted jobs,per the Texas Workforce Commission. California from April 2015 through April 2016reportedly added450,200 jobs, the document says. Castros document also declares that California has lately seen greater percentage increases in Gross Domestic Product. Between the first quarter of 2014 and the last quarter of 2015, the Bureau of Economic AnalysisannouncedJune 14, 2016, California saw a 4.1 percent increase in GDP, based on national prices for the goods and services produced within each state. Texas GDP had gone up 3.8 percent, per the bureau. Alsonotedby Castro, Californias real GDP grew 2.7 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2015; Texass GDP only grew 1.4 percent. Castros document further notes that from 2014 to 2015, per capita personal income in California grew by 5.3 percent, according toa March 2016 Bureau of Economic Analysis document. In the same year, per capita personal income in Texas grew 2.4 percent, according to the bureaufact sheet about Texas. Economists comment For our part, we noticed that Castro compared raw changes in jobs over slightly different time periods. Economists we queried agreed the population difference between the states makes raw counts less useful than rate-of-change comparisons. At the time Castro spoke, the latest availableU.S. Census Bureau population estimatesindicated that as of July 2015, the Golden State was home to 38.8 million people and Texas had 27 million residents--or 30 percent fewer. To compare job gains for each state over a similar period, we turned to Cheryl Abbot, a regional economist in the Dallas office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By email, Abbot advised that from May 2015 through April 2016, 32 states had statistically significant year-over-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment. The largest job gains, she said, were in California, Florida and Texas, with 440,300, 253,900 and 171,800 jobs gained, respectively. In percentage growth, Abbot said, the annual rate of jobs growth for California was 2.8 percent, compared with Texas 1.5 percent. So, booyah for California? We asked Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at the Royal Holloway University of London formerly employed by the University of Texas, to assess the jobs figures with Castros claim in mind. By email, Hamermesh replied that Castro was right for the short term though Texas continues to look better in the long view; from May 2006 to May 2016, the state saw job gains of 18.6 percent as California experienced 8 percent growth, Hamermesh said. After wedownloaded the governments monthly counts of jobs in each state, we found that as of May 2016, California had experienced greater percentage gains in employment than Texas for every 12-month period going back to 2011. Its only if you go back further that Texass jobs growth exceeds the growth for California. This doesnt entirely mean Texas loses out. Separately to our inquiry,Tara Sinclair, chief economist for Indeed, a job-posting service, pointed out by email that Texas has long enjoyed a lower unemployment rate--a facet Castro didnt mention. Sinclair drew on data posted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to show thatTexas unemployment rate has trailed Californias rate since before 2010. Sinclair also prepared agraphshowing that since about 1990, Texas has had a better nonfarm employment-to-population ratio than California, though both states have shown improvement since 2010: All in all, Sinclair said by email, focusing on the total number of people employed is misleading due to the different population sizes of the two states. By both the unemployment rate (a standard measure of labor market health) as well as the employment to population ratio, Texas's labor market actually looks healthier than California's. GDP and personal income Castros other suggested indicators--GDP and personal income growth--check out in Californias favor. We confirmed his provided GDP figures, also spotting two sets of inflation-adjusted Bureau of Economic Analysis figures of note: --Californias $2.2 trillion GDP in the first quarter of 2016 was up 4.7 percent from its $2.17 trillion GDP in the first quarter of 2015 while Texas first quarter 2016 GDP of $1.48 trillion was up 0.2 percent from $1.478 trillion 12 months before (figures in chained 2009 dollars). --Californias 2015 per capita real GDP of $56,395 was up 3.2 percent from $54,606 in 2014; Texass per capita GDP of $53,707 was up 1.8 percent from $52,742 in 2014. Meantime, the bureausstate-by-state breakoutshows California with the bigger improvement in personal income between the last quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2016. Personal income means net earnings from property income and other sources including government programs. California saw 0.9 percent growth in per capita personal income between the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, according to another bureau chart, while Texas saw 0.8 percent growth. California also saw greater growth by this metric each of the previous four quarters, per the chart, with Texas last having a growth edge in the fourth quarter of 2014: Our ruling Castro said that today, California is creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. These fightin words hold up based on recent jobs growth and relative changes in GDP and personal income. Still (just a tad whiney here) would it hurt to acknowledge that Texas continues to enjoy a lower unemployment rate? We rate this claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/d4bc09e3-1eeb-40d9-bf5b-e9623d046118", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "States", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WzmkNXFzTFE9TooxkTzJC9mpVR7uAOsN", "image_caption": "TRUE" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Today,the former San Antonio mayor told reportersJune 17, 2016, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. Maybe what we need to do is trade in Gov. Jerry Brown, of California, for Gov. Greg Abbott and get better results.", "hrefs": [ "http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/06/texas-democratic-convention-is-all-about-the-castro-brothers.html/" ] }, { "sentence": "Castro made a similar declaration in his evening keynote speech,telling delegates: This is what happens when a party doesnt believe in government in the first place but has absolute power over its people for decades. You know, they used to brag that Texas was doing so much better than big bad liberal California. But Texas Republicans managed to bungle that too. Because today California is kicking our butt in job development and economic growth.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOU3tAhf71o" ] }, { "sentence": "Wondering how Castro reached his conclusion, we heard back from Manny Garcia, a state party official, who said by email that Castro drew on news stories and government data to find Texas trailing. Garcia also provided what he described as Castros personally preparedbackup document.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-dZGK3xhqNp3RGmUeCzDDoMkZiibVxWBD39cZVBfVdw/edit?usp=sharing" ] }, { "sentence": "Over the 12 months starting in June 2015, Castros footnoted document notes, Texas added an estimated 171,800 seasonally adjusted jobs,per the Texas Workforce Commission. California from April 2015 through April 2016reportedly added450,200 jobs, the document says.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.twc.state.tx.us/files/news/press-release-061716-may-2016-labor-market-statistics-twc.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Castros document also declares that California has lately seen greater percentage increases in Gross Domestic Product. Between the first quarter of 2014 and the last quarter of 2015, the Bureau of Economic AnalysisannouncedJune 14, 2016, California saw a 4.1 percent increase in GDP, based on national prices for the goods and services produced within each state. Texas GDP had gone up 3.8 percent, per the bureau. Alsonotedby Castro, Californias real GDP grew 2.7 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2015; Texass GDP only grew 1.4 percent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/2016/pdf/qgsp0616.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Castros document further notes that from 2014 to 2015, per capita personal income in California grew by 5.3 percent, according toa March 2016 Bureau of Economic Analysis document. In the same year, per capita personal income in Texas grew 2.4 percent, according to the bureaufact sheet about Texas.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=06000&areatype=STATE&geotype=3" ] }, { "sentence": "For our part, we noticed that Castro compared raw changes in jobs over slightly different time periods. Economists we queried agreed the population difference between the states makes raw counts less useful than rate-of-change comparisons. At the time Castro spoke, the latest availableU.S. Census Bureau population estimatesindicated that as of July 2015, the Golden State was home to 38.8 million people and Texas had 27 million residents--or 30 percent fewer.", "hrefs": [ "http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/PEP/2015/PEPANNRES/0100000US%7C0100000US.04000%7C0200000US1%7C0200000US2%7C0200000US3%7C0200000US4" ] }, { "sentence": "After wedownloaded the governments monthly counts of jobs in each state, we found that as of May 2016, California had experienced greater percentage gains in employment than Texas for every 12-month period going back to 2011. Its only if you go back further that Texass jobs growth exceeds the growth for California.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SWc93kPCOfgL9Z1d4BInetSJ-BAz7WfRKfD78eE0j0Y/edit?usp=sharing" ] }, { "sentence": "This doesnt entirely mean Texas loses out. Separately to our inquiry,Tara Sinclair, chief economist for Indeed, a job-posting service, pointed out by email that Texas has long enjoyed a lower unemployment rate--a facet Castro didnt mention.", "hrefs": [ "http://blog.indeed.com/author/taras/" ] }, { "sentence": "Sinclair drew on data posted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to show thatTexas unemployment rate has trailed Californias rate since before 2010. Sinclair also prepared agraphshowing that since about 1990, Texas has had a better nonfarm employment-to-population ratio than California, though both states have shown improvement since 2010:", "hrefs": [ "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=5pL9" ] }, { "sentence": "Meantime, the bureausstate-by-state breakoutshows California with the bigger improvement in personal income between the last quarter of 2015 and first quarter of 2016. Personal income means net earnings from property income and other sources including government programs.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/spi/2016/_images/spi0616.png" ] }, { "sentence": "TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] }, { "sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/d4bc09e3-1eeb-40d9-bf5b-e9623d046118", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/d4bc09e3-1eeb-40d9-bf5b-e9623d046118" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photo-women-screaming-vaginas-protest-president/", "claim": "Is This a Photograph of Women 'Screaming Through Their Vaginas' to Protest Trump?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "06/28/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A long-circulating image from an art project became attached to an unrelated backstory about purportedly disgruntled anti-Trump protesters in June 2018." ], "justification": "On 27 June 2018 the Facebook page Uncle Sam's Misguided Children shared the photograph reproduced below, purportedly showing women \"screaming\" at United States President Donald Trump, but somehow through their vaginas: shared photograph Text on the image read: Not a joke. They gathered to scream at Trump through their vaginas. These are the people who want to control the government and teach your kids. Predictably, no documentary information was presented to support the claim, and Facebook users were both expected to and did take the explanation on its face. However, a reverse image search indicated that the image had been circulating since at least February 2016, well before President Donald Trump was elected. A number of backstories were previously attributed to the photograph. In February 2018, YouTube videos and blogs claimed that the images showed \"a new trend\" known as \"raising your skirt for diversity\": videos blogs claimed I follow a few accounts on Instagram that post hilarious feminist stuff (or, I suppose, anti-feminist stuff), and on one of those accounts today, I came across this: [Image.] Obviously, I had to investigate to see if Raising The Skirt is an Actual Thing, which is what led me to the sourcelink. And you guys, their About page is positively insane. It says, in big bold letters across the top, \"Reclaim your c*nt. Reclaim our c*nt.\" Only without the polite asterisks. The disgusting feminists of the world have officially outdone themselves. They've now launched a new project dubbed \"Raising the Skirt,\" which calls on women to perform a sick act in public. Case in point: Some of the more enthusiastic social justice warriors of the feminist movement have begun a project called \"Raising the Skirt,\" aimed at \"celebrating the diversity of vaginas.\" This is not a drill. There are actual women gathering with the sole purpose of raising their skirts, exposing their most intimate part to complete strangers. And they call it a celebration. At that point, the photograph was at least two years old, and had circulated once again on Reddit in July 2017: old Reddit Originally reported articles about the \"new feminist trend\" of skirt-raising dated back to September 2015, but did not include the photograph seen above: articles \"Raising the Skirt\" by artist Nicola Canavan is exploring [women's relationships with their genitals] in her series of portraits of everyday women, as they share the beauty of their bodies, while exploring their relationships with their vaginas and what they symbolise to them. A photograph labeled as \"feminists ... screaming through their vaginas\" at President Trump was taken in or earlier than February 2016, and was later attributed to artist Nicola Canavan's \"Raising the Skirt\" series of portraits. Canavan's work was not a \"feminist trend,\" but rather a photography project undertaken on a relatively small scale. We contacted Canavan, who confirmed that this is one of her images. Further, we found no evidence that either skirt-raising or vagina-screaming had become a popular activity for any reason. Sinclair, Leah. \"This Artist Is Pushing For Recognition Of Vagina Diversity.\" Dazed. 15 September 2015. Chicks on the Right. \"Raising Your Skirt To Celebrate Vagina Diversity Is a Thing Now.\" 20 February 2018. Mad World News. \"Disgusting Feminists Launch 'Raise the Skirt' Project, Want Women To Do SICK Act in Public.\" 20 February 2018. Raising The Skirt. \"About.\" Accessed 27 June 2018.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17jczGwpuosIv2Vd7gE1BaFWkCGvj_OpY", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1p8womdWyTyHzS4rWAJ4Iz5OuXyb7hoer", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HkUmTVaPMVaNtxehJSemdlKrNPsK8dKJ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 27 June 2018 the Facebook page Uncle Sam's Misguided Children shared the photograph reproduced below, purportedly showing women \"screaming\" at United States President Donald Trump, but somehow through their vaginas:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/UncleSamsChildren/photos/a.169772053218802.1073741828.169676909894983/920335361495797/?type=3&theater", "https://archive.li/V2Acd" ] }, { "sentence": "A number of backstories were previously attributed to the photograph. In February 2018, YouTube videos and blogs claimed that the images showed \"a new trend\" known as \"raising your skirt for diversity\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsx4VyS_zjY", "https://archive.li/4dC02", "https://archive.li/RoXOm" ] }, { "sentence": "At that point, the photograph was at least two years old, and had circulated once again on Reddit in July 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.li/XNpF9", "https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6n9yqj/feminists_celebrate_the_diversity_of_vaginas_wtf/" ] }, { "sentence": "Originally reported articles about the \"new feminist trend\" of skirt-raising dated back to September 2015, but did not include the photograph seen above:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/26342/1/this-artist-is-pushing-for-recognition-of-vagina-diversity" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/strait-robbery/", "claim": "Did Tyrone Woodfork Beat an Elderly Oklahoma Couple?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/03/2012", "sci_digest": [ "Woodfork, 22, was sentenced to consecutive life sentences on separate counts of felony murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and two counts of first-degree rape." ], "justification": "In July 2020, social media users began circulating a meme about \"black kid named Tyrone Woodfork\" who \"severely beat an elderly couple, a Mr. & Mrs. Strait, who had been married for 65 years\", along with the claim that \"no national media carried the story\" of the crime: Tulsa, Oklahoma... a black kid named Tyrone Woodfork severely beat an elderly couple, a Mr. & Mrs. Strait, who had been married for 65 years. Tyrone RAPED Mrs. Strait, and she died of injuries received at his hands. Mr. Strait served in the 101st Airborne during WWII. NO national media carried the story. Tyrone was arrested yesterday. I supposed that if Mr. Strait had shot Tyrone, the whole country would know about the story. As it is, only Mrs. Strait died, so it's not of interest to Brian Williams and the rest of the main stream media media. Think about it. After 65 years of marriage. After serving our country. After 90 years of life, Mr. Strait has lost his wife to a rapist/murderer. NO ONE in the national media gives a flip and neither does Fakebook. The meme was based on a real incident, but it included no information informing readers that the events it described had taken place eight years earlier and were not a recent occurrence. Bob and Nancy Strait (90 and 85 years old, respectively) were a North Tulsa, Oklahoma, couple whom family members described as follows to local television station KOTV: The couple had been married more than 65 years, had six children and 18 grandchildren. They were great, great, great grandparents. Bob Strait was a paratrooper in World War II. He was with the 101st airborne where he was part of the D-day invasion. He was awarded the Bronze Star. Nancy grew up in a log cabin in Kenwood, Oklahoma with no running water. She moved to Tulsa to work during the war. Nancy was a homemaker who made quilts and homemade jellies. Bob was a welder by trade and did woodworking for a hobby. The two did everything together; grocery shopping, doctor's visits, you name it. \"Mama was the kind, if you came in, she would say 'go to the kitchen and help yourself with the groceries or let me get you something.' She fed everybody,\" daughter Andra said. \"[Bob] is the kind of guy, your car breaks down on the highway, he could fix it. He'd stop and fix your car,\" said the Straits' son, Bob. In April 2012, a message was widely circulated online claiming that the Straits had been \"beaten to a pulp in [a] home invasion by colored offenders,\" and only press outside the U.S. covered the story: 90 Year Old White Couple Beaten To A Pulp In Home Invasion By Colored Offenders.... Hey Bobby Rush.. Going to wear anything for this white couple??? UPDATE: Once again it takes an overseas newspaper to report the truth because the American newspapers are too afraid to post the truth... They might get boycotted against by the Negroes! Couple met and married within a month and stayed together for 65 years... only to be parted after home invader beat wife to death. Nancy Strait, 85, was sexually assaulted and battered to death by burglar. Her husband Bob, 90, suffered a broken jaw and broken ribs in attack. Police have arrested 20-year-old Tyrone Dale David Woodfork On 14 March 2012, Nancy and Bob Strait were indeed robbed and beaten at their home. Nancy Strait was sexually assaulted and died of her injuries the following day; Bob Strait was shot in the face with his own BB gun, suffered a broken jaw and cracked ribs, and died a few monts later, on 4 May 2012. Their assailants reportedly made off with the Straits' television, $200, a BB gun, and the couple's Dodge Neon. Tulsa police made an arrest the afternoon following the robbery after being tipped off to the location of the couple's stolen car: Tulsa police located the couple's stolen car in the 5700 block of East Easton Street. An alert driver on 4th and Yale called police when he saw the Plymouth Neon. He followed it to the neighborhood. That's when more than a dozen police cars stopped the driver. Investigators took 3 men and a woman in for questioning. Police tell us there was a child inside the car with the woman. After interviewing the four, police arrested Tyrone Woodfork, 20. Police said they had enough evidence to arrest Woodfork for this murder. Woodfork was on a suspended sentence for burglary. A police report says he sold the Strait's 42-inch flatscreen TV for $250 at a gas station shortly after the break-in, and was in possession of other items from the house. He is being held without bond. Tyrone Woodfork was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Nancy Strait as well as burglary, assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of armed robbery. The 22-year-old was convicted in May 2014 and sentenced to consecutive life sentences on separate counts of felony murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and two counts of first-degree rape in the March 2012 attack of Bob and Nancy Strait. Although the robbery and beating of the Straits was reported in the Daily Mail, U.S. coverage of the crime was primarily limited to local (i.e., Tulsa area) news media. This is not evidence of some type of bias or cover-up on the part of the U.S. news media, however, because violent crimes are unfortunately an all too common occurrence in the United States, and nothing about this particular incident was comparatively unusual or shocking enough to propel it out of local coverage and into the national news. reported Calder, Jason. \"Woman Dies After Violent Break-In, Suspect Arrested.\"\r KOKI-TV [Tulsa]. 15 March 2012.\r\r Fullbright, Lori. \"Family of Tulsa Couple Beaten in Home Invasion.\"\r KOTV-TV [Tulsa]. 16 March 2012.\r\r Golgowski, Nina. \"Couple Met and Married within a Month and Stayed Together for 65 Years.\"\r The Daily Mail. 20 March 2012.\r\r Stoycoff, Zack. \"Elderly Woman Sexually Assaulted, Husband Shot with BB Gun.\"\r Tulsa World. 16 March 2012.\r\r Wofford, Jerry. \"Home Invasion, Killing Ended a 65-Year Romance for Tulsa Couple.\"\r Tulsa World. 26 March 2012.\r\r Wofford, Jerry. \"Man Charged with Murder in Deadly Home Invasion.\"\r Tulsa World. 26 March 2012. Braun, Bill and Dylan Goforth. \"Woodfork Formally Sentenced to 4 Consecutive Life Sentences in Murder of 84-Year-Old Woman.\"\r Tulsa World. 8 July 2014.\r\r", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aDUG8X6A2jrpW5sNA_yy7fgEUTcq4JRm", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1hGCZde3_Gd_os3zKzPrYownvZTX0uC5I", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1a-yyBfe27r7qrSmoKkfFWdUv-ak7ATZw", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Although the robbery and beating of the Straits was reported in the Daily Mail, U.S. coverage of the crime was primarily limited to local (i.e., Tulsa area) news media. This is not evidence of some type of bias or cover-up on the part of the U.S. news media, however, because violent crimes are unfortunately an all too common occurrence in the United States, and nothing about this particular incident was comparatively unusual or shocking enough to propel it out of local coverage and into the national news.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117695/Brutal-home-invasion-Oklahoma-couple-ends-65-year-romance-meeting-blind-date.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gillibrand-social-security/", "claim": "Did Kirsten Gillibrand Call for Taxpayer-Funded Social Security for Undocumented Immigrants?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "05/29/2019", "sci_digest": [ "The senator actually proposed rectifying a system that doesn't allow immigrants to pay or receive their fair share. " ], "justification": "On 21 March 2019, the junk news site Neon Nettle reported that U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) had called for undocumented immigrants to receive Social Security benefits, with American taxpayers footing the bill -- a claim that was later encapsulated in memetic form: junk news reported Gillibrand, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, in fact said the opposite. Although the story's headline read \"2020 Democrat Gillibrand Calls for Taxpayer-Funded Social Security for Illegals,\" Gillibrand instead said that undocumented immigrants should be provided a path to citizenship and the \"right\" to pay taxes and to pay into Social Security and other public systems. Speaking to a crowd during a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, on 19 March 2019, Gillibrand said: \"First, we need comprehensive immigration reform. If you are in this country now, you must have the right to pay into Social Security, to pay your taxes, to pay into the local school system and to have a pathway to citizenship. That must happen.\" Her remarks were captured in a Facebook Live video: video The Neon Nettle story wasn't the first instance in which Gillibrand's comments were misconstrued. Shortly after she made the statement, Fox News pundit Mike Huckabee mischaracterized them as \"Lets not only give them Grandmas Social Security, lets toss in a car and maybe rent for a nice home\" during an appearance on the Fox News primetime talk show Hannity. mischaracterized appearance Huckabee continued, \"I hope Kirsten Gillibrand has to go out and talk to people in their 70s who can barely afford food and tell them theyre going to not get their Social Security raised because were going to be giving it to people who broke into this country illegally.\" But as the Los Angeles Times pointed out in an analysis of the controversy, Gillibrand wasn't advocating giving away benefits to supposedly freeloading immigrants. She was talking about allowing immigrants to pay into the system openly \"via payroll and income taxes, and to receive the benefits theyve earned\": analysis The implicit point of Gillibrands words is that many undocumented workers today cant make those contributions because they have to operate in the underground economy to avoid detection; some are legally barred from receiving benefits even if they have a Social Security number because they never received a work permit in the U.S. If their legal status were somehow regularized and they were given a path to citizenship, they would join the rest of us in the legitimate economy, which would be good for everyone. Tropes that immigrants are draining the coffers of social welfare programs and bringing in diseases or spiking crime rates are common forms of misleading propaganda. As the same Los Angeles Times analysis reported, undocumented immigrants in fact largely pay into the Social Security system without ever benefiting from it: draining coffers diseases crime In 2013, Social Security Chief Actuary Stephen Goss and his staff estimated that as many as 1.8 million undocumented immigrants (they used the term unauthorized immigrants) were working and contributing to Social Security via either someone elses or a fabricated Social Security number as of 2010. All told, 3.1 million undocumented immigrants were working and paying Social Security taxes. 1.8 million undocumented immigrants Those contributions, which Goss estimated at $13 billion in 2010, mostly went into the administrative void. The workers who paid them had virtually no chance of ever collecting benefits either. In 2010, only $1 billion in benefits were paid based on unauthorized work. Hiltzik, Michael. \"Fox News Freaks Out Over Kirsten Gillibrands Comments on Immigrants and Social Security But Shes Right.\"\r Los Angeles Times. 22 March 2019. Wulfsohn, Joseph A. \"Mike Huckabee Blasts Gillibrand Plan to Extend Social Security to Illegal Immigrants.\"\r Fox News. 21 March 2019. Greenberg, Jay. \"2020 Democrat Gillibrand Calls for Taxpayer-Funded Social Security for Illegals.\"\r Neon Nettle. 21 March 2019. ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1kz2JzgIXVgsweLUH7uk2tBDSrRQdoySh", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 21 March 2019, the junk news site Neon Nettle reported that U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) had called for undocumented immigrants to receive Social Security benefits, with American taxpayers footing the bill -- a claim that was later encapsulated in memetic form:", "hrefs": [ "https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/neon-nettle/", "https://archive.fo/KFikl#selection-1451.0-1456.0" ] }, { "sentence": "Speaking to a crowd during a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, on 19 March 2019, Gillibrand said: \"First, we need comprehensive immigration reform. If you are in this country now, you must have the right to pay into Social Security, to pay your taxes, to pay into the local school system and to have a pathway to citizenship. That must happen.\" Her remarks were captured in a Facebook Live video:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/KirstenGillibrand/videos/427745387792350/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Neon Nettle story wasn't the first instance in which Gillibrand's comments were misconstrued. Shortly after she made the statement, Fox News pundit Mike Huckabee mischaracterized them as \"Lets not only give them Grandmas Social Security, lets toss in a car and maybe rent for a nice home\" during an appearance on the Fox News primetime talk show Hannity.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mike-huckabee-blasts-gillibrand-plan-to-extend-social-security-to-illegal-immigrants", "https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mike-huckabee-blasts-gillibrand-plan-to-extend-social-security-to-illegal-immigrants" ] }, { "sentence": "But as the Los Angeles Times pointed out in an analysis of the controversy, Gillibrand wasn't advocating giving away benefits to supposedly freeloading immigrants. She was talking about allowing immigrants to pay into the system openly \"via payroll and income taxes, and to receive the benefits theyve earned\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gillibrand-social-security-20190322-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Tropes that immigrants are draining the coffers of social welfare programs and bringing in diseases or spiking crime rates are common forms of misleading propaganda. As the same Los Angeles Times analysis reported, undocumented immigrants in fact largely pay into the Social Security system without ever benefiting from it:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/18-million-illegal-immigrants-checks-shutdown/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-for-illegal-aliens/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-measles/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/children-raped-illegal-immigrants/" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2013, Social Security Chief Actuary Stephen Goss and his staff estimated that as many as 1.8 million undocumented immigrants (they used the term unauthorized immigrants) were working and contributing to Social Security via either someone elses or a fabricated Social Security number as of 2010. All told, 3.1 million undocumented immigrants were working and paying Social Security taxes.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_notes/note151.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/botched-abortion-gravestone/", "claim": "Is This Katie McCormick's Gravestone from the 1870s?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "05/21/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A young woman's death from a reported botched abortion in the late 1800s still resonates with many people today. " ], "justification": "A photograph supposedly showing the gravestone of a woman named Kate McCormick, who passed away in the 1870s from a fatally botched abortion, has been circulating online for several years. In May 2019, the Facebook page \"American News X\" revived interest in the image: American News X This is a genuine photograph of a tombstone marking the grave of a woman who passed away in the 1870s after claiming she took abortion-inducing drugs, and we were able to corroborate many of the details of the inscription via contemporaneous news reports. Our one caveat with this Facebook post is the stated date for when the tombstone was erected. While McCormick passed away in the 1870s, it wasn't until more than a century after her death, in 1997, that an anonymous donor placed the pictured gravestone on her final resting place. gravestone The Story of Kate Simpson (AKA Kate McCormick) McCormick's story can be gleaned from various articles published by newspapers in Tennessee in 1876 concerning an inquiry into her death, the death of her child, and the doctor who was charged with (and ultimately acquitted of) providing her with abortion-inducing drugs. While these reports contained a fair amount of detail such as eyewitness testimonies, a few facts of the case are still a bit unclear. We have done our best to piece together the events that led to McCormick's death, the trial of the man who reportedly killed her, and the circumstances of her burial below. Katie's story starts in Humboldt, Tenn., where she was seduced and impregnated by a shoemaker named George Burgess. After becoming pregnant, Burgess sent McCormick to Memphis to have the child with the promise that he would soon follow to marry her. But Burgess never followed. In late January 1876, a stillborn child was discovered at what news accounts referred to as \"Mrs. Widrig's boarding house.\" Police arrived and found that the child's mother, Kate Simpson (alias Kate McCormick), was also deathly ill. She passed away the following day: Katie McCormick Page 1 Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com Katie McCormick Page 1 Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com The Trial of Dr. D.S. Johnson Dr. D.S. Johnson was arrested and indicted on three charges related to the death of McCormick and her child. The Memphis Public Ledger described the charges against Johnson in a 9 February 1876 article, stating that the doctor was indicted for administrating \"large quantities of deadly, dangerous, unwholesome, deleterious and penicious pills, herbs, drugs, potions, teas, liquids powders and mixtures\" with the intent of causing an abortion, for causing said abortion, and for \"feloniously, willfully, deliberately, premeditated and with malice aforethought kill[ing] and murder[ing] the said Kate McCormick.\" Public Ledger A number of witnesses who were with McCormick in her final days provided testimony to authorities. Widrig, the woman who ran the boarding house where the bodies were discovered, told authorities that McCormick had paid Dr. Johnson $25 to terminate her pregnancy. A woman named Mollie Brown provided similar testimony: testimony Mrs. Widrig was sworn and stated that the girl came to her house some time before Christmas, but only stayed one night that she came back three weeks ago, and on Saturday night, or, rather, Sunday morning, she was delivered of a dead child; that Dr. Johnson had been attending her; that her suspicions were aroused and she asked Katie to tell her the whole truth; on Sunday Dr. Frayser had been sent to see Katie by Chief Athy and told her that the girl would die; this she told to Katie, who seemed much affected and made a confession; she said: \"Mrs. Widrig, I think my time is short,\" and then she added: \"Dr. Johnson gave the medicine to destroy my child; tell Dr. Johnson that I promised not to deceive him or tell any person but the time has come when I can keep the secret no longer; I paid Dr. Johnson twenty-five dollars for the medicine; he gave me the medicine some three weeks ago, and said if it did not do its work in six days it would be a failure; I took the medicine from Dr. Johnson to kill my child and paid him twenty-five dollars for it.\" Mollie Brown sworn: Katie told me last night that Dr. Johnson sent her medicine by express; she said to me she was satisfied she was going to die, and that Dr. Johnson was the cause of it. Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com Dr. Johnson's version of events differed. Johnson, as well as two other doctors who visited McCormick before her death, testified that McCormick had been treated only for diarrhea: Dr. Marable testified as follows: On Sunday morning was called by Dr. Johnson to make a call; he told me about the case, and said he had prescribed for diarrhea; the treatment was correct as stated by Dr. Johnson; he said that he had discovered that she had a baby last night, but that she was in danger of dying from the afterbirth; I attended to her immediately, and gave her the necessary remedies to stop the flooding, and the remedies resulted successfully; the girl appeared very weak; Dr. Johnson and I went to see Chief Athy at once with reference to the dead child, and at my instigation Dr. Johnson called upon coroner Spelman to hold an inquest on the dead infant, which inquest was held on Sunday; I advised Dr. Johnson as to the necessary treatment to place the girl under with a view to her recovery; the girl had diarrhea and I prescribed with Dr. Johnson for its treatment; the girl was nervous and troubled in mind; she said she was out of money and had no friends; trouble of mind and excitement very often cause abortions or miscarriages, and the greatest trouble physicians have in such cases is to keep the patients quiet; I think flooding and mental anxiety was the cause of her death. Johnson testified as follows: Three weeks ago I first saw the deceased; she came to my office and told her story, and wanted to hide her disgrace; I advised her not to commit abortion as it was against the law; I called to see her at Mrs. Widrig's boardinghouse and prescribed for diarrhea; on Sunday morning I called and found that she had a miscarriage; I then called on Dr. Marable; the prescription given her by me was ascitate of lead and morphine; the girl seemed troubled and said she would sooner die than live; she said this both before and after the abortion had taken place. Johnson was eventually acquitted of the charges against him. acquitted The Burial of Kate McCormick The story of McCormick did not end with her death. While McCormick's mother traveled to Memphis after learning of her daughter's death, she left the city without making arrangements for burial. Similarly, Burgess, the man who reportedly impregnated McCormick, didn't undertake a visit to view the body. A particularly depressing passage published by the Public Ledger on 4 February 1876 (which contains some racial language common to the era) noted that McCormick's body was stored in a \"pauper's coffin\" in a stable that served as a morgue for the impoverished in Shelby County: Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com The reporter who found McCormick's body sought to remedy the situation by obtaining the help of a Capt. George W. Miller of the Cut Off Saloon. Miller agreed to finance a proper burial, and McCormick's body was taken to Elmwood Cemetery: Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com McCormick was interred at Elmwood Cemetery sometime in 1876, but the gravestone shown above was not originally present at her final resting place. This tombstone was erected in 1997 and was paid for by an anonymous person who was apparently moved by McCormick's sad tale. 1997 The inscription on the stone reads: \"Kate McCormick Seduced and pregnant by her father's friend, unwed, she died from abortion, her only choice. Abandoned in life and death by family. With but a single rose from her mother. Buried only through the kindness of unknown benefactors. Died Feb. 1875 age 21. Victim of an unforgiving society, Have mercy on us.\" FindAGrave.Com. \"Kate Simpson McCormick.\"\r Retrieved 20 May 2019. Dead Memphis Talking.. \"Abortion or What? The Sad Story of Scandal and Shame of Katie McCormick, 1876.\"\r 4 February 2015. [Memphis] Public Ledger. \"Where the Dead Body of Katie McCormic Lay in State for Twenty-Four Hours.\"\r 4 February 1876. [Memphis] Public Ledger. \"Abortion or What? Dr. D.S. Johnson Arrested on the Charge of Producing an Abortion, Resulting in the Death of the Mother and Child.\"\r 2 February 1876. Memphis Daily Appeal. \"A Lesson of Lust: The Victom of a Seducer Becomes in Turn the Victim of an Abortionist, And Goes Down to an Early Grave.\"\r 3 February 1876.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aa_GQzjebDs7kIHo2ezFkq8j4ANE4tDq", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?id=171503276&width=700&height=1817&crop=2619_250_647_1993&rotation=0&brightness=0&contrast=0&invert=0&ts=1558453248&h=d3c6bac75cc1389dd3b3ed58efa34e74", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?id=171503276&width=700&height=1468&crop=2620_3146_645_1605&rotation=0&brightness=0&contrast=0&invert=0&ts=1558456690&h=b31fb008c120f1e839ff050f5a59b485", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?id=171503650&width=700&height=2935&crop=2597_279_663_3299&rotation=0&brightness=0&contrast=0&invert=0&ts=1558457818&h=7b75780ecef1b0ef8a1fa276e728bfe7", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?id=171503650&width=700&height=2093&crop=2609_3560_641_2274&rotation=0&brightness=0&contrast=0&invert=0&ts=1558458313&h=60aad7109592bb755fe248a573558151", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A photograph supposedly showing the gravestone of a woman named Kate McCormick, who passed away in the 1870s from a fatally botched abortion, has been circulating online for several years. In May 2019, the Facebook page \"American News X\" revived interest in the image:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/anxfreedom/photos/a.369209113264748/1149877988531186/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "Our one caveat with this Facebook post is the stated date for when the tombstone was erected. While McCormick passed away in the 1870s, it wasn't until more than a century after her death, in 1997, that an anonymous donor placed the pictured gravestone on her final resting place.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9540313" ] }, { "sentence": "Katie McCormick Page 1 Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24652195/katie_mccormick_page_1/" ] }, { "sentence": "Dr. D.S. Johnson was arrested and indicted on three charges related to the death of McCormick and her child. The Memphis Public Ledger described the charges against Johnson in a 9 February 1876 article, stating that the doctor was indicted for administrating \"large quantities of deadly, dangerous, unwholesome, deleterious and penicious pills, herbs, drugs, potions, teas, liquids powders and mixtures\" with the intent of causing an abortion, for causing said abortion, and for \"feloniously, willfully, deliberately, premeditated and with malice aforethought kill[ing] and murder[ing] the said Kate McCormick.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31784526/public_ledger/" ] }, { "sentence": "A number of witnesses who were with McCormick in her final days provided testimony to authorities. Widrig, the woman who ran the boarding house where the bodies were discovered, told authorities that McCormick had paid Dr. Johnson $25 to terminate her pregnancy. A woman named Mollie Brown provided similar testimony:", "hrefs": [ "https://deadmemphistalking.blogspot.com/2015/" ] }, { "sentence": " Wed, Feb 2, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31784781/" ] }, { "sentence": "Johnson was eventually acquitted of the charges against him.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31785066/" ] }, { "sentence": " Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31785284/" ] }, { "sentence": " Fri, Feb 4, 1876 Page 3 Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee) Newspapers.com", "hrefs": [ "https://www.newspapers.com/clip/31785485/" ] }, { "sentence": "McCormick was interred at Elmwood Cemetery sometime in 1876, but the gravestone shown above was not originally present at her final resting place. This tombstone was erected in 1997 and was paid for by an anonymous person who was apparently moved by McCormick's sad tale.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9540313" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-text-tax/", "claim": "Is California introducing a 5-cent charge on text messages to support providing free phones for immigrants?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "12/17/2018", "sci_digest": [ "The purpose of a proposal by California state officials was quickly misrepresented in online posts." ], "justification": "California officials proposed in November 2018 a new surcharge on cell phone users' monthly bills, a move that was misrepresented by some social media users as a \"text tax\" and targeted for expression of anti-immigrant sentiment. The California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) proposal would have instituted a surcharge on text messaging services to be included in cell phone users' monthly service bills. The commission's plan called for the revenues so raised to be used to fund public-purpose programs that provide phone service for lower-income residents as well as for deaf and disabled residents. proposal However, the proposal did not call for a \"5-cent tax\" per text message. Rather, the tax would have been based on a percentage of a cell phone users' monthly bills, costing around $1.40 per $20 of texting charges. The surcharge would have been similar to existing taxes, as KGO-TV reported: costing existing For example, you pay about 3.75 percent for Universal Lifeline Telephone Service, which funds discounts for low-income customers. You pay .40 percent for the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program, which funds free specialized equipment to customers who need them. The CPUC says it needs the \"text tax\" because revenue that funds those programs is down, since people are making fewer calls and texting more. Regardless, some social media users accused the CPUC of seeking to financially benefit people they felt were undesirable, such as \"drug addicts\" and \"illegals\": The commission had originally planned to vote on the issue on 10 January 2019, but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stepped in on 12 December 2018 and ruled that both Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) should be regulated as \"information services\" akin to email and not as telecommunication services. ruled The FCC's 3-1 decision meant that text messages would fall under the purview of the federal Telecommunications Act, which limits state jurisdiction over them. Five days later, the CPUC announced that the proposal for the surcharge had been withdrawn from their docket. announced Sze, Kristen. \"If Passed, This Is How California's 'Text Tax' Would Affect Your Cellphone Bill.\"\r KGO-TV. 12 December 2018. Woolfolk, John. \"FCC Decision Deals Blow to California Text-Tax Plan.\"\r [San Jose] Mercury News. 12 December 2018. Timm, Jane C. and Dennis Romero. \"O rly? California Considers Plan to Tax Text Messages.\"\r NBC News. 13 December 2018.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17HjJ_cOG5hfcKoHkkym6fv76wvJD7TEN" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) proposal would have instituted a surcharge on text messaging services to be included in cell phone users' monthly service bills. The commission's plan called for the revenues so raised to be used to fund public-purpose programs that provide phone service for lower-income residents as well as for deaf and disabled residents.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M238/K227/238227359.PDF" ] }, { "sentence": "However, the proposal did not call for a \"5-cent tax\" per text message. Rather, the tax would have been based on a percentage of a cell phone users' monthly bills, costing around $1.40 per $20 of texting charges. The surcharge would have been similar to existing taxes, as KGO-TV reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/california-considers-plan-tax-text-messages-critics-call-regressive-absurd-n947471", "https://abc7news.com/technology/this-is-how-californias-text-tax-would-work/4894398/" ] }, { "sentence": "The commission had originally planned to vote on the issue on 10 January 2019, but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stepped in on 12 December 2018 and ruled that both Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) should be regulated as \"information services\" akin to email and not as telecommunication services.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/12/fcc-decision-deals-blow-to-california-text-tax-plan/" ] }, { "sentence": "The FCC's 3-1 decision meant that text messages would fall under the purview of the federal Telecommunications Act, which limits state jurisdiction over them. Five days later, the CPUC announced that the proposal for the surcharge had been withdrawn from their docket.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/californiapuc/status/1073773451075235840" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/may/02/donald-trump/trump-hits-paydirt-claim-wisconsins-low-unemployme/", "claim": "The unemployment rate for Wisconsin workers has reached historic lows. Its never been this low before, ever, ever, ever.", "author": "Mica Soellner", "posted": "05/02/2019", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "If theres one thing President Donald Trump loves to boast about, its jobs, jobs, jobs. During an April 27, 2019 rally in Green Bay, Trump made sure his supporters in Wisconsin knew just how good the state unemployment rate has become. The unemployment rate for Wisconsin workers has reached historic lows, Trump told the crowd. Its never been this low before, ever, ever, ever. As of March 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wisconsin had a 2.9 percent unemployment rate. But, was there ever a time in history when it was even lower? We decided to do some digging. The backup Historical data from the BLS shows Wisconsin has been on a downward spiral of unemployment since the height of the financial crisis in 2009. Since then, the highest unemployment rate recorded in Wisconsin reached 9.3 percent with the lowest being where it stands now at 2.9 percent. But, was there a time that its ever been below that figure? BLS spokesman Gary Steinberg says it has been close, but the 2.9 percent is the lowest unemployment rate for Wisconsin on record. Unemployment rate data for Wisconsin are comparable back to 1976, Steinberg said. The unemployment rate of 2.9 percent in both January and February 2019 are the lowest on record. National ranking Nationally, Wisconsins 2.9 percent in March 2019 left it tied with Idaho and Virginia. That means Wisconsin rankedeighthin the country. North Dakota and Vermont tied at first with a 2.3 percent unemployment rate. Alaska, meanwhile, was at the bottom with an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent. Wisconsins Department of Workforce Development reported the state added 11,400 total non-farm jobs and 19,300 private-sector jobs from February of 2018 to February of 2019. Meanwhile, Wisconsin's labor force participation rate -- a measuring stick that looks at the other side of the equation -- was 67.5 percent in February. That was more than four points better than the national rate. Our rating Trump said Wisconsin had the lowest unemployment rate ever at a recent rally in Green Bay. The available data backs up his claim that Wisconsin hasnt had a lower unemployment rate to its 2.9 percent. We rate Trumps claim True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "Workers", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "That means Wisconsin rankedeighthin the country.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/aug/13/committee-protect-florida/kathryn-starkey-missed-just-over-half-meetings/", "claim": "Kathryn Starkey only attended half of those meetings.", "author": "Jodie Tillman", "posted": "08/13/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A new political mailer from the Committee to Protect Florida attacks State House District 45 candidate Kathryn Starkey of New Port Richey for her record on taxes, citing her role on a water district board and her support of the Penny for Pasco, a 2004 increase in the county sales tax.The committee is headed up by Rockie Pennington, a political consultant for Richard Corcoran, one of Starkeys two opponents in the Aug. 24 Republican primary. (Fabian Calvo is also on the ballot. )Taxin Kathryn, says the mailer sent in early August 2010. With Kathryn Starkeys record on taxes here at home, how can we trust her -- or afford her -- in Tallahassee?We wondered, can you trust the mailers claims? We looked at three claims, and this Truth-O-Meter item tackles her attendance at meetings. Other items arehereon her voting record for river board tax rates, andhereon her actions involving the Pasco sales tax.We looked at the claim that As a member of the Pinellas-Anclote River Basin Board, Kathryn Starkey had the opportunity to fight for lower taxes in 14 separate budget meetings between 2002 and 2008. But ... She only attended half of those meetings!Pennington said he based that claim on minutes from the basin boards meetings. We took a look, too.We looked at two budget meetings each year: June, when the basin board typically sets its preliminary tax rate, and August, when it takes a final vote. (In 2007, the final vote was taken in July. )Starkey served on the board from June 2002 through April 2008, so we looked only at the 12 budget-related meetings that fell within that period. (Pennington, who put together his mailer a month ago, said he wasnt sure why we came up with different counts for the meetings. )Of 12 budget meetings she could have attended, Starkey attended seven (five of those seven were the final votes). That attendance record is more than half by a hair.We rate this claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Environment", "Candidate Biography", "Taxes", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A new political mailer from the Committee to Protect Florida attacks State House District 45 candidate Kathryn Starkey of New Port Richey for her record on taxes, citing her role on a water district board and her support of the Penny for Pasco, a 2004 increase in the county sales tax.The committee is headed up by Rockie Pennington, a political consultant for Richard Corcoran, one of Starkeys two opponents in the Aug. 24 Republican primary. (Fabian Calvo is also on the ballot.)Taxin Kathryn, says the mailer sent in early August 2010. With Kathryn Starkeys record on taxes here at home, how can we trust her -- or afford her -- in Tallahassee?We wondered, can you trust the mailers claims? We looked at three claims, and this Truth-O-Meter item tackles her attendance at meetings. Other items arehereon her voting record for river board tax rates, andhereon her actions involving the Pasco sales tax.We looked at the claim that As a member of the Pinellas-Anclote River Basin Board, Kathryn Starkey had the opportunity to fight for lower taxes in 14 separate budget meetings between 2002 and 2008. But ... She only attended half of those meetings!Pennington said he based that claim on minutes from the basin boards meetings. We took a look, too.We looked at two budget meetings each year: June, when the basin board typically sets its preliminary tax rate, and August, when it takes a final vote. (In 2007, the final vote was taken in July.)Starkey served on the board from June 2002 through April 2008, so we looked only at the 12 budget-related meetings that fell within that period. (Pennington, who put together his mailer a month ago, said he wasnt sure why we came up with different counts for the meetings.)Of 12 budget meetings she could have attended, Starkey attended seven (five of those seven were the final votes). That attendance record is more than half by a hair.We rate this claim Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://cms.politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/aug/13/committee-protect-florida/group-raps-kathryn-starkey-aiding-and-abetting-tax/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/feb/18/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-says-barack-obama-will-add-more-debt-all-/", "claim": "Barack Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "02/18/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Compared to immigration and terrorism, the growth of the federal debt may not be quite as big a subject for Republicans running for president this year. But it never went away entirely. In a Feb. 5, 2016,Medium postabout his approach to Social Security, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush reiterated a talking point that many Republicans have used before. Barack Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together, Bush wrote. Its been awhile since we last checked a claim of this sort, so we decided to take a closer look. Bush phrased his claim carefully, and it largely holds up by the numbers. Its also important to note, though, that Obama isnt the only one responsible for the growth of the federal debt. Running the numbers We first turned to the U.S. Treasury Departments Debt to the Penny calculator, which allows you to track the federal debt on a daily basis. The website lists two kinds of debt -- publicly held debt and gross federal debt. The difference is that federal debt is calculated by taking the amount of publicly held debt and adding to it the debt that is held by the government. These are typically IOUs between one governmental entity and another, such as the money owed by the general treasury to the Social Security trust fund. On Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the public debt stood at about $6.31 trillion. By the day Bushs column ran, it stood at about $13.67 trillion. Thats an increase of $7.36 trillion, which is short of the $8 trillion Bush mentioned. But remember that Bush said Obamawill addthat much on his watch, which can be reasonably interpreted to mean the amount by the end of Obamas second term. If the debt continues to rise at the same pace it has increased over the past seven-plus years, it will end up at nearly $8.4 trillion when Obama leaves office. Using this measurement, then, Bush is right that Obama will see the debt increase by north of $8 trillion on his watch, and that this amount will exceed the amount accumulated by the previous 43 presidents ($6.31 trillion). Bush isnt correct, however, using gross federal debt. Using the same method of estimating, Obama should see an increase of $9.51 trillion in gross federal debt by the end of his second term. Thats less than the $10.63 trillion he inherited from his 43 predecessors. Experts say that either publicly held debt or gross federal debt could be used to define the term national debt that Bush uses. Still, economists told us that publicly held debt is often the most popular measurement among specialists, so we wont quibble with Bushs decision to focus on publicly held debt. The size of debt production under Obama is reinforced by looking at debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. At the end of fiscal year 2008, publicly held debt accounted for 39 percent of gross domestic product. By the end of fiscal year 2016, its expected to be almost 77 percent. Even if bad timing has exaggerated this increase -- fiscal 2008 ended four months before Obama took office, right as the economy was collapsing -- its certainly a big percentage jump over eight years. All this said, well note a few things that are important to keep in mind. How much blame does Obama deserve?Bush makes it sound as if Obama simply flipped a switch and debt started pouring out. Obviously, its a lot more complicated than that. It isnt as if we were projecting balanced budgets and Barack Obama came into office and signed legislation increasing spending and cutting taxes, said Marc Goldwein, a budget analyst at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In fact, Goldwein said, the January 2009 estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt would be around $9 trillion today. So Obama could -- at most -- be assigned the blame for adding an additional $4.5 trillion to the debt, and thats only if you absolve Congress (which has been controlled by Republicans for most of his tenure) of any responsibility, and if you blame Obama for all of the long-lasting effects of the recession that he inherited. Also, a lot of the debt comes from entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, which are increasing largely on autopilot due to demographic trends that are out of any presidents control. So while Obama does bear some responsibility for the debt accumulation on his watch, he certainly doesnt deserve sole responsibility. Bushs own party played a role, too, as did the inevitable grind of demographic trends. Any president today would be in much the same situation.Another type of inevitable grind -- inflation -- is worth factoring in as well. Every year, inflation puts an upward pressure on the scale of the debt. Inflation erodes the numbers and makes them a bit meaningless, Goldwein said. For a comparison, lets take a look at Obamas predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush -- a Republican, and Jeb Bushs brother. The Debt to the Penny calculator doesnt offer daily tallies for publicly held debt around the time of Bushs inauguration, but it does offer daily data for gross federal debt, so well use that. When Bush came into office on Jan. 20, 2001, the gross federal debt stood at $5.73 trillion. At the end of Bushs term eight years later, the debt had risen to $10.63 trillion -- an increase on Bushs watch of $4.9 trillion. Thats not quite equal to what his 42 presidential predecessors accumulated, but its 86 percent of the way there. That increase under Bush is a little smaller than the expected increase during Obamas full tenure -- 89 percent -- but its not off by much. Our ruling Bush said that Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together. On the numbers, Bush is right, as long as you measure the nations publicly held debt, the most commonly cited statistic, and as long as you project forward to the end of Obamas tenure. But Bush leaves out some important context when he focuses the blame solely on Obama, and when he ignores that the percentage increase in the debt under George W. Bush was similar. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so we rate it Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Debt", "Deficit", "Federal Budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In a Feb. 5, 2016,Medium postabout his approach to Social Security, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush reiterated a talking point that many Republicans have used before.", "hrefs": [ "https://medium.com/@JebBush/i-will-preserve-and-protect-social-security-and-medicare-24097b1136e9#.gjrnp35f4" ] }, { "sentence": "We first turned to the U.S. Treasury Departments Debt to the Penny calculator, which allows you to track the federal debt on a daily basis.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/oct/25/charles-francis/democrat-running-mayor-says-southeast-raleigh-gyms/", "claim": "There are parks in Southeast Raleigh that still dont have air conditioning in the gym", "author": "Paul Specht", "posted": "10/25/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Charles Francis says Raleigh isnt spending its parks money fairly. Francis, a Democrat, is running for mayor of Raleigh against three-time incumbent Nancy McFarlane, whos unaffiliated. Theyre in a runoff after none of the three candidates Francis, McFarlane and Republican Paul Fitts secured the 50 percent of the vote required to win. (McFarlane got 48 percent, Francis got 36 percent and Fitts got 12 percent) In a debate Friday, Francis suggested the city shouldnt focus all of its energy on Dix Park when more basic needs go unaddressed. Dix Park is a 308-acre property just south of downtown Raleigh that the city bought from the state in 2014 and plans to develop into a destination recreation spot. Its not right that there are parks in Southeast Raleigh that still dont have air conditioning in the gym, he said. Weve got to have equity in the way we approach our parks. Southeast Raleigh, the citys lone predominantly black area, hasnt enjoyed the same economic success as other areas of the city where businesses are opening and property values are rising. Francis grew up there and is campaigning on the idea that the city should be doing more for the area. A recent PolitiFact analysis of the Oct. 10 election showed Francis got his most fervent support in Southeast Raleigh. And he has previously talked about howthose voters could swing the election. There are 80,000 black voters in Raleigh, Francis said at a forum in September. McFarlane normally wins with 25,000 to 30,000 votes. If only a quarter of African-American voters vote and vote the right way were going to win. Given the city's budget is $919 million, PolitiFact wondered whether there are, indeed, gyms in Southeast Raleigh that dont have air conditioning. What we found Turns out, the city controls 23 gyms at 19 venues. And yes, there are three gyms in southeast Raleigh that dont have air-conditioning units, according to Raleighs parks, recreation and cultural resources department. Biltmore Hills Park, John Chavis Memorial Park and Tarboro Road Park are all located in southeast Raleigh and lack air conditioning units. But thats not the whole story. There are six other Raleigh gyms that also lack air-conditioning. The gyms at Green Road Park, Lions Park in northeast Raleigh, Method Community Park in west Raleigh, Millbrook Exchange Park in north Raleigh and two gyms at Laurel Hills Park in northwest Raleigh also lack air conditioning. Most area gyms have AC There are also four gyms in the Southeast Raleigh area that do have air conditioning: Barwell Road Community Center, Halifax Community Center, Roberts Park Community Center and the Worthdale Community Center. The city says it didnt begin putting air-conditioned gyms in park facilities until 2006. It costs about $300,000 to install units in older facilities. The city says its budget for capital projects will fund air-conditioning units in eight of the nine AC-less gyms by 2022. Method Park, the lone outlier, is being considered for AC funding as part of the 2023 budget, the city says. Our ruling Francis said gyms in Southeast Raleigh don't have air conditioning. There are four area gyms that have it and six gyms elsewhere in the city that don't have it. That context is important when debating city priorities and Francis didn't elaborate during the televised debate. But he's right: there are three gyms in Southeast Raleigh that don't have AC. We rate his claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "City Budget", "City Government", "North Carolina" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A recent PolitiFact analysis of the Oct. 10 election showed Francis got his most fervent support in Southeast Raleigh. And he has previously talked about howthose voters could swing the election.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article173270441.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fbi-agents-hunter-biden/", "claim": "No, An FBI Agent Killed in Florida Wasn't Investigating Hunter Biden's Laptop", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "02/05/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Social media memes claimed without evidence that an FBI agent killed while serving a search warrant was investigating Hunter Biden." ], "justification": "On Feb. 2, 2021, two FBI agents were killed while serving a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, in an investigation into violent crimes against children. The agents were identified by the FBI as Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger. killed Sadly, it didn't take conspiracy trolls long to pounce on this tragedy, claiming without evidence in memes that Alfin was \"the top investigator for Hunter Biden's laptop\": This meme reflected another baseless claim that was pushed in the days leading up to the November 2020 election: that a laptop allegedly belonging to then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden contained child pornography. No evidence for this claim has surfaced. pushed That claim stemmed from a bizarre saga which played out in October 2020, when a laptop that allegedly belonged to the younger Biden and was left at a computer repair shop in Delaware was later given by the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, to a lawyer representing former President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who then provided a copy of the laptop's hard drive to the New York Post. bizarre saga Although the paper reported in detail on the contents of that laptop, the New York Post didn't state that they found evidence of child pornography on the laptop. This allegation circulated on various conspiracy sites and social media posts before the election and appeared to echo the Qanon conspiracy theory positing that various high-profile figures, from Democratic legislators to entertainers, are part of a satanic child trafficking ring. Qanon The New York Post story included what it reported were federal subpoenas for the laptop and its contents, which were seized by the FBI in December 2019. Hunter Biden announced in December 2020 that he had learned for the first time that federal authorities were investigating his tax affairs. story announced But the FBI agents who seized Biden's laptop were not the same ones who were serving the search warrant in Florida when the two agents were killed. The Baltimore Sun reported that the federal authorities who took the laptop from the computer shop owner work out of Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware, and that their investigation involved finances: reported Isaac said he met with FBI agents in late 2019 and provided them with a timeline of events. The agents returned about two weeks later in mid-December with a grand jury subpoena allowing them to seize the laptop and the external hard drive. The subpoena was signed by a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorneys office in Wilmington who handles criminal investigations such as fraud, and Isaac acknowledged receiving it. The agents also gave him a receipt for what they took, according to a photograph of it published by Fox News. The receipt included an FBI code, 272D, the bureaus internal classification for money laundering investigations, and BA for its Baltimore field office. Officials separately confirmed that the FBI seized the laptop and an external hard drive as part of an investigation, though they did not detail the inquiry or whether it involved money laundering or Hunter Biden. They also confirmed that the agent who signed the receipt works in Wilmington and is overseen by the Baltimore office. According to the FBI, Alfin and Schwartzenberger were assigned to FBI's Miami field office. Alfin, who was 36, had worked cases involving crimes against children out of FBI Miami since 2017. assigned Alfin and Schwartzenberger were serving a warrant on David Huber, a 55-year-old computer technician, who engaged agents in a pre-dawn gun battle, killing two FBI agents and wounding three others before turning the gun on himself. David Huber We found no real-world connection between Hunter Biden's laptop and the murder of the two FBI agents in Florida, and it appears that claims the two were linked were invented to stir up a specter of conspiracy where none was present.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=163BqapvTuPp6XDEQmlbbRS7EcPomS_i-", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Feb. 2, 2021, two FBI agents were killed while serving a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, in an investigation into violent crimes against children. The agents were identified by the FBI as Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/miami/news/press-releases/fbi-miami-special-agent-in-charge-george-piros-remarks-at-press-conference-regarding-agent-involved-shooting" ] }, { "sentence": " ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/02/fbimeme.png" ] }, { "sentence": "This meme reflected another baseless claim that was pushed in the days leading up to the November 2020 election: that a laptop allegedly belonging to then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden contained child pornography. No evidence for this claim has surfaced.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20201017020437/https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-fbis-top-child-porn-lawyer-involved-hunter-biden-laptop-case" ] }, { "sentence": "That claim stemmed from a bizarre saga which played out in October 2020, when a laptop that allegedly belonged to the younger Biden and was left at a computer repair shop in Delaware was later given by the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, to a lawyer representing former President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who then provided a copy of the laptop's hard drive to the New York Post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/10/15/hunter-biden-laptop-giuliani/" ] }, { "sentence": "Although the paper reported in detail on the contents of that laptop, the New York Post didn't state that they found evidence of child pornography on the laptop. This allegation circulated on various conspiracy sites and social media posts before the election and appeared to echo the Qanon conspiracy theory positing that various high-profile figures, from Democratic legislators to entertainers, are part of a satanic child trafficking ring.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/08/21/qanon-2020-election/" ] }, { "sentence": "The New York Post story included what it reported were federal subpoenas for the laptop and its contents, which were seized by the FBI in December 2019. Hunter Biden announced in December 2020 that he had learned for the first time that federal authorities were investigating his tax affairs.", "hrefs": [ "https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/", "https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hunter-biden-president-elect-s-son-says-delaware-ag-probing-n1250607" ] }, { "sentence": "But the FBI agents who seized Biden's laptop were not the same ones who were serving the search warrant in Florida when the two agents were killed. The Baltimore Sun reported that the federal authorities who took the laptop from the computer shop owner work out of Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware, and that their investigation involved finances:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-laptop.html" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the FBI, Alfin and Schwartzenberger were assigned to FBI's Miami field office. Alfin, who was 36, had worked cases involving crimes against children out of FBI Miami since 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/miami/news/press-releases/fbi-miami-special-agent-in-charge-george-piros-remarks-at-press-conference-regarding-agent-involved-shooting" ] }, { "sentence": "Alfin and Schwartzenberger were serving a warrant on David Huber, a 55-year-old computer technician, who engaged agents in a pre-dawn gun battle, killing two FBI agents and wounding three others before turning the gun on himself.", "hrefs": [ "https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/02/04/source-fbi-shooting-suspect-david-huber-sunrise/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-foundation-floyd-death/", "claim": "Did Obama Foundation Share Pic of George Floyd 9 Days Before He Died?", "author": "Nur Ibrahim", "posted": "06/09/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A May 2020 Obama Foundation tweet became the focus of a new conspiracy theory. " ], "justification": "Rumors are surging in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting protests against police violence and racial injustice in the United States. Stay informed. Read our special coverage, contribute to support our mission, and submit any tips or claims you see here. Read contribute here A number of tweets and posts began circulating online in June 2020, unearthing old posts from the Obama Foundation and alleging a conspiracy connecting the foundation to George Floyd. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after a Minneapolis police officer held him down and kneeled on his neck. Protests around the country against police brutality followed, with some people carrying posters with Floyd's face to commemorate him. tweets posts died In early June, social media users stumbled upon an Obama Foundation tweet dated May 17 that featured a photograph of a poster with Floyd's face on it. They questioned how the photo could have been shared days before Floyd's death and how a Twitter post allegedly could be edited retroactively: The Hal Turner Radio Show, a far-right program, said about this and some other tweets that featured the same image, \"Something stinks here.\" Some social media users speculated that the foundation somehow knew in advance that Floyd would die. Hal Turner Radio Show program speculated This rumor has no truth to it. The Obama Foundation's tweets shared links to its website, Obama.org. The preview image for that page updates dynamically on Twitter when the platform's web crawlers (bots) re-index (restructure the website data for) the preview image for the website every week. Obama.org In other words, at a certain point following Floyd's death the foundation changed the Twitter Card image for the website, which retroactively updated the image on past tweets. A Twitter spokesperson told Snopes that the image shown in the card updates when the foundation updates the data used to generate the card. The group did not edit the tweet, according to the spokesperson, but may have changed the data associated with the link. This is the image shared on May 16, in a screenshot: Twitter Card We reached out to the Obama Foundation to ask about the photo on June 8. On June 9, the image from the May 16 post had been changed to the foundation's logo: An Obama Foundation spokesperson confirmed for us that the rumor is false, and that the preview image for Obama.org updates dynamically based on information set in the link. The photograph of the poster with Floyd's face on it was taken on May 30, 2020, according to the foundation, and was first used on the site on May 31. We therefore rate this claim as Cheung, Helier. \"George Floyd Death: Why US Protests Are So Powerful This Time.\"\r BBC News. 8 June 2020. Hal Turner Radio Show. \"How Did the Obama Foundation Tweet a George Floyd Poster on May 17, When He Wasn't Killed Until May 25?\"\r 6 June 2020. Southern Poverty Law Center. \"Hal Turner.\" True Pundit. \"WATCH: Suspicious Mystery Grows Debating Obamas Tweeted Photo of George Floyd NINE DAYS Before His Death.\"\r 9 June 2020.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1thSpaXrJ8DVe0Yuc8qp3FDiR4jARZ9E2", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Rumors are surging in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting protests against police violence and racial injustice in the United States. Stay informed. Read our special coverage, contribute to support our mission, and submit any tips or claims you see here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/george-floyd/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/" ] }, { "sentence": "A number of tweets and posts began circulating online in June 2020, unearthing old posts from the Obama Foundation and alleging a conspiracy connecting the foundation to George Floyd. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died on May 25, 2020, after a Minneapolis police officer held him down and kneeled on his neck. Protests around the country against police brutality followed, with some people carrying posters with Floyd's face to commemorate him. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/csthetruth/status/1269658488285859840", "https://truepundit.com/watch-suspiscious-mystery-grows-whether-obama-tweeted-photo-of-george-floyd-nine-days-before-his-death/", "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52969905" ] }, { "sentence": "The Hal Turner Radio Show, a far-right program, said about this and some other tweets that featured the same image, \"Something stinks here.\" Some social media users speculated that the foundation somehow knew in advance that Floyd would die. ", "hrefs": [ "https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/news-nation/how-did-the-obama-foundation-tweet-a-george-floyd-poster-on-may-17-when-he-wasn-t-killed-until-may-25", "https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/hal-turner", "https://twitter.com/thepopas/status/1269440265472753664" ] }, { "sentence": "This rumor has no truth to it. The Obama Foundation's tweets shared links to its website, Obama.org. The preview image for that page updates dynamically on Twitter when the platform's web crawlers (bots) re-index (restructure the website data for) the preview image for the website every week.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.obama.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "In other words, at a certain point following Floyd's death the foundation changed the Twitter Card image for the website, which retroactively updated the image on past tweets. A Twitter spokesperson told Snopes that the image shown in the card updates when the foundation updates the data used to generate the card. The group did not edit the tweet, according to the spokesperson, but may have changed the data associated with the link. This is the image shared on May 16, in a screenshot:", "hrefs": [ "https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/optimize-with-cards/guides/getting-started" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-dna-tests-pay/", "claim": "Is the Trump Administration Making Immigrants Pay $800 for DNA Tests to Get Their Children Back?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "07/17/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A handful of parents in Texas said they were told by social workers they would have to pay for DNA testing to be reunified with separated immigrant children." ], "justification": "In mid-July 2018, outraged social media users shared a meme reporting that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump was forcing migrants to pay $800 in out-of-pocket costs to prove familial ties in order to regain custody of children taken from them under the government's \"zero tolerance\" immigration policy: The text of the meme was based on a 10 July 2018 story originally reported by the Daily Beast, whose journalists spoke with Ruben Garcia, director of the El Paso immigrant shelter Annunciation House, and an immigration attorney, Iliana Holguin. In telephone interviews with Snopes.com, both of those individuals confirmed their accounting of the details in the Daily Beast's report: four adults (three mothers and one older sister) asserted that government social workers had told them they'd have to fork over $700 to $800 for DNA tests proving their relationship to separated children before they could get their kids back. story DNA tests Shortly after the story broke, however, both Garcia and Holguin reported to us that the government had abruptly changed course, with the former telling us: If you ask me the question, 'Do you know for a fact that any of those parent had to pay the money [for a DNA test]?' I do not. We had about five people who at that point said they were told they would probably have to pay for [the DNA tests]. Since that story came out, the whole scenery has changed because [the government] has now moved aggressively to reunite and release all of these kids. Holguin told us no formal request was ever made for the women to pay for the tests. She described the entirety of \"zero tolerance\" and its aftermath as \"very chaotic\" and said that conflicting information had been the norm throughout. \"With the DNA test, I think someone at one point said it, someone repeated it things were changing so quickly that it was just impossible to know at any given at any moment. The left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing.\" We reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency tasked with coordinating the care of unaccompanied immigrant children. An agency representative told us HHS, not immigrant families, pays for DNA testing. The federal government is rushing to meet a deadline set by a federal judge after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued for an injunction on family separations under \"zero tolerance,\" a policy initiated by the Trump administration in April 2018. Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California gave federal agencies until 10 July 2018 to reunify children under five years of age with their respective adults, and until 26 July 2018 to reunify kids five through 17 years old. deadline policy According to a status report submitted to the court by HHS on 13 July 2018, not all families with children in the older age cohort will be subjected to DNA tests, as HHS has truncated its process for confirming family relationships to meet the looming deadline for reunification. In a statement, HHS spokesperson Evelyn Stauffer said: The department has been operating in good faith and earnestly trying to comply with court orders, including the rapidly approaching deadline for reunification. Our interpretation of the court's order is that HHS must make a determination of parentage, fitness, and safety before reunifying families, but that HHS need not undertake the fuller process of vetting for children's safety that HHS would ordinarily conduct in its operations. In the interests of transparency and cooperation, the department felt it necessary in our filings on Friday to share with the court our view that meeting the deadline would mean truncating the process we might have otherwise followed. Within the time the court allows, we will strive to implement the most comprehensive procedures possible to ensure child welfare. We look forward to continuing our close work with the court to accomplish the goals we share of safe, expeditious reunification. Under \"zero tolerance,\" all immigrants caught crossing the southern border between ports of entry were charged with crimes mostly misdemeanors. Adults accompanied by children were separated from them and, initially, the U.S. government appeared to have no plan to reunify families. no plan With court orders and pressure mounted by public outrage over the policy, the Trump administration has more or less reversed course. Garcia told us the federal government would begin reuniting the remainder of separated families at centralized locations in Arizona and Texas in the coming week in order to meet the court's 26 July 2018 deadline. Judge Sabraw also temporarily halted deportations of those families to give them time to decide whether to leave children behind in the United States in hopes they will win their asylum cases, or to be deported together. outrage Glawe, Justin, and Adam Rawnsley. \"Government Told Immigrant Parents to Pay for DNA Tests to Get Kids Back, Advocate Says.\"\r The Daily Beast. 10 July 2018. Hals, Tom. \"All Migrant Kids Under Five to Be Back With Parents by Thursday: U.S. Official.\"\r Reuters. 11 July 2018. Associated Press. \"Texas Shelter: US Flying Kids for Reunifications.\"\r 16 July 2018. Morrisey, Kate. \"Judge Temporarily Halts Deportations of Reunified Families.\"\r San Diego Union-Tribune. 16 July 2018.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Ax_rxh6GkheWFe-cW_nU1IwTgGnICAdk", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The text of the meme was based on a 10 July 2018 story originally reported by the Daily Beast, whose journalists spoke with Ruben Garcia, director of the El Paso immigrant shelter Annunciation House, and an immigration attorney, Iliana Holguin. In telephone interviews with Snopes.com, both of those individuals confirmed their accounting of the details in the Daily Beast's report: four adults (three mothers and one older sister) asserted that government social workers had told them they'd have to fork over $700 to $800 for DNA tests proving their relationship to separated children before they could get their kids back.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thedailybeast.com/government-told-immigrant-parents-to-pay-for-dna-tests-to-be-reunited-with-kids-advocate", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2018/07/15/medical-experts-worry-testing-dna-reunite-migrant-families/" ] }, { "sentence": "The federal government is rushing to meet a deadline set by a federal judge after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued for an injunction on family separations under \"zero tolerance,\" a policy initiated by the Trump administration in April 2018. Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California gave federal agencies until 10 July 2018 to reunify children under five years of age with their respective adults, and until 26 July 2018 to reunify kids five through 17 years old.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/all-migrant-kids-under-five-to-be-back-with-parents-by-thursday-u-s-official-idUSKBN1K12YM", "https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-announces-zero-tolerance-policy-criminal-illegal-entry" ] }, { "sentence": "Under \"zero tolerance,\" all immigrants caught crossing the southern border between ports of entry were charged with crimes mostly misdemeanors. Adults accompanied by children were separated from them and, initially, the U.S. government appeared to have no plan to reunify families.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/06/19/does-united-states-plan-reunite-children-parents/" ] }, { "sentence": "With court orders and pressure mounted by public outrage over the policy, the Trump administration has more or less reversed course. Garcia told us the federal government would begin reuniting the remainder of separated families at centralized locations in Arizona and Texas in the coming week in order to meet the court's 26 July 2018 deadline. Judge Sabraw also temporarily halted deportations of those families to give them time to decide whether to leave children behind in the United States in hopes they will win their asylum cases, or to be deported together.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rally-family-separation-20180629-story.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/andrew-yang-mentally-ill/", "claim": "Did NYC Mayoral Candidate Andrew Yang Say This About Mentally Ill People?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "06/22/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Yang was among more than a dozen Democratic candidates running in the city's June 22, 2021 mayoral primary." ], "justification": "On June 21, 2021, the day before New York City's mayoral primary election, a New York Times reporter claimed one of the Democratic candidates Andrew Yang said on a conservative talk radio show that people with mental illnesses need to be hospitalized in order for the city's economy to improve. According to a tweet by the Times journalist, Emma Fitzsimmons, billionaire John Catsimatidis and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had just spoken with Yang on 77 WABC's \"Election Coverage\" show. tweet Emma Fitzsimmons John Catsimatidis Rudy Giuliani Fitzsimmons said in the post, which hundreds of users retweeted for their own followers, at 4:18 (EST): The attribution was correct. According to 77 WABC's video recording of the June 21 broadcast segment, which featured candidates of several New York races fielding questions from Catsimatidis and Giuliani, Yang phoned into the show and had the below-transcribed exchange: video recording Yang: We're poised to win this race, and then I'm going to get to work on delivering for New Yorkers the public safety we expect and deserve, which includes getting the homeless men who are struggling mentally into environments where they're safer and healthier. It's better for everyone. [...] Catsimatidis: One of the most important things with law and order in New York City, is we have all of these homeless people in the streets and lot of them are mentally ill. [...] What happened? Don't those people deserve treatment? Aren't we better of spending money to build hospitals to treat those poor people? Yang: 100 percent. We need to get them the care that they need, but that will also supercharge our economic recovery because we all see these mentally ill people on our streets and subways, and you know who else sees them? Tourists. And then they don't come back, and they tell their friends, 'Don't go to New York City.' We're never going to get our jobs back and our economy back if we don't get the mentally ill people who are on our streets in a better environment. It's going to be worth every penny. In other words,Yang did not explicitly say hospitalizing people with severe mental health issues was \"the only way\" (verbatim) to restart the city's economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he did say \"we're never going to get our jobs back and our economy back\" without supposedly taking the step, implying the same thing. Hours after the radio interview, Yang told The New York Times that he stood by his comments on the radio show, again framing the issue as one of public safety. told The New York Times We all know that public safety is top of mind for New Yorkers, he told the newspaper. There will not be an economic recovery until people feel safe walking our streets and walking our subways. It was not the first instance of Yang, a former presidential candidate, saying people with severe mental issues perpetuate some of the city's economic and social problems. During a debate on June 16 with other Democratic candidates (there are 13 total), Yang said city officials need to get people with untreated mental health issues \"off of our streets and our subways into a better environment,\" and that \"mentally ill homeless men are changing the character of our neighborhoods,\" presumably for the worse. June 16 Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else have rights? We do: the people and families of the city, Yang said at the debate. We have the right to walk the street and not fear for our safety because a mentally ill person is going to lash out at us. Those comments sparked criticism among social media users who pointed out research that shows people with severe mental illness are far more likely to be victims of crime not perpetrators and the fact that mental health includes a wide spectrum of disorders that affect everyone. research The day after the debate, Yang responded to that outcry with the below-displayed tweet. responded Full context here was mental illness is behind half of anti-Asian hate crimes, he said. We need to get them compassionate comprehensive care and not let them languish on our streets. ", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FW-gt8_yqokehn3ezSUd8lN_46T3GbnP", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cZuQcMVAwNC3Gftb8LrFpSp96TX3OyOU", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "According to a tweet by the Times journalist, Emma Fitzsimmons, billionaire John Catsimatidis and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had just spoken with Yang on 77 WABC's \"Election Coverage\" show.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/emmagf/status/1407070361963880456", "https://www.nytimes.com/by/emma-g-fitzsimmons", "https://www.forbes.com/profile/john-catsimatidis/?sh=6779d7ef4a30", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rudy-giuliani-disbarred/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to 77 WABC's video recording of the June 21 broadcast segment, which featured candidates of several New York races fielding questions from Catsimatidis and Giuliani, Yang phoned into the show and had the below-transcribed exchange:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhkTfIntAUk&t=8712s" ] }, { "sentence": "Hours after the radio interview, Yang told The New York Times that he stood by his comments on the radio show, again framing the issue as one of public safety.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210622013006/https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/21/nyregion/nyc-primary-election#yang-doubles-down-on-his-comments-about-the-mentally-ill" ] }, { "sentence": "During a debate on June 16 with other Democratic candidates (there are 13 total), Yang said city officials need to get people with untreated mental health issues \"off of our streets and our subways into a better environment,\" and that \"mentally ill homeless men are changing the character of our neighborhoods,\" presumably for the worse.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210618005148/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/nyregion/yang-mental-illness.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Those comments sparked criticism among social media users who pointed out research that shows people with severe mental illness are far more likely to be victims of crime not perpetrators and the fact that mental health includes a wide spectrum of disorders that affect everyone.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537064/" ] }, { "sentence": "The day after the debate, Yang responded to that outcry with the below-displayed tweet.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1405362813372178434" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/heb-coupon-scam/", "claim": "H-E-B $80 Coupon Scam", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "07/08/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A free $80 H-E-B grocery coupon Facebook offer is just another version of the ubiquitous survey scam." ], "justification": "In July 2019, Facebook users began seeing posts advertising an $80 coupon offer for the H-E-B supermarket chain: These posts were the latest iteration of the common \"free coupon\" or \"free gift card\" scams that frequently plague social media. The fraudulent social media posts falsely proclaimed the distribution of H-E-B coupons was in honor of the store's 50th anniversary (\"HEB is giving free $80 coupon per family to celebrate its 50th anniversary!\"), although the chain was founded in 1905 (and thus is approaching its 114th anniversary). Those postings also linked to sites (such as www.heb.com-jul.com) not actually affiliated with the chain. These fake coupon offers are a form of survey scam that typically instructs shoppers to follow \"three simple steps\" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps are completed, however, users are not greeted with a coupon code: Instead, they are asked to fill out a survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users are also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their \"free\" gift cards. These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook. If you frequently use Facebook, there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau listed key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. H-E-B offers their genuine digital coupons to shoppers at https://www.heb.com/static-page/coupons. https://www.heb.com/static-page/coupons", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1J2VnXPsKSof98YDJgEM3J9Tsji4epZzD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook. If you frequently use Facebook, there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau listed key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/07/customer-survey-scam-lures-victims-with-gift-card/" ] }, { "sentence": "H-E-B offers their genuine digital coupons to shoppers at https://www.heb.com/static-page/coupons.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.heb.com/static-page/coupons" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/sep/29/mary-burke/wisconsin-under-scott-walker-near-bottom-new-busin/", "claim": "Under Scott Walker, right now, were 46th in the country in terms of new businesses started.", "author": "Tom Kertscher", "posted": "09/29/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "In a Milwaukee Public Radiointerviewon Sept. 22, 2014, Democrat Mary Burke critiqued Gov. Scott Walkers jobs strategy, saying the Republican governor generally believes that you give tax breaks to those at the top and the special interests and somehow it trickles down and creates jobs. Well, Im a business person. Thats not how jobs get created, countered Burke, who formerly served as a Trek Bicycle Corp. executive and state Commerce secretary. So, its a flawed model and I have a very different model and I lay out in my jobs plan the five core strategies on how were going to do this, Burke continued, before making a claim we want to check. It means we need to have a more entrepreneurial climate in Wisconsin. Thats one of them (her five strategies). Right now, were 46th in the country in terms of new businesses started. Just the other day, werated Truea Walker claim that Wisconsin ranks 11th in total business establishment growth, compared with 47th in the years that Burke was Commerce secretary. So we wondered whether Burkes claim contradicts that. As well see, terminology is key. Different measures Walker referred to business establishments, a term that means a business location, such as a new store or factory or farm. A single company can have multiple establishments, and new establishments can be opened by existing or new firms. So its a particular measure. Burkes terminology is different than Walkers,and refers to a different measuring stick. In October 2013, days after announcing her candidacy for governor, Burke said Wisconsin was 49th in the United States in new businesses created. We rated her statementMostly True. Burke cited the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, an annual study produced by the nonpartisan Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City-based group that works to foster entrepreneurial activity. Business administration professorStewart Thornhill, executive director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan, told us it is a widely cited measure. The index uses U.S. Census data to capture the number of new business owners in their first month of significant business activity. InKauffmans 2013 index, Wisconsin tied with Michigan for 48th among the states in the number of entrepreneurs per 100,000 people, ahead of only Nebraska and Minnesota. So, whats the landscape now? Burkes evidence To back Burkes new claim, her campaign cited the2014 Kauffman index. Here are the states rated lowest in terms of new business owners in their first month of significant business activity: Rank/State Entrepreneurs per 100,000 people U.S. average 280 (tie) Wisconsin and Washington 170 (tie) Minnesota and Indiana 160 Rhode Island 140 Iowa 110 So, Wisconsin is actually one notch higher than Burke indicated. On one hand, tying for 45th is an improvement from 48th in the 2013 index. On the other hand, Wisconsins 2014 rate of 170 entrepreneurs per 100,000 people is actually lower than its 2013 rate of 180. (Montana ranked first in both 2013 and 2014. Its 2014 rate was 610 entrepreneurs per 100,000 people.) Walkers response Walker campaign spokeswoman Alleigh Marre pointed out that in our earlier Burke factcheck, the Kauffman Foundation warned that its index isnt meant to provide a precise ranking of states. But its report in effect does that by reporting precise ratings and singling out states in the top five highest and lowest groups. Marre also cited other business-creation statistics, including the Walker claim about total business establishment growth. But, again, that is a different measure than the one Burke cites. Our rating Burke said Wisconsin is 46th in the country in terms of new businesses started. Wisconsin actually ties for 45th in the well-known Kauffman index, in terms of new business owners in their first month of significant business activity. We rate the statement Mostly True. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelsweb page.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "Small Business", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In a Milwaukee Public Radiointerviewon Sept. 22, 2014, Democrat Mary Burke critiqued Gov. Scott Walkers jobs strategy, saying the Republican governor generally believes that you give tax breaks to those at the top and the special interests and somehow it trickles down and creates jobs.", "hrefs": [ "https://player.fm/series/wuwm-lake-effect-full-episodes/monday-on-lake-effect-mary-burke-quantifying-the-menomonee-valleys-rebirth-un-climate-summit" ] }, { "sentence": "Just the other day, werated Truea Walker claim that Wisconsin ranks 11th in total business establishment growth, compared with 47th in the years that Burke was Commerce secretary.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2014/sep/17/scott-walker/scott-walker-says-wisconsin-11th-business-establis/" ] }, { "sentence": "In October 2013, days after announcing her candidacy for governor, Burke said Wisconsin was 49th in the United States in new businesses created. We rated her statementMostly True.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/oct/20/mary-burke/mary-burke-says-wisconsin-second-last-business-for/" ] }, { "sentence": "Business administration professorStewart Thornhill, executive director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan, told us it is a widely cited measure.", "hrefs": [ "http://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/stewart-thornhill" ] }, { "sentence": "InKauffmans 2013 index, Wisconsin tied with Michigan for 48th among the states in the number of entrepreneurs per 100,000 people, ahead of only Nebraska and Minnesota.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2013/04/kiea_2013_report.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "To back Burkes new claim, her campaign cited the2014 Kauffman index. Here are the states rated lowest in terms of new business owners in their first month of significant business activity:", "hrefs": [ "http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2014/04/kiea_2014_report.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinelsweb page.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.jsonline.com/news/politifact-testing-mary-burke-claim-on-states-new-business-starts-b99359315z1-277138321.html?page=1#!page=1&pageSize=10&sort=newestfirst" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-womens-soccer-national-anthem/", "claim": "Did US Women's Soccer Team Turn Backs on Vet Playing National Anthem?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/06/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Several members of the U.S. women soccer team signed a ball for the 98-year-old veteran after the match. " ], "justification": "On July 5, 2021, the U.S. women's soccer team defeated Mexico 4-0 in their final match before the Olympic Games. While many cheered America's accomplishment, conservative commentators started to share a video along with the claim that the team had \"disrespected\" the 98-year-old World War II veteran, Pete DuPr, who performed the national anthem on his harmonica. The controversy was a bit unclear from the start. Dinesh D'Souza, for instance, claimed that the players had turned their backs on the veteran during the performance. Richard Grenell, former acting director of U.S. national intelligence, claimed that they turned their back on the flag. Dinesh D'Souza Richard Grenell, Both of these messages (as well as the articles, videos, and additional tweets pushing this claim) mischaracterized the actions of the U.S. women's soccer team. While the video (below) does appear to show some awkward positioning (some players were facing forward while some were facing to the side), this was not a protest or a gesture of disrespect against the flag or the veteran. When DuPr began his performance, some players opted to face him, while others turned to face an American flag at the end of the stadium. When you watch the video below, pay attention to the direction the audience members were facing behind DuPr . Many of them were angled away from the harmonica-playing veteran and toward a flag at the end of the stadium. This is the same direction that the players were facing. As the flag is a bit difficult to see in the video (since it is only shown at the far-end of the field), here's a photograph from sports reporter Jeff Kassouf that shows the location of the flag for reference: photograph from sports reporter Jeff Kassouf Here's a video of DuPr's performance of the National Anthem from ESPN: Many of the people claiming that the U.S. team \"disrespected\" this veteran or the flag noted that the Mexican team was facing forward. It's worth noting that the members of Mexico's soccer team were facing their flag (in the same direction as the U.S. players) when the national anthem of Mexico was played. The claim that the U.S. Soccer team disrespected this veteran is also contradicted by the fact that the players signed a ball for DuPr after his performance. Meghan Rapinoe, for example, who can be seen in the video facing toward the flag, not DuPr, can be glimpsed in this video signing a ball for the veteran: Some U.S. soccer players, such as midfielder Cari Lloyd, have also disputed this claim on social media: The U.S. soccer team also posted a statement on Twitter: The claim that the U.S. women's soccer team was protesting during veteran DuPr's National Anthem performance is not true. The players did not turn away from this veteran. They turned toward the U.S. flag. ", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=112hnzhy7V8W560_jIrBT5MOJymNPAWDO", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The controversy was a bit unclear from the start. Dinesh D'Souza, for instance, claimed that the players had turned their backs on the veteran during the performance. Richard Grenell, former acting director of U.S. national intelligence, claimed that they turned their back on the flag. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1412258085171830787", "https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1412158519135006721" ] }, { "sentence": "When you watch the video below, pay attention to the direction the audience members were facing behind DuPr . Many of them were angled away from the harmonica-playing veteran and toward a flag at the end of the stadium. This is the same direction that the players were facing. As the flag is a bit difficult to see in the video (since it is only shown at the far-end of the field), here's a photograph from sports reporter Jeff Kassouf that shows the location of the flag for reference:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JeffKassouf/status/1412377658227372035" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/soros-refugee-debit-cards/", "claim": "Is George Soros providing financial support for debit cards distributed by the United Nations to refugees?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "11/06/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Conspiracy-pushing blogs seized on a Slovenian \"report\" and conflated separate refugee aid programs." ], "justification": "In November 2018, various conspiracy-pushing web sites glommed onto a dubious post emanating from Europe to gin up hysteria about both refugees and the United Nations. The original story, published on the right-wing Slovenian website Nova24TV, \"revealed\" that immigrants were spotted in Bosnia and Herzegovina using MasterCard debit cards and included an accusation sourced to an anonymous \"local police officer\": Migrants who are caught and sent back, in a few days or weeks again try to illegally enter Croatia. Some of them are really poor, but many of them are well-equipped: they have new footwear, new clothes, sophisticated smartphones, and some also have MasterCards with no names, just numbers. The cards can be used to withdraw money from ATMs, but we do not know who funds them. The story also included a stock photograph of young black men who had no relationship to the events described in the article, alongside the caption \"The image is symbolic\": The \"report\" was soon picked up by equally dubious websites, some of which included the same image without mentioning that it was a stock photo used only for \"symbolic\" purposes: Now the mystery has been solved regarding how so many poor migrants have been able to fund their illegal journeys to Europe. The UN, EU and Soros, in partnership with MasterCard, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars providing migrants with prepaid debit cards -- and European tax payers have not been informed that their taxes are being spent on handouts to illegal immigrants. What those sites did do, however, was expand on the original story by employing a familiar anti-Semitic dog whistle and attempting to tie the claim to liberal billionaire George Soros by falsely citing Nova24TV's piece -- even though it did not mention him -- and saying that the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was working \"in cooperation\" with Soros. familiar In reality, these posts conflated an existing United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) program with a separate humanitarian partnership involving Soros and the credit card provider MasterCard. The UNCHR's program was launched in Moldova in 2011 and expanded in 2016. That program provided aid to 10.5 million people across 94 countries between 2016 and August 2018, with recipients accessing their money via cash machines or \"mobile money\" electronic payments distributed through specialized cell phones: launched expanded Vulnerable persons fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in Moldova can now use debit cards under a new UNHCR initiative to expedite the distribution of the agencys monthly subsistence allowances. Moldova is the first country in Europe where the UN refugee agency has implemented the debit card scheme to streamline the distribution of its monthly financial support via Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). The new card scheme was launched by UNHCR, in cooperation with BCR Chisinau S.A. It enables needy refugees, asylum seekers and beneficiaries of humanitarian protection to receive convenient debit cards which they can use to withdraw the monthly support. UNHCR is very pleased to launch this initiative in Moldova as it enables people to withdraw funds at nearby bankomats at their convenience rather than having to commute to a central distribution point to collect the allowance, said Peter Kessler, UNHCRs representative in Moldova. Refugees have often suffered indignities and find it difficult to integrate in a new, safe host country, he added. Having these cards is another step towards helping them more actively participate in daily life and maintain a greater degree of dignity. The sums being distributed to beneficiaries of the UNHCR initiative are modest, currently not more than 500-600 Moldovan leu (30-36 euros) per person each month. Experienced aid workers -- including staff of the Ministry of Interiors Refugee Directorate, UNHCR and its implementing partners -- meet regularly to review applications for assistance. Recipients of the cards were pleased to get bankomat access and avoid having to pay for city buses to go and collect their monthly support. Asylum-seekers only receive social support for six months under the UN scheme while they await their decisions. However, refugees and beneficiaries of humanitarian protection may be assisted for longer periods if they are sick, are persons with disabilities or are elderly or unemployed. One of the most important benefits is that the debit cards will also give the recipients access to bank accounts, where they may eventually save money and earn interest. The UNCHR initiative was unrelated to either of two similar separate MasterCard-sponsored aid programs. The first, a June 2016 partnership between the credit card company, the Serbian Ministry of Labor, and the humanitarian group the Mercy Corps, sought to provide prepaid debit cards to refugees to help meet basic needs: partnership humanitarian The global organization Mercy Corps launched the pilot program in partnership with MasterCard and the Serbian Ministry of Labor to distribute prepaid debit cards to eligible refugees traveling through Serbia. Families received cards with a value of about $235 (210 Euros), and individuals approximately $78 (70 Euros). The money could be used to make purchases that help meet immediate needs. It was the first such program in the region to use an international cashless payment mechanism to help the tens of thousands of refugees and migrants seeking haven in Europe. By leveraging our technologies and products such as MasterCard Aid Network and Prepaid, MasterCard collaborates with partners to provide essential services at the most critical times of refugees lives. To date, MasterCard Aid and Prepaid cards have been deployed in humanitarian responses across Africa, Asia and Europe in countries such as Turkey, Kenya, Yemen, Nepal, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Niger, the Philippines, and Greece and are on-track to support thousands of beneficiaries ... we are working with Mercy Corps to provide assistance to thousands of refugees in Europe to cover their basic needs and allow them to live with dignity during one of most difficult times in their lives. A separate partnership between MasterCard and Soros to launch a \"standalone entity,\" Humanity Ventures, was first announced in January 2017. That program sought to provide private sector solutions to social issues such as joblessness, lack of access to healthcare, inadequate education, and financial exclusion among migrants and their host communities: announced Operating as a standalone entity, Humanity Ventures would initially combine solutions designed to expand access to healthcare and education, foster local economic development and entrepreneurship, and enhance the delivery of aid. One such solution is the Mastercard Aid Network, an award winning digital voucher platform designed in partnership with humanitarian organizations. With the creation of Humanity Ventures, Soros could invest up to $50 million to make these solutions even more scalable and sustainable. The social enterprise could also serve as an incubator and accelerator for smaller projects committed to mitigating the migration crisis. Designed to combine the need for business returns with social impact, Humanity Ventures would also act as a new model for how civil society, governments, and the private sector improve quality of life and drive economic growth. Migrants are often forced into lives of despair in their host communities because they cannot gain access to financial, healthcare and government services. Our potential investment in this social enterprise, coupled with Mastercards ability to create products that serve vulnerable communities, can show how private capital can play a constructive role in solving social problems, said George Soros. Humanity Ventures is intended to be profitable so as to stimulate involvement from other businesspeople. We also hope to establish standards of practice to ensure that investments are not exploitative of the vulnerable communities we intend to serve. The UNCHR has been involved with a program to provide cash to refugees via debit cards to help meet immediate needs, and George Soros has been involved with a program to assist migrants in partnership with MasterCard, but Soros is not funding the distribution of MasterCard debit cards to refugees via the United Nations. Pavlov, Liliana. \"Vulnerable Refugees Get ATM Cards Under New UNHCR Scheme.\"\r United Nations Refugee Agency. 23 March 2011. United Nations Refugee Agency. \"UNHCR: Programmes for Direct Cash-Aid to the Displaced Reaches Record $430m in 2016.\"\r 16 December 2016. United Nations Refugee Agency. \"Cash Assistance Gives Refugees the Power of Choice.\"\r 28 August 2018. Grimes, Marisa. \"MasterCard Prepaid Debit Cards Provide Refugees with Mobility, Flexibility and Dignity.\"\r MasterCard. 20 June 2016. MasterCard. \"Mastercard and George Soros to Explore Private Sector Solutions to Societal Challenges.\"\r 19 January 2017.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=10TkACRHcU4sw_aLUzW7hDZzkVU6rt1u_" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mSBiVXqsTtpn9wn44dXrzf2o2h1s39c3" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "What those sites did do, however, was expand on the original story by employing a familiar anti-Semitic dog whistle and attempting to tie the claim to liberal billionaire George Soros by falsely citing Nova24TV's piece -- even though it did not mention him -- and saying that the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was working \"in cooperation\" with Soros.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/?s=george+soros" ] }, { "sentence": "The UNCHR's program was launched in Moldova in 2011 and expanded in 2016. That program provided aid to 10.5 million people across 94 countries between 2016 and August 2018, with recipients accessing their money via cash machines or \"mobile money\" electronic payments distributed through specialized cell phones:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/latest/2011/3/4d89d2da6/vulnerable-refugees-atm-cards-under-new-unhcr-scheme.html", "https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2016/12/5853b3ed4/unhcr-programmes-direct-cash-aid-displaced-reaches-record-430m-2016.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The first, a June 2016 partnership between the credit card company, the Serbian Ministry of Labor, and the humanitarian group the Mercy Corps, sought to provide prepaid debit cards to refugees to help meet basic needs:", "hrefs": [ "https://newsroom.mastercard.com/2016/06/20/mastercard-prepaid-debit-cards-provide-refugees-with-mobility-flexibility-and-dignity/", "https://www.mercycorps.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "A separate partnership between MasterCard and Soros to launch a \"standalone entity,\" Humanity Ventures, was first announced in January 2017. That program sought to provide private sector solutions to social issues such as joblessness, lack of access to healthcare, inadequate education, and financial exclusion among migrants and their host communities:", "hrefs": [ "https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-and-george-soros-to-explore-private-sector-solutions-to-societal-challenges/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/double-bubble/", "claim": "Alka-Seltzer Marketing", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "12/30/2002", "sci_digest": [ "Did Alka-Seltzer dramatically increase their sales by instructing consumers to use two tablets instead of one?" ], "justification": " Claim: Alka-Seltzer dramatically increased its sales by instructing consumers to use two tablets instead of one. Origins: The history of corporate America is replete with examples (both real and apocryphal) of schemes to manipulate consumers into not only purchasing new products, but into buying more of the products they already use. Nearly everyone has heard the tale of the clever marketing man who doubled his company's sales of its shampoo product by adding the final word to the instructions \"Lather. Rinse. Repeat.\" Umpteen comedians have mused on the deliberate waste promoted by selling hot dogs in packs of eight, but buns in packages of twelve. And \"artificial obsolescence\" the yearly introduction of superficial stylistic changes in big-ticket items such as automobiles and appliances in order to lure status-conscious consumers into replacing perfectly functional products dates from the 1920s: In the 1920s the auto industry had been faced with a crisis: by 1926, according to reliable estimates, everyone who could afford a car already had one, and in 1927 production and sales declined for the first time. The answer was not Fordism the durable, dependable, unchanging Model-T. No, the solution was Sloanism, or the annual style change named for Alfred P. Sloan, president of General Motors. The object of superficial changes in detail on a yearly basis, Sloan said, was \"to create demand for new value and, so to speak, create a certain amount of dissatisfaction with past models as compared with the new one.\" When Sloanism began back in the 20s, the notion that a serviceable product could be rendered obsolete by appearance alone was transferred from the apparel of the upper class to the single most important industrial product in America. With the help of the ad copywriter, status and symbolism became compelling reasons for buying a new car, even though the old, black Ford out in the yard still ran like a top.1 In the early 1960s, Alka-Seltzer, the venerable fizzy heartburn and acid indigestion pain-relief tablet, was in a fix similar to that of auto makers in the late 1920s. As exemplified by Speedy, the \"cartoon disk with a squeaky voice and pop eyes\" who had been Speedy introduced in the early days of television and by the 1960s was one of the corniest mascots still in use to sell an adult product, Alka-Seltzer had fallen out of favor with the younger segment of the drug-buying public. Alka-Seltzer's customers were mostly older folks, and the product was not attracting many new buyers among American youth, for whom it \"had become the symbol of people who drank too much and ate too much ... the unforgivable symbol of a slob, a hangover cure.\" Nor was the typical advertising of the era likely to appeal to them: Traditionally, pain-relief products had been advertised in gruesome commercials filled with horrors that would have given you pain if you didn't already have it. People ran around groaning, clutching their heads and stomachs, men and women crawled into corners and shrieked \"Pain! Pain! Pain!\" at television viewers who immediately turned off their sets. In one Frankensteinian commercial an ugly Neanderthal man went through a series of tortures, hammers dropped from the skies to pound his head, hoses appeared like snakes to whip him with water, straitjackets tied him up, you wanted to scream at him to \"get off my telly!\" People did not watch proprietary drug advertising unless they already had a headache or stomach problem and were looking for a quick fix, so most of the time, from the advertiser's point of view, advertising was like throwing money into a black hole.2 The creative minds at the (Jack) Tinker & Partners advertising think tank solved the problem by coming up with different reasons for people to take Alka-Seltzer and fashioning a series of entertaining commercials around those themes: [We] created the kickoff commercial that set the style for all the variety of commercials that followed. It was a truly wonderful, iconic commercial, an ovation to stomachs, a sweet-natured montage of big ones, little ones, slim ones, fat ones, all filmed at stomach level. There was a street digger's jackhammer stomach, a young chick's bare midriff, two men talking, facing each other, one with a flat stomach and one with a big round one, an array of stomachs presented with self-deprecating humor and sweet humanness to a happy, bouncy tune. \"No matter what shape your stomach's in\" was its opening phrase. Self-deprecating humor was new and popular in the sixties and unheard-of in drug commercials, when it appeared it was news. tune It was followed by 16 completely different commercials, each entertaining and stylish, each giving you a different reason to take Alka-Seltzer.2 One of these 16 commercials was based on an \"Alka-Seltzer on the Rocks\" theme, for which Tinker & Partners created \"a frothy, luminous commercial composed of nothing but two Alka-Seltzers dropping into a crystal glass of water.\" The key phrase here was \"two Alka-Seltzers\" up until this series of ads, both the Speedy commercials and Alka-Seltzer's packaging had promoted the use of but a single tablet at a time: We met an attractive doctor at Miles [Laboratories], Dorothy Carter, who demonstrated to us that in order for aspirin to break through the pain barrier it often required two aspirins, not one, to do the job. As aspirin is one of the ingredients that make Alka-Seltzer effective, we asked her if two Alka-Seltzers would be better than one. Yes, two would work better than one. But the directions on the package said to take only one. And all the old Speedy commercials demonstrated only one fizzing in water. [We] did a little dance with Dorothy Carter in the laboratory. What a stroke of good fortune that was! We changed the directions on the packages and began showing two Alka-Seltzers dropping into a glass of water in every commercial. Miles created portable foil packs that held two Alka-Seltzers each and sold them in new places, magazine stands, bars, fast-food restaurants, powder rooms they became ubiquitous and, naturally, Miles began selling twice as much Alka-Seltzer.2 Alka-Seltzer's sales didn't quite double, and not all of the increase was directly attributable to consumers' using two tablets instead of one, but Alka-Seltzer did experience a dramatic reversal of fortune due to the Tinker & Partners commercials and their emphasis on two tablets an emphasis that was later fortified with the catchy and enduring \"Plop, plop; fizz fizz\" jingle, which drove from the public consciousness any thought that anyone had ever used anything less than two Alka-Seltzers at a time. jingle A common bit of trivia claims that Alka-Seltzer's famous \"Plop, plop; fizz, fizz\" jingle was written by the father of actress Julianna Margulies (of TV medical drama ER and The Good Wife fame). Although Julianna's father, Paul Margulies, was an advertising executive who helped create the \"Plop-plop, fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is\" campaign for Alka-Seltzer, the jingle was actually composed by musician Tom Dawes, a former member of The Cyrkle, who toured America with the Beatles in 1966 after scoring a #2 hit with a recording of Paul Simon's \"Red Rubber Ball.\" composed The Cyrkle Last updated: 27 October 2013 A Big Life (in Advertising) Mann, Charles C. The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. ISBN 0-394-57894-5. The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition 1. Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-674-04882-2 (p. 136). As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HpkgXcROfdMD5KxNY3_iK0VlgQCJOegB", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HIboE8vulJAPOp_MpnmMNwKFuFdCx3v1", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "the early 1960s, Alka-Seltzer, the venerable fizzy heartburn and acid indigestion pain-relief tablet, was in a fix similar to that of auto makers in the late 1920s. As exemplified by Speedy, the \"cartoon disk with a squeaky voice and pop eyes\" who had been ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tvacres.com/puppets_speedyalka.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "[We] created the kickoff commercial that set the style for all the variety of commercials that followed. It was a truly wonderful, iconic commercial, an ovation to stomachs, a sweet-natured montage of big ones, little ones, slim ones, fat ones, all filmed at stomach level. There was a street digger's jackhammer stomach, a young chick's bare midriff, two men talking, facing each other, one with a flat stomach and one with a big round one, an array of stomachs presented with self-deprecating humor and sweet humanness to a happy, bouncy tune. \"No matter what shape your stomach's in\" was its opening phrase. Self-deprecating humor was new and popular in the sixties and unheard-of in drug commercials, when it appeared it was news.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6PuGcB0lO4" ] }, { "sentence": "their emphasis on two tablets an emphasis that was later fortified with the catchy and enduring \"Plop, plop; fizz fizz\" jingle, which drove from the public consciousness any thought that anyone had ever used anything less than two Alka-Seltzers at a time.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxjb2UJZ-5I" ] }, { "sentence": "A common bit of trivia claims that Alka-Seltzer's famous \"Plop, plop; fizz, fizz\" jingle was written by the father of actress Julianna Margulies (of TV medical drama ER and The Good Wife fame). Although Julianna's father, Paul Margulies, was an advertising executive who helped create the \"Plop-plop, fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is\" campaign for Alka-Seltzer, the jingle was actually composed by musician Tom Dawes, a former member of The Cyrkle, who toured America with the Beatles in 1966 after scoring a #2 hit with a recording of Paul Simon's \"Red Rubber Ball.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.alkaseltzer.com/as/faqs.html#q21", "https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-cyrkle-mn0000137401/biography" ] }, { "sentence": " Mann, Charles C. The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. ISBN 0-394-57894-5.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394578945/ref=ase_urbanlegendsrefe" ] }, { "sentence": " 1. Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-674-04882-2 (p. 136).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674048822/ref=ase_urbanlegendsrefe" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wind-windmills-fumes/", "claim": "Did Trump Really Say This About Wind and Windmills?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "12/26/2019", "sci_digest": [ "The president raised eyebrows in December 2019 with a somewhat baffling attack on the use of wind turbines." ], "justification": "In December 2019, we received multiple enquiries from readers about remarks that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly made on the subject of wind power. In particular, readers asked us about a Dec. 23 meme published by the left-leaning \"Occupy Democrats\" Facebook page. meme The caption that accompanied the meme read: \"Yes, Trump really DID say this last night ...\" The meme itself contained the introductory line \"Future generations will look back on Trump's latest idiotic wind turbines rant in awe and horror,\" followed by what was presented as an extended quotation: \"I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. But they're manufactured tremendous if you're into this tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, it's going into the air. It's our air, their air, everything right?\" The quotation included in the Occupy Democrats meme was a highly, though not perfectly, accurate presentation of real remarks made by Trump during a Dec. 21 speech at a conference held by the right-leaning youth organization Turning Point USA. Appearing before a highly partisan, strongly supportive audience, Trump riffed on various familiar topics, attacking and ridiculing Democrats and boosting his own administration's record, often using hyperbolic language and eliciting laughter and cheers from the crowd. At times, the remarks appeared more like a stand-up comedy routine than an official speech. Around 30 minutes in, Trump ridiculed the Green New Deal, riffed on the subject of wind power, and attacked wind turbines. The following is a transcript of the most relevant section from his speech, which can also be watched in the official White House video below. ...We'll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I've studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It's [sic] very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none. But they're manufactured -- tremendous, if you're into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So [a] tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything -- you talk about the \"carbon footprint\" -- fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, it's going into the air. It's our air, their air, everything, right? So they make these things, and then they put them up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They're noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look, a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill some day. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen ever in your life ... The remarks included in the meme are shown in boldface above. Occupy Democrats did not misquote Trump and quoted word-for-word from his actual remarks, though the creators of the meme made slightly different punctuation choices to those we made. They also left out a short section where Trump explained his purported knowledge of windmills: \"I've studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It's [sic] very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none.\" That gap should have been reflected in the quotation with the use of an ellipsis, but the omission did not distort the meaning or sense of what Trump said, and we therefore issue a rating of \"Correct Attribution.\" ellipsis Although his remarks were somewhat garbled at times, Trump appeared to have been making the point that the construction of wind turbines causes carbon emissions (\"tremendous fumes\"). For what it's worth, it's true that building and maintaining wind turbines does leave a carbon footprint, but analyses have shown that the overall negative environmental impact of wind power is far outstripped by that of the fossil fuel energy sources that wind power is intended to replace. analyses National Renewable Energy Laboratory. \"Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization.\"\r Accessed 26 December 2019. Schipani, Vanessa. \"Wind Energy's Carbon Footprint.\"\r FactCheck.org. 14 March 2018.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Id9hzcpWsIR9XriqP-UEYdHQL_I_fu23", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In December 2019, we received multiple enquiries from readers about remarks that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly made on the subject of wind power. In particular, readers asked us about a Dec. 23 meme published by the left-leaning \"Occupy Democrats\" Facebook page. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/oQXD1" ] }, { "sentence": "They also left out a short section where Trump explained his purported knowledge of windmills: \"I've studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It's [sic] very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none.\" That gap should have been reflected in the quotation with the use of an ellipsis, but the omission did not distort the meaning or sense of what Trump said, and we therefore issue a rating of \"Correct Attribution.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ellipsis" ] }, { "sentence": "Although his remarks were somewhat garbled at times, Trump appeared to have been making the point that the construction of wind turbines causes carbon emissions (\"tremendous fumes\"). For what it's worth, it's true that building and maintaining wind turbines does leave a carbon footprint, but analyses have shown that the overall negative environmental impact of wind power is far outstripped by that of the fossil fuel energy sources that wind power is intended to replace. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/XSg5Q" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jan/31/donald-trump/trump-says-tax-bill-led-bonuses-three-million-work/", "claim": "Since we passed tax cuts, over 3 million workers have gotten tax cut bonuses many of them thousands and thousands of dollars.", "author": "Amy Sherman", "posted": "01/30/2018", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "President Donald Trump said the tax bill passed in December has already led to millions of workers getting bonuses. Since we passed tax cuts, over 3 million workers have gotten tax cut bonuses many of them thousands and thousands of dollars, Trump said during the State of the Union Jan. 30. In December, Trump signed a bill into law thatlowered the corporate tax ratefrom 35 to 21 percent. Trumps numbers echo the finding of a conservative group that had compiled company announcements about bonuses, but the majority of companies bonuses appeared to be $1,000 or less, not the thousands and thousands Trump said. Trumps numbers match a compilation byAmericans for Tax Reform, a group started by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Americans for Tax Reform advocates against tax increases andsupportedthe Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed into law in December. Americans for Tax Reform used company press releases and media reports to compile a list of announced bonuses or other financial benefits. The group found that as of the day of Trumps State of the Union speech, at least 3 million Americans are receiving special tax reform bonuses. American Airlines, FedEx, Home Depot, Nationwide Insurance, Walmart and Walt Disney Company were among the companies that announced bonuses. In total, at least 286 companies have announced wage and salary increases, bonuses, or 401(k) match increases, or in the case of public utility companies, lower rates. Trump said that many of the bonuses are thousands of dollars per worker. But it appears that the majority of the company announcements were for bonuses of $1,000 or less. The list includes about nine companies that announced bonuses of $2,000, includingFiat Chryslers 60,000 employees. Some companies were very clear about who deserves credit for the bonus. The Hammock Source in North Carolina was one of many companies to announce employee bonuses following the passage of the tax bill. The company handed out the bonuses in envelopes that said, Trump Republican tax reform bonus. We at The Hammock Source want to continue to invest in the people that have made our business successful, CEO Walter Perkins III said in a press release Jan. 25. President Trumps tax cuts will provide the funds to make this desire a reality. We hope that other business will follow our lead and give back to their employees as well. The Americans for Tax Reform analysis was only of recent bonus announcements and did not include a historical comparison to determine how many of these companies gave bonuses in recent years. Its not unusual for manycompanies to give bonuses. Experts say that Trumps claim is lacking important context. The bonuses only affect a small percentage of American workers. Willis Towers Watson, a global human resources consulting firm, surveyed 333 large and midsize employers in January to ask about their plans related to the tax bill. The survey showed that about 6 percent said they provided profit sharing or a bonus in 2017 and 5 percent planned to do so in 2018, while 10 percent were considering it. A slightly smaller number had given wage increases or planned to do so. AReuters/Ipsos pollshowed 2 percent of U.S. adults said they had gotten a raise, bonus or other additional benefits due to the tax law. The poll was conducted of 5,254 adults Jan. 12-23. Economists say it will take more time to fully assess the economic impact of the tax reform bill. Labor trend experts said that amid a tightening labor market and low unemployment, companies have been trying to use different compensation and rewards to attract and retain top talent. Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor, told PolitiFact that one-time bonuses are a low-risk way for companies to pass on some expected benefits of the tax bill to workers without being on the hook for sustained higher base wages. In this hiring environment, plans for pay increases are likely to have already been in the works, and the passage of the recent tax bill may simply have been the occasion for announcement rather than the cause, he said. The news coverage following the new tax policy may have led some employers to announce pay or benefit changes in an effort to stay ahead of competitors. This is not to say the tax bill hasnt affected recent decisions to raise wages at all, but the full impact of tax reform on the job market is something that well only know in time years or even a decade from now, Chamberlain said. Brian Kropp, HR practice leader at Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, told PolitiFact that companies have been trying to use different compensation and rewards to attract and retain top talent. While, it is true that some companies have used the tax cut to provide bonuses for employees, the majority of companies had already been increasing, or planning to increase rewards, well before the tax cut, he said. Companies announcing bonuses by the end of 2017 do get a tax advantage of claiming a deduction in that tax year, Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center co-director Eric Toder told PolitiFact. A payment in 2017 would be deductible at a 35 percent rate; the same payment in 2018 would be deductible only at the new 21 percent rate, Toder said. My understanding is companies would only have had to announce the bonus by the end of 2017 to claim the deduction in tax year 2017; they would not literally have had to send out the checks. Any surge in bonus payments now probably says little or nothing about how the corporate tax cuts will affect wages in the long-run, Toder said. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute who favored the corporate tax changes in the bill, said that the response from corporations was a surprise. Taxes matter to businesses, and they respond, he said. However, bonuses are a short-term response to the tax bill, which is less important than potential long-term changes, such as whether corporations will build new factories or purchase more machinery. Trump said, Since we passed tax cuts, over 3 million workers have gotten tax cut bonuses many of them thousands and thousands of dollars. Americans for Tax Reform, a group that supported the tax reform bill, found that at least 3 million Americans are receiving bonuses that the companies said were related to passage of the tax bill, based on company press releases and news reports. However, economists and labor experts say it will take years to fully assess the economic impact of the tax bill. In this tight labor market, its possible that some businesses were already planning to give out bonuses or other financial incentives to retain workers. We rate this claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Workers", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In December, Trump signed a bill into law thatlowered the corporate tax ratefrom 35 to 21 percent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1425/lower-business-tax-rate/" ] }, { "sentence": "Trumps numbers match a compilation byAmericans for Tax Reform, a group started by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Americans for Tax Reform advocates against tax increases andsupportedthe Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed into law in December.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.atr.org/list" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump said that many of the bonuses are thousands of dollars per worker. But it appears that the majority of the company announcements were for bonuses of $1,000 or less. The list includes about nine companies that announced bonuses of $2,000, includingFiat Chryslers 60,000 employees.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/fiat-chrysler-to-give-u-s-workers-2-000-bonuses-after-tax-bill" ] }, { "sentence": "The Americans for Tax Reform analysis was only of recent bonus announcements and did not include a historical comparison to determine how many of these companies gave bonuses in recent years. Its not unusual for manycompanies to give bonuses.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.geekwire.com/2016/payscale/" ] }, { "sentence": "Willis Towers Watson, a global human resources consulting firm, surveyed 333 large and midsize employers in January to ask about their plans related to the tax bill. The survey showed that about 6 percent said they provided profit sharing or a bonus in 2017 and 5 percent planned to do so in 2018, while 10 percent were considering it. A slightly smaller number had given wage increases or planned to do so.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.willistowerswatson.com/en/press/2018/01/tax-law-fueling-changes-to-employer-benefits-and-compensation-programs" ] }, { "sentence": "AReuters/Ipsos pollshowed 2 percent of U.S. adults said they had gotten a raise, bonus or other additional benefits due to the tax law. The poll was conducted of 5,254 adults Jan. 12-23.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-poll/few-u-s-adults-report-bonuses-raises-from-republican-tax-law-idUSKBN1FI16Q?il=0" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/nov/16/greg-abbott/greg-abbott-makes-false-claims-about-texas-unemplo/", "claim": "The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "11/16/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Its commonplace for a governor to tout a states economy. Still, Greg Abbott of Texas made us wonder when hetweetedin mid-November 2017: The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation. Abbott, a Republican seeking re-election in 2018, accompanied his tweet with acampaign videoof Abbott smiling at business groundbreakings. The ad flashes headlines about companies opening facilities and adding jobs in Texas. Tagline: And were just getting started. We got started fact-checking Abbotts tweet by asking his office for his backup; we didnt get a response. In July 2017, Abbott made aMostly True claimabout more Texans having jobs than ever. Yet we noticed that when Abbott tweeted about the states jobless rate last month, October 2017 unemployment rates had yet to be revealed. To get our fix on the latest available data, we fetched Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing that the states impressive 4 percent jobless rate for September 2017 tied the previous record low since 1976. According to the bureau, the state similarly had a 4 percent unemployment rate in November and December 2000, 17 years ago.The state jobless rate in fall 1977, 40 years ago, hovered at 5.2 percent. To our inquiry, a Dallas-based bureau economist, Cheryl Abbot, confirmed our read of monthly seasonally adjusted Texas jobless rates since 1976. Mark J. Perry, who teaches at the University of Michigan-Flint, agreed though Perry, by email, called Abbotts overstatement on this point minor. Texas Unemployment Rate (Seasonally Adjusted), 1976-September 2017 SOURCE: Website,Local Area Unemployment Statistics,Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 16, 2017 (downloaded Nov. 16, 2017) Job gains? By email, the bureau's Abbot showed that Texas didnt lead the country in job gains for September (again, the latest month of available data). In fact, an October 2017 bureaupress releaseindicates Texas wasn't even among the five states that experienced job gains from August to September 2017. From the release: The largest increase in employment occurred in California (+52,200), followed by Washington (+13,800) and Indiana (+11,400). The states also were described as enjoying statistically significant month-to-month gains. In percentage terms, the bureau said, the largest increase occurred in Nebraska (+0.5 percent), followed by Arizona, Indiana, and Washington (+0.4 percent each). California had a 0.4 percent gain, the release said. According to a more detailed bureau chart we checked in mid-November 2017, Texas saw a 0.1 percent decrease in jobs from August to September 2017 by going from 12,328,400 jobs to 12,321,100 jobs. The chart indicates 30 states fared better month to month though that folds in five states showing no percentage gains (or losses). Theres a more encouraging longer view. The bureaus release lists Texas among 28 states with over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment from September 2016 to September 2017. The release said: The largest job gains occurred in California (+280,300), Texas (+256,100), and New York (+93,100)--with the largest percentage gains playing out in Nevada and Utah (+2.5 percent each) followed by Maryland (+2.4 percent). According to an accompanying chart, Texas and Idaho each saw a 2.1 percent increase in jobs over the year, tying for fourth nationally behind Washington state, which saw a 2.2 percent percentage increase in jobs. Abbot wrote: As you can see, the largest monthly increase in jobs in September 2017 occurred in California (+52,200). In percentage terms, Nebraska led among the states with a 0.5-percent gain. California also recorded the largest over-the-year increase during this period (280,300), followed by Texas (256,100). Our ruling Abbott tweeted: The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation. The latest unemployment data posted when Abbott spoke showed Texas with a 4 percent unemployment rate in September 2017 though that didn't set a 40-year record. Rather, it tied the previous 40-year low set in two months of 2000. Abbott didnt provide nor did we find data showing jobs created in each state in October 2017. Federal data otherwise indicate that Texas experienced a slight decrease in jobs from August to September 2017 though the state also was home to more jobs than a year earlier. We rate this claim False. FALSE The statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. UPDATE, Nov. 17, 2017:Two days after Abbott tweeted his claim about the Texas jobless rate, thefederal government reportedthat the state had a 41-year record low 3.9 percent jobless rate in October 2017.", "issues": [ "Corrections and Updates", "Economy", "Jobs", "Texas" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16XlyjrluLPEAg_-7M77CJTBWcEPey0Rb", "image_caption": "SOURCE" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Its commonplace for a governor to tout a states economy. Still, Greg Abbott of Texas made us wonder when hetweetedin mid-November 2017: The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/gregabbott_tx/status/930865642332442630" ] }, { "sentence": "Abbott, a Republican seeking re-election in 2018, accompanied his tweet with acampaign videoof Abbott smiling at business groundbreakings. The ad flashes headlines about companies opening facilities and adding jobs in Texas. Tagline: And were just getting started.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCT8BAEnkso" ] }, { "sentence": "In July 2017, Abbott made aMostly True claimabout more Texans having jobs than ever. Yet we noticed that when Abbott tweeted about the states jobless rate last month, October 2017 unemployment rates had yet to be revealed.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2017/aug/03/greg-abbott/greg-abbott-says-more-texans-have-jobs-ever/" ] }, { "sentence": "To get our fix on the latest available data, we fetched Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing that the states impressive 4 percent jobless rate for September 2017 tied the previous record low since 1976. According to the bureau, the state similarly had a 4 percent unemployment rate in November and December 2000, 17 years ago.The state jobless rate in fall 1977, 40 years ago, hovered at 5.2 percent.", "hrefs": [ "https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pBowNJiNaoJ3A5f_O-NsFOo6s9BvbzlOcr1kd_bRI88/edit?usp=sharing" ] }, { "sentence": "SOURCE: Website,Local Area Unemployment Statistics,Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 16, 2017 (downloaded Nov. 16, 2017)", "hrefs": [ "https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST480000000000003" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, an October 2017 bureaupress releaseindicates Texas wasn't even among the five states that experienced job gains from August to September 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/laus.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "FALSE The statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/" ] }, { "sentence": "UPDATE, Nov. 17, 2017:Two days after Abbott tweeted his claim about the Texas jobless rate, thefederal government reportedthat the state had a 41-year record low 3.9 percent jobless rate in October 2017.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm" ] } ], "label": "false", "visualization_bias": 1 }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-prank/", "claim": "Prehistoric Shark Found in Pakistan", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/25/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Was a 15-ton giant shark captured off the coast of Pakistan?" ], "justification": " Claim: A 15-ton \"giant shark,\" previously believed to be extinct (and a \"a parent of the Megalodon\") was captured off the coast of Pakistan by local fishermen. Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2014] 15-Ton Prehistoric Shark Captured Off Coast Of Pakistan. Just seems sketchy in all aspects. Origins: On 24 September 2014, World News Daily Report published an article sure spark interest in shark fans. According to the site, a \"parent\" species of the famed Megalodon was captured off the coast of Pakistan, near Karachi. article Megalodon The undated article \"quotes\" a local marine biologist as surmising that \"rising sea temperatures [are] forcing these beasts to come up closer to the shores,\" or perhaps the shark was \"simply hurt and suffering from a disorienting handicap\" after reporting: A giant prehistoric shark previously thought to be extinct for more than 20 million years has been captured by local fishermen off the coast of Pakistan, reports the Islamabad Herald this morning. The giant creature first thought to be a great white shark was rapidly declared by experts to be an unknown species of shark as its great weight and size were unheard of. Analysis of the teeth suggest the shark to be a parent of the Megalodon, an extinct species of shark that lived approximately 28 to 1.5 million years ago, during the Cenozoic Era. Given broad interest in the Megalodon, the \"prehistoric shark\" story quickly gained traction on social media sites. Unfortunately, World News Daily Report is one of a number of \"satire\" news outlets, churning out passably believable articles to be shared on Facebook and Twitter. A disclaimer page on the main site states: disclaimer World News Daily Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction. In addition to the \"prehistoric giant shark\" story, World News Daily Report's featured daily articles include \"Elderly Woman Vanishes During Magic Show\" and \"Homeless Man Sexually Assaulted By Top Models In Limousine.\" Last updated: 25 September 2014 ", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Tgs1KVP4oHrRXgdXsolf31lVN6NQ0G2T", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 24 September 2014, World News Daily Report published an article sure spark interest in shark fans. According to the site, a \"parent\" species of the famed Megalodon was captured off the coast of Pakistan, near Karachi.", "hrefs": [ "https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/15-ton-prehistoric-shark-captured-off-coast-of-pakistan/", "/critters/malice/megalodon.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "A disclaimer page on the main site states:", "hrefs": [ "https://worldnewsdailyreport.com/disclaimer/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/16/sarah-palin/palin-says-americans-spend-100-days-paying-their-t/", "claim": "Americans now spend 100 days out of the year working for government before we even start working for ourselves.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "04/16/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "On April 14, 2010, former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin addressed a tea party event in Boston and tried to characterize the scale of the tax burden in the United States.Americans now spend 100 days out of the year working for government before we even start working for ourselves, she said.By making her point this way, Palin was using a yardstick that receives both attention and criticism every April 15, the day federal tax returns are due. So we thought it would be as good a time as any to look once again at the skirmishing over Tax Freedom Day. (Welast studied the questionmore than two years ago, when Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee cited a similar statistic.) Tax Freedom Day is the date when Americans . . . have earned enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels, according to the Tax Foundation, the Washington, D.C.-based group that has calculated it for decades and also determined it retroactively back to 1900.The foundation calculates Tax Freedom Day by taking the amount of tax revenue collected and dividing it by national income created, producing an average tax burden for the U.S. economy as a whole. That percentage is then multiplied by 365 to calculate the number of days over the course of a year it would take to pay off the entire tax burden. (The calculation counts every day of the year, not adjusting for weekends, holidays or leap years. )To determine tax revenue, the foundation adds together individual income taxes paid at every governmental level; payroll taxes, the federal levies that fund Social Security and Medicare; sales and excise taxes, which are typically collected at the state and local level; corporate income taxes; property taxes; and other miscellaneous taxes such as those for car licenses, energy or mineral production and estates.The Tax Foundation also offers state-specific Tax Freedom Days. These range from 85 for Alaska (Palin's home state) and Louisiana to 117 for higher-tax Connecticut. But the national average is 99.So if we measure Palin by how closely her figure tracks with the current Tax Freedom Day statistic, she scores well. She rounded up from 99 to 100 -- close enough in our book -- and she used the national average rather than any state figure, which is appropriate.Still, before giving Palin the Truth-O-Meter seal of approval, we need to determine whether she described the number's meaning accurately. And this requires delving into the annual debate over how useful the Tax Freedom Day concept is.The Tax Foundation's loyal antagonist in this annual battle is the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP doesn't suggest that Tax Freedom Day is a bad statistic; it acknowledges that it's a perfectly fine tool if you need to compare the level of taxation in different countries, or measure how the tax burden has changed over time.However, CBPP does cite a number of complaints. We're ignoring a bunch that aren't addressed by Palin's comment, such as concerns over how the state-by-state tax burdens are calculated.The one criticism by CBPP that we do think is relevant to Palin's comment is the argument that Tax Freedom Day ignores differences in how much Americans of different income levels pay in taxes.The Tax Foundation's number represents an average tax burden for the economy as a whole. But CBPP argues that the foundation's number is not a good measure of what a typical taxpayer pays. To explain the difference, CBPP offers the following example:Suppose four families with incomes of $50,000 each pay $2,500 in taxes 5 percent of their income while one wealthy family with income of $300,000 pays $90,000 in taxes 30 percent of its income. Total income among these five families is $500,000, and the total amount paid in taxes is $100,000. Thus, 20 percent of the total income of the five families goes to pay taxes. But the 20 percent figure is highly misleading as an indicator of the typical tax burden for families in this group, since four of the five families have tax rates just one-fourth of that amount.This is obviously an extreme case, and William Ahern, the Tax Foundation's director of policy and communications, countered that in the real world of taxation, the differences between taking a strict average (as the Tax Foundation does) and using a median figure (which would more closely reflect patterns of income distribution) aren't that great. CBPP cites research showing that the difference is significant.CBPP argues that there's enough income inequality in the United States, and enough progressivity in the tax code, to undermine the usefulness of Tax Freedom Day calculations. That's because a sizable majority of taxpayers must work significantly fewer days to pay off their tax bill -- and a minority must work significantly more days. So any attempt to suggest that Tax Freedom Day represents the experience of a typical American -- as opposed to one on the higher end of the income spectrum -- may be problematic.The good news for the Truth-O-Meter is that we don't have to resolve this dispute in order to rate Palin's comment -- we only need to make sure that Palin described accurately the statistic she was using. The bad news in this particular case is that Palin's phrasing is a bit elliptical, making it difficult to parse her words. Palin said, Americans now spend 100 days out of the year working for government before we even start working for ourselves. That's pretty close to what the Tax Foundation said in its own release -- Americans will work well over three months of the year from Jan. 1 to April 9 before they have earned enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels. Both Palin and the Tax Foundation avoid saying that Tax Freedom Day represents the experience of a typical American, which would have been a more problematic phrasing. Our graduated tax system, which is weighted more heavily on the wealthy, means that the average amount paid is skewed upward by a smaller number of wealthy people who pay a lot. In other words, there are many, many more people who would fall under the 100-day threshold mentioned by Palin than over it. We think listeners take Palin as referring to what a typical American pays in taxes, since she didn't specify otherwise. Leaving that impression in listeners' minds, we knock her statement down to Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On April 14, 2010, former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin addressed a tea party event in Boston and tried to characterize the scale of the tax burden in the United States.Americans now spend 100 days out of the year working for government before we even start working for ourselves, she said.By making her point this way, Palin was using a yardstick that receives both attention and criticism every April 15, the day federal tax returns are due. So we thought it would be as good a time as any to look once again at the skirmishing over Tax Freedom Day. (Welast studied the questionmore than two years ago, when Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee cited a similar statistic.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/25/mike-huckabee/it-all-depends-what-you-consider-average/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/critical-mass/", "claim": "Catholic Services in Jeopardy During Government Shutdown", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/05/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Are Catholic priests barred from conducting religious services on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown?" ], "justification": " Claim: Catholic priests may not conduct religious services on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown. : : Contract priests are prohibited from conducting religious functions on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown. : President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for holding Mass during the federal government shutdown. Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] Did President Obama really order that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown? Origins: One of the many issues affecting both the public and government workers during the federal government shutdown of October 2013 is the Antideficiency Act, a piece of legislation originally passed back in 1870 that prohibits the federal government from incurring any monetary obligations for which Congress has not appropriated funds. Under the terms of that legislation, federal employees may not perform their job duties during a government shutdown (save for certain legally exempted activities, such as \"emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property\") even if they volunteer to do so on an unpaid basis, and federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action (such as suspension or job termination), fines, and imprisonment. Antideficiency Act The application of the Antideficiency Act is open to a fair amount of interpretation, however. For example, does it violate the terms of the Antideficiency Act for federal workers to check their cell phones or e-mail for work-related messages during the government shutdown, even if they don't act on those messages? Executive branch departments have had to review and decide what government activities they believe may or may not be allowed during the shutdown without running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. Due to a confluence of circumstances, one group affected by the Antideficiency Act are some Catholic priests. Due to a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains in the U.S. armed forces, the Department of Defense has had to hire about 234 priests from outside the military (variously known as contract priests, GS priests, or non-active duty priests) to perform Catholic services and other religious functions on U.S. military bases. Although active duty military personnel (including chaplains) are exempt from the Antideficiency Act, government contract workers are not, so contract priests may not perform religious services or otherwise minister to Catholics on U.S. military bases during the government shutdown, even on a volunteer basis. Therefore, a subset of Catholic military personnel who are stationed at bases that have no active duty Catholic chaplains and are instead being staffed by contract priests will have to go elsewhere for religious services for the duration of the shutdown if they wish to attend Mass or take part in a baptism, for example, they will have to go to local churches or other off-base locations for those functions. (U.S. military personnel stationed in some parts of the world may not be able to find local English-speaking priests, or any priests at all, however.) It isn't true, however, that \"President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown.\" As explained above, the issue with contract priests in the military was created by the intersection of the Antideficiency Act and a shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains, two factors which have neither been instigated by nor are under the control of President Obama. And although imprisonment is technically one of the potential punishments spelled out in the law for federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act, President Obama has not ordered that penalty to be applied to contract priests or any other federal employees, and that penalty is unlikely to be applied to anyone save for the most egregious of violations. Update: On 5 October 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure (by a 400 to 1 vote) in favor of allowing military chaplains to minister on Sunday without violating the Antideficiency Act. The Senate has not yet taken up the bill. Last updated: 5 October 2013 ", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://clergy.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/christ-the-high-priest-icon.jpg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: One of the many issues affecting both the public and government workers during the federal government shutdown of October 2013 is the Antideficiency Act, a piece of legislation originally passed back in 1870 that prohibits the federal government from incurring any monetary obligations for which Congress has not appropriated funds. Under the terms of that legislation, federal employees may not perform their job duties during a government shutdown (save for certain legally exempted activities, such as \"emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property\") even if they volunteer to do so on an unpaid basis, and federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action (such as suspension or job termination), fines, and imprisonment. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gao.gov/legal/lawresources/antideficiencybackground.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/debby-ryan-heart-attack/", "claim": "Did Debby Ryan Have a Heart Attack?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/08/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Unfounded rumors concerning Debby Ryan's health were circulated in the wake of the death of her co-star Cameron Boyce. " ], "justification": "On July 6, 2019, fans of actor Cameron Boyce were shocked and saddened to learn that the 20-year-old Disney star had passed away after experiencing a seizure. As celebrities and fans mourned the loss of Boyce on social media, a rumor began to circulate that actress Debby Ryan had suffered a heart attack after hearing the news about her former co-star's death: passed away There was no truth to this unfounded rumor, which was widely disseminated by a viral video posted to YouTube by @Dancetayley and titled \"Debby Ryan Rushed to Hospital After Finding Out About Cameron Boyce.\" The video, which racked up nearly 2 million views within a day of its initial posting, included a number of screenshots of tweets from random people who claimed that Ryan had suffered a heart attack: YouTube None of those tweets originated with verified sources, however, and no credible news outlets reported that Ryan experienced a heart attack. This rumor likely stemmed from the fact that Ryan's voice was absent from the conversation immediately following Boyce's death. While many other co-stars and celebrity friends posted messages to social media mourning the loss of Boyce after the news of his death broke, Ryan's social media accounts were largely silent. Fans began to wonder why she hadn't commented yet, and some of them started to claim without evidence that she had suffered a heart attack. messages There were, of course, innumerable potential reasons why Ryan didn't immediately post to social media that did not involve a heart attack. For example, she might simply have taken some time to process the news that her co-star had passed away. While Ryan didn't immediately post to social media, she did like a tweet posted by actor Charles Esten, who co-starred with Ryan and Boyce on the show Jessie: tweet Ryan, who turned off her Instagram comments following Boyce's death (likely because a large number of fans were continuously reminding her that her friend had just died), also posted a video to her Instagram story of Boyces acceptance speech for the Pioneering Spirit award at the 2018 Thirst Gala. Instagram comments posted Instagram story Here's the full video of Boyce's acceptance speech. The portion of his speech included in Ryan's post is transcribed below: Its crazy, we can tweet whenever we want and we can use social media and Instagram and make the world a better place, instead of a worse one, which so many people use it for... We need to use what we have and make the world a better place for other people, other people, people who need us. BBC News. \"Cameron Boyce: Disney Descendants Star Dies Age 20.\"\r 8 July 2019. McBride, Jessica. \"Debby Ryan Shuts Off Instagram Comments After Cameron Boyces Death.\"\r Heavy. 8 July 2019 Sager, Jessica. \"Adam Sandler, More Co-Stars Mourn Death of Cameron Boyce.\"\r Fox News. 7 July 2019", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1rwrsGlg0_rqzNjfkgn1FaS66AnPb-4qv", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1QaOiMfQGkUHQ_Lv3CIS4hyNvDotZTLmz", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14k3xeGiqhDko419d2kEQwhGfG7tKZ9uW", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On July 6, 2019, fans of actor Cameron Boyce were shocked and saddened to learn that the 20-year-old Disney star had passed away after experiencing a seizure. As celebrities and fans mourned the loss of Boyce on social media, a rumor began to circulate that actress Debby Ryan had suffered a heart attack after hearing the news about her former co-star's death:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/07/07/actor-cameron-boyce-dies-at-age-20/" ] }, { "sentence": "There was no truth to this unfounded rumor, which was widely disseminated by a viral video posted to YouTube by @Dancetayley and titled \"Debby Ryan Rushed to Hospital After Finding Out About Cameron Boyce.\" The video, which racked up nearly 2 million views within a day of its initial posting, included a number of screenshots of tweets from random people who claimed that Ryan had suffered a heart attack:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINyXFRHljU&feature=youtu.be&t=492" ] }, { "sentence": "This rumor likely stemmed from the fact that Ryan's voice was absent from the conversation immediately following Boyce's death. While many other co-stars and celebrity friends posted messages to social media mourning the loss of Boyce after the news of his death broke, Ryan's social media accounts were largely silent. Fans began to wonder why she hadn't commented yet, and some of them started to claim without evidence that she had suffered a heart attack.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/adam-sandler-cameron-boyce-dead" ] }, { "sentence": "While Ryan didn't immediately post to social media, she did like a tweet posted by actor Charles Esten, who co-starred with Ryan and Boyce on the show Jessie:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/DebbyRyan/likes" ] }, { "sentence": "Ryan, who turned off her Instagram comments following Boyce's death (likely because a large number of fans were continuously reminding her that her friend had just died), also posted a video to her Instagram story of Boyces acceptance speech for the Pioneering Spirit award at the 2018 Thirst Gala.", "hrefs": [ "https://heavy.com/news/2019/07/debby-ryan-cameron-boyce-death-instagram/", "https://www.instagram.com/stories/debbyryan/2083183423698094112/", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/07/debby-ryan-ig.jpg" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/apr/10/jefferson-smith/does-oregon-spend-more-tax-breaks-public-safet-hea/", "claim": "Says at the state level we're spending more on tax expenditures than we are on public safety, health care and education combined.", "author": "Ian K. Kullgren", "posted": "04/10/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Jefferson Smith has his sights set on the Portland mayors office, but state issues seem to pop up in his campaign. Little wonder, given that hes represented Portland in the Oregon House since 2009.One fact hes taken to repeating -- first during a candidates forum hosted by Family Forward Oregon and Mother PAC and later during a Rotary Club meeting -- is that at the state level we're spending more on tax expenditures than we are on public safety, health care and education combined.Tax expenditures is government-speak for what most of us call tax breaks. I think we should think about money beyond tax breaks, he said, just before making his claim. That is a handy tool. But it is a tool we've been using for years and years and years and years.Sure, tax breaks come in lots of different shapes and sizes -- seniors can deduct medical expenses, businesses can get breaks for green building improvements -- but could they really outweigh the amount the state spends on some of its core programs?We got to checking.Smiths campaign wasnt very helpful -- staffers had no source for his claim and his spokeswoman, Stacey Dycus, told us the idea was a random remark he made when explaining something.We were on our own. Thankfully, we know our way around the state budget.Our first stop was the states 2011-2013 tax expenditure report. The report pretty clearly lays out the amount of tax expenditures -- or breaks -- for the current biennium. All told, the state gives about $12 billion in income tax breaks, $19 billion in property tax breaks and just over $100 million in others, for a grand total of $31.3 billion in forgone revenues.Getting those figures was the easy part -- the hard part was figuring out what to compare them to. See, the states budget can be diced and parsed in dozens of ways. Generally, though, we talk about the states general fund and lottery budget -- this budget deals with the money that the state has the most discretionary power over -- and the total funds budget -- the money that includes cash we get from the feds for, say, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as food assistance programs.Lets start with the all funds budget. The current budget accounts for nearly $59 billion in total spending -- this is without the tax breaks. Of that, $13.5 billion goes to education and $3.6 billion goes to public safety. The health care figure is a little harder to come by. The best estimate we could dig up is the total funds budget for the Oregon Health Authority -- the executive bureaucracy that does the majority of the states health care work. That budget is just over $12 billion.If you add those three budget areas, you get $29.1 billion, about $2.2 billion short of the tax breaks the state gives. By this measurement, Smith is right.Now, the other way to do this would be to look at the general and lottery funds budget. This way might be somewhat fairer, given that so much of the total funds budget is made up of federal dollars. All told, the current general and lottery funds budget includes about $11.7 billion for health care, education and public safety. Obviously, thats quite a bit less than the $31.3 billion in state tax breaks.The problem here is, you cant directly compare those two figures. See, we said earlier that theres a report that pretty clearly lays out the various tax giveaway, but what it doesnt do is explain exactly how that money would be rerouted if it were being collected by the state. For instance, $19 billion of those giveaways are for property taxes. Most of that money would go to municipalities if it were collected -- not the state. There is an argument to be made that about 40 percent of the property tax revenue would go to local schools -- relieving a burden on the state and freeing up cash, but thats all indirect.That said, about $12 billion of those giveaways -- the part that comes by way of income taxes -- would wind up in the states general fund budget. Again, thats slightly more than the $11.7 billion the state pays on those three program areas.We wanted to add a little bit of context to all of this because tax policy is never so simple, so we made calls to folks in the states legislative fiscal and revenue offices and to the states chief economist. Paul Warner from the revenue office explained it the most clearly.Smith is technically correct, he said, that theres about $31 billion in lost revenue. But, he cautioned there would be a lot of steps to try and collect those dollars.The revenue document itself gets at this, too. It notes that the dollar impact listed for tax breaks is not the amount of revenue you could gain if you wanted to repeal all of them. It gets very technical and somewhat boring here, so well give you just one example: Federal land, which Oregon has a lot of, is exempt from property taxes. And, Warner notes, there's federal law that prohibits us from taxing federal land.Certainly some of these tax breaks are up for grabs if the Legislature decided to mine a few of them for increased revenues. On the books are laws for home mortgage deductions along with tax cuts for green energy, and property tax exemptions for private aircraft.Smith knows that. Last year, he pushed for a package of bills that would have tamped down on some of these credits, including one that would put a sunset date on all income tax credits, subtractions and exemptions. Indeed, the Legislature has since instituted a six-year cycle in which all credits will get reviewed before being renewed. Thats a little beyond the point, though.As for our ruling, Smiths claim is accurate. The state does spend more on tax breaks than it does on public safety, health care and education. This holds true whether you look at the larger all funds budget, or the smaller general and lottery funds budget. But there is some important context here, including the fact that many of those tax breaks are off limits to state lawmakers.We rate this claim Mostly True -- accurate but it requires some clarification. Return to OregonLive to comment on this ruling.", "issues": [ "Oregon", "Education", "Health Care", "Public Safety", "State Budget", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Return to OregonLive to comment on this ruling.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/04/does_oregon_spend_more_on_tax.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-hannity-usps/", "claim": "Did Trump Call USPS 'Most Corrupt and Anti-American Way of Voting'?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "08/10/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The U.S. president has expressed many (and varied) feelings about mail-in voting." ], "justification": "In early August 2020, Snopes readers asked whether the following meme shared across social media accurately quoted U.S. President Donald Trump's commenting on the United States Postal Service and voting by mail: This quote appears to be a fabricated one. Although the meme's text states that Trump made the remark on a talk radio show hosted by Fox News personality Sean Hannity on July 30, 2020, Trump wasn't a guest on Hannity's AM radio talk show that day. Hannity's AM radio talk show It's true that Trump has repeatedly disparaged mail-in voting, falsely stating that voting by mail leads to rampant election fraud (except in Florida). He even appeared to suggest in a tweet, which prompted widespread backlash, that the November 2020 election should be delayed because the widespread use of mail-in ballots during the ongoing pandemic would compromise the results. falsely stating Florida tweet widespread backlash Some concern has also been expressed that Trump has reduced the effectiveness of the Postal Service with budget cuts, as The New York Times reported: \"Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.\" reduced However, we found no evidence that Trump made the remark in the above-displayed meme. It wasn't posted to his Twitter account or recorded in any statements transcribed by the White House. And Trump was not a guest on the Hannity show on July 30, 2020, so he didn't make the remark there, as suggested by the meme. These words appear to be someone else's paraphrase of what they assumed Trump was thinking or planning. posted We therefore rate this claim Lee, Jessica. \"Do Mail-In Ballots Increase Risk of Voter Fraud?\"\r Snopes.com. 26 May 2020. Welna, David. \"Citing Election Delay Tweet, Influential Trump Ally Now Demands His Re-Impeachment.\"\r NPR. 31 July 2020. Shear, Michael D. et al. \"Mail Delays Fuel Concern Trump Is Undercutting Postal System Ahead of Voting.\"\r The New York Times. 31 July 2020. Freking, Kevin. \"Trump Encourages Mail Voting in Florida But Sues in Nevada.\"\r The Associated Press. 5 August 2020.", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=12BAF6wEMg2WXuQtZGT-eABIll1jfTHHS", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Although the meme's text states that Trump made the remark on a talk radio show hosted by Fox News personality Sean Hannity on July 30, 2020, Trump wasn't a guest on Hannity's AM radio talk show that day.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.iheart.com/podcast/51-the-sean-hannity-show-24392822/" ] }, { "sentence": "It's true that Trump has repeatedly disparaged mail-in voting, falsely stating that voting by mail leads to rampant election fraud (except in Florida). He even appeared to suggest in a tweet, which prompted widespread backlash, that the November 2020 election should be delayed because the widespread use of mail-in ballots during the ongoing pandemic would compromise the results.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mail-in-ballot-voter-fraud/", "https://apnews.com/19ade6dafb5b6f82f324e4be9b12a7a0", "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273", "https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897724197/citing-election-delay-tweet-influential-trump-ally-now-demands-his-re-impeachmen" ] }, { "sentence": "Some concern has also been expressed that Trump has reduced the effectiveness of the Postal Service with budget cuts, as The New York Times reported: \"Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html" ] }, { "sentence": "However, we found no evidence that Trump made the remark in the above-displayed meme. It wasn't posted to his Twitter account or recorded in any statements transcribed by the White House. And Trump was not a guest on the Hannity show on July 30, 2020, so he didn't make the remark there, as suggested by the meme. These words appear to be someone else's paraphrase of what they assumed Trump was thinking or planning.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/archive" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-obama-emoluments/", "claim": "Did Trump Claim Obama Wrote the Emoluments Clause of U.S. Constitution?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "10/24/2019", "sci_digest": [ "U.S. President Donald Trump did describe the emoluments clause as \"phony.\" " ], "justification": "On Oct. 22, 2019, a link to an op-ed entitled \"Trump's Obama envy is getting even worse\" was shared to a number of anti-Trump Facebook groups, such as Anti Donald Trump, original DONALD TRUMP CLOWN UNIVERSITY, and DEFEAT TRUMP 2020!, along with an alleged excerpt from the article in which the president claimed that former President Barack Obama had written the emoluments clause of the U.S.Constitution: Anti Donald Trump original DONALD TRUMP CLOWN UNIVERSITY DEFEAT TRUMP 2020! Trump Accuses Obama Of Writing The US Constitution Because He Knows The Constitution Is Very, Very Bad For Me Appearing on Fox and News, Trump accused Obama of writing the Constitution to make him look bad. I know for certain that he wrote the emoluments clause, because he cant stand to see me make so much illegal money, Trump said. Ive said all along, Obama is obsessed with me, Trump said, adding, He will do anything to make me look bad, but it never works and he cant stand to see me winning. Busy day and so much winning. Time for golf. The text of this Facebook post does not relay a genuine quote from Trump. Trump did not claim that Obama wrote the emoluments clause of the Constitution during an appearance on Fox News, nor does this quote appear in the linked op-ed story published in The Washington Post. The Washington Post Trump appeared on Fox News on Oct. 21, 2019, for an interview with Sean Hannity. While Trump mentioned Obama a number of times during that interview, he didn't accuse his predecessor of writing the Constitution, which was written more than 200 years ago. interview 200 years ago Some readers may have been taken in by the fake quote because it was published a day after Trump described the emoluments clause as \"phony.\" Vox reported: reported President Donald Trump is still defending the White Houses decision to host next years G7 summit, a gathering of seven world leaders, at a Miami resort owned by Trumps business even though he abandoned the plan after it was widely criticized. At a Cabinet meeting on Monday, he blamed the backlash against his attempt to profit from the G7 on you people with this phony emoluments clause, referring to a provision of the Constitution which prevents federal officials from being compensated by foreign governments. While Trump may have called the emoluments clause \"phony,\" he did not claim Obama wrote it. We therefore rate this claim Millhiser, Ian. \"The Emoluments Clause, Explained for Donald Trump.\"\r Vox. 22 October 2019. Robinson, Eugene. \"Trumps Obama Envy is Getting Even Worse.\"\r The Washington Post. 26 August 2019.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17szgFVnfT-8tdvVq59vvMSI18gSLJ_XT", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Oct. 22, 2019, a link to an op-ed entitled \"Trump's Obama envy is getting even worse\" was shared to a number of anti-Trump Facebook groups, such as Anti Donald Trump, original DONALD TRUMP CLOWN UNIVERSITY, and DEFEAT TRUMP 2020!, along with an alleged excerpt from the article in which the president claimed that former President Barack Obama had written the emoluments clause of the U.S.Constitution:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/groups/292324927847400/permalink/746067485806473/", "https://www.facebook.com/groups/DonaldTrumpClownUniversity/permalink/1005507379827704/", "https://www.facebook.com/groups/714390255613728/permalink/929353137450771/?__tn__=H-R" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump did not claim that Obama wrote the emoluments clause of the Constitution during an appearance on Fox News, nor does this quote appear in the linked op-ed story published in The Washington Post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-obama-envy-is-getting-even-worse/2019/08/26/5dadc7d0-c83a-11e9-be05-f76ac4ec618c_story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump appeared on Fox News on Oct. 21, 2019, for an interview with Sean Hannity. While Trump mentioned Obama a number of times during that interview, he didn't accuse his predecessor of writing the Constitution, which was written more than 200 years ago. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L5G8ngxkz0", "https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/constitution-faqs" ] }, { "sentence": "Vox reported: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/22/20925403/emoluments-clause-trump-g7-resort-impeachment-businesses" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/target-ps5-scam-email-loyalty-program/", "claim": "'Target PS5' Scam Email Leads to Credit Card Form on Vietnam-Registered Website", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "02/22/2023", "sci_digest": [ "An email message that promised a brand new PS5 led to a website that was registered in Vietnam that asked for credit card information." ], "justification": "In February 2023, we looked into a new Target PS5 scam email that claimed recipients had won a brand new Sony PlayStation 5 gaming console. However, this was a scam, and a potentially dangerous one, at that. The subject line in the emails read, \"You have won a PlayStation 5.\" The messages came from an email address with the display name \"Target PS5.\"Target and Sony had no involvement in the scam. Their company names and logos were being used without authorization. [See also:Did Walmart Employees Hide a PS5 Stash for Themselves?] Did Walmart Employees Hide a PS5 Stash for Themselves? The body of the email misleadingly said that all users needed to do was answer some survey questions to \"win a brand new PlayStation 5.\" It will take you only a minute to receive this fantastic prize. PlayStation 5. Target. Answer & Win: A Brand New PlayStation 5. Get Started Now. Congratulations! You have been chosen to participate in our Loyalty Program for FREE! It will take you only a minute to receive this fantastic prize. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you may unsubscribe by clicking here. The link in the email led to a 15-question survey on orientgrounds.info, a brand new website that was registered on Feb. 14, according to GoDaddy.com. After those 15 questions, the scam led to win.myluckyprizes.com/ps5/checkout.php. This website, myluckyprizes.com, was also fairly new and had been created in January 2023. Records showed that it was registered on a Vietnamese domain registrar. We had already seen plenty of signs that this Target PS5 email was a scam, and the Vietnamese registration was yet another red flag that none of this was legitimate. On myluckyprizes.com, the website asked for the user's name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. It then asked for a credit card number and claimed the financial information was needed to charge $7.95 to be entered to win the PS5. asked for a credit card number We found no pages for a terms of service or privacy policy on myluckyprizes.com. We also didn't see a parent company name or any other identifying details. Further, attempts to load the homepage of myluckyprizes.com failed with a \"403 Forbidden\" error. If any readers fell for this scam and gave away a credit card number, we recommend that they immediately contact their credit card company to let them know what happened. The credit card company can best advise on what to do next. A new credit card number may need to be issued through the mail. The reason for this precaution is that scammers sometimes try to use credit card information days, weeks, or even months after they get their hands on it. \"WHOIS Domain Lookup.\" GoDaddy.com, https://www.godaddy.com/whois.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Tzi21Mg8hXR_98IaQDyZKweBKeDxxCPN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "[See also:Did Walmart Employees Hide a PS5 Stash for Themselves?]", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmart-employees-hiding-ps5/" ] }, { "sentence": "On myluckyprizes.com, the website asked for the user's name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. It then asked for a credit card number and claimed the financial information was needed to charge $7.95 to be entered to win the PS5.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/pMJB9" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/dec/11/jay-webber/new-jerseys-unemployment-benefits-fund-broke-more-/", "claim": "Says our unemployment insurance trust fund is broke. We're over a billion dollars in debt to the federal government.", "author": "Bill Wichert", "posted": "12/11/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "New Jersey has gone into debt to cover unemployment benefits for people who lost their jobs in the Garden State.Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris) made that argument in a recent NJToday interview about his opposition to proposed legislation aimed at providing unemployment benefits to certain individuals whose hours at work have been reduced.It might be a good idea. The problem I have is that our unemployment insurance trust fund is broke, Webber said during the Nov. 28 interview. We're over a billion dollars in debt to the federal government, and what this bill does is create another stream of income out of the fund.PolitiFact New Jersey found that Webber is right.After more than two and a half years of borrowing money to cover unemployment benefits, New Jersey still owed about $1.3 billion to the federal government as of Dec. 6, according to federal and state officials.Kerri Gatling, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said the state expects to pay off the loan in late 2013.There is currently a negative fund balance resulting from the severe economic downturn whereby unemployment insurance benefit payments exceed contributions to the fund, Gatling said in an email.Webber told us the fund must be protected and its solvency ensured.Regardless of how we got there, now weve got to fix it, Webber said.Heres how we got into so much debt:New Jerseys unemployment insurance trust fund is made up of payroll taxes paid by employers and employees. The fund is used to pay unemployment benefits to people who worked in New Jersey.The idea behind such trust funds is to build up reserves when the economy is performing well in order to pay unemployment benefits during economic downturns.But state officials repeatedly diverted money from the trust fund to cover charity care payments to hospitals, ultimately reaching a total of about $4.6 billion in funds by 2005, according to the states nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.Then, as more people lost their jobs during the recent recession and sought unemployment benefits, the trust fund was depleted by March 2009 and the state began borrowing from the federal government to cover the payments, according to OLS.The borrowing reached its height in April 2011, when New Jersey owed $2.1 billion for the loan, Gatling said. On Sept. 30, New Jersey paid nearly $48 million to the federal government to cover interest on the loan, she said.The state anticipates an interest payment of between roughly $55 million and $60 million to be made in September 2012, Gatling said.As we minimize the interest expense, we take excess funds and pay the loan balance, Gatling said. Payroll taxes are used to pay benefits and pay the loan balance.In November 2010, New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting the diversion of money from the unemployment insurance trust fund and other benefit funds for any other purposes.But New Jersey isnt the only state that owes the federal government money to cover unemployment benefits.As of Dec. 6, 27 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands owed a total of roughly $38.3 billion in principal alone, including New Jerseys roughly $1.3 billion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. California owes the most, about $9.4 billion, according to the department.Our rulingWebber claimed in a television interview that New Jerseys unemployment insurance trust fund is broke. We're over a billion dollars in debt to the federal government.The assemblymans statement is on target. New Jersey currently owes more than $1 billion to the federal government for money borrowed to pay unemployment benefits.We rate the statement True. To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com.", "issues": [ "New Jersey", "Jobs", "State Budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/politifact_nj_new_jersey_owes.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/publix-coupon-scam/", "claim": "Publix Coupons Facebook Scam", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/19/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A free Publix grocery coupon Facebook offer is just another version of the ubiquitous survey scam." ], "justification": "In September 2018, Facebook users began seeing posts advertising a \"Get $75 off any purchase of $80 or more\" coupon offer for the Publix supermarket chain: Later in July 2019, an $80 version also made the rounds: These posts were the latest iterations of the common \"free coupon\" or \"free gift card\" scams that frequently plague social media. Publix has previously taken to social media to warn customers that these coupon offers are not authorized promotions and to advise customers not to visit sites promoting them: social media These fake coupon offers are a form of survey scam that typically instructs shoppers to follow \"three simple steps\" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps are completed, however, users are not greeted with a coupon code: Instead, they were asked to fill out a survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users are also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their \"free\" gift cards. These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook. If you frequently use Facebook, there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau listed key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Patterson, Emily. \"Customer Survey Scam Lures Victims with Gift Card.\"\r Better Business Bureau. 4 July 2014.\r 9 July 2019: Updated to add a new $80 coupon version of the Publix Facebook scam.", "issues": [ "banking" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1AtalmOIS0tJQpouPlxE5NUQ3Osky_y_B", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YIcEKll6vJdaNt9aKZeOfapb6IZuiNSh", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Publix has previously taken to social media to warn customers that these coupon offers are not authorized promotions and to advise customers not to visit sites promoting them:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/publix/posts/858899754159062" ] }, { "sentence": "These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook. If you frequently use Facebook, there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau listed key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/07/customer-survey-scam-lures-victims-with-gift-card/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-tragedy-keto-gummies/", "claim": "Did Oprah Winfrey Suffer a 'Tragedy' and Endorse Keto Weight Loss Gummies?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "05/12/2022", "sci_digest": [ "We looked into text messages that appeared to claim that Oprah Winfrey had died, displaying the message, \"Fans react to the Oprah tragedy.\"" ], "justification": "There's no evidence that Oprah Winfrey suffered a \"tragedy\" or died in early May 2022, nor did she endorse keto weight loss gummies. These claims, one of which resembled a death hoax, came from misleading text messages that were sent out to an unknown number of recipients. Oprah Winfrey keto Scammers sent the text messages with the words, \"Fans react to the Oprah tragedy.\" The texts also included a link: Scammers Oprah We don't recommend trusting text messages like these. Upon clicking the link, we were led to a fraudulent page that was purposely designed to mimic a Time magazine article. In reality, Time.com had nothing to do with the page. This bore similarities to another keto scam that used the image and likeness of \"The Price Is Right\" host Drew Carey, which we previously reported on days before publishing this story. Time magazine Time.com The Price Is Right Drew Carey reported The fake Time.com article mentioned nothing of Winfrey having died or suffered a tragedy, as the text messages were nothing more than misleading clickbait. The article falsely claimed Winfrey had personally endorsed keto weight loss gummies such as Keto Start ACV, Gemini Keto, Kwazi Keto Gummies, Slim Mediq Keto Gummies, Trim Life Keto + ACV Gummies, and perhaps others. It used both her image and likeness to sell the products. Winfrey Winfrey Winfrey did not endorse any of these keto weight loss gummy products, nor did she die or suffer a tragedy in early May 2022. We noticed that the product name changed in the article when we refreshed. This perhaps indicated that the product name was rotated on a timed basis or that specific product names showed up in specific locations, depending on the user's IP address. Basically, the fake Winfrey endorsement was used for more than one keto gummies product. The articles on genuinesmother.com and newsurvey22offer.com began as follows: Oprah Launches First-Ever \"Weight Loss Gummy\" in Partnership with Weight Watchers After Being Forced to Lose 60 LBS in Just Weeks (Time) - In an insightful 1-on-1 interview, one of the world's most prominent talk show host reveals how she forced Weight Watchers to create a transformational weight loss product the world has never seen before. Gifted host, and business genius, Oprah Winfrey, made headlines after bringing the first ever \"Weight Loss Gummy\" to the market on live TV last week in memory of her heart failure just last year. Ever since Oprah was forced to lose 60 lbs due to her heart failure risk, Winfrey and her team have been working alongside the team at Weight Watchers to develop a better weight loss product that helps people quickly lose weight and keep it off for good. Oprah Winfrey Despite what's mentioned in the article, we found no evidence that Winfrey had suffered heart failure in 2021, nor did we find any data on Weight Watchers supposedly creating keto weight loss gummies. Both of these claims appeared to have been fabricated. Winfrey Weight Watchers The article went on to make the baseless claim that the long-running program \"The Oprah Winfrey Show\" had been \"canceled because the producers were not happy with\" her \"weight and appearance.\" It also claimed that Winfrey appeared on \"The Ellen DeGeneres Show\" to promote the keto weight loss gummies that had supposedly been created by Weight Watchers. This also was false. Winfrey Ellen DeGeneres Weight Watchers The end of the page claimed that Winfrey herself was offering a \"free\" bottle of keto weight loss gummies to readers, whether that product be Keto Start ACV, Gemini Keto, Kwazi Keto Gummies, Slim Mediq Keto Gummies, Trim Life Keto + ACV Gummies, or another one. The article said, \"The only thing you'll need to pay for is the shipping rate, which is less than $6!\" Winfrey However, we read through the terms and conditions pages for the various products, which were not easy to find. The fine print said that purchasing a \"free\" bottle of the keto weight loss gummies enrolled customers in a \"trial,\" \"program,\" or \"subscription\" that would eventually charge the full cost on a monthly basis. One product's terms and condition page said the charges would occur \"every 30 days after the initial purchase.\" In order to cancel a recurring order, customers would first need to contact the company to initiate the process. However, that might be a problem for anyone who opted for a \"free\" bottle of Kwazi Keto Gummies. In the terms and conditions for that specific product, it listed no phone number. The contact page on the Kwazi Keto Gummies website showed only this email address: care@buykwazi.com. Even worse, the area that was supposed to show the return shipping address was left blank, making it more difficult for people to get their money back: A package won't get very far without a shipping address. We contacted Kwazi Keto Gummies to ask about the absence of the phone number and shipping address. Within minutes, the page with the fake Time.com article that used Winfrey's image and likeness changed to a fake keto endorsement from the cast of \"Shark Tank,\" which we reported on before. It then switched to another scam page that claimed singer-songwriter Adele Adkins, better known simply as Adele, had also endorsed keto weight loss gummies. All of this was false. reported Adele In sum, no, there's no evidence that Winfrey suffered a \"tragedy\" or died in early May 2022, nor did she endorse keto weight loss gummies that had been created by Weight Watchers. All of this was misleading and false. Winfrey Weight Watchers", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1a20uOW8DQRIzg76cJSuRQHLbq192lIt2", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1htHgh0Rfp5Hx1mWRAZCnpnbVV1hXIZr5", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1nXY3HD6_IyHE1oWn8dSoBMQro1z4wpvJ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "There's no evidence that Oprah Winfrey suffered a \"tragedy\" or died in early May 2022, nor did she endorse keto weight loss gummies. These claims, one of which resembled a death hoax, came from misleading text messages that were sent out to an unknown number of recipients.", "hrefs": [ "https://snopes.com/tag/oprah-winfrey", "https://snopes.com/tag/keto" ] }, { "sentence": "Scammers sent the text messages with the words, \"Fans react to the Oprah tragedy.\" The texts also included a link:", "hrefs": [ "https://snopes.com/tag/scams", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/winfrey-goldberg-cbd/" ] }, { "sentence": "Upon clicking the link, we were led to a fraudulent page that was purposely designed to mimic a Time magazine article. In reality, Time.com had nothing to do with the page. This bore similarities to another keto scam that used the image and likeness of \"The Price Is Right\" host Drew Carey, which we previously reported on days before publishing this story.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/time/", "https://time.com/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/the-price-is-right/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/drew-carey", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/drew-carey-keto-pills/" ] }, { "sentence": "The fake Time.com article mentioned nothing of Winfrey having died or suffered a tragedy, as the text messages were nothing more than misleading clickbait. The article falsely claimed Winfrey had personally endorsed keto weight loss gummies such as Keto Start ACV, Gemini Keto, Kwazi Keto Gummies, Slim Mediq Keto Gummies, Trim Life Keto + ACV Gummies, and perhaps others. It used both her image and likeness to sell the products.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-the-boondocks-forecast-oprah-winfrey-becoming-president/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-shout-your-abortion/" ] }, { "sentence": "Gifted host, and business genius, Oprah Winfrey, made headlines after bringing the first ever \"Weight Loss Gummy\" to the market on live TV last week in memory of her heart failure just last year. Ever since Oprah was forced to lose 60 lbs due to her heart failure risk, Winfrey and her team have been working alongside the team at Weight Watchers to develop a better weight loss product that helps people quickly lose weight and keep it off for good.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-old-white-people-have-to-die/" ] }, { "sentence": "Despite what's mentioned in the article, we found no evidence that Winfrey had suffered heart failure in 2021, nor did we find any data on Weight Watchers supposedly creating keto weight loss gummies. Both of these claims appeared to have been fabricated.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-harvey-weinstein-house/", "https://snopes.com/tag/weight-watchers" ] }, { "sentence": "The article went on to make the baseless claim that the long-running program \"The Oprah Winfrey Show\" had been \"canceled because the producers were not happy with\" her \"weight and appearance.\" It also claimed that Winfrey appeared on \"The Ellen DeGeneres Show\" to promote the keto weight loss gummies that had supposedly been created by Weight Watchers. This also was false.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-endorsed-donald-trump-false/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/ellen-degeneres", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/typographical-errors/" ] }, { "sentence": "The end of the page claimed that Winfrey herself was offering a \"free\" bottle of keto weight loss gummies to readers, whether that product be Keto Start ACV, Gemini Keto, Kwazi Keto Gummies, Slim Mediq Keto Gummies, Trim Life Keto + ACV Gummies, or another one. The article said, \"The only thing you'll need to pay for is the shipping rate, which is less than $6!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-pregnant-61/" ] }, { "sentence": "We contacted Kwazi Keto Gummies to ask about the absence of the phone number and shipping address. Within minutes, the page with the fake Time.com article that used Winfrey's image and likeness changed to a fake keto endorsement from the cast of \"Shark Tank,\" which we reported on before. It then switched to another scam page that claimed singer-songwriter Adele Adkins, better known simply as Adele, had also endorsed keto weight loss gummies. All of this was false.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-endorse-keto-pill/", "https://snopes.com/tag/adele" ] }, { "sentence": "In sum, no, there's no evidence that Winfrey suffered a \"tragedy\" or died in early May 2022, nor did she endorse keto weight loss gummies that had been created by Weight Watchers. All of this was misleading and false.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-ankle-monitor/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apple-cider-vinegar-diet/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/foreign-room-service/", "claim": "Foreign Room Service", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "02/03/2003", "sci_digest": [ "Pronunciation problems plague exchange between traveler and room service in Far East hotel." ], "justification": "Claim: Pronunciation problems plague exchange between traveler and room service in Far East hotel. Status: False. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2003] This exchange between an English-speaking traveller and a member of the hotel staff in a Far East hotel was recorded in the \"Far-East Economic Review\" about five years ago. It may take you a while to fathom it all out, but do try. Once you know what it is supposed to be, it really is hilarious! Room Service: Morny. Rune-sore-bees.Hotel Guest: Oh, sorry. I thought I dialed Room Service.Room Service: Rye, rune-sore-bees. Morny. Djewish to odor sunteen?Hotel Guest: Uh... yes. I'd like some bacon and eggs.Room Service: Ow July den?Hotel Guest: What?Room Service: Aches. Ow July den? Pry, boy, pooch...?Hotel Guest: Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled please.Room Service: Ow July dee baycome? Crease?Hotel Guest: Crisp will be fine.Room Service: Hokay. An Santos?Hotel Guest: What?Room Service: Santos. July Santos?Hotel Guest: Ugh. I don't know... I don't think so.Room Service: No. Judo one toes?Hotel Guest: Look, I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what \"judo one toes\" means. I'm sorry.Room Service: Toes! Toes! Why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow eenglish mopping we bother?Hotel Guest: English muffin! I've got it! You were saying toast! Fine. An English muffin will be fine.Room Service: We bother?Hotel Guest: No. Just put the bother on the side.Room Service: Wad?Hotel Guest: I'm sorry. I meant butter. Butter on the side.Room Service: Copy?Hotel Guest: I feel terrible about this but...Room Service: Copy. Copy, tea, mill...Hotel Guest: Coffee! Yes, coffee please. And that's all.Room Service: One Minnie. Ass rune torino fee, strangle aches, crease baycome, tossy cenglish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy. Rye?Hotel Guest: Whatever you say.Room Service: Hokay. Tendjewberrymud.Hotel Guest: You're welcome. Origins: We've been seeing this exchange kick about the Internet for several years, almost always baldly presented as a \"this really happened!\" tale, one replete with small touches indicating the action took place in a Far East Hotel or that this account appeared as a news item in one periodical or another. Once again, a funny story penned by celebrated comic Shelley Berman has been dressed up to position it as a slice of real life. As Mr. Berman says on his web site: \"The above dialogue never actually took place in any hotel anywhere in the world. It is an intentionally composed humorous fiction.\" web site If the name of Shelley Berman seems hauntingly familiar, it's likely because another of his works has also been bruited about the online world, the hilarious \"Hotel Soap.\" Hotel Soap Barbara \"room service with a smile\" Mikkelson Last updated: 17 December 2005 Sources: Berman, Shelley. A Hotel Is a Place. Los Angeles: Price/Stern/Sloan, 1972. ISBN 0-8431-10211-X. Berman, Shelley. A Hotel Is a Funny Place. Los Angeles: Price/Stern/Sloan, 1985. ISBN 0-8431-1418-5.", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jjSOBu3fyaRxynNIZzX7l50zJLqzWlAf", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "As Mr. Berman says on his web site: \"The above dialogue never actually took place in any hotel anywhere in the world. It is an intentionally composed humorous fiction.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://shelleyberman.com/roomservice.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "If the name of Shelley Berman seems hauntingly familiar, it's likely because another of his works has also been bruited about the online world, the hilarious \"Hotel Soap.\"", "hrefs": [ "/humor/letters/soap.asp" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2009/jul/15/jon-kyl/sen-jon-kyl-says-only-68-percent-stimulus-has-been/", "claim": "Only about 6.8 percent of the (stimulus) money has actually been spent.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "07/15/2009", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "One of the most common Republican attack lines against President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package has been that the money isn't flowing to the nation's economy quickly enough. If the bill's supporters really wanted to help the economy quickly, the argument goes, they should have spent the stimulus money right away rather than using it on projects that will take more time to get up and running.Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the No. 2 Senate Republican, made that point on ABC'sThis Week With George Stephanopouloson July 12, 2009.The reality is (the stimulus) hasn't helped yet, Kyl told Stephanopoulos. Only about 6.8 percent of the money has actually been spent.It's a matter of opinion and interpretation whether the stimulus has helped the economy since it passed in February. So we won't rule on that. But Kyl is mostly right about the amount that's been spent.The Obama administration publishes updated spending figures on Recovery.gov, the administration's Web site tracking the stimulus money. It includesa graphshowing the week-by-week trend in spending, which shows how it has steadily increased.As of July 3, $60.4 billion in stimulus money had been spent, according to the chart. If you divide this by the full stimulus amount of $787 billion, you get 7.7 percent a bit higher than Kyl's 6.8 percent, but in the ballpark. It appears that Kyl was a few weeks out of date in his statistics. The figure spent by June 19 was 6.7 percent; in the subsequent two weeks of reported data, the government shelled out an additional $7.5 billion, boosting the percentage slightly.But on the larger point, Kyl is accurate: A relatively small portion of the stimulus has been spent. So we find his claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy", "Stimulus" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "One of the most common Republican attack lines against President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package has been that the money isn't flowing to the nation's economy quickly enough. If the bill's supporters really wanted to help the economy quickly, the argument goes, they should have spent the stimulus money right away rather than using it on projects that will take more time to get up and running.Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the No. 2 Senate Republican, made that point on ABC'sThis Week With George Stephanopouloson July 12, 2009.The reality is (the stimulus) hasn't helped yet, Kyl told Stephanopoulos. Only about 6.8 percent of the money has actually been spent.It's a matter of opinion and interpretation whether the stimulus has helped the economy since it passed in February. So we won't rule on that. But Kyl is mostly right about the amount that's been spent.The Obama administration publishes updated spending figures on Recovery.gov, the administration's Web site tracking the stimulus money. It includesa graphshowing the week-by-week trend in spending, which shows how it has steadily increased.As of July 3, $60.4 billion in stimulus money had been spent, according to the chart. If you divide this by the full stimulus amount of $787 billion, you get 7.7 percent a bit higher than Kyl's 6.8 percent, but in the ballpark. It appears that Kyl was a few weeks out of date in his statistics. The figure spent by June 19 was 6.7 percent; in the subsequent two weeks of reported data, the government shelled out an additional $7.5 billion, boosting the percentage slightly.But on the larger point, Kyl is accurate: A relatively small portion of the stimulus has been spent. So we find his claim Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/investments-agency" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sons-top-democrats-ukraine-clinton/", "claim": "Were the sons of prominent Democrats engaged in business activities in Ukraine as part of a conspiracy associated with the Clintons?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "10/11/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Conspiracy theorists outdid themselves in October 2019 in response to the Ukraine scandal that threatened Donald Trump's presidency with impeachment." ], "justification": "Amid intensifying debate around the prospect of U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment after it was revealed he had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated rumors about former Vice President Joe Biden's dealings with that country, Republicans and Trump supporters hit back by attempting to tie several high-profile Democrats and their families to Ukraine. Right-leaning websites scrutinized the purported business activities of Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and attempted to draw a meaningful connection between Ukraine and the Clintons. Pelosi attempted On Oct. 6, the Twitter account @RealJack posted a widely-shared tweet which claimed that the sons of Biden and Pelosi, as well as those of former Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), had worked for \"energy companies doing business in Ukraine\": Biden's sonPelosi's sonRomney's sonKerrys son All are on the board of directors for energy companies doing business in Ukraine... Coincidence? No. Jack Murphy (@RealJack) October 6, 2019 October 6, 2019 @RealJack's claims were further promulgated when multiple Facebook accounts re-posted the wording of his tweet, including the group \"Texas for Donald Trump 2020\": multiple Facebook accounts On Oct. 8, the right-leaning, Trump-supporting Twitter account @Education4Libs attempted to draw all these strands together with a widely-shared, innuendo-laden tweet claiming that an unspecified conspiracy connected donations to the Clinton Foundation with the alleged business activities of the sons of prominent Democrats: \"From 1999-2014, Ukraine donated more money to the Clinton Foundation than any other foreign country. Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, & Romney all have children working for Ukrainian gas companies. And all of the people I mentioned want Trump impeached. Are you connecting the dots yet?\" From 1999-2014, Ukraine donated more money to the Clinton Foundation than any other foreign country. Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, & Romney all have children working for Ukrainian gas companies. And all of the people I mentioned want Trump impeached. Are you connecting the dots yet? ? Educating Liberals (@Education4Libs) October 8, 2019 October 8, 2019 These tweets constituted a mixture of some accurate statements with false claims, as well as unsubstantiated suggestions of unspecified wrongdoing or corruption on the part of those involved. Clinton Foundation donations In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that between 1999 and 2014, Ukrainians had donated more than individuals of any other nationality to the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization founded by former President Bill Clinton. So @Education4Libs' claim that Ukraine as a country -- rather than individual Ukrainian nationals -- had topped the list of donations was not backed up by the Journal's research. reported Hillary Clinton stepped away from her seat on the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation when she became Secretary of State in 2009. According to the foundation's website, neither she nor Bill nor Chelsea Clinton has ever derived any personal income from their involvement in the charity. website The Bidens Hunter Biden, the former vice president's 49-year-old son, served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, from 2014 until April 2019, according to multiple reports. His decision to join the company's payroll caused some political discomfort at the time, since Burisma's owner had recently been embroiled in a money-laundering scandal and Biden's father, the vice president, was heading the Obama administration's efforts to discourage and crack down on corruption in Ukraine. multiple reports discomfort However, no evidence has yet emerged suggesting that either Biden engaged in any wrongdoing with regard to Burisma or Ukraine, despite President Trump's efforts to have both men investigated. It is accurate to say that Hunter Biden worked for and was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, but no evidence indicates any link between his work there and Ukrainian donations to the Clinton Foundation. no evidence Furthermore, @Education4Libs claimed in October that Biden is \"working for\" a Ukrainian gas company, but that's not correct since he stepped down from his place on the board in April 2019. The Pelosis Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was at one time on the board of a California-based oil-processing company called Viscoil, according to the account he gave in a video recorded in 2010. The link between Viscoil and Ukraine is either tenuous or non-existent and does not appear to involve Pelosi at all. oil-processing video Viscoil was linked to a somewhat shadowy figure going by the name \"Ana Shell,\" who claims to be an investor and environmental entrepreneur, and claims to have provided funding to both Viscoil and another entity called NRG Lab. The purported Ukraine connection arose from a YouTube video posted by \"NRG Lab Research Council\" in 2013, whose caption stated \"Mika Newton helped to secure the rights to build a plant for the production of SH-boxes in Ukraine.\" claims video That single line from the caption of an NRG Lab promotional video was cited by Patrick Howley, who writes for The Epoch Times, a website known for promulgating pro-Trump misinformation, in advancing a link between Pelosi and an energy company that \"did business in Ukraine.\" However, the claim that Newton, a Ukrainian singer born Oksana Stefanivna Hrytsay, had any connection to NRG Lab or Viscoil, appears to be false. cited known We found a Facebook page labelled \"Mika_Newton.official\" which appears distinctly unofficial, has very little content apart from \"Ana Shell\" promotional imagery, and includes the following description: \"Hi, my name's Mika Newton. This is my official page to support projects that NRGLab Singapore makes\": Neither Newton's actual official Facebook page nor her Instagram account (where she engages in prolific product promotion) contain any mention of NRG Lab, Viscoil, or \"Ana Shell.\" The link between NRG Lab, Newton, and production rights in Ukraine appears to be bogus. page account In any event, Pelosi appears to have ended his involvement with Viscoil before the bogus Mika Newton connection was ever made. A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi told PolitiFact that: \"The company [Viscoil] was based in Southern California and focused solely on U.S. business. The company later reorganized under a different name [NRG Lab], but Paul Pelosi Jr. played no role in the new entity.\" PolitiFact Pelosi Jr. did travel to Ukraine in 2017, but that trip related to his work for the Corporate Governance Initiative and had no discernible link to Viscoil, NRG Lab, or \"Ana Shell.\" travel John Kerry This claim is riddled with errors. First off, former Secretary of State and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry doesn't have a biological son. The man in question is his stepson, Chris Heinz, who was born to Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and her first husband, John Heinz. Heinz appears to have been added to the list because of his former business partnership with Hunter Biden and their friend Devon Archer. The three men formed an investment firm called Rosemont Seneca, and both Archer and Biden later joined the board of Burisma. However, Heinz did not. In fact, according to reports by The Washington Post and the Washington Examiner, Heinz expressed his own reservations about Archer and Biden's decision at the time, which underlines just how inaccurate and wrongheaded the meme's inclusion of Heinz was. Post Examiner A spokesperson confirmed to Snopes that Heinz had never been involved in Burisma in any way, nor had he ever worked for or sat on the board of directors of any energy company, or even traveled to Ukraine. Mitt Romney Mitt and Ann Romney have five sons, and we found no evidence that any of them have ever had any involvement with either a \"Ukrainian gas company\" or an \"energy company doing business in Ukraine.\" The couple's oldest son Tagg (49) has worked as a vice president at Reebok, chief marketing officer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, founded the investment firm Solamere Capital, and worked as an advisor and surrogate during his father's 2002 Massachussetts gubernatorial campaign as well as his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. officer founded Matt Romney was previously marketing director for the software company LavaStorm, worked as a real estate developer in California, and as a vice president for the real estate investment firm Excel Trust (which was acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone in 2015). marketing director developer Excel Trust acquired Josh Romney is president of the Romney Group, a Utah-based real estate and property investment firm, and chairman and owner of Intercap Lending, a mortgage lender. He previously worked as a real estate developer in Salt Lake City. Romney Group Intercap Lending developer Ben Romney is a radiologist in Utah and Idaho, and Craig Romney, the youngest son, has worked in music production for the advertising firm McGarry Bowen and later for the real estate investment firm Sundance Bay. radiologist Utah production McGarry Bowen Sundance Bay Contrary to @Education4Libs' claim, Romney had not called for President Trump's impeachment as of Oct. 8, undermining the putative basis for the Romney family's inclusion in the nonexistent conspiracy of wrongdoing to which the meme alluded. One America News Network. \"Son of House Speaker Pelosi Made Money in Ukraine, Used Her in Ads.\"\r 4 October 2019. DCWhispers.com. \"Bingo! Clinton Foundation Donor Amounts by Country -- Guess Who Was #1.\"\r 27 September 2019. Grimaldi, James V. and Rebecca Ballhaus. \"Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends.\"\r The Wall Street Journal. 19 March 2015. Braun, Stephen and Lynn Berry. \"The Story Behind Biden's Son, Ukraine and Trump's Claims.\"\r Associated Press. 23 September 2019. Vogel, Kenneth P. and Iuliia Mendel. \"Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies.\"\r The New York Times. 1 May 2019. Sonne, Paul et al . \"The Gas Tycoon and the Vice-President's Son: The Story of Hunter Biden's Foray Into Ukraine.\"\r The Washington Post. 28 September 2019. Wilkinson, Tracy and Sergei L. Loiko. \"Former Ukraine Prosecutor Says He Saw No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden.\"\r The Los Angeles Times. 29 September 2019. Goodman, Alana. \"John Kerry's Son Cut Business Ties with Hunter Biden Over Ukrainian Oil Deal.\"\r The Washington Examiner. 27 August 2019. Henson, Steve. \"Little Takes Laid-Back Approach to Dodgers.\"\r The Los Angeles Times. 2 December 2004. Mims, Bob. \"Genealogy Website Gets Swamped by Searchers.\"\r The Spokesman-Review. 29 May 1999. Luo, Michael. \"Romneys Invade Iowa.\"\r The New York Times/em>. 11 August 2007. Olson, Kyle. \"Nancy Pelosi's Son Appears in Ukraine -- To Talk Soccer?\"\r The American Mirror. 25 July 2017.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1JvbS3A4Y07YTQ-R2gclLd2lqkte_VCG5" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Right-leaning websites scrutinized the purported business activities of Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and attempted to draw a meaningful connection between Ukraine and the Clintons.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/xHIAD", "https://archive.is/T9Cxj" ] }, { "sentence": " Jack Murphy (@RealJack) October 6, 2019", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/RealJack/status/1180909291835809792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "@RealJack's claims were further promulgated when multiple Facebook accounts re-posted the wording of his tweet, including the group \"Texas for Donald Trump 2020\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot-2019-10-10-at-10.20.13.png", "https://archive.is/q0b6D", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot-2019-10-10-at-10.24.31.png" ] }, { "sentence": " Educating Liberals (@Education4Libs) October 8, 2019", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Education4Libs/status/1181628136150245377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that between 1999 and 2014, Ukrainians had donated more than individuals of any other nationality to the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization founded by former President Bill Clinton. So @Education4Libs' claim that Ukraine as a country -- rather than individual Ukrainian nationals -- had topped the list of donations was not backed up by the Journal's research.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/UNrJe" ] }, { "sentence": "Hillary Clinton stepped away from her seat on the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation when she became Secretary of State in 2009. According to the foundation's website, neither she nor Bill nor Chelsea Clinton has ever derived any personal income from their involvement in the charity.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/nD5jM" ] }, { "sentence": "Hunter Biden, the former vice president's 49-year-old son, served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, from 2014 until April 2019, according to multiple reports. His decision to join the company's payroll caused some political discomfort at the time, since Burisma's owner had recently been embroiled in a money-laundering scandal and Biden's father, the vice president, was heading the Obama administration's efforts to discourage and crack down on corruption in Ukraine.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/gPSe4", "https://archive.is/b3Kow", "https://archive.is/lg0Cf" ] }, { "sentence": "However, no evidence has yet emerged suggesting that either Biden engaged in any wrongdoing with regard to Burisma or Ukraine, despite President Trump's efforts to have both men investigated. It is accurate to say that Hunter Biden worked for and was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, but no evidence indicates any link between his work there and Ukrainian donations to the Clinton Foundation.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/gVUr0" ] }, { "sentence": "Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was at one time on the board of a California-based oil-processing company called Viscoil, according to the account he gave in a video recorded in 2010. The link between Viscoil and Ukraine is either tenuous or non-existent and does not appear to involve Pelosi at all.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20130721111445/https://viscoil.com/", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1KfU5ifhqE" ] }, { "sentence": "Viscoil was linked to a somewhat shadowy figure going by the name \"Ana Shell,\" who claims to be an investor and environmental entrepreneur, and claims to have provided funding to both Viscoil and another entity called NRG Lab. The purported Ukraine connection arose from a YouTube video posted by \"NRG Lab Research Council\" in 2013, whose caption stated \"Mika Newton helped to secure the rights to build a plant for the production of SH-boxes in Ukraine.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/qBINP", "https://archive.is/Habo8" ] }, { "sentence": "That single line from the caption of an NRG Lab promotional video was cited by Patrick Howley, who writes for The Epoch Times, a website known for promulgating pro-Trump misinformation, in advancing a link between Pelosi and an energy company that \"did business in Ukraine.\" However, the claim that Newton, a Ukrainian singer born Oksana Stefanivna Hrytsay, had any connection to NRG Lab or Viscoil, appears to be false.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/8et4U", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/10/11/pro-trump-outlet-linked-epoch-times/" ] }, { "sentence": "Neither Newton's actual official Facebook page nor her Instagram account (where she engages in prolific product promotion) contain any mention of NRG Lab, Viscoil, or \"Ana Shell.\" The link between NRG Lab, Newton, and production rights in Ukraine appears to be bogus.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/pg/mikanewtonmusic/photos/?ref=page_internal", "https://www.instagram.com/mikanewton/?hl=en" ] }, { "sentence": "In any event, Pelosi appears to have ended his involvement with Viscoil before the bogus Mika Newton connection was ever made. A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi told PolitiFact that: \"The company [Viscoil] was based in Southern California and focused solely on U.S. business. The company later reorganized under a different name [NRG Lab], but Paul Pelosi Jr. played no role in the new entity.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/F05PZ" ] }, { "sentence": "Pelosi Jr. did travel to Ukraine in 2017, but that trip related to his work for the Corporate Governance Initiative and had no discernible link to Viscoil, NRG Lab, or \"Ana Shell.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/oEO6q" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, according to reports by The Washington Post and the Washington Examiner, Heinz expressed his own reservations about Archer and Biden's decision at the time, which underlines just how inaccurate and wrongheaded the meme's inclusion of Heinz was.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/lg0Cf", "https://archive.is/dtWce" ] }, { "sentence": "The couple's oldest son Tagg (49) has worked as a vice president at Reebok, chief marketing officer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, founded the investment firm Solamere Capital, and worked as an advisor and surrogate during his father's 2002 Massachussetts gubernatorial campaign as well as his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/The_Los_Angeles_Times_Thu__Dec_2__2004_.pdf", "https://web.archive.org/web/20190929203355/https://www.solamerecapital.com/about-us" ] }, { "sentence": "Matt Romney was previously marketing director for the software company LavaStorm, worked as a real estate developer in California, and as a vice president for the real estate investment firm Excel Trust (which was acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone in 2015).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/The_Spokesman_Review_Sat__May_29__1999_.pdf", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Pittsburgh_Post_Gazette_Sat__Aug_11__2007_.pdf", "https://web.archive.org/web/20140514204449/https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-matt-romney-san-diego-mayor-20130830-story.html", "https://web.archive.org/web/20191011180804/https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/07/31/976554/0/en/Blackstone-Completes-Acquisition-of-Excel-Trust.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Josh Romney is president of the Romney Group, a Utah-based real estate and property investment firm, and chairman and owner of Intercap Lending, a mortgage lender. He previously worked as a real estate developer in Salt Lake City.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/69Gjr", "https://web.archive.org/web/20191011185149/https://www.intercaplending.com/about-intercap/", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Pittsburgh_Post_Gazette_Sat__Aug_11__2007_.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Ben Romney is a radiologist in Utah and Idaho, and Craig Romney, the youngest son, has worked in music production for the advertising firm McGarry Bowen and later for the real estate investment firm Sundance Bay.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/15x9j", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot-2019-10-11-at-12.16.10.png", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/10/Honolulu_Star_Bulletin_Sat__Aug_11__2007_.pdf", "https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/20904066", "https://web.archive.org/web/20191011191953/https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2016/10/24/mitt-romneys-sons-value-add-apartment-play-kc.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alexei-navalny-death/", "claim": "Did Russia Post Navalny's Death Notice Just 2 Minutes After Official Time of Death?", "author": "Taija PerryCook", "posted": "02/16/2024", "sci_digest": [ "\"The causes of death are being established,\" the official notice stated." ], "justification": "On Feb. 16, 2024, the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken and formidable opponent, Alexei Navalny, was announced by the Russian prison service.The former lawyer was 47, and he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of extremism in an isolated penal colony above the Arctic Circle. Vladimir Putin's The notice, released by the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region andtranslated from Russian by Reuters, read as follows: The notice translated from Russian by Reuters On Feb. 16, 2024, in penal colony number 3, convict Alexei Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. The medical staff of the institution arrived immediately, and an ambulance team was called. All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict. The causes of death are being established. The notice indicated it was last updated at 2:19 p.m. Feb. 16. According to a Feb. 17 tweet by Navalny's spokesperson,Kira Yarmysh, he was \"murdered\" and the official time of his death was 2:17 p.m. Feb. 16, \"according to the official message to Alexey's mother.\" Alexey Navalny was murdered. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey's mother. An employee of the colony said that the body of Navalny is now in Salekhard. It was picked up by investigators from the IC. Now they are (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024 February 17, 2024 Ivan Zhdanov,the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, tweeted on Feb. 17 that when Navalny's lawyer and mother arrived at the colony, they were told that the cause of Navalny's death was \"sudden death syndrome.\" tweeted on Feb. 17 On Feb. 19, Navalny's anti-corruption foundation posted an updatein which they reaffirm that his official time of death was 2:17, pictured below: an update (Image via acf.international) The Kremlin has not been transparent in releasing more specific details the exact cause of Navalny's death; therefore, information surrounding the exact cause and time of Navalny's death cannot be absolutely confirmed without independent investigation. Because of this, we rate this claim as \"Unproven.\" If more information surrounding the details of his death is confirmed, this story will be updated accordingly. Many world leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and U.S. President Joe Biden publicly pointed to Putin as being behind Navalny's death. Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke at the Munich Security Conference within hours of the announcement of her husband's death. In her speech, she stated that she did not know whether to believe the report of his death because\"we cannot trust Putin and the Putin government. They always lie.\" U.S. President Joe Biden Just one day beforethe announcement of his death, on Feb. 15, Navalny was seen in a video-link court hearing in which he joked with the judge about sending him money because he was running out of funds due to the judge's decisions. Just one day before Alexei Navalny Appears Healthy in Video-Link Court Hearing on Day before His Death.www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFGlH9WS5yI. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024. 'Alexey Navalny Timeline: From Poisoning to Prison to Death'.Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/hold-alexei-navalny-timeline-from-poisoning-to-prison. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024. Bayer, Lili. 'Yulia Navalnaya Takes Stage at Munich Meeting after News of Husband's Death'.The Guardian, 16 Feb. 2024.The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/yulia-navalnaya-munich-security-conference-navalny-putin. Faulconbridge, Guy, et al. 'Putin Foe Alexei Navalny Dies in Jail, West Holds Russia Responsible'.Reuters, 16 Feb. 2024.www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/jailed-russian-opposition-leader-navalny-dead-prison-service-2024-02-16/. Guldbk, Karoline. 'Bekrefter ddsfall'.dagbladet.no, 17 Feb. 2024, https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/bekrefter-dodsfall/80992002. Henderson, Cameron, et al. 'Putin Is Responsible for Navalny's Death, Says Biden - Follow Latest'.The Telegraph, 16 Feb. 2024.www.telegraph.co.uk, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/16/russia-ukraine-zelensky-putin-war-latest-news5/. 'Https://Twitter.Com/Gerashchenko_en/Status/1758479753898504421?T=137'.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1758479753898504421?t=137. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024. 'Https://Twitter.Com/ioannZH/Status/1758831082500165791'.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/ioannZH/status/1758831082500165791. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024. 'Https://Twitter.Com/Kira_Yarmysh/Status/1758801430125695199'.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Kira_Yarmysh/status/1758801430125695199. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024. 'Kremlin Foe Alexei Navalny's Team Confirms His Death and Says His Mother Is Searching for His Body'.AP News, 17 Feb. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/russia-alexei-navalny-death-opposition-leader-37da0915157576372d6493be7ad04b5c. 'Navalny's Death: The Full Russian Prison Service Statement'.Reuters, 16 Feb. 2024.www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-prison-service-statement-about-navalnys-death-2024-02-16/. 'Western Officials and Kremlin Critics Blame Putin and His Government for Navalny's Death in Prison'.AP News, 16 Feb. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/russia-navalny-death-global-reactions-putin-19e7fd6318763627f6917a92678cd190. 'World Leaders Blame Putin's Government in Russia for Death of Alexei Navalny'.PBS NewsHour, 16 Feb. 2024, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/world-leaders-blame-putins-government-in-russia-for-death-of-alexei-navalny. - . 16 Feb. 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20240216120742/https://89.fsin.gov.ru/news/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=729444. Feb. 20, 2024: This article was updated to include new information released by Navalny's team in the days following the announcement of his death.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1iXQSlz9dSmubWUJ9k7RXoJQJIO5lpXWZ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Feb. 16, 2024, the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken and formidable opponent, Alexei Navalny, was announced by the Russian prison service.The former lawyer was 47, and he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on charges of extremism in an isolated penal colony above the Arctic Circle.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/vladimir-putin/" ] }, { "sentence": "The notice, released by the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region andtranslated from Russian by Reuters, read as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20240216124140/https://89.fsin.gov.ru/news/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=729444", "https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-prison-service-statement-about-navalnys-death-2024-02-16/" ] }, { "sentence": " (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Kira_Yarmysh/status/1758801430125695199?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Ivan Zhdanov,the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, tweeted on Feb. 17 that when Navalny's lawyer and mother arrived at the colony, they were told that the cause of Navalny's death was \"sudden death syndrome.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/ioannZH/status/1758831082500165791" ] }, { "sentence": "On Feb. 19, Navalny's anti-corruption foundation posted an updatein which they reaffirm that his official time of death was 2:17, pictured below:", "hrefs": [ "https://acf.international/news/putin-ubil-alekseya-navalnogo" ] }, { "sentence": "Many world leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and U.S. President Joe Biden publicly pointed to Putin as being behind Navalny's death. Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke at the Munich Security Conference within hours of the announcement of her husband's death. In her speech, she stated that she did not know whether to believe the report of his death because\"we cannot trust Putin and the Putin government. They always lie.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvqMXRooFCo" ] }, { "sentence": "Just one day beforethe announcement of his death, on Feb. 15, Navalny was seen in a video-link court hearing in which he joked with the judge about sending him money because he was running out of funds due to the judge's decisions.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/hold-alexei-navalny-timeline-from-poisoning-to-prison" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-island/", "claim": "Is Joe Biden the owner of an island in the Caribbean?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "08/13/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Several details got distorted as this rumor spread online." ], "justification": "In July 2020, a rumor started to circulate on social media in an apparent attempt to link 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019. This rumor held that former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden owned an island right next to \"Little St. James,\" the island at the center of Epstein's alleged pedophile ring: Biden does not own an island in the Caribbean. (Side note: The above-displayed tweet claims that Biden owns the \"biggest mansion\" in Delaware. That's also false. You can read more about that claim here.) here Those spreading the rumor that the former vice president owns an island in the Caribbean across from Epstein's island appear to be confusing Joe Biden for his brother, James Biden. And while it's true that James Biden (not Joe) owns property in the Caribbean, details about this property purchase were distorted as they spread online. For instance, James Biden does not own an island. He owns a small piece of property on Water Island, an island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Water Island is approximately 500 acres and in 2005 James Biden purchased a single acre of land on it. The following year, James Biden sold a portion of this land to lobbyist Scott Green. When Politico reported on this deal in January 2020, the story focused on how James Biden may have gotten a favorable price for the plot due to Green's lobbying connections: reported In 2005, Joe Bidens brother bought an acre of land with excellent ocean views on a remote island in the Caribbean for $150,000. He divided it into three parcels, and the next year a lobbyist close to the Delaware senator bought one of the parcels for what had been the cost of the entire property. Later, the lobbyist gave Bidens brother a mortgage loan on the remaining parcels. The Virgin Islands land deal, reported here for the first time, furthers a pattern in which members of the Biden family have engaged in financial dealings with people with an interest in influencing the former vice president. Politico did not report that Joe Biden owned this island or that he was even aware of this land deal. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Joe Biden told Politico: \"Joe Biden was wrong. Politico does have a sense of humor. Because this story is an absolute joke.\" Biden does not list any properties in the Caribbean on his financial disclosure forms that are available on his presidential campaign website. Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, told the AFP that Biden \"does not and never has\" owned property in the U.S. Virgin Islands. financial disclosure AFP It should also be noted that describing the island where James Biden owns land as being \"right across from Epstein island\" is misleading. Little St. James, the island that was owned by Epstein and reportedly the site of many of his crimes, is in close proximity to several other populated islands, such as St. Thomas, Thatch Cay, Greater St. James, Water Island, and the Virgin Islands National Park. Owning property in this area does not make you (or your relatives) complicit in Epstein's crimes: To sum up: Former Vice President Joe Biden does not own an island in the Caribbean. Joe Biden's brother, James Biden, owns a small piece of property on Water Island. Schreckinger, Ben. \"Lobbyist Bought Tropical Land From Bidens Brother.\"\r Politico. 28 January 2020. Reuters. \"Fact Check: Joe Biden Does Not Own Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.\"\r 5 July 2020. Timberlake, Ian. \"Joe Biden Does Not Own Island Next to Sex Offender Jeffrey Epsteins Hideaway.\"\r AFP. 31 July 2020. Clover Chronicle. \"Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein And Joe Biden: Private Islands, Secret Ports And Submarines.\"\r 5 July 2020.", "issues": [ "mortgage" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jx_-BS4XRQ512p9dqDyUCvFEFLds4BIg" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mo_N6SU_SL5zwDENPn1DpHIpo4Sgh7_0" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Biden does not own an island in the Caribbean. (Side note: The above-displayed tweet claims that Biden owns the \"biggest mansion\" in Delaware. That's also false. You can read more about that claim here.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-mansion/" ] }, { "sentence": "When Politico reported on this deal in January 2020, the story focused on how James Biden may have gotten a favorable price for the plot due to Green's lobbying connections:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/james-biden-lobbyist-virgin-islands-099318" ] }, { "sentence": "Biden does not list any properties in the Caribbean on his financial disclosure forms that are available on his presidential campaign website. Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, told the AFP that Biden \"does not and never has\" owned property in the U.S. Virgin Islands. ", "hrefs": [ "https://joebiden.com/financial-disclosure/#", "https://factcheck.afp.com/joe-biden-does-not-own-island-next-sex-offender-jeffrey-epsteins-hideaway" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/michael-kors-handbag-scam/", "claim": "The giveaway scam involving a Michael Kors handbag includes undisclosed subscription charges.", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "07/06/2023", "sci_digest": [ "Consumers should beware of offers that seem too good to be true, since they might include monthly charges that are only mentioned in the fine print." ], "justification": "A genuine Michael Kors handbag for $7.95? Good luck with that. In early July 2023, we looked for the hidden catch behind a new scam that was originating in TikTok ads. The ads claimed that luxury design company Michael Kors was giving away handbags for a small fee of $7.95. All that users would supposedly need to do to receive one of the handbags was answer three or four questions in a short survey. However, this was not a giveaway that Michael Kors was managing, nor was it a legitimate promotion in any way, shape, or form. The TikTok ads misleadingly claimed, \"Michael Kors sends out handbags. Answer 4 questions and get a handbag.\" Users who clicked on the ads were led to a page on 20mccsd.tech, a website that showedregistration information for a domain registrar in Russia. This may have been the country from which the scam was originating. showed The 20mccsd.tech website was designed to fool users into believing they were on the official website for Nordstrom, nordstrom.com. The scammers also made sure that anyone trying to visit the website with a copied link and not through a TikTok ad would see a strange facade that cloaked the fake Nordstrom website, as seen below: As for users who did click on the ads, they saw the Nordstrom logo and the following text: \"Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the Nordstrom campaign. You could win a Michael Kors handbag!\" After answering three questions, users were redirected to exclusiveluckyshop.com. This website then claimed users would be eligible to enter into a supposed giveaway for a Michael Kors Voyager Medium Crossgrain Leather Tote Bag. This product normally retails for $298, according to Michael Kors' official website. website The scam had changed from promising handbags for $7.95 in the TikTok ads to instead saying that users would be paying the small fee simply to enter to win in a suspicious giveaway. At the very bottom of exclusiveluckyshop.com, in a small font size, we found the terms and conditions. The terms included the catch behind the entire scam: Any users who paid the fee of $7.95 would later be billed $67.32 per month until they found a way to cancel. This monthly charge was purportedly meant to fund a $125 gift card for customers to use in what was referred to as a \"best consumer gadget club.\" In other words, this was a hidden subscription scam, a topic that we previously reported about with another scam. previously reported about with another scam The terms also showed the phone number (866) 877-1602. In a call we placed to this number, an automated voice message thanked us for calling \"customer support.\" Just as we'd seen in past years with other scams involving CBD and keto weight loss gummies, no specific company name was announced like it would be when placing calls to legitimate businesses. If any readers fell victim to this scam, we recommend callingyour credit card company or the phone number for whatever payment method you used to make the purchase. Always bear in mind that if an online offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Liles, Jordan. \"This Cash App Email Scam About a Fake Deposit Could Cost You Thousands on Your Credit Card.\" Snopes, 19 May 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/. \"Voyager Medium Crossgrain Leather Tote Bag.\"Michael Kors, https://www.michaelkors.com/voyager-medium-crossgrain-leather-tote-bag/_/R-US_30H7GV6T8L. \"WHOIS Search.\"GoDaddy.Com, www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=20mccsd.tech.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jHZario4LR2N5lTuA52YxKWz4kXId4-J" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CzyMQJs44JphMg8gm3un6zfL6r3JjBs2" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1SJ7DZUL99HkjSHuYmQNvPyrqzlVYw58n" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_t8ZuDDZpznsIe2YFrPxwq2-8fxdrH5Q" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1q1HL0A0_0okz1ur9fRdsE_7RllPiu7sG" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Users who clicked on the ads were led to a page on 20mccsd.tech, a website that showedregistration information for a domain registrar in Russia. This may have been the country from which the scam was originating.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=20mccsd.tech" ] }, { "sentence": "After answering three questions, users were redirected to exclusiveluckyshop.com. This website then claimed users would be eligible to enter into a supposed giveaway for a Michael Kors Voyager Medium Crossgrain Leather Tote Bag. This product normally retails for $298, according to Michael Kors' official website.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.michaelkors.com/voyager-medium-crossgrain-leather-tote-bag/_/R-US_30H7GV6T8L" ] }, { "sentence": "In other words, this was a hidden subscription scam, a topic that we previously reported about with another scam.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/washington-social-media-quote/", "claim": "Was it Denzel Washington who said, \"Simply because you do not post it on social media does not imply that you are not working on significant goals\"?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "04/19/2022", "sci_digest": [ "We looked for the origins of a quote about social media that's been credited to the actor in tweets, memes, and on websites that collect famous quotes." ], "justification": "On April 17, 2022, the Anxiety Freedom Today Facebook page shared a post with a quote credited to movie actor Denzel Washington, including the words, \"Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low-key. Privacy is everything.\" It was somewhat ironic that the post about the state of social media led many of its users to respond with the words, \"So true!\" Facebook post quote Denzel Washington Washington has talked before on the subject of the state of social media. It's also entirely possible that Washington might agree with the sentiment of this quote. However, there's no record he ever said these words. The quote was misattributed, meaning that it originally came from someone else. Washington Washington The quote appeared to have originated in a 2016 tweet from author Idil Ahmed on the @idillionaire Twitter account: tweet This was not the first time this sort of thought was put into words. However, this was the first record of these exact words that we could find. not the first time It wasn't until 2018, two years after @idillionaire's tweet was created, that Washington's name first appeared with the quote. A fake tweet screenshot began going around that purportedly came from the @Denzel Twitter account. However, that account doesn't exist: Washington This isn't a real tweet. It was likely made using a fake tweet creator website. Also, it could be debated that if Washington were to join Twitter, he probably wouldn't use this profile picture. And as of April 2022, Washington did not appear to have an official Twitter account. An account named @OfficialDenzel was active on Twitter in the past. However, that account is not verified by the social media platform, and it's unclear if it has any affiliation with the actor. Washington verified After the quote about social media appeared in the fake tweet screenshot with Washington's name and face, it was shared as text and in memes: Washington From these posts and memes, the quote then spread to websites that collect quotes from famous people. For example, Goodreads.com has a page dedicated to the misattributed quote, even though Washington never said the words. (Over the years, we've found that these kinds of websites that collect quotes aren't reliable sources of information, no matter how high they show up in Google search results.) page Washington Again, there's no record of Washington ever saying, \"Just because you don't share it on social media, doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything.\" However, as we mentioned, he has given his thoughts before about the state of social media. Washington For example, he once talked to CBN News about the subject in this Facebook video from November 2017: video In the video, Washington said the following about the potentially negative effects of social media: Washington Turn it off. That's what I'd say. It's hard for young people now because [] they're addicted. If you don't think you're addicted, and I'm talking about anyone, from the highest to the lowest. If you don't think you're addicted, then see if you can turn it off for a week. It got quiet in here, didn't it? Didn't it get real quiet? It's a tool, so we should use it. God has blessed us with free will. Now it's free will magnified. Free will on steroids. You're free to go in any direction you want. It will allow you, and it's not the enemy. It's just a reflection of our own free will. And we all want to be liked. But now we want to be liked by 16 million. And now, some of us will do anything to be liked. We used to do anything to be liked, but it was by the person in front of you. Now it's to be liked by 16 million people that you don't know. We have to ask ourselves what is the long-term if not the short-term effect of too much information. The video, which was also reposted elsewhere, resulted in various users replying (again, on social media) about the effects of social media with the words, \"So true!\" reposted Washington also spoke about the subject in a YouTube video that was posted in 2017: Washington YouTube video In sum, while it's true that Washington has spoken before about the potential dangers of social media, there's no record he ever said the following quote: \"Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you are not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything.\" Washington As a parting thought, we also noticed that the quote was being misattributed with Washington's name on Reddit. At the bottom of the page, the very last comment appeared to receive no attention or upvotes. However, it made a strong point through the use of humor: misattributed Washington Reddit Ahmed, Idil. Twitter, 5 Nov. 2016, https://twitter.com/idillionaire/status/795016449915879424. Anxiety Freedom Today. Facebook, 17 Apr. 2022, https://www.facebook.com/anxietyfreedomtoday/posts/1894667707400613. CyberGhostUltimate. \"Just Because You Dont Share It on Social Media, Doesn't Mean You Are Not up to Big Things. Live It and Stay Low-Key. Privacy Is Everything. - Denzel Washington.\" R/Privacy on Reddit, 4 July 2021, www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ode5ls/just_because_you_dont_share_it_on_social_media/. Denzel Washington Warns Young People about an Overlooked Danger That Could Be Destroying Them. CBN News, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10159957363410393. deyavelii. Denzel Washington Speaks on Social Media. YouTube, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ZV2DwgG8E.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=124Rxq2_oTKfi6SQliT4tjiUDKta4Onl_" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1kEc_p4HvE8ioZMSRZtKDASwSs2syC9G4" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On April 17, 2022, the Anxiety Freedom Today Facebook page shared a post with a quote credited to movie actor Denzel Washington, including the words, \"Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low-key. Privacy is everything.\" It was somewhat ironic that the post about the state of social media led many of its users to respond with the words, \"So true!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://snopes.com/tag/facebook", "https://www.facebook.com/anxietyfreedomtoday/posts/1894667707400613", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/quotes/", "https://snopes.com/tag/denzel-washington" ] }, { "sentence": "Washington has talked before on the subject of the state of social media. It's also entirely possible that Washington might agree with the sentiment of this quote. However, there's no record he ever said these words. The quote was misattributed, meaning that it originally came from someone else.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-criticized-quote/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-netflix/" ] }, { "sentence": "The quote appeared to have originated in a 2016 tweet from author Idil Ahmed on the @idillionaire Twitter account:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/idillionaire/status/795016449915879424" ] }, { "sentence": "This was not the first time this sort of thought was put into words. However, this was the first record of these exact words that we could find.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/FarisMT/status/486092617772310528" ] }, { "sentence": "It wasn't until 2018, two years after @idillionaire's tweet was created, that Washington's name first appeared with the quote. A fake tweet screenshot began going around that purportedly came from the @Denzel Twitter account. However, that account doesn't exist:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-democratic-party/" ] }, { "sentence": "And as of April 2022, Washington did not appear to have an official Twitter account. An account named @OfficialDenzel was active on Twitter in the past. However, that account is not verified by the social media platform, and it's unclear if it has any affiliation with the actor.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-switches-trump/", "https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts" ] }, { "sentence": "After the quote about social media appeared in the fake tweet screenshot with Washington's name and face, it was shared as text and in memes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-death-hoax/" ] }, { "sentence": "From these posts and memes, the quote then spread to websites that collect quotes from famous people. For example, Goodreads.com has a page dedicated to the misattributed quote, even though Washington never said the words. (Over the years, we've found that these kinds of websites that collect quotes aren't reliable sources of information, no matter how high they show up in Google search results.)", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/Uarcx", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington/" ] }, { "sentence": "Again, there's no record of Washington ever saying, \"Just because you don't share it on social media, doesn't mean you're not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything.\" However, as we mentioned, he has given his thoughts before about the state of social media.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-police-state/" ] }, { "sentence": "For example, he once talked to CBN News about the subject in this Facebook video from November 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10159957363410393" ] }, { "sentence": "In the video, Washington said the following about the potentially negative effects of social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-obama-criminal-in-chief/" ] }, { "sentence": "The video, which was also reposted elsewhere, resulted in various users replying (again, on social media) about the effects of social media with the words, \"So true!\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI5cX_dBKZc" ] }, { "sentence": "Washington also spoke about the subject in a YouTube video that was posted in 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-2/", "https://snopes.com/tag/youtube", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ZV2DwgG8E" ] }, { "sentence": "In sum, while it's true that Washington has spoken before about the potential dangers of social media, there's no record he ever said the following quote: \"Just because you don't share it on social media doesn't mean you are not up to big things. Live it and stay low key. Privacy is everything.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/denzel-washington-meryl-streep/" ] }, { "sentence": "As a parting thought, we also noticed that the quote was being misattributed with Washington's name on Reddit. At the bottom of the page, the very last comment appeared to receive no attention or upvotes. However, it made a strong point through the use of humor:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ode5ls/just_because_you_dont_share_it_on_social_media/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alpha-zxt-not-endorsed/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/reddit" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/e-zpass-bill-overdue-notice/", "claim": "SCAM: E-ZPass Bill Overdue Notice", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "07/10/2014", "sci_digest": [ "E-mail phishing scam poses as overdue notifications for E-Z Pass bills." ], "justification": " Phishing bait: E-mailed messages pose as overdue notifications for E-ZPass bills. SCAM Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2014] Just got word from my dad of a virus that I didn't see listed on your site: ------------------ Judy got an e-mail with the subject line saying \"Payment for driving on a toll road.\" She forwarded it to me. The message said something like \"You are overdue for paying your E-Z Pass bill. Click here to download your invoice.\" I should have known better than to do it, but I did. It downloaded an \"exe\" file to my computer. Like a damn fool, I actually told my computer to open it. I got a warning message saying \"The publisher cannot be verified. Are you sure you want to open this file?\" At that point, I realized that I had narrowly escaped infecting my computer with some kind of malware virus, identity theft, or something of that type. I permanently deleted the exe file and any e-mail messages containing the link to it. Origins: In July 2014 Internet users were spammed with emails appearing to originate with the E-ZPass Service Center (an electronic toll-collection system used on most tolled roads, tunnels, and bridges in the eastern half of the United States) with subject lines such as \"In arrears for driving on toll road.\" The text of such messages informed recipients that \"You have not paid for driving on a toll road\" and invited them to click on a link to download an invoice and \"service your debt in the shortest possible time.\" These messages were not legitimate; they were part of a phishing scheme intended to lure recipients into clicking links or opening attachments and downloading malware onto their computers. The New York State Thruway Authority has posted a warning on its site advising customers that the messages are not authorized communications from E-ZPass, the New York State Thruway Authority, or any other toll collection agency and should not be opened or responded to: warning The New York State Thruway Authority is warning motorists about a scam involving fake e-mails. The authority says it recently learned of an email phishing scam which appears to be an attempt to collect unpaid tolls. An example of the email is as follows: \"Dear customer, You have not paid for driving on a toll road. This invoice is sent repeatedly, please service your debt in the shortest possible time.\" The authority is warning that this is not an authorized communication from E-ZPass, the New York State Thruway Authority or any other toll agency associated with E-ZPass. People are advised not to open or respond to such a message. The safest thing to do is to delete the email. The E-ZPass Service Center does not send out email invoices for payment. If you owe money for using E-ZPass on a toll facility, the E-ZPass service center will send an invoice through the US Postal Service for payment. If you have any questions about the validity of any message received from E-ZPass, contact the E-ZPass New York Customer Service Center at 800-333-8655. Last updated: 10 July 2014 ", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HYUkKwnAgOPo78qCP0U_HV4dw-dcE8mX", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Wg9I1MEZIPdLLvLVDKJOSyWl1W2NtWZD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "These messages were not legitimate; they were part of a phishing scheme intended to lure recipients into clicking links or opening attachments and downloading malware onto their computers. The New York State Thruway Authority has posted a warning on its site advising customers that the messages are not authorized communications from E-ZPass, the New York State Thruway Authority, or any other toll collection agency and should not be opened or responded to:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thruway.ny.gov/scam-alert.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/apr/18/wendy-davis/wendy-davis-says-texas-ranks-49th-what-it-doing-pu/", "claim": "Says Texas ranks 49th nationally in what we are doing to support our per-pupil investment in education in the state.", "author": "W. Gardner Selby", "posted": "04/18/2013", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A state senator opposed to a proposal intended to enable some children to attend private schools with government aid asserted that Texas already has a hard time keeping pace with other states. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, told Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, during an April 9, 2013, committee meeting that we in the state of Texas are 49th in the country in what we are doing to support our per-pupil investment in education in the state. She added that she prefers to prioritize putting dollars into the public schools. A reader asked us to check that ranking. Senator cites newspaper report By email, Davis spokesman, Rick Svatora, told us she was referring to a report described in a Feb. 22, 2013,Dallas Morning Newsarticlestating that preliminary figures released by the National Education Association, the nations largest teachers union, indicate Texas schools are spending $8,400 per student this year. The national average is $11,455, the report said, putting Texas per-student expenditures below every state save Arizona and Nevada. So, compared to other states, Texas reportedly ranks 48th in per-student spending. Then again, theNews story notes that the associations analysis also considered spending in District of Columbia schools, a consideration leaving Texas 49th in per-student spending among 51 jurisdictions. TheNews story said the associations comparisons, based on data furnished by state education agencies, are among the most reliable in the nation and are frequently cited by officials in Texas and other states. The NEA has been issuing its annual reports on public school spending since the early 1960s. Education association report We turned to the associations report, downloadablehere, finding the figures cited by the newspaper in Summary Table K, Estimated Expenditures for Public Schools, 2012-13, which indicates that Texas this year is spending less per student in average daily attendance (the aggregate attendance of a school during a reporting period divided by the number of days school is in session that period) than all states but Arizona and Nevada. Elsewhere, the report says these expenses include salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and materials and energy costs. A wrinkle: Part of the report says that in making useful comparisons among states, a different way of counting students, fall enrollment, is preferred to average daily attendance because of its standardized definition. Based on fall enrollment, the report says, Texas is spending an estimated $7,886 per pupil, less than every state except Utah and Arizona, according to Table K. So, it looks like two states trail Texas in per-pupil spending, either way you count students. For each state, Table K also lists current estimated expenditures for other programs, meaning such expenses as summer school and adult education, which are not part of regular public elementary and secondary day-school programs, the report says. The table also shows spending by each states schools on interest on debt and capital outlays, which conservative observers such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation have said should always be taken into account when making state-by-state comparisons. Considering all education-related expenditures When we checked asimilar Davis claimabout Texas spending on education in 2011, a foundation spokesman pointed out a March 2010 report by the Libertarian-leaning Cato Institute that reviewed 2008-09 budgets for districts in the nations five largest cities, including Houston, concluding that average per-pupil spending was 44 percent higher than was otherwise reported by public schools. Separately at the time, Frank Johnson, a statistician with the National Center for Education Statistics, told us the center doesnt take into account capital outlays in estimating per-pupil spending because such costs can create false assumptions about whats spent on instructional programs, school supplies and teachers. In the latest education association report, Table Ks last column presents each states total school spending, rolling in all subcategories. We wondered, then, how Texas stacks up by all expenditures per pupil. The report does not present such a calculation, so wemade our own run, dividing the total spending for each state by the states average daily attendance, as shown in the reports Summary Table D. And by this approach, it appears that more than $50 billion in total Texas school spending breaks out to nearly $11,090 per pupil, placing Texas 38th nationally, ahead of states including California, Georgia, Oklahoma and Arizona. By phone, a spokesman for the education associations Texas affiliate, the Texas State Teachers Association, suggested it doesnt make sense to roll in all expenditures because school districts have varied commitments to capital outlays and debt, while spending reflected in the presented per-pupil tallies are driven by legislative decisions about spending and finance formulas. Clay Robison followed up by email, saying that in many cases those expenditures pay to build football stadiums and other facilities, such as fine arts centers. I am not going to engage in the argument about football stadiums, but I dont think it gives a fair comparison of how much states are spending on students. In other words, capital costs lump new classroom construction, which benefits all students, with expenditures that dont apply to all students. Robison pointed out that according to the reports Table H-14, Texas spent $9,462 per pupil in 2010-11, which was before legislators cut education aid in the 2011 legislative session. This year, the associations report suggests, such spending is down by more than $1,000 per pupil from 2010-11. Our ruling Davis said Texas ranks 49th in what we are doing to support our per-pupil investment in education in the state. A report drawing on states figures estimates Texas is spending $7,886 or $8,400 per student this year, depending on how students are counted. Both ways, Texas ranks third to last among the states. Then again, folding in capital outlays, other education expenditures and interest on debt, total estimated spending in Texas of nearly $11,090 per pupil lands the state 38th among the states. But the senator focused on state investment which, unlike locally determined debt and capital outlays, are driven by legislative actions. Our sense is that this is the appropriate comparison, though Davis failed to clarify that Texas is 49th by this yardstick in comparison to other states plus Washington, D.C., which is not a state. Absent this clarification, her claim rates as Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Education", "State Budget", "States", "Texas" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "By email, Davis spokesman, Rick Svatora, told us she was referring to a report described in a Feb. 22, 2013,Dallas Morning Newsarticlestating that preliminary figures released by the National Education Association, the nations largest teachers union, indicate Texas schools are spending $8,400 per student this year. The national average is $11,455, the report said, putting Texas per-student expenditures below every state save Arizona and Nevada.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20130222-report-texas-ranks-49th-in-spending-per-student.ece" ] }, { "sentence": "We turned to the associations report, downloadablehere, finding the figures cited by the newspaper in Summary Table K, Estimated Expenditures for Public Schools, 2012-13, which indicates that Texas this year is spending less per student in average daily attendance (the aggregate attendance of a school during a reporting period divided by the number of days school is in session that period) than all states but Arizona and Nevada. Elsewhere, the report says these expenses include salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and materials and energy costs.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nea.org/assets/img/content/NEA_Rankings_And_Estimates-2013_%282%29.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "When we checked asimilar Davis claimabout Texas spending on education in 2011, a foundation spokesman pointed out a March 2010 report by the Libertarian-leaning Cato Institute that reviewed 2008-09 budgets for districts in the nations five largest cities, including Houston, concluding that average per-pupil spending was 44 percent higher than was otherwise reported by public schools. Separately at the time, Frank Johnson, a statistician with the National Center for Education Statistics, told us the center doesnt take into account capital outlays in estimating per-pupil spending because such costs can create false assumptions about whats spent on instructional programs, school supplies and teachers.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jan/31/wendy-davis/state-sen-wendy-davis-says-texas-ranks-44th-educat/" ] }, { "sentence": "We wondered, then, how Texas stacks up by all expenditures per pupil. The report does not present such a calculation, so wemade our own run, dividing the total spending for each state by the states average daily attendance, as shown in the reports Summary Table D. And by this approach, it appears that more than $50 billion in total Texas school spending breaks out to nearly $11,090 per pupil, placing Texas 38th nationally, ahead of states including California, Georgia, Oklahoma and Arizona.", "hrefs": [ "http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/statesman/politifact/041213%20TOTALSPENDINGADASTATESPFTEXASNEASTUDY.xlsx" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-criticize-governors-ebola/", "claim": "Did Trump Criticize Governors for Backing off Ebola Quarantines in 2014?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "04/22/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A very old tweet got new life during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In March 2020, cities across the United States started to implement various orders to \"shelter in place,\" \"stay at home,\" or \"self-quarantine\" in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus that emerged in 2019. While these measures appeared to work in helping to \"flattening the curve\" of cases, they also caused a dramatic economic downturn and caused millions of people to lose their jobs. work flattening the curve millions In mid-April 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump and the White House started working on a plan to \"re-open America.\" Around the same time, cities such as Lansing, Michigan, started to see small, anti-quarantine protests that Trump gave verbal support to on his social media account, tweeting \"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!\" and \"LIBERATE MINNESOTA!\" and \"LIBERATE VIRGINIA and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege.\" As Trump worked toward easing social distancing measures and re-starting the economy a decision that worried many health experts an old tweet started to recirculate on social media that supposedly showed him criticizing governors for relaxing quarantine rules during the Ebola outbreak in 2014: worried This is a genuine tweet from Trump. It is still available on his Twitter timeline here. An archived version of this tweet can be seen here. here here Trump's old tweets are frequently shared on social media along with the message \"There's a tweet for everything,\" a phrase meant to encapsulate the idea that for every current Trump statement there is an equal and opposite statement of his from another time. While many of the \"there's-a-tweet-for-everything\" messages point to genuine and seemingly contradictory tweets from the president's past, we've also encountered quite a few fake tweets supposedly sent from Trump. fake tweets It should also be noted that the quarantines in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak were much different than the quarantines put in place during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. In 2014, no state-wide \"shelter-in-place\" orders existed. Rather, a handful of states required people who had come in contact with someone infected with Ebola to quarantine for 21 days. quarantine Trump, who was the host of the television show \"The Apprentice\" during the Ebola outbreak, frequently criticized President Barack Obama during that epidemic. On Oct. 23, 2014, for instance, he said it was \"Obama's fault\" after a case of Ebola was confirmed in New York. Conversely, in March 2020, Trump said \"I don't take any responsibility\" when he was asked about a lack of testing to deal with the spread of COVID-19. said Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone saw more than 11,000 die from Ebola between 2014 and 2016. In the United States, two people died from the disease. 11,000 die two people Infectious Disease Society of America. \"Ebola Facts.\"\r Retrieved 21 April 2020. Fantz, Ashley. \"'Doctor's Death Marks Second U.S. Ebola Fatality.\"\r CNN. 17 November 2014. Oprysko, Caitlin. \"'I Don't Take Responsibility at All': Trump Deflects Blame for Coronavirus Testing Fumble.\"\r Politico. 13 March 2020. Kenen, Joanne. \"Trumps Plans to Reopen the Country Face Major Obstacles.\" \r Politico. 18 April 2020. Beauont, Peter. \"WHO Warns of 'Deadly Resurgence' if Coronavirus Controls Lifted Too Soon.\"\r The Guardian. 10 April 2020. Lambert, Lance. \"The Worst Part About the U.S. Losing 10 Million Jobs in Two Weeks? The Real Number May be Much Higher.\"\r Fortune. 2 April 2020. Karni, Annie; Lovett, Kenneth; Otis, Ginger. \"Travelers in Contact with Ebola Patients, Including Returning Nurse with Fever, Now Face Mandatory 21-Day Quarantine in New York, New Jersey.\"\r New York Daily News. 25 October 2014. Shesgreen, Deirdre and Maureen Groppe. \"Anti-Quarantine Protests, Trump Pressure Put Governors on Political Tightrope Over Coronavirus.\"\r USA Today. 22 April 2020. Forgey, Quint. \"Trump breaks with his own guidelines to back conservative anti-quarantine protesters.\"\r Politico. 17 April 2020.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1wJfk2qg4YxmUIZY96HfiLIj-dNPUtuvM", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=11EgsuYV3qHDsfbJyi7-v--M_G4cFC03U", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In March 2020, cities across the United States started to implement various orders to \"shelter in place,\" \"stay at home,\" or \"self-quarantine\" in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new strain of coronavirus that emerged in 2019. While these measures appeared to work in helping to \"flattening the curve\" of cases, they also caused a dramatic economic downturn and caused millions of people to lose their jobs. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-bay-area-shelter-in-place-experts-coronavirus-working-2020-3", "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/01/california-coronavirus-shelter-in-place-flatten-curve", "https://fortune.com/2020/04/02/us-unemployment-numbers-jobs-layoffs-economy/" ] }, { "sentence": "As Trump worked toward easing social distancing measures and re-starting the economy a decision that worried many health experts an old tweet started to recirculate on social media that supposedly showed him criticizing governors for relaxing quarantine rules during the Ebola outbreak in 2014:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/trump-pushes-to-reopen-coronavirus-hit-us-economy-as-approval-ratings-fall" ] }, { "sentence": "This is a genuine tweet from Trump. It is still available on his Twitter timeline here. An archived version of this tweet can be seen here. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/527110542008549376", "https://archive.vn/8xOzQ" ] }, { "sentence": "Trump's old tweets are frequently shared on social media along with the message \"There's a tweet for everything,\" a phrase meant to encapsulate the idea that for every current Trump statement there is an equal and opposite statement of his from another time. While many of the \"there's-a-tweet-for-everything\" messages point to genuine and seemingly contradictory tweets from the president's past, we've also encountered quite a few fake tweets supposedly sent from Trump. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/2009-trump-tweet-pandemic/" ] }, { "sentence": "It should also be noted that the quarantines in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak were much different than the quarantines put in place during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. In 2014, no state-wide \"shelter-in-place\" orders existed. Rather, a handful of states required people who had come in contact with someone infected with Ebola to quarantine for 21 days. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mandatory-21-day-quarantine-travelers-risk-ebola-n-y-n-article-1.1986460" ] }, { "sentence": "Conversely, in March 2020, Trump said \"I don't take any responsibility\" when he was asked about a lack of testing to deal with the spread of COVID-19.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/13/trump-coronavirus-testing-128971" ] }, { "sentence": "Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone saw more than 11,000 die from Ebola between 2014 and 2016. In the United States, two people died from the disease.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/2014-2016-outbreak/case-counts.html", "https://www.idsociety.org/public-health/ebola/ebola-resources/ebola-facts/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/11/andrew-cuomo/does-new-york-get-less-federal-government-any-stat/", "claim": "No state gets back less from Washington than New York state.", "author": "Cassidey Kavathas", "posted": "02/11/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Cuomos assertion aligns with a widely cited study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government that looked at every states balance of payments with the federal government between 2015 and 2018., However, that same study notes a slightly different result over the same four-year period when population is taken into account.", "On a per-capita basis, New York ranked fourth, after Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts." ], "justification": "Does New York get the short end of the stick when it comes to federal funding? Gov. Andrew Cuomo said so in atweeton Jan. 14. New Yorkers are just tired of subsidizing other states with our tax dollars. New York subsidizes 42 other states. No state gets back less from Washington than New York state. The federal government must stop shortchanging NY, Cuomo tweeted. New Yorkers are just tired of subsidizing other states with our tax dollars.New York subsidizes 42 other states.No state gets back less from Washington than New York State.The federal government must stop shortchanging NY.#SOTS2021 Is Cuomo correct that no state gets back less from Washington than New York state? We looked at a comprehensive independent analysis and found that Cuomos assertion was close to accurate. Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Budget, told PolitiFact that Cuomo was referencing a widely citedanalysisfrom the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy arm of the State University of New York. The report, published in January 2020, shows four-year totals of funding flows from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2018. The report found that New Yorkers cumulatively sent $116 billion more to the federal government during that period than New York state received from the federal government. The four major categories of federal spending analyzed by the report are direct payments for individuals under programs such as Social Security and Medicare, federal grants to state and local governments, federal contracts and procurement, and wages paid to federal workers. The institute found that during that period, only 11 states received fewer dollars in funding than they sent to the federal government in tax payments and of these, New Yorks cumulative shortfall was easily the largest. The other 10 states with negative balances with the federal government during that four-year period were, in descending order, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Colorado, Nebraska, Washington, Utah and New Hampshire. In the most recent year studied in the report, 2018, New York sent almost $22 billion more to the federal government than it received. Thats a larger sum than the next two statess shortfalls combined, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But when adjusted for population, New York isnt the biggest loser. Its fourth, after three of its smaller neighbors: Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Cuomos mention of 42 states stems from the 2018 figures in the report, which says, Forty-two states had a positive balance of payments with the federal government in 2018, Broadly speaking, federal money flows from high-income states to low-income states through spending by programs such as Medicaid. The system isnt designed to give back each state the equivalent of what its residents and businesses paid. Because New York is home to a large critical mass of very high-income households, as well as a considerable number of merely very affluent (mid-six-figure) residents, the Empire States residents generate a disproportionately large share of federal revenues through a tax system that is, after all, based on a progressive income tax, said E.J. McMahon, founder and research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank. New Yorks balance of payments with the federal government could worsen in the coming years unless a change made to the tax code in 2017 is reversed. In the Republican-backed tax bill signed that year by President Donald Trump, lawmakers limited the size of the federal deduction for state and local taxes paid. This change to thestate and local tax deductionmeant that some taxpayers in high-tax states like New York would pay more in federal taxes. Cuomo said that no state gets back less from Washington than New York state. This aligns with a widely cited study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government that looked at every states balance of payments with the federal government from 2015 to 2018. However, that same study notes a slightly different result when population is taken into account. On a per-capita basis, New York ranked fourth, after Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. We rate the statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "State Budget", "New York" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Does New York get the short end of the stick when it comes to federal funding? Gov. Andrew Cuomo said so in atweeton Jan. 14.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/status/1349757826567204866?s=21" ] }, { "sentence": "New Yorkers are just tired of subsidizing other states with our tax dollars.New York subsidizes 42 other states.No state gets back less from Washington than New York State.The federal government must stop shortchanging NY.#SOTS2021", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/SOTS2021?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Budget, told PolitiFact that Cuomo was referencing a widely citedanalysisfrom the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy arm of the State University of New York.", "hrefs": [ "https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1-22-20-Balance-of-Payments.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "New Yorks balance of payments with the federal government could worsen in the coming years unless a change made to the tax code in 2017 is reversed. In the Republican-backed tax bill signed that year by President Donald Trump, lawmakers limited the size of the federal deduction for state and local taxes paid. This change to thestate and local tax deductionmeant that some taxpayers in high-tax states like New York would pay more in federal taxes.", "hrefs": [ "https://rockinst.org/issue-area/salt-economic-impact/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-fascism-liberalism/", "claim": "Ronald Reagan: 'If Fascism Ever Comes to America, It Will Come in the Name of Liberalism'", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "08/24/2017", "sci_digest": [ "The former California governor and future U.S. president made the comment during a 1975 interview with \"60 Minutes\" over a discussion of his economic philosophy." ], "justification": "On 21 August 2017, the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) posted a meme juxtaposing a 42-year-old quote by then-former California Governor Ronald Reagan with a 2016 photograph of anti-fascist protesters in Dover, England, intended to create the impression that \"antifa\" demonstrators represented fascism coming to the the United States in just the way that Reagan had predicted decades earlier: That quote was taken from a December 1975 interview of Reagan conducted by Mike Wallace for the 60 Minutes news magazine television program: We've found no record of anyone, other than Reagan himself, having made the \"profound\" statement that \"If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.\" Most likely the future President was recalling a variant of a maxim (commonly misattributed to author Sinclair Lewis) holding that \"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.\" Sinclair Lewis TPUSA shared the Reagan meme on their official Facebook feed at a time when anti-fascist activists, or \"antifa,\" had garnered both notoriety and heightened media scrutiny following violent incidents at white supremacist rallies in Berkeley, California, and Charlottesvile, Virginia (in April and August 2017, respectively). After white supremacists (who have adopted the moniker \"alt-right\") were widely condemned for an outbreak of deadly violence at a protest in Charlottesville, some conservatives responded by claiming \"antifa\" protesters deserved equal condemnation. antifa The bottom image in the TPUSA meme (which has been shared thousands of times) wasn't taken in the United States, despite the implication created by its inclusion here. The photograph was taken in Dover, England, on 30 January 2016 by Press Association photographer Gareth Fuller and depicts anti-fascists who clashed with nationalists during an anti-immigration rally in the Kent County town. rally The connection between \"liberals\" and the \"antifas\" suggested by this meme isn't quite so apt, as most \"antifa\" activists are anarchists and/or subscribe to political philosophies that are much further left on the political spectrum than those of mainstream \"liberals.\" Likewise, although the Reagan quote sought to draw a connection between liberalism and fascism, the latter is generally considered to be a form of extreme right-wing ideology. anarchists extreme !function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src=\"https://rumble.com/embedJS/ucxbq\"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+\"/?url=\"+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+\"&args=\"+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, \"script\", \"Rumble\"); Rumble(\"play\", {\"video\": \"v3t27p\",\"div\": \"rumble_v3t27p\",\"autoplay\":2}); ITV. \"Far-Right and Anti-Fascist Groups Clash at Protests in Dover.\"\r 30 January 2016. Penny, Daniel. \"An Intimate History of Antifa.\"\r The New Yorker. 22 August 2017. Beinart, Peter. \"The Rise of the Violent Left.\"\r The Atlantic. September 2017 issue. KentOnline.com. \"Dover Riots of January 30, 2016 Police Hunt for Far Right and Anti-Fascist Thugs Goes On.\"\r 30 January 2017. Sepulvado, John, and Bert Johnson. \"Californian Who Helped Lead Charlottesville Protests Used Berkeley as a Test Run.\"\r KQED-TV. 14 August 2017. McCreesh, Shawn. \"Antifa and the 'Alt-Left': Everything You Need to Know.\"\r Rolling Stone. 18 August 2017.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cXbDBLmwUWC171Dlrlr1mqLf06NzCydM", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "We've found no record of anyone, other than Reagan himself, having made the \"profound\" statement that \"If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism.\" Most likely the future President was recalling a variant of a maxim (commonly misattributed to author Sinclair Lewis) holding that \"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/sinclair-lewis-on-fascism/" ] }, { "sentence": "TPUSA shared the Reagan meme on their official Facebook feed at a time when anti-fascist activists, or \"antifa,\" had garnered both notoriety and heightened media scrutiny following violent incidents at white supremacist rallies in Berkeley, California, and Charlottesvile, Virginia (in April and August 2017, respectively). After white supremacists (who have adopted the moniker \"alt-right\") were widely condemned for an outbreak of deadly violence at a protest in Charlottesville, some conservatives responded by claiming \"antifa\" protesters deserved equal condemnation.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2017/08/17/are-antifa-and-the-alt-right-equally-violent/" ] }, { "sentence": "The bottom image in the TPUSA meme (which has been shared thousands of times) wasn't taken in the United States, despite the implication created by its inclusion here. The photograph was taken in Dover, England, on 30 January 2016 by Press Association photographer Gareth Fuller and depicts anti-fascists who clashed with nationalists during an anti-immigration rally in the Kent County town.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.itv.com/news/2016-01-30/far-right-and-anti-fascist-groups-clash-at-protests-in-dover/" ] }, { "sentence": "The connection between \"liberals\" and the \"antifas\" suggested by this meme isn't quite so apt, as most \"antifa\" activists are anarchists and/or subscribe to political philosophies that are much further left on the political spectrum than those of mainstream \"liberals.\" Likewise, although the Reagan quote sought to draw a connection between liberalism and fascism, the latter is generally considered to be a form of extreme right-wing ideology.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/", "https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fascism" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dashboarder-crossing/", "claim": "Are These Photographs of a Border Crosser Hidden in a Dashboard?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/09/2003", "sci_digest": [ "People have come up with all sorts of inventive ways of concealing themselves in order to slip across national borders undetected." ], "justification": "Although the \"Addams Family\"-like scenario described in the text accompanying the photographs seen below was probably just someone's humorous embellishment, we couldn't summarily dismiss the pictures themselves as a joke. Plenty of inventive (and desperate) people have come up with a number of imaginative schemes for sneaking themselves and others across national borders (a 2003 news story dealt with Illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan being smuggled from mainland China to Hong Kong inside suitcases), and this one wasn't so far-fetched to be completely unbelievable: suitcases ALIEN SMUGGLING 135-lb. woman hidden behind the dashboard of a car A U.S. Customs Primary Inspector at a border crossing asked the driver of this Suburban for vehicle registration. Suddenly, a hand came out of the glove compartment, producing the requested document, which the driver showed the inspector. Since the driver did not appear to be a member of the Addams Family, the inspector became suspicious, thus leading to a full search. Just think, if alien smugglers can put a 135-lb. body behind the dashboard, imagine what they could do with dope. Tuesday, July 31, 2001 The \"passenger\" seen here might be quite cramped and uncomfortable and the automobile difficult to maneuver after the modifications, but the ruse wouldn't have to be maintained for long the car could be loaded just out of sight of border agents, driven the short distance to the crossing, and unloaded not far across the other side. Sure enough, these photographs proved to be real, pictures taken by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) agents and included in a short \"illegal aliens caught in desperate attempts to cross U.S. border\" article included in the September 2001 issue of U.S. Customs Today (a publication of the United States Customs Service), which noted: U.S. Customs Today Every year, federal officers from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Customs Service discover increasing cases of \"human contraband\" secreted in unusual places and wrapped in innovative disguises. The woman peering out from the automobile dashboard of a vehicle (above) tried a \"spaced-out\" ploy she was discovered before the car could get across the U.S.-Mexico border, cramped, but none the worse for wear. Similarly, another would-be border crosser identified in that article was caught attempting to enter the U.S. concealed inside a seat occupied by another passenger: ", "issues": [ "lien" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1EY9hAVfL52xmd2fHOdxhS9ShZV42Q3W0", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16Ct-MhuUHAQaWTWgiOMKHanlNxlX5I0J", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1f8BI3ut1-gbS5NGjUFpfH1OGr12qjVUe", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1w1vIQAVZRiZ3tfx078pSCUtsUpRW2IPO", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Although the \"Addams Family\"-like scenario described in the text accompanying the photographs seen below was probably just someone's humorous embellishment, we couldn't summarily dismiss the pictures themselves as a joke. Plenty of inventive (and desperate) people have come up with a number of imaginative schemes for sneaking themselves and others across national borders (a 2003 news story dealt with Illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan being smuggled from mainland China to Hong Kong inside suitcases), and this one wasn't so far-fetched to be completely unbelievable:", "hrefs": [ "https://news.excite.com/odd/article/id/300461|oddlyenough|02-05-2003::09:03|reuters.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Sure enough, these photographs proved to be real, pictures taken by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) agents and included in a short \"illegal aliens caught in desperate attempts to cross U.S. border\" article included in the September 2001 issue of U.S. Customs Today (a publication of the United States Customs Service), which noted:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20030220140943/https://www.customs.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2001/September/other/custoday_bent.xml" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unzipped-mechanic/", "claim": "The Unzipped Mechanic", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/28/2004", "sci_digest": [ "Woman mistakenly unzips pants mechanic working under car." ], "justification": "Legend: A wife returns home from shopping and spots a pair of legs sticking out from under the car in their driveway. Thinking that her husband is working on the car again, she playfully bends down and pulls down his pants zipper before cheerfully strolling into the house. As she walks through living room, she spots her husband sitting in a chair watching TV. Startled, she asks her husband who is under the car; when her husband informs her that it's his mechanic, she faints. Examples: [Collected by Brunvand, 1969] The lady came home from the grocery store, and she saw her husband working under the car. All that was exposed were his legs, so in passing she reached down, unzipped his zipper, chuckled to herself, and went into the house. Immediately she saw her husband sitting in the easy chair reading the newspaper. She cried, \"Who is THAT under the car?\" and her husband replied, \"My mechanic.\" She told her husband what she'd done, and they went outside to find the mechanic lying unconscious, in a pool of blood, because when the lady unzipped his pants he was so startled he sat up and clobbered his head under the car. [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Be careful what you wear (or don't wear) when working under your vehicle especially in public. From the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, comes this story of a central west couple who drove their car to K-Mart only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car there in the lot. The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand up his shorts and tucked everything back into place. On regaining her feet, she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by. The mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his head. [Collected on the Internet, 2004] From the Northwest Floida Daily News comes this story of a Crestview couple who drove their car to Wal-Mart, only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car in the lot. The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection, she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, his lack of underpants turned private parts into glaringly public ones. Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand up his shorts, and tucked every thing back into place. When she got back on her feet, she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by. The mechanic, however, had to be treated by the paramedics and received three stitches in his forehead. Variations: Some versions of the legend feature a plumber working under a sink in place of the auto mechanic under the car. When the wife unzips the plumber's pants, he sits up and hits his head on the pipes, knocking himself cold. Origins: Some readers recall having heard this legend as far back as the late 1950s, a variation on a common theme of a wife's playful licentiousness resulting in her great embarrassment. Unlike other versions, however, there is no suggestion of moral censure in this telling of the legend: the ubiquitous fondled minister has been replaced by an auto mechanic, and the wife suffers no painful humiliation. In fact, the only one who comes to any harm is the innocent and unwitting mechanic who ends up with a bump on his head. fondled minister An early sighting of the legend features the \"dropped stretcher\" motif which appears in other urban legends, notably the Hind-Lick Maneuver (dog cold-noses naked man working under sink), Blew Moon (wife spritzs hairspray into toilet in attempt to kill bug; husband who aftewards lights cigarette while on throne blows himself up), and Frame Job (lady becomes stuck to freshly painted toilet seat). Hind-Lick Maneuver Blew Moon Frame Job [Linkletter, 1967] A lady who had been after her husband for months to install a garbage disposal under the kitchen sink finally trapped him one Saturday afternoon, and he glumly got to work with his wrenches. Not wishing to listen to his colorful vocabulary as he banged his thumbs, she went out shopping. While downtown she ran into some girl friends and had a few cocktails, so she was feeling very friendly when she returned home. There was good old George still under the sink, working away, legs sticking out into the kitchen. So she bent down, reached under, and gave him a rudely familiar tweak. \"Hi, honey,\" she said. There was a howl of surprise from under the sink as the man raised up and smacked his forehead against the disposal. It was the plumber! Her husband had given up on the job. The plumber crawled out, his forehead all bloody, and the wife ran to the phone for an ambulance. The husband helped the attendant load the poor plumber onto a stretcher. \"How'd it happen?\" asked the attendant as they were carrying the man out. When the husband told him, the attendant began laughing so hard he let go of the stretcher and the plumber plunged to the sidewalk, breaking his arm. Imagine explaining that one to the insurance company. Last updated: 21 February 2009 Sources: Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be . New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 140-141). Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 147-148). Bryson, Bill. The Blook of Bunders (Bizarre World). Great Britain: Sphere Books Ltd., 1982. Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 37-38, 129). Linkletter, Art. Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967 (pp. 66-67). Too Good To Be Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 147-148). The Vanishing Hitchhiker Bryson, Bill. The Blook of Bunders (Bizarre World). Great Britain: Sphere Books Ltd., 1982. Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 37-38, 129). The Tumour in the Whale Linkletter, Art. Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967 (pp. 66-67). Also told in: Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (p. 43). Spiders in the Hairdo The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 123). The Big Book of Urban Legends", "issues": [ "insurance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1DGVSW6-KY-xZ5kbs_y6tIWTYKyr44ssi", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "a variation on a common theme of a wife's playful licentiousness resulting in her great embarrassment. Unlike other versions, however, there is no suggestion of moral censure in this telling of the legend: the ubiquitous fondled minister has been replaced by an auto mechanic, and the wife suffers no painful humiliation. In fact, the only one who comes to any harm is the innocent and unwitting mechanic who ends up with a bump on his head.", "hrefs": [ "/risque/mistaken/fondled.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "An early sighting of the legend features the \"dropped stretcher\" motif which appears in other urban legends, notably the Hind-Lick Maneuver (dog cold-noses naked man working under sink), Blew Moon (wife spritzs hairspray into toilet in attempt to kill bug; husband who aftewards lights cigarette while on throne blows himself up), and Frame Job (lady becomes stuck to freshly painted toilet seat). ", "hrefs": [ "/critters/farce/hindlick.asp", "/embarrass/accident/toilet.asp", "/embarrass/doctor/framed.asp" ] }, { "sentence": " Sources: Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be . New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 140-141). Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 147-148). Bryson, Bill. The Blook of Bunders (Bizarre World). Great Britain: Sphere Books Ltd., 1982. Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 37-38, 129). Linkletter, Art. Oops! Or, Life's Awful Moments. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967 (pp. 66-67).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/toogood.htm", "../../sources/vanhitch.htm", "../../sources/tumour.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. ISBN 0-393-95169-3 (pp. 147-148).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/vanhitch.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " Dale, Rodney. The Tumour in the Whale. London: Duckworth, 1978. ISBN 0-7156-1314-6 (pp. 37-38, 129).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/tumour.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " Also told in: Holt, David and Bill Mooney. Spiders in the Hairdo. Little Rock: August House, 1999. ISBN 0-87483-525-9 (p. 43).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/children/spiders.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 123).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/bigbook.htm" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-write-off-birthdays/", "claim": "Does Facebook 'Write Off' Your Birthday Donations?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/06/2019", "sci_digest": [ "\"Donating your birthday\" on Facebook is a simple way to raise money for charities. " ], "justification": "In November 2019, some people encountered a meme on Facebook that claimed the social media company was using the contributions its users were making to birthday fundraisers as a tax-deductible write-off for the company: While this meme contains four separate assertions, we'll focus mainly on the second one for this article, that \"Facebook is allowed to declare your donation for a tax write-off.\" Facebook launched its birthday-donation program in 2017, a feature that allows users to \"donate their birthdays\" to raise money for various charities. A few weeks before a Facebook user's birthday, the user receives a message asking about a possible fundraiser centered on that day. If the user decides to raise funds, he or she may choose from 750,00 non-profits, set a fundraising goal, and then share the fundraiser with Facebook friends. Here's how Facebook explained the feature in its announcement: explained Two weeks before your birthday, youll see a message from Facebook in your News Feed giving you the option to create a fundraiser for your birthday. You can create a fundraiser for any of the 750,000 US nonprofits available for fundraising on Facebook. Your friends will receive a notification inviting them to support your cause in honor of your special day. When birthday fundraisers were initially rolled out, Facebook was retaining 5% of the donations to cover processing fees and fraud protection. The company did away with those fees at the end of 2017, so as of now 100% of such donations go to the designated charities. In August 2018, Facebook announced that it has helped facilitate $300 million in charitable donations. (The above-displayed meme claims in item 3 that Facebook can \"brag\" about its charitable donations, but we should note the company's announcement says \"People Raise $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year,\" not \"Facebook Raises $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year.\") announced The claim that Facebook was able to use the $300 million raised by its users via birthday fundraisers as a tax-deductible write-off is not substantiated by any evidence. In fact, it seems that Facebook users and not the company itself are actually the ones who get to write off these donations, as Facebook states: states A donation to a nonprofit through its Facebook Page or a fundraiser on Facebook may be tax-deductible. Since tax laws vary by country and region, you should consult a tax professional or review the laws for your area to determine whether a donation is tax-deductible. After you make a donation, a confirmation will be sent to the primary email listed on your Facebook account. This confirmation shows that you've made this donation as a charitable contribution and that you're not receiving any goods or services in return. We reached out to Facebook for comment on this meme and a spokesperson told us that these claims were \"completely false\": These claims about Facebook Fundraising tools are completely false. We are a donation platform and payments to charities are processed by our licensed, regulated subsidiaries. 100% of whats raised using donate buttons and fundraisers created on Facebook goes to the benefiting nonprofit. Nonprofits either receive funds directly from Facebook, or via Network for Good, a Donor Advised Fund we partner with.\" While Facebook does not write off donations made by users, the company's birthday fundraisers have nonetheless spurred some criticism. In October 2018, some users reported that their one-time donations turned into recurring donations. (In fact, some billing irregularities occurred, but no users were actually charged more than they agreed to donate.) Tech Crunch also noted that this program has raised concerns about privacy, and one fundraising consultant was leery of the program for further distancing donors from charitable organizations: reported Tech Crunch As with almost every other Facebook feature, its fundraising tools have prompted concerns about privacy, particularly donor privacy, which is considered sacrosanct by many organizations (Facebook lets users decide if they want to share their donation with friends). Some charities also have qualms about benefiting from Facebook fundraisers until the company does a better job of policing hate speech, especially if the purpose of their work is aiding marginalized or persecuted minority groups. prompted concerns about privacy users decide if they want to share their donation with friends does a better job of policing hate speech In an insightful blog post from last November, fundraising consultant Jeremy Hatch argued that fundraising on Facebook also eliminates the relationship between donors and organizations, where there are established norms and ethical practices. He added that non-profits should reconsider before they grow increasingly reliant on a company whose ultimate goal is to gather and monetize user data. insightful blog post from last November We've yet to come across any credible reporting, however, documenting that Facebook was using individual donations from users as a tax write-off. As such, we rate this claim Facebook Newsroom. \"People Raise $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year.\"\r 15 August 2018. Shu, Catherine. \"Facebook Says Birthday Fundraisers Have Raised More Than $300 Million Over the Past Year.\"\r Tech Crunch. 15 August 2018. Sweet, Joni. \"Is It Safe to Donate Money on Facebook for Birthday Causes?\"\r Yahoo News. 2 November 2018. Facebook Newsroom. \"Celebrating a Birthday? Now You Can Make It Even More Meaningful.\"\r 16 August 2017.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BKMjIElkLBAHiWTpLOwOugsyM1XHs6s7", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1h0ylSae_df-Hn2kVQhXlMjLYgT93ORfd", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Here's how Facebook explained the feature in its announcement:", "hrefs": [ "https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/08/celebrating-a-birthday-now-you-can-make-it-even-more-meaningful/" ] }, { "sentence": "When birthday fundraisers were initially rolled out, Facebook was retaining 5% of the donations to cover processing fees and fraud protection. The company did away with those fees at the end of 2017, so as of now 100% of such donations go to the designated charities. In August 2018, Facebook announced that it has helped facilitate $300 million in charitable donations. (The above-displayed meme claims in item 3 that Facebook can \"brag\" about its charitable donations, but we should note the company's announcement says \"People Raise $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year,\" not \"Facebook Raises $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year.\")", "hrefs": [ "https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/people-raise-300m-through-birthday-fundraisers-in-first-year/" ] }, { "sentence": "The claim that Facebook was able to use the $300 million raised by its users via birthday fundraisers as a tax-deductible write-off is not substantiated by any evidence. In fact, it seems that Facebook users and not the company itself are actually the ones who get to write off these donations, as Facebook states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/help/188996231291583" ] }, { "sentence": "While Facebook does not write off donations made by users, the company's birthday fundraisers have nonetheless spurred some criticism. In October 2018, some users reported that their one-time donations turned into recurring donations. (In fact, some billing irregularities occurred, but no users were actually charged more than they agreed to donate.) Tech Crunch also noted that this program has raised concerns about privacy, and one fundraising consultant was leery of the program for further distancing donors from charitable organizations:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-birthday-donations/", "https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/15/facebook-says-birthday-fundraisers-have-raised-more-than-300-million-over-the-past-year/" ] }, { "sentence": "As with almost every other Facebook feature, its fundraising tools have prompted concerns about privacy, particularly donor privacy, which is considered sacrosanct by many organizations (Facebook lets users decide if they want to share their donation with friends). Some charities also have qualms about benefiting from Facebook fundraisers until the company does a better job of policing hate speech, especially if the purpose of their work is aiding marginalized or persecuted minority groups.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-fundrais/charity-fundraising-after-facebooks-data-breach-risks-but-little-choice-idUSKBN1GY0EZ", "https://www.facebook.com/help/176532799208393", "https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/facebooks-white-nationalism-white-supremacy-policy-motherboard/" ] }, { "sentence": "In an insightful blog post from last November, fundraising consultant Jeremy Hatch argued that fundraising on Facebook also eliminates the relationship between donors and organizations, where there are established norms and ethical practices. He added that non-profits should reconsider before they grow increasingly reliant on a company whose ultimate goal is to gather and monetize user data.", "hrefs": [ "https://artfulfundraiser.com/2017/11/01/some-concerns-about-facebooks-donation-platform/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/feb/03/raphael-warnock/ranks-uninsured-high-georgia/", "claim": "Georgia has the fifth-highest number of uninsured people of any state in the union.", "author": "Eric Stirgus", "posted": "02/03/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A chorus of Democratic lawmakers and supporters has been increasingly vocal in pushing Gov. Nathan Deal to expand Medicaid in Georgia. One of those voices is the Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church, the former pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Warnock, the keynote speaker at this years MLK Commemorative Service at Ebenezer, used the occasion -- with political heavyweights of both sides of the aisle in the room -- to demand an expansion. He cited a statistic weve seen others mention to make his case. Georgia has the fifth-highest number of uninsured people of any state in the union, he said. Is this correct? PolitiFact Georgia was curious for a few reasons. U.S. census figures show Georgia has the eighth-highest population in the nation, so the Peach States ranking would be higher than some states that have more residents, if Warnock is correct. Weve also heard similar claims in the past from others who support the expansion, so PolitiFact Georgia thoughtnow is a good time to find out if theyre right. As part of the federal health care law, also known as Obamacare, the federal government pays for the full cost of newly eligible Medicaid recipients under expansion for the first three years. Its share then drops to no lower than 90 percent of the cost. In Georgia, its estimated that as many as 650,000 additional residents would be eligible for Medicaid. Deal, whose last vote as a congressman was against the health care law, has been adamantly opposed to the Medicaid expansion. The governor has said hes wary of expanding coverage for fear that Uncle Sam will be unable to fulfill its funding pledge for the additional Medicaid recipients. Deal has estimated the expansion would cost the state $4 billion over a decade, but supporters of the health care law say the cost would likely be closer to half of that. Medicaid expansion supporters contend Georgia could get about $30 billion over 10 years from the federal government. Deal, who spoke at the MLK service, had left by the time Warnock addressed the audience. The pastor who called Deal courageous for his position on other issues, such as prison re-entry told us, Id like to see the same courage on Medicaid expansion. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution statewide poll done in September found nearly 60 percent of Georgians dont like the health care law, but approximately the same percentage of respondents believe Medicaid should be expanded. Warnock said he had done some research on where Georgia ranked nationally in terms of uninsured residents and believed he was in the ballpark on his claim. He forwarded a two-page fact-sheet by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, which supports an expansion, that says Georgia ranks fifth in the number of uninsured residents. He shared a 2012 Kaiser Family Foundation report that ranked Georgia tied for fifth in the percentage of uninsured residents, at 19 percent, along with Alaska and California. In order, the top four states were Nevada, Florida, New Mexico and Louisiana. A 2013 Gallup poll found Georgia ranked sixth nationally in that category, with approximately 22.5 percent of its residents uninsured. The top five were Texas, Louisiana, Nevada, California and Florida. The results were based on telephone interviews conducted as part of a yearlong survey of a random sample of adults across the nation. Some interviews were done in Spanish. The Corporation for Enterprise Development, an organization that works to alleviate poverty, released a study that found nearly 22 percent of Georgians under the age of 65 were uninsured in 2011. That was the fourth-highest total in the nation, behind only Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. The corporation used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its findings. The U.S. Census Bureaus American Community Survey has a breakdown of uninsured residents by state. In 2012, Georgia ranked sixth, with about 19 percent of its residents uninsured, slightly above the national average of 16 percent. The top five states were Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Louisiana. Georgia State University associate professor Bill Custer said there are several factors concerning why Georgia ranks consistently among the states with the highest percentage of uninsured residents. Georgia, he said, has a larger percentage of residents who cannot afford health insurance because their wages are low or they are unemployed. We recently fact-checked a claim by state Sen. Jason Carter, D-Atlanta, that the average Georgia family makes $6,000 less than the average family did 10 years ago when inflation is factored in. Carters claim was ratedTrue. Another factor, Custer said, is many Georgians live in rural parts of the state and work in industries such as agriculture and retail where their employers cannot afford to provide health care. Custer wrote a report in February 2013 that concluded the expansion would support 70,343 jobs statewide over a 10-year span. About half of those jobs would be in the health care industry, Custer said. For us not to accept the Medicaid expansion is a barrier to economic growth, Warnock said in a telephone interview. Youll produce jobs. If you provide that health care (to those additional Medicaid recipients), someone has to provide that health care. To sum up, Warnock said Georgia has the fifth-highest number of uninsured residents. Our research showed hes indeed in the ballpark. We rate his claim True.", "issues": [ "Georgia", "Medicaid", "State Budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Georgia State University associate professor Bill Custer said there are several factors concerning why Georgia ranks consistently among the states with the highest percentage of uninsured residents. Georgia, he said, has a larger percentage of residents who cannot afford health insurance because their wages are low or they are unemployed. We recently fact-checked a claim by state Sen. Jason Carter, D-Atlanta, that the average Georgia family makes $6,000 less than the average family did 10 years ago when inflation is factored in. Carters claim was ratedTrue.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/jan/23/jason-carter/carter-target-family-income/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sole-loyalty/", "claim": "Theodore Roosevelt on Immigration", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/11/2006", "sci_digest": [ "Former president Theodore Roosevelt's words regarding the assimilation of immigrants into American culture." ], "justification": "Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907. \"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.\" Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Theodore Roosevelt was about to finish his first two-year term as governor of the state of New York when the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice president in the 1900 national election. The Republicans were victorious at the ballot box that year, but Roosevelt held the vice-presidency for less than a year before he was elevated to the White House upon the assassination of President William McKinley on 14 September 1901, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president in 1904, and among his many notable achievements was his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for his part in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Treaty of Portsmouth Although Roosevelt did not hold public office again after leaving the presidency in 1909 (his efforts to regain the White House as a third party candidate in 1912 proving unsuccessful), he remained active in the public political sphere. In the waning years of his life, as World War I raged in Europe and America entered the conflict on the side of the Allies, he frequently spoke of his belief that immigrants taking up residence in the U.S. should assimilate into American society as quickly as possible, learn the English language, eschew hyphenated national identities (e.g., \"Italian-American\") and declare their primary national allegiance to the United States of America. On 1 February 1916, for example, Roosevelt advocated measures for strengthening and ensuring the \"loyalty\" of American immigrants: Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at a luncheon given yesterday by Mrs. Vincent Astor for the National Americanization Committee in the Astor Court Building, declared that one of the reasons why many German-Americans have shown greater love for their native land that for their adopted country is that the German system demands greater loyalty than is demanded in this country, and a greater contribution to the common welfare. \"And all of you know I am free from a taint of neutrality,\" he added, \"so I can say this without suspicion.\" The encouragement of better housing conditions and a compulsion to learn the English language, Colonel Roosevelt said, would help the process of Americanization. \"We cannot make the Americanization movement a success,\" Colonel Roosevelt said, \"unless we approach it from the economic standpoint. It is true that governmentally Germany is an autocracy. But there has been a great deal more industrial freedom there than many of our old industrial communities. The German Government says we expect you to work out good results, to get together with the laborer, and yourselves decide what you are going to pay to the doctors who are to pass upon the health of the employes, and the amount of damages any employe merits. The Government insists upon a great amount of self-government by the people themselves. \"I feel that by insistence upon proper housing conditions we shall indirectly approach this. I want to see the immigrant know that he has got to spend a certain amount of his money in decent housing; that he will not be allowed to live on $2.50 per month board basis. \"Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn English, but that he has got to learn it. Let the immigrant who does not learn it go back. He has got to consider the interest of the United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend upon his knowing English and observing American standards. The employer cannot be permitted to regard him only as an industrial asset. \"We must in every way possible encourage the immigrant to rise, help him up, give him a chance to help himself. If we try to carry him he may well prove not well worth carrying. We must in turn insist upon his showing the same standard of fealty to this country and to join with us in raising the level of our common American citizenship. \"If I could I would have the kind of restriction which would not allow any immigrant to come here unless I was content that his grandchildren would be fellow-citizens of my grandchildren. They will not be so if he lives in a boarding house at $2.50 per month with ten other boarders and contracts tuberculosis and contributes to the next generation a body of citizens inferior not only morally and spiritually but also physically.\"1 A few months later, Roosevelt expanded on this theme in a series of Memorial Day speeches he delivered in St. Louis: Moral treason to the United States was charged by Mr. Roosevelt, in an address delivered before the City Club, against German-Americans who seek to make their governmental representatives act in the interests of Germany rather than this country. He characterized the German-American Alliance as \"an anti-American alliance,\" but added that he believed that its members \"not only do not represent but scandalously misrepresent\" the great majority of real Americans of German origin. Using the motto \"America for Americans\" for all Americans, whether they were born here or abroad, the former President declared that \"the salvation of our people lies in having a nationalized and unified America, ready for the tremendous tasks of both war and peace.\" \"I appeal to all our citizens,\" the colonel said, \"no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind, and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischiefmakers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, or birthplace or of national origin.\" Col. Roosevelt said he came to St. Louis to speak on Americanism to speak of and condemn the use of the hyphen \"whenever it represents an effort to form political parties along racial lines or to bring pressure to bear on parties and politicians, not for American purposes, but in the interest of some group of voters of a certain national origin or of the country from which they or their fathers came.\" He was equally against the native American of the wrong kind and for the immigrant of the right kind, the former President declared, but the immigrant who did not become in good faith an American \"is out of place\" in the United States. He said each nation should be judged by its conduct and that the United States should oppose encroachment on its own rights, whether Germany, England, France or Russia be guilty of misconduct. \"The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself,\" the colonel continued, \"by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries amd jealousies and hatreds.\"2 In a Fourth of July speech in 1917, Roosevelt urged the adoption of linguistic uniformity, including a requirement that all foreign-language newspapers published in the U.S. should also include English translations: Touching on the matter of language, Col. Roosevelt declared that \"We must have in this country but one flag, and for the speech of the people but one language, the English language. During the present war all newspapers published in German, or in the speech of any of our foes, should be required to publish, side by side with the foreign text, columns in English containing the exact translation of everything said in the foreign language. Ultimately this should be done with all newspapers published in foreign languages in this country.\"3 Likewise, on 27 May 1918, Roosevelt urged in a speech at Des Moines, Iowa, that English be the sole language of instruction used in American schools: English as the sole language for schools, newspapers and other usage in this country was urged by Theodore Roosevelt in an address here tonight under the direction of the National Security League ... In voicing his approval of the recent proclamation by Gov. Harding, ordering that English be the only medium of instruction in public or private schools in Iowa, Col. Roosevelt said: \"This is a nation not a polyglot boarding house. There is not room in the country for any 50-50 American, nor can there be but one loyalty to the Stars and Stripes.\"4 The comments quoted at this head of the page are more in the same vein; excerpts not from (as claimed in the accompanying text) a statement made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 (while he was still President), but from a letter written shortly before his death in January 1919, just a few months after the armistice that ended the fighting in World War I: NEW YORK, Jan. 6. What was the last public statement by Col. Roosevelt was read last night at an \"All-American concert\" here under the auspices of the American Defense society, of which he was honorary president. \"I cannot be with you and so all I can do is to wish you Godspeed,\" it read. \"There may be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. \"There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations which more directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people. Our principle in this matter should be absolutely simple. \"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the mans becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. \"If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. \"We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul [sic] loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.\"5 A copy of this letter, obtained from the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, can be viewed here. here 3. Boston Daily Globe. \"'Moral Treason' to Attack Allies.\"\r 5 July 1917 (p. 10). 5. The Chicago Daily Tribune. \"Abolish Hyphen Roosevelt's Last Words to Public.\"\r 7 January 1919 (p. 4). 1. The New York Times. \"A Roosevelt Idea Made in Germany.\"\r 2 February 1916 (p. 5). 2. The Washington Post. \"T.R. Assails Wilson.\"\r 1 June 1916 (p. 1). 4. The Washington Post. \"Use Only English, Roosevelt Urges.\"\r 28 May 1918 (p. 2).", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dRh9FsG2EMtmrzhOo8lA8Drj7ChtD6Ra", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Theodore Roosevelt was about to finish his first two-year term as governor of the state of New York when the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice president in the 1900 national election. The Republicans were victorious at the ballot box that year, but Roosevelt held the vice-presidency for less than a year before he was elevated to the White House upon the assassination of President William McKinley on 14 September 1901, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president in 1904, and among his many notable achievements was his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for his part in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.", "hrefs": [ "https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/portsmouth-treaty" ] }, { "sentence": "A copy of this letter, obtained from the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, can be viewed here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss38299.mss38299-412_0184_0456/?sp=119" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-transition-pentagon/", "claim": "No, Biden Transition Team Wasn't 'Removed' from Pentagon for Leaking Intel to China", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "12/30/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A meme circulating on social media offered no evidence to support its extraordinary claims." ], "justification": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here In late December 2020, social media users shared a meme claiming that the transition team for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden was \"removed\" from the Pentagon for leaking intelligence to the Chinese government: The text of the meme reads: Last week the Biden transition team was removed from the Pentagon and now we know why. The Secretary of Defense gave disinformation to the Biden team about Naval movements in the South China Sea. Within 30 minutes the intel was leaked to the CCP. Anyone that is okay with this needs to have their head checked. Biden is in bed with China. Notably, the meme didn't include any evidence to support its claims and there is no evidence that Biden's team was \"removed\" from the Pentagon or had leaked any intelligence to the Chinese Communist Party, the ruling political party in China. Had such a stunning event actually happened, we'd doubtlessly see mainstream news coverage. We found no credible news reports that the incoming presidential administration leaked intelligence to China, which would be a bombshell report. In fact, it's been an ongoing issue that outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump has not only refused to admit his electoral loss in the Nov. 3, 2020, election, but his administration has also demonstrated an unprecedented lack of cooperation with the incoming administration. cooperation On Dec. 18, 2020, Axios reported that Trump's acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller had \"ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department,\" citing \"senior administration officials.\" reported Miller said in a statement that his staff had been cooperating, and would continue to do so after a \"mutually-agreed upon holiday pause.\" Biden's team responded by stating Miller's comments were false and that they had never agreed on a holiday break in transition meetings. statement Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a Dec. 29, 2020, interview with NPR that Trump's political appointees have continued to obstruct the transition process and haven't turned over vital information pertaining to things like a massive Russian cyberattack against American government agencies or plans to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to the American public. interview Biden called the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration \"nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.\" called", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qLIpRr-ay70tUMewU5XqcXpr_RCXuAx1", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, it's been an ongoing issue that outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump has not only refused to admit his electoral loss in the Nov. 3, 2020, election, but his administration has also demonstrated an unprecedented lack of cooperation with the incoming administration.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933214639/trump-appointee-delays-biden-transition-process-citing-need-for-clear-winner" ] }, { "sentence": "On Dec. 18, 2020, Axios reported that Trump's acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller had \"ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department,\" citing \"senior administration officials.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.axios.com/pentagon-biden-transition-briefings-123a9658-4af1-4632-a6e6-770117784d60.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Miller said in a statement that his staff had been cooperating, and would continue to do so after a \"mutually-agreed upon holiday pause.\" Biden's team responded by stating Miller's comments were false and that they had never agreed on a holiday break in transition meetings.", "hrefs": [ "https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpiKBTXVQAIXn4W?format=jpg&name=large" ] }, { "sentence": "Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a Dec. 29, 2020, interview with NPR that Trump's political appointees have continued to obstruct the transition process and haven't turned over vital information pertaining to things like a massive Russian cyberattack against American government agencies or plans to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to the American public.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/12/29/951120832/bidens-incoming-national-security-adviser-faults-pentagons-obstruction" ] }, { "sentence": "Biden called the lack of cooperation from the Trump administration \"nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-12-28/biden-trump-teams-lack-of-transition-cooperation-amounts-to-irresponsibility" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-filed-reelection-stop-political-speech-nonprofits/", "claim": "Did President Trump submit his re-election papers early in order to prevent nonprofits from engaging in political speech?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "02/01/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Legal experts don't believe President Trump's filing for re-election early will have a noticeable effect on the activities of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations." ], "justification": "On 29 January 2017, a community member at the Daily Kos posted in a string of tweets by \"The Resisterhood\" account, which claimed that because President Donald Trump had filed early for re-election, it means that nonprofit organizations cannotoppose him without risking their nonprofit status. The story, which was widely shared, was created in a portion of the site that allows Daily Kos community members to create their own posts: claimed code Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes. It is true that President Trump filed a letteron Inauguration Day, 20 January 2017, notifying the Federal Elections Commission that he has met the legal threshold for filing for reelection in 2020 (though the letter says that it is not a formal candidate announcement). letter The move appears to be geared toward getting a fundraising head start, as legal experts agree that Trump becoming a de facto candidate for 2020 on his first day in office will have no effecton the activities of charities. In the era of perpetual campaigning, tax laws have been interpreted by the Internal Revenue Service to mean that charities are free to criticize or praise public office holders so long as they avoid electioneering which they are prohibited from doing anyway, said Marc Owens, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney whorepresents nonprofit organizations: Even though Trump is a candidate for the 2020 election now that he's registered, that really should not stop any charity from commenting on how hes doing as president of the United Statesnow as long as they don't put in in the context of the 2020 election...The reality is that as long as they don'tmention the election, which they shouldn't be doing anyway as charities, they're going to be fine. He added the caveat: \"Thats assuming Trump obeys the law.\" The Lawyers Alliance for New York later sent out a notice addressing the rumor: notice False Rumor: Nonprofit organizations cannot criticize President Trump because he filed a Statement of Candidacy form with the Federal Election Commission regarding the 2020 election. True: Organizations with 501(c)(3) status cannot take a position on who should win an election, such as the 2020 Presidential election. But all public charities can: criticize or praise sitting public officials, including the President, for actions that they take while in office. take a position on issues, such as environment, refugees, or school reform. take a position on specific government actions, including Executive Orders, and proposed laws and regulations. Taking such a position may count towards a public charitys limit on lobbying activity, and if the charity spends more than a minimal amount of money on this activity it may be required to register as a lobbyist, but only if it asks a public official to act or asks members of the public to contact a public official. Notre Dame law professor Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer agreed, saying in the modern era, most politicians are in a constant state of campaigning, whether they are formally declared as candidates or not: Charities can praise or criticize [for example] representativesas long as they do it in a way thats about them being in the House. The views [of the IRS] has always been obviously you can praise or criticize someone because they're a public official, as a public official, even if they're running. Loyola law professor Ellen Aprill concurred, noting that Trump himself had advocated for lifting the prohibition on charities and campaigning: It seems inconsistent with the intent behind the campaign intervention prohibition for a president to prevent 501(c)(3)'s from criticizing his policies and actions by declaring a candidacy so far in advance. Moreover, Trump is on record as wanting to eliminate the campaign intervention prohibition, although we have not seen anything on that since he became President. Nonprofits can address current topics like the environment, President Trump's proposal to build a new U.S.-Mexico border wall, or his recent executive order restricting refugee entry into the United States. They are also free to litigate on causes, as the American Civil Liberties Union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have done in recent high-profile cases. The fact that he has filed campaign paperwork with the FEC early does not mean any of these organizations are suddenly muzzled. Mayer also pointed out that pro-President Trump nonprofits are under the same laws as all the others, which casts further doubt on his early re-election filing being about anything other than getting a fundraising advantage. Pollwatcher.\"Trump Filed For Reelection In 2020 On Jan 20 2017. Why It Matters.\"\rDaily Kos (community post).29 January 2017. The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations\rInternal Revenue Service. Lawyers Alliance for New York.\"Nonprofit Organizations Can Speak Out About Controversial Government Actions.\"\r31 January 2017. Gold, Matea, andNarayanswamy, Anu.\"Trump already has socked away more than $7 million for his 2020 reelection.\"\rThe Washington Post.31 January 2017.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OumvaoDC03iDBPCOj1N5cO4zFEMi-zzF" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 29 January 2017, a community member at the Daily Kos posted in a string of tweets by \"The Resisterhood\" account, which claimed that because President Donald Trump had filed early for re-election, it means that nonprofit organizations cannotoppose him without risking their nonprofit status. The story, which was widely shared, was created in a portion of the site that allows Daily Kos community members to create their own posts:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/29/1626846/-Trump-Filed-For-Reelection-In-2020-On-Jan-20-2017-Why-It-Matters" ] }, { "sentence": "It is true that President Trump filed a letteron Inauguration Day, 20 January 2017, notifying the Federal Elections Commission that he has met the legal threshold for filing for reelection in 2020 (though the letter says that it is not a formal candidate announcement).", "hrefs": [ "https://docquery.fec.gov/dcdev/fectxt/1140262.txt" ] }, { "sentence": "The Lawyers Alliance for New York later sent out a notice addressing the rumor:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.lawyersalliance.org/pdfs/news_legal/Nonprofit_Organizations_Can_Speak_Out_About_Controversial_Government_Actions_FINAL.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-coupon-scam/", "claim": "No, McDonald's Is Not Offering 2 Free Big Mac Meals for a Month", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/03/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Yet another \"free coupon\" scam attempted to lure social media users with bogus promises." ], "justification": "In March 2020, Facebook posts circulating online offered free coupons supposedly good for two free Big Mac Meals for a month from outlets of the McDonald's fast food chain: Users who clicked on the offer were taken to an external website where they were instructed to answer survey questions in order to receive their coupons: After completing the questionnaire, however, users were then required to click a button to share the \"offer\" with their Facebook friends before they could retrieve their coupons. Those who complied by spamming their friends were then allowed to click a \"Receive the Coupon\" button, but there was no actual coupon to receive. Like innumerable other \"free merchandise\" offers on Facebook (including previous examples targeting McDonald's customers), this offer was a common form of scam. other free merchandise offers targeting We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers ", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1I8L2EUpmSAHjoPKtCSbNcccD_SXiH4XQ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dmUyHEzCAkkR5WJT8jaRNDSZrToJpmo0", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Like innumerable other \"free merchandise\" offers on Facebook (including previous examples targeting McDonald's customers), this offer was a common form of scam. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kohls-thanksgiving-coupon-scam/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bud-light-anniversary-free-24-pack-facebook-offer/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/free-southwest-tickets-scam/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lifetime-passes-kfc-mcdonalds/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/council/news-events/bbb-scam-alerts/2017/04/scam-alert-giveaway-scam-poses-as-facebook/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/meijer-coupon-scam/", "claim": "Fraudulent $75 Coupon Scheme involving Meijer", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "08/24/2015", "sci_digest": [ "The Meijer supercenter chain is not giving away $75 coupons to users who like and share Facebook posts; it's a form of survey scam." ], "justification": "In August 2015, a survey scam promising customers $100 off \"Back to School\" coupons for the Meijer hypermarket chain began circulating online: The $100 Meijer coupon scam was very similar to other schemes aimed at defrauding the customers of Target, Publix, Kroger, and Home Depot, all of which redirect users to a web site where they are asked to like, share, and/or comment on the coupons, ensuring that the scams get passed around social media: Target Publix Kroger Home Depot While each of these scams feature slight variations, they typically redirect users to survey sites where they are asked to provide personal information such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and credit card numbers. The Better Business Bureau offers these three tips to identify scams on Facebook: tips Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. On 24 August 2015, Meijer confirmed that this $100 coupon was a scam: confirmed", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16lvCOBn3nuq0Cib75rBzwcXu7IOO5qAL" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Rtqt7riG3-5nwNQltPQKVOtztRy9d7B0" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1h8XC46ODg3Zrs0PwCHQcLUvdweTMxm1O" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The $100 Meijer coupon scam was very similar to other schemes aimed at defrauding the customers of Target, Publix, Kroger, and Home Depot, all of which redirect users to a web site where they are asked to like, share, and/or comment on the coupons, ensuring that the scams get passed around social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/target100.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/publix.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/krogercard.asp", "https://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/homedepot.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "The Better Business Bureau offers these three tips to identify scams on Facebook:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbb.org/blog/2014/07/customer-survey-scam-lures-victims-with-gift-card/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 24 August 2015, Meijer confirmed that this $100 coupon was a scam:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/meijer/photos/pb.90250031635.-2207520000.1440445036./10153081939751636/?type=3&theater" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/jun/18/george-allen/george-allen-says-us-corporate-tax-rate-second-hig/", "claim": "The tax on job creating businesses is 35 percent in the United States, second worst in the entire world.", "author": "Sean Gorman", "posted": "06/18/2011", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Republican Senate candidate George Allen recently complained that corporate taxes are too high and discourage economic expansion.The tax on job-creating businesses in the United States is 35 percent, second worst in the entire world, he said during a June 14 news conference at which he unveiled his Blueprint for Americas Comeback..We wondered if the U.S. really is No.2 in the world when it comes to high corporate taxes and asked for the source of Allens information.Katie Wright, spokeswoman for Allens campaign, pointed to a March 8, 2011,reportfrom the right-leaning Tax Foundation. It indeed showed that the U.S. had the second highest total corporate tax rate among industrialized and emerging nations. Only Japan placed higher levies on business profits.But taxes are a complicated subject, and Allens claim needs elaboration.Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noted most corporate income is taxed at the top U.S. federal rate of 35 percent, which Allen cited. The tax applies to American companies doing business here and abroad as well as to profits earned in the U.S. by affiliates of foreign companies.Allen understates his argument when he says the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. Actually, it outstrips Japan and is the highest national rate among nearly three dozen industrialized democracies, according to 2011 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.But national tax rates on companies dont tell the whole story.When looking at how the U.S. corporate tax liability compares to other countries, analysts usually examine a combination of federal and state corporate income tax rates.By that measure, the combined average corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.2 percent this year, according to the OECD. Among industrialized democracies, only Japans combined corporate rate of 39.5 percent is higher.Japan had planned to lower its corporate tax rate by 5 percent on April 1. But it delayed making the cut after a disastrous earthquake and tsunami struck in March.The OECD report only discusses statutory corporate tax rates. It does not address deductions and credits companies can claim in various countries to lower their liabilities. These loopholes produce an effective tax rate - the percentage of profits companies actually pay in levies.The World Bank published a report last November containing the effective corporate tax rates of 183 nations. The U.S. had an effective corporate tax rate of 27.6 percent, according to the study, which is still pretty high. Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand had higher effective tax rates on corporate profits.Allen, during his news conference, said he would like to lower the 35 percent national corporate tax rate to 20 percent and eliminate loopholes.Lets sum up:Allen said the U.S. corporate income tax of 35 percent is the second highest in the world.The national rate of 35 percent is actually the highest among democratic industrial nations. The U.S. combined corporate tax rate -- the average total of state and national levies on business profits -- is 39.2 and ranks second among industrialized democracies.So Allen is a smidgen off on tax rates, rankings and definitions. We rate his claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Corporations", "Economy", "Jobs", "Taxes", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Republican Senate candidate George Allen recently complained that corporate taxes are too high and discourage economic expansion.The tax on job-creating businesses in the United States is 35 percent, second worst in the entire world, he said during a June 14 news conference at which he unveiled his Blueprint for Americas Comeback..We wondered if the U.S. really is No.2 in the world when it comes to high corporate taxes and asked for the source of Allens information.Katie Wright, spokeswoman for Allens campaign, pointed to a March 8, 2011,reportfrom the right-leaning Tax Foundation. It indeed showed that the U.S. had the second highest total corporate tax rate among industrialized and emerging nations. Only Japan placed higher levies on business profits.But taxes are a complicated subject, and Allens claim needs elaboration.Eric Toder, co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noted most corporate income is taxed at the top U.S. federal rate of 35 percent, which Allen cited. The tax applies to American companies doing business here and abroad as well as to profits earned in the U.S. by affiliates of foreign companies.Allen understates his argument when he says the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. Actually, it outstrips Japan and is the highest national rate among nearly three dozen industrialized democracies, according to 2011 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.But national tax rates on companies dont tell the whole story.When looking at how the U.S. corporate tax liability compares to other countries, analysts usually examine a combination of federal and state corporate income tax rates.By that measure, the combined average corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.2 percent this year, according to the OECD. Among industrialized democracies, only Japans combined corporate rate of 39.5 percent is higher.Japan had planned to lower its corporate tax rate by 5 percent on April 1. But it delayed making the cut after a disastrous earthquake and tsunami struck in March.The OECD report only discusses statutory corporate tax rates. It does not address deductions and credits companies can claim in various countries to lower their liabilities. These loopholes produce an effective tax rate - the percentage of profits companies actually pay in levies.The World Bank published a report last November containing the effective corporate tax rates of 183 nations. The U.S. had an effective corporate tax rate of 27.6 percent, according to the study, which is still pretty high. Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand had higher effective tax rates on corporate profits.Allen, during his news conference, said he would like to lower the 35 percent national corporate tax rate to 20 percent and eliminate loopholes.Lets sum up:Allen said the U.S. corporate income tax of 35 percent is the second highest in the world.The national rate of 35 percent is actually the highest among democratic industrial nations. The U.S. combined corporate tax rate -- the average total of state and national levies on business profits -- is 39.2 and ranks second among industrialized democracies.So Allen is a smidgen off on tax rates, rankings and definitions. We rate his claim Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://taxfoundation.org/files/ff261.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kid-rock-death-hoax/", "claim": "Kid Rock Death Hoax", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/04/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A Facebook \"prank\" claimed that musician Kid Rock had passed away in July 2017." ], "justification": "A Facebook post resembling a genuine news item reporting that musician Kid Rock had been found dead at his home was circulated over 4th of July weekend in 2017: circulated Although this post resembled a genuine news item, it was actually a product of the \"prank\" web site Channel23News.com. Channel23News.com Channel23News.com enables users to \"prank\" their friends by creating and sharing fake news stories. The user provides the headline, a brief text about the fake news item, and an image, and the web site formats this content to resemble a genuine news bulletin posted via social media: Create A Prank And Trick All Your Friends! Simply Create Your Own Prank And Then Share It On Your Social Network Pages! Tips: You must be creative but keep in mind to make it fun.Fake Title: Choose a catchy title for your joke. Make your friends curious.Description: Be creative and make your friends curious.Image: Upload one or search one via google images Although these items resemble real news items when they are shared on social media, readers who click through to visit the underlying article and web site are greeted with a \"You Got Owned\" meme and the following disclaimer: We do NOT support FAKE NEWS!!! This is a Prank website that is intended for Fun. Bullying, Violent Threats or posts that Violate Public Order are NOT permitted on this Website.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ix-ZiI2tk3GRH3LkHDeYmrYetuaG52zD", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zQHBOkbtakZE3Zpshym_mkvyr1FL0E_Z", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A Facebook post resembling a genuine news item reporting that musician Kid Rock had been found dead at his home was circulated over 4th of July weekend in 2017:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/walter.l.weaver.3/posts/1839514119643207" ] }, { "sentence": "Although this post resembled a genuine news item, it was actually a product of the \"prank\" web site Channel23News.com.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/1wqA5" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/return-to-offender-2/", "claim": "Return to Offender", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/08/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: The father of a fallen Marine returned a condolence letter from President Obama with a stinging handwritten rebuke." ], "justification": " Claim: The father of a fallen Marine returned a condolence letter from President Obama with a cutting handwritten response. UNDETERMINED Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] Fallen marine's father , Steve Hogan, returns letter ofcondolence to president Obama. ? Origins: On 3 January 2014, the website IJReview published an article titled \"While Obama Boasts of Ending War in Afghanistan, Marine Family's Letter Puts It In Perspective.\" The piece was a commentary on President Obama's December 2014 written statement about the end of combat operations in Afghanistan: article For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion. The site highlighted a July 2012 letter of condolence sent by President Obama to Steve Hogan, the father of Lance Corporal Hunter D. Hogan, and the elder Hogan's purported reply. Below the letter sent by the President to Mr. Hogan was a handwritten response that read: Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama, I am deeply saddened that you are the President of the United States. You sir are an embarrassment to the Oval Office. My son, as well as most Marines I know, despise you and your lack of representation for our military. Your ridiculous rules of engagement have caused the massive amount of casualties on your watch in Afghanistan. While we watch your media pander to your administration and clearly sweep things under the rug for you, I fully understand Marines die. You have tied their hands & feet! I am thankful I did not serve under a Comm. in Chief such as you. I am sickened that my son had to. I wonder ... I doubt that you will see this, I hope you do though! Steve Hogan Above the letter was an additional note: \"I wonder how many of these get returned to you!\" The site did not explain where the putative reply originated, why it had emerged more than two years after Lance Cpl. Hogan's death, or when the reply might have been written. The commentary is not fully out of line with a statement attributed to Steve Hogan and Hunter's widow Brittany, printed on 14 July 2012 in the York News-Times. That statement read in part: statement We as family and friends of Lance Cpl Hunter and other service members want to know why the media in our country has coddled instead of covered this Teflon coated administration! We listened every night on the news for 8 years with the previous administration the casualty reports. With the present administration nothing is reported! With the news of our recent loss of HD and others in his battalion, many people have made statements like, \"I didn't think anything was going on there anymore.\" \"I thought the Marines were leaving there,\" etc. Here are the statistics in Afghanistan for the 8 years of George Bush. The total killed in action under him is 660. Barrack Obama in 3 years and 5 months the total killed in action is 1,398. Wounded under George Bush is 2,637 in 8 years. Wounded under Obama up to Jan. 31st of this year is 11,529. Why isn't the media covering this instead of covering the protestors of these brave service men and women's funerals? The policies of this current administration and the rules of engagement are a huge factor with these casualty reports. The limited air and artillery support our men received. The limited company level support such as mortars, as well as the approval to return fire are hampering and adding to the danger they are in daily. Not to mention the severely limited night operations, that are approved, because they scare the Afghan people. Let the military run the war, they are the professionals, or get our people out of there. How many more black walls full of names are we going to build? The response attributed to Steve Hogan circulated heavily in January 2015, but few mentions of it on the internet exist before the article linked above. Hogan criticized the Obama administration's handling of combat operations in Afghanistan in a published editorial in July of 2012, but the wording is not the same as the above reply with which he has been credited. If the reply is genuine, it's not clear where the site obtained it or why it was not uncovered until more than two years after the original letter from President Obama was sent. Last updated: 9 January 2015 ", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gJrykJFO4E_KcVrSljG9UFdCJP8OF8Bo", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 3 January 2014, the website IJReview published an article titled \"While Obama Boasts of Ending War in Afghanistan, Marine Family's Letter Puts It In Perspective.\" The piece was a commentary on President Obama's December 2014 written statement about the end of combat operations in Afghanistan:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/d5vc" ] }, { "sentence": "Above the letter was an additional note: \"I wonder how many of these get returned to you!\" The site did not explain where the putative reply originated, why it had emerged more than two years after Lance Cpl. Hogan's death, or when the reply might have been written. The commentary is not fully out of line with a statement attributed to Steve Hogan and Hunter's widow Brittany, printed on 14 July 2012 in the York News-Times. That statement read in part: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.yorknewstimes.com/editorial/hogan-family-speaks-out-about-hunter-the-war/article_931d3c9e-cd73-11e1-ad70-001a4bcf887a.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/taxes-for-clunkers/", "claim": "Are Cash for Clunkers Rewards Subject to Taxation?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "08/28/2009", "sci_digest": [ "Are incentive from the 'Cash for Clunkers' program taxable in some states?" ], "justification": "Claim: Incentives received by consumers through the \"Cash for Clunkers\" program are subject to taxes. Origins: People are often surprised to find out that zero-cost items (e.g., prize winnings, free goods offered as marketing promotions, items given as gifts) may not require any immediate outlay of money, but they frequently do later in the form of taxes on the value of the goods and services received. gifts One group recently caught by such a surprise was some consumers who took advantage of the federal government's CARS program (commonly known as \"Cash for Clunkers\"), which offered incentives of up to $4,500 to those who traded in qualifying \"clunkers\" and purchased new vehicles. Although incentives received through participation in the CARS program are not taxable at the federal level, residents of some states may have to pay some form of state and/or local taxes (such as excise or sales taxes) on the value of the incentives. Residents of Maryland, for example: As it turns out, each state determines whether to tax the clunker money. Pennsylvania doesn't, for example, but Maryland applies its 6 percent excise tax to the incentive. \"We treat that $4,500 as a down payment toward [the] car. We still tax the total value of the car,\" says Caryn Coyle, a spokeswoman with the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, which collects the excise tax. And you can't, say, travel up to Pennsylvania to buy your new car there to avoid the Maryland excise tax. States have pacts with one another to collect taxes owed on car purchases by residents in other states, Coyle says. So a Pennsylvania dealer would have charged the Maryland excise tax anyway if [the car had been bought there]. If it's any consolation, there's no federal tax on the clunker incentive and you may be able to deduct on your federal tax return any state or local taxes paid on a new vehicle purchased this year from Feb. 17 through Dec. 31. And Nebraska: Nebraskans who take advantage of the government's Cash for Clunkers rebate might be surprised to learn those rebates of $3,500 or $4,500 don't reduce the amount of sales tax a car buyer must pay. State Tax Commissioner Doug Ewald says he's received a number of complaints since the program started, but officials anticipated the issue and made sure that dealers knew about it beforehand. Nebraska law treats the government's clunker rebates as a \"third-party rebate,\" so they don't reduce the taxable value of the new car like a trade-in or manufacturer's rebate does. So someone buying a $25,000 vehicle with the $4,500 clunker rebate would still have to pay taxes on $25,000. And South Dakota as well: [M]any of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable. \"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out,\" [Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam] Nelson said. In North Carolina, however, the CARS incentives are subject to neither the state's highway use tax nor its income tax: According to the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, \"the highway use tax should be calculated on the final sales price of the purchased vehicle less the amount allowed for the trade in.\" As an example, if you bought a car with a $20,000 price tag and the dealership gave you $3,000 for your trade-in, then you got the $4,500 Cash For Clunkers incentive, you paid $12,500 for the car. That's the amount you've paid plus 3% as the standard Highway Use Tax. Hence, you are not paying taxes on the $4,500. The North Carolina Department of Revenue says because the incentive is taken as a coupon at the dealership, you will not have to file it as income on your taxes. Consumers who took advantage of the CARS program should check with their state tax departments for information about whether such incentives are taxable in their home states. Last updated: 29 August 2009 Neisteadt, Shawn. \"Some Surprised by 'Clunker' Tax.'\" KELO-TV [Sioux Falls, SD]. 24 August 2009. Zash, Chelsi. \"Can the Cash for Clunkers Incentive Be Taxed?\" WFMY-TV [Greensboro, NC]. 24 August 2009. Associated Press. \"Neb. Clunker Buyers Still Pay Full Sales Tax.\" Newsday. 21 August 2009. WJRH-TV [Tulsa, OK]. \"Is Your Tax for Clunkers Taxable?\" 21 August 2009.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "goods offered as marketing promotions, items given as gifts) may not require any immediate outlay of money, but they frequently do later in the form of taxes on the value of the goods and services received. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108139,00.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wwi-cemetery-rain-photo/", "claim": "Does This Photograph Show President Trump Visiting a WWI Cemetery in the Rain?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/13/2018", "sci_digest": [ "President Trump was widely criticized for skipping a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I due to the rain, but he did attend another event (also in the rain) to honor the occasion. " ], "justification": "President Trump was widely criticized over Veterans Day weekend in November 2018 after he skipped an event at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1 due to inclement weather. criticized Social media users chided Trump for bowing out of the scheduled event, which was attended by other world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, sharing photographs of \"real presidents\" who had previously honored veterans while standing in the rain. chided real presidents President Trump took issue with this coverage, however, and on 13 November 2018 he took to Twitter to explain his absence (asserting that his helicopter couldn't fly because of the rain) and proclaim that he had delivered a speech in the \"pouring rain\" the following day but that the event was \"little reported\" by the \"fake news\": Twitter President Trump's explanation for missing the memorial at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery might have been regarded as questionable, but President Trump truly did deliver a speech in the rain (although we'd quibble with the assertion that it was \"pouring\") at the American Cemetery of Suresnes, as NBC News reported: questionable reported President Donald Trump paid tribute on Sunday to Americans who fought in the two world wars, saying the nation is forever in their debt during a visit to a cemetery in France where more than 1,500 of them are buried. Its been a wonderful two days we spent in France, and this has certainly been the highlight of the trip,\" Trump said in remarks that capped a weekend in Paris where he and more than 80 other world leaders marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I ... Standing at the presidential podium under a steady rain without an umbrella, Trump joked to six World War II veterans about their enviable position keeping them dry. You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched, Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. Very smart people. You look like youre in very good shape, all of you, he added. I hope I look like that some day. America is forever in your debt. The ceremony in Suresnes certainly drew less attention on social media than Trump's absence at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery the previous day did, but it isn't accurate to say that his visit to the Suresnes Cemetery was \"little reported.\" In addition to the aforementioned NBC News report, Trump's speech was also covered by outlets such as CNN, USA Today, CBS News and Time magazine. CNN USA Today CBS News Time Despite this coverage, a number of social media users seemed surprised when they came across a photograph posted to Facebook by Dan Scavino, the White House Director of Social Media, which showed President Trump standing solemnly in the rain at a cemetery: Facebook Social media users took to the comments section to claim that this image was fake and that Trump had been digitally inserted into the picture. While it's possible that Scavino applied some sort of filter to this photograph (Trump's outline is surprisingly crisp), a number of similar pictures can be found via news outlets such as NBC News and photography agencies such as Getty Images: NBC News Getty Images Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images Jackson, David. \"President Trump Blames Secret Service for Canceling Cemetery Trip in France.\"\r USA Today. 13 November 2018. Lee, Carol. \"Trump Pays Tribute to the Veterans and Alliances of Two World Wars.\"\r NBC News. 11 November 2018. Brinlee, Morgan. \"Trump Canceled a U.S. Military Cemetery Visit Due to Rain, and Twitter Was Not Impressed.\"\r Bustle. 11 November 2018. Belam, Martin. \"French Army Trolls Trump with Picture of Them Training in Rain.\"\r Guardian. 12 November 2018. Horton, Alex. \"Trump Skipped a U.S. Cemetery Visit Abroad. The French Army Trolled Him for Avoiding the Rain.\r The Washington Post. 12 November 2018.", "issues": [ "debt" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CXaXY-0rE9Tcwf3YixlTXVSDeXU7S5tZ", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19N_2Y4GxdYu3ZdZFrfVYHQ7WCN2k81Ls", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "President Trump was widely criticized over Veterans Day weekend in November 2018 after he skipped an event at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1 due to inclement weather. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-and-macron-meet-whats-left-to-talk-about/2018/11/10/680a014c-e1ec-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Social media users chided Trump for bowing out of the scheduled event, which was attended by other world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, sharing photographs of \"real presidents\" who had previously honored veterans while standing in the rain.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/12/french-army-trolls-trump-with-picture-of-them-training-in-rain", "https://www.bustle.com/p/trump-canceled-a-us-military-cemetery-visit-due-to-rain-twitter-was-not-impressed-13125337" ] }, { "sentence": "President Trump took issue with this coverage, however, and on 13 November 2018 he took to Twitter to explain his absence (asserting that his helicopter couldn't fly because of the rain) and proclaim that he had delivered a speech in the \"pouring rain\" the following day but that the event was \"little reported\" by the \"fake news\":", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1062371844836261891" ] }, { "sentence": "President Trump's explanation for missing the memorial at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery might have been regarded as questionable, but President Trump truly did deliver a speech in the rain (although we'd quibble with the assertion that it was \"pouring\") at the American Cemetery of Suresnes, as NBC News reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/13/donald-trump-secret-service-cemetery-trip-france/1986252002/", "https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pays-tribute-veterans-alliances-two-world-wars-n934966" ] }, { "sentence": "The ceremony in Suresnes certainly drew less attention on social media than Trump's absence at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery the previous day did, but it isn't accurate to say that his visit to the Suresnes Cemetery was \"little reported.\" In addition to the aforementioned NBC News report, Trump's speech was also covered by outlets such as CNN, USA Today, CBS News and Time magazine.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9X0jO1xogs", "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/11/donald-trump-paris-remarks/1967100002/", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPQ4vhhodo", "https://time.com/5451654/trump-world-war-i-commemoration/" ] }, { "sentence": "Despite this coverage, a number of social media users seemed surprised when they came across a photograph posted to Facebook by Dan Scavino, the White House Director of Social Media, which showed President Trump standing solemnly in the rain at a cemetery:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/DanScavino/photos/a.1440914659457599/2183268711888853/?type=1&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "Social media users took to the comments section to claim that this image was fake and that Trump had been digitally inserted into the picture. While it's possible that Scavino applied some sort of filter to this photograph (Trump's outline is surprisingly crisp), a number of similar pictures can be found via news outlets such as NBC News and photography agencies such as Getty Images:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pays-tribute-veterans-alliances-two-world-wars-n934966", "https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/suresnes?family=editorial&page=2&phrase=suresnes&sort=newest#license" ] }, { "sentence": "Embed from Getty Images", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/1060197454" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lylah-rose/", "claim": "Facebook Appeal for Lylah Rose", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/04/2012", "sci_digest": [ "A 2-month-old girl was badly burned in the hand by emergency room staff at a Merced hospital?" ], "justification": "Claim: A 2-month-old girl was badly burned in the hand by emergency room staff at a Merced hospital. UNDETERMINED Examples: [Collected on the Internet, April 2012] This is a friend of mines 2 month old niece Lylah Rose! We took her to the merced er cause she was having diarreah they told me she was dehydrated and need an IV. They were trying to find a vein and put a light on her palm to see through her hand. Where they tried 14 times to get an iv in and blew 3 veins!!!! They held her hand on the light for over 8 min where my neice was SCREAAAMING the whole time!!!! When my sister finally demanded them to stop and send them to valley childrens! When they finally lifted up her hand the Dr or nurse seen the burn and wrapped her hand up with gause!! Failing to even let my sister know they had burned her!! We realized when we got to Valley childrens she had a HUGE bubble on the palm of her hand that had popped from the tape being placed on it!! My sis took her to the Dr. today to get it checked out & the Dr. said these are second degree burns and is sending my sis to a burn specialist where they are going to have to remove the dead and dying skin from her hand!!! :( I have contacted the local newspaper, the local news station who are ALL denying to write a story about what happened! I cant let this slide! Please help share our story! We can be her voice!! I dont want them to be able to do this to anyone else!! WILL YOU HELP US KMPH FOX 26 and get justice for lylah and expose the truth? THIS IS NEWS THAT MATTERS. Merced Hospital is trying to cover this up. If this isnt newsworthy I dont know what is! Origins: This item, which began circulating in April 2012, maintains that a 2-month-old girl named Lylah Rose was taken to a hospital in Merced, California, for treatment of diarrhea; and when she was diagnosed as being dehydrated, emergency roomstaff engaged in multiple attempts to insert an IV which resulted in second-degree burns to her hand. Furthermore, the item asserts that attempts to interest local media in the story have failed, as those news outlets are \"denying to write a story about what happened!\" In response to a query, Fresno television station KMPH said they had attempted to look into the story but were so far unable to obtain information from either party involved in the alleged incident: In order for us to do this story, we must be able to speak with the family and the hospital. We have contacted both. The family referred us to an attorney who will not discuss the case and the hospital will not comment due to patient protection laws. On a Facebook site established as the \"voice\" for Lylah Rose, a post made on 3 April 2012 stated that: voice We talked to our lawyer today who told us not to talk to the media just yet. Until he is finished gathering all the information he needs. But I assure you AS SOON as he says, we will talk to the media and share Lylah's story so this never happens again. Until then we are just going to focus on getting lylah better and out of pain. Last updated: 3 April 2012 ", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1N8lPW_826EV9aAUyUvuQ5rsRFiURP782", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On a Facebook site established as the \"voice\" for Lylah Rose, a post made on 3 April 2012 stated that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/BeingTheVoiceForLylahRose" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gaydar-detector/", "claim": "Indiana Requiring All Gay Residents to Wear Sensor That Will Trigger Alarm Upon Entering a Store", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/16/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Rumor: An amendment to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires gay residents to wear a sensor for identification purposes." ], "justification": " Claim: An amendment to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) requires gay residents to wear a sensor for identification. Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2015] it basically says that Indiana is making a law where all gay people haveto wear a sensor to alert storeowners when they enter an establishment.sounds really fake to me, but, people have been re-posting it all oversocial media. Origins: On 28 March 2015, the Free Wood Post published an article titled \"Indiana Requiring All Gay Residents to Wear Sensor That Will Trigger Alarm Upon Entering a Store\". (Interestingly, that article was published prior to a large national debate that occurred after the owners of an Indiana pizza restaurant controversially supported the law during the course of a 31 March 2015 news interview.) article restaurant The Free Wood Post's article didn't attempt to tread a line of plausibility in its claims: As an amendment to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, all LGBT citizens will be required to register with the state so that they can be mailed a sensor to wear on their body at all times. The sensor is so that any business that doesn't want an LGBT individual entering their establishment will be notified immediately of their arrival and an alarm will sound. These sensors will be much like a modern day version of the 'Star of David' Jewish citizens in Germany were required to wear during the time of Hitler's reign. The article included a purported quote from Indian governor Mike Pence about the amendment to the RFRA: It's all about freedom. Freedom for these business owners to know all the money they're receiving didn't come from gay hands. That's the devil's money, really. And who wants to pay payroll or rent or taxes with the devil's money? Although (coincidentally) well-timed, the article was nothing more than a spoof published by a satirical web site. Free Wood Post's disclaimer page states: disclaimer Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction. FreeWoodPost.com is intended for a mature, sophisticated, and discerning audience. Previous Free Wood Post articles included a claim that the FCC had labeled Fox News as satire, quoted Ann Romney on the wage gap, and suggested that Mitt Romney had said he could relate to black people because his ancestors owned slaves. Fox News Ann Romney Mitt Romney Last updated: 16 April 2015", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://i.imgur.com/o4CGWEq.png", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 28 March 2015, the Free Wood Post published an article titled \"Indiana Requiring All Gay Residents to Wear Sensor That Will Trigger Alarm Upon Entering a Store\". (Interestingly, that article was published prior to a large national debate that occurred after the owners of an Indiana pizza restaurant controversially supported the law during the course of a 31 March 2015 news interview.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/epgu", "https://now.snopes.com/2015/04/01/memories-pizza/" ] }, { "sentence": "Although (coincidentally) well-timed, the article was nothing more than a spoof published by a satirical web site. Free Wood Post's disclaimer page states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/eph3" ] }, { "sentence": "Previous Free Wood Post articles included a claim that the FCC had labeled Fox News as satire, quoted Ann Romney on the wage gap, and suggested that Mitt Romney had said he could relate to black people because his ancestors owned slaves.", "hrefs": [ "/politics/satire/foxnewsfcc.asp", "/politics/romney/momsformitt.asp", "/politics/romney/blackcommunity.asp" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/my-neighbor-john-edwards/", "claim": "My fellow resident, John Edwards.", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/02/2007", "sci_digest": [ "E-mail from neighbor describes vice-presidential candidate John Edwards." ], "justification": "Claim: E-mail from neighbor describes Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. Status: Multiple see below. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Meet my neighbor I'd like to introduce you to my neighbor. I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina, and for several years I've lived around the corner from Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards. My neighbor John has been in the news a good deal lately, but it's hard to tell about the man himself from the coverage. Maybe I can help you get to know him better. Even several years ago, before he was elevated to the national stage, my neighbor John didn't socialize much with other neighbors. He didn't gather with other neighbors at the Fourth of July and he didn't come out to the sledding hills to watch the kids play after a snow. My neighbor John preferred to jog through the neighborhood by himself. There's no sidewalk on Alleghany Drive, John's Street in Raleigh, and if you drove past him as he was jogging on the road and didn't slow down enough for his taste he'd flip you the bird. Even after he became a U.S. Senator, he'd still come home to Raleigh every once in a while, would still jog through the neighborhood, and would still flip the occasional bird to passing cars. He last showed me his middle finger about four years ago. Since then, my neighbor John is rarely in town. When he is home, though, we in the neighborhood all know it. My neighbor John invited reporters from TV, radio, and print news organizations to come to hishouse in January 2003 for the announcement of his Presidential bid. He didn't want any news vans parked on his property in fact, he made sure all the cameras and reporters waited in the street at the bottom of his driveway. That way everyone could get good footage of him strolling down the driveway to make his announcement, young children in tow. The news vans drove into the yards of John's neighbors and parked there. I heard two families ended up re-sodding their damaged yards, and John never apologized to anyone, much less offered any compensation. The family across the street from my neighbor John has since put up posts at their property line to try to keep that sort of thing from happening again. The appearance was good for my neighbor John. Nobody else seems to matter to him. Since then, when my neighbor comes home (as he did July 10, to be interviewed with John Kerry for \"60 Minutes\"), Raleigh police officers block off the street. Those of us who live near himend up coming and going to and from our homes on a circuitous route, on a bad, unsurfaced road. Forsyth Street has been closed to through traffic, except when my neighbor is in town, because the road has been ripped up for installation of new gas and sewer lines. My neighbor's street is a public, city-maintained street, and it is the best way to get to homes just north of his. If my neighbor is around, though, apparently none of the rest of us can use the street at all. It's good for my neighbor John. Nobody else seems to matter to him. My neighbor John has been a very successful trial lawyer, but his practice of law sometimes seems more like extortion. A friend of mine is a doctor in Raleigh. He recently spoke with another doctor, an anesthesiologist, who was named in a suit filed by my neighbor John. Apparently a surgeon at a local hospital had made a mistake, and my neighbor John represented the injured patient. Not only did my neighbor John sue the doctor who made the mistake, but also sued the hospital and a string of others, including the anesthesiologist. There was no problem with the anesthesia the anesthesiologist had done absolutely nothing wrong. His attorney said so in a meeting with my neighbor John. John's neighborly response was that he couldn't careless if the doctor had done nothing wrong. That wasn't the point. The point was that clients come to my neighbor John because of his record of success and his reputation for thoroughness. Every defendant in asuit he files pays, regardless of whether they are actually guilty or not. My neighbor John demanded a settlement of $250,000, and said his firm was willing to spend $2 million to get it. The doctor's insurance company promptly paid the $250,000. The rate of growth in North Carolina's medical malpractice insurance rates is among the highest in the nation. The total cost of health care rises with those rates. My neighbor John's slimy extortion is part of the reason. Forget about right or wrong, guilt or innocence. My neighbor John did what was best for himself. Nobody else seemed to matter. My neighbor John may be a trial lawyer, but in front of juries he also claims to be something of a psychic. You see, my neighbor John specializes in cases involving the death or serious injury of children. He claims to receive messages from dead or brain-damaged children, and the messages are much clearer and more specific than those received by the famous \"psychic\" who nearly shares my neighbor's name. When a child has been killed or is otherwise unable to speak for him or herself, my neighbor John says he has the ability to \"channel\" that child. He tells juries he feels the child inside him, and that he hasmessages from that child, which he relays to jury members. He tells juries about the car-accident death of his own son, Wade, and speculates that he may have received the ability to \"feel\" the souls of dead or injured children because of the close relationship he still feels with his son. It sounds hokey and more than a little creepy, but it seems to play well with juries, and results in very high jury awards. These awards have made my neighbor extremely wealthy. He's so wealthy that he created a corporation of which he is the only member, and pays himself most of his earnings as corporate dividends, not as salary or wages. Medicare taxes are not levied on dividend income, so my neighbor hasavoided paying $600,000 into the Medicare system since 1995 by setting up this tax shelter. But he says others aren't paying their fair share of Medicare taxes. It's good for my neighbor John, and nobody else seems to matter. My neighbor made a lot of promises on his way to the Senate. He promised strong support for our military, but then voted against body armor, combat pay, and better health care for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He promised to support traditional North Carolina values, but then voted to the left of Ted Kennedy onpartial-birth abortion, taxes, property rights, and a host of other issues. We in North Carolina feel betrayed. My neighbor John figuratively gave his constituents the middle finger while he ingratiated himself to Tom Daschle and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership. My neighbor announced many months ago that he would not seek reelection, because he knows he's unpopular in North Carolina and would lose by a huge margin. According to a poll released this week,when the Kerry/Edwards ticket was announced, support for Kerry in North Carolina went down, not up. We North Carolinians know John Edwards. We've been betrayed by him, and we do not support him. But as he broke his promises to us, he gained favor with the Democratic Party leadership. Now he's a political star. I guess turning his back on the people he claims to represent has worked out well for my neighbor, John Edwards. Nobody else seems to matter. Origins: This piece about North Carolina senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was posted to various political newsgroups and web sites in early August 2004, attributed to one John Edwards posted Brian T. Nicholson, \"a neighbor of John Edwards.\" Mr. Nicholson does live on Yadkin Drive in Raleigh, a street which intersects Alleghany Drive, where Senator Edwards resides. However, Mr. Nicholson now maintains that he did not pen the essay attributed to him, but that he wrote a private message to family and friends which was altered by someone else and turned into the piece now circulating on the Internet. (He has not yet produced the original version or explained which parts of his message were altered, however.) According to the Raleigh News & Observer, other neighbors of Senator Edwards report they haven't observed the behaviors attributed to him in the piece quoted above. For example, the Internet essay maintains: If you drove past him as he was jogging on the road and didn't slow down enough for his taste he'd flip you the bird. He last showed me his middle finger about four years ago. However, the News & Observer reports: But neighbors this week said they saw Edwards wave while jogging, sometimes giving a thumbs up or stopping briefly to chat. No one said they saw any rude gesture. \"I've never seen him be rude or ugly,\" said Tootie Flythe, who was so upset by the essay that she wrote a multipage response in longhand, which she is keeping to herself. Flythe lives across the street from the Edwardses, and she said John Edwards sometimes cuts through her yard to get to a greenway. He always stops to ask about her family, said Flythe, a 54-year-old registered Democrat. The essay says Edwards didn't hang out with neighbors on the Fourth of July or go out to sledding hills to watch kids play in the snow. But Edwards' neighbors said they don't do that, either. Ray Mays lived across the street from Edwards for 10 years, until he sold his house this summer. Mays, a 61-year-old who said he will vote for President Bush this fall, said he and Edwards were \"passing acquaintances,\" though he knew Elizabeth Edwards better. Mays attended one or two Christmas parties at the Edwards home and remembers Elizabeth spending most of her time in the kitchen, cooking. \"They were always friendly,\" he said. \"They never gave the appearance that they were stuck up in any way.\" The essay also claims: My neighbor John invited reporters from TV, radio, and print news organizations to come to his house in January 2003 for the announcement of his Presidential bid. He didn't want any news vans parked on his property in fact, he made sure all the cameras and reporters waited in the street at the bottom of his driveway. That way everyone could get good footage of him strolling down the driveway to make his announcement, young children in tow. The news vans drove into the yards of John's neighbors and parked there. I heard two families ended up re-sodding their damaged yards, and John never apologized to anyone, much less offered any compensation But on 2 January 2003, the day he officially announced his candidacy for president, Senator Edwards sent a note containing the following apology and offer to repair damaged lawns (at his expense) to his neighbors: Dear Friends & Neighbors: As you know, 2003 has gotten off to an exciting start for our family. In light of our recent decision, we know that many of you may also be feeling the effects. We want to apologize for any inconvenience you and your family may have experienced. Please call our assistant, Andrew Young . . . if you have any lawn damage from the media traffic. Our personal lawn maintenance company will make any necessary repairs. Thank you for your patience. The Internet piece goes on to claim that the standard security provided to presidential and vice-presidential candidates is somehow an inconsiderate and selfish whim of Senator Edwards', one which has made access to the Raleigh neighborhood where he lives inconvenient for other residents: The appearance was good for my neighbor John. Nobody else seems to matter to him. Since then, when my neighbor comes home (as he did July 10, to be interviewed with John Kerry for \"60 Minutes\"), Raleigh police officers block off the street. Those of us who live near himend up coming and going to and from our homes on a circuitous route, on a bad, unsurfaced road. Forsyth Street has been closed to through traffic, except when my neighbor is in town, because the road has been ripped up for installation of new gas and sewer lines. My neighbor's street is a public, city-maintained street, and it is the best way to get to homes just north of his. If my neighbor is around, though, apparently none of the rest of us can use the street at all. Again, however, the News & Observer reported differently: When Edwards is at home, which isn't often these days, police block his section of Alleghany Drive but let residents, guests and home repair services through. The essay complained about that inconvenience, but Alleghany residents said they manage easily. \"We have a lot of contractors coming and going,\" said Brenda Gibson, 47, a registered Republican. \"I have nothing negative to say.\" Some of the neighbors said they liked having traffic access limited because it stops cars from speeding down the narrow street. \"Alleghany was just a thoroughfare,\" said Clotilde Collins, 74. \"You take your life in your hands trying to get out of your driveway.\" Some said they are excited to have Edwards as a neighbor. And they like looking out their windows to see Secret Service agents. \"I love the security,\" Gibson said. Last updated: 13 August 2004 Sources: Bonner, Lynn. \"E-Mail About Edwards Disputed.\" The [Raleigh] News & Observer. 13 August 2004.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sUK1HzQCZRSBZZOdeQajYzPeQUCJwuEN" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: This piece about North Carolina senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was posted to various political newsgroups and web sites in early August 2004, attributed to one ", "hrefs": [ "https://edwards.senate.gov/", "https://groups.google.com/groups?selm=bf14c408.0408040653.43bbd734%40posting.google.com&output=gplain" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bath-body-works-candles/", "claim": "Can You Exchange Used Candles at Bath & Body Works?", "author": "Madison Dapcevich", "posted": "09/22/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Such claims have been circulating on the internet since at least 2018." ], "justification": "For years, retail company Bath & Body Works has made headlines for its generous return policy. On Sept. 17, 2021, social media user Kristen Peden appeared to take advantage of that policy when she claimed in a series of Facebook posts that she exchanged three used items, including one used candle, at a Tennessee Bath & Body Works for new items. At the time of this writing, the post had garnered 90,000 shares. posts Questions surrounding the policy have made social media rounds since at least 2018, and appeared in coverage by publications like The List and was posted to Reddit in 2019: The List posted 2019 \"Is it true that you can return used candles and swap them out for new ones? Ir is it a YMMV [your mileage may vary] situation\" Most of the reports claimed that if a customer keeps the receipt, they can return anything for any reason. And even without the receipt, customers could expect to receive store credit at the very least. At Bath & Body Works, you can return anything you buy, at anytime, for any reason. If you have your receipt, you may get a refund. If you don't, you'll likely get store credit, wrote Good Housekeeping in 2018. But does that apply to used items? Likely not. A look at the Bath & Body Works return policy showed that an empty product cannot be return solely on the grounds that it has been used. We just want you to love it! Return anything, anytime for any reason. 100% Guaranteed, wrote the company. If at any time you're not completely satisfied with the quality of our products, you may return them to any of our Bath & Body Works or White Barn Stores in the US for a full refund, subject to the terms of our Return Policy. wrote In a subsequent post, Peden corrected the post to note that the warranty extended to ANY EMPTY CONTAINER FROM THIS STORE. PERFUMES SOAPS LOTION CANDLES!!!! An update posted the same day said that she had gone to the store in question with her mother and successfully exchanged several items. subsequent post In the above post, Peden shared a photo of what appears to be Pedens receipt (number 81217003463409172021) that showed three items returned without their original receipt and exchanged for three differently named items, including a candle, of the same value. The location listed on the receipt was for a store located at 373 W. Jackson Street in Cookeville, Tennessee. photo receipt Screengrab/Facebook Facebook Snopes sent the receipt to Bath & Body Works, and a company spokesperson confirmed that the customer returned a body cream, a fine fragrance mist, and a candle and received the same items in return. They were not able to determine whether any of the products had been used, but did refer our team to a return policy that noted Bath & Body Works only accepts products that do not perform properly. noted Our return policy is intended to help customers who have issues that are related to poor product performance or unsatisfactory customer experience and is not intended to be taken advantage of when a product performs as expected. If a product has been fully used, it would seem that it has met its performance expectations, read the policy. While it is true that Peden returned three items to a Bath & Body Works location in Tennessee in exchange for three items of equal value, we were unable to confirm whether that one candle exchanged was actually completely used. Snopes followed up with the company to further confirm the condition of the exchanged items but until we hear back, we have rated this claim Unproven.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_Yu5wLM1KJtY0MdlV0O0sLd-UQhaHKd5", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "For years, retail company Bath & Body Works has made headlines for its generous return policy. On Sept. 17, 2021, social media user Kristen Peden appeared to take advantage of that policy when she claimed in a series of Facebook posts that she exchanged three used items, including one used candle, at a Tennessee Bath & Body Works for new items. At the time of this writing, the post had garnered 90,000 shares.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.vn/uNODl" ] }, { "sentence": "Questions surrounding the policy have made social media rounds since at least 2018, and appeared in coverage by publications like The List and was posted to Reddit in 2019:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thelist.com/611375/can-you-really-get-a-free-candle-at-bath-and-body-works-by-bringing-in-an-old-one/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/bathandbodyworks/comments/e4j9fv/is_it_true_that_you_can_return_used_candles_and/", "https://archive.vn/ijDX7" ] }, { "sentence": "We just want you to love it! Return anything, anytime for any reason. 100% Guaranteed, wrote the company. If at any time you're not completely satisfied with the quality of our products, you may return them to any of our Bath & Body Works or White Barn Stores in the US for a full refund, subject to the terms of our Return Policy.", "hrefs": [ "https://customercare.bathandbodyworks.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1504" ] }, { "sentence": "In a subsequent post, Peden corrected the post to note that the warranty extended to ANY EMPTY CONTAINER FROM THIS STORE. PERFUMES SOAPS LOTION CANDLES!!!! An update posted the same day said that she had gone to the store in question with her mother and successfully exchanged several items.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/kristin.peden.50/posts/4389616834452082", "https://archive.vn/https:/www.facebook.com/kristin.peden.50/posts/4389616834452082" ] }, { "sentence": "In the above post, Peden shared a photo of what appears to be Pedens receipt (number 81217003463409172021) that showed three items returned without their original receipt and exchanged for three differently named items, including a candle, of the same value. The location listed on the receipt was for a store located at 373 W. Jackson Street in Cookeville, Tennessee.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4390645307682568&set=pcb.4390645394349226", "https://archive.vn/JEgVd" ] }, { "sentence": " Screengrab/Facebook", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/09/Screen-Shot-2021-09-22-at-9.43.28-AM.png", "https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4390645307682568&set=pcb.4390645394349226" ] }, { "sentence": "Snopes sent the receipt to Bath & Body Works, and a company spokesperson confirmed that the customer returned a body cream, a fine fragrance mist, and a candle and received the same items in return. They were not able to determine whether any of the products had been used, but did refer our team to a return policy that noted Bath & Body Works only accepts products that do not perform properly.", "hrefs": [ "https://customercare.bathandbodyworks.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3421" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/mar/17/jim-webb/james-webb-says-stock-market-has-tripled-value-200/", "claim": "The stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "03/17/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Many Americans believe that the economic recovery has only recently picked up steam. But one group that is widely seen as benefiting in recent years are investors in the stock market. This is a point that former Sen. James Webb, D-Va. -- a potential longshot candidate for president whos been taking an economic-populist approach -- made during an interview on ABCsThis Week. On the March 15, 2015, edition of the show, host George Stephanopoulos brought up a comment by Webb that powerful financial interests spending billions to elect people who think the current drift toward a permanent aristocracy is OK. Webb explained his thinking this way: If you see what has been happening to our country over the past 20 or 25 years or so, with the economic model -- first, the model itself has broken apart. ... The employment model that was based on full-time employment, manufacturing-based, taking care of your working people, (it) fell apart a lot, when the manufacturing sector itself was hurt so bad in the past 20 years. But the other thing is if you have capital, if you have assets, you're doing pretty well. The stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009. If you don't -- and this is particularly true right now with the generation that is coming into full adulthood -- they don't have that model anymore. They are doing part-time jobs, consultancy jobs, they've got student loans to pay off. We wondered whether Webb was right that the stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009. So we looked back at the historical data. First, some background on the stock market. Companies that are publicly traded allow ownership shares to be sold on one of several stock exchanges. The values of a single share can rise or fall over time. Several different indexes are commonly used to measure the overall value of the market. We looked at four: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a smaller group of blue-chip stocks; the Standard & Poors 500, which offers a larger and broader mix of stocks; the NASDAQ Composite, which includes a lot of fast-growing technology stocks; and the Wilshire 5000, which includes the broadest list of publicly traded companies. The following table summarizes the growth of these three measurements between April 1, 2009, and today. Measure April 1, 2009 March 16, 2015 Increase (multiple) Dow Jones Industrial Average 7,762 17,977 2.3 times higher Standard & Poors 500 811 2,081 2.6 times higher NASDAQ Composite 1,552 4,930 3.2 times higher Wilshire 5000 8242 21949 2.7 times higher These numbers show that Webb is definitely right for the NASDAQ Composite (in fact, he underestimates a bit) and that hes just about on target for the S&P 500 and the Wilshire 5000 if you round the figures upwards. Webbs claim that the stock market almost tripled overshoots the increase for the Dow, which is 2.3 times higher now than in April 2009. Still, Lawrence J. White, an economist at New York Universitys Stern School of Business, warned that comparisons like Webbs are sensitive to the choice of start and end dates, among other issues. For example, if one takes the Dow Jones Industrial Average and instead makes the comparison with its previous high in 2007, the increase is only 25 percent -- not the more-than doubling that occurred from its low point in 2009, he said. And if one nets out inflation from that 25 percent increase, the 'real' increase in the stock market has been only about half of that increase. Our ruling Webb said that the stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009. There are different ways to measure the stock market. For three of the four most common yardsticks, Webb is basically right; for the other one, hes off base, but not dramatically so. And it's worth noting that the period Webb chose maximizes the increase; a longer time horizon makes the gain more modest. The statement is accurate but needs additional information, so we rate it Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy", "Financial Regulation" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jul/06/mark-warner/mark-warner-says-average-holding-time-stocks-has-f/", "claim": "The average time someone used to hold a share of stock back in the 60s was eight years. Now, the average time is four months.", "author": "Warren Fiske", "posted": "07/06/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "U.S. Sen. Mark Warner joined the ranks of Wall Street critics during a recent radio interview, by complaining that investors increasingly are focused on reaping quick profits from companies at the expense of long-term value. The average time someone used to hold a share of stock back in the 60s was eight years. Now, the average time is four months, he said during aninterviewon Cats Roundtable, a New York City radio talk show hosted by John Catsimatidis, a billionaire businessman. We wondered whether Warner, D-Va., is right about the plunge in share-holding time. Warners office sent us a variety of articles by academics, investment strategists, newspapers and magazines that contained similar statistics to the ones cited by the senator. The source of thehistoric datais the New York Stock Exchange which, for most of the 20th century, was the dominant U.S. stock-trading venue. Heres the NYSEs average holding period for stocks at the start of each new decade, beginning at Warners mark in 1960: 1960, eight years, four months; 1970, five years, three months; 1980, two years, nine months; 1990, two years, two months; and 2000, one year, two months. But many new trading venues have opened and expanded in recent decades - E*Trade and NASDAQ, for example - and the New York Stock Exchanges dominance has diminished. About 25 percent of all U.S. trading now occurs on the NYSE, which has high financial requirements for the companies it lists and generally deals with large, stable stocks. In 2004, the NYSE changed its formula for calculating average share-holding periods to focus on its own listings. Credit Suisse that year began computing share-holding data that reflect the broader U.S. stock market. Credit Suisse figures show that in 2008 and 2009, when the nation was mired in the Great Recession, shares turned over an average almost five times a year. Thats slowed to about three times a year since 2013 or, as Warner put it, once every four months. The World Bank offers more conservative figures, saying U.S. shares, on average, turned over four times a year during the Great Recession and that slowed to 1.65 times a year in 2015 - or about once every eight months. Stock market analysts and academics note a variety of reasons for the quickening turnover of shares. Many say the days of small ma-and-pa investors have given way to an era of mutual funds and hedge funds that exert strong pressure of companies to produce short-term profits. The growth of e-trading also is cited; so are federal laws passed in 1993 that tied the bonuses of executives to their achievement of measurable performance goals in order for the bonuses to be tax-deductible for their companies. Warner said the consequence of activist investors is that corporations pay less attention to training workers and to research and development. He said Congress should explore offering tax incentives to companies that embrace those long-range goals. Many activist investors, to the contrary, say their actions have been beneficial and note that the stock market has continued to rise over the decades. Our ruling Warner said, The average time someone used to hold a share of stock back in the 60s was eight years. Now, the average time is four months. The gist of Warners statement is undeniable: The average holding period for stocks has eroded greatly during the past 56 years. The specifics of Warners statement, however, need a little elaboration. Estimates by Credit Suisse jibe with Warners claim that shares, on average, now are held for four months. The World Bank estimates the holding period now is about eight months. So we rate Warners statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Corporations", "Economy", "Wealth", "Virginia" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The average time someone used to hold a share of stock back in the 60s was eight years. Now, the average time is four months, he said during aninterviewon Cats Roundtable, a New York City radio talk show hosted by John Catsimatidis, a billionaire businessman.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Mark-Warner-2016-elections-president/2016/06/19/id/734612/" ] }, { "sentence": "The source of thehistoric datais the New York Stock Exchange which, for most of the 20th century, was the dominant U.S. stock-trading venue.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nyxdata.com/nysedata/asp/factbook/viewer_edition.asp?mode=table&key=2206&category=4" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donated-toys-returned/", "claim": "Do These Photos Show Store Returns Full of Donated Toys?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "12/16/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Pictures supposedly document toys from Christmas drives for the needy that were exchanged at Walmart in order to purchase beer and cigarettes." ], "justification": "On 14 December 2014, photographs were posted by a Facebook user along with accompanying text suggesting the pictures depicted shopping carts full of donated toys that had been returned to a Walmart store in exchange for beer and cigarettes: Ok...As I was leaving Wal-Mart at 6:30am this morning, I asked the returns clerk did someone purchase these? She responded, those were yesterday's return. I then asked the question; were these gifts? She responded that most likely all of them are gifts from organizations or toy runs. I was sick to my stomach with her next response, \"folk return them, get a gift card and then buy beer and cigarettes.\" Be aware of your blessing to others in need. Make sure that the organization or individual is truly getting and keeping the gift, especially children. These pics are from one day of returns and the clerk said; most of time there's more. Be blessed friends... That claim predictably caused outrage among Facebook users, with many commenters stating the situation as described confirmed their suspicions about the poor and needy. However, a number of factors suggested the claim might not be true and could therefore negatively impact initiatives to ensure children living in poverty had access to much-needed toy donations at Christmastime. First and foremost, the post presented only a single Walmart shopper's account in assessing what the images depicted. The man said he confirmed with the cashier that the items were toy returns, but whether such a conversation even took place is not independently verifiable. Then there's the matter of how retail systems are organized, particularly during the holiday season. Sorting merchandise into carts for restocking on shelves is common practice, and such sorting includes not just returns but also items moved by customers from one part of the store to another or abandoned at check-out aisles. Such items are generally sorted by department, so busy stores are likely to be stuck with several carts per department at the end of a shift or the start of a day. Items moved or abandoned at checkout that require refrigeration would be top priority, and items such as clothing and toys would command less urgency. So pictures of carts full of toy department items could create the false impression of a disproportionate number of returns to that department, when it's entirely possible carts full of other departments' items were just as plentiful but were left out of the frame of the photographs or had already been returned to their shelves. And even if we were to take the tale at face value, it's still a bit hard to buy because for the cashier's claim about beer and cigarettes to be credible, we would have to assume she was in the habit of tracking customers after they returned items, carefully observing what they purchased with gift cards or store credits. There is also the matter of the origin of the toys. Although toys received through programs for the needy are certainly returned to stores from time to time, there's simply no way to discern which toys seen in random photographs might have been received as standard gifts from family members or friends, which toys might have been donated via Christmas drives for the needy, and which toys might have been returned simply because they proved to be unwanted or duplicate items. No explanation was provided in the Facebook post as to why the toys in the cart were assumed to have been donated ones rather than purchased or gifted toys. returned In fact, the store in question, a Walmart on Bleachery Boulevard in Asheville, North Carolina, verified that although the photographs were in fact taken at that store, \"The claim the toys are all returns is 100 percent not true\" and \"most of the toys are items left around the store that need to be restocked,\" according to a report by Asheville television station WLOS: report The Facebook post claims donated gifts from organizations or toy runs were being returned to Walmart. The Facebook user says a store clerk told him folks returned the toys to \"buy beer and cigarettes.\" Bill Murdock, CEO of Eblen Charities, has his doubts. \"Sometimes these things kind of get out of hand. You know, somebody will make a comment or somebody will assume something and then all of the sudden it becomes the truth, whether it's the truth or not,\" Murdock said In an effort to reduce the chances someone will return one of the donated toys to a local store, Eblen Charities representatives have started marking over the bar codes. Whether or not the story were in any way reflective of any factual circumstances, it would be a shame for such a claim to negatively impact much-needed toy drives right before Christmas. The tale closely matches much of the argument against food stamps and other forms of assistance for the needy and has the potential to damage efforts to supply children in need with toys at Christmas. According to Toys for Tots, demand for toys has outpaced supply in recent years, and while the scope of the program is very large, the organization is unable to fulfill all the requests it receives: Many of the gifts they provide, such as books, games and sports equipment, make a significant contribution to the educational, as well as social and recreational interests, of these children. The program is also of immense assistance to parents who, during the holiday season, are unable to provide needed gifts for their children. The Marine Corps fulfilled the holiday hopes and dreams of nearly 7 million less fortunate children in each of the past ten years. While that may be a lot of children, we unfortunately ran out of gifts long before they ran out of children. To make a credit card contribution or to find out more about the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, please go to their website at www.toysfortots.org or call the foundation at (703) 640-9433. The author urged people to verify whether toys are truly being parceled out to kids in genuine need, but most toy drives are partially or wholly anonymous in order to protect the privacy of recipients, and therefore such endeavors aren't possible without intruding upon those who receive items from those drives. In the absence of stronger evidence, there is little reason to believe the claim presented here was true, accurate, or representative of how toy drives actually operate. Brigman, Lauren. \"REALITY CHECK: Returned Toy Donations?\"\r WLOS-TV. 18 December 2014.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=12owdT569wVkcDhbbpH3zMYkrYsvWNS8W", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bsg0KXvg2vWc_bG3t0sQaDZE2GqU4Ve9", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Q0ogmUmOGzg1HnyYZGRRWjl2W2Wr4Y-0", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "There is also the matter of the origin of the toys. Although toys received through programs for the needy are certainly returned to stores from time to time, there's simply no way to discern which toys seen in random photographs might have been received as standard gifts from family members or friends, which toys might have been donated via Christmas drives for the needy, and which toys might have been returned simply because they proved to be unwanted or duplicate items. No explanation was provided in the Facebook post as to why the toys in the cart were assumed to have been donated ones rather than purchased or gifted toys.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wbtw.com/story/21034079/myrtle-beach-woman-upset-after-witnessing-toys-for-tots-gift-return" ] }, { "sentence": "In fact, the store in question, a Walmart on Bleachery Boulevard in Asheville, North Carolina, verified that although the photographs were in fact taken at that store, \"The claim the toys are all returns is 100 percent not true\" and \"most of the toys are items left around the store that need to be restocked,\" according to a report by Asheville television station WLOS:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wlos.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/reality-check-returned-toy-donations-18965.shtml" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-kennedy-pharma/", "claim": "Has Rep. Joe Kennedy Received $348,000 in Donations from the Pharmaceutical Industry?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "02/02/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A meme targeting the Democratic lawmaker gets some, but not all, of the facts right." ], "justification": "In January 2018, Rep. Joe Kennedy III attracted scrutiny from both left-wing and right-wing observers, after he was designated to give the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address in January 2018. right-wing On 28 January 2018, this meme appeared, making claims about the Massachusetts Congressman's purported links to the pharmaceutical industry, and his record on several major issues: meme This is Joe. Pharmaceutical companies have given Joe $348K since 2011. Joe has $434K of stock in a company charging $1,000 per pill for a live-saving drug. Joe opposes legal marijuana and universal healthcare legislation. Don't be like Joe. Pharmaceutical industry donations An article from GritPost.com elaborated on these claims: article Rep. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) might be pharmas favorite Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, given that hes received more than $57,000 from the pharmaceutical/health products industry in this current election cycle alone. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, thats approximately four times more than pharmas average contribution to House Democrats. Over the course of his short Congressional career, Kennedy has received more than $348,000 since 2011. The source of these claims about contributions to Kennedy is the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, DC-based non-profit that tracks political donations on the web site Open Secrets. Open Secrets The figures in the article are accurate; the industry's contributions to Kennedy total $348,077 over the course of his six-year career as a politician. career Investments in pharmaceuticals The Grit Post article and the meme also allege Kennedy had personal investments in a controversial pharmaceutical company. Grit Post writes: As the Boston Globe reported last year, Rep. Kennedy has more than $434,000 invested in Gilead Sciences, Inc. Gilead is the manufacturer of life-saving hepatitis C drug Sovaldi which Gilead recently increased to $1,000 per pill, or $84,000 for a treatment. While it's true Kennedy has investments in Gilead, this claim is slightly misleading and out of date. In May 2016, the Boston Globe reported that the Congressman had \"earned stock value of up to $434,999 from investments in Gilead Sciences Inc\" and furthermore: Boston Globe His holdings in Gilead, as of the end of 2015, totaled between $180,004 and $450,000, according to financial disclosures. So actually, Kennedy's investments in Gilead could have been as low as $180,004 at the time of the Boston Globe article in May 2016. The Globe was careful to point out that members of Congress are not required to provide exact figures for their personal investments and assets, but rather ranges. Grit Post left out this detail. In any event, Kennedy provided a more up-to-date financial disclosure at the end of 2016, which showed his investments in Gilead by then totalled between $80,003 and $200,000. 2016 Financial disclosures for 2017 have not yet been published. Whatever the exact amounts involved, Kennedy's investment in Gilead has been controversial largely because the company sells Solvadi, its brand name for the drug sofosbuvir, which is used to treat Hepatitis C. As Grit Post points out, Gilead Sciences has attracted criticism for the high price of Solvadi which is $1,000 per pill or $84,000 for a course of treatment. criticism Kennedy's investment is part of a trust fund managed by a financial adviser. Craig Holman, from the advocacy group Public Citizen, told the Globe in 2016 that the profits Kennedy and the company were making were \"harming many of the citizens of Massachusetts.\" trust fund According to Open Secrets, 19 members of Congress (as well as Donald Trump) held shares in Gilead Sciences in 2015. members Stance on marijuana The Grit Post meme's claim that Kennedy opposes marijuana legalization is accurate. While the national conversation has shifted to discuss recreational marijuana's legalization, over the years many leaders have come to voice support for the medical uses for marijuana. However, Kennedy not only opposes recreational use, but he has a record of voting against measures to protect and enhance access to medical marijuana. In 2015, Kennedy was one of 10 Democrats who sided with a Republican majority to pass a bill that wouldamong many other thingsrestrict funding for states that wanted to legalize marijuana. The bill died in Senate. record among many other things Grit Post also correctly pointed out that Kennedy, in a 2016 interview, said \"I don't think marijuana should be legalized.\" interview Stance on universal healthcare The meme's claim that Kennedy opposes \"universal healthcare legislation\" requires closer examination. In September 2017, Kennedy expressed tentative support for a single-payer healthcare system, but hesitated to support bills then before the House of Representatives and Senate that would have expanded Medicare. House Senate At the time, Kennedy told Boston Public Radio the bills were \"100 percent right on the value that they're trying to enshrine into federal law -- that healthcare is a right in this country, not a privilege to be enjoyed by the few...\" Boston Public Radio However, he said there were \"details\" in the House bill (introduced by Democratic Rep. John Conyers) with which he was 'struggling.' When pressed, Kennedy said he supported universal healthcare, but said a single-payer system (funded by taxes and administered by the government) was \"a way that we could get there, and that's great, but I think that the critical piece to this is ensuring that everybody gets access to quality, affordable, accessible healthcare...\" So Kennedy has given theoretical support to universal healthcare, but has been fuzzy on the details of how it should be achieved, and he did not support specific legislation that, if passed, would have massively expanded health coverage in the United States. Shaw, Jordan. \"Pharma's Favorite Democrat Is Giving the Official Response to Trump State of the Union.\"\r Grit Post. 28 January 2018. Rozier, Alex. \"Joe Kennedy III Profits from Stock in Expensive Hep C Drug.\"\r Boston Globe. 5 May 2016. Angell, Tom. \"Dems Pick Anti-Marijuana Kennedy for Trump State of the Union Response.\"\r Marijuana Moment. 28 January 2018. Sweeney, Chris. \"The Interview: Joe Kennedy III.\"\r Boston Magazine. 11 September 2016. Bedford, Tori. \"Joe Kennedy Supports Single-Payer, But Only in Theory.\"\r WGBH-TV. 14 September 2017.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sq9wuObcIGZ5HZWBLNrv7tviDQx1eICl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In January 2018, Rep. Joe Kennedy III attracted scrutiny from both left-wing and right-wing observers, after he was designated to give the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address in January 2018. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/joe-kennedys-palm-beach-house-security-wall/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 28 January 2018, this meme appeared, making claims about the Massachusetts Congressman's purported links to the pharmaceutical industry, and his record on several major issues:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/gritpost/photos/a.956970874443718.1073741829.948399058634233/1057788384361966/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "An article from GritPost.com elaborated on these claims:", "hrefs": [ "https://gritpost.com/pharma-favorite-democrat/" ] }, { "sentence": "The source of these claims about contributions to Kennedy is the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, DC-based non-profit that tracks political donations on the web site Open Secrets. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/industries?cid=N00034044&cycle=2018" ] }, { "sentence": "The figures in the article are accurate; the industry's contributions to Kennedy total $348,077 over the course of his six-year career as a politician.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/industries?cid=N00034044&cycle=CAREER&type=I" ] }, { "sentence": "In May 2016, the Boston Globe reported that the Congressman had \"earned stock value of up to $434,999 from investments in Gilead Sciences Inc\" and furthermore:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/05/joe-kennedy-iii-owns-stock-expensive-hep-drug/cf6dH2x1H4J1PVMZsrt5lM/story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In any event, Kennedy provided a more up-to-date financial disclosure at the end of 2016, which showed his investments in Gilead by then totalled between $80,003 and $200,000. ", "hrefs": [ "https://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2016/9111053.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Whatever the exact amounts involved, Kennedy's investment in Gilead has been controversial largely because the company sells Solvadi, its brand name for the drug sofosbuvir, which is used to treat Hepatitis C. As Grit Post points out, Gilead Sciences has attracted criticism for the high price of Solvadi which is $1,000 per pill or $84,000 for a course of treatment.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/11%20SFC%20Sovaldi%20Report%20Executive%20Summary.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Kennedy's investment is part of a trust fund managed by a financial adviser. Craig Holman, from the advocacy group Public Citizen, told the Globe in 2016 that the profits Kennedy and the company were making were \"harming many of the citizens of Massachusetts.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial-pdfs/2016/9111053.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "According to Open Secrets, 19 members of Congress (as well as Donald Trump) held shares in Gilead Sciences in 2015. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/search_details?filter=H&q=Gilead+Sciences" ] }, { "sentence": "However, Kennedy not only opposes recreational use, but he has a record of voting against measures to protect and enhance access to medical marijuana. In 2015, Kennedy was one of 10 Democrats who sided with a Republican majority to pass a bill that wouldamong many other thingsrestrict funding for states that wanted to legalize marijuana. The bill died in Senate.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marijuanamoment.net/dems-pick-anti-marijuana-kennedy-trump-state-union-response/", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2578" ] }, { "sentence": "Grit Post also correctly pointed out that Kennedy, in a 2016 interview, said \"I don't think marijuana should be legalized.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2016/09/11/joe-kennedy-iii-interview/2/" ] }, { "sentence": "In September 2017, Kennedy expressed tentative support for a single-payer healthcare system, but hesitated to support bills then before the House of Representatives and Senate that would have expanded Medicare. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676", "https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1804" ] }, { "sentence": "At the time, Kennedy told Boston Public Radio the bills were \"100 percent right on the value that they're trying to enshrine into federal law -- that healthcare is a right in this country, not a privilege to be enjoyed by the few...\"", "hrefs": [ "https://news.wgbh.org/2017/09/14/boston-public-radio-podcast/joe-kennedy-supports-single-payer-only-theory" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-kerry-property/", "claim": "Has John Kerry's possession extended to owning multiple houses, cars, and yachts?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "12/01/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A late 2020 meme about the incoming U.S. climate envoy appeared to be based on news stories from the 2004 presidential election cycle." ], "justification": "In late November and early December 2020, social media users shared posts claiming that former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been selected by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as climate envoy in his administration, owns multiple cars, yachts, homes, and a private jet. selected The source of this claim appears to be a \"copypasta\" meme circulating on social media platforms, meaning that people are copying and pasting text and sharing it without any accompanying supporting evidence. The intent of the posts appeared to be criticism of Kerry's lifestyle, which leaves a larger carbon footprint than the average person's. copypasta Here is an example, with the Facebook user's name cropped out for privacy: The text of the post reads, \"John Kerry as climate czar? Only Democrats could pick a guy with 6 houses, 12 cars, 2 yachts and a private jet to tell you that YOU should take the bus, don't eat meat, use electric cars and not fart to stop pollution.\" The block of text appears to be based on past news stories, many of them published in the lead-up to the 2004 presidential election, in which Kerry was the Democratic challenger to Republican incumbent President George W. Bush. Kerry's bid for the White House was unsuccessful, as Bush won a second term. But his campaign resulted in media scrutiny of his finances, namely wealth in his marriage that belongs mostly to his wife, Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry, with whom Kerry signed a prenuptial agreement. signed As we reported in 2004, the couple owned five homes at the time, with a combined value of roughly $29 million. She bought four of those before her marriage, and the couple jointly owned one. In 2017 the couple sold the home in Nantucket, which belonged to his wife's family, and purchased one in Martha's Vineyard. reported sold purchased The couple did make use of a luxury yacht, which brought Kerry scrutiny and criticism during the 2004 election cycle over reports that he docked it in Rhode Island to avoid paying higher taxes in Massachusetts. They sold it in 2017. Kerry has also made use of a private jet, but that, too, belongs to his wife. sold belongs The matter of the Kerrys' cars also came up in 2004, when news outlets reported that he owned multiple vehicles. At the time, he was criticized for calling on people to buy American-made products while his wife drove a German-made car. reported It is true that Kerry has made use of multiple homes, vehicles, a private jet and a yacht over the course of years, though much of the property belongs to his wife. It does appear, however, that the meme exaggerated the number of homes and yachts they have owned.", "issues": [ "finance" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mLbhH8nXUWncg7RgRK708qgwTIEDRIAk" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late November and early December 2020, social media users shared posts claiming that former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been selected by President-elect Joe Biden to serve as climate envoy in his administration, owns multiple cars, yachts, homes, and a private jet.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/climate/john-kerry-climate-change.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The source of this claim appears to be a \"copypasta\" meme circulating on social media platforms, meaning that people are copying and pasting text and sharing it without any accompanying supporting evidence. The intent of the posts appeared to be criticism of Kerry's lifestyle, which leaves a larger carbon footprint than the average person's.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/collections/copypasta/" ] }, { "sentence": "The block of text appears to be based on past news stories, many of them published in the lead-up to the 2004 presidential election, in which Kerry was the Democratic challenger to Republican incumbent President George W. Bush. Kerry's bid for the White House was unsuccessful, as Bush won a second term. But his campaign resulted in media scrutiny of his finances, namely wealth in his marriage that belongs mostly to his wife, Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry, with whom Kerry signed a prenuptial agreement.", "hrefs": [ "https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/12/does-teresa-heinz-trust-her-husband.html" ] }, { "sentence": "As we reported in 2004, the couple owned five homes at the time, with a combined value of roughly $29 million. She bought four of those before her marriage, and the couple jointly owned one. In 2017 the couple sold the home in Nantucket, which belonged to his wife's family, and purchased one in Martha's Vineyard.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/home-on-the-million-dollar-range/", "https://realestate.boston.com/buying/2018/04/13/john-kerrys-nantucket-estate-just-sold-17-5-million/", "https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a9571432/john-kerry-marthas-vineyard/" ] }, { "sentence": "The couple did make use of a luxury yacht, which brought Kerry scrutiny and criticism during the 2004 election cycle over reports that he docked it in Rhode Island to avoid paying higher taxes in Massachusetts. They sold it in 2017. Kerry has also made use of a private jet, but that, too, belongs to his wife.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.northropandjohnson.com/navigator-news/brokerage-new-build/isabel-sold-by-northrop-and-johnson-7691", "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/25/usa.uselections2004" ] }, { "sentence": "The matter of the Kerrys' cars also came up in 2004, when news outlets reported that he owned multiple vehicles. At the time, he was criticized for calling on people to buy American-made products while his wife drove a German-made car.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/cD1Eg" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/birth-certificates-financial-accounts/", "claim": "Is it possible for birth certificates in the United States to reveal undisclosed financial accounts linked to a 'Strawman'?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "01/16/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A specious theory that the U.S. has turned citizens into \"collateral\" was developed by a convicted forger with ties to white nationalists." ], "justification": "The idea that United States citizens can gain access to secret funds because of a government-created \"strawman\" is a persistent myth and one was debunked long ago as a get-rich-quick scheme promulgated by shysters with links to far-right groups: When your birth certificate was monetized and converted into a UNITED STATES Government Bond shortly after your birth by your Mother, your net worth became unlimited, into Billions of Dollars, without your, nor your Mothers, and Fathers, knowledge. When the UNITED STATES declared bankruptcy in 1933 under the bankruptcy (Straw man) law known as HJR 192, pledged all Americans as collateral (debt slaves) against the national debt to the International Bankers; gave all the land to the international bankers (Federal Reserve Corporation); and confiscated and outlawed all the gold except for one ounce for each person; thus, eliminating the lawful means (Gold and Silver Coins) by which you could legally pay your debt, the UNITED STATES also assumed legal responsibility for providing a new way for you to pay. In 1933, the UNITED STATES Government declared that they would pay all of YOUR debts with the money they receive from your labor, birth certificate, and Social Security registered number by what is known as your Reserve Account worth Billions! The UNITED STATES Corporation Government did that by providing what is known as the Exemption Account. The bankers loan credit and not money, because there has not been any lawful money since 5 June 1933. The Exemption Account is your exemption from having to pay for anything. In practical terms, though, this meant giving each American something to pay with, and that something is your credit. This secret has been hidden for over 79 years. Your value to society was then and is still calculated using actuarial tables. At birth, average value bonds were created from your birth certificate. I understand that this is currently between one and two million dollars at your birth when your mother unknowingly gave her baby, you, away to the UNITED STATES Government. These birth certificate bonds were collateralized by your birth certificate and your mothers maiden name under an Act of Congress in 1921. Then your birth certificate bond became a negotiable instrument just like any security instrument under UCC Article 3, code of commercial law in which the world trade falls under. The bonds are hypothecated and traded on the stock market until their value is unlimited for all intents and purposes. People all over the world buy and sell your bond every day over the stock markets as investments. All that credit created is technically, and rightfully, yours. In point of fact, you should be able to go into any store in America and buy anything and everything in sight, telling the clerk to charge it to your Exemption Account, which is identified by a nine-digit number that you will recognize as your Social Security number, without the dashes. It is your EIN, which stands for Exemption Identification Number from the UNITED STATES CORPORATION of America.\" The \"strawman,\" the theory states, is an entity created by an alleged 1933 \"House Joint Resolution\" marking U.S. residents as collateral for the country's loans. Though it is unclear how prevalent it is today, the FBI has classified the idea of birth certificate \"redemption\" as a common form of bond fraud: classified Proponents of this scheme claim that the U.S. government or the Treasury Department control bank accountsoften referred to as U.S. Treasury Direct Accountsfor all U.S. citizens that can be accessed by submitting paperwork with state and federal authorities. Trainers and websites will often charge large fees for kits that teach individuals how to perpetrate this scheme. They will often imply that others have had great success in discharging debt and purchasing merchandise such as cars and homes. Failures to implement the scheme successfully are attributed to individuals not following instructions in a specific order or not filing paperwork at correct times. This scheme predominately uses fraudulent financial documents that appear to be legitimate. These documents are frequently referred to as bills of exchange, promissory bonds, indemnity bonds, offset bonds, sight drafts, or comptrollers warrants. In addition, other official documents are used outside of their intended purpose, like IRS forms 1099, 1099-OID, and 8300. This scheme frequently intermingles legal and pseudo legal terminology in order to appear lawful. Notaries may be used in an attempt to make the fraud appear legitimate. Often, victims of the scheme are instructed to address their paperwork to the Secretary of the Treasury. Filing these types of \"frivolous tax submissions\" can incur a $5,000 fine, though authorities give offenders 30 days to retract the documents. The Treasury Department's office of the Inspector General published an example of a \"sight draft\" while warning that they were being used \"in an attempt to pay for everything from cars to child support\": incur warning The Treasury also provided us with an April 2009 guidance they sent to financial institutions advising them how to report loan modification scams, which included a description of a hidden \"account\" being used as a bogus payment: guidance A homeowner maintains that he/she does not need to pay a mortgage because the loan contract is invalid, or the customer attempts to pay with a bogus sight draft, Federal Reserve Bank/Treasury letter, or check that accesses a Treasury Direct Account. Such homeowners may be committing fraud or may have been duped by individuals who claim government-related contracts are illegitimate. Other homeowners may have unsuspectingly paid for illegitimate or bogus pay-off documents. A spokesperson for the Treasury told us on 17 January 2017 that these types of scams have not been a \"recent issue of concern\" for the department's investigators. However, they are still reported to its financial crimes enforcement division. reported The Southern Poverty Law Center stated in a 2002 report that the redemption \"movement\" can be traced back to a South Dakota man, Roger Elvick, who has ties to the Aryan Nations and other white supremacist organizations: traced Elvick first started spreading his crackpot vision in the 1980s, when he was the national spokesperson for Committee of the States, a white supremacist group Elvick started with William Potter Gale, who had previously founded the Posse Comitatus, a violent anti-Semitic organization. By 1990, Redemption groups advised by Elvick were active in 30 states and several provinces of Canada, and had tried to pass more than $15 million in bad checks. Elvick was eventually convicted of personally passing more than $1 million in sight drafts, and, in a separate case, of filing fraudulent IRS forms. He spent most of the 1990s in federal prison. Elvick was indicted again in Ohio in 2003 and charged with corruption, extortion, and forgery, but his courtroom behavior derailed his trial: During preliminary hearings, Elvick frustrated court officials by denying his identity, claiming the court had no jurisdiction over him or his straw man, and constantly interrupting with unfathomable questions about procedure. A judge ruled Elvick mentally unfit to stand trial and committed him to a correctional psychiatric facility, where he was diagnosed with an \"unclassified mental disorder\" and underwent nine months of treatment before facing trial. Elvick then surprised prosecutors by changing his plea to guilty. The inspector general's office for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, noted the use of \"UCC\" (Uniform Commercial Code) in a 2015 bulletin concerning right-wing sovereign citizen groups, pointing out members commonly use the term in fraudulent documents: bulletin sovereign citizen FBI. \"Common Fraud Schemes Redemption/Strawman/Bond Fraud.\" Accessed 12 January 2017. Legal Information Institute. \"26 U.S. Code 6702 Frivolous Tax Submissions.\" Accessed 12 January 2017. Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of the Treasury. \"Bogus Sight Drafts/Bills of Exchange Drawn on the Treasury.\" Accessed 12 January 2017. Southern Poverty Law Center. \"His 'Straw Man' Free, A Scammer Finds the Rest of Him Isn't.\" 27 July 2005. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. \"Integrity Bulletin.\" Summer 2015. Alexander, Dean C. \"The Sovereign Citizen Movement: Threats and Responses.\" Security Magazine. 1 June 2016.", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Z4Xe2VaSuSRmyVN2se6QY6bdtgo7utGe" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1S34q8c3UTsY0QE7Ahmp8Lpm_siMtjOZC" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The \"strawman,\" the theory states, is an entity created by an alleged 1933 \"House Joint Resolution\" marking U.S. residents as collateral for the country's loans. Though it is unclear how prevalent it is today, the FBI has classified the idea of birth certificate \"redemption\" as a common form of bond fraud:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes/redemption-strawman-bond-fraud" ] }, { "sentence": "Filing these types of \"frivolous tax submissions\" can incur a $5,000 fine, though authorities give offenders 30 days to retract the documents. The Treasury Department's office of the Inspector General published an example of a \"sight draft\" while warning that they were being used \"in an attempt to pay for everything from cars to child support\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6702", "https://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/ig/Pages/Scams/Bogus-Sight-Drafts.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "The Treasury also provided us with an April 2009 guidance they sent to financial institutions advising them how to report loan modification scams, which included a description of a hidden \"account\" being used as a bogus payment:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fincen.gov/resources/advisories/fincen-advisory-fin-2009-a001" ] }, { "sentence": "A spokesperson for the Treasury told us on 17 January 2017 that these types of scams have not been a \"recent issue of concern\" for the department's investigators. However, they are still reported to its financial crimes enforcement division.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fincen.gov/reports/sar-stats" ] }, { "sentence": "The Southern Poverty Law Center stated in a 2002 report that the redemption \"movement\" can be traced back to a South Dakota man, Roger Elvick, who has ties to the Aryan Nations and other white supremacist organizations:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/his-straw-man-free-scammer-finds-rest-him-isnt" ] }, { "sentence": "The inspector general's office for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, noted the use of \"UCC\" (Uniform Commercial Code) in a 2015 bulletin concerning right-wing sovereign citizen groups, pointing out members commonly use the term in fraudulent documents:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.hudoig.gov/sites/default/files/Sovereign_Citizen_Scams.pdf", "https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/87159-the-sovereign-citizen-movement-threats-and-responses" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-mama-drama/", "claim": "Obama Slams Stay at Home Moms", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "11/03/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Did President Obama say women should not choose to be stay-at-home-moms?" ], "justification": " Claim: President Obama said women should not choose to be stay-at-home-moms. Example: [Collected via email, November 2014] Obama wants stay at home moms back in workforce Obama does not like stay at home moms. Many sites are reporting that Obama doesn't want women to be stay-at-home moms based on this speech. Obama's speech on Stay at Home Moms Aren't worth a Hill of Beans....also, it's a choice we don't want Americans to make. Video with comment by President Obama on Stay-at-Home Moms: 'That's Not a Choice We Want Americans to Make.' I'm just seeing this posted on Facebook and wondering if it's true or taken out of context. Origins: On 31 October 2014, President Obama delivered a speech titled \"Remarks by the President on Women and the Economy\" at Rhode Island College in Providence. Plucked from the context of a broader speech about paid leave for parents and general household costs such as daycare, one snippet of the President's words grabbed the attention of political blogs and social media users. A short portion of the President's remarks became a story unto themselves following the speech, with a common claim attached to those words holding that President Obama had \"slammed stay-at-home moms\" in the cited portion of his speech. One widely-circulated extract from his remarks read that way to some who hadn't caught the entire speech: Sometimes, someone ... usually mom ... leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. That's not a choice we want Americans to make. So let's make this happen. By the end of this decade, let's enroll 6 million children in high quality preschool ... Taken out of context, it appeared to some President Obama was advocating all stay-at-home moms should return to the workforce without question and place their children in government-run preschools (presumably ones of questionable quality, or, at the very least, schools chosen by the government and not by the families themselves). What President Obama actually said, however, did not pertain to the worth of stay-at-home moms versus that of working parents. Explaining his recent experiences in discussing the challenges that mothers in the workforce face, President Obama said: I kept on hearing about my mom struggling to put herself through school, or my grandmother hitting that glass ceiling. And I thought about Michelle, and I told some stories about when Michelle and I were younger and getting starting, and we were struggling to balance two careers while raising a family. And my job forced me to travel a lot, which made it harder on Michelle, and we would feel some of the guilt that so many people feel we're working, we're thinking about the kids, we're wondering whether we're bad parents, we're wondering whether we were doing what we need to do on the job. And as the catch-22 of working parents, we wanted to spend time with our kids, but we also wanted to make sure that we gave them the opportunities that our hard work was providing. And then, of course, I think about my daughters. And the idea that my daughters wouldn't have the same opportunities as somebody's sons well, that's unacceptable. That's not acceptable. President Obama then addressed the advances women have made in education and in graduating college and continued by explaining females are disproportionately affected by a lack of protective policy pertaining to sick leave and paid family leave: But here's the challenge that's all good news the challenge is, our economy and some of the laws and rules governing our workplaces haven't caught up with that reality. A lot of workplaces haven't caught up with that reality. So while many women are working hard to support themselves and their families, they're still facing unfair choices, outdated workplace policies. That holds them back, but it also holds all of us back. We have to do better, because women deserve better. And, by the way, when women do well, everybody does well. So women deserve a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship. And Rhode Island has got the right idea. You're one of just three states where paid family leave is the law of the land. (Applause.) More states should choose to follow your lead. The quoted bit came soon thereafter. President Obama made a case for paid leave and for the economic gains to be had if daycare and preschool were affordable to all mothers. He said: THE PRESIDENT: Without paid leave, when a baby arrives or an aging parent needs help, workers have to make painful decisions about whether they can afford to be there when their families need them most. Many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth to their child. I mean, there are a lot of companies that still don't provide maternity leave. Of course, dads should be there, too. So let's make this happen for women and for men, and make our economy stronger. (Applause.) We've got to broaden our laws for family leave. Moms and dads deserve a great place to drop their kids off every day that doesn't cost them an arm and a leg. We need better childcare, daycare, early childhood education policies. (Applause.) In many states, sending your child to daycare costs more than sending them to a public university. AUDIENCE MEMBER: True! THE PRESIDENT: True. (Laughter.) And too often, parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development. And sometimes there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away. And sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that's not a choice we want Americans to make. It's clear from the context of President Obama's full remarks on 31 October 2014 his view wasn't one that \"slammed\" stay-at-home moms and stated \"we\" don't want anyone to choose to be a stay-at-home mom; rather, the choice to which he referred was for women to fairly have the option of deciding whether to remain in the workforce or to stay at home with their children, without (in the latter case) having to lose their place on the employment ladder and thus be relegated to earning lower wages for the rest of their working lives. In short, President Obama did not \"slam\" stay-at-home moms; he instead argued current policies affecting mothers are unfair and should be changed to allow, among other things, expanded maternity leave and affordable daycare and preschool options to ensure women have more choice in deciding how to balance their economic and family lives. remarks Last updated: 3 November 2014", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Ym-TvXYNYXgF2wp1tr8x8yYWevxfkPj7", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "It's clear from the context of President Obama's full remarks on 31 October 2014 his view wasn't one that \"slammed\" stay-at-home moms and stated \"we\" don't want anyone to choose to be a stay-at-home mom; rather, the choice to which he referred was for women to fairly have the option of deciding whether to remain in the workforce or to stay at home with their children, without (in the latter case) having to lose their place on the employment ladder and thus be relegated to earning lower wages for the rest of their working lives. In short, President Obama did not \"slam\" stay-at-home moms; he instead argued current policies affecting mothers are unfair and should be changed to allow, among other things, expanded maternity leave and affordable daycare and preschool options to ensure women have more choice in deciding how to balance their economic and family lives.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/10/31/remarks-president-women-and-economy-providence-ri" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/overwhelm-the-system/", "claim": "Obama's Agenda: Overwhelm the System", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/07/2015", "sci_digest": [ "" ], "justification": "Conservative political commentator Wayne Allyn Root opined back in 2010 that President Obama \"is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos.\" Claim: Wayne Allyn Root wrote in an opinion piece that President Obama is \"purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy.\" Example: [Root, June 2010] Rahm Emanuel cynically said, \"You never want a crisis to go to waste.\" It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama's presidency. Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within. Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it. [Rest of article here.] here Origins: Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party's 2008 vice presidential candidate, is a political commentator whose columns appear on various conservative web sites and the author of several books, including The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts. He penned a biweekly political opinion column published the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and his entry for 6 June 2010 was the article excerpted above, entitled \"Obama's agenda: Overwhelm the system,\" in which he opined that President Obama is \"purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos.\" Wayne Allyn Root column article Some online-circulated versions of this column are entitled \"Obama's college roommate speaks out,\" but that heading reflects a misreading of the word \"classmate,\" as Wayne Allyn Root never was, or claimed to be, Barack Obama's roommate Root merely attended Columbia University at the same time as Barack Obama did and later claimed (despite substantial evidence to the contrary) that neither he nor anyone else attending Columbia during that time had ever heard of or met Barack Obama. claimed Root's credentials as a political prognosticator are rather suspect, as he predicted in May 2012 that Barack Obama would lose the upcoming presidential election to Republican candidate Mitt Romney \"in a landslide.\" (Obama handily won with 62% of the electoral vote.) predicted handily", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "[Rest of article here.]", "hrefs": [ "https://www.lvrj.com/opinion/obama-s-agenda--overwhelm-the-system-95716764.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Origins: Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party's 2008 vice presidential candidate, is a political commentator whose columns appear on various conservative web sites and the author of several books, including The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts. He penned a biweekly political opinion column published the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and his entry for 6 June 2010 was the article excerpted above, entitled \"Obama's agenda: Overwhelm the system,\" in which he opined that President Obama is \"purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rootforamerica.com/", "https://www.lvrj.com/columnists/root.html", "https://www.lvrj.com/opinion/obama-s-agenda--overwhelm-the-system-95716764.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Some online-circulated versions of this column are entitled \"Obama's college roommate speaks out,\" but that heading reflects a misreading of the word \"classmate,\" as Wayne Allyn Root never was, or claimed to be, Barack Obama's roommate Root merely attended Columbia University at the same time as Barack Obama did and later claimed (despite substantial evidence to the contrary) that neither he nor anyone else attending Columbia during that time had ever heard of or met Barack Obama.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/columbia.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Root's credentials as a political prognosticator are rather suspect, as he predicted in May 2012 that Barack Obama would lose the upcoming presidential election to Republican candidate Mitt Romney \"in a landslide.\" (Obama handily won with 62% of the electoral vote.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/landslide.asp", "https://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-dakota-voting-hunting-licenses/", "claim": "Could voting in North Dakota lead to the forfeiture of hunting permits in other states?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "11/02/2018", "sci_digest": [ "An ad promoted by the North Dakota Democratic Party made a dubious claim about voters' losing out-of-state hunting licenses." ], "justification": "On 31 October 2018, the Facebook page Hunter Alerts was born, garnering just 40 followers in its first week of existence. So far, all that page has been used for is the distribution of two political advertisements asserting that If you vote in North Dakota, you may forfeit hunting licenses you have in other states. If you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakota\": Hunter Alerts advertisements Those ads were promoted by North Dakotas Democratic party (known as the Democratic-Nonpartisan League, or Democratic-NPL) and linked back to that partys website with a slightly more detailed explanation of the claim: explanation You MUST be a resident of North Dakota to vote here. And if you are a resident of North Dakota, you may lose hunting licenses you have in other states. If you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakotas 2018 election. This statement, which was misleading for several reasons (enumerated below) and was provided with no additional information, citations, or exposition, was characterized by many critics as an attempt to suppress conservative votes in North Dakota because it targets a demographic (i.e., hunters) who traditionally lean conservative. (North Dakota also faces allegations of voter suppression efforts that target the more Democrat-friendly Native American population in that state.) characterized allegations Both the North Dakota Secretary of State and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NGFD) have told reporters they do not know what the ad was talking about. An NGFD representative told us via email that they cannot explain [the ad] and we have no desire to try to sort it out for [the Democratic-NPL]. We have had no involvement in the post. told The most generous interpretation of the Democratic-NPL statement would be that the act of voting in North Dakota, because it requires a state-issued North Dakota ID, means voters would necessarily be forfeiting claims to residency in any other states. Many states offer both resident and non-resident hunting licenses, with the former coming at a cheaper cost but with proof-of-residency requirements. If, as the Democratic-NPL seemed to be arguing, one somehow obtained a resident hunting license in another state but actually lived and voted in North Dakota, that other state could revoke their license if they found out you had declared residency somewhere else. (The Democratic-NPL declined our request for comment). requires Many states Not only was this scenario far more specific than what was implied by the two-sentence statement promoted by the Democratic-NPL, but it also suggested an unrealistic level of inter-state bureaucratic communication whereby one states hunting licensure board actively communicated with the ID-granting offices in every other state to make sure no one was receiving unwarranted license discounts. In most (if not all) cases, it was also simply inaccurate. As an example, we will present a scenario under which a Wyoming resident legally obtains a resident hunting permit in that state and then moves and legally obtains residency (and therefore voting rights) in North Dakota. In Wyoming, you must have resided in that state for at least one year, and during that time period you must not have been claiming residency for any other purpose in any other state (emphasis ours): Wyoming To qualify for any resident game and fish license, preference point, permit or tag, a person shall be domiciled and shall physically reside in Wyoming for one (1) full year (365 consecutive days) immediately preceding the date the person applies for or purchases the license, preference point, permit or tag and the person shall not have claimed residency elsewhere for any other purpose (including, but not limited to, voting, payment of income taxes, purchase of resident hunting, fishing or trapping licenses, etc.) during that one (1) year period. While several states stipulate you can no longer be considered a resident if you register to vote somewhere else, the requirements to receive a resident hunting license in Wyoming and most other states is retrospective and not prospective. If a hypothetical Wyoming resident switched jobs and moved to North Dakota to work, their Wyoming hunting license would already have been issued, and the State of Wyoming would likely have no idea that person had moved. All that would be required for that individual to become a valid North Dakota voter would be for that person to have maintained a residence in the state for 90 consecutive days and to have obtained an ID card or driver's license from North Dakota's Department of Transportation. no longer required An additionally misleading aspect of the ad is the suggestion that the act of voting could pose a threat to out-of-state hunting licenses. If you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, the Democratic-NPL states, you may not want to vote in North Dakotas 2018 election (our emphasis added). The only population of people this ad could possibly be relevant to are people who live in North Dakota, have a resident hunting license in another state, and also do not have an up-to-date North Dakota ID or drivers license. By not providing those supporting details, the ad does nothing to correct the false notion an already legal North Dakota voter (i.e., one already in possession of a state-issued ID) could put the legality of their theoretical out-of-state hunting licenses in jeopardy by going to the polls. The fact that this ad was released less than a week before the election also speaks poorly of its legitimacy. The argument presented by the Democratic-NPL is based on a highly implausible scenario that has state hunting licensure boards actively and continually communicating with other states DOT or DMV offices and would relate only (if at all) to a population of people who have claimed to be residents in other states for the purpose of obtaining discounted resident hunting licenses. Even then, it would not be the act of voting that theoretically put out-of-state licenses at risk, but the act of obtaining the state-issued ID required for voting. North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party. \"By Voting in North Dakota, You Could Forfeit Your Hunting Licenses.\"\r Accessed 2 November 2018. Schallhorn, Kaitlyn. \"North Dakota Democratic Party Discourages Hunters from Voting, Claims They Could Lose Out-of-State Licenses.\"\r Fox News. 2 November 2018. Lopez, German. \"North Dakotas New Voting Restrictions Seem Aimed at Native Americans Who Vote Democrat.\"\r Vox. 31 October 2018.\r Crowe, Jack. \"North Dakota Dems Threaten Hunters with Loss of License for Voting.\"\r National Review. 1 November 2018. North Dakota Secretary of State. \"ID Required for Voting.\"\r Accessed 2 November 2018. Wyoming Game and Fish Department. \"Hunting in Wyoming.\"\r Accessed 2 November 2018. North Dakota Dept. of Transportation. \"ID Card Requirements.\"\r Accessed 2 November 2018. ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CoHldwkCh_wxNfM9JRCfilvFft0fwVhS" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 31 October 2018, the Facebook page Hunter Alerts was born, garnering just 40 followers in its first week of existence. So far, all that page has been used for is the distribution of two political advertisements asserting that If you vote in North Dakota, you may forfeit hunting licenses you have in other states. If you want to keep your out-of-state hunting licenses, you may not want to vote in North Dakota\":", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/skn85", "https://archive.is/hepFz" ] }, { "sentence": "Those ads were promoted by North Dakotas Democratic party (known as the Democratic-Nonpartisan League, or Democratic-NPL) and linked back to that partys website with a slightly more detailed explanation of the claim:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20181102164315/https://demnpl.com/by-voting-in-north-dakota-you-could-forfeit-your-hunting-licenses/" ] }, { "sentence": "This statement, which was misleading for several reasons (enumerated below) and was provided with no additional information, citations, or exposition, was characterized by many critics as an attempt to suppress conservative votes in North Dakota because it targets a demographic (i.e., hunters) who traditionally lean conservative. (North Dakota also faces allegations of voter suppression efforts that target the more Democrat-friendly Native American population in that state.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.foxnews.com/politics/north-dakota-democratic-party-discourages-hunts-from-voting-claims-they-could-lose-out-of-state-licenses.amp", "https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/31/18047922/north-dakota-voter-id-suppression-heitkamp" ] }, { "sentence": "Both the North Dakota Secretary of State and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NGFD) have told reporters they do not know what the ad was talking about. An NGFD representative told us via email that they cannot explain [the ad] and we have no desire to try to sort it out for [the Democratic-NPL]. We have had no involvement in the post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nationalreview.com/news/north-dakota-dems-threaten-hunters-with-loss-of-license-for-voting/" ] }, { "sentence": "The most generous interpretation of the Democratic-NPL statement would be that the act of voting in North Dakota, because it requires a state-issued North Dakota ID, means voters would necessarily be forfeiting claims to residency in any other states. Many states offer both resident and non-resident hunting licenses, with the former coming at a cheaper cost but with proof-of-residency requirements. If, as the Democratic-NPL seemed to be arguing, one somehow obtained a resident hunting license in another state but actually lived and voted in North Dakota, that other state could revoke their license if they found out you had declared residency somewhere else. (The Democratic-NPL declined our request for comment).", "hrefs": [ "https://vip.sos.nd.gov/idrequirements.aspx", "https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Licensing/Hunting", "https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Hunting/Am-I-a-Wyoming-Resident" ] }, { "sentence": "In Wyoming, you must have resided in that state for at least one year, and during that time period you must not have been claiming residency for any other purpose in any other state (emphasis ours):", "hrefs": [ "https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Hunting/Am-I-a-Wyoming-Resident" ] }, { "sentence": "While several states stipulate you can no longer be considered a resident if you register to vote somewhere else, the requirements to receive a resident hunting license in Wyoming and most other states is retrospective and not prospective. If a hypothetical Wyoming resident switched jobs and moved to North Dakota to work, their Wyoming hunting license would already have been issued, and the State of Wyoming would likely have no idea that person had moved. All that would be required for that individual to become a valid North Dakota voter would be for that person to have maintained a residence in the state for 90 consecutive days and to have obtained an ID card or driver's license from North Dakota's Department of Transportation.", "hrefs": [ "https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Shop/AppsLicenses/LicenseAgents/2017LicenseAgentManual.pdf", "https://www.dot.nd.gov/divisions/driverslicense/idrequirements.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-jesse-waters-book/", "claim": "Did Trump Plagiarize Praise for Jesse Watters' Book from a Promo Blurb?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/14/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The president's statement contained a verbatim copy of a paragraph from the book's promotional description. " ], "justification": "On July 14, 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump released a statement via email praising a new book by Fox News host Jesse Watters. As screenshots of Trump's statement started making their way around social media, some people noticed that the text of this statement was, in part, a direct copy of the book's description on Amazon.com. noticed This is a genuine statement released by Trump and this is the genuine description of Watters' book from Amazon.com and other booksellers' websites. description of Watters' book from Amazon.com Here's the text of Trump's full statement. We highlighted the portion that was lifted directly from the book's description: Great new book out by Jesse Watters, How I Saved the World. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep stateall while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Get your copy today, congratulations Jesse! Trump's statement did not contain any punctuation to indicate that this was a quote, nor was this plagiarized portion of his statement preceded by any indications that this was a quote from the book's promotional copy. As written, it appeared that Trump was giving a personal testimony about Watters' book, but that is not the case. Trump was banned from social media in the days following the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as the companies feared that the former president might incite more violence by pushing falsehoods about his election loss on their platforms. Without social media, Trump has started to issue statements via email which are then reposted to social media by his supporters and journalists. As social media users can't see these statements posted on Trump's own timeline for themselves, they are often left wondering if they are authentic. We've been asked about a few of these statements in the past. For example: Yes, Trump wished a happy Father's Day to the \"the losers of the world,\" and yes, he wished a Happy Easter to the \"radical left crazies.\" the losers of the world, radical left crazies", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jbdzU-SZCQjddOMo53NcJnediLuKibEW", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On July 14, 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump released a statement via email praising a new book by Fox News host Jesse Watters. As screenshots of Trump's statement started making their way around social media, some people noticed that the text of this statement was, in part, a direct copy of the book's description on Amazon.com. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JeremyStahl/status/1415378482301792257" ] }, { "sentence": "This is a genuine statement released by Trump and this is the genuine description of Watters' book from Amazon.com and other booksellers' websites.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/07/trump-statement-jesse-waters.jpg", "https://archive.ph/mCmOV" ] }, { "sentence": "We've been asked about a few of these statements in the past. For example: Yes, Trump wished a happy Father's Day to the \"the losers of the world,\" and yes, he wished a Happy Easter to the \"radical left crazies.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-covid19-statements/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-happy-easter-radical-left/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ted-nugent-build-the-wall-concert/", "claim": "Did Ted Nugent Announce a 'Build the Wall' Benefit Concert?", "author": "David Emery", "posted": "01/08/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Apparently someone forgot to tell the rock star that Mexico is paying for the wall." ], "justification": "In late December 2018 and early January 2019, several dubious websites published articles reporting that famed rock-and-roller (and political activist) Ted Nugent had announced a \"Build the Wall\" benefit concert to raise funds for President Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall project. The earliest of these articles appeared on WeAreTheLLOD.com, part of a network of junk news websites known as \"America's Last Line of Defense\" (LLOD). Here is an excerpt, as published on 30 December 2018: earliest LLOD Ted Nugent, one of the greatest figures ever in rock n roll, has decided to throw a benefit concert to raise money to help build the border wall. Nugent will use his massive influence in the world of music to put together a music festival that will rival Woodstock. The hope is that the three-day festival will attract conservatives rather than liberals, who will do more than dance around drinking and drugging. According to Event Coordinator, Art Tubolls: \"Rather than having self-proclaimed chemists selling doses of PCP, well have respectably dressed young men and women collecting donations from concerned Americans. We believe we can raise no less than $50 million, which is way more than they need to start a wall somewhere. The law says once you start a federal project you cant stop. We will make our lives safer from the small percentage of refugees who come here on foot.\" As we have pointed out on many previous occasions, however, none of the websites under the LLOD banner publishes real news. This article, like everything else that originates with America's Last Line of Defense, is fiction. By design, the content is preposterous and politically divisive, meant to provoke outrage among (and cause embarrassment to) conservative-leaning readers. The websites' disclaimers describe said content as \"satire\": describe Americas Last Line of Defense is a whimsical playland of conservative satire. ... Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this sites pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. Over time, these websites have become more overt in displaying their intent, but given how the Internet works, simply slapping a \"satire\" label on a fabricated story doesn't necessarily prevent readers from mistaking it for fact. This is especially true when, as in this case, the article is reproduced verbatim on other websites and blogs that bear no disclaimers. This blurb for one such repost appeared in the Tomi Lahren Facebook group, which has more than 20,000 members: reproduced blogs Some of these copycat sites also reproduced follow-up articles from LLOD claiming that liberals refused to grant a permit for Nugent's concert in New York and that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones agreed to allow the concert to be held in Texas Stadium (which no longer exists). refused agreed Eagleton, Flagg. \"BREAKING: Ted Nugent Announces 'Build the Wall' Star-Studded Benefit Concert.\"\r America's Last Line of Defense. 30 December 2018.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ZjRDzog_44lt9HEgC7FZKZwCTZQq_bVk", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The earliest of these articles appeared on WeAreTheLLOD.com, part of a network of junk news websites known as \"America's Last Line of Defense\" (LLOD). Here is an excerpt, as published on 30 December 2018:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/zJEi6", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/the-last-line-of-defense/" ] }, { "sentence": "As we have pointed out on many previous occasions, however, none of the websites under the LLOD banner publishes real news. This article, like everything else that originates with America's Last Line of Defense, is fiction. By design, the content is preposterous and politically divisive, meant to provoke outrage among (and cause embarrassment to) conservative-leaning readers. The websites' disclaimers describe said content as \"satire\":", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/ZuLJs" ] }, { "sentence": "Over time, these websites have become more overt in displaying their intent, but given how the Internet works, simply slapping a \"satire\" label on a fabricated story doesn't necessarily prevent readers from mistaking it for fact. This is especially true when, as in this case, the article is reproduced verbatim on other websites and blogs that bear no disclaimers. This blurb for one such repost appeared in the Tomi Lahren Facebook group, which has more than 20,000 members:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/gTRCz", "https://archive.is/ruI0e" ] }, { "sentence": "Some of these copycat sites also reproduced follow-up articles from LLOD claiming that liberals refused to grant a permit for Nugent's concert in New York and that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones agreed to allow the concert to be held in Texas Stadium (which no longer exists).", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/r7A4b", "https://archive.is/Sb8lw" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-baboon-terrorize-village/", "claim": "Did a Gay Baboon Terrorize an African Village?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "05/24/2018", "sci_digest": [ "Rumors about a gay baboon's \"terrorizing\" a village and raping five men can be traced back to a homophobic fake news article." ], "justification": "An image purportedly showing a newspaper clipping featuring a story about a gay baboon raping several men near an African village regularly gets shared on social media: shared media This is not a genuine news story, but a verbatim copy of a satirical article that was first published in April 2017 on the South Africa Morning Post web site: South Africa Morning Post Men at a village in the North West are leaving in fear over a big male baboon that likes to grope and bonk human males. The baboon is said to have attacked more than six men in the past week and whats baffling the villagers is the fact that the baboon only attacks guys and does not hurt its victims but rather performs sexual acts on top of the terrified victim and leaves. One victim, George Chiune said he was coming from the local shebeen when the baboon attacked him and pinned him down. I thought it wanted to kill me but realized it was after my bum,, George said.Five men were admitted to hospital yesterday after experiencing acute anal pains and fatigue. Doctors confirmed the men have anal cancer. The baboon, which has been nicknamed Somizi travels alone and this, according to animal behaviour specialist is a strange occurrence because baboons are known to ravel in troops. One specialist, Lizzie McKenzie said the baboon might be an outcast and chased away from its troop. That is why it is travelling alone but as to the reason its attacking only males, it beats me. I have never seen that behaviour in my 20 years in this field, she said. When journalists visited the village, all male school kids were said to be wearing dresses as a preventative measure until the baboon has been dealt with. A cached version of the page shows that this article was filed under the \"satire\" tag. Furthermore, the description on the web site's Facebook page states that the South Africa Morning Post publishes \"Satire, Entertainment, Rumours and Bizarre stories from South Africa, and sometimes around the world.\" version page The person behind the Morning Post also mentioned the \"gay baboon\" article in an interview with the Mail & Guardian Africa. The unidentified writer used the homophobic text as an example of the fake news stories he publishes in order to fund his purportedly genuine journalistic efforts: Mail & Guardian Africa Advertising cant fund his journalism either. His real news site attracts just a fraction of the audience of his fake news sites and, therefore, a fraction of the income. There arent that many people interested in politics. I can earn a few hundred dollars a month from my news site, it performs so badly. But stuff about gay baboons, stuff about pastors saying they went to heaven, that goes viral, he says. It is still unclear whether this fake news story was ever picked up by a genuine newspaper. The text at the bottom of the story states that it was \"printed by Hassan Mohiuddin at City Press, Talpur Road, Kara(...)\" which appears to refer to a newspaper located on Talpur Road in Karachi, Pakistan. However, we could not locate a publisher or publication called \"City Press\" in Pakistan or an editor named Hassan Mohiuddin. Finally, we feel it is our responsibility to clear the pictured baboon's name. Although we are unsure who took the photograph, the earliest iteration we could find was posted to the web site Iloho.com by \"oliviam\" in August 2009 and shows a baboon relaxing in not terrorizing Cape Point, South Africa. The photograph was entitled \"Baboon Beauty Queen\": Iloho.com Allison, Simon. \"The Zimbabwean Journalist Using Fake News to Fund Real News.\"\r Mail and Guardian Africa. 15 April 2017. South Africa Morning Post. \"Gay Baboon Terrorises African Village, Rapes 5 Men.\"\r 15 April 2017.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LMeXuu4NouCRg1R0rxtpFjMN6alE9F76", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UFs-mFj-h1BrrTQEz5YglZ_0zRgcBaRD", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "An image purportedly showing a newspaper clipping featuring a story about a gay baboon raping several men near an African village regularly gets shared on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/6ac3uu/its_always_gay_baboons/", "https://www.facebook.com/urbanunlockedent/photos/p.2074169386175401/2074169386175401/?type=1&opaqueCursor=AbrP8I5_J3yTa08L_OQUvcxgjpidZrz5UARfkYMLWi3GyZSIrr-0WsU9uiNiEqxtDTvPCHDEBMBvRz6LfuE95OLNi9LtCo8sQ67cqoY_mPelak1Oq-5ADiirt0wiZXmdUSXI8Ya_ytdNSNvvNORFPpjAQ5GeK08BbnY11RqerZkKk2pRTYAz8fRDMraNHf5F1ZQW1mfQp6fEMX37myezo7yk3NhYbHLUcX7_PreQaCUYOpasy44QVLBezvyXC4CvWjLP_wg_1nrJ5a4Q1FR0VDa7N717Cij0c38s-HsbT__Pp8pEnuEpGEE8leIS3q3HVWeve7-NQm7iBIk0swX5y_r1P99K4iqvVCKNNeJQ63HUK3rEpU9PlSkLY1Vrzd9mQPCzh7hTsBD60IxExjuOhz-b5rIn1JdD2iC6y2et2eS3y8wSyxqh3G5IU0f5edJIDxWVUSWHl7ldtCNmAzzGbkGB&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "This is not a genuine news story, but a verbatim copy of a satirical article that was first published in April 2017 on the South Africa Morning Post web site:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20171117045246/https://morningpost.co.za/gay-baboon-terror.html" ] }, { "sentence": "A cached version of the page shows that this article was filed under the \"satire\" tag. Furthermore, the description on the web site's Facebook page states that the South Africa Morning Post publishes \"Satire, Entertainment, Rumours and Bizarre stories from South Africa, and sometimes around the world.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.li/iMzj0", "https://www.facebook.com/pg/MorninPostZA/about/?ref=page_internal" ] }, { "sentence": "The person behind the Morning Post also mentioned the \"gay baboon\" article in an interview with the Mail & Guardian Africa. The unidentified writer used the homophobic text as an example of the fake news stories he publishes in order to fund his purportedly genuine journalistic efforts:", "hrefs": [ "https://mgafrica.com/article/2017-07-14-the-zimbabwean-journalist-using-real-news-to-fund-fake-news" ] }, { "sentence": "Finally, we feel it is our responsibility to clear the pictured baboon's name. Although we are unsure who took the photograph, the earliest iteration we could find was posted to the web site Iloho.com by \"oliviam\" in August 2009 and shows a baboon relaxing in not terrorizing Cape Point, South Africa. The photograph was entitled \"Baboon Beauty Queen\":", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20090813065545/https://www.iloho.com:80/landmarks/915-Baboon-Beauty-Queen-South-Africa%20%7C%20Wildlife/pictures/1230" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homicide-victims-with-restraining-orders/", "claim": "Are 20 Percent of Homicide Victims with Restraining Orders Killed Soon After Obtaining Them?", "author": "Arturo Garcia", "posted": "10/15/2018", "sci_digest": [ "An image disseminated online cites part of a 2008 study on domestic violence but omits one key piece of information." ], "justification": "With October marking Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., readers contacted us regarding a graphic circulating online sharing an alarming statistic regarding homicide rates for partners who obtained restraining orders. The graphic, which was unattributed but bore the hashtag #DVAM2018, read as follows: 1/5 of homicide victims with restraining orders are murdered within two days of obtaining the order, 1/3 within the first month. The figures were taken from a 2008 study regarding intimate partner homicides (IPH). Although the data presented in the meme was accurate, it lacked some context provided by the original source and therefore could be potentially misleading when taken in isolation. study According to that study: About 11% of 231 women killed by male intimates had been issued a restraining order. About one-fifth of the female IPH victims who had a restraining order were killed within 2 days of the order being issued; about one-third were killed within a month. Nearly half of those with a restraining order had been protected by multiple orders. Victims killed in a shared residence (versus elsewhere) had lower odds of having a restraining order, whereas victims from rural (versus urban) counties, married (versus dating) victims, and Latino (versus non-Latino) victim-offender dyads had higher odds of having a restraining order. The type of weapon used was not associated with whether the victim had been under the protection of a restraining order. While the numbers used in the meme were quoted accurately, we are rating this item as a Mixture because it doesn't mention that the overwhelming majority of IPH victims reported by the survey who were killed by intimates (89%) did not have restraining orders in place. Omitting this piece of information could create a false impression regarding the effectiveness of restraining or protective orders, and more recent data supports their use as a deterrent against intimate partner violence. A 2011 study published by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire found that the quality of life improved for the 213 women they surveyed who had received civil protective orders. Half the women reported that the orders were not violated, and the majority of respondents reported declines in \"days of distress and sleep loss\" after obtaining those orders. published The report concluded by noting: Not only are civil protective orders effective, but they are relatively low cost, especially when compared with the social and personal costs of partner violence. The effectiveness is particularly relevant for low-income rural women. These women had more personal and social barriers to stopping the violence including higher unemployment and tighter connections to the violent partner. Rural women also had fewer community resources or alternatives available to help them. Therefore, increasing access to civil protective orders should be an important goal in helping victims and their children and in lowering societal costs of partner violence. We contacted Katherine Vittes, the lead researcher for the 2008 study cited in the meme, seeking comment but did not receive a response prior to publication. Vittes, K.A. and S.B. Sorenson. \"Restraining Orders Among Victims of Intimate Partner Homicide.\"\r U.S. National Library of Medicine. June 2008. Logan, T.K. and Robert Walker. \"Civil Protective Orders Effective in Stopping or Reducing Partner Violence.\"\r Carsey School of Public Policy. Spring 2011.", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Qa2vhfpZTwGtdNB77y0cGKJWTRDCr-mV", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The figures were taken from a 2008 study regarding intimate partner homicides (IPH). Although the data presented in the meme was accurate, it lacked some context provided by the original source and therefore could be potentially misleading when taken in isolation.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18523113" ] }, { "sentence": "A 2011 study published by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire found that the quality of life improved for the 213 women they surveyed who had received civil protective orders. Half the women reported that the orders were not violated, and the majority of respondents reported declines in \"days of distress and sleep loss\" after obtaining those orders.", "hrefs": [ "https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1130&context=carsey" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/theres-always-room-for-jlo/", "claim": "Jennifer Lopez Rumor", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "06/27/2001", "sci_digest": [ "Before the opening of Angel Eyes, did Jennifer Lopez demand that all the film's references to her be changed to J.Lo.?" ], "justification": "Claim: Two weeks before the opening of the movie Angel Eyes, Jennifer Lopez demanded that all the film's references to her be changed to \"J.Lo.\" Status: False. Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2001] The following is an amusing exchange of emails between J.Lo's publicist Lucy LeSueur and the head of publicity at Warner Bros (with whom she recently completed the movie Angel Eyes). it follows a faxed request from Lucy to change JL's billing from Jennifer Lopez to J.Lo. Read from top down. From: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.com)To: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)Sent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 2:08 p.m.Subject: RE: \"Angel Eyes\" tweaks Yes, we got your fax...I thought Alan said Jennifer wanted to do anything to promote this movie. Martha HudsonPublicity ManagerWarner Bros. Pictures, International4000 Warner BoulevardBurbank, CA 91522-0001 From: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)To: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comSent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 2:22 p.m.Subject: RE: \"Angel Eyes\" tweaks Of course, she wants to do *anything*. (Thought you said you got the fax.) She merely wants you to meet her halfway. From: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comTo: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)Sent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 2:30 p.m.Subject: RE: \"Angel Eyes\" tweaks Lucy, how can I put this? (I suppose I should phone, but I'm too upset): According to this fax, you're asking us to pull all the one-sheets, posters and prints of the movie in order to bill Jennifer as \"J.Lo\" instead of her fucking God-given name. This is *not* going halfway-unless she intends to pay for the millions out of her own pocket. We are talking here about a movie that opens in two weeks!! The junket is tomorrow!! Are you guys smoking crack over there with Robert Downey? The bottom line (and I've gotbackup on this): She signed onto this project as \"Jennifer Lopez.\" She - so help me - is going to be billed as \"Jennifer Lopez.\" We can't help it if she's decided to get a diva transplant. From: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)To: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comSent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 3:22 p.m.Subject: RE: \"Angel Eyes\" tweaks Okay, I'm going to do you a big favor, Martha. I'm not going to repeat what you just said to J.Lo. But only because I don't want to see her go to jail FOR RIPPING OUT YOUR ORGANS WITH HER BARE HANDS! I simply can't believe the lack of respect here. Maybe you can play these games with \"James\" Caviezel (or is it \"Jim\"? ... Gee, I guess he can't make up his mind, either.) But J.Lo, clearly, is no \"James\"/\"Jim\" Caviezel. She is the world's preeminent female celebrity. She has more talent in her ass than most people have in their tiny finger. J.Lo is not just an actress. She is not just a singer. She is not just a celebrity. She is a movement. (Why do I even have to say this?) She feels extra-determined that \"Jennifer Lopez\" isn't where her movement is at these days. She is \"J.Lo.\" From: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comTo: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)Sent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 3:35 p.m.Subject: RE: \"Angel Eyes\" tweaks Okay, how about this as a compromise: I've seen this critic guy on the Internet. He calls Jennifer \"J.Lo's Magical Butt.\" That enough of a \"movement\" for you? P.S.: I'd like to see \"J.Lo\" try to rip out my organs. I hear my liver would grow back anyway. Which is more than I can say for her movie career after this Piece Of Shit opens. From: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)To: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comSent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 5:05 p.m.Subject: J.Lo ill Miss Hudson:This note is to inform you that J.Lo has taken ill and will be unable to attend Saturday's press junket at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. She respectfully sends her regrets. From: Martha Hudson (martha.hudson@warnerbros.comTo: Lucille LeSueur (lucy@rogerscowan.com)Sent: Friday, May 4, 2001, 5:42 p.m.Subject: RE: J.Lo ill Dearest Lucy: Kiss, kiss. We're sorry to hear about poor Jennifer Lopez. At least we won't blow our kissing-and-fawning budget tomorrow. We'll need it for that Travolta movie [Swordfish] coming up. Origins: This purported e-conversation between Jennifer Lopez's agent and a contact at Warner Bros. began arriving in inboxes in mid-May 2001. Because it fit with images already so strongly internalized (e.g., all media sensations are narcissistic and make impossible demands; all Hollywood agents are more caricature than person), many readers mistook it for an actual private exchange that had somehow leaked to the Internet. Even if one didn't quite catch the broader humor of this piece, however, a few details within it provided clues for the sharp-eyed reader that the whole thing was just a bit of satire: E-mail for the Rogers & Cowan agency goes to rogersandcowan.com addresses, not to rogerscowan.com ones. Mail to lucy@rogerscowan.com bounced like a red rubber ball. Likewise, mail to the martha.hudson@warnerbros.com address was undeliverable. Most telling of all was the purported name of Jennifer Lopez's agent at Rogers & Cowan: Lucille LeSueur. Last we heard from Lucille, she was planted in a mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York, having arrived at that destination in 1977. During her life, she was better known as the wife of Alfred Steele, Chairman of the Board of Pepsi-Cola, until his death in 1959. She also enjoyed some small personal recognition thanks to a lengthy film career under the stage name Joan Crawford. This lively back-and-forth that so entertained the Internet wasn't a real conversation; it was a work of fiction created by an unnamed writer at Ifilm.com which was published on that site under the \"Hell Hath No Fury Like J.Lo's Magical Butt\" on 16 May 2001. published The piece struck all the notes people expect of folks in the film industry. The demand to change Jennifer Lopez's billing to \"J.Lo\" in all Angel Eyes material less than two weeks before the premiere was characterized by the agent as a \"tweak,\" a term used to describe a small change, something so tiny it's barely worth mentioning. The posturing terminology of the agent (\"I simply can't believe the lack of respect here\") also fit the stereotypes, as did the blazing denunciation of the talent's demands (\"We can't help it if she's decided to get a diva transplant\") by the studio representative. But it was the larger presumption, that anyone that talented, famous, successful, and beautiful had to be self-absorbed to the point of insanity, that really fueled it. Long ago, Aesop told the story about the fox who lusted after grapes that hung just out of his reach, only to finally have to give up because they continued to elude his grasp. \"Oh, they were probably sour anyway,\" he said as he slunk away. Two millennia later, we still prefer our grapes sour. Barbara \"makes better whine that way\" Mikkelson Last updated: 10 August 2007 Sources: Davis, Tony and Nick Leys. \"Spike.\" Sydney Morning Herald. 15 June 2001 (p. 22).", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "published on that site under the \"Hell Hath No Fury Like J.Lo's Magical Butt\" on 16 May 2001. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20010609201103/www.ifilm.com/db/static_text/0,1699,17742,00.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pandora-black-lives-matter-protest/", "claim": "Pandora Endorses Black Lives Matter?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/11/2016", "sci_digest": [ "The streaming music service Pandora caused controversy by posting a message using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media." ], "justification": "July 2016 saw a week of high-profile shootings involving police the United States: On 5 July 2016, Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the following day, Philando Castile was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop in Minnesota; and the day after that a sniper shot and killed five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. Alton Sterling Philando Castile police officers On 8 July 2016, the streaming music service Pandora posted a message on social media expressing a feeling of pain and a gesture of support related to those events: posted Although Pandora's post stated that their \"hearts ache for all of those who unfairly lost their lives\" and included the hashtag #LoveAboveAll, their use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to represent the victims of police shootings but not an equivalent hashtag to represent the policemen killed in Dallas (such as #BlueLivesMatter) generated controversy along with calls for boycotts of the music service. That reaction then prompted social media calls for people to subscribe to Pandora as a gesture of support: @pandora_radio and I'm deleting now @pandora_radio Big_Blue_Nate123 (@BlueNate123) July 9, 2016 July 9, 2016 @pandora_radio took a stand, and ppl are pissed....let's support and subscribe! #LoveAboveAll #BlackLivesMatter https://t.co/McvsxAgoAd @pandora_radio #LoveAboveAll #BlackLivesMatter https://t.co/McvsxAgoAd Olivia X (@EsSeNCeofaDiVa) July 11, 2016 July 11, 2016 Social media messages expressing anger over Pandora's message often asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement is anti-police, or that the movement was responsible for the shooting of police in Dallas. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza attempted to dispel these rumors during an appearance on All in with Chris Hayes: attempted Black Lives Matter has never, ever called for the murder of police officers, Garza told Hayes. What we have said over and over again is that it is time in this country for policing to be accountable, transparent and responsible. Thats not rhetoric. That is what communities in the United States want to see from the people who protect and serve them. And so quite frankly, we can, at the same time as we grieve the loss of life of several officers who were killed last night, we can also push to demand that there be accountable, responsive, transparent policing that has oversight form communities and that is accountable to the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. Garza added that Black Lives Matter isnt concerned with inciting more violence in fact, the movement condemns it but with tearing down the assumption that black people are criminals. We are not anti-police, she declared. We are anti our people being murdered in the streets. What happened to Alton Sterling, what happened to Philando, what happens to so many black people in our communities is absolutely unacceptable, and I think thats something that we can all agree on. Ironically, those upset over Pandora's message announced that they would be boycotting the streaming music service on Facebook, even though Facebook openly expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement by erecting a Black Lives Matter sign outside their headquarters in Menlo Park, California: support ", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1HUTDDuQCZDTZSxQypMXDDyZ77mhXhIRT", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1N2gqTqYOtoTKn1rw1Ejg_pqgVDW2X9fl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "July 2016 saw a week of high-profile shootings involving police the United States: On 5 July 2016, Alton Sterling was shot and killed by police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the following day, Philando Castile was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop in Minnesota; and the day after that a sniper shot and killed five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/alton-sterling-arrest-record/", "https://www.snopes.com/philando-castile-was-not-wanted-for-armed-robbery/", "https://www.snopes.com/2016/07/07/dallas-protests-end-with-shots-fired-officers-down/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 8 July 2016, the streaming music service Pandora posted a message on social media expressing a feeling of pain and a gesture of support related to those events:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/Pandora/photos/a.10150176031676344.302550.5919726343/10153728155201344/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "@pandora_radio and I'm deleting now", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/pandora_radio" ] }, { "sentence": " Big_Blue_Nate123 (@BlueNate123) July 9, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/BlueNate123/status/751576434737426432" ] }, { "sentence": "@pandora_radio took a stand, and ppl are pissed....let's support and subscribe! #LoveAboveAll #BlackLivesMatter https://t.co/McvsxAgoAd", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/pandora_radio", "https://twitter.com/hashtag/LoveAboveAll?src=hash", "https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash", "https://t.co/McvsxAgoAd" ] }, { "sentence": " Olivia X (@EsSeNCeofaDiVa) July 11, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/EsSeNCeofaDiVa/status/752507479007821824" ] }, { "sentence": "Social media messages expressing anger over Pandora's message often asserted that the Black Lives Matter movement is anti-police, or that the movement was responsible for the shooting of police in Dallas. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza attempted to dispel these rumors during an appearance on All in with Chris Hayes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-dallas-shooting_us_578105c4e4b0344d514f834c?5xhgifbcetdx9lik9" ] }, { "sentence": "Ironically, those upset over Pandora's message announced that they would be boycotting the streaming music service on Facebook, even though Facebook openly expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement by erecting a Black Lives Matter sign outside their headquarters in Menlo Park, California:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-headquarters-black-lives-matter-sign/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/proposed-tax-changes/", "claim": "Proposed adjustments to tax policies", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "07/16/2008", "sci_digest": [ "E-mail compares proposed changes in taxes after the 2008 presidential election." ], "justification": "Claim: E-mail compares proposed changes in taxes after the 2008 presidential election. Status: False. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] This is something you should be aware of so you don't get blind-sided. This is really going to catch a lot of families off guard. It should make you worry. Proposed changes in taxes after 2008 General election: CAPITAL GAINS TAX MCCAIN: 0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax. OBAMA: 28% on profit from ALL home sales How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income. DIVIDEND TAX MCCAIN: 15% (no change) OBAMA: 39.6% How will this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama become president. The experts predict that 'higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit. INCOME TAX MCCAIN (no changes) Single making 30K - tax $4,500Single making 50K - tax $12,500Single making 75K - tax $18,750 Married making 60K - tax $9,000Married making 75K - tax $18,750Married making 125K - tax $31,250 OBAMA: (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts) Single making 30K - tax $8,400Single making 50K - tax $14,000Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Married making 60K - tax $16,800Married making 75K - tax $21,000Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Under Obama your taxes will more than double! How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty straight forward. INHERITANCE TAX MCCAIN: 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax) OBAMA: Restore the inheritance tax How does this affect you? Many families have lost businesses, farms and ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will not only lose them to these taxes. NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA * New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet * New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already) * New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity) * New taxes on retirement accounts and last but not least.... * New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!! Origins: Every recent presidential election cycle has brought e-mailed forwards that paint the Democratic candidate as a proponent of a \"tax and spend\" philosophy (who will inevitably implement significant tax increases on taxpayers across all income levels) and present the Republican candidate as a model of fiscal conservatism, and the example quoted above fits this pattern. However, this example is off the mark both in its broad strokes and in its particulars. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the candidates' proposed tax changes, the primary difference between them would be distributional, with Senator Obama's proposals favoring lower-income taxpayers and Senator McCain's favoring higher-income taxpayers: analysis McCain: The average taxpayer in every income group would see a lower tax bill, but high-income taxpayers would benefit more than everyone else. Obama: High-income taxpayers would pay more in taxes, while everyone else's tax bill would be reduced. Those who benefit the most in terms of reducing their taxes as a percentage of after-tax income are in the lowest income groups. The statements made about the candidates' proposals for changes in specific taxes (or implementation of new taxes) are also all erroneous or grossly misleading. as we note below: CAPITAL GAINS TAX MCCAIN: 0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax. OBAMA: 28% on profit from ALL home sales The statement that Senator Obama proposes instituting a 28% tax \"on profit from ALL home sales\" is false. Both candidates' proposals would leave intact an existing capital gains exemption for the first $500,000 per household of profit from the sale of a primary residence. Homeowners who realize a profit higher than the current exemption amount from the sale of their primary residences might pay more capital gains tax under an Obama presidency than they would now, but those instances currently constitute a very small minority of all home sales. (For the purposes of this article, the term \"per household\" refers to married couples who file taxes jointly.) The mention of Obama's imposing a 28% capital gains tax as president is also misleading. Senator Obama has indicated he would likely raise the capital gains tax rate, but he has not specified by how much the 28% figure is a previous (i.e., pre-Bush) capital gains tax rate which Obama stated he would certainly not exceed while noting that his capital gains tax rate would likely be \"significantly lower\": Q: How do you plan to change the tax code when it comes to capital gains? How high will that 15 percent rate go? A: Well, you know, I haven't given a firm number. Here's my belief, that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was the 28 percent. I would and my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15 percent. The Tax Plan Fact Sheet posted on Obama's web site says that he will \"create a new top capital gains rate of 20 percent.\" Tax Plan DIVIDEND TAX MCCAIN: 15% (no change) OBAMA: 39.6% The notion that Senator Obama is proposing raising the tax rate on dividend income from its current 15% level to a 39.6% is unfounded. Obama has proposed taxing dividends at the same rate as capital gains, and although he hasn't yet specified a figure for the latter, he has already stated (as noted above) that he \"certainly would not go above\" 28%. Also, the proposed increase would only affect households with income of more than $250,000 per year (a figure that encompasses about 2% of U.S. households.) INCOME TAX MCCAIN: (no changes) Single making 30K - tax $4,500Single making 50K - tax $12,500Single making 75K - tax $18,750 Married making 60K - tax $9,000Married making 75K - tax $18,750Married making 125K - tax $31,250 OBAMA: (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts) Single making 30K - tax $8,400Single making 50K - tax $14,000Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Married making 60K - tax $16,800Married making 75K - tax $21,000Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Under Obama your taxes will more than double! This is an erroneous interpretation of federal income tax rates based on the premise that Senator McCain favors extending the temporary tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003, while Senator Obama does not. However, both senators said they would favor extending those tax cuts; the difference is that Senator Obama said he would not favor extending the tax cuts for households with incomes of $250,000 or more per year. Since none of the tax tables listed above applies to that income level, their inclusion is irrelevant and misleading. As noted at the head of this article, taxpayers in the brackets covered by these tables would likely see a greater reduction in taxes under Senator Obama's proposals than under Senator McCain's, an outcome reflected in the Tax Policy Center'sestimate of how the average tax bill could change in 2009 under each candidate's proposals: estimate INHERITANCE TAX MCCAIN: 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax) OBAMA: Restore the inheritance tax Pretty much everything asserted about the inheritance tax (also referred to as \"death tax\" or \"estate tax\") in these few short statements that President Bush repealed it, that Senator McCain would maintain it at 0%, and that Senator Obama would \"restore\" it is wrong. In general, estate tax currently applies only to estates valued at more than $2 million and tops out at a 45% rate. The exclusion amount is already set to rise to $3.5 million in 2009, followed by a repeal of the estate tax in 2010, and then a reinstatement of the estate tax in 2011 with the exclusion amount reverting back to $1 million and the tax rate topping out at 55%. repeal Senator McCain has proposed raising the estate tax exclusion amount to $5 million and setting a maximum estate tax rate of 15%, while Senator Obama has proposed raising the estate tax exclusion amount to $3.5 million and maintaining the maximum estate tax rate at its current 45% level. NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY OBAMA * New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet * New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already) * New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity) * New taxes on retirement accounts and last but not least.... * New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!! Three of these five statements are completely erroneous: Senator Obama has not proposed a tax on \"homes that are more than 2,400 square feet,\" any \"new gasoline taxes,\" or \"new taxes on retirement accounts.\" The phrase \"taxes on natural resources consumption\" presumably refers to Senator Obama's \"cap and trade\" proposal for reducing carbon emissions, a proposal which would likely impose additional costs on polluters but isn't technically a \"tax\": cap and trade Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama's cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies. Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development of clean energy, to invest in energy efficiency improvements, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition. As for \"new taxes to pay for socialized medicine,\" Senator Obama has proposed funding his health care plan through additional revenues generated by not extending the Bush administration's temporary tax cuts for persons making more than $250,000 per year. Whether allowing a portion of already-scheduled expiration of temporary tax cuts to take place really constitutes \"new taxes\" is a matter of semantics. health care Last updated: 16 July 2008 Sources: Sahadi, Jeanne. \"What They'll Do to Your Tax Bill.\" CNNMoney.com. 11 June 2008. Sahadi, Jeanne. \"What Obama Means by Tax the Wealthy.\" CNNMoney.com. 28 June 2008. Closing Bell. \"Maria Bartiromo Speaks with Senator Barack Obama.\" CNBC. 27 March 2008.", "issues": [ "stock market" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, this example is off the mark both in its broad strokes and in its particulars. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the candidates' proposed tax changes, the primary difference between them would be distributional, with Senator Obama's proposals favoring lower-income taxpayers and Senator McCain's favoring higher-income taxpayers:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411693_CandidateTaxPlans.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The Tax Plan Fact Sheet posted on Obama's web site says that he will \"create a new top capital gains rate of 20 percent.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.barackobama.com/pdf/taxes/Factsheet_Tax_Plan_FINAL.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "This is an erroneous interpretation of federal income tax rates based on the premise that Senator McCain favors extending the temporary tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003, while Senator Obama does not. However, both senators said they would favor extending those tax cuts; the difference is that Senator Obama said he would not favor extending the tax cuts for households with incomes of $250,000 or more per year. Since none of the tax tables listed above applies to that income level, their inclusion is irrelevant and misleading. As noted at the head of this article, taxpayers in the brackets covered by these tables would likely see a greater reduction in taxes under Senator Obama's proposals than under Senator McCain's, an outcome reflected in the Tax Policy Center'sestimate of how the average tax bill could change in 2009 under each candidate's proposals:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html" ] }, { "sentence": "In general, estate tax currently applies only to estates valued at more than $2 million and tops out at a 45% rate. The exclusion amount is already set to rise to $3.5 million in 2009, followed by a repeal of the estate tax in 2010, and then a reinstatement of the estate tax in 2011 with the exclusion amount reverting back to $1 million and the tax rate topping out at 55%. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fitzwatermeyer.com/practice/estateplanning/estategift.cfm" ] }, { "sentence": "The phrase \"taxes on natural resources consumption\" presumably refers to Senator Obama's \"cap and trade\" proposal for reducing carbon emissions, a proposal which would likely impose additional costs on polluters but isn't technically a \"tax\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/#reduce-carbon-emissions" ] }, { "sentence": "As for \"new taxes to pay for socialized medicine,\" Senator Obama has proposed funding his health care plan through additional revenues generated by not extending the Bush administration's temporary tax cuts for persons making more than $250,000 per year. Whether allowing a portion of already-scheduled expiration of temporary tax cuts to take place really constitutes \"new taxes\" is a matter of semantics.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Obama08_HealthcareFAQ.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-mortality-statistics/", "claim": "Did CDC 'Quietly Update' COVID-19 Deaths To Say Only 6% Are Legitimate?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "09/03/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A rumor downplaying the seriousness of the deadly virus was promoted by a group of people that included U.S. President Donald Trump" ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In attempt to ring the alarm on supposed deceptive practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hard-line conservatives including U.S. President Donald Trump promoted the idea in August 2020 that the public health agency suddenly changed its methods for reporting COVID-19 mortality statistics. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention And as a result, viral social media posts alleged, America only tallied about 9,000 COVID-19 fatalities, or roughly 6% of the more than 150,000 deaths widely reported by politicians, scientists, and news reporters. Many believers, including conspiracy theorist Jeff Berwick, dubbed the alleged change by the CDC evidence that people other than his followers were exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic, and that everyone should be skeptical of rules on social distancing that halt the economy. In a Sept. 1 video, for example, he said: \"It's been proven by the CDC [the pandemic] is nothing, it was absolutely nothing. Zero. 9,000 people? That's nothing.\" video, Numerous readers asked Snopes to investigate the matter. Several inquiries included a link to the hyperpartisan, junk news website The Gateway Pundit, or a link to another conspiratorial web page that phrased the alleged revelation like this: link The Gateway Pundit web page \"The CDC quietly released new covid numbers showing those who solely died from the virus was only 6% (9,210) of the total deaths (153,504). 94% of those who died, did so because they had existing health conditions.\" Additionally, The Gateway Pundit page claimed, \"the overwhelming majority\" of reported COVID-19 deaths were among \"very old Americans\" without going into specifics on what age population that meant and suggested nefarious intentions on the part of the CDC to try to change its guidance without anyone noticing. Versions of this notion circulated widely online in summer 2020, in part because of support from American politicians such as Trump. In two retweets one by his campaign adviser that linked to the Gateway Pundit page and another by a supporter of the unfounded QAnon conspiracy theory (screenshot below) Trump endorsed the claim, essentially denigrating scientific evidence by his own health advisers, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. However, as of this writing, Twitter had removed the below-displayed post for violating its terms of service. American politicians Trump his campaign adviser QAnon conspiracy theory terms of service First, to unpack the claim, let's be clear about how COVID-19 which is the disease caused by the coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV-2 attacks the body and can become deadly. According to an article in the journal Science, a highly credible scientific publication: article Once inside, the virus hijacks the cells machinery, making myriad copies of itself and invading new cells. As the virus multiplies, an infected person may shed copious amounts of it, especially during the first week or so. Symptoms may be absent at this point. Or the virus new victim may develop a fever, dry cough, sore throat, loss of smell and taste, or head and body aches. If the immune system doesnt beat back SARS-CoV-2 during this initial phase, the virus then marches down the windpipe to attack the lungs, where it can turn deadly. In other words, SARS-CoV-2 attacks lung cells, and that assault on a person's respiratory system can greatly exacerbate other preexisting conditions. That means COVID-19 patients run the risk of previously manageable health problems turning fatal including cardiac arrest, liver failure, or lung scarring after they're infected with SARS-CoV-2. Put another way, Ryan McNamara, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in a series of tweets compared the SARS-CoV-2 virus with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. He wrote: series of tweets After years of (HIV) virus spread, and in the absence of treatment, a patient infected with HIV will develop AIDS. [...] During this state of HIV progression, white blood cells called T-cells are depleted. This can allow co-infecting pathogens to spread unchecked or tumor cells to grow & metastasize. Hence pneumonia & AIDS-associated cancers are leading causes of death in HIV+ patients. Next, we investigated how the CDC compiles COVID-19 death toll data. Since the viral posts did not specify what \"numbers\" by the CDC to which they were alleging nefariousness, we considered the CDC's Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) web page, which is a compilation of death certificates updated weekly by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Additionally, we obtained an April 2020 document by the World Health Organization titled, \"International Guidelines For Certification and Classification (Coding) of COVID-19 As Cause of Death,\" which stated that medical examiners must include as much detail as possible based on records and lab testing when they're filling out death certificates. For example, a death certification for a patient who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and afterwards developed pneumonia and fatal respiratory distress would list all three conditions as causes of death (see example below). document The document also said death certificates for people who suffered from chronic conditions, such as coronary artery disease or diabetes, before their exposure to the coronavirus would list those conditions in addition to COVID-19. The coronavirus would still be labeled the underlying cause of death or the disease that initiated the train of events leading directly to death,\" per the WHO's definition since the preexisting health issues were likely exacerbated by the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. definition Next, we considered the CDC's process for analyzing those death certificates that list COVID-19. Its website explained: explained: When a person dies, the cause of death is determined by the certifier the physician, medical examiner, or coroner who reports it on the death certificate. States register all death certificates and send them to [NCHS], where they are used to produce the nations official death statistics. [...] When COVID-19 is reported as a cause of death on the death certificate, it is coded and counted as a death due to COVID-19. COVID-19 should not be reported on the death certificate if it did not cause or contribute to the death. [...] Complete means describing a clear chain of events from the immediate to the underlying cause of death, reporting any other conditions that contributed to death, and providing information that is specific. In short, the CDC compiles mortality statistics that are based on all possible causes of death for one individual. So if a diabetes patient with high blood pressure was infected with COVID-19 which can target blood vessels and they die because their blood vessels were already so damaged, the CDC would consider their death related to both the coronavirus and diabetes. (According to the CDC database of death certificate data, that was the case for more than 27,500 people.) data As of this writing, the CDC last updated its mortality statistics on Sept. 3, 2020. At that point, the agency said 171,787 death certificates included COVID-19 since the beginning of the U.S. outbreak in February 2020. And alongside the coronavirus, the majority of documents also listed comorbidities, or additional health issues that can either worsen or develop after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. For instance, 71,700 included influenza or pneumonia and COVID-19 as potential causes of death. However, fueling the conspiracy theory, the CDC web page stated: \"For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause [of death] mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.\" That meant, yes, medical investigators believed only 6% of COVID-19 patients died from the coronavirus alone. Those patients had no reported comorbidities. However, it was dangerously wrong to misinterpret that fact to mean that the remaining fatalities (or 94 percent) died from health issues other than the coronavirus. Rather, most people's underlying cause of death was COVID-19 and the virus either intensified or caused other illnesses that contributed to patients' death. Note: The \"6%\" claim was not the first attempt by COVID-19 conspiracy theorists to allege without any substantial evidence that the CDC was nefariously compiling data to trick people into thinking the coronavirus was more serious than it actually is. In spring 2020, for instance, they attempted to ring the alarm on the agency supposedly inflating COVID-19 death numbers for political reasons, but in reality the alleged discrepancy was a result of comparing two separate data sources that report different measurements. (See our analysis into that claim here.) here The death certification statistics, in short, prove that people with preexisting health problems such as asthma or hypertension face higher risk for serious illness, or dying, if they're infected with COVID-19, according to Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS. He said in a statement to NBC News: \"These data are consistent with CDC guidance that those with underlying medical conditions are at greater risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19.\" NBC News: Additionally, Fauci explained the phenomena in a Sept. 1 interview on the ABC program \"Good Morning America: Sept. 1 interview The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of [COVID-19 deaths] had nothing else but just COVID. That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn't die of COVID-19 they did. So the numbers that you've been hearing the 180,000-plus deaths are real deaths from COVID-19. ...It's not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. Next, we found data to address another aspect of the fringe theory: that the \"overwhelming majority\" of reported COVID-19 deaths were among people of a \"very advanced age.\" For the purpose of this report, we considered that group to be people aged 85 or older. And according to the CDC death certificate data, 53,000 documents for that population listed COVID-19 as a potential cause of death, accounting for about one-third of the total, or less than the majority. We should note here: Epidemiologists and health officials have been up front with the fact that COVID-19 patients who are older as well as those who have underlying health problems are at greater risk for serious problems. \"As you get older, your risk of being hospitalized for COVID-19 increases. Everyone, especially older adults and others at increased risk of severe illness, should take steps to protect themselves from getting COVID-19,\" according to the CDC. Eight out of 10 people who have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S. were over the age of 65, per the agency's data. the CDC Lastly, we looked for any evidence to confirm or deny that the CDC attempted to \"quietly\" adjust its mortality statistics under the public's radar. Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS, told NBC News in a statement the death certificate data does not represent new information as NCHS has been publishing this same information since the outset when we began posting data on COVID-19 deaths on our web site. NBC News In sum, considering the way in which the coronavirus impacts the human body, the way the CDC compiles data from death certificates listing comorbidities that were either developed or exacerbated by COVID-19 as well as the fact that one-third of COVID-19 fatalities were people aged 85 or older, we rate this claim The Dollar Vigilante. \"Shocking Admission: CDC Says Over 90% of Deaths Weren't COVAIDS19 and 90% of Tests False Positives.\"\r LBRY. Accessed 2 September 2020. Hoft, Joe. \"SHOCK REPORT: This Week CDC Quietly Updated COVID-19 Numbers Only 9,210 Americans Died From COVID-19 Alone - Rest Had Different Other Serious Illnesses.\"\r The Gateway Pundit. 29 August 2020. Dale, Daniel, and Gumbrecht, Jamie. \"Twitter Removes QAnon Supporter's False Claims About Coronavirus Death Statistics That Trump Had Retweeted.\"\r CNN. 31 August 2020. Factba.se. \"Donald Trump - Deleted Tweets.\"\r Accessed 2 September 2020. Saving the Republic. \"Updated CDC Covid Numbers Show Only 6% of Total US Deaths Actually Died Solely From Virus.\"\r Accessed 2 September 2020. ABC News. \"Dr. Fauci Weighs in on 6M US Coronavirus Cases, Deaths and CoMorbidity.\"\r Accessed 2 September 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \"National Center for Health Statistics,\"\r Accessed 2 September 2020. Flagg, Anna. \"Mounting US Deaths Reveal An Outsize Toll On People Of Color.\"\r The Associated Press. 21 August 2020. World Health Organization. \"Violence And Injury Prevention.\"\r Accessed September 3 2020.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1CDkLPhOBGp2zvJYTM6Mc6E__0ZSC6C20", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VsWN-MFWRS9Kiq3FB46i_hdHXtqNW-FF", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1IIGtjIkRAVVBNq0xObFtnDFXNVD-pFuG", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In attempt to ring the alarm on supposed deceptive practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hard-line conservatives including U.S. President Donald Trump promoted the idea in August 2020 that the public health agency suddenly changed its methods for reporting COVID-19 mortality statistics.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/report-patient-impact.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Many believers, including conspiracy theorist Jeff Berwick, dubbed the alleged change by the CDC evidence that people other than his followers were exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic, and that everyone should be skeptical of rules on social distancing that halt the economy. In a Sept. 1 video, for example, he said: \"It's been proven by the CDC [the pandemic] is nothing, it was absolutely nothing. Zero. 9,000 people? That's nothing.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://lbry.tv/@DollarVigilante:b/SHOCKING-ADMISSION-by-CDC:9" ] }, { "sentence": "Numerous readers asked Snopes to investigate the matter. Several inquiries included a link to the hyperpartisan, junk news website The Gateway Pundit, or a link to another conspiratorial web page that phrased the alleged revelation like this:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/shock-report-week-cdc-quietly-updated-covid-19-numbers-9210-americans-died-covid-19-alone-rest-serious-illnesses/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=PostTopSharingB", "https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/shock-report-week-cdc-quietly-updated-covid-19-numbers-9210-americans-died-covid-19-alone-rest-serious-illnesses/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=PostTopSharingB", "https://savingtherepublic.com/blog/2020/08/updated-cdc-covid-numbers/" ] }, { "sentence": "Versions of this notion circulated widely online in summer 2020, in part because of support from American politicians such as Trump. In two retweets one by his campaign adviser that linked to the Gateway Pundit page and another by a supporter of the unfounded QAnon conspiracy theory (screenshot below) Trump endorsed the claim, essentially denigrating scientific evidence by his own health advisers, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. However, as of this writing, Twitter had removed the below-displayed post for violating its terms of service.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/09/02/skeptical-ernst-suggests-covid-numbers-are-inflated/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-death-figures/?collection-id=238766", "https://twitter.com/JennaEllisEsq/status/1299946852544999424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1299946852544999424%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F08%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-protests-violence-coronavirus.html", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/08/21/qanon-2020-election/", "https://twitter.com/en/tos" ] }, { "sentence": "First, to unpack the claim, let's be clear about how COVID-19 which is the disease caused by the coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV-2 attacks the body and can become deadly. According to an article in the journal Science, a highly credible scientific publication:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes" ] }, { "sentence": "In other words, SARS-CoV-2 attacks lung cells, and that assault on a person's respiratory system can greatly exacerbate other preexisting conditions. That means COVID-19 patients run the risk of previously manageable health problems turning fatal including cardiac arrest, liver failure, or lung scarring after they're infected with SARS-CoV-2. Put another way, Ryan McNamara, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in a series of tweets compared the SARS-CoV-2 virus with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS. He wrote:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Ryan_Mac_Phd/status/1300422612409966594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1300422612409966594%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2020%2F9%2F1%2F21410352%2Fcdc-6-percent-covid-19-deaths-comorbidities" ] }, { "sentence": "Next, we investigated how the CDC compiles COVID-19 death toll data. Since the viral posts did not specify what \"numbers\" by the CDC to which they were alleging nefariousness, we considered the CDC's Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) web page, which is a compilation of death certificates updated weekly by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Additionally, we obtained an April 2020 document by the World Health Organization titled, \"International Guidelines For Certification and Classification (Coding) of COVID-19 As Cause of Death,\" which stated that medical examiners must include as much detail as possible based on records and lab testing when they're filling out death certificates. For example, a death certification for a patient who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and afterwards developed pneumonia and fatal respiratory distress would list all three conditions as causes of death (see example below).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/Guidelines_Cause_of_Death_COVID-19.pdf?ua=1" ] }, { "sentence": "The document also said death certificates for people who suffered from chronic conditions, such as coronary artery disease or diabetes, before their exposure to the coronavirus would list those conditions in addition to COVID-19. The coronavirus would still be labeled the underlying cause of death or the disease that initiated the train of events leading directly to death,\" per the WHO's definition since the preexisting health issues were likely exacerbated by the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/surveillance/databases/mortality/en/" ] }, { "sentence": "Next, we considered the CDC's process for analyzing those death certificates that list COVID-19. Its website explained:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/covid-19.htm#understanding-the-numbers" ] }, { "sentence": "In short, the CDC compiles mortality statistics that are based on all possible causes of death for one individual. So if a diabetes patient with high blood pressure was infected with COVID-19 which can target blood vessels and they die because their blood vessels were already so damaged, the CDC would consider their death related to both the coronavirus and diabetes. (According to the CDC database of death certificate data, that was the case for more than 27,500 people.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Note: The \"6%\" claim was not the first attempt by COVID-19 conspiracy theorists to allege without any substantial evidence that the CDC was nefariously compiling data to trick people into thinking the coronavirus was more serious than it actually is. In spring 2020, for instance, they attempted to ring the alarm on the agency supposedly inflating COVID-19 death numbers for political reasons, but in reality the alleged discrepancy was a result of comparing two separate data sources that report different measurements. (See our analysis into that claim here.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-death-figures/" ] }, { "sentence": "The death certification statistics, in short, prove that people with preexisting health problems such as asthma or hypertension face higher risk for serious illness, or dying, if they're infected with COVID-19, according to Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS. He said in a statement to NBC News: \"These data are consistent with CDC guidance that those with underlying medical conditions are at greater risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/01/fauci-debunks-theories-of-low-cdc-coronavirus-death-toll-there-are-180000-plus-deaths-in-us.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Additionally, Fauci explained the phenomena in a Sept. 1 interview on the ABC program \"Good Morning America:", "hrefs": [ "https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/dr-fauci-weighs-6m-us-coronavirus-cases-deaths-72744993" ] }, { "sentence": "\"As you get older, your risk of being hospitalized for COVID-19 increases. Everyone, especially older adults and others at increased risk of severe illness, should take steps to protect themselves from getting COVID-19,\" according to the CDC. Eight out of 10 people who have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S. were over the age of 65, per the agency's data.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html#:~:text=The%20greatest%20risk%20for%20severe,as%20having%20underlying%20medical%20conditions." ] }, { "sentence": "Lastly, we looked for any evidence to confirm or deny that the CDC attempted to \"quietly\" adjust its mortality statistics under the public's radar. Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS, told NBC News in a statement the death certificate data does not represent new information as NCHS has been publishing this same information since the outset when we began posting data on COVID-19 deaths on our web site. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/01/fauci-debunks-theories-of-low-cdc-coronavirus-death-toll-there-are-180000-plus-deaths-in-us.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/form-of-theft/", "claim": "IRS Form Scam", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "05/12/2002", "sci_digest": [ "Are con artists circulating letters demanding the completion of fake IRS forms that would arm them with all the information necessary to steal the identities and empty the bank accounts of those who f" ], "justification": "Claim: Con artists are circulating letters demanding the completion of fake IRS forms that would arm them with all the information necessary to steal the identities and empty the bank accounts of those who fall for this ruse. Status: True. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] The IRS issued a warning of an identity theft scam that uses a phony form and an official looking letter from a bank. The letter states that the bank is updating its records in order to exempt the taxpayer from reporting interest income or having tax withheld at 31 percent on the interest paid on the taxpayer's account. The letter askes that customers submit the enclosed phony Form W-9095. This is a scam. There is no IRS Form W-9095. This is only an attempt to gain personal information from unsuspecting taxpayers. The Internal Revenue Service is sounding the alarm about a fraudulent scheme that uses fictitious bank correspondence and IRS forms to try to trick taxpayers into disclosing personal and bank account information. Con artists use the information to steal the taxpayer's identity and bank account deposits. Reports of the scam have surfaced from coast-to-coast. Dozens of victims have been identified. In the scam, a letter is sent out claiming to be from the taxpayer's bank. It states that the \"bank\" is updating its records in order to exempt the taxpayer from reporting interest or having tax withheld on interest paid on bank accounts or other financial dealings. Legally, banks must report interest to the IRS and taxpayers must include it as income. The scam \"bank\" correspondence encloses a phony IRS form for personal and financial data. The letter urges the recipient to fax the completed form to a specific number within seven days or lose the reporting and withholding exemption, resulting in withholding of 31 percent on the account's interest. The scheme promoters then use the faxed information to impersonate the taxpayer and gain access to the taxpayer's finances. One such phony form is labeled \"W-9095, Application Form for Certificate Status/Ownership for Withholding Tax.\" It requests personal data frequently used to prove identity, such as a passport number and mother's maiden name. It also asks for sensitive financial data such as bank account numbers, passwords and PIN numbers. The fictitious W-9095 appears to be an attempt to mimic the genuine IRS Form W-9, \"Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification.\" The only personal information a genuine W-9 requests is the name, address and Social Security number or employer identification number of the taxpayer. Variations: In December 2008, the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada's tax department, formerly Revenue Canada) issued a warning about a similar scheme being run on Canadian taxpayers. warning Origins: In April 2002, a new ruse designed to trick victims into giving out personal information that could lead to identity theft was unleashed on the unsuspecting throughout the USA. It arrived in the form of fake Internal Revenue Service forms which appeared to have been mailed by taxpayers' banks. Here's how the scam worked: An account holder would receive a letter on bank stationery requesting information for the purpose of reporting earnings to the Internal Revenue Service. Attached to the letter would be a fake IRS form identified as W-9095. The phony document was based on a valid IRS form called a W-9 and thus would look passingly familiar to those accustomed to dealing with IRS forms. Those less familiar with tax forms would still be taken in by the ruse because the phony request for detailed information appeared genuine. The letter would say the recipient must return the completed by fax within seven days or the government would withhold 31% of the interest on his bank accounts. The happy prospect of keeping one-third of the taxpayer's earned interest out of the government's hands and the fear-inspiring impetus of having to act quickly (within seven days, remember) would imbue this combination of promise and threat with an untold power to persuade, one that would likely temporarily blind the victim to what was really going on. The real form (the W-9) doesn't ask for account numbers, but the bogus form (the W-9095) did. It also asked for marital status, place of birth, parents' names, bank account number, passport information, work history, and passwords; in other words, just about everything a con artist would need to financially impersonate the victim. Similar fake forms were labeled W-88BEN and W-8888. (Banks use a legitimate W-88BEN to confirm non-U.S. customers can remain exempt from tax reporting requirements, but the real W-88BEN does not ask for the depth of taxpayer information the fake one did.) There's no way of telling how many folks have fallen for this trick or what the provision of their private information cost them in cold hard currency, but it doesn't take great imagination to picture what use any halfway skilled swindler could put such information to. Armed with all the completed forms gave, it would be child's play to empty bank accounts and apply for charge cards and loans in the pigeon's name. This con contains the potential to be highly effective because little about it looks out of place or obviously wrong. Folks trust their banks (they leave their money there, after all), so letters from such bastions of trust asking recipients to complete yet another tax form won't be greeted with skepticism, especially when those letters also contain the news that doing so is eminently to the benefit of the account holders. Likewise, that an IRS form would ask for everything short of shoe size wouldn't strike many as in any way unusual. About the only part of the transaction that might cause an eyebrow or two to be lifted is the insistence that the completed forms be faxed to the IRS rather than returned by mail. Yet once again, in a world now accustomed to the notion that personal tax returns can be e-filed with taxpayers' signatures faxed in support of the electronically transferred returns, faxing doesn't seem terribly out of place. It always pays to be wary. Make the time to call your bank when asked for such information, even if it appears it's the IRS doing the asking. Better to waste five minutes on the phone convincing your bank that you're an idiot than keeping those five minutes to yourself and proving that you are. Those who have received questionable documents that purported to be from the IRS or who have completed such forms and faxed them off should call 1-800-829-0433, the IRS hotline. They should also contact the various credit bureaus to alert them that their identities might have been stolen and to be on the look out for newly acquired charge cards under their name. Barbara \"credit carded\" Mikkelson Additional information: 2002 Alerts (Controller of the Currency Administrator of National Banks) Last updated: 3 February 2010 Sources: Caldwell, Bert. \"Fake IRS Forms Sent to Taxpayers.\" The [Spokane] Spokesman-Review. 3 May 2002 (p. A12). Hadley, Jane. \"New Mail Scam Aims to Steal Your Identity and Money.\" The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 2 May 2002 (p. A1). Stefanova, Kristina. \"Scam's Scope National: Form Targets Bank Account Holders.\" The Washington Times. 12 April 2002. Svaldi, Aldo. \"Identity-Theft Scam Uses Fake IRS Form, Feds Say.\" The Denver Post. 30 April 2002 (p. C1). The Associated Press. \"Fake IRS Form Part of Identity Scam.\" 13 April 2002. [Greensboro] News & Record. \"Fake IRS Form Seeks Personal Information.\" 14 April 2002 (p. B2). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. \"Your Money: Tax Fraud.\" 6 May 2002 (p. B3). The Washington Post. \"After Getting Blasted By S . . . .\" 5 May 2002 (p. H4).", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Variations: In December 2008, the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada's tax department, formerly Revenue Canada) issued a warning about a similar scheme being run on Canadian taxpayers. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/lrts/2008/l080818-eng.html" ] }, { "sentence": " 2002 Alerts (Controller of the Currency Administrator of National Banks)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.occ.treas.gov/altlst02.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/jul/23/rachel-maddow/rachel-maddow-and-marco-rubio-come-out-swinging-cl/", "claim": "Marco Rubio's economic proposals will add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit.", "author": "Aaron Sharockman", "posted": "07/23/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Liberal MSNBC television host Rachel Maddow and conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio are engaging in a multimedia tit-for-tat over tax cuts and the federal deficit.All set to a background of peppy elevator music, winks and clever one-liners.We're not kidding.The back and forth started on July 14, 2010, when Maddow decided to poke fun at Rubio's 12 Simple Ways To Grow Our Economy. She noted, correctly, that most of the ideas are ripped straight from the Republican playbook.Extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Repeal the estate tax. Repeal the federal health care legislation. Fight cap and trade.Maddow criticized the ideas as failing to consider the GOP's (and Rubio's) other golden rule -- thou shall not increase the deficit.Republicans want to be the anti-deficit and anti-debt party right now, but they also want to run on George Bush's tax policies, Maddow said. And that is the giant awkwardness at the heart of Republicanism right now. Because George W. Bush's tax policies did to the deficit what the 'I only eat fried cheese' diet does to your cholesterol.The Maddow rant got a reaction from the Rubio campaign two days later, in a web ad set to that peppy elevator music we talked about.On Tuesday, Marco Rubio announced 12 simple ways to grow the economy and create jobs, the ad, called Maddow begins. How can you know the plan is right? Rachel Maddow thinks it's wrong. (You really should watch these ads, by the way. Rubio at one point facetiously plugs Maddow's 9 p.m. show; Maddow, in return, facetiously thanks him, and so on).On July 19, Maddow issued her reply to Rubio's ad -- in her own ad that mimics Rubio's.Marco Rubio has proposals for cutting the deficit and growing the economy. He wants to: Make Bush's '01 and '03 tax cuts permanent, end the estate tax, prevent cap-and-trade energy legislation, repeal health reform, Maddow's ad says. How does Marco Rubio say you can know his plan is right? 'Rachel Maddow thinks it's wrong.' Seriously. That's his argument. That's it.Even if everything about me is inherently wrong just by virtue of who I am, this is still true about Marco Rubio: His economic proposals will add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit.The Rubio camp issued their latest response on July 21, highlighting the state's unemployment rate and the number of Floridians facing foreclosure while taking a shot a President Barack Obama and Senate rival independent Gov. Charlie Crist.Think Obama and Crist's policies are working just fine for Florida? the ad, called Again, Rachel asks.For Rubio, the ads are a chance to take on a liberal media-type like Maddow. And we're pretty sure we haven't seen the last of it. That said, we found it an appropriate time to jump in with a fact check. The question we're after: Will Rubio's economic ideas add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit?Maddow's case We know government spending is a big issue for Rubio. On July 16, 2010,we checked and found Truea Rubio claim that $0.40 of every $1 being spent by the federal government is now borrowed. We also know Rubio vigorously opposed the federal stimulus bill because it added substantially to the federal deficit. A spokeswoman for Maddow said the talk show host got her deficit figures from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress' nonpartisan number-crunching arm. The CBO produced a series of revenues estimates in February should Congress enact three Republican-held tax cutting ideas -- extend the set to expire 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, repeal the federal estate tax and continue indexing the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation(The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure wealthy people couldn't avoid taxes altogether, but it wasn't indexed for inflation. Congress manually adjusts the AMT for inflation each year).All three proposals are part of Rubio's 12 ideas -- specificallyIdeas 1, 3 and 5.Together, the CBO found thatthey would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion from 2011-2020, mostly from lower revenues but also from increased outlays for refundable tax credits. Preventing cap and trade legislation, Rubio's Idea 9, also would have a negative effect on the federal deficit, according to the CBO. The theory behind cap-and-trade is that the government sets a limit on how much carbon different companies, such as electric utilities or manufacturers, can emit (the cap). The government then issues permits to companies and allows them to buy and sell the permits as needed so they can conduct business (the trade). If the policy works as planned, overall emissions decline, companies determine for themselves the best way to lower emissions, and the free market rewards those who lower emissions most effectively.In a letter dated July 7, 2010, CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf said that opposing cap and trade legislation would have the effect of raising the federal deficit by about $19 billion from 2011-2020.Those are the four major ideas Maddow uses in making her claim. But we wanted to at least consider Rubio's other ideas. Many of them, it turns out, come with deficit impacts that are difficult to measure, or at least appear to have no impact on the deficit. Rubio proposes reducing the corporate tax rate, for instance, but he doesn't say how much -- making it impossible to judge the revenue impact.Another Rubio idea is to repeal the federal health care bill (you can see all 12here). The federal health care bill enacted is estimated to reduce the deficit slightly -- about $143 billion from 2010-2019 -- according to the CBO. But a substitute health care bill -- something Rubio favors -- could reduce the deficit as much. So we've decided to discount the deficit reduction for the sake of this fact check.Excluding the health care repeal, that's about $3.4 trillion that we can verify that will be added to the federal deficit between now and 2020 if Rubio's economic ideas are put in place.Economic debateWe turned to economists and Rubio's campaign to see what we're missing.Karen Campbell, a policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the CBO deficit projections do not account for a fundamental Republican philosophy -- that lower taxes can bolster economic activity across a broader spectrum. Put simply, the lower tax rates are, or the less taxes people are required to pay, the more opportunities that exist for people to make money.It's a sentiment echoed by the Rubio campaign.A growing economy means more people are employed and generating revenue, more businesses are being started and expanded, and fewer people are claiming unemployment benefits, Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos said.That's not an argument for everyone, however.If you cut taxes, you borrow money, that's it, said Chuck Marr, the Director of Federal Tax Policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. For a lot of Republicans it's gotten to the point, that deficits only concern spending. A deficit is when you spend more than you tax. But for them, it's become just what the spending is. They seem to think that taxes don't matter. Mathematically it's ridiculous.Added Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution: I cannot see any way that extending the Bush tax cuts or repealing the estate tax could have any effect other than to produce an increase in the expected size of the future deficit. Period. There is no plausible set of private economic responses that would generate an increase in future total tax revenue if those two policies were adopted. The federal government would simply collect less income tax revenue and less estate tax revenue than it is now expected to do.Greg Mankiw, who was the chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors from 2003 to 2005, estimated in 2005 that a broad-based income tax cut would recoup only about a quarter of the lost revenue through supply-side growth effects.Mankiw, who teaches macroeconomics at Harvard, referred to people who believe that broad-based income tax cuts could actually raise tax revenue charlatans and cranks in the first edition of his textbook, Principles of Economics.Our rulingWe realize we're not going to be able to change people's basic economic philosophies. We're not here today trying to disprove supply-side economics, or boost another economic thought. Based on our analysis, we do think it's a stretchfor someone like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to suggestthe Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were revenue neutral. And yet we also see the logic in the argument that lower taxes could stimulate investment in the economy, creating an army of new taxpayers. Rubio, himself, realizes spending cuts also will be necessary to offset at least some of the tax cuts he's proposed -- and to shrink the federal deficit. Rubio's campaign announced he would roll out ideas to cut government spending on July 26 in Jacksonville.And we'll be ready to examine them. But in this case, we're sticking to Maddow's claim that Rubio's economic proposals will add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, repealing the estate tax and continuing to adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation will increase the federal deficit $3.4 trillion between now and 2020.That's right about on the mark, and only measures the impact of three of Rubio's tax cutting ideas. But unlike Maddow, we do want to leave some leeway for the economic growth those broad-based tax reforms could generate, as well as Rubio's spending cuts, still to be revealed. We rate her statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Bush Administration", "Federal Budget", "Pundits", "Taxes", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "We know government spending is a big issue for Rubio. On July 16, 2010,we checked and found Truea Rubio claim that $0.40 of every $1 being spent by the federal government is now borrowed. We also know Rubio vigorously opposed the federal stimulus bill because it added substantially to the federal deficit.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/jul/16/marco-rubio/marco-rubios-favorite-statistic/" ] }, { "sentence": "The CBO produced a series of revenues estimates in February should Congress enact three Republican-held tax cutting ideas -- extend the set to expire 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, repeal the federal estate tax and continue indexing the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation(The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure wealthy people couldn't avoid taxes altogether, but it wasn't indexed for inflation. Congress manually adjusts the AMT for inflation each year).All three proposals are part of Rubio's 12 ideas -- specificallyIdeas 1, 3 and 5.Together, the CBO found thatthey would increase the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion from 2011-2020, mostly from lower revenues but also from increased outlays for refundable tax credits.", "hrefs": [ "http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2010/07/rubios-plan-for-economic-recovery-tax-cuts-lots-of-them.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Preventing cap and trade legislation, Rubio's Idea 9, also would have a negative effect on the federal deficit, according to the CBO. The theory behind cap-and-trade is that the government sets a limit on how much carbon different companies, such as electric utilities or manufacturers, can emit (the cap). The government then issues permits to companies and allows them to buy and sell the permits as needed so they can conduct business (the trade). If the policy works as planned, overall emissions decline, companies determine for themselves the best way to lower emissions, and the free market rewards those who lower emissions most effectively.In a letter dated July 7, 2010, CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf said that opposing cap and trade legislation would have the effect of raising the federal deficit by about $19 billion from 2011-2020.Those are the four major ideas Maddow uses in making her claim. But we wanted to at least consider Rubio's other ideas. Many of them, it turns out, come with deficit impacts that are difficult to measure, or at least appear to have no impact on the deficit. Rubio proposes reducing the corporate tax rate, for instance, but he doesn't say how much -- making it impossible to judge the revenue impact.Another Rubio idea is to repeal the federal health care bill (you can see all 12here). The federal health care bill enacted is estimated to reduce the deficit slightly -- about $143 billion from 2010-2019 -- according to the CBO. But a substitute health care bill -- something Rubio favors -- could reduce the deficit as much. So we've decided to discount the deficit reduction for the sake of this fact check.Excluding the health care repeal, that's about $3.4 trillion that we can verify that will be added to the federal deficit between now and 2020 if Rubio's economic ideas are put in place.Economic debateWe turned to economists and Rubio's campaign to see what we're missing.Karen Campbell, a policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the CBO deficit projections do not account for a fundamental Republican philosophy -- that lower taxes can bolster economic activity across a broader spectrum. Put simply, the lower tax rates are, or the less taxes people are required to pay, the more opportunities that exist for people to make money.It's a sentiment echoed by the Rubio campaign.A growing economy means more people are employed and generating revenue, more businesses are being started and expanded, and fewer people are claiming unemployment benefits, Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos said.That's not an argument for everyone, however.If you cut taxes, you borrow money, that's it, said Chuck Marr, the Director of Federal Tax Policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. For a lot of Republicans it's gotten to the point, that deficits only concern spending. A deficit is when you spend more than you tax. But for them, it's become just what the spending is. They seem to think that taxes don't matter. Mathematically it's ridiculous.Added Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution: I cannot see any way that extending the Bush tax cuts or repealing the estate tax could have any effect other than to produce an increase in the expected size of the future deficit. Period. There is no plausible set of private economic responses that would generate an increase in future total tax revenue if those two policies were adopted. The federal government would simply collect less income tax revenue and less estate tax revenue than it is now expected to do.Greg Mankiw, who was the chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors from 2003 to 2005, estimated in 2005 that a broad-based income tax cut would recoup only about a quarter of the lost revenue through supply-side growth effects.Mankiw, who teaches macroeconomics at Harvard, referred to people who believe that broad-based income tax cuts could actually raise tax revenue charlatans and cranks in the first edition of his textbook, Principles of Economics.Our rulingWe realize we're not going to be able to change people's basic economic philosophies. We're not here today trying to disprove supply-side economics, or boost another economic thought. Based on our analysis, we do think it's a stretchfor someone like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to suggestthe Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were revenue neutral. And yet we also see the logic in the argument that lower taxes could stimulate investment in the economy, creating an army of new taxpayers.", "hrefs": [ "http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2010/07/rubios-plan-for-economic-recovery-tax-cuts-lots-of-them.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gravity-payments-ceo-rent-house/", "claim": "Did Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price Have to Rent His House to Make Ends Meet?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "01/09/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price rented out his house after raising the minimum wage at his company to $70,000, but not because he couldn't otherwise make ends meet." ], "justification": "On 2 January 2017, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted a message referencing a quote from former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher about socialism, along with a link to a story about Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, who took a drastic pay cut to raise the minimum salary at his company to $70,000 and then had to rent out his home in order to make ends meet: posted Margaret Thatcher The linked story was not current news; it was originally published by Young Cons on 1 August 2015: published Back in April we told you about Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who said he would pay every single one of his employees $70,000 annually. Every single one, from the lowest skilled workers on up. Now, as expected, Price has fallen on hard times financially, even having to rent out his own home. The Young Cons article was based on a comment Price made in a video interview with the New York Times. Price, who slashed his own $1 million pay package to provide a minimum salary of $70,000 to all his employees, told the newspaper that he had received mixed reactions about the new pay structure and was still adjusting to life on his own much lower salary. comment Price's relevant comments come at the 2:30 mark of the following video: My hope is that I'll be right at the end of the day. But I actually don't think that the idea is so good to guaurantee that I'll be right. I'm working as hard as I've ever worked to try to make it work. I'm renting out my house right now to make ends meet for myself. I haven't made this little amount of money since I was in my early 20s. It helps that I'm 31 and don't have kids. And no girlfriend to tell me I'm crazy. Price did indeed put his house up for rent on AirBnB (an online marketplace and homestay network). The first review for the listing was posted in June 2015, and the house was reviewed eight additional times (with the most recent review as of this writing coming from August 2016). AirBnB However, Price's actions didn't necessarily demonstrate any failings of socialism, indicate that Gravity Payments was suffering financially, or show that Price had \"fallen on hard times.\" Price told Today in August 2016 (more than a year after he made his initial salary announcement) that some of the financial adjustments he made, such as renting out his house during the summer, were neither permanent nor based purely on financial necessity: Price himself made some cutbacks to adjust to the lower salary, although more out of sensibility than necessity. He now rents his house on Airbnb during the summer to make extra cash, and sleeps in the guest room at a friends house. You might call it a sacrifice, he said, speaking from the borrowed room. But to me, its fun. It feels good. Price is quick to state the obvious: that any life adjustments hes made as a result of earning less after earning so much more are hardly putting me in some horrible, awful position. Of course, even as he's emerged as a champion for income equality, he wont be making $70,000 forever, and that was never the plan. When I made the announcement, I said I would just put my salary back where it was once the companys profits had gone back to where they were, Price said. I expected us to take a big step backwards. Price's salary adjustments sparked massive interest in Gravity Payments (a credit card processing company), and according to an article published by Inc Magazine, the company's revenues and profits doubled in the six months following Price's announcement: doubled Six months after Price's announcement, Gravity has defied doubters. Revenue is growing at double the previous rate. Profits have also doubled. Gravity did lose a few customers: Some objected to what seemed like a political statement that put pressure on them to raise their own wages; others feared price hikes or service cutbacks. But media reports suggesting that panicked customers were fleeing have proved false. In fact, Gravity's customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent in the second quarter. Only two employees quit a nonevent. Jason Haley isn't one of them. He is still an employee, and a better paid one. We talked to a close associate of Dan Price's at Gravity Payments who confirmed all of the above for us. Mr. Price chose to put his house up on Airbnb during the summers months not out of financial necessity, he said, but because Price lives alone and has far more room than he needs (in addition to plenty of friends and acquaintances in the area with whom he can stay), so why not let others enjoy his beautiful home part of the year and raise some extra revenue in the process? He also noted that because the company's revenues and profits have shot up dramatically since the minimum wage announcement (rather than sharply declining, as initially expected), Price could have returned his salary to its previous much higher level but has so far opted not to. Murray, Rheana. \"Gravity Payments' $70K Minimum Salary: CEO Dan Price Shares Result Over a Year Later.\"\r Today. 11 August 2016.\r\r Keegan, Paul. \"Here's What Really Happened at That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage.\"\r Inc Magazine. November 2015. Cohen, Patricia. \"A Company Copes with Backlash Against the Raise That Roared.\"\r The New York Times. 31 July 2015.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pJVYguChdJVVN0va-4OkPAPEfuZVNtZZ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 2 January 2017, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted a message referencing a quote from former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher about socialism, along with a link to a story about Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, who took a drastic pay cut to raise the minimum salary at his company to $70,000 and then had to rent out his home in order to make ends meet:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/posts/10154913463593588", "https://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/thatcher.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "The linked story was not current news; it was originally published by Young Cons on 1 August 2015:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/NBTp2" ] }, { "sentence": "The Young Cons article was based on a comment Price made in a video interview with the New York Times. Price, who slashed his own $1 million pay package to provide a minimum salary of $70,000 to all his employees, told the newspaper that he had received mixed reactions about the new pay structure and was still adjusting to life on his own much lower salary.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/business/a-company-copes-with-backlash-against-the-raise-that-roared.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Price did indeed put his house up for rent on AirBnB (an online marketplace and homestay network). The first review for the listing was posted in June 2015, and the house was reviewed eight additional times (with the most recent review as of this writing coming from August 2016).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2720963" ] }, { "sentence": "Price's salary adjustments sparked massive interest in Gravity Payments (a credit card processing company), and according to an article published by Inc Magazine, the company's revenues and profits doubled in the six months following Price's announcement:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.inc.com/magazine/201511/paul-keegan/does-more-pay-mean-more-growth.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lululemon-ambassadors/", "claim": "Is Lululemon Recruiting 150 Ambassadors via Instagram?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "12/14/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A viral post promising an ambassadorship with Lululemon in exchange for follows and shares on Instagram is a scam. " ], "justification": "\"If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is\" says the manta of the fact-checking industry. In December 2018, a number of social media users came across a post promising a chance at an ambassadorship with the popular brand Lululemon. The posting, which was shared by Instagram accounts such as @lulurecruitment.co (which has no affiliation with the real Lululemon) explained that anyone with 150 followers had a chance of obtaining free clothes and gift for simply sharing this advertisement with their friends on social media: @lulurecruitment.co This is not a genuine offer from Lululemon, and the accounts sharing this message are not affiliated with the brand. Lululemon's social media team has responded to a few queries about the scam with messages similar to the following: responded FB User: Is this legit? I am assuming no Lululemon: Hi Michelle, You've got itour accounts are verified with the blue check mark, and our ambassadors are chosen individually by our stores rather than via our social channels. This account has been flagged to our brand protection team. Let me know if you have more questions! - Camilla The non-existent ambassadorship was only offered to users with a minimum of 150 followers, which is a relatively low bar for any sort of social media position, especially for a well-known national brand such as Lululemon. This scam also required potential \"ambassadors\" to follow the fake Lululemon account and then share its post with their friends. This allowed the scammers to build a following and ensured that their dishonest message would be spread to a greater number of social media users. This Lululemon scam followed a strategy similar to other \"like farming\" social media schemes. Such fraudsters offer something of value (in this case an ambassadorship) in exchange for social media engagement, which allows them to quickly build a following and then provides them the opportunity to sell the account to a third party. like farming One way to avoid this type of scam is to double-check to make sure that a company-affiliated post actually originated with the brand's official social media accounts: @lululemon can you confirm if this is real or fake? pic.twitter.com/gnp8g2sD2p @lululemon pic.twitter.com/gnp8g2sD2p Jason Davis (@Jasonnn93) December 13, 2018 December 13, 2018 Social media users should also keep old adages such as \"nothing in life is free\" when they peruse the internet.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aWV3CxxStnXjd-dkanGenplCQ56t0mW0", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In December 2018, a number of social media users came across a post promising a chance at an ambassadorship with the popular brand Lululemon. The posting, which was shared by Instagram accounts such as @lulurecruitment.co (which has no affiliation with the real Lululemon) explained that anyone with 150 followers had a chance of obtaining free clothes and gift for simply sharing this advertisement with their friends on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/BrWLX4sFxn-/" ] }, { "sentence": "Lululemon's social media team has responded to a few queries about the scam with messages similar to the following:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/lululemon/posts/10156355365197732?comment_id=10156356318182732&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D" ] }, { "sentence": "This Lululemon scam followed a strategy similar to other \"like farming\" social media schemes. Such fraudsters offer something of value (in this case an ambassadorship) in exchange for social media engagement, which allows them to quickly build a following and then provides them the opportunity to sell the account to a third party.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/death-hoaxes-like-farming/" ] }, { "sentence": "@lululemon can you confirm if this is real or fake? pic.twitter.com/gnp8g2sD2p", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/lululemon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw", "https://t.co/gnp8g2sD2p" ] }, { "sentence": " Jason Davis (@Jasonnn93) December 13, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Jasonnn93/status/1073300643975176199?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paid-in-full/", "claim": "Paid in Full", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/04/2002", "sci_digest": [ "Can you discharge a debt by writing 'Paid in full' on your check?" ], "justification": "Claim: A debtor can discharge his obligations by sending his creditor a check made out for a fraction of the amount owed with the words 'Paid in full' written on it. Example: [Los Angeles Times, 2002] A friend of a friend has racked up credit card debt and student loans totaling $100,000. Not securely employed, she has been planning on continuing her dinners out, lavish shopping trips, a car purchase and vacations, figuring it all will get wiped out soon enough. She says she is working with a lawyer who advised her to write $10 checks to all her creditors, with a note saying \"paid in full\" on the check. Origins: \"Get rich quick\" (or, in this case, \"get poor more slowly\") schemes never seem to lose their appeal, even though common sense should warn that if getting rich quickly were truly so easy, everyone would be wealthy. Obviously, if getting out of a debt were as simple a matter as executing the method described above, no one would ever lend money or extend credit. Nonetheless, these schemes maintain their hold on the public because people are willing to entertain the fiction that they're a form of \"secret knowledge\" that such loopholes do exist because only a select few are smart enough to know about and take advantage of them. It's not uncommon for creditors to agree to settle debts for less than the full amount due. After all, some payment is better than none, and if debtors can be encouraged to pay at least a portion of their debts back through promises that they will relieved of any further financial obligations towards their creditors, then both sides come out ahead. Better to accept a fraction of what you're owed than to risk your debtor's declaring bankruptcy or choosing to pay off other debts instead, leaving you with nothing. For such arrangements to be valid, however, both sides must agree to them. A debtor cannot unilaterally declare a partial payment to be \"payment in full\" simply by attaching a note with those words to his check or writing them in the memo field and assuming that if the creditor fails to notice the notation then the entire debt has been discharged: This \"paid-in-full\" nonsense has achieved the status of urban legend, says J. Scott Bovitz, a Los Angeles bankruptcy lawyer. A creditor sometimes will reduce a claim for a disputed payment, but this kind of settlement usually won't happen if the debtor acts in bad faith, Bovitz says. The act of writing \"paid in full\" on a $10 check pretty much defines the term \"bad faith.\" Section 3-311 of the Uniform Commercial Code does state that a debt can be discharged with a check designated as payment in full \"if the person against whom the claim is asserted proves that the instrument or an accompanying written communication contained a conspicuous statement to the effect that the instrument was tendered as full satisfaction of the claim.\" However, it's up to the claimant to prove \"that within a reasonable time before collection of the instrument was initiated, the claimant, or an agent of the claimant having direct responsibility with respect to the disputed obligation, knew that the instrument was tendered in full satisfaction of the claim.\" So if you receive a check marked \"paid in full\" made out for less than the amount you have agreed upon, you'd best not cross out the words \"paid in full\" or write \"disputed\" on it and cash it anyway, as you risk having the entire debt discharged. However, this condition does not apply to \"transactions conducted or performed, in whole or in part, by electronic means or electronic records, in which the acts or records of one or both parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course [of business],\" which means that this scheme will not work at all for most bill or credit card payments, as those payments are typically handled by automated systems and not humans. Uniform Commercial Code The best method for paying off debts with small payments remains not to run up large debts in the first place. Last updated: 18 April 2011", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Section 3-311 of the Uniform Commercial Code does state that a debt can be discharged with a check designated as payment in full \"if the person against whom the claim is asserted proves that the instrument or an accompanying written communication contained a conspicuous statement to the effect that the instrument was tendered as full satisfaction of the claim.\" However, it's up to the claimant to prove \"that within a reasonable time before collection of the instrument was initiated, the claimant, or an agent of the claimant having direct responsibility with respect to the disputed obligation, knew that the instrument was tendered in full satisfaction of the claim.\" So if you receive a check marked \"paid in full\" made out for less than the amount you have agreed upon, you'd best not cross out the words \"paid in full\" or write \"disputed\" on it and cash it anyway, as you risk having the entire debt discharged. However, this condition does not apply to \"transactions conducted or performed, in whole or in part, by electronic means or electronic records, in which the acts or records of one or both parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course [of business],\" which means that this scheme will not work at all for most bill or credit card payments, as those payments are typically handled by automated systems and not humans.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/3-311.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-aid-puerto-rico/", "claim": "Is This Viral List of U.S. Government Emergency Aid Sent to Puerto Rico Accurate?", "author": "David Emery", "posted": "10/02/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Some social media posts defending the Trump administration's relief efforts in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria strayed into fictional territory." ], "justification": "In the wake of public criticism of the Trump administration's response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in late 2017 as \"inadequate\" (among other things), a post widely shared via social media endeavored to make the opposite case, namely that President Trump deployed a massive amount of government assets to address the disaster: President Trump has dispatched 140 helicopters, 28 ships, 6 Army field hospitals, 3 Navy Seabee Battalions, 5 US Army Combat Engineer Battalions, 3 Civil Affairs battalions, 2 Nuclear Submarines capable of generating 2.8 Gigawatts of Power, released 300,000 tons of food, medical supplies and water from Military stocks. We were unable to trace the figures to any official source, nor do we know who compiled them. We can say, however, based on actual facts and figures shared by FEMA and the Department of Defense (DoD), that the stated numbers range from inflated to downright fictional. 140 Helicopters Mixture. Based on United States Department of Defense statements, dozens of helicopters have been deployed to Puerto Rico, though the actual number is far less than 140. On 27 September (the same day the meme began circulating), DoD announced an \"acceleration\" of Puerto Rico relief efforts including the deployment of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, whose complement of rotary-wing aircraft would bring the total number of helicopters in use there to 52. announced 28 Ships Mixture. By our count, using figures released by the DoD and U.S. Coast Guard, the total number of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships deployed to Puerto Rico is 18 (though an unknown number of non-military ships are also in use). Counting the USNS Comfort, a 1,000 bed hospital ship scheduled to dock in the disaster zone on 4 October, the arrival of the USS Wasp will bring the total number of U.S. Navy ships deployed to five (including the USS Kearsage and USS Oak Hill, both conducting search and rescue flights, aerial damage assessments, logistics support and route clearance on and around the island, and the SS Wright, tasked with delivering 1.1 million meals and one million liters of water). According to the U.S. Coast Guard, 13 of its cutters have been performing search and rescue missions and delivering supplies. An unspecified number of commercial ships are also participating in the aid effort. arrival 6 Army Field Hospitals false. We've found no evidence, either in press reports or statements from DoD or FEMA, that Army field hospitals are in use in Puerto Rico, though that doesn't mean no medical help is being supplied. Emergency medical services are being provided not by Army field hospitals, but by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) personnel assigned to support the efforts of doctors at fully or partially functional hospitals around Puerto Rico, as well as five \"federal medical stations\" set up near those facilities. assigned 3 Navy Seabee Battalions, 5 US Army Combat Engineer Battalions, 3 Civil Affairs battalions true. According to press reports there are Seabees and members of the Army Corps of Engineers now on the ground in Puerto Rico, but we've seen no announcements supporting the numbers specified above. Although DoD officials have not released a breakdown of the various military forces thus far deployed to Puerto Rico, Gov. Ricardo Rossello said there were roughly 7,200 U.S. military personnel on the ground as of 2 October, according to a DoD press release, in addition to an estimated 3,000 non-military federal employees, for a total of more than 10,000 government workers involved in relief efforts. release 2 Nuclear Submarines False. It is not the case that two nuclear submarines were sent to provide emergency electricity to Puerto Ricans. A reported 95 percent of the island's 3.4 million inhabitants were still without power as of 2 October, according to local officials. FEMA reported distributing and setting up more than 300 emergency generators since the disaster, but most of that effort was devoted to restoring power to hospitals and other critical facilities. Using nuclear submarines to supply emergency power in disaster areas has been proposed, but never tried. In 1982, the USS Indianapolis was deployed to Kauai, Hawaii in the aftermath of Hurricane Iwa, a solution both Navy and civilian officials said would have been technically feasible, though the plan was ultimately abandoned in favor of using a portable generator to \"jump start\" the island's main power plant. No such \"nuclear option\" has been proposed in the case of Puerto Rico. deployed 300,000 Tons of Food, Medical supplies and Water true. We have not found the above (or any) overall total tonnage stated in any official sources, but vast amounts of food and supplies have either arrived or are on their way to Puerto Rico. According to FEMA, more than two million meals and 2.5 million litres of water have reached the island and been distributed, plus medical equipment, generators, gasoline, and other supplies, with more coming. FEMA For more information, see FEMA's daily-updated overview of federal government efforts on behalf of the citizens of Puerto Rico. overview Davis, Aaron, Lamothe, Dan and O'Keefe, Ed. \"U.S. Response in Puerto Rico Pales Next to Actions After Haiti Quake.\"\rThe Washington Post. 28 September 2017. Dickstein, Corey. \"Pentagon Adding USS Wasp to Puerto Rico Response, USNS Comfort Departs for Island.\"\rStars and Stripes. 29 September 2017. Garamone, Jim. \"Unified Coordination Group Addressing Puerto Rico Recovery, Governor Says.\"\rU.S. Dept. of Defense. 2 October 2017. Hernandez, Arelis R., Lamothe, Dan, O'Keefe, Ed and Achenbach, Joel. \"Trump Administration Rushes Military Assets to Puerto Rico Amid Growing Crisis.\"\rThe Washington Post. 27 September 2017. Starr, Barbara, Cohen, Zachary and Browne, Ryan. \"U.S. Military Sends Ships, Aircraft to Puerto Rico.\"\rCNN. 26 September 2017. Werner, Ben. \"Pentagon: Hospital Ship USNS Comfort Prepares to Depart for Puerto Rico.\"\rUSNI News. 26 September 2017. FEMA. \"Overview of Federal Efforts to Prepare for and Respond to Hurricane Maria.\"\r2 October 2017. Reuters. \"Factbox: Relief Efforts in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria.\"\r29 September 2017. UPI. \"Navy Seeks to Return Power to Stricken Hawaii Island.\"\r29 November 1982. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. \"HHS Augments Medical Care at Hospitals in Puerto Rico Impacted by Hurricane Maria.\"\r30 September 2017.", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1SHq2Y371SccGpwmf-Zmh-M8p0v8GIuJ5", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 27 September (the same day the meme began circulating), DoD announced an \"acceleration\" of Puerto Rico relief efforts including the deployment of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp, whose complement of rotary-wing aircraft would bring the total number of helicopters in use there to 52. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trump-administration-surges-military-assets-to-puerto-rico-amid-growing-crisis/2017/09/27/43832750-a39e-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Counting the USNS Comfort, a 1,000 bed hospital ship scheduled to dock in the disaster zone on 4 October, the arrival of the USS Wasp will bring the total number of U.S. Navy ships deployed to five (including the USS Kearsage and USS Oak Hill, both conducting search and rescue flights, aerial damage assessments, logistics support and route clearance on and around the island, and the SS Wright, tasked with delivering 1.1 million meals and one million liters of water). According to the U.S. Coast Guard, 13 of its cutters have been performing search and rescue missions and delivering supplies. An unspecified number of commercial ships are also participating in the aid effort.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.stripes.com/news/pentagon-adding-uss-wasp-to-puerto-rico-response-usns-comfort-departs-for-island-1.490341#.WdKGsmhSw2w" ] }, { "sentence": "Emergency medical services are being provided not by Army field hospitals, but by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) personnel assigned to support the efforts of doctors at fully or partially functional hospitals around Puerto Rico, as well as five \"federal medical stations\" set up near those facilities. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2017/09/30/hhs-augments-medical-care-at-hospitals-in-puerto-rico-impacted-by-hurricane-maria.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Although DoD officials have not released a breakdown of the various military forces thus far deployed to Puerto Rico, Gov. Ricardo Rossello said there were roughly 7,200 U.S. military personnel on the ground as of 2 October, according to a DoD press release, in addition to an estimated 3,000 non-military federal employees, for a total of more than 10,000 government workers involved in relief efforts.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1331056/unified-coordination-group-addressing-puerto-rico-recovery-governor-says/" ] }, { "sentence": "Using nuclear submarines to supply emergency power in disaster areas has been proposed, but never tried. In 1982, the USS Indianapolis was deployed to Kauai, Hawaii in the aftermath of Hurricane Iwa, a solution both Navy and civilian officials said would have been technically feasible, though the plan was ultimately abandoned in favor of using a portable generator to \"jump start\" the island's main power plant. No such \"nuclear option\" has been proposed in the case of Puerto Rico.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/29/us/navy-seeks-to-return-power-to-stricken-hawaii-island.html" ] }, { "sentence": "true. We have not found the above (or any) overall total tonnage stated in any official sources, but vast amounts of food and supplies have either arrived or are on their way to Puerto Rico. According to FEMA, more than two million meals and 2.5 million litres of water have reached the island and been distributed, plus medical equipment, generators, gasoline, and other supplies, with more coming.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fema.gov/blog/2017-09-29/overview-federal-efforts-prepare-and-respond-hurricane-maria" ] }, { "sentence": "For more information, see FEMA's daily-updated overview of federal government efforts on behalf of the citizens of Puerto Rico.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fema.gov/blog/2017-09-29/overview-federal-efforts-prepare-and-respond-hurricane-maria" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sweden-society-health-care/", "claim": "'I Live in Sweden': Facts About Swedish Society and Health Care", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "04/26/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A popular meme outlines the purported benefits of living in Sweden." ], "justification": "Sweden is often the subject of fierce political debate, with some championing it as an example of a well-run, successful social democracy, while others point to what they see as problems endemic throughout the country. It has also long been the target of misinformation and confusion relating to its integration and assimilation of immigrants, something we have written about in detail in the past. in detail In the spring of 2018, a meme went viral which presented some of the positive aspects of Swedish society, in particular its health care system. On 25 April, the \"Medicare for All\" Facebook page shared this meme: meme I live in Sweden. We have social security, affordable health care, strict gun laws, 5 weeks paid annual leave, and [one] year maternity leave. A stay at the hospital for one night costs about $10. Prescription drugs have an annual cap of $210. We're not a communist country, or even strictly socialist. We're socio-democratic, and our freedoms are not inhibited. The meme cites the Twitter handle @SweResistance as its source. In March 2018, that Twitter user posted a series of tweets making the case for Swedish health care: posted For example, health care can cost a maximum of around $130 per year for visits to health care centrals etc, hospital.nights costs $12 per night with a $175 roof per month. Prescription drugs have a yearly roof of $250. #healthcare #healthcare Caroline ?????? #FBR #RESIST (@SweResistance) March 10, 2018 March 10, 2018 It appears that \"Medicare for All\" actually changed some of the details in its meme for reasons unknown. We have fact-checked the claims made in the meme, rather than in @SweResistance's Twitter thread. Strict gun laws While there is no objective definition of \"strict,\" Sweden does stringently regulate gun ownership and usage by comparison with the United States. According to an analysis by GunPolicy.org, a research project hosted at the University of Sydney, Australia: analysis 5 weeks paid annual leave According to Section 4 of the Annual Leave Act, employees are legally entitled to 25 days' paid leave each year. Section 4 One year's maternity leave This is not quite right. Sweden doesn't have maternity leave, exactly; instead, it offers its inhabitants exceptionally generous parental leave. Parents of a newly born or adopted child are entitled to 480 combined days of parental leave, which they can split between themselves in whatever way they choose regardless of gender. In 2017, fathers claimed 28 percent of all parental leave days, according to government statistics. statistics For 390 of the 480 days available, parents are paid at a rate of almost 80 percent their normal salary, according to Swedish government figures. The parental leave doesn't need to be taken right away, either. Parents in Sweden can continue to take days off until their child turns eight years old. figures The claim of one year of maternity leave ignores the reality of how the Swedish system works, but it is absolutely possible that a new mother depending on the agreement she has with the child's other parent could claim 365 days or more paid leave. A stay at the hospital for one night costs about $10 This is true. According to official government figures published on the Sweden.se web site, the maximum fee for a hospital visit is 100 Kroner (SEK.) Based on the exchange rate on 26 April 2018, that's $11.56, which is closer to the $12 stated by @SweResistance. figures Prescription drugs have an annual cap of $210. This is also basically true, although the dollar amount again depends on the exchange rate. According to Swedish government figures, \"nobody pays more than SEK 2,200 in a given 12-month period\" for prescription medication. (That's the equivalent of $254 as of April 2018.) Again, that's very close to the $250 figure provided by @SweResistance. It's not clear where the figure of $210 originates. figures Overall, the meme accurately states some of the details of Sweden's social democratic institutions. However, like most politically-charged social media content, it leaves out important context. The most obvious thing to know about Sweden's famous \"cradle to grave\" social safety net and good working conditions is that they are largely paid for by Sweden's equally famous high taxes. Nonetheless, polling shows that Swedes are largely satisfied with the public services they receive in return. high taxes. satisfied Palma, Bethania. \"Crime in Sweden, Part I: Is Sweden the 'Rape Capital' of Europe?\"\r Snopes.com. 29 March 2017. Government of Sweden. \"Annual Leave Act.\"\r Government of Sweden. Accessed 26 April 2018. TT/The Local. \"Dads in Sweden Took More Paternity Leave Than Ever in 2017.\"\r TT/The Local. 17 January 2018. Swedish Institute/Swedish Government Offices. \"10 Things That Make Sweden Family-Friendly.\"\rSwedish Institute/Swedish Government Offices/Sweden.se. Accessed 26 April 2018. Swedish Institute/Swedish Government Offices. \"Health Care in Sweden.\"\rSwedish Institute/Swedish Government Offices/Sweden.se. Accessed 26 April 2018. Pomerleau, Kyle. \"How Scandinavian Countries Pay for Their Government Spending.\"\r Tax Foundation. 10 June 2015. TT/The Local. \"Here's How Happy Swedes Are With the Services Their Taxes Pay For.\"\r TT/The Local. 16 December 2016.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Y3mJT3SXYVX41VwYHjv9B9m6sL4FDw1l", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Sweden is often the subject of fierce political debate, with some championing it as an example of a well-run, successful social democracy, while others point to what they see as problems endemic throughout the country. It has also long been the target of misinformation and confusion relating to its integration and assimilation of immigrants, something we have written about in detail in the past. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crime-sweden-rape-capital-europe/" ] }, { "sentence": "In the spring of 2018, a meme went viral which presented some of the positive aspects of Swedish society, in particular its health care system. On 25 April, the \"Medicare for All\" Facebook page shared this meme:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/224861574916147/photos/a.225831164819188.1073741829.224861574916147/229188167816821/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "The meme cites the Twitter handle @SweResistance as its source. In March 2018, that Twitter user posted a series of tweets making the case for Swedish health care: ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/SweResistance/status/972434482765713408" ] }, { "sentence": "Prescription drugs have a yearly roof of $250. #healthcare", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/hashtag/healthcare?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": " Caroline ?????? #FBR #RESIST (@SweResistance) March 10, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/SweResistance/status/972434482765713408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "While there is no objective definition of \"strict,\" Sweden does stringently regulate gun ownership and usage by comparison with the United States. According to an analysis by GunPolicy.org, a research project hosted at the University of Sydney, Australia:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/sweden" ] }, { "sentence": "According to Section 4 of the Annual Leave Act, employees are legally entitled to 25 days' paid leave each year.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.government.se/4a80ac/contentassets/eaf3467d4f484c9fb7274a067484c759/1977_480-annual-leave-act.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "This is not quite right. Sweden doesn't have maternity leave, exactly; instead, it offers its inhabitants exceptionally generous parental leave. Parents of a newly born or adopted child are entitled to 480 combined days of parental leave, which they can split between themselves in whatever way they choose regardless of gender. In 2017, fathers claimed 28 percent of all parental leave days, according to government statistics. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thelocal.se/20180117/dads-in-sweden-took-more-paternity-leave-in-2017" ] }, { "sentence": "For 390 of the 480 days available, parents are paid at a rate of almost 80 percent their normal salary, according to Swedish government figures. The parental leave doesn't need to be taken right away, either. Parents in Sweden can continue to take days off until their child turns eight years old.", "hrefs": [ "https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden-family-friendly/" ] }, { "sentence": "This is true. According to official government figures published on the Sweden.se web site, the maximum fee for a hospital visit is 100 Kroner (SEK.) Based on the exchange rate on 26 April 2018, that's $11.56, which is closer to the $12 stated by @SweResistance.", "hrefs": [ "https://sweden.se/society/health-care-in-sweden/" ] }, { "sentence": "This is also basically true, although the dollar amount again depends on the exchange rate. According to Swedish government figures, \"nobody pays more than SEK 2,200 in a given 12-month period\" for prescription medication. (That's the equivalent of $254 as of April 2018.) Again, that's very close to the $250 figure provided by @SweResistance. It's not clear where the figure of $210 originates. ", "hrefs": [ "https://sweden.se/society/health-care-in-sweden/" ] }, { "sentence": "Overall, the meme accurately states some of the details of Sweden's social democratic institutions. However, like most politically-charged social media content, it leaves out important context. The most obvious thing to know about Sweden's famous \"cradle to grave\" social safety net and good working conditions is that they are largely paid for by Sweden's equally famous high taxes. Nonetheless, polling shows that Swedes are largely satisfied with the public services they receive in return.", "hrefs": [ "https://taxfoundation.org/how-scandinavian-countries-pay-their-government-spending/", "https://www.thelocal.se/20161216/heres-how-happy-swedes-are-with-the-services-their-tax-pays-for" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fully-vaccinated-assisted-suicide/", "claim": "Does Germany Require You To Be Fully Vaccinated Before Receiving Assisted Suicide?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "08/25/2023", "sci_digest": [ "An out-of-date story with a factually deficient headline continues to go viral years after its relevance passed. " ], "justification": "On Aug 22, 2023, a photo of a November 2021 headline from the National Review went viral on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The headline asserted that \"In Germany, you must be fully vaxxed before your death by assisted suicide.\" a photo headline The headline was never accurate, and the underlying story, at the time tweet went viral in August 2023, was out of date. In late November 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a German euthanasia association, Verein Sterbehillfe, issued a news release mandating compliance with so-called 2G regulations. As described by the BBC, \"2G stands for genesen (recovered in the past six months) or geimpft (vaccinated).\" Many predominantly right-wing publications highlighted this press release as an example of Covid-19 regulations gone too far. The Spectator, for example, wrote on Nov. 28, 2021, that: news release described wrote Irony has been declared many times in this pandemic but now, from Covid-riddled Germany comes the final proof: you can't kill yourself now unless you've been vaccinated. As European countries battle to limit the spread of the virus, Verein Sterbehilfe the German Euthanasia Association has issued a new directive, declaring it will now only help those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease. Several important pieces of context are missing from both the headline claim that Germany mandated this compliance and also the notion that this organization mandated these health regulations for the safety of the person ending their life. Neither implication is true. Verein Sterbehilfe is not a German governmental agency it is, instead, a not-for-profit membership-based club that offers assistance and planning for people and their loved ones looking to exercise their right to self-determination in their death: i.e., to end their life instead of progressing through a painful or incurable illness. is not It was on behalf of the later population that the COVID policies were mandated, per Sterbehilfe's news release: news release Euthanasia and the preparatory examination of the personal responsibility of our members willing to die require human closeness. But human closeness is a prerequisite and breeding ground for the transmission of the coronavirus. As of today, the 2G rule applies in our club, supplemented by situation-related measures, such as quick tests before encounters in closed rooms. Snopes reached out to Verin Sterbehilfe to ask if any COVID-19 restrictions remained in place at the organization at the time of this reporting, but we did not receive a response. Because Germany made no such regulation regarding assisted suicide, because Verin Sterbehilfe is a nongovernmental organization, and because the story at issue was multiple years out of date, the assertion was False. \"Covid: Germany Puts Major Restrictions on Unvaccinated.\" BBC News, 2 Dec. 2021. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59502180. Hufige Fragen | Verein Sterbehilfe. 1 Apr. 2020, https://www.sterbehilfe.de/haeufige-fragen/. \"In Germany, You Must Be Fully Vaxxed before Your Death by Assisted Suicide.\" National Review, 28 Nov. 2021, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/in-germany-you-must-be-fully-vaxxed-before-your-death-by-assisted-suicide/. Steerpike. \"German Euthanasia Clinics Refusing Unvaccinated Customers.\" The Spectator, 26 Nov. 2021, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/german-euthanasia-clinics-refusing-unvaccinated-customers/. Sterbehilfe Nur Noch Fr Geimpfte Und Genesene | Verein Sterbehilfe. 20 Nov. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20211120122435/https://www.sterbehilfe.de/sterbehilfe-nur-noch-fuer-geimpfte-und-genesene/.\r", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qxts1VZYnMKLtQiSJpynex7RlNjc0YP4", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Aug 22, 2023, a photo of a November 2021 headline from the National Review went viral on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The headline asserted that \"In Germany, you must be fully vaxxed before your death by assisted suicide.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/CDswE", "https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/in-germany-you-must-be-fully-vaxxed-before-your-death-by-assisted-suicide/" ] }, { "sentence": "In late November 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a German euthanasia association, Verein Sterbehillfe, issued a news release mandating compliance with so-called 2G regulations. As described by the BBC, \"2G stands for genesen (recovered in the past six months) or geimpft (vaccinated).\" Many predominantly right-wing publications highlighted this press release as an example of Covid-19 regulations gone too far. The Spectator, for example, wrote on Nov. 28, 2021, that:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211120122435/https://www.sterbehilfe.de/sterbehilfe-nur-noch-fuer-geimpfte-und-genesene/", "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59502180", "https://archive.ph/QicXv" ] }, { "sentence": "Verein Sterbehilfe is not a German governmental agency it is, instead, a not-for-profit membership-based club that offers assistance and planning for people and their loved ones looking to exercise their right to self-determination in their death: i.e., to end their life instead of progressing through a painful or incurable illness.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sterbehilfe.de/haeufige-fragen/" ] }, { "sentence": "It was on behalf of the later population that the COVID policies were mandated, per Sterbehilfe's news release:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211120122435/https://www.sterbehilfe.de/sterbehilfe-nur-noch-fuer-geimpfte-und-genesene/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-carlin-participation-trophies/", "claim": "Did George Carlin Say This About Participation Trophies?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "02/18/2022", "sci_digest": [ "One deceitful tactic used to spread opinions is to pretend they were first offered by celebrities. " ], "justification": "In February 2022, a meme supposedly featuring a quote from comedian George Carlin about \"participation trophies\" was recirculated on social media: participation trophies This is not a genuine quote from Carlin. The above-displayed meme reads: \"Here's an idea for you to ignore. Instead of giving kids participation trophies teach them activities where the result is the reward. Our society has lost sight of what's truly important and it's about damned time we found it again.\" We weren't able to find any record of Carlin uttering this phrase. When we looked for the origins of the quote, we did not find an old stand-up routine or a passage from one of Carlin's books. Instead, we traced it back to a 2016 post by Laurie Neverman on the Common Sense Home website. 2016 post by Laurie Neverman on the Common Sense Home website Neverman wrote that she originally posted this message to her personal Facebook page in September 2015 and that since then a number of Facebook pages have attempted to take credit for it: I wrote the passage above back in September 2015 and posted it on my personal Facebook wall. Friends gave me so much feedback on it that I shared it on the Common Sense Home Facebook page. Then a couple of huge Facebook pages took it and put their names on it (with no credit to me, naughty folks) and it was wildly popular on their pages, too. Given all the people who seemed to approve of the concept, I decided to write a post on it. This frequently happens with misattributed quotes. A message will get posted by a relatively unknown person and then, in an attempt to legitimize that opinion and spread that message to a wider audience, the words will be erroneously placed into the mouth of a celebrity. For example, Clint Eastwood did not say \"the problem is not guns,\" Jim Carrey did not call for the \"media to close for 30 days,\" and Kurt Russell did not write a poem that opposed defunding the police. the problem is not guns media to close for 30 days poem that opposed defunding the police While Carlin did not say this about \"participation trophies,\" he did express similar sentiments during a stand-up routine about how \"every child is special.\" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Xtk7ALaUIIt's worth noting that while the culture war skirmishes over participation trophies is relatively new, participation trophies themselves are not. Participation trophies have been given out since at least the 1920s. Participation trophies have been given out at least the 1920s Fatsis, Stefan. Weve Been Handing Out Participation Trophies for 100 Years. Slate, Apr. 2019. slate.com, https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/participation-trophy-history-world-war-i.html. No More Gold Stars - Creating Real World Rewards. Common Sense Home, 2 Dec. 2016, https://commonsensehome.com/no-more-gold-stars/.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Quu57-IJ70RRrUDpqRuU98y4jfXDtGLD", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Q9fyi4Uua7Fu3M14Z4tFZRIW6-T3T2ID", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In February 2022, a meme supposedly featuring a quote from comedian George Carlin about \"participation trophies\" was recirculated on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/participation-trophy-history-world-war-i.html" ] }, { "sentence": "We weren't able to find any record of Carlin uttering this phrase. When we looked for the origins of the quote, we did not find an old stand-up routine or a passage from one of Carlin's books. Instead, we traced it back to a 2016 post by Laurie Neverman on the Common Sense Home website.", "hrefs": [ "https://commonsensehome.com/no-more-gold-stars/" ] }, { "sentence": "This frequently happens with misattributed quotes. A message will get posted by a relatively unknown person and then, in an attempt to legitimize that opinion and spread that message to a wider audience, the words will be erroneously placed into the mouth of a celebrity. For example, Clint Eastwood did not say \"the problem is not guns,\" Jim Carrey did not call for the \"media to close for 30 days,\" and Kurt Russell did not write a poem that opposed defunding the police.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clint-eastwood-guns-quote/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jim-carrey-close-down-media/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kurt-russell-poem-about-cops/" ] }, { "sentence": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Xtk7ALaUIIt's worth noting that while the culture war skirmishes over participation trophies is relatively new, participation trophies themselves are not. Participation trophies have been given out since at least the 1920s.", "hrefs": [ "https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/participation-trophy-history-world-war-i.html", "https://newspaperarchive.com/sports-clipping-feb-08-1922-1129748/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boyd-bushman-aliens/", "claim": "Did Boyd Bushman Provide Evidence of Alien Contact?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/31/2014", "sci_digest": [ "\"People really believe that people are 100% honest on their deathbed, so I'm going to make sure I go out with a bang and assert my fantastic claims yet again.\"" ], "justification": "A video posted to YouTube on 8 October 2014 offered the deathbed revelations of former Lockheed Martin engineer (aka \"Area 51 scientist\") Boyd Bushman, who spoke with aerospace engineer Mark Q. Patterson shortly before he passed away at age 78 in August 2014: https://youtu.be/bqQArKpA5ZQBushman went out with an extraterrestrial disclosure bang, making claims about having worked on projects involving antigravity, UFOs, aliens, \"Area 51,\" and Roswell, New Mexico. According to his comments in the video, government officials had been in contact with aliens who strongly resemble humans, tend to be \"approximately four and a half to five feet tall,\" \"have three back bones\" that are \"actually cartilage,\" and are able to communicate telepathically: \"They're able to use their own voice by telepathy to talk to you. You walk in the room with one of them, and all of a sudden you find yourself giving the answer to your question in your own voice,\" he said. In the video Bushman described two types of aliens, some of whom live for 200 (presumed Earth) years and hail from a planet called \"Quintumnia\" where, improbably, they continue to rustle cattle despite their vastly advanced technological state: \"They divide them into two groups. One group are wranglers, and the others are rustlers the ones who are stealers of cattle. The two groups act differently. The ones that are wranglers are much more friendly, and have a better relationship with us.\" The sole piece of evidence Bushman presented in support of his tale about alien visitations from Quintumnia were some purported photographs of these extraterrestrial beings: However, when Bushman's claims began to gain traction on the Internet, a Reddit user located an existing plastic toy alien doll that very closely resembled the image of the \"alien\" Bushman had proffered in his video: Reddit https://youtu.be/2FPQL9qoZ9IA news outlet in Quebec also pointed out that the \"alien\" seen in the pictures held up by Bushman during the interview could be purchased at WalMart. WalMart Did Boyd Bushman prankishly decide to have one over on everyone as he departed his earthly life, was he a publicity-seeking charlatan, was he a true believer who actually thought he had experienced the things he described, or was he suffering the effects of senility? Regardless of his reasons for offering them, Bushman's extraordinary claims weren't the least bit convincing in an evidential sense, as Stuart J. Robbins noted for SWIFT: SWIFT A deathbed confession can be a way to solidify one's reputation. The thinking could easily be, \"People really believe that people are 100% honest on their deathbed, so I'm going to make sure I go out with a 'bang' and make my claims yet again. People who didn't believe me before might this time because they'll think I'm telling the truth 'cause I'm about to die.\" However, in addition to explaining why the common reasons to believe deathbed confession testimony are unconvincing, there's a better reason why the testimony is not useful: They're doing it wrong. Let's say I had a bunch of secrets of exotic physics and decided to do a deathbed confession. Here's what I would say: \"I've been working on antigravity and warp field physics for the last 50 years, in secret, with the US government.\" Then, instead of showing photos of a spaceship or a blurry alien, I would add: \"And, here are the equations. Here is a diagram for how you build a device. Here is a working model. Here is exactly how you put everything together.\" In other words, it shouldn't matter who I am, what my experience is, or what pretty (or ugly) picture I show. What I need to show is HOW to do it. Just saying something doesn't make it so. I need to give enough information for someone else to verify it and duplicate it. Otherwise, what's the point? To make a spectacle before I die? That's why I find this whole deathbed confession thing unconvincing and, perhaps more importantly, not useful: We have no more information than we had before. We have no way to verify any of the information claimed. No way to test or duplicate it. At best, we have another person claiming this stuff is real, and while he or she may be proven out with the passage of time, their \"confession\" contributed absolutely nothing to that advancement. Until then, it's no better than any other pseudoscientific claim. Cloutier, Jean-Francois. \"An Engineer from Lockheed Martin Talks About UFOs Before His Death.\"\r TVQC. 26 October 2014. Fetcher, Joshua. \"Former Lockheed Martin Engineer from Texas: I Met Aliens at Area 51.\"\r San Antonio Express-News. 30 October 2014. van Velzer, Ryan. \"UFOs Over Tucson Video Part of Viral Debate.\"\r The Arizona Republic. 14 December 2007.", "issues": [ "lien" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NH33RuJ86r7k9Jh2bMw_82WQv9BrYM0t", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "However, when Bushman's claims began to gain traction on the Internet, a Reddit user located an existing plastic toy alien doll that very closely resembled the image of the \"alien\" Bushman had proffered in his video:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/2k4dm7/boyd_bushman_his_last_interview_a_documentary_on/" ] }, { "sentence": "https://youtu.be/2FPQL9qoZ9IA news outlet in Quebec also pointed out that the \"alien\" seen in the pictures held up by Bushman during the interview could be purchased at WalMart.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tvqc.com/2014/10/boyd-bushman-ingenieur-lockheed-martin-parle-dovnis-mort/" ] }, { "sentence": "Did Boyd Bushman prankishly decide to have one over on everyone as he departed his earthly life, was he a publicity-seeking charlatan, was he a true believer who actually thought he had experienced the things he described, or was he suffering the effects of senility? Regardless of his reasons for offering them, Bushman's extraordinary claims weren't the least bit convincing in an evidential sense, as Stuart J. Robbins noted for SWIFT:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.randi.org/swift/bushmans-deathbed-confessions" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/front-porch/", "claim": "John Kerry's Address Given on the Front Porch", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "10/20/2004", "sci_digest": [ "Were streets closed and Bush/Cheney signs removed during John Kerry's 'front porch' stop on Labor Day?" ], "justification": "Claim: For John Kerry's Labor Day 'front porch' stop in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, neighborhood streets were closed and residents told to take down their Bush/Cheney signs. Status: Multiple see below. Neighborhood streets were closed: True. Residents were ordered to remove their Bush/Cheney signage: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Good Tuesday morning! John Kerry brought his \"front porch meeting\" to our Canonsburg, PA neighborhood on Labor Day morning. Since you will never hear the truth from the TV or print media I thought that you should know from someone who was 'almost' there. The residents who live on the street where the event took place were not allowed to attend. Kerry shipped in approximately 90 invitation only VIPs. In addition, there was a hard luck case who was about to lose her job at USAIR and another was an elderly woman who was having health careproblems. Neither one was from this neighborhood. The street was closed to all traffic the night before and all residents on the street were REQUIRED to remove their Bush/Cheney signs. The sympathetic police officers on duty told us that Kerry used imminentdomain to claim the street for his purposes. Residents who have homes within the perimeter (approximately 1 full block) were kept behind a line away from the partisan crowd. The rest of us were not allowed within the 1 block cordon. A neighbor from across the street came to the line where we were being kept and asked us to come onto his property. The police told us that we could stand on this mans FORMERLY private property! This was set up so that Kerry's views could be heard - but not the neighbors. About 30 peoples (mostly neighbors) shouts echoed down the street \"Let the neighbors in\". We could barely hear Kerry speaking with his microphone because press buses were used to block us off from view! This mornings papers are reporting how hecklers tried to interrupt Kerry as he spoke to the neighborhood gathering, but he turned our chants to his favor by calling us rude. Even though most of the media was there to record our stories of not being included in the neighborhood forum, not one of them printed or aired the truth. This is what America will look like if Kerry becomes president. Get registered and get all of your friends registered to vote if they have not already. Kerry thinks that he is better than the rest of us and he has the media on his side to make him out to be what he is not! Finally, last night as I drove down the street where the rally was, I was shocked to see Bush/Cheney signs in almost every yard on the street! Please send this e-mail on to as many people as you can. LET FREEDOM RING! Origins: On Monday, the 6th of September 2004, John Kerry took his campaign to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, a working class neighborhood near Pittsburgh. That day's schedule began with a front-porch question and answer session with supporters on West College Street at the home of Dale and Jody Rhome. It is that session of politicking which is the subject of the e-mail quoted above. Although not every claim made in the report can be substantiated or dismissed, some can. Statements made in two articles that appeared in the Observer-Reporter, the newspaper from the nearby town of Washington, Pennsylvania, after the 'front porch' meeting support the e-mail's claim of the street's being closed all night to traffic: \"The 200 block of West College was shut down for the visit\" and \"On Sunday morning, the Rhomes and Kerry campaign workers went door-to-door on the street, alerting neighbors of Kerry's upcoming visit. [Said Jody Rhome] 'We also told them they had to get their cars off the street because the street was being shut down.'\" However, its next assertion, that \"all residents on the street were REQUIRED to remove their Bush/Cheney signs,\" appears to contradict a line from an Observer-Reporter article two days after the event: \"In an effort to block out the few dozen Bush supporters on one end of the street, Kerry officials provided volunteers with various Kerry signs in key positions to block Bush signage.\" Had neighbors been made to take From left, Karen Fortney, Beth Soucie and Traci Fortney hold up signs supporting President George Bush during a visit by Democraticcandidate Sen. John Kerry to Canonsburg yesterday. down their Bush/Cheney signs, nothing would have remained that required screening from sight. Yet the Observer-Reporter's statement might have referred to placards brandished by demonstrators rather than signs erected on people's lawns. However, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette account of the day makes it clear that fixed signs were not removed, saying: \"Beth Soucie, who stood in a yard filled with Bush signs, said she will stick with the Republican incumbent.\" The description of the Soucie yard stands at odds with the claim of removed signs, as does the photo on this page of Mrs. Soucie and two other women standing in the Bush/Cheney-festooned Soucie yard. According to a blogger called ilja who posts on the RightNation.us forums, his conversation with Stan Soucie, the husband of the Beth Soucie interviewed and photographed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, further argued against the 'sign removal' aspect of the account. In his 18 September 2004 post to the \"Kerry Campaign Stop AngersPennsylvania Neighborhood\" thread, he reported: RightNation.us Angers He said that I could cite him [Stan Soucie] and that they were not told they had to take their Bush/Cheney signs down because there was a yard down the street from where they were standing with a whole lot of Bush signs in the yard. He did state that whenever the TV cameras would move to where a Bush sign was that the Democratic organization would hold their signs in front of the Bush signs to block out the view. However, since they were standing on a porch, the Democrat signs were not tall enough to block them. The e-mailed narrative states, \"The sympathetic police officers on duty told us that Kerry used imminent domain to claim the street for his purposes.\" If members of the police force said that, they were in error, because Senator Kerry could not have invoked \"eminent domain.\" One block of West College was cordoned off by the Secret Service, who are charged with protecting the nominee. The Senator would not have had much, if any, say in this. eminent domain John Kerry was heckled during his remarks that morning and did dialogue back and forth with his detractors, which means the e-mail's \"This was set up so that Kerry's views could be heard - but not the neighbors\" should be viewed with skepticism. Also, that the Senator was heckled shows that the assembled crowd couldn't have been composed of only hand-picked VIPs, else there wouldn't have been that sort of sparring. This is the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's account of some of those exchanges: With a friendly crowd in Canonsburg lobbing softball questions yesterday, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry could have ignored a pocket of hecklers that tried to disrupt his campaign. Instead, Kerry pulled the detractors into his Labor Day speech, part of the \"front-porch discussions\" he's been holding across the country. He told them their shouts and taunts couldn't cover up facts namely, that America has had a net loss of 1.6 million jobs under President Bush. Gasoline prices are up 31 percent since Bush took office, and college tuition has grown more expensive by the year, he said. At the same time, he said, wages are down by $1,500 for \"the average family.\" One heckler then shouted, \"Yeah, Kerry, you're really average.\" Kerry pounced on the comment, replying: \"No, I'm privileged, and my tax burden went down. I don't think that's right.\" Kerry said Bush, also a man of money and privilege, has worked hard to lessen tax payments for the wealthiest Americans. Otherwise, Kerry said, Bush has presided over an economy that is in disarray. Income for all Americans fell 9.2 percent in 2001 and 2002, according to the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, Bush has rung up record budget deficits, and he will be the first president since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression to have lost more jobs than he created, Kerry said. \"Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon all created jobs during their presidencies, even though they had wars to contend with,\" Kerry said. The jobs developed under Bush's administration are nothing to shout about, Kerry went on. He seized on a just-released Bureau of Labor Statistics report that said new jobs in growing industries pay $8,848 a year less than jobs that were lost, either because of shrinking industries or exportation of work to foreign soil. \"If you think that's moving in the right direction, go vote for the other guy,\" Kerry said to the hecklers. According to the e-mail, \"This mornings papers are reporting how hecklers tried to interrupt Kerry as he spoke to the neighborhood gathering, but he turned our chants to his favor by calling us rude.\" The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had a different take on what was said and why: Patricia Romano of Canonsburg told Kerry that she has had 11 throat surgeries and must pay so much for prescription drugs that she had to get a part-time job at age 70. Hecklers drowned out Romano at one point. That prompted Kerry to say, \"While the Bush people were rudely shouting, we had a 70-year-old woman trying to speak\" about runaway costs of prescription drugs. The identity of the person who wrote this by now much-traveled account remains a mystery. Roughly three of every four copies that found their way to us were prefaced: \"Received this from a very good friend in PA. She wants everyone to know what she saw.\" Yet in none of those forwards was the 'very good friend in PA' identified by name or her e-mail address provided; other than her gender and state of residence, nothing is known about the purported authoress of this chronicle. Paradoxically, about one-quarter of the narrations bears the name \"Ken Armstrong,\" and about one-twentieth \"Charles A. Walter.\" Both are decidedly male names, further muddying the question of authorship. Barbara \"front porch remarks, back fence gossip\" Mikkelson Last updated: 20 October 2004 Sources: Hazlett, Terry. \"Prepping a Porch for Kerry.\" [Washington] Observer-Reporter. 8 September 2004 (p. A1). Simonich, Milan. \"Kerry Jousts with Hecklers.\" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 7 September 2004 (p. A3). Walters, Patrick. \"Heinz Kerry Visits Pittsburgh, Philadelphia for Labor Day Parades.\" The Associated Press. 7 September 2004. Warco, Kathie. \"Rendell, Hoeffel Stump in S. Strabane.\" [Washington] Observer-Reporter. 7 September 2004 (p. A1).", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PZ5vhqPtsvj1AX6RKo5kCduO__1-2iPx" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ECJPY7X4-iCwSuVot2YvqjXMHAG7hs3M" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " Neighborhood streets were closed: True. Residents were ordered to remove their Bush/Cheney signage: False.", "hrefs": [ null ] }, { "sentence": "According to a blogger called ilja who posts on the RightNation.us forums, his conversation with Stan Soucie, the husband of the Beth Soucie interviewed and photographed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, further argued against the 'sign removal' aspect of the account. In his 18 September 2004 post to the \"Kerry Campaign Stop AngersPennsylvania Neighborhood\" thread, he reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rightnation.us/", "https://www.rightnation.us/forums/index.asp?showtopic=53180&st=35" ] }, { "sentence": "e-mailed narrative states, \"The sympathetic police officers on duty told us that Kerry used imminent domain to claim the street for his purposes.\" If members of the police force said that, they were in error, because Senator Kerry could not have invoked \"eminent domain.\" One block of West College was cordoned off by the Secret Service, who are charged with protecting the nominee. The Senator would not have had much, if any, say in this.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghislaine-maxwell-chelsea-clinton-wedding/", "claim": "Did Ghislaine Maxwell Attend Chelsea Clinton's Wedding?", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "04/27/2022", "sci_digest": [ "We were asked by our readers if convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell truly was photographed near former U.S. President Bill Clinton as he walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding." ], "justification": "A photograph is frequently shared on social media that appears to show convicted sex trafficker and former Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell watching as former U.S. President Bill Clinton walked his daughter, Chelsea, down the aisle at her wedding. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her mother, was also in attendance but is out of frame in the picture. frequently shared Jeffrey Epstein Ghislaine Maxwell Bill Clinton Chelsea Hillary Clinton It's true that this is a real photograph. It's available on the Getty Images licensing website. It has not been doctored and the woman who is circled below in film director Adam McKay's 2019 tweet truly is Maxwell: available tweet Maxwell The photograph of Maxwell at Clinton's wedding received a wave of new shares in April 2022 following news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was buying Twitter: Maxwell Clinton news Tesla Elon Musk Twitter The picture was being reshared in response to other social media users (who presumably dislike Musk) sharing a real photograph of him standing near Maxwell at a public event. The photograph of Musk and Maxwell was captured at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2014. Musk later tweeted that he didn't know her and that she had \"photobombed\" him. Musk sharing real photograph Maxwell Musk Maxwell Vanity Fair Oscar Musk According to BBC.com, Chelsea married investment banker Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts estate in New York on July 31, 2010: BBC.com Chelsea A no-fly zone was in place above the Hudson valley and nearby roads were closed as guests arrived in limousines. The television star, Oprah Winfrey, film director Steven Spielberg, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and singer Barbra Streisand are reportedly among the 500 guests. Oprah Winfrey Steven Spielberg Tom Hanks Barbra Streisand ... Earlier, actors Ted Danson and his wife Mary Steenburgen told reporters in the town of Rhinebeck, where many of those invited are staying, that they were both excited about attending the ceremony. Ted Danson Mary Steenburgen Weeks prior to the wedding, on June 18, 2010, New York Magazine's Intelligencer reported that Chelsea purportedly had a firm policy on who was to be invited. According to the article, \"bride-side sources\" said that Chelsea \"instituted a strict no-strangers policy\" and that \"she must personally know every invitee.\" reported Chelsea Chelsea Years later, in 2019, Politico published that \"a person familiar with the relationship\" said that, prior to the 2010 wedding, Chelsea had become close with Maxwell, something that a spokesperson for Clinton later disputed: published Chelsea Maxwell [Maxwell's] family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses. Maxwell Trump Epstein Chelsea Clinton Epstein Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epsteins alleged sexual abuse. Maxwell Chelsea Clinton Epstein Ghislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton, a person familiar with the relationship said. She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close. Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close. Epstein Chelsea Maxwell The reference to Epstein being \"jailed on sex offenses\" referred to his previous time behind bars in 2008 and 2009, prior to the 2010 wedding. A secret plea deal that was reached in 2007 required Epstein to serve 18 months in jail, followed by 12 months of house arrest. He ended up leaving jail after around 13 months. At the time, reports said there were \"roughly\" 40 girls who had been identified as victims. Epstein previous time behind bars secret plea deal reached in 2007 Epstein 13 months reports On Aug. 10, 2019, after Epstein was arrested again on sex trafficking charges, he was later found dead in his jail cell. An autopsy ruled that it was a suicide by hanging. A wave of new conspiracy theories began following his death. Epstein arrested found dead autopsy conspiracy theories We previously published a fact check about a picture of Epstein with former President Clinton. It also was an authentic photograph. The picture had been published in a digital copy of the March 2003 edition of Vanity Fair: published Epstein Clinton Vanity Fair In sum, yes, Maxwell was in attendance at Chelsea Clinton's wedding and was photographed in the background behind the Clinton family. Maxwell Clinton Barnard, Anne. What Charges Did Jeffrey Epstein Face? The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-charges.html. Chelsea Clinton Marries Marc Mezvinsky In Rhinebeck, New York. Getty Images, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-image-provided-by-genevieve-de-manio-former-news-photo/103183722. Chelsea Clinton Marries Marc Mezvinsky on Elite Estate. BBC News, 1 Aug. 2010, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-10828516. Coaston, Jane, et al. The Life and Death of Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein, Explained. Vox, 3 Dec. 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/12/3/18116351/jeffrey-epstein-case-indictment-arrested-trump-clinton. Gramenz, Jack. Elon Musk Defends Photo with Ghislaine Maxwell, Claiming He Was Photobombed. News.com.au, 5 July 2020, https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/elon-musk-defends-photo-with-ghislaine-maxwell-claiming-he-was-photobombed/news-story/e36a769f65b00f4da5ea22763bdc3ae1. Jeffrey Epsteins Secret Deal with Federal Prosecutors. CBS12.com, 18 Sept. 2009, https://cbs12.com/news/jeffrey-4721218-deal-prosecutors.html. Mazzei, Patricia, and William K. Rashbaum. Jeffrey Epstein, Financier Long Accused of Molesting Minors, Is Charged. The New York Times, 7 July 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-arrested-sex-trafficking.html. Sarnoff, Conchita. Jeffrey Epstein, Billionaire Pedophile, Goes Free. The Daily Beast, 20 July 2010, https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/20/jeffrey-epstein-billionaire-pedophile-goes-free. Schreckinger, Ben, and Daniel Lippman. Meet the Woman Who Ties Jeffrey Epstein to Trump and the Clintons. POLITICO, 21 July 2019, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/21/jeffrey-epstein-trump-clinton-1424120. Shafrir, Doree. Where Will Chelsea Clinton Wed? And Whos Invited? New York Magazine Intelligencer, 18 June 2020, https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/66792/. Sisak, Michael R., et al. Jeffrey Epstein Struck a Secret Deal in 2008. Heres What It Means for the Current Case. Global News, The Associated Press, 11 July 2019, https://globalnews.ca/news/5484171/jeffrey-epstein-plea-deal-impact/.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19GKNepF3XpLVW-vvzuWhCZ48ygxjZtXb", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "A photograph is frequently shared on social media that appears to show convicted sex trafficker and former Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell watching as former U.S. President Bill Clinton walked his daughter, Chelsea, down the aisle at her wedding. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her mother, was also in attendance but is out of frame in the picture. ", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/search?q=ghislaine%20chelsea&src=typed_query", "https://snopes.com/tag/jeffrey-epstein", "https://snopes.com/tag/ghislaine-maxwell", "https://snopes.com/tag/bill-clinton", "https://snopes.com/tag/chelsea-clinton", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/hillary-clinton/" ] }, { "sentence": "It's true that this is a real photograph. It's available on the Getty Images licensing website. It has not been doctored and the woman who is circled below in film director Adam McKay's 2019 tweet truly is Maxwell:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-image-provided-by-genevieve-de-manio-former-news-photo/103183722", "https://twitter.com/ghostpanther/status/1147975821107159041", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jeffrey-epstein-ghislaine-maxwell-pope/" ] }, { "sentence": "The photograph of Maxwell at Clinton's wedding received a wave of new shares in April 2022 following news that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was buying Twitter:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-audio/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-jesus-tweet/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2022/04/25/elon-musk-buys-twitter-for-44b-and-will-privatize-company/", "https://snopes.com/tag/tesla", "https://snopes.com/tag/elon-musk", "https://snopes.com/tag/twitter" ] }, { "sentence": "The picture was being reshared in response to other social media users (who presumably dislike Musk) sharing a real photograph of him standing near Maxwell at a public event. The photograph of Musk and Maxwell was captured at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in 2014. Musk later tweeted that he didn't know her and that she had \"photobombed\" him. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-40-billion/", "https://twitter.com/GravelInstitute/status/1518668966012542977", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-maxwell-photo/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghislaine-maxwell-dirty-jail-cell/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2022/04/18/tesla-stockholders-ask-judge-to-silence-musk-in-fraud-case/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/james-maxwell-trump-son/", "https://snopes.com/tag/vanity-fair", "https://snopes.com/tag/oscars", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/04/26/elon-musk-hunger/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to BBC.com, Chelsea married investment banker Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts estate in New York on July 31, 2010:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-10828516", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-abortion-good-for-economy/" ] }, { "sentence": "The television star, Oprah Winfrey, film director Steven Spielberg, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks and singer Barbra Streisand are reportedly among the 500 guests.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/oprah-winfrey/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/steven-spielberg/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/tom-hanks", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/barbra-streisand" ] }, { "sentence": "Earlier, actors Ted Danson and his wife Mary Steenburgen told reporters in the town of Rhinebeck, where many of those invited are staying, that they were both excited about attending the ceremony.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tag/ted-danson", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/mary-steenburgen/" ] }, { "sentence": "Weeks prior to the wedding, on June 18, 2010, New York Magazine's Intelligencer reported that Chelsea purportedly had a firm policy on who was to be invited. According to the article, \"bride-side sources\" said that Chelsea \"instituted a strict no-strangers policy\" and that \"she must personally know every invitee.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/66792/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-un-christian-to-protect-babies/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-made-900000-working-for-her-parents/" ] }, { "sentence": "Years later, in 2019, Politico published that \"a person familiar with the relationship\" said that, prior to the 2010 wedding, Chelsea had become close with Maxwell, something that a spokesperson for Clinton later disputed:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/21/jeffrey-epstein-trump-clinton-1424120", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-foundation-paid-for-chelseas-wedding/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jean-luc-brunel-maxwell/" ] }, { "sentence": "[Maxwell's] family knew Trump before Epstein arrived on the scene, and she continued to socialize with Chelsea Clinton after Epstein was jailed on sex offenses.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghislaine-maxwell-jonbenet-ramsey/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/donald-trump/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-jeffrey-epstein-pic/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/special-forces-chelsea-clinton/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-schiff-visit-epsteins-island/" ] }, { "sentence": "Maxwell first grew close with the Clintons after Bill Clinton left office, vacationing on a yacht with Chelsea Clinton in 2009, attending her wedding in 2010, and participating in the Clinton Global Initiative as recently as 2013, years after her name first emerged in accounts of Epsteins alleged sexual abuse.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-ghislaine-maxwell-briefing/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rush-limbaugh-chelsea-clinton/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2022/02/19/jean-luc-brunel-epstein/" ] }, { "sentence": "Ghislaine was the contact between Epstein and Clinton, a person familiar with the relationship said. She ended up being close to the family because she and Chelsea ended up becoming close. Lawyers for Maxwell did not respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson for Clinton disputed the idea that the two women were ever close.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photo-biden-with-jeffrey-epstein/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-bill-gates/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boris-johnson-ghislaine-maxwell/" ] }, { "sentence": "The reference to Epstein being \"jailed on sex offenses\" referred to his previous time behind bars in 2008 and 2009, prior to the 2010 wedding. A secret plea deal that was reached in 2007 required Epstein to serve 18 months in jail, followed by 12 months of house arrest. He ended up leaving jail after around 13 months. At the time, reports said there were \"roughly\" 40 girls who had been identified as victims.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-jeffrey-epstein-pic/", "https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-charges.html", "https://globalnews.ca/news/5484171/jeffrey-epstein-plea-deal-impact/", "https://web.archive.org/web/20090923163958/https://cbs12.com/news/jeffrey-4721218-deal-prosecutors.html", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-jeffrey-epstein/", "https://www.vox.com/2018/12/3/18116351/jeffrey-epstein-case-indictment-arrested-trump-clinton", "https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-billionaire-pedophile-goes-free" ] }, { "sentence": "On Aug. 10, 2019, after Epstein was arrested again on sex trafficking charges, he was later found dead in his jail cell. An autopsy ruled that it was a suicide by hanging. A wave of new conspiracy theories began following his death.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-maxwell-photo/", "https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-arrested-sex-trafficking.html", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/08/16/medical-examiner-confirms-epstein-death-a-suicide-by-hanging/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/epstein-alive-new-mexico/", "https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/08/10/epstein-suicide-sparks-fresh-round-of-conspiracy-theories/" ] }, { "sentence": "We previously published a fact check about a picture of Epstein with former President Clinton. It also was an authentic photograph. The picture had been published in a digital copy of the March 2003 edition of Vanity Fair:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-clinton-with-jeffrey-epstein/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fbi-schiff-epstein-emails/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-clinton-meeting-jfk/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/vanity-fair/" ] }, { "sentence": "In sum, yes, Maxwell was in attendance at Chelsea Clinton's wedding and was photographed in the background behind the Clinton family.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ghislaine-maxwell-list/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-arrest-navy-seals/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chattanooga-shooter-refugee/", "claim": "Chattanooga Who's Who", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "12/16/2015", "sci_digest": [ "Memes incorrectly stated Chattanooga shooter Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez was a \"refugee,\" but he was a naturalized American citizen who emigrated as an infant." ], "justification": " Claim: Chattanooga shooter Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez was a refugee. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, November2015]Seems like another false message is being spread. But I can't verify it. Origins: Ongoing, worldwide debate about Syrian refugees escalated after a series of November 2015 terror attacks in Paris. Among threads of that larger discussion were assertions that specific individuals involved in previous attacks were \"refugees.\" In the aftermath rumors circulated claiming Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan (born in Virginia) was a refugee, and similar memes assertedthe Tsarnaev brothers (who emigrated as children, and one of whom was a naturalized American citizen) were \"asylum seekers.\" A concurrent rumor held thatMuhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, perpetrator of the July 2015 Chattanooga shootings, was also a refugee. Nidal Hasan Tsarnaev On 16 July 2015 Abdulazeez engaged in a shooting spree attwo military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing five servicemen before he himself died in a shootout. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) later indicated that Abdulazeez's motives were unclear, but possibly religious in nature. indicated Why Abdulazeez perpetrated the shooting remained somewhat of a mystery, but whether the Chattanooga shooter was a refugee was far less complicated. He was \"a Kuwait-born U.S. citizen\":The gunman who targeted U.S. military service members in a late-morning shooting Thursday in Tennessee was a 24-year-old electrical engineer who had grown up in Chattanooga as part of a conservative Muslim family. complicated Kuwait-born citizen Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait but moved with his family to the United States as an infant after the start of the Persian Gulf War and became a U.S. citizen, according to accounts given by friends and one of his sisters. TIME reported:He was of Jordanian descent and was born in Kuwait in 1990, according to a federal official quoted in the New York Times. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen after moving to the country with his mother, who is from Kuwait, and father Youssuf Abdulazeez, who is Palestinian, reported the SITE Intelligence Group. reported Little is known about the circumstances under which Abdulazeez emigrated to the United States:Born in Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Abdulazeez became an American citizen in 2003 through the naturalization of his mother, federal officials said; his father was also naturalized. Because he was a minor, he did not have to apply separately for citizenship. A divorce complaint filed by his mother in 2009 and then withdrawn, said the parents were from the State of Palestine. On 13 November 2015, the Associated Press reported that investigators remained circumspect about Abdulazeez's motive:\"We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way,\" FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a visit to Nashville's FBI field office on Friday.Comey said he understands the public interest in the shooting, but he did not know whether there would ever be a public report on it.\"Sometimes the way we investigate requires us to keep information secret. That's a good thing. We don't want to smear people,\" he said. That article stated that the FBI considered \"Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez [to be]a homegrown violent extremist.\" However, he emigrated to the United States as an infant, was a naturalized U.S citizen, and was never once described as a \"refugee\" prior to the November 2015 controversy over asylum seekers.Last updated: 20November 2015Originally published: 20November 2015 emigrated Born in Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Abdulazeez became an American citizen in 2003 through the naturalization of his mother, federal officials said; his father was also naturalized. Because he was a minor, he did not have to apply separately for citizenship. A divorce complaint filed by his mother in 2009 and then withdrawn, said the parents were from the State of Palestine. On 13 November 2015, the Associated Press reported that investigators remained circumspect about Abdulazeez's motive:\"We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way,\" FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a visit to Nashville's FBI field office on Friday. reported Comey said he understands the public interest in the shooting, but he did not know whether there would ever be a public report on it. \"Sometimes the way we investigate requires us to keep information secret. That's a good thing. We don't want to smear people,\" he said. That article stated that the FBI considered \"Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez [to be]a homegrown violent extremist.\" However, he emigrated to the United States as an infant, was a naturalized U.S citizen, and was never once described as a \"refugee\" prior to the November 2015 controversy over asylum seekers. Last updated: 20November 2015 Originally published: 20November 2015", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qLlhD9O1on4JsJ4bJ7ip8_CcfoVz9Hru", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the aftermath rumors circulated claiming Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan (born in Virginia) was a refugee, and similar memes assertedthe Tsarnaev brothers (who emigrated as children, and one of whom was a naturalized American citizen) were \"asylum seekers.\" A concurrent rumor held thatMuhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, perpetrator of the July 2015 Chattanooga shootings, was also a refugee.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/refugee-nidal-hasan/", "https://www.snopes.com/tsarnaev-refugees/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 16 July 2015 Abdulazeez engaged in a shooting spree attwo military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing five servicemen before he himself died in a shootout. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) later indicated that Abdulazeez's motives were unclear, but possibly religious in nature.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/jul/23/fbi-abdulazeez-homegrown-extremist/316023/" ] }, { "sentence": "Why Abdulazeez perpetrated the shooting remained somewhat of a mystery, but whether the Chattanooga shooter was a refugee was far less complicated. He was \"a Kuwait-born U.S. citizen\":The gunman who targeted U.S. military service members in a late-morning shooting Thursday in Tennessee was a 24-year-old electrical engineer who had grown up in Chattanooga as part of a conservative Muslim family.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/us/chattanooga-shooting-suspect-was-ordinary-boy-neighbors-recall.html?_r=0", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-investigators-probe-motive-in-chattanooga-rampage-a-portrait-of-the-shooter-emerges/2015/07/17/4b2ff26a-2c97-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html", "https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chattanooga-shooter-came-from-middle-class-muslim-family/2015/07/16/815c39c2-2c04-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html" ] }, { "sentence": " TIME reported:He was of Jordanian descent and was born in Kuwait in 1990, according to a federal official quoted in the New York Times. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen after moving to the country with his mother, who is from Kuwait, and father Youssuf Abdulazeez, who is Palestinian, reported the SITE Intelligence Group.", "hrefs": [ "https://time.com/3962344/chattanooga-muhammad-youssef-abdulazeez/" ] }, { "sentence": " Little is known about the circumstances under which Abdulazeez emigrated to the United States:Born in Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Abdulazeez became an American citizen in 2003 through the naturalization of his mother, federal officials said; his father was also naturalized. Because he was a minor, he did not have to apply separately for citizenship. A divorce complaint filed by his mother in 2009 and then withdrawn, said the parents were from the State of Palestine. On 13 November 2015, the Associated Press reported that investigators remained circumspect about Abdulazeez's motive:\"We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way,\" FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a visit to Nashville's FBI field office on Friday.Comey said he understands the public interest in the shooting, but he did not know whether there would ever be a public report on it.\"Sometimes the way we investigate requires us to keep information secret. That's a good thing. We don't want to smear people,\" he said. That article stated that the FBI considered \"Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez [to be]a homegrown violent extremist.\" However, he emigrated to the United States as an infant, was a naturalized U.S citizen, and was never once described as a \"refugee\" prior to the November 2015 controversy over asylum seekers.Last updated: 20November 2015Originally published: 20November 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/us/chattanooga-gunmans-past-scoured-for-extremist-ties.html", "https://www.wsmv.com/story/30515168/fbi-motive-in-chattanooga-shooting-may-never-be-released" ] }, { "sentence": " On 13 November 2015, the Associated Press reported that investigators remained circumspect about Abdulazeez's motive:\"We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way,\" FBI Director James Comey told reporters during a visit to Nashville's FBI field office on Friday.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wsmv.com/story/30515168/fbi-motive-in-chattanooga-shooting-may-never-be-released" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/most-valuable-brand-names/", "claim": "Most Valuable Brand Names", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "08/01/2001", "sci_digest": [ "What are the world's most valuable brand names?" ], "justification": " Claim: The three most valuable brand names on Earth are Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order. OUTDATED Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2001] I saw this statement in an e-mail. Is this true? \"The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.\" Origins: The value of a recognized brand name is both difficult to estimate and difficult to overestimate. Certainly companies with long established, widely recognized brand names don't overestimate their value, spending millions of dollars in advertising every year not to directly promote sales of specific products but simply to keep their brand names in front of the public. So of all the millions of brands in the world, which ones are at the top of the heap? Which companies have been the most successful at constantly nurturing their brands to keep pace in a rapidly changing world? A long-circulated bit of Internet trivia attempts to surprise readers by informing them that the \"three most valuable brand names on Earth\" are ones they wouldn't necessarily peg for the very highest spots, namely Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser. But that tidbit was gleaned from brand rankings produced back in the 1990s, and a good deal has changed in the business world since then. Assigning comparative values to brand names is a process that involves a number of subjective elements, so brand rankings vary depending upon who is doing the ranking and what criteria they use. One of the most prominent organizations in this field is Interbrand, a global branding consultancy that (among their other business activities) assigns values to brand names and publishes an annual list of brand name rankings, subject to some qualifications: Interbrand There are several criteria for inclusion in Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report. The brand must be truly global and needs to have successfully transcended geographic and cultural boundaries. It must have expanded across the established economic centers of the world, and be establishing a presence in the major markets of the future. In measurable terms, this requires that: At least 30 percent of revenues must come from outside the brand's home region. It must have a presence in at least three major continents, as well as broad geographic coverage in emerging markets. There must be sufficient publicly available data on the brand's financial performance. Economic profit must be expected to be positive over the longer term, delivering a return above the brands operating and financing costs. The brand must have a public profile and awareness above and beyond its own marketplace. These requirements that a brand be global, visible, and relatively transparent in financial results lead to the exclusion of some well-known brands that might otherwise be expected to appear in the ranking. The Mars and BBC brands, for example, are privately held and do not have publicly available financial data. Walmart, although it does business in international markets, often does so under a variety of brands and, therefore, does not meet Interbrand's global requirements. Interbrand's 2013 ranking of the Best Global Brands finds that things have changed considerably since the days when Coca-Cola, Marlboro, and Budweiser held down the top spots on the \"most valuable brand name\" charts, however. According to Interbrand, Coca-Cola is still in a strong third-place position, but Budweiser has slipped all the way down to #31, and Marlboro no longer appears in Interbrand's top 100 at all (possibly due to Marlboro's lack of a social media presence). Best Global Brands social media Millward Brown's BrandZ 2013 list of the \"Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands,\" which is more inclusive than Interbrand's and is based on a database of feedback from millions of consumers and professionals, shows the Coca-Cola and Marlboro brands still close to the top at #5 and #8, respectively, with Budweiser midway down at #34. Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands A comparison of the two organizations' most recent rankings shows a good deal of similarity in the top seven spots: Interbrand (2013) Brandz (2013) #1 Apple #1 Apple #2 Google #2 Google #3 Coca-Cola #3 IBM #4 IBM #4 McDonald's #5 Microsoft #5 Coca-Cola#6 General Electric #6 AT&T#7 McDonald's #7 Microsoft But Mark Ritson, writing for MarketingWeek, noted that the different approaches employed by Interbrand and BrandZ can also produce some quite disparate results: The two most well-regarded brand valuations are provided by Millward Brown's BrandZ Top 100 and Interbrand's Best Global Brands list. Both produce the same thing: a ranking of the 100 most valuable brands in the world, and each year we get to see their latest assessments. The problem for the two companies involved, and marketers in general, is how far apart their annual estimates of brand value tend to be. For example, in 2010 BrandZ estimated the value of the Google brand to be $114 billion, making it by far the world's most valuable brand and suggesting that approximately 75% of the overall market capitalisation of Google can be attributed to its brand value. In contrast, Interbrand valued Googles brand at $44 billion in 2010, well behind brands like Coke, IBM and Microsoft. That's more than a minor difference of opinion with BrandZ that's $70 billion worth of disagreement. Or, to put it in perspective, the combined 2010 brand values of Porsche, Barclays, Audi, VW, HSBC, Ford, Nike, Burberry and Pepsi. The vast $70 billion difference is not derived from a difference of philosophy both Millward Brown and Interbrand calculate the value of a brand the same way. Both firms also have access to the same financial data for each brand. The difference comes from the method each uses to estimate a brand's overall strength. BrandZ uses its own internal survey of \"2 million consumers in 30 different countries\" to assess brand strength. Interbrand relies on its \"pool of global experts from over 40 countries\" who each complete a 10 item assessment of every brand's strength. Additional information: Best Global Brands (2013) (Interbrand) Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (2013) (BrandZ) Last updated: 18 October 2013 ", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://shopbestwealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/brand_logos.jpg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Assigning comparative values to brand names is a process that involves a number of subjective elements, so brand rankings vary depending upon who is doing the ranking and what criteria they use. One of the most prominent organizations in this field is Interbrand, a global branding consultancy that (among their other business activities) assigns values to brand names and publishes an annual list of brand name rankings, subject to some qualifications:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.interbrand.com/" ] }, { "sentence": "Interbrand's 2013 ranking of the Best Global Brands finds that things have changed considerably since the days when Coca-Cola, Marlboro, and Budweiser held down the top spots on the \"most valuable brand name\" charts, however. According to Interbrand, Coca-Cola is still in a strong third-place position, but Budweiser has slipped all the way down to #31, and Marlboro no longer appears in Interbrand's top 100 at all (possibly due to Marlboro's lack of a social media presence).", "hrefs": [ "https://interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/top-100-list-view.aspx", "https://mashable.com/2012/12/03/brands-not-on-social-media/" ] }, { "sentence": "Millward Brown's BrandZ 2013 list of the \"Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands,\" which is more inclusive than Interbrand's and is based on a database of feedback from millions of consumers and professionals, shows the Coca-Cola and Marlboro brands still close to the top at #5 and #8, respectively, with Budweiser midway down at #34.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.millwardbrown.com/brandz/2013/Top100/Docs/2013_BrandZ_Top100_Chart.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": " Best Global Brands (2013) (Interbrand)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/Best-Global-Brands-2013-Brand-View.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": " Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands (2013) (BrandZ)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.millwardbrown.com/brandz/2013/Top100/Docs/2013_BrandZ_Top100_Chart.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/opportunity-rovers-final-words/", "claim": "Was a Mars Rover's Final Message to NASA 'My Battery Is Low and It's Getting Dark?'", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "02/18/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A poetic interpretation of the Opportunity rover's final transmission from Mars went viral in February 2019." ], "justification": "On 13 February 2019, NASA announced that the mission of a robotic rover named Opportunity had come to an end after the device had spent 15 years exploring the surface of Mars: announced One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA's Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA's return to the Red Planet. The Opportunity rover stopped communicating with Earth when a severe Mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location in June 2018. After more than a thousand commands to restore contact, engineers in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) made their last attempt to revive Opportunity, to no avail. The solar-powered rover's final communication was received June 10. As the online world mourned the loss of the famous Martian explorer, many social media users started sharing a quote that supposedly constituted Oppy's final transmission to NASA: \"My battery is low and its getting dark.\" This quote quickly made its way around the Internet, shared by celebrities, reporters, and social media influencers. Some people also created tributes to Opportunity that featured the rover's alleged final transmission: influencers Although many individuals and news outlets cited these words as if they constituted a verbatim reproduction of Opportunity's final transmission, the phrase was not a literal reproduction of the robotic rover's last statement. news outlets The quote originated with a Twitter thread about Oppy's demise by posted by KPCC science reporter Jacob Margolis. At one point, Margolis said the rover's final transmission \"basically\" translated as \"my battery is low and it's getting dark\": thread basically This quote quickly escaped the context of Margolis' Twitter thread, however, and started to circulate as if he were relaying a verbatim message from the Mars rover. On 16 February 2019, Margolis published an article on The LAist website explaining how his words came to be taken out of context: The LAist My tweet is an interpretation of what two scientists from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission told me. Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Fraeman spoke about what it was like when they realized the June [2018] dust storm was going to be particularly bad, and that Oppy's life was in danger. They told it to conserve energy. \"It's hard, because you know [the storm's] coming ... but there's nothing you can do to stop it,\" Fraeman said. \"By Thursday, we knew that it was bad. And then by Friday, we knew it was really bad, but there was nothing we could do but watch. And then it was Sunday, we actually got a communication from the rover and we were shocked,\" she said. \"It basically said we had no power left, and that was the last time we heard from it.\" John Callas, the project manager, offered another poignant detail about the final communication with Oppy: \"It also told us the skies were incredibly dark, to the point where no sunlight gets through. It's night time during the day.\" \"We were hopeful that the rover could ride it out. That the rover would hunker down, and then when the storm cleared, the rover would charge back up,\" he said. \"That didn't happen. At least it didn't tell us that it happened. So, we don't know.\" When NASA announced the completion of Opportunity's mission in February 2019, the Mars rover hadn't communicated with the space agency since the previous June. The solar-powered Opportunity was low on power when one of the largest dust storms observed on Mars engulfed the planet and, essentially, turned \"day into night,\" as the Planetary Society wrote: communicated Planetary Society On June 20th, NASA announced the storm had gone global. To be more accurate, it evolved into a planetary-encircling dust event (PEDE), lofting enough dust into the atmosphere to completely blanket the planet and block out the Sun. In other words, the Red Planet and most all its features were hidden from most orbiting instruments beneath an opaque, beige dust cloud. The atmospheric scientists taking measurements with instruments on the orbiters were soon blocked out. Oppy sent its final message from the surface of Mars on 10 June 2018: final message Opportunity downlinked what would turn out to be her final message from Mars on June 10, 2018. The bare bones contents of that missive informed her crew that a monster dust storm was lifting dust all around Endeavour Crater and was turning day into night there. Minutes later, the solar-powered robot field geologist presumably shut down and went into a kind of hibernation mode to wait out the storm. NASA attempted to communicate with Opportunity many times after the storm passed, but the rover never responded: Margolis, Jacob. \"How a Tweet About The Mars Rover Dying Blew Up on the Internet and Made People Cry.\"\r The LAist. 16 February 2019. Rayl, A.J.S. \"The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Sleeps as Storm Chasers Study Planet-Encircling Dust Cloud.\"\r Planetary Society. 4 July 2018. Rayl, A.J.S. \"The Mars Exploration Rovers Update Special Report: NASA Declares Opportunity and MER Mission Complete.\"\r Planetary Society. 14 February 2019. NASA. \"NASA's Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End.\"\r 13 February 2019.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jq0HRalyovNUlMQ9crjG2BK-kg2y1Qh3", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1N3DIggA5kitvTRoiInaTv8CE40Tjq8CQ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 13 February 2019, NASA announced that the mission of a robotic rover named Opportunity had come to an end after the device had spent 15 years exploring the surface of Mars:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7334" ] }, { "sentence": "As the online world mourned the loss of the famous Martian explorer, many social media users started sharing a quote that supposedly constituted Oppy's final transmission to NASA: \"My battery is low and its getting dark.\" This quote quickly made its way around the Internet, shared by celebrities, reporters, and social media influencers. Some people also created tributes to Opportunity that featured the rover's alleged final transmission:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/PatrickADougall/status/1095835341624229888" ] }, { "sentence": "Although many individuals and news outlets cited these words as if they constituted a verbatim reproduction of Opportunity's final transmission, the phrase was not a literal reproduction of the robotic rover's last statement.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ny-news-martian-rover-final-message-20190215-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The quote originated with a Twitter thread about Oppy's demise by posted by KPCC science reporter Jacob Margolis. At one point, Margolis said the rover's final transmission \"basically\" translated as \"my battery is low and it's getting dark\":", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JacobMargolis/status/1095436908899913729", "https://twitter.com/JacobMargolis/status/1095436913173880832" ] }, { "sentence": "This quote quickly escaped the context of Margolis' Twitter thread, however, and started to circulate as if he were relaying a verbatim message from the Mars rover. On 16 February 2019, Margolis published an article on The LAist website explaining how his words came to be taken out of context:", "hrefs": [ "https://laist.com/2019/02/16/jpl_mars_rover_opportunity_battery_is_low_and_its_getting_dark.php" ] }, { "sentence": "When NASA announced the completion of Opportunity's mission in February 2019, the Mars rover hadn't communicated with the space agency since the previous June. The solar-powered Opportunity was low on power when one of the largest dust storms observed on Mars engulfed the planet and, essentially, turned \"day into night,\" as the Planetary Society wrote: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/mer-updates/2019/02-mer-update-opportunity-complete.html", "https://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/mer-updates/2018/06-mer-update-planet-encircling-dust-cloud.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Oppy sent its final message from the surface of Mars on 10 June 2018:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/mer-updates/2019/02-mer-update-opportunity-complete.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/contrabagged/", "claim": "Has the Government Banned School Students Bringing Sack Lunches from Home?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/16/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Has the federal government banned public school students from bringing sack lunches to school?" ], "justification": " Claim: The federal government has banned public school students from bringing sack lunches to school. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, October 2013] Naturalcuresnotmedicine.com posted an article indicating that the \"Feds\" are prohibiting school lunches from home without doctor's orders. Is this true or false. When and where? Is it true that the federal government won't allow parents to pack lunches for preschool kids without a doctor's note? It doesn't even sound slightly true to me, but it's being tossed around the internet. Origins: Intermittent rumors about imminent government control of school lunches (and specifically, a ban on lunches brought in from home) have popped up across the internet since 2011, and claims about the imposition of a government ban on brown bag lunches have continued to circulate since. Mentions of home lunch bans began cropping up on the Internet as early as 2011, with the pattern with this cyclical rumor appearing to be consistent: A parent packs a lunch, receives a note from a teacher or school official informing them of a district or program policy regarding lunches from home, and the note circulates as proof that the \"feds\" are sweeping in to seize control of the cafeteria. Back in 2001, one Chicago-area school called Little Village Academy banned home lunches. The Chicago Tribune covered the minor controversy, explaining that the school's principal (not the federal government) had instituted the rule at his school only after watching students bring lunches consisting of \"bottles of soda and flaming hot chips\" on field trips. The rumor about federal lunch bans died down a bit after 2011 but picked up again in 2013 when a mom blog relayed the story of a friend in Virginia who had received a note from her child's school about packed lunches. The note, which was quickly reproduced on a number of prominent natural news and conspiracy sites, read: mom blog natural news I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians note to that regard. I am sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact Stephanie [redacted] the Health Coordinator for Federal Programs Preschool at [redacted]. Perhaps due to the start of the school year, the same story began to circulate in September 2014, with the same image and text attached. Given the timing and the return to classrooms for the majority of America's kids, it's no surprise the tale has once more gained traction and begun to spread virally on social media sites. circulate When the story first began to travel across the social web, the Director of Communications and Public Relations for Henrico County Public Schools responded to an inquiry on this particular incident with a statement noting that schools receiving funds to participate in the federal Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs must provide meals to schoolchildren at no cost to their parents, and allowing schoolkids to bring their own lunches from home would (barring special medical requirements) violate that requirement: Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs It is Head Start policy, not Henrico County Public Schools policy, that there cannot be any costs to parents associated with the program, meals or otherwise. Parents packing a lunch is considered a \"cost\" by Head Start. As a result, every year parents are informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition that merits a specific diet, along with a physician's note to that regard. Meals served by the school conform to USDA nutritional requirements along with cultural, religious, and personal preferences on a case by case basis. Parents are always welcome to discuss their children's dietary needs with our health coordinator. While many disagree with this particular Head Start (HS) performance standard by which we are regulated and funded; as good stewards of federal dollars, it is protecting one of our most at risk populations and operating at the highest level of expectation with all of the funding strands we utilize for Pre-K. Additionally, parents are made aware of the policy as stated in the preschool parent handbook upon entrance to the program and are required to sign they have received and read it. The family advocates go over it with them on some of their initial meetings with parents. As indicated in this response, the issue was not one of the federal government's trying to control exactly what schoolkids may eat for lunch, but rather one of ensuring that all children covered under the Head Start program were provided with their allotted lunches at no cost to their parents. Last updated: 16 September 2014 ", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1KKblIA94VUXf-s1q_qu3VDSDnd-3Hfg1", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The rumor about federal lunch bans died down a bit after 2011 but picked up again in 2013 when a mom blog relayed the story of a friend in Virginia who had received a note from her child's school about packed lunches. The note, which was quickly reproduced on a number of prominent natural news and conspiracy sites, read:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.momdot.com/a-doctors-note-for-gmos/", "https://www.realfarmacy.com/no-lunches-from-home-without-doctors-note-school-lunch-only/" ] }, { "sentence": "Perhaps due to the start of the school year, the same story began to circulate in September 2014, with the same image and text attached. Given the timing and the return to classrooms for the majority of America's kids, it's no surprise the tale has once more gained traction and begun to spread virally on social media sites. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/feds-parents-lunches-home-without-doctors-note-school-lunch/" ] }, { "sentence": "When the story first began to travel across the social web, the Director of Communications and Public Relations for Henrico County Public Schools responded to an inquiry on this particular incident with a statement noting that schools receiving funds to participate in the federal Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs must provide meals to schoolchildren at no cost to their parents, and allowing schoolkids to bring their own lunches from home would (barring special medical requirements) violate that requirement:", "hrefs": [ "https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/standards/hspps/1304/1304.23%20Child%20nutrition..htm", "https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/operations/fiscal/financial-mgmt/payments/USDANutritionAs.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/not-one-damn-dime-day/", "claim": "Day of Not Participating in Any Purchases", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/07/2005", "sci_digest": [ "Is participating in a 'Not One Damn Dime Day' an effective way to protest the war in Iraq?" ], "justification": "Claim: Participating in a 'Not One Damn Dime Day' is an effective way to protest the war in Iraq. Status: Probably not. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] National Anti-War Boycott It doesn't really matter that everyone will be out spending what they didn't the next day a point or two will have been made: Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since ourpolitical leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" in America. On \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. During \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime fornecessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours. On \"Not One Damn Dime Day,\" please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it. \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations andfunnel cash into American politics. \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,200+ brave young Americans and (some estimated) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan a way to come home. There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On \"Not One Damn Dime Day\" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people. Please share this email with as many people as possible. Origins: Evaluating e-mails urging people to participate in some form of protest is always difficult, because (except in the rare cases where a hoax or a joke has been taken seriously) they can't be \"true\" or \"false.\" The protests may succeed, fail, or achieve some intermediate result, but whether to participate is a matter of individual choice. We don't know who came up with the idea for the Not One Damn Dime! protest Not One Damn Dime! (it is often falsely attributed to newsman Bill Moyers) or what level of participation it might achieve; all wecan do is offer an opinion about its likelihood of success. In this case our opinion is that someone has taken the futile concept of slacktivism to a new extreme. slacktivism Some protests are functional; they involve people taking direct action to achieve the desired result, such as chaining oneself to a tree to prevent its being cut down. Other protests are symbolic; they seek to inform the public or call attention to an issue through activities such as holding marches or making speeches. Sometimes protests are a combination of the two: chaining oneself to a tree is a functional but necessarily short-term solution, yet such an event is usually covered by the media and thus helps to publicize the cause of conservation. So which form of protest is this supposed to be? Its ostensible purpose is a symbolic one to \"remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal\" which leaves us wondering how this form of protest is supposed to help effect any change in circumstances The merits and conduct of the U.S. war with Iraq have been endlessly debated, in every medium, since the U.S. invasion of Iraq nearly two years ago. The war in Iraq was the primary issue in a long, contentious, headline-dominating presidential campaign that ended just a few months ago. The war is still one of the lead stories in the news nearly every day. Many different polling organizations and major news outlets regularly survey public opinion on the issue. If the result desired by those who would engage in this protest hasn't yet been achieved, it's not because the issue hasn't received enough publicity or those \"in power\" are insufficiently aware of it. All that aside, the suggested scheme is one of the least effective forms of symbolic protest one could devise: it literally proposes that people do nothing, and doing nothing generates little, if any, publicity or news coverage. Massing thousands of people in one place and engaging speakers to make rousing public speeches provide vivid, well-defined images for the news media to pick up on, but pictures of people not spending money just don't make compelling fodder for newspapers and television. (Images of normally bustling malls, restaurants, and airports standing eerily devoid of human traffic might make for a good news story, but public opinion on this issue is far too divided for this protest to be able to bring all business to a grinding halt.) Even worse, when you call upon people to do nothing, how is anyone supposed to gauge the success of your efforts? There's no way to distinguish those who are doing nothing out of principle from those who are simply doing nothing out of habit. As a functional protest, this one is equally off the mark. Although a boycott can be an active form of protest (even though boycott participants are in effect doing nothing, they're following a course of action that directly affects the object of their protest), boycotts succeed by causing economic harm to their targets, thereby putting them out of business or at least requiring them to change their policies in order to remain in business. But the target of this boycott isn't an entity that has the power to bring about the desired resolution (i.e., the government) those who will be economically harmed by it are innocent business operators and their employees. These people have no power to set U.S. foreign policy or recall troops from Iraq, but they're the ones who would have to pay the price for this form of protest, incurring all their usual overhead costs (e.g., lighting, heat, refrigeration) to keep their businesses open and paying employees' salaries, all the while taking in little or no income. (And no, it doesn't all even out in the end restaurants, for example, aren't going to recoup their lost business through boycott participants' eating twice as much the next day.) Whether the desired goal is laudable or not, a protest that has little chance of succeeding at its purpose but a high likelihood of harming innocent parties does no one any good. As we always say about these kinds of things, results are generally proportional to effort: If the most effort one is willing to put into a cause is to do nothing, then one should expect to accomplish nothing in return. Last updated: 14 January 2005 Sources: Graves, Rachel. \"Inaugural Protest Ideas Sprout Across Internet.\" Houston Chronicle. 10 January 2005. Moscoso, Eunice. \"Internet Campaign Urges Economic Boycott on Inauguration Day.\" The Palm Beach Post. 12 January 2005. Richmond, Alex. \"Protesting? Do Something, Not Nothing.\" The Trentonian. 12 January 2005. Wilson, Craig. \"On Jan. 20, War Protest Will Turn on a 'Dime'.\" USA Today. 13 January 2005 (p. D1)", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1f5-PIrRwK464py4auCYsWpc5mI18OcZY" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Evaluating e-mails urging people to participate in some form of protest is always difficult, because (except in the rare cases where a hoax or a joke has been taken seriously) they can't be \"true\" or \"false.\" The protests may succeed, fail, or achieve some intermediate result, but whether to participate is a matter of individual choice. We don't know who came up with the idea for the Not One Damn Dime! protest ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.notonedamndime.com/boycott/" ] }, { "sentence": "(it is often falsely attributed to newsman Bill Moyers) or what level of participation it might achieve; all wecan do is offer an opinion about its likelihood of success. In this case our opinion is that someone has taken the futile concept of slacktivism to a new extreme.", "hrefs": [ "/info/glossary.asp#slack" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-did-not-donate-to-nambla/", "claim": "Donald Trump gave financial contributions to NAMBLA.", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "08/09/2016", "sci_digest": [ "The claim that Trump is a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association is the result of a bot programmed by Reddit pranksters." ], "justification": "In August 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, a Reddit user programmed a robot to respond to any mention of the words \"tax return\" with a comment insinuating that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump refuses to release his tax returns because he has donated millions of dollars to an organization that promotes pederasty. The bot called AutoModerator responds to every comment in the sub-reddit EnoughTrumpSpam with the phrase: EnoughTrumpSpam Speaking of tax returns, did you hear Donald Trump is refusing to release them because Donald Trump has donated to NAMBLA? That's what all the best sources, the most tremendous sources are saying, and if they're all saying that Donald Trump donated to NAMBLA, well, I can see why Donald Trump would want to cover up his donations to NAMBLA. I'm not claiming that Donald Trump donates to NAMBLA, but that's what these excellent sources are alleging, that Donald Trump does indeed donate to NAMBLA. The phrase is accompanied by a disclaimer that it was generated by a bot. But that hasn't stopped the oblique accusation that Trump may be a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association from making its way around the Internet: Also, @seanhannity? Look into this disgusting Trump/NAMBLA nonsense. So gross how the left lies.Trump.NAMBLA.Say that every night. @seanhannity Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 9, 2016 August 9, 2016 A Reddit user who calls himself J. Peterman possibly a reference to a character on the television sitcom Seinfeld said he created the bot to mock Trump for his habit of making claims that he attributes to nameless \"people:\" character claims I created it by taking advantage of an existing bot, /u/automoderator, made available for all moderators to use to automate certain tasks, and you can make custom code for the subreddit's configuration of auto moderator. I did that and I made it reply to the trigger word \"tax returns\" with the copy/paste you see. /u/automoderator For example, in June 2016, Trump hinted that President Barack Obama may have had a connection to the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, saying: saying People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on... He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands it's one or the other, and either one is unacceptable. A Reddit moderator who goes by \"Faiz\" and claims to have helped launch the bot told us that he believes it turns Trump's own manner of generating suspicions against his opponents against him: We didn't expect it to take off like this, but the community effort on EnoughTrumpSpam really helped it go viral. The joke spread off Reddit and began confusing people so much so that some news outlets even began picking the story up. I think it's success is, in a way, emblematic of the way Trump spreads lies and gets people to believe them by constantly repeating them. A random user originally posted the block of text and it became instantly popular on Reddit. We all loved it because of how much it imitated Trump's style of making unsubstantiated accusations. You really can't tell the difference between some of the text in the meme and some things Trump wrote during Obama's birther conspiracy. As for why Trump, we picked it up mostly because, as suggested by the name (EnoughTrumpSpam), we are an anti-Trump community and we found this to be a perfect foil to highlight the way Trump spreads conspiracy theories. J. Peterman said he was taken aback by how much attention the bot generated. The prank seems to have caught fire, with someone jumping in to create a fake Fox News page with the title: \"NAMBLA neither confirms nor denies Trump's donation allegations.\" page Now that it's taken off, I'm quite surprised. I'm surprised by how much press attention the bot's coding has garnered as well as the meme in general. I cannot take credit for creating the meme, that was around for a week or so before I did the bot, and it was everyone else who kept the meme going. Faiz, the moderator, said he hopes that the prank goes far enough that Trump's campaign is forced to respond to it. The ultimate coup de grce, he told the Daily Beast, would be if it forces Trump to do something he has adamantly refused to do: release his tax returns. Daily Beast The only logical conclusion would really be Trump releasing his tax returns but he would never do that because hes hiding donations to NAMBLA, Faiz told the Daily Beast. Thats what Ive heard from some very smart people anyway. You can see the bot in action in the screenshot taken from Reddit here: Reddit It's worth noting that even if the story were true, NAMBLA is not a nonprofit organization, and so donations to the group would not show up on Trump's tax returns. NAMBLA returns ", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1XGS0NAq6peHFcJ1uoec4GX8fII-tm4uy" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The bot called AutoModerator responds to every comment in the sub-reddit EnoughTrumpSpam with the phrase:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4vyzui/its_happening_trump_supporter_refuses_to_deny/" ] }, { "sentence": "Also, @seanhannity? Look into this disgusting Trump/NAMBLA nonsense. So gross how the left lies.Trump.NAMBLA.Say that every night.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/seanhannity" ] }, { "sentence": " Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 9, 2016", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/763051930289446913" ] }, { "sentence": "A Reddit user who calls himself J. Peterman possibly a reference to a character on the television sitcom Seinfeld said he created the bot to mock Trump for his habit of making claims that he attributes to nameless \"people:\"", "hrefs": [ "https://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Jacopo_Peterman", "https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/trump-maybe-obama-doesn-t-want-stop-terrorism-n591166" ] }, { "sentence": "I created it by taking advantage of an existing bot, /u/automoderator, made available for all moderators to use to automate certain tasks, and you can make custom code for the subreddit's configuration of auto moderator. I did that and I made it reply to the trigger word \"tax returns\" with the copy/paste you see.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/user/automoderator" ] }, { "sentence": "For example, in June 2016, Trump hinted that President Barack Obama may have had a connection to the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, saying:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/13/donald-trump-suggests-president-obama-was-involved-with-orlando-shooting/" ] }, { "sentence": "J. Peterman said he was taken aback by how much attention the bot generated. The prank seems to have caught fire, with someone jumping in to create a fake Fox News page with the title: \"NAMBLA neither confirms nor denies Trump's donation allegations.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://nation.foxnews.com.5x8r.clonezone.link/nambla-silent-on-trump-donations" ] }, { "sentence": "Faiz, the moderator, said he hopes that the prank goes far enough that Trump's campaign is forced to respond to it. The ultimate coup de grce, he told the Daily Beast, would be if it forces Trump to do something he has adamantly refused to do: release his tax returns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/08/nambla-becomes-donald-trump-s-birther-moment.html" ] }, { "sentence": "You can see the bot in action in the screenshot taken from Reddit here:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4vyzui/its_happening_trump_supporter_refuses_to_deny/" ] }, { "sentence": "It's worth noting that even if the story were true, NAMBLA is not a nonprofit organization, and so donations to the group would not show up on Trump's tax returns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.governmentattic.org/docs/Extract_FBI-files_NAMBLA_1979-86.pdf", "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/organizations-eligible-to-receive-tax-deductible-charitable-contributions" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/satellite-image-diwali/", "claim": "Does This Satellite Pic Show Diwali Celebration From Space?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "11/04/2021", "sci_digest": [ "The festival of lights does not produce this much light. " ], "justification": "In November 2021, a photograph from space supposedly showing Diwali a \"festival of lights\" that is celebrated by millions of Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists across India was circulated on social media. The image on the right does not show how India looks from space during Diwali. According to NASA, this image was created by combining a series of images over multiple years in an attempt to show population growth. NASA writes: image was created writes An image that claims to show the region lit for Diwali has been circulating on social media websites and the Internet in recent years. In fact, it does not show what it claims. That image, based on data from the Operational Linescan System flown on U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, is a color-composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to highlight population growth over time. In that image, white areas show city lights that were visible prior to 1992, while blue, green, and red shades indicate city lights that became visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003 respectively. NASA adds that while Diwali is certainly a thing to behold when standing on the surface of earth, the light produced during the festival of lights isn't enough to be visible from space with normal satellite imagery. In reality, any extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that it is likely imperceptible when observed from space. However, infrared cameras can detect the light produced during Diwali. In 2012, NASA's Suomi NPP satellite took an infrared image of South Asia during Diwali. The NASA History Office re-shared this image in 2021 in celebration of the holiday: Fake Image of Diwali Still Circulating | Earth | EarthSky. 6 Nov. 2018, https://earthsky.org/earth/fake-image-of-india-during-diwali-versus-the-real-thing/. NGDC/STP - Defense Meteorological Satellite Progam, Boulder. 28 Feb. 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20060228074509/https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/interest/india.html. Seen the Viral NASA Diwali Photo Again This Year? Heres All You Need to Know about It. DNA India, 5 Nov. 2021, https://www.dnaindia.com/viral/report-seen-the-viral-nasa-diwali-photo-again-this-year-here-s-all-you-need-to-know-about-it-2918456. South Asian Night Lights. 15 Nov. 2012, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/79682/south-asian-night-lights.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1a1bH8uuuM-OpvJUdQNpyWk0cY9VFSttw", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "According to NASA, this image was created by combining a series of images over multiple years in an attempt to show population growth. NASA writes:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20060228074509/https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/interest/india.html", "https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/79682/south-asian-night-lights" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/healthcare-in-japan/", "claim": "Six pieces of information about healthcare in Japan.", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "04/25/2018", "sci_digest": [ "We fact-check a series of claims about Japan's healthcare and medical insurance system." ], "justification": "Healthcare reform has been a perennial political project in American politics, from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and those of Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. Both those for and against the concept of the United States' adopting a universal health care system often use comparisons between the U.S. and other countries to advocate for their positions, as exemplified by a 20 April 2018 post on the \"U.S. Democratic Socialists\" Facebook page featuring a widely-shared meme purportedly outlining the main features of the Japanese healthcare system: meme We examine this meme point-by-point below: 1. 100 percent of Japanese have health insurance. This is basically true. Japan has universal health care, which means that everyone who lives there (except undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors) can access affordable care and is required by law to be covered by some form of insurance. For the most part, residents do this through two kinds of insurance, which are administered by the government: employment-based health insurance, and National Health Insurance (known as \"Kokumin Kenko Hoken\"). care Kokumin Kenko Hoken However, Japan's aging population, low birth rate, and economic stagnation have placed a burden on the country's universal health care system, so reforms to that system are under way. reforms 2. Costs are half of what is spent for healthcare in the United States. By the two most commonly-used metrics, this is about right. A country's health spending is most often measured in a couple of ways: the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on healthcare, and healthcare spending per capita (the total amount spent on health care divided by the number of people living in the country). According to 2016 data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, by far the highest proportion among developed countries. Japan spends 10.9 percent of its GDP, about two-thirds the relative amount the United States does. data In 2016, total healthcare spending in the United States worked out to be $9,892 per person per year, again by far the highest level in the developed world. In Japan that figure was $4,519 per person, which is less than half than the United States spends. 3. Japanese can choose their own doctors and see them twice as often as Americans Japan has what is known as a \"free access\" system, which means as the meme correctly states that for the most part patients can use whichever doctors and hospitals they choose. According to the Health and Global Policy Institute, patients should get a referral letter before presenting at larger hospitals. This is partly because the free access system can sometimes mean individuals with only minor ailments present at hospital emergency rooms, creating a backlog for patients in more urgent need of care. referral letter backlog Japanese people visit doctors even more than twice as often Americans do, at least according to OECD data. Figures from 2011 (the most recent year for which a direct comparison is possible) show that United States residents averaged four doctors' consultations per person that year in the United States, while in Japan the figure was more than three times higher, at 13 doctors' consultations per person that year. (In 2014, that figure was 12.7 doctors' visits per person per year in Japan.) Figures 4. Japanese have the world's longest life expectancy and the second lowest infant mortality. This is true. According to United Nations data, a Japanese person born in 2014 could expect to live, on average, until the age of 83.6, the highest life expectancy figure of more than 200 countries. (Children born in Hong Kong can expect to live to 84, but Hong Kong is a territory of China, not a sovereign nation.) data Research has shown that the relatively healthy diet and lifestyle of Japanese people, as well as good healthcare, plays a significant role in their longevity. Research United Nations data also show that in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, Japan had the joint second-lowest rate of infant mortality in the world, defined as the number of children who died under the age of one for every 1,000 live births. With 2.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan was ranked second, along with Finland and just behind Iceland and Luxembourg. data 5. 95 percent of Japanese healthcare is not-for-profit. It's not clear what this claim means, so we can't really evaluate its accuracy. Does this mean 95 percent of healthcare providers operate on a not-for-profit basis? That 95 percent of procedures are performed on a non-profit basis? That 95 percent of all health care expenditures relates to not-for-profit providers? We do know that by law, hospitals in Japan cannot operate for profit, with the exception of large for-profit companies who build hospitals for their own employees. According to an analysis by Ryozo Matsuda, a health policy expert at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, 80 percent of hospitals are privately run. Facilities that provide care for elderly and disabled people (e.g., nursing home care, respite care, home care) can operate for profit, and according to Matsuda, most do. analysis 6. The government sets all fees for medical services and drugs. That's true. More specifically, the fees are set by a government-appointed body called the Central Social Insurance Medical Council. A 2016 study in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy described the system as \"a uniform fee schedule at national level,\" noting that \"All providers, no matter whether private or public, share the same prices for their medicines, devices, and services under this nationwide fee schedule.\" body study Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (Japan). \"Overview of Medical Service Regime in Japan.\"\r Accessed 25 April 2018. Reich, Michael R. and Kenji Shibuya. \"The Future of Japan's Health System -- Sustaining Good Health with Equity at Low Cost.\"\r The New England Journal of Medicine. 5 November 2015. Otake, Tomoko. \"April 1 Marks Start of Japan's New Medical Fees and Processes.\"\r Japan Times. 13 February 2018. Dum, Bel. \"Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity in Japan.\"\r Scientific American. 12 July 2016. Matsuda, Ryozo. \"The Japanese Health Care System.\"\r The Commonwealth Fund. October 2016. Zhang, Xing and Tatsuo Oyama. \"Investigating the Health Care Delivery System in Japan and Reviewing the Local Public Hospital Reform.\"\r Risk Management and Healthcare Policy. 18 March 2016.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1at-BWm8rnFTWz2DOg5uuvn8-JkelJjQs" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Healthcare reform has been a perennial political project in American politics, from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and those of Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. Both those for and against the concept of the United States' adopting a universal health care system often use comparisons between the U.S. and other countries to advocate for their positions, as exemplified by a 20 April 2018 post on the \"U.S. Democratic Socialists\" Facebook page featuring a widely-shared meme purportedly outlining the main features of the Japanese healthcare system:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20180424231804/https://www.facebook.com/USdems/photos/a.350418832009576.1073741828.350410435343749/609634089421381/?type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "This is basically true. Japan has universal health care, which means that everyone who lives there (except undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors) can access affordable care and is required by law to be covered by some form of insurance. For the most part, residents do this through two kinds of insurance, which are administered by the government: employment-based health insurance, and National Health Insurance (known as \"Kokumin Kenko Hoken\").", "hrefs": [ "https://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/iryouhoken/iryouhoken01/dl/01_eng.pdf", "https://www.city.mitaka.tokyo.jp/foreign/english/003/006.html" ] }, { "sentence": "However, Japan's aging population, low birth rate, and economic stagnation have placed a burden on the country's universal health care system, so reforms to that system are under way.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1410676" ] }, { "sentence": "According to 2016 data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, by far the highest proportion among developed countries. Japan spends 10.9 percent of its GDP, about two-thirds the relative amount the United States does.", "hrefs": [ "https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the Health and Global Policy Institute, patients should get a referral letter before presenting at larger hospitals. This is partly because the free access system can sometimes mean individuals with only minor ailments present at hospital emergency rooms, creating a backlog for patients in more urgent need of care. ", "hrefs": [ "https://japanhpn.org/en/hs1/", "https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/02/13/national/science-health/april-1-marks-start-japans-new-medical-fees-processes/" ] }, { "sentence": "Japanese people visit doctors even more than twice as often Americans do, at least according to OECD data. Figures from 2011 (the most recent year for which a direct comparison is possible) show that United States residents averaged four doctors' consultations per person that year in the United States, while in Japan the figure was more than three times higher, at 13 doctors' consultations per person that year. (In 2014, that figure was 12.7 doctors' visits per person per year in Japan.)", "hrefs": [ "https://data.oecd.org/healthcare/doctors-consultations.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "This is true. According to United Nations data, a Japanese person born in 2014 could expect to live, on average, until the age of 83.6, the highest life expectancy figure of more than 200 countries. (Children born in Hong Kong can expect to live to 84, but Hong Kong is a territory of China, not a sovereign nation.)", "hrefs": [ "https://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=WDI&f=Indicator_Code%3ASP.DYN.LE00.IN" ] }, { "sentence": "Research has shown that the relatively healthy diet and lifestyle of Japanese people, as well as good healthcare, plays a significant role in their longevity.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.scientificamerican.com/products/axa-research-fund/unlocking-the-secrets-of-longevity-in-japan/" ] }, { "sentence": "United Nations data also show that in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, Japan had the joint second-lowest rate of infant mortality in the world, defined as the number of children who died under the age of one for every 1,000 live births. With 2.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan was ranked second, along with Finland and just behind Iceland and Luxembourg.", "hrefs": [ "https://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=MDG&f=seriesRowID%3A562" ] }, { "sentence": "We do know that by law, hospitals in Japan cannot operate for profit, with the exception of large for-profit companies who build hospitals for their own employees. According to an analysis by Ryozo Matsuda, a health policy expert at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, 80 percent of hospitals are privately run. Facilities that provide care for elderly and disabled people (e.g., nursing home care, respite care, home care) can operate for profit, and according to Matsuda, most do. ", "hrefs": [ "https://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/japan/" ] }, { "sentence": "That's true. More specifically, the fees are set by a government-appointed body called the Central Social Insurance Medical Council. A 2016 study in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy described the system as \"a uniform fee schedule at national level,\" noting that \"All providers, no matter whether private or public, share the same prices for their medicines, devices, and services under this nationwide fee schedule.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://international.commonwealthfund.org/countries/japan/", "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4807930/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loan-arranger/", "claim": "Obama has signed a bill that forgives all student loan debt.", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "06/09/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Has President Obama signed a bill forgiving all student loans taken out within the last ten years?" ], "justification": " Claim: President Obama has signed a bill forgiving all student loans taken out within the last ten years. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2014] CONFIRM IF PRESIDENT SIGNED BILL FORGIVING STUDENT LOANS Origins: On 5 June 2014, the Empire News web site published an article positing that President Obama had signed a bill forgiving all student loans taken out within the last ten years (and any such loans to be taken out by current students in the future): article Americans who are under the financial strain of repaying student loan debt may now be off the hook for their education costs. President Obama signed a new federal bill this week releasing any student who has accrued outstanding debt because of the high interest rates and outrageous balances caused by college loans. \"Any student, past or present, who has taken loans from the federal government within the last 10 years to pay for higher education, will no longer be required to pay back those loans,\" said President Obama. \"This forgiveness also is to be extended to any student currently enrolled in college, who may need financial assistance for the next several years as they finish their degrees.\" By the following day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article. However, this tem was just a spoof from the Empire News, a satirical web site that publishes fictional articles such as \"Surgeons Remove Toy from Man's Rectum for 37th Time,\" \"Teenager Hospitalized with Facebook Withdrawals,\" and \"School Suspends Student for Gun Shaped Birthmark.\" Empire News' \"About/Disclaimer\" page notes that the site is a satirical publication: About/Disclaimer Empire News is a satirical and entertainment website. We only use invented names in all our stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental. On 9 June 2014, President Obama did announce changes to the federal student loan program, but those changes stopped short of the blanket loan forgiveness posited in the Empire News article: changes President Obama announced an expansion of a program that helps student loan borrowers manage their debt, a White House official said. The official said Obama will expand the criteria for an alternative repayment program, which caps monthly payments for certain federal student loans at 10% of a borrower's discretionary income. The alternative payment programs are designed to help borrowers struggling under the weight of student loans. They include forgiveness programs for on-time payments and public-sector employees. Teachers can have their balance canceled after ten years, for example. Low-income borrowers can have their balance canceled after 20 or 25 years of on-time payments. Borrowers who don't quality for forgiveness but use a repayment program find their monthly payments reduced but spread out over a longer period of time. That means they will pay more over the lifetime of the loan, as there is additional time for interest to accrue. Last updated: 9 June 2014 ", "issues": [ "income" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1E3prmdxP2ngASmgtrq_bGKCr6rWyjzQo" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: On 5 June 2014, the Empire News web site published an article positing that President Obama had signed a bill forgiving all student loans taken out within the last ten years (and any such loans to be taken out by current students in the future):", "hrefs": [ "https://empirenews.net/obama-signs-bill-forgiving-all-student-loan-debt/#.U5H254FJ-98.facebook" ] }, { "sentence": "Empire News' \"About/Disclaimer\" page notes that the site is a satirical publication:", "hrefs": [ "https://empirenews.net/about-disclaimer/" ] }, { "sentence": "On 9 June 2014, President Obama did announce changes to the federal student loan program, but those changes stopped short of the blanket loan forgiveness posited in the Empire News article:", "hrefs": [ "https://fox17online.com/2014/06/09/president-obama-to-announce-student-loan-changes/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crock-of-ages/", "claim": "Corporate Angel Network Origin", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/22/2001", "sci_digest": [ "Was the Corporate Angel Network started by Coca-Cola and the Blue Angels?" ], "justification": "Claim: The Corporate Angel Network, an organization that coordinates free air travel for cancer patients, began when Coca-Cola executives arranged for the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels to fly a liver from San Diego to Houston in time for transplant into a little girl. Status: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2000] On November 1, 1986, a Coca-Cola corporate jet arrived at Elisabeth City, North Carolina, carrying the CEO and several members of the Board of Directors. At the same time as it was arriving, a Coast Guard Falcon 20 jet was about to take off. It was headed to Memphis, Tennessee to pick up a little girl by the name of Crystal Grant and carry her on to Good Samaritans Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas, to undergo a liver transplant. As the Coast Guard Falcon 20 jet was beginning its takeoff, it blew both front tires, causing the jet to veer off the runway and run into a fence line. The pilots of the Coca-Cola plane watched the events and slowly began to hear reports over their cockpit radio about the other jet's mercy mission. The CEO and his passengers witnessed the scene, and asked the pilots what was going on. Once the CEO had learned of the situation, he asked to be taken to the Coast Guard Station so he could speak with the Station Commander. Once there, he asked the Commander if there was anything he could offer or do. The Commander said, in a frustrated voice, \"Yeah, can you make miracles happen. We need a jet and we need one fast.\" The CEO just smiled and said, \"You've got one,\" pointing to his company jet. Within two hours the Coca-Cola jet was on its way to Memphis and the situation seemed under control. But - unknown to them - a similar scene was playing out in San Diego, where the donor organ was being prepared for transport to Houston. The aircraft lined up to take it to Houston had lost its ability to pressurize its cabin and a similar scramble was under way to find a replacement. Calls went out and everyone in San Diego made excuses - from corporate CEO's to airline managers - as to why they just couldn't help out. Word of the dilemma made its way to Elisabeth City. The situation was reaching its last window of opportunity for the surgeons. Time was now becoming an enemy. Again, the CEO of Coca-Cola was called to help out. He jumped on the phone and contacted his pilots, who were now in Houston. They told him there was just no way they could go from Houston to San Diego, retrieve the organ, and then return to Houston in time for the operation to take place. The CEO began to consider what would be speedy enough to retrieve it in time. The answer came to him like a miracle. A call was placed to the Governor of Georgia, and he in turn placed a call to the Governor of California requesting help. On that day, sitting on the ramp at the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego, were 8 brand new F18 Fighters wearing the colors of the \"Blue Angels.\" They were waiting for their debut at an 'Air Show' November 6th. It took four phone calls to reach the Air Station Commander, and two more to reach the Commander of the \"Blue Angels.\" In less than an hour, Navy Lt. Tony Less, in Blue Angel No. 8, was gear-up and East-bound. His precious cargo was in the rear seat, securely strapped in place by four dress belts. In Houston, neither the family nor anyone else knew what events had been unfolding. Without the family or anyone else knowing, the local media had interviewed little Crystal moments before she was placed into the prepping room for her surgery. A reporter asked her if she were scared. Crystal said, \"No, I'm not worried. My mommy told me that my Angel would watch over me.\" It was an ironic statement indeed. At that moment, Blue Angel No. 8 was disengaging from an Air National Guard refueling tanker over New Mexico and making a mad dash for Houston. The clock was still ticking, and each movement of the hand went further against the surgeons. With only 90 minutes to spare, Angel No. 8 landed on Houston's Hobby Runway 4L and rolled out to a stop surrounded by police cars and an ambulance to rush the organ to the hospital. The transplant was successful, and Crystal returned home to Memphis in time for Thanksgiving. The CEO of Coca-Cola lobbied the Fortune 100 companies to create \"Corporate Angel Network,\" the name inspired by the event involving Coca Cola and the Blue Angels. To this day Blue Angel No. 8 wears a small silhouette of an Angel praying on the canopy rail and the name \"Crystal\" written underneath. A little over a month after the surgery the \"Blues\" made a planned detour to Memphis to say hello to a little girl named Crystal. And it was on that day, December 18, 1986, that Crystal met her Angel, the Angel who saved her life. That was fourteen years ago. Today, Crystal Grant is 24, and every year she is personally invited by the Blue Angels to attend a show near her home in Memphis as the guest of honor. Origins: Glurge involving specific, identifiable people and events are usually based upon a kernel of truth, even if that kernel has surrounded with layer upon layer of fiction, embellishment, and exaggeration. This one, however, despite referencing names, dates, and places, is as devoid of anything resembling the truth. The Corporate Angel Network is a real organization, and the Blue Angels are indeed the U.S. Navy's famous flight demonstration squadron, but after mentioning them, this piece takes a left turn from Corporate Angel Network Blue Angels reality. The Corporate Angel Network works with a network of hundreds of different companies to make availableempty seats on regular business flights of corporation-owned airplanes to cancer patients traveling to or from treatment centers (a service provided without regard to a patient's financial status), and so far they have arranged over 13,000 such flights. But none of the details provided here about its origins jibes with the truth. The founding of Corporate Angel Network had nothing to do with the CEO of Coca-Cola (in 1986 that position was held by Roberto Goizueta) \"lobbying Fortune 100 companies,\" nor did it involve the participation of (or derive its name from) the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels squadron: The Corporate Angel Network was started in 1981 by Priscilla Blum of Greenwich, Conn., and Jay Weinberg of Armonk, N.Y., both of whom are recovered cancer patients: Roberto Goizueta The idea of matching cancer patients and corporate shuttle flights began with Pat, who has been flying her Piper Comanche from Westchester for more than 30 years. Time and again, she saw corporate planes take off or land with only the pilot and one or two passengers aboard. Many were small planes, but others were Lear jets and Beechcrafts capable of seating as many as 10. She contacted Weinberg, a friend and fellow volunteer for the American Cancer Society, who was working with patients at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. From their conversation in the fall of 1981 the \"Corporate Angel Network\" was born. \"The name seemed appropriate,\" Weinberg recalled. \"We would be using corporate aircraft and we would be flying missions of mercy.\"1 The Corporate Angel Network's first beneficiary was not a little girl from Memphis for whom a donor liver was flown from San Diego to Houston on a U.S. Navy F/A-18 in time for transplant, but a Detroit man who traveled to New York on a corporate jet for ongoing cancer treatment: The first passenger was 18-year-old Michael Burnett of Detroit, a patient at Sloan-Kettering who had just lost a leg to cancer. Burnett wanted to spend the Christmas holiday with family and friends in Detroit, but he needed to return to New York to continue his treatment. Safe Flight Instrument Corp. was sending one of its planes from New York to Detroit on Dec. 22. Leonard Greene, Safe Flight's chief executive officer, had lost his second wife to cancer. Greene didn't hesitate. 1 This piece also oddly omits the names of many of its participants (the CEO of Coca-Cola, a Coast Guard station commander, a U.S. Navy air station commander, and the governors of Georgia and California are all identified as key players in this drama, yet none of them is identified by anything other than his title), and the two names that are mentioned don't correspond with available information. No locatable news story mentions anything about a girl named Crystal Grant in connection with either the Blue Angels or a liver transplant, and although an officer named Tony Less was indeed the Blue Angels' Commander at one time, he served with the squadron in 1974-75, far too early to have been involved in the Corporate Angel Network's 1981 founding (or the fictional 1986 flight described here). Additionally, the \"fact\" that \"to this day Blue Angel No. 8 wears a small silhouette of an Angel praying on the canopy rail and the name 'Crystal' written underneath\" is news the U.S. Navy. Although eight pilots comprise the squadron, only six jets and six pilots are used during demonstrations. The Blue Angels maintain an additional pair of two-seat jets used for publicity footage and rides for VIPs, as well as three spare jets, but none of the planes bears any artwork or writing other than the standard markings on its exterior. Tony Less The Corporate Angel Network has been able to accomplish a great deal of good for cancer patients thanks to the contributions of hundreds of companies, all of whom should be applauded for their generosity, but let's not allow sappy glurge about Coca-Cola executives and the Blue Angels to slight the honors due to the two people whose imagination and perseverance made the Corporate Angel Network a reality in the first place: Priscilla Blum and Jay Weinberg. Corporate \"angels\" do indeed help cancer patients. And little Internet devils create glurge. Last updated: 22 February 2007 Sources: Blake, Judith. \"You May Be Able to Call for Help When Traveling in an Emergency.\" The Seattle Times. 2 February 1986 (p. K1). Pray, Tom E. \"Corporate Angel Network Finds Friends in High Places.\" 1 The Westchester County Business Journal. 3 October 1988 (p. 1). Richter, Paul. \"Transportation Made Available on Otherwise Idle or Unfilled Aircraft.\" Los Angeles Times. 21 January 1985 (Home; p. 1). Business Wire.", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1PlpQvkfTQsPX7d6kl7rmM-qIGLHNTUKN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Glurge involving specific, identifiable people and events are usually based upon a kernel of truth, even if that kernel has surrounded with layer upon layer of fiction, embellishment, and exaggeration. This one, however, despite referencing names, dates, and places, is as devoid of anything resembling the truth. The Corporate Angel Network is a real organization, and the Blue Angels are indeed the U.S. Navy's famous flight demonstration squadron, but after mentioning them, this piece takes a left turn from ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.corpangelnetwork.org/", "https://www.blueangels.navy.mil/" ] }, { "sentence": "The founding of Corporate Angel Network had nothing to do with the CEO of Coca-Cola (in 1986 that position was held by Roberto Goizueta) \"lobbying Fortune 100 companies,\" nor did it involve the participation of (or derive its name from) the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels squadron: The Corporate Angel Network was started in 1981 by Priscilla Blum of Greenwich, Conn., and Jay Weinberg of Armonk, N.Y., both of whom are recovered cancer patients:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/US/9710/18/goizueta.obit.9am/" ] }, { "sentence": "This piece also oddly omits the names of many of its participants (the CEO of Coca-Cola, a Coast Guard station commander, a U.S. Navy air station commander, and the governors of Georgia and California are all identified as key players in this drama, yet none of them is identified by anything other than his title), and the two names that are mentioned don't correspond with available information. No locatable news story mentions anything about a girl named Crystal Grant in connection with either the Blue Angels or a liver transplant, and although an officer named Tony Less was indeed the Blue Angels' Commander at one time, he served with the squadron in 1974-75, far too early to have been involved in the Corporate Angel Network's 1981 founding (or the fictional 1986 flight described here). Additionally, the \"fact\" that \"to this day Blue Angel No. 8 wears a small silhouette of an Angel praying on the canopy rail and the name 'Crystal' written underneath\" is news the U.S. Navy. Although eight pilots comprise the squadron, only six jets and six pilots are used during demonstrations. The Blue Angels maintain an additional pair of two-seat jets used for publicity footage and rides for VIPs, as well as three spare jets, but none of the planes bears any artwork or writing other than the standard markings on its exterior.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20000620013837/https://www.blueangels.navy.mil/roster-officer.htm" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bens-drunken-confession/", "claim": "Drunk Ben Bernanke Rant", "author": "Barbara Mikkelson", "posted": "08/04/2011", "sci_digest": [ "Drunk Chairman of the Federal Reserve lets loose in a bar about how bad the U.S. economy truly is?" ], "justification": "Claim: Drunk Chairman of the Federal Reserve lets loose in a bar about how bad the U.S. economy truly is. Example: [Collected on the Internet, August 2011] Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is SEWARD, NE Claiming he wasn't afraid to let everyone in attendance know about \"the real mess we're in,\" Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke reportedly got drunk Tuesday and told everyone at Elwood's Corner Tavern about how absolutely fucked the U.S. economy actually is. Bernanke, who sources confirmed was \"totally sloshed,\" arrived at the drinking establishment at approximately 5:30 p.m., ensconced himself upon a bar stool, and consumed several bottles of Miller High Life and a half-dozen shots of whiskey while loudly proclaiming to any patron who would listen that the economic outlook was \"pretty goddamned awful if you want the God's honest truth.\" \"Look, they don't want anyone except for the Washington, D.C. bigwigs to know how bad shit really is,\" said Bernanke, slurring his words as he spoke. \"Mounting debt exacerbated and not relieved by unchecked consumption, spiraling interest rates, and the grim realities of an inevitable worldwide energy crisis are projected to leave our entire economy in the shitter for, like, a generation, man, I'm telling you.\" [Remainder of the article here] here Origins: If anyone were truly in the know about the state of the U.S. economy, it would be the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. However, folks shouldn't give any credence to the story quoted above, because it originates with The Onion, an American news satire organization that has been publishing spoofs based on current events since the late 1980s. (Long before it had a web presence, The Onion was a newspaper.) Ben Bernanke The Onion Other Onion articles of approximately the same vintage: Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition Despite Danny DeVito A Lot Taller, Thinner In Person DeVito Windows Opened On Both Coasts In Effort To Create Transcontinental Cross-Breeze Windows Barbara \"onion peals\" Mikkelson Last updated: 4 August 2011", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "[Remainder of the article here]", "hrefs": [ "https://www.theonion.com/articles/drunken-ben-bernanke-tells-everyone-at-neighborhoo,21059/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/school-walkout-rumors-parkland-shooting/", "claim": "Has a school walkout been scheduled in reaction to the Parkland mass shooting?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "02/22/2018", "sci_digest": [ "School walkouts and a protest in Washington, D.C. are being planned in response to a deadly February 2018 school shooting in Florida." ], "justification": "Following the 14 February 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland Florida, people began posting information about planned school walkouts and protests, frequently with the hashtags #schoolwalkout or #nationalschoolwalkout. Readers wrote in confused about the various dates promoted by different groups. Below is a breakdown of planned events. On 20 and 21 February 2018, students from at least 50 high schools in South Florida participated in a walkout in one of at least two regional demonstrations staged by students in response to the shooting in Parkland. The Sun Sentinel reported: participated Perhaps the largest crowd came Wednesday [21 February 2018] afternoon when teens from various schools all converged on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, where authorities say Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people. The demonstrators long lines snaked for several city blocks, visible through the aerial images captured by news helicopters. Drivers passing by honked their horns in support ... U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., was outside Marjory Stoneman praising students. You all are so strong and you are so articulate, Nelson told the students as they nodded. Keep that message going on, because if you dont, itll get swallowed up into the same ol same ol, just like its been. 14 March 2018 Women's March Youth EMPOWER, an organization sponsored by the Women's March Network which planned large-scale protests the day after Donald Trump's inauguration and a year afterwards is planning a walkout for 14 March. It would be for 17 minutes, one minute for each of the people killed in the Parkland shooting: sponsored 24 March 2018 Survivors of the 14 February shooting at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School and other students are planning a protest in Washington, D.C., called \"March for Our Lives.\" The event has caught the interest of celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and George and Amal Clooney, who have donated large amounts of money to the event. \"Sister marches\" will take place in cities around the world. students event world 20 April 2018 The most highly publicized walkout appears to be planned for 20 April 2018, the 19th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. Details about the event vary across social media from a full-day absence to signing children out (or having students walk out) at the time the Columbine massacre occurred. At least one high school has threatened disciplinary action against any student participating in a school walkout. threatened On Facebook, a \"No Kids Left\" event was scheduled for 20 April 2018, which urged parents to keep their children out of school for the entire day: event Parents and Caregivers, please keep your children out of the classroom on Friday, April 20, 2018, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine HS massacre. This will be a simulation of the extreme outcome if we continue to only offer thoughts & prayers when our children are murdered at school. #nokidsleft Together lets send a message to our representatives & the current administration in Washington to take action. I'm a mom who doesn't know what else to do, but we must do something. Please share this event & RSVP to show your solidarity. Please help families who cannot afford to stay home from work by offering your service of child care. NOTE: We are working with www.noshootings.com to make the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting a day when no kids get shot because no kids will be at school. The Twitter account @schoolwalkoutUS, created in February 2018 provided a date of 20 April and clarified that the event was separate from the 24 March demonstrations: @schoolwalkoutUS On Friday, April 20th we want students to attend school and then promptly WALK-OUT at 10:00 am. Sit outside your schools and peacefully protest. Make some noise. Voice your thoughts. \"We are students, we are victims, we are change.\" National School Walkout (@schoolwalkoutUS) February 17, 2018 February 17, 2018 We contacted event organizers for clarification, and National School Walkout responded: Hello, The Walkout is real. It will take place at 10:00 a.m. on the anniversary of the Columbine killings, April 20th, and will be an opportunity for young people to send a clear message that we will not tolerate inaction on gun violence. Other organizations are planning similar events and protests. We fully endorse those events as well, and we hope that together we can end the violence that terrorizes our country. Chokey, Aric, Juan Ortega and Brett Clarkson. \"'Enough Is Enough,' Students Chant As Thousands Stage Walkouts Across South Florida.\"\r Sun Sentinel. 21 February 2018. Williams, David. \"Schools Threaten To Punish Students Who Join Walkouts Over Gun Control.\"\r CNN. 21 February 2018. Women's March. \"ENOUGH: National School Walkout.\"\r Accessed 22 February 2018.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1VzibjjMo6prZf0uMx4Nu0khPGDIpa88g" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 20 and 21 February 2018, students from at least 50 high schools in South Florida participated in a walkout in one of at least two regional demonstrations staged by students in response to the shooting in Parkland. The Sun Sentinel reported:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-shooting-bigger-crowd-walkout-20180221-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Women's March Youth EMPOWER, an organization sponsored by the Women's March Network which planned large-scale protests the day after Donald Trump's inauguration and a year afterwards is planning a walkout for 14 March. It would be for 17 minutes, one minute for each of the people killed in the Parkland shooting: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.womensmarch.com/enough" ] }, { "sentence": "Survivors of the 14 February shooting at Margery Stoneman Douglas High School and other students are planning a protest in Washington, D.C., called \"March for Our Lives.\" The event has caught the interest of celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and George and Amal Clooney, who have donated large amounts of money to the event. \"Sister marches\" will take place in cities around the world. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marchforourlives.com/", "https://time.com/5167531/oprah-winfrey-george-clooney-amal-march-for-our-lives-donation/", "https://www.facebook.com/pg/marchforourlives/events/" ] }, { "sentence": "The most highly publicized walkout appears to be planned for 20 April 2018, the 19th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. Details about the event vary across social media from a full-day absence to signing children out (or having students walk out) at the time the Columbine massacre occurred. At least one high school has threatened disciplinary action against any student participating in a school walkout.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/student-walkout-punishment-trnd/index.html?sr=fbCNN022118student-walkout-punishment-trnd0252PMVODtopLink" ] }, { "sentence": "On Facebook, a \"No Kids Left\" event was scheduled for 20 April 2018, which urged parents to keep their children out of school for the entire day:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/events/824230374427695/" ] }, { "sentence": "The Twitter account @schoolwalkoutUS, created in February 2018 provided a date of 20 April and clarified that the event was separate from the 24 March demonstrations:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS" ] }, { "sentence": " National School Walkout (@schoolwalkoutUS) February 17, 2018", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/schoolwalkoutUS/status/964697373074231298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/give-and-take/", "claim": "Obama Youth Brigade", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "04/29/2009", "sci_digest": [ "Message details requirements of the GIVE act?" ], "justification": "Claim: Message details requirements of the GIVE (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism andEducation) act. false Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2009] Obama and his Youth Brigade Is this the change you really voted for? President Obama has only been in office for two months. Now we have HR 1388. The Bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) with 37 others. The Bill was introduced to the floor of the House of Representatives where both Republicans and Democrats voted 321-105 in favor. Next it goes to the Senate for a vote and then on to President Obama. This bill's title is called \"Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education\" (GIVE). It forms what some are calling \"Obama's Youth Brigade.\" Obama's plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade .. His goal is one million youth! This has serious Nazi Germany overtones to it. The Bill would forbid any student in the brigade to participate in \"engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.\" That means no church attendance or witnessing. Again, is this what America voted for? Here is part of the HR1388 Bill'swording: SEC. 1304 PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows: SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. (a) Prohibited Activities - A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities: (1) Attempting to influence legislation. (2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes. (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization. This bill DOES exist. It has been passed in the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate. I have just looked it up. Below is the link with the bill if you wish to read it. I am not sure that it disallows one from attending church. But it certainly prohibits any sort of participation in teaching or leading. https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text Origins: On 21 April 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (also known as the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, or GIVE), a piece of legislation that amended the National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (DVSA) (acts which originally funded, among other programs, the AmeriCorps and the National Senior Service Corps) to revise their programs and reauthorize appropriations for them: The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorizes a dramatic funding increase for AmeriCorps and other volunteer programs, and the creation of new programs for seniors and veterans. It establishes a goal of expanding from 75,000 government-supported volunteers to 250,000, and would increase education funding and establish a summer volunteer program for students, paying $500 (which would be applied to college costs) to high-school and middle-school student who participate. As Michael Hais and Morley Winograd noted in an editorial on the eve of the bill's signing, voting support for it in Congress was divided along party lines: GIVE represents a major redemption of candidate Obama's promise to offer his most loyal and largest constituency, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, a chance to serve their country at the community level and in return earn assistance with the cost of their college education. Not everyone is ready to join hands and sing the praises of the concept, however. While GIVE enjoyed bipartisan sponsorship in both the Senate and the House, that didn't prevent a majority of Republicans from voting against the bill on final passage. They complained that the bill was \"too expensive\" and would crowd out pure volunteer work with program participants receiving a modicum of financial support for their efforts from the federal government. In the House, 149 of 175 Republicans voted \"no,\" joined by 19 of their colleagues in the Senate, including the party's two top leaders. Contrary to the claims made in the e-mail example reproduced above, GIVE does not \"require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months.\" The bill allows students to earn $500 credits towards college costs by participating in volunteer service programs; it contains no provisions for mandatory service as a condition of receiving student loans, or for any other reason. (The original version of the bill merely called for a feasibility study regarding \"Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented,\" but even that language was dropped from the passed version of the bill.) GIVE also does not \"prohibit any sort of participation in teaching or leading\" of religious instruction or services by individuals who take part in national service programs. It states that AmeriCorps members may not engage in those activities while they are operating in that role that Last updated: 29 April 2009 ", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text", "hrefs": [ "https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/sep/24/andrew-cuomo/buffalo-has-more-private-sector-jobs-ever/", "claim": "Most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today", "author": "Dan Clark", "posted": "09/23/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo two weeks ago toured a sprawling solar panel factory the state paid to have built in Buffalo and said, I am just blown away by this facility. Cuomo returned to Buffalo on Friday, a day after U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced bombshell corruption allegations that included bid rigging to build the plant at RiverBend for SolarCity. The criminal charges wont stop Buffalos resurgence, Cuomo said in his remarks at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. He cited completion of the $750 million facility as a milestone in the states Buffalo Billion economic development initiative, which he said is working because the private sector believes in Buffalo again. Cuomo defended the states investments in Buffalo with a claim about the number of private jobs in the Buffalo region. Most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today, Cuomo said. Cuomo has devoted his time and the states resources on upstate revitalization. Is he right? Does Buffalo have more private sector jobs than ever before? Private sector jobs Neither the state nor the U.S. Department of Labor tracks the number of jobs for the city of Buffalo alone. Instead, they break the state up into regions, including the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The state and national labor departments both show the same numbers for private sector jobs. But information is available only back to 1990. The way job data is compiled changed in 1990, so the figures from the past 25 years can't be accurately compared with the numbers before 1990. The federal and state labor departments reported 479,500 private sector jobs in August in the Buffalo Niagara region. There were 439,000 jobs in 1990. The closest the Buffalo area came to the August jobs number before Cuomo took office was in November 2000, when the state reported 474,700 private sector jobs. Private sector jobs in June and July of this year exceeded that number, but still fell below the August number. Our ruling During Cuomos remarks in Buffalo, he said the most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today. Data from the federal and state labor departments back up his claim. There are more private sector jobs in Buffalo today than any other time dating back to at least 1990. The data doesnt prove his policies and economic development projects are responsible for the increase. But we rate his claim as True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a3b65649-df87-4209-b2b6-41b9c7676fd6", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "New York" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a3b65649-df87-4209-b2b6-41b9c7676fd6", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a3b65649-df87-4209-b2b6-41b9c7676fd6" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gaziantep-castle-turkey-earthquake/", "claim": "Turkey's Gaziantep Castle Partially Destroyed by Early 2023 Earthquake", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "02/06/2023", "sci_digest": [ "Pictures were posted of the damage to Gaziantep Castle after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region on Feb. 6, 2023." ], "justification": "A claim swept across the web following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syriaat4:17 a.m. local time onFeb. 6 that the natural disaster destroyed the ancient Gaziantep Castle. The castle is in the Turkish city of the same name. The quake was centered \"about 20 miles from Gaziantep,\" NBC Newsreported via data from the U.S. Geological Survey. NBC News Around 24 hours after the earthquake struck, The Associated Press(AP) was already reporting more than 3,400 deaths, showing just how devastating the massive quake had truly been. The Associated Press In our research, we found that Gaziantep Castle had been at least partially destroyed. This story will present our findings. In the aftermath of the earthquake and its many aftershocks, Twitter user @ThomasVLinge posted a before-and-after comparison to show the damage to Gaziantep Castle. Eight minutes later, another Twitter user posted the same two pictures with the caption, \"2,200 years old Gazintap Castle destroyed by the earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now.\" The pictures featured in both of these tweets were accurate. The second photograph of the damaged castle was available on the Getty Images website and showed a date of Feb. 6. Getty Images Similarly, CNN.com reported, \"Ancient castle used by Romans and Byzantines destroyed in Turkey earthquake.\" Within the body of the story, it was reported that the castle had been \"badly damaged.\" reported Videos appeared to show a glimpse at the extent of the damage. Additionally, we located a helpful picture that showed an aerial view of the damage to the castle. This view appeared to indicate that the damage had been devastating, but also that it wasn't a complete and total loss. The APreported that the castle had previously undergone multiple renovations, with the most recent one occurring in the early 2000s: reported In Turkey, the powerful quake destroyed a historic castle perched on top a hill in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. Parts of the Gaziantep Castle's walls and watch towers were levelled while other areas of the structure were damaged, images from the region showed. The castle was first used as a watch tower and was expanded into a castle during Roman times. It underwent renovation numerous times, the last time in the early 2000s. At press time, it was unclear what percentage of the damage was from renovations versus what was part of the original works, a subject that was being discussed online. discussed According to \"Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future,\" the hill where the castle stood had a history that went backthousands of years. \"Archaeological excavation showed that the site has been inhabited from Iron Age 650 B.C. till Chalcolite Age 5500 B.C.,\" authorsC.A. Brebbia and C. Clark wrote. \"Traces of the castle were estimated to date [to the] Hittites. However, [the] main castle was first built in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. in the Roman era and further enlarged and strengthened in Byzantium era by Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 A.D.\" This story will be updated if further details come to light. Brebbia, C. A., and C. Clark.Defence Sites II: Heritage and Future. WIT Press, 2014. Google Books. https://books.google.com/. Guzel, Mehmet, et al. \"Rescuers Scramble in Turkey, Syria after Quake Kills 3,400.\" The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc. Ihlas News Agency. \"Gaziantep Kalesi Depremde Byk Hasar Grd.\" YouTube, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0bkC1VHafM. Khan, Aina J., and Mithil Aggarwal. \"More than 3,000 Dead as Two Massive Earthquakes Rock Turkey and Syria.\" NBC News, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/78-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-central-turkey-rcna69251. \"Live Updates | Thousands Dead after Turkey, Syria Earthquake.\" The Associated Press, 6 Feb. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-19e7d84fefdeed4c8a355dedf23d914f. Marcus, Lilit. \"Ancient Castle Used by Romans and Byzantines Destroyed in Turkey Earthquake.\" CNN, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gaziantep-castle-destroyed-turkey-earthquake/index.html. Parlak, Mehmet Akif and Anadolu Agency. \"A View of Damaged Historical Gaziantep Castle after a 7.4 Magnitude...\" Getty Images, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-damaged-historical-gaziantep-castle-after-a-7-4-news-photo/1246836963. @ThomasVLinge. \"Thousands Are Feared Death after a 7,8 Earthquake Hit Southern #Turkey and Northern #Syria Last Night, Causing Many Buildings to Collapse. This Picture Shows the Historical Castle of #Gaziantep before and after the Quake.\" Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1622507842178633728. u/stepover7. \"Gaziantep Castle Collapses after Magnitude 7.4 Quake Hit Trkiye.\" r/worldnews via Reddit.com, 6 Feb. 2023, https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10v07sz/gaziantep_castle_collapses_after_magnitude_74/. @xruiztru. \"2,200 Years Old Gazintap Castle Destroyed by the Earthquake in Turkey. Before vs Now.\" Twitter, 6 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/xruiztru/status/1622509677945708548.", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1rD8shC_Mm2pHLgUVNzO_ZDTBPqHgZPXg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The quake was centered \"about 20 miles from Gaziantep,\" NBC Newsreported via data from the U.S. Geological Survey.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/78-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-central-turkey-rcna69251" ] }, { "sentence": "Around 24 hours after the earthquake struck, The Associated Press(AP) was already reporting more than 3,400 deaths, showing just how devastating the massive quake had truly been.", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc" ] }, { "sentence": "The pictures featured in both of these tweets were accurate. The second photograph of the damaged castle was available on the Getty Images website and showed a date of Feb. 6.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-damaged-historical-gaziantep-castle-after-a-7-4-news-photo/1246836963" ] }, { "sentence": "Similarly, CNN.com reported, \"Ancient castle used by Romans and Byzantines destroyed in Turkey earthquake.\" Within the body of the story, it was reported that the castle had been \"badly damaged.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gaziantep-castle-destroyed-turkey-earthquake/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The APreported that the castle had previously undergone multiple renovations, with the most recent one occurring in the early 2000s:", "hrefs": [ "https://apnews.com/article/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-19e7d84fefdeed4c8a355dedf23d914f" ] }, { "sentence": "At press time, it was unclear what percentage of the damage was from renovations versus what was part of the original works, a subject that was being discussed online.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/10v07sz/comment/j7fl995/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/oct/08/blue-oregon/liberal-website-says-rep-jim-weidner-tried-take-he/", "claim": "Says Rep. Jim Weidner proposed a bill taking away health care for 80,000 of Oregon's children.", "author": "Ian K. Kullgren", "posted": "10/08/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Forget taking candy away from children. Blue Oregon, a liberal political website, is accusing one Republican candidate of trying to take health care away from 80,000 of Oregons youth.In apostlooking for political contributions, Kari Chisholm of Blue Oregon describes the race in House District 24 as follows: Susan Sokol Blosser (the Democrat) is one of the founders of Oregon's world-renowned wine industry where shes a leader on environmental sustainability. Her opponent,Rep. JimWeidnerproposed a bill taking away health care for 80,000 of Oregon's children.Ouch. Not exactly the sort of thing that wins you votes.Naturally, PolitiFact Oregon wondered if Weidner, who has four kids himself, really has it out for Oregons children.The claim on Blue Oregon was in reference toHouse Bill 3603, a bill that Weidner sponsored during the February 2010 special session. The bill, according to the summary, repeals (the) health insurance premium assessment.That was nice and vague, so we did some more sleuthing and ended up with the staff measure summary forHouse Bill 2116. Why House Bill 2116? Well, that was the bill that, in part, instituted the health insurance premium assessment or, to put it comprehensible English, a 1 percent tax on health insurance premiums paid by the insurance companies but passed on to the customers.According to thestaff measure summary, that 1 percent tax would be used to provide funding for health care for 80,000 children during the 2009-2011 biennium through Oregon Healthy Kids. Those 80,000 were in addition to the the children already covered by the state-run plan.So, it seems, Weidner does want to eliminate a tax that is being used to provide health care to children. We checked in with Weidner to see if he could explain his position. As it turns out, hes not so much against health care for children as he is against the 1 percent tax. He says the tax disproportionately hurts small businesses. Weidner sponsored the bill, he says, because he wanted to bring attention to this and other issues. I knew the bill wasnt going to go anywhere.Before we settled on a ruling we wanted to check one other thing: Even if Weidners bill had gone through, are there really 80,000 children who would lose health insurance? We called Oregon Healthy Kids to find out.As it happens, since the bill passed, about 57,000 children have been enrolled in the program, according to Cathy Kaufmann, manager of the Healthy Kids Office. Thats as of August. Kaufmann expects that the full 80,000 will be enrolled before the end of the 2009-2011 biennium.So where does that leave us? Well, while were feeling pretty confident that Weidner isnt anti-health care for kids, he did, as the website alleges, propose a bill that would have eliminated the funding for health care for 80,000 children. Whether he thought it would pass or not doesnt much change things. And some context about how he was really targeting a tax would have been nice. Still, we rate this claim True.", "issues": [ "Oregon", "Health Care", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Forget taking candy away from children. Blue Oregon, a liberal political website, is accusing one Republican candidate of trying to take health care away from 80,000 of Oregons youth.In apostlooking for political contributions, Kari Chisholm of Blue Oregon describes the race in House District 24 as follows: Susan Sokol Blosser (the Democrat) is one of the founders of Oregon's world-renowned wine industry where shes a leader on environmental sustainability. Her opponent,Rep. JimWeidnerproposed a bill taking away health care for 80,000 of Oregon's children.Ouch. Not exactly the sort of thing that wins you votes.Naturally, PolitiFact Oregon wondered if Weidner, who has four kids himself, really has it out for Oregons children.The claim on Blue Oregon was in reference toHouse Bill 3603, a bill that Weidner sponsored during the February 2010 special session. The bill, according to the summary, repeals (the) health insurance premium assessment.That was nice and vague, so we did some more sleuthing and ended up with the staff measure summary forHouse Bill 2116. Why House Bill 2116? Well, that was the bill that, in part, instituted the health insurance premium assessment or, to put it comprehensible English, a 1 percent tax on health insurance premiums paid by the insurance companies but passed on to the customers.According to thestaff measure summary, that 1 percent tax would be used to provide funding for health care for 80,000 children during the 2009-2011 biennium through Oregon Healthy Kids. Those 80,000 were in addition to the the children already covered by the state-run plan.So, it seems, Weidner does want to eliminate a tax that is being used to provide health care to children. We checked in with Weidner to see if he could explain his position. As it turns out, hes not so much against health care for children as he is against the 1 percent tax. He says the tax disproportionately hurts small businesses. Weidner sponsored the bill, he says, because he wanted to bring attention to this and other issues. I knew the bill wasnt going to go anywhere.Before we settled on a ruling we wanted to check one other thing: Even if Weidners bill had gone through, are there really 80,000 children who would lose health insurance? We called Oregon Healthy Kids to find out.As it happens, since the bill passed, about 57,000 children have been enrolled in the program, according to Cathy Kaufmann, manager of the Healthy Kids Office. Thats as of August. Kaufmann expects that the full 80,000 will be enrolled before the end of the 2009-2011 biennium.So where does that leave us? Well, while were feeling pretty confident that Weidner isnt anti-health care for kids, he did, as the website alleges, propose a bill that would have eliminated the funding for health care for 80,000 children. Whether he thought it would pass or not doesnt much change things. And some context about how he was really targeting a tax would have been nice. Still, we rate this claim True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.blueoregon.com/2010/09/lets-help-few-oregon-progressive-candidates-earn-extra-50000/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jun/26/rick-scott/rick-scott-says-gubernatorial-candidates-routinely/", "claim": "Candidates for governor routinely disclose their spouses tax returns.", "author": "Joshua Gillin", "posted": "06/26/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "A new ad by Gov. Rick Scotts campaign has a simple message: Scott and his wife Ann have shown Florida their tax returns, so its only fair that former Gov. Charlie Crist and wife Carole show theirs. In thead released June 25 called Whats He Hiding, Scotts political group Lets Get To Work demands that Crist release not only his tax returns, but Caroles, too. The ad says the Scotts have released tax returns both in 2010 and for this years election. But millionaire Charlie Crist refuses to release his spouses tax returns, the ad says. Candidates for governor routinely disclose those returns. Alex Sink and Rick Scott both did it four years ago. Crist has said he wont be releasing his wifes tax returns, saying Scott was out of bounds for making the request and should apologize. PolitiFact Florida wondered, however, if spouses truly do routinely disclose their tax returns. Heres our disclosure: It depends on what you consider routine. A separate issue The practice of gubernatorial candidates themselves disclosing tax returns goes back a long time, but for this check well head as far back as Reubin Askew, who became governor in 1971 and released several years worth. Florida elected officials are required by law to file an annual statement showing their assets and liabilities. They are not required to release tax returns, but candidates for governor have traditionally done so. We should note that this generally applies to the general election candidates, and not always primary candidates. For example, Bill McCollum did not release his returns in 2010 while running in the primary against Rick Scott. As to whether spouses fess up their finances, well, thats an interesting history. Most candidates have filed jointly with their spouses. Jeb Bush and his wife Columba released several years worth of joint returns during Bushs years in office, and Rick and Ann Scott filed jointly. It wasnt until 2002, when Democrat Bill McBride ran against Bush, that the issue of a spouse filing separately came up. McBrides wife, Alex Sink, began to file separately from her husband specifically because her husband was running for governor, but in 2002 she released two years of tax returns under pressure from the Bush campaign. Sink had retired as president of Bank of Americas Florida operations in 2000. McBride, a lawyer who worked at Tampa firm Holland & Knight for many years, returned the favor in 2010 and released his returns when his wife ran for governor against Rick Scott (McBride died in 2012). Crist was a solo filer when he ran for governor in 2006, because he was single. He didnt marry Carole Crist until 2008. He has said they continue to file separately because he was a single guy for a long time. She's got her own business, and it's her business. Carole Crist isan owner of a family Halloween costume and novelty business, Franco-American Novelty Co., and has created a second company, Goddessey. Crist, a lawyer by trade like McBride, announcedthe release of three years of tax returns as the ad began airing. The next day, he released returns goingback to 2001, with promises to release more, going back to 1991. Candidates releasing their spouses separate returns has become more of an issue in the last couple of decades as more women become entrepreneurs independently of their spouses. Susan McManus, a University of South Florida political science professor, says the expectation of disclosing separate returns really took off when Walter Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his Democratic running mate during the 1984 presidential campaign. Ferraro faced many questions from political opponents and the media about her husband John Zaccaros real estate company. They ultimately released the returns, and Ferraro admitted she was an officer in the company, albeit without the authority to sign company checks. In recent years the same expectation has come up in presidential campaigns; Sen. John McCains millionaire wife Cindy eventually released two years of individual tax returns during the 2008 presidential campaign amid Democratic pressure. But those are examples from presidential politics. In Florida, the question is whether two instances -- by the same couple, in McBride and Sink -- over the last 12 years constitutes spouses tax returns being released routinely, as Scott alleges. Its only recently that weve seen candidates spouses filing separate returns. How you feel about it as a voter likely depends on how you feel about the race and the candidates, McManus said. The interesting thing in this case is that attitudes about this are changing, she said. In the future were likely to see everyone routinely releasing everything. Our ruling Scott said candidates for governor routinely disclose spouses tax returns. It is routine when candidates file joint returns with their spouses. Its only recently that gubernatorial candidates and their spouses have started filing separate tax returns, though. When spouses file separately, there are two instances to look to, whenfirst Alex Sink and then her husband Bill McBride disclosed individual returns for their spouses respective gubernatorial runs in 2002 and 2010. So the trend of spouses who file separately is a new one, but one way or the other, spouses' returns have been released over the years. We rate the statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Campaign Finance", "Elections", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In thead released June 25 called Whats He Hiding, Scotts political group Lets Get To Work demands that Crist release not only his tax returns, but Caroles, too. The ad says the Scotts have released tax returns both in 2010 and for this years election.", "hrefs": [ "https://youtu.be/jWPr036nYiw" ] }, { "sentence": "Carole Crist isan owner of a family Halloween costume and novelty business, Franco-American Novelty Co., and has created a second company, Goddessey. Crist, a lawyer by trade like McBride, announcedthe release of three years of tax returns as the ad began airing. The next day, he released returns goingback to 2001, with promises to release more, going back to 1991.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/meet-carole-rome-the-governors-fiancee/696253" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gender-trolls/", "claim": "Nebraska School Bans Genders in Favor of 'Purple Penguins'", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/09/2014", "sci_digest": [ "Did a Nebraska school district mandate that gendered references be retired in favor of neutral expressions like 'purple penguins?'" ], "justification": " Claim: A school district in Lincoln, Nebraska has banned the use of gender pronouns and ordered teachers to use neutral terms such as \"purple penguins\" instead. : : Lincoln Public Schools have provided educators with materials to help them better understand gender identity issues. : The Lincoln school district has banned all reference to gender in favor of calling students \"purple penguins.\" Examples: [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] A Nebraska school district has instructed its teachers to stop referring to students by \"gendered expressions\" such as \"boys and girls,\" and use \"gender inclusive\" ones such as \"purple penguins\" instead. \"Don't use phrases such as 'boys and girls,' 'you guys,' 'ladies and gentlemen,' and similarly gendered expressions to get kids' attention,\" instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at Lincoln Public Schools. I just read an article saying that Nebraska will now start requiring that all students be called \"Purple Penguins\" instead of boys and girls. Is this true? It was on Foxnews.com, so I'm skeptical. Origins: On 8 October 2014, the National Review published an article concerning gender identity and inclusiveness training at Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) in Lincoln, Nebraska. According to that article, educators within the school district had been ordered to refrain from using specifically gendered terms when speaking or referring to students in favor of gender neutral terms such as \"purple penguins.\" article The article made specific reference to materials provided by Gender Spectrum, an organization whose website states a goal of fostering \"gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens.\" National Review cited paraphrased materials purportedly provided to educators that painted a picture of a full-scale ban on genders in the Lincoln school district: Gender Spectrum \"Don't use phrases such as 'boys and girls,' 'you guys,' 'ladies and gentlemen,' and similarly gendered expressions to get kids' attention,\" instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools. \"Create classroom names and then ask all of the 'purple penguins' to meet on the rug,\" it advises. The document also warns against asking students to \"line up as boys or girls,\" and suggests asking them to line up by whether they prefer \"skateboards or bikes/milk or juice/dogs or cats/summer or winter/talking or listening.\" \"Always ask yourself ... 'Will this configuration create a gendered space?'\" the document says.\" Word of Lincoln Public Schools' gender inclusivity training quickly spread across blogs and on Twitter, morphing into a cautionary tale of political correctness run rampant: Teachers are encouraged to hang signs on their classroom doors insisting that \"all genders\" are welcome while discontinuing the time-tested practice of lining boys and girls up separately before leaving class. \"Instead,\" the guidelines dictate, \"use things like 'odd and even birth date ...' Educators should prominently display photographs of gender-benders in the classroom, the new policy insists, and give students at least four choices when it is imperative that gender be determined. Much of the airtime given to the matter of gender sensitivity training in Lincoln framed the materials supplied as mandates or rules imposed on all schools within the district. However, as Brenda Leggiardo, LPS coordinator of social workers and counselors clarified to the Lincoln Journal Star after the issue gained widespread attention, the materials were provided as guidelines for educators to better understand gender identity issues and were not intended to impose rules mandating how those issues should be addressed: The handouts, provided by a staff member on a district equity team, were meant only for teachers, not for students or parents, she said. And they were not meant as rules staff had to follow, but as suggestions for how teachers can make students feel comfortable. It also stresses the impact words can have on others, Leggiardo said. \"If there's a staff member that's uninformed and unsupportive, that can be pretty scary for a family maybe struggling to understand transgender issues themselves,\" she said. LPS Superintendent Steve Joel also held a press conference to assert that the district had made no changes to their policies and imposed no mandates; the material in question consisted only of suggestions for \"how teachers could reach all students in their classroom\": Lincoln Public Schools Superintendent Steve Joel pushed back against what he said was misinformed reaction to the district's gender identity training by national commentators and news outlets. \"It's indeed regrettable that for the last week and a half we've had to dedicate as much staff time and resources to address an issue that is not founded in fact,\" he said at a news conference. \"Never once has anyone inside our system mandated that a teacher take (the words) 'boys' and 'girls' or 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' out of their interactions with children or interaction with adults. There's no policy, there's no procedure, there's no changes being made to bathrooms in schools.\" Fox News and other national outlets picked up on local news reports about the district's gender identity training, specifically handouts used with teachers at Irving Middle School that included one from the nonprofit organization Gender Spectrum entitled \"12 easy steps to gender inclusiveness.\" Joel said the handouts were suggestions and strategies, not mandates, about how teachers could reach all students in their classrooms. The training occurred at the request of an Irving teacher looking for guidance dealing with students. \"This was about adults, professional educators, who care deeply about trying to reach and establish relationships with children,\" Joel said. \"They are looking for strategies about how to be more effective in the classroom.\" During administrative leadership days prior to the beginning of the school year, LPS officials shared several recent news stories about transgender persons to help administrators better understand the issues that face some students, so they feel comfortable and welcome at school. Last updated: 13 October 2014 Reist, Margaret. \"LPS Staff's Transgender Training Concerns Parents.\" Lincoln Journal Star. 1 October 2014. Reist, Margaret. \"Superintendent Reacts to National Attention Directed at District's Gender Identity Training.\" Lincoln Journal Star. 10 October 2014. Timpf, Katherine. \"School Told to Call Kids 'Purple Penguins' Because 'Boys and Girls' Is Not Inclusive ...\" National Review. 8 October 2014. ", "issues": [ "equity" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15JR94a3MKEchQUJXEHeDRLieXOUhsW1Z", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "published an article concerning gender identity and inclusiveness training at Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) in Lincoln, Nebraska. According to that article, educators within the school district had been ordered to refrain from using specifically gendered terms when speaking or referring to students in favor of gender neutral terms such as \"purple penguins.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nationalreview.com/article/389862/school-told-call-kids-purple-penguins-because-boys-and-girls-not-inclusive" ] }, { "sentence": "The article made specific reference to materials provided by Gender Spectrum, an organization whose website states a goal of fostering \"gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens.\" National Review cited paraphrased materials purportedly provided to educators that painted a picture of a full-scale ban on genders in the Lincoln school district:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.genderspectrum.org/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-glaxo-own-the-wuhan-lab/", "claim": "Does Glaxo Own the 'Wuhan Lab'?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "12/08/2020", "sci_digest": [ "As a vaccination for COVID-19 starts to roll out, so does the anti-vax misinformation." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In November 2020, as news broke that a vaccination for COVID-19 was being prepared for distribution, a rumor started circulating on social media that the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline owned a laboratory in Wuhan, China -- the Wuhan Institute of Virology -- where conspiracy theorists falsely maintain the COVID-19 pandemic originated. This rumor, which reads like a game of six-degrees of separation, attempts to trace a line from GlaxoSmithKline, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, to billionaire philanthropist and frequent right-wing boogeyman George Soros, and, in some iterations of this rumor, to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. iterations Here's one version of the rumor that was posted to Twitter: This tweet reads: \"The Chinese biological laboratory in Wuhan is owned by Glaxo! Who, by cnance [sic], owns Pfizer! (the one who produces the vaccine!) Which, by chance, is managed by Black Rock finances. Who, by chance, manages the finances of the Open Foundation Company (SOROS FOUNDATION)!\" This nonsensical game of connect the dots starts with a false assertion. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline does not own the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Wuhan Institute of Virology a research lab in China that has been the center of conspiracy theories since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic is operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and is funded, in large part, by the Chinese government. It is not owned by GlaxoSmithKline or any other private company. funded \"Over the past 40 years, half of its income has come directly from central-government investment; the rest has been from competitive funding or technology transfer. CAS could not develop without the funding and support of the central government.\" It's also false to say that GlaxoSmithKline owns the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. While these two companies share some common interests in 2018, they announced a joint venture that combined their consumer health businesses they remain two distinct companies. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time: Wall Street Journal Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC plan to combine their consumer health-care units and eventually spin off the joint venture, creating the worlds largest seller of drugstore staples like Advil and Sensodyne toothpaste. The deal, announced Wednesday, will free up both companies to concentrate on prescription medicines, which tend to be more profitable if also higher risk. The joint venture represents an unexpected conclusion to a yearlong process by Pfizer to shed its consumer business, as it and other pharmaceutical companies focus on higher-margin prescription drugs. While Glaxo has shared that focus, the British drugmaker had remained committed to its consumer business, which its chief executive led before her promotion to the top job last year. This joint venture, however, did not involve one company buying the other. This rumor appears to have been created with the intent of stirring up confusion and skepticism over the COVID-19 vaccine by connecting pharmaceutical companies to a laboratory in Wuhan, China. GlaxoSmithKline, however, does not own the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Furthermore, claims that COVID-19 was \"manufactured,\" or that it \"escaped from\" this Chinese lab, are nothing more than baseless conspiracy theories. ", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1MhO4lE2vVNaF9dnO09aL5YX999m0C6or", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "This rumor, which reads like a game of six-degrees of separation, attempts to trace a line from GlaxoSmithKline, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, to billionaire philanthropist and frequent right-wing boogeyman George Soros, and, in some iterations of this rumor, to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.", "hrefs": [ "https://factual.afp.com/el-laboratorio-de-wuhan-pertenece-al-gobierno-chino-y-glaxo-no-es-propietaria-de-pfizer" ] }, { "sentence": "The Wuhan Institute of Virology a research lab in China that has been the center of conspiracy theories since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic is operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and is funded, in large part, by the Chinese government. It is not owned by GlaxoSmithKline or any other private company.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03205-z" ] }, { "sentence": "While these two companies share some common interests in 2018, they announced a joint venture that combined their consumer health businesses they remain two distinct companies. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.wsj.com/articles/glaxo-pfizer-to-combine-consumer-health-care-businesses-in-a-jv-11545205647" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sheep-walking-through-gate/", "claim": "Did Sheep Walk Through Gate Despite There Being No Fence?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "09/13/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph purportedly showing a group of sheep passing through a gate despite the absence of a fence is frequently shared as an example of \"the trap of thinking.\"" ], "justification": "A photograph purportedly showing a group of sheep squeezing through a gate despite there being no fence is frequently shared as an example of \"the trap of thinking\": A herd of sheep is leaving the stall. There is no fence, only the gate... \"The Trap of thinking\" However, whether or not the sheep are stopping to think about it, there actually is a fence in the above-displayed image. This image was taken by Australian photographer Scott Bridle in 2012, and shows a group of sheep passing through a gate at Brenda Station. While the encircling fence may be hard to see in this particular photograph, fence posts are clearly visible in a higher resolution version. Furthermore, fenced-in sheep can be seen in two other images Bridle took of Brenda Station in 2012: group of sheep Brenda Station version images Finally, Carolyn Ferguson of Scott Bridle Photography confirmed to us that there was indeed a fence in this photograph: Yes, there is definitely a fence. Update [July 6, 2022]: Headline reformatting, SEO/social updates.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1GL1y19K7HawqIzLHs5B2pSP_x9gPDRoq", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1P4J3nWNjnS1kF8MtnsHz1XBlpenzqrND", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "This image was taken by Australian photographer Scott Bridle in 2012, and shows a group of sheep passing through a gate at Brenda Station. While the encircling fence may be hard to see in this particular photograph, fence posts are clearly visible in a higher resolution version. Furthermore, fenced-in sheep can be seen in two other images Bridle took of Brenda Station in 2012:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sheep-mysteriously-die/", "https://www.geodata.us/australia_names_maps/aumaps.php?fid=45836&f=45&name=Brenda%20Station", "https://scottbridle.com/my-images/brenda-station-2012", "https://scottbridle.com/my-images/brenda-station-2012" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/refugees-paid-retirees/", "claim": "Are Asylum Seekers Paid More Than Social Security Recipients?", "author": "Snopes Staff", "posted": "07/31/2007", "sci_digest": [ "Claims that the federal government provides a much greater monthly allowance to refugees than to retirees are old and inaccurate." ], "justification": "Some political issues, it seems, are so emotionally charged that proponents of one side or another will promulgate anything that reflects their viewpoint, no matter how irrelevant, inapplicable, outdated, or erroneous it might be. The ongoing debate over U.S. immigration policy is one such issue, and for years claims about asylum seekers and refugees settled in the U.S. receiving financial assistance from the federal government that amounts to almost double the stipends provided to American retirees have been widely disseminated online: Pensioners should apply as refugees! It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890.00 and each can also get an additional $580.00 in social assistance for a total of $2,470.00 This compares very well to a single pensioner who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012.00 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement. Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees! Lets send this to all Americans, so we can all be ticked off and maybe we can get the refugees cut back to $1,012.00 and the pensioners to $2,470.00 and enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 years. Please forward to every American to expose what our elected politicians have been doing over the past 11 years to the over-taxed American. SEND THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW American Government Seniors Policy Virtually everything claimed in the textual example above is wrong: the information is fifteen years old, it was originally about government policy in Canada and not the U.S. (someone merely substituted the word 'American' for 'Canadian' throughout the text), and it wasn't true (about either Canada or the U.S.) when it was written and still isn't true now. The \"pensioners vs. refugees\" brouhaha began back in March 2004, when the Toronto Star published an article about plans for Canada to work in conjunction with the United Nations to settle asylum-seekers from a Somali refugee camp in some smaller Canadian cities (outside the usual immigrant magnet communities of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver). As the Star's ombudsman later explained, a single paragraph in the midst of the article was somewhat ambiguous about the amount of financial assistance the Canadian government would be providing to these refugees: Halfway through the 1,500-word article, unforeseen trouble was lurking. In paragraph 16, the story said single refugees are eligible for $1,890 from Ottawa as a \"start-up allowance, along with a $580 monthly social assistance, depending on how soon the person is able to find employment.\" In addition, they get \"a night lamp, a table, a chair and a single bed from the government,\" the story said. In painful hindsight, those details could have been clearer. Actually, the $1,890 \"start-up allowance\" including a $580 monthly social assistance cheque from Ottawa was a one-time payment for basic household needs such as furnishings, pots and linens. The furniture is used. Unfortunately, one Star reader who misunderstood the issue set loose an e-mail polemic about refugee entitlement without waiting for clarification, and the author of a follow-up letter to the editor published in the Star repeated the erroneous claim that the African refugees would be collecting monthly government allowances nearly double those provided to pensioners: In quick order, two things happened after the article ran. First, a reader sent a nasty e-mail to the reporter. Among other things, it said charity begins at home and Canada should not \"roll out the welcome mat\" for refugees. The e-mailer assumed erroneously that the refugees would collect $2,470 a month. They'd be better off than Canadian pensioners. More worrisome, the polemicist sent his rant to 100 recipients, some of whom likely spread the word to wider audiences. Ah, the wonders of the Internet! Alarmed by the e-mail, reporter Keung tried to contact the sender. It was too late. Having spread the misinformation, the e-mailer already had changed his address. At the same time, a second development occurred. The Star ran a letter to the editor that said the $2,470 \"compares very well to a single pensioner who after contributing to the growth and development of Canada for 40 years can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement. \"Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees?\" reasoned the writer. In short order, e-mail forwards like the following began winging their way into the inboxes of thousands of Canadians (and a good many Americans to boot): Only in Canada. Do not apply for your old age pension. Apply to be a refugee. It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890.00 and each can get an additional $580.00 in social assistance for a total of $2,470.00. This compares very well to a single pensioner who, after contributing to the growth and development of Canada for 40 or 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012.00 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement. Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees! Let's send this thought to as many Canadians as we can and maybe we can get the refugees cut back to $1,012.00 and the pensioners up to $2,470.00, so they can enjoy the money they were forced to submit to the Canadian government for those 40 to 50 years. Please forward this to every Canadian you know. By November 2004, the Star noted that: It [has] became increasingly clear a disturbing urban myth has been born. Various offices at the Star have been getting e-mails from around the world, usually one or two a week. Many quote from the erroneous letter to the editor, expressing varying degrees of curiosity, dismay, envy or anger. \"Let's send this to all Canadians,\" one e-mail roared, \"so we can all be pissed off and maybe we can get the refugees cut back to $1,012 and the pensioners up to $2,470 and enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the government over the last 40 or 50 years.\" Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) attempted to set the record straight about the amounts of financial assistance from the federal government provided to refugees vs. pensioners: CIC Refugees don't receive more financial assistance from the federal government than Canadian pensioners. In [a letter to the Toronto Star], a one-time, start-up payment provided to some refugees in Canada was mistaken for an ongoing, monthly payment. Unfortunately, although the newspaper published a clarification, the misleading information had already spread widely over e-mail and the internet. In truth, about three quarters of refugees receive financial assistance from the federal government, for a limited time, and at levels lower than Canadian pensioners. They are known as government-assisted refugees. We have to remember that many of these people are fleeing from unimaginable hardship, and have lived in refugee camps for several years. Others are victims of trauma or torture in their home countries. Many arrive with little more than a few personal belongings, if that. Canada has a humanitarian role to accept refugees and help them start their new lives here. For this reason, government-assisted refugees get a one-time payment of up to $1,095 from the federal government to cover essentials basic, start-up needs like food, furniture and clothing. They also receive a temporary monthly allowance for food and shelter that is based on provincial social assistance rates. In Ontario, for example, a single refugee would receive $592 per month. This assistance is temporary lasting only for one year or until they can find a job, whichever comes first. This short-term support for refugees is a far cry from the lifetime benefits for Canada's seniors. The Old Age Security (OAS) program, for example, provides people who have lived in Canada for at least 10 years with a pension at age 65. The Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) is an additional monthly benefit for low-income pensioners. The Canada Pension Plan (CPP), or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) for people in Quebec, pays a monthly retirement pension to people who have worked and contributed to the plan over their career. In July 2006, Canadian seniors received an average of $463.20 in OAS benefits and $472.79 in CPP retirement benefits ($388.94 in QPP). Lower income OAS recipients also qualified for an average of an additional $361.94 in GIS benefits. In 2015 and 2016, the same statements began once again circulating around social media, this time focusing on refugees coming from Syria. The claims were getting so widely spread that the Canadian government once again addressed it on the CIC web site, saying: CIC No. Refugees do not get more financial help from the federal government than Canadian pensioners do. A widely circulated email makes this false claim. The email mistakenly includes the one-time start-up payment as part of the monthly payment. The amount of monthly financial support that government-assisted refugees get is based on provincial social assistance rates. It is the minimum amount needed to cover only the most basic food and shelter needs. Many refugees selected for resettlement to Canada have been forced to flee their country because of extreme hardship. Some may have been living in refugee camps for many years. When they arrive in Canada, they must start their lives again in a country very different from their own. In keeping with Canada's proud humanitarian traditions, individuals and families get immediate and essential services and support to help them become established in Canada. It's worth noting that in Canada, much of the financial assistance is in the form of loans, which refugees have to pay back with interest. Also, as of January 2016, the alleged monthly allowances of these imaginary pensioners, no matter which country they are supposed to be living in, have not changed in more than a decade. loans In January 2010, some e-mailed versions of this item were prefaced with the following introduction: From a Florida ER doctor: Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids - that's right 8, all Illegal Anchor Babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math. I used to say, \"We are the dumbest nation on earth,\" Now I must say and sadly admit: WE are the dumbest people on earth (that includes ME) For we Elected the Idiot Ideologues who have passed the Bills that allow this. Sorry, but we need a Revolution, If the Illegal Immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004. She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there's a 'catch 22' (notch) for her. It is interesting that the Federal Government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in Social Assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month. This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in Old Age Pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement. Maybe our Pensioners should apply as Refugees! Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the Refugees cut back to $1,012 and the Pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years. PLEASE SHOW THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW In September 2017, an April 2016 Facebook iteration of the rumor shared by Dan Shea began circulating once again. As of 13 September 2017, it had been shared well more than a quarter of a million times: Dan Shea Keung, Nicholas. \"New Refugee Plan Eyes Small Cities.\" The Toronto Star. 11 March 2004 (p. A1). Sellar, Don. \"Can We Dispel This Urban Myth?\" The Toronto Star. 27 November 2004 (p. H6). The Toronto Star. \"Pay Pensioners Same as Refugees?\" 12 March 2004 (p. A23).", "issues": [ "loan" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Iod6SWoN8PqbxGo8Dz96JlIVCibwLbDG", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) attempted to set the record straight about the amounts of financial assistance from the federal government provided to refugees vs. pensioners:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=105&t=11" ] }, { "sentence": "In 2015 and 2016, the same statements began once again circulating around social media, this time focusing on refugees coming from Syria. The claims were getting so widely spread that the Canadian government once again addressed it on the CIC web site, saying:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?q=105&t=11" ] }, { "sentence": "It's worth noting that in Canada, much of the financial assistance is in the form of loans, which refugees have to pay back with interest. Also, as of January 2016, the alleged monthly allowances of these imaginary pensioners, no matter which country they are supposed to be living in, have not changed in more than a decade.", "hrefs": [ "https://ccrweb.ca/en/pensioners-myth" ] }, { "sentence": "In September 2017, an April 2016 Facebook iteration of the rumor shared by Dan Shea began circulating once again. As of 13 September 2017, it had been shared well more than a quarter of a million times:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/dan.shea.908/posts/10208760457146747", "https://archive.is/iQ9QU" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmart-another-number-scam/", "claim": "'So Far No One Has Found Another Number' Walmart Gift Card Facebook Scam", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "07/26/2023", "sci_digest": [ "Legitimate gift card giveaways from Walmart are not hosted by random users in Facebook groups." ], "justification": "In late July 2023, readers pointed us to several posts that had been made inside of Facebook groups. The users who made these posts, whose profiles all indicated they may have been from Bangladesh, claimed to be offering Walmart gift cards to anyone who could find a special number in an image. For example, one post read, \"So Far No One Has Found Another Number Apart From 86, No Winners Yet (Walmart Gift Card). We Still Have 24 More Wins.\" post The only other number visible in the above image was 96. Users who commented with \"96\" were replied to by the post's creator with a link that eventually led to a survey scam website. Survey scam websites usually promise cash prizes, pricey electronics, and other interesting purported \"rewards,\" all supposedly if the user takes a few minutes to answer some questions. However, as we've reported for the last two decades or so, survey scam websites have historically proven to be a waste of time. They often ask users to provide personal and financial information on various websites, as well as to sign up for trials of unfamiliar streaming services. All of this appeared to be an attempt at receiving affiliate-marketing commission based on the amount of information given away when providing personal and financial data to these websites. historically proven Sometimes, these kinds of scammers might instead provide a link sending users to hidden subscription scams that supposedly offer \"free\" prizes. However, such scams hide monthly fees in the fine print, much like a Cash App scam we once reported about. Cash App scam These sorts of scammers might also sometimes direct users to phishing websites that claim a gift card or other prize could be ordered for \"free,\" only with a small shipping and handling charge. Of course, there would be no real gift card or other prize. This simply would be an attempt to obtain a victim's financial information for criminal activities, such as a credit card number or PayPal login. This kind of a scam was similar to another one we previously reported about concerning the U.S. Postal Service. previously reported about If readers are looking for legitimate promotions for Walmart gift cards, we recommend our previous reporting that found the company truly does give away $80,000 in prizes every three months. Such promotions are offered by the company in official email correspondence and on receipts handed out in its brick-and-mortar stores. truly does give away $80,000 in prizes every three months Liles, Jordan. \"Lowe's Email Scam Promises 'Exclusive Reward.'\" Snopes, 7 Feb. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lowes-survey-exclusive-reward/. ---. \"This Cash App Email Scam About a Fake Deposit Could Cost You Thousands on Your Credit Card.\" Snopes, 19 May 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/. ---. \"UPS Email Scam Promises 'Exclusive Reward.'\" Snopes, 4 Feb. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ups-email-exclusive-reward/. ---. \"'USPS' Text Message Scam Claims Delivery Problem, Asks for Personal Financial Info.\" Snopes, 31 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/usps-text-message-scam/. ---. \"Was Walmart Giving Away $1,000 Gift Cards by Email?\" Snopes, 7 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmart-1000-gift-cards/.", "issues": [ "credit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vMyXsjtf-3otuRh88xBFdPnUgoKKQAek", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In late July 2023, readers pointed us to several posts that had been made inside of Facebook groups. The users who made these posts, whose profiles all indicated they may have been from Bangladesh, claimed to be offering Walmart gift cards to anyone who could find a special number in an image. For example, one post read, \"So Far No One Has Found Another Number Apart From 86, No Winners Yet (Walmart Gift Card). We Still Have 24 More Wins.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/xsfJn" ] }, { "sentence": "Survey scam websites usually promise cash prizes, pricey electronics, and other interesting purported \"rewards,\" all supposedly if the user takes a few minutes to answer some questions. However, as we've reported for the last two decades or so, survey scam websites have historically proven to be a waste of time. They often ask users to provide personal and financial information on various websites, as well as to sign up for trials of unfamiliar streaming services. All of this appeared to be an attempt at receiving affiliate-marketing commission based on the amount of information given away when providing personal and financial data to these websites.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lowes-survey-exclusive-reward/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ups-email-exclusive-reward/" ] }, { "sentence": "Sometimes, these kinds of scammers might instead provide a link sending users to hidden subscription scams that supposedly offer \"free\" prizes. However, such scams hide monthly fees in the fine print, much like a Cash App scam we once reported about.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/" ] }, { "sentence": "These sorts of scammers might also sometimes direct users to phishing websites that claim a gift card or other prize could be ordered for \"free,\" only with a small shipping and handling charge. Of course, there would be no real gift card or other prize. This simply would be an attempt to obtain a victim's financial information for criminal activities, such as a credit card number or PayPal login. This kind of a scam was similar to another one we previously reported about concerning the U.S. Postal Service.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/usps-text-message-scam/" ] }, { "sentence": "If readers are looking for legitimate promotions for Walmart gift cards, we recommend our previous reporting that found the company truly does give away $80,000 in prizes every three months. Such promotions are offered by the company in official email correspondence and on receipts handed out in its brick-and-mortar stores.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmart-1000-gift-cards/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/08/mike-foley/mike-foley-says-ohio-gives-tax-breaks-rich-people-/", "claim": "Says Ohio law gives tax breaks to rich people who own private jets.", "author": "Joe Guillen", "posted": "05/08/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Ohio law contains 128 tax breaks that cost the state about $7 billion per year in lost revenue it otherwise would collect, according to the Department of Taxation.State Rep. Mike Foley, a Democrat from Cleveland, wants to close some of these loopholes so the state has more money for schools, safety forces and other local government services.Foley co-sponsored a bill in February to establish a committee that would review the states tax exemptions every two years. More recently, he tried to get approval for his plan by adding it to a broadly supported general tax bill, House Bill 508, under consideration in the House of Representatives on April 25.Foley said during a floor speechthat tax exemptions need to be reviewed because some of them are fairly silly, such as a sales tax exemption related to private jets.I dont think we need to be giving exemptions to rich people who own private jets, Foley said. Were giving tax breaks to guys that own private jets that doesnt make any sense.Foleys statement hits on individual tax burdens, a frequently discussed political topic that resonates with many voters. So PolitiFact Ohio decided dig into Foleys claim.Foleys office provided us with a handful of documents to back up his claim, includinga tax expenditure report presented in March 2011 by the Ohio Department of Taxation.But before we examine the report and whether it supports Foleys claim, lets look into how these tax breaks work.Here is the Taxation Departments explanation:Tax expenditures represent tax dollars that are foregone through deductions, exemptions, credits, and other provisions in tax laws, the tax expenditure report says. Tax expenditures result in a loss of tax revenue to state government, thereby reducing the funds available for other government programs. In essence, a tax expenditure has the same fiscal impact as a direct government expenditure.Among the tax exemptions in the report is one for people who buy a share of a private jet, or what is called a fractionally-owned aircraft.This particular tax break was passed in 2003 as part of the state budget.It does have some limitations. It was crafted to apply only to those who do business with qualified companies that provide fractional ownership of private jets. Qualified companies would operate at least 100 aircraft and meet other criteria.The tax break does not apply to individuals who buy their own private jet.Foley did mention fractional ownership at another point during his floor speech: If you won a fractional or some other sort of ownership of a private jet, then were giving you an exemption on your taxes.The tax loophole caps sales tax at $800 for the sum of shares of a fractionally owned jet. Fractional owners are charged a fraction of the $800 that corresponds with their ownership stake. So if somebody owns one-eighth of the jet, he would pay $100 in sales tax.There are only two companies in Ohio that fit the requirements as a qualified company for this exemption, according to the Department of Taxation. That means only people who buy their fractional ownership from one of these two companies qualify for the tax break.The department, however, would not disclose those companies because the law prohibits disclosure of almost all information on specific taxpayers, taxation department spokesman Gary Gudmundson said in an e-mail.Although the state would not say which two companies qualify for the exemption, NetJets and Flight Options are two prominent fractionally owned aircraft companies based in Ohio.When lawmakers debated the merits of the tax break in 2003, a fractional-ownership company reported that its average share cost was $1.2 million, according to a Department of Taxation analysis of this tax expenditure produced in Jan. 2011. The analysis did not name the company.The taxation department last year estimated in its tax expenditure report that the tax break for fractionally owned aircraft costs the state about $1 million a year.So what does all this mean for Foleys claim?There is no doubt that a tax loophole exists for people who buy a stake in a private jet.A listener hearing Foleys quip about tax breaks for rich people buying private jets could believe he was referring to anyone who buys a private plane. The tax break, however, only applies to fractional ownership programs. Thats additional information that provides clarity. And to his credit, Foley did mention fractional ownership at a different point in his speech on the House floor.And the average share price previously reported -- $1.2 million suggests the tax exemption would be available wealthy people, just as Foley claimed.On the Truth-O-Meter, Foleys claim rates Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Ohio", "State Budget", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Ohio law contains 128 tax breaks that cost the state about $7 billion per year in lost revenue it otherwise would collect, according to the Department of Taxation.State Rep. Mike Foley, a Democrat from Cleveland, wants to close some of these loopholes so the state has more money for schools, safety forces and other local government services.Foley co-sponsored a bill in February to establish a committee that would review the states tax exemptions every two years. More recently, he tried to get approval for his plan by adding it to a broadly supported general tax bill, House Bill 508, under consideration in the House of Representatives on April 25.Foley said during a floor speechthat tax exemptions need to be reviewed because some of them are fairly silly, such as a sales tax exemption related to private jets.I dont think we need to be giving exemptions to rich people who own private jets, Foley said. Were giving tax breaks to guys that own private jets that doesnt make any sense.Foleys statement hits on individual tax burdens, a frequently discussed political topic that resonates with many voters. So PolitiFact Ohio decided dig into Foleys claim.Foleys office provided us with a handful of documents to back up his claim, includinga tax expenditure report presented in March 2011 by the Ohio Department of Taxation.But before we examine the report and whether it supports Foleys claim, lets look into how these tax breaks work.Here is the Taxation Departments explanation:Tax expenditures represent tax dollars that are foregone through deductions, exemptions, credits, and other provisions in tax laws, the tax expenditure report says. Tax expenditures result in a loss of tax revenue to state government, thereby reducing the funds available for other government programs. In essence, a tax expenditure has the same fiscal impact as a direct government expenditure.Among the tax exemptions in the report is one for people who buy a share of a private jet, or what is called a fractionally-owned aircraft.This particular tax break was passed in 2003 as part of the state budget.It does have some limitations. It was crafted to apply only to those who do business with qualified companies that provide fractional ownership of private jets. Qualified companies would operate at least 100 aircraft and meet other criteria.The tax break does not apply to individuals who buy their own private jet.Foley did mention fractional ownership at another point during his floor speech: If you won a fractional or some other sort of ownership of a private jet, then were giving you an exemption on your taxes.The tax loophole caps sales tax at $800 for the sum of shares of a fractionally owned jet. Fractional owners are charged a fraction of the $800 that corresponds with their ownership stake. So if somebody owns one-eighth of the jet, he would pay $100 in sales tax.There are only two companies in Ohio that fit the requirements as a qualified company for this exemption, according to the Department of Taxation. That means only people who buy their fractional ownership from one of these two companies qualify for the tax break.The department, however, would not disclose those companies because the law prohibits disclosure of almost all information on specific taxpayers, taxation department spokesman Gary Gudmundson said in an e-mail.Although the state would not say which two companies qualify for the exemption, NetJets and Flight Options are two prominent fractionally owned aircraft companies based in Ohio.When lawmakers debated the merits of the tax break in 2003, a fractional-ownership company reported that its average share cost was $1.2 million, according to a Department of Taxation analysis of this tax expenditure produced in Jan. 2011. The analysis did not name the company.The taxation department last year estimated in its tax expenditure report that the tax break for fractionally owned aircraft costs the state about $1 million a year.So what does all this mean for Foleys claim?There is no doubt that a tax loophole exists for people who buy a stake in a private jet.A listener hearing Foleys quip about tax breaks for rich people buying private jets could believe he was referring to anyone who buys a private plane. The tax break, however, only applies to fractional ownership programs. Thats additional information that provides clarity. And to his credit, Foley did mention fractional ownership at a different point in his speech on the House floor.And the average share price previously reported -- $1.2 million suggests the tax exemption would be available wealthy people, just as Foley claimed.On the Truth-O-Meter, Foleys claim rates Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.ohiochannel.org/MediaLibrary/Media.aspx?fileId=135322&startTime=17868&autoStart=True" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jeff-flake-solar-energy/", "claim": "Senator Jeff Flake: Solar Energy Can't Power Lights at Night?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "04/17/2017", "sci_digest": [ "A comment made by Arizona senator Jeff Flake during a town hall meeting was reproduced without context to make him seem ignorant about the basics of solar power." ], "justification": "On 13 April 2017, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona took part in a town hall meeting with some of his constituents that, like several other such events held by U.S. Congress members in the early part of the year, proved to be something of a contentious one for the Republican U.S. senator: contentious Sen. Jeff Flake encountered a raucous audience at a town hall meeting in Mesa, Arizona. Constituents peppered the Republican lawmaker with questions about President Donald Trump's actions in office, and his broader agenda on climate change, the president's taxes, the Supreme Court and Planned Parenthood. Much like other GOP town halls held since Trump assumed the Oval Office, attendees railed against Flake, many of whom accused him of being a rubber stamp for Trump. Flake, like Reps. Jason Chaffetz, Mike Coffman, and Sen. Mitch McConnell before him, attempted to answer the audience's concerns, though most explanations drew shouts and boos from the crowd. Though Flake's town hall did not appear to have a large presence of demonstrators as those of some high-profile congress members in recent months, Flake at times struggled to contend with fits of chanting and jeering from the crowd at the Mesa Convention Center. Not all of the questions were hostile, and some constituents applauded Flake for sharing his time. The senator extended the meeting by one hour to take more questions, but the mood frequently returned to a bitter note. \"Can you just remind me when you're up for reelection,\" one woman asked. The audience erupted in cheers at the question. During that town hall meeting, Senator Flake engaged in a several-minute exchange with a constituent who urged the lawmaker to support efforts to promote alternative energy sources over fossil fuels and address climate change issues. One small portion of that exchange was later incorporated into an image macro that was widely spread online to make it appear as if the senator were ignorant about the basics of solar power: Portraying people as fools for proclaiming that wind and solar power technologies don't work when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining is a common trope (revealing them to be unaware of the basic fact that energy derived from intermittent production sources is typically stored via batteries or other methods to be used during periods of non-production). However, although Senator Flake did make the statement attributed to him (actually expressed by him as \"you can't tell people we're gonna turn off your power at night because the sun isn't shining\"), in this case that trope has been unfairly applied to him, as his comment has been stripped of context that showed it to be not so foolish or unreasonable. As video of the town hall event captures, Senator Flake engaged a constituent (who introduced himself as a major in the U.S. Army Reserve and a recent graduate of Arizona State University with a degree in Sustainability) in a fairly extensive conversation about alternative energy sources, with the constituent advocating the promotion of solar power technologies in Arizona, given that the state is blessed with an abundance of sunshine. In response, the senator didn't disdain the idea by expressing the absurd concept that solar energy wouldn't be available at night. Rather, Flake's contention was that battery technology was not yet sufficiently developed to be able to store enough solar-derived energy to provide \"base load power\" to cities during non-daylight hours, and thus the use of solar energy exclusively was not yet feasible that if we wished to completely eliminate our use of fossil fuels, for the time being solar power would have to be supplemented by other non-carbon energy sources, such as nuclear power. This discussion of alternative energy sources begins at the 13:00 mark in the following video, with Senator Flake's now-infamous comment occurring a 18:20 after more than five minutes of back-and-forth that established the context in which he made it: As the constituent interrupted the senator's remarks by interjecting \"battery ... battery\" (contending solar energy can be harvested and stored), Flake responded by saying that \"what we've gotta do is we've gotta have baseload power now ... you can't tell people we're going to turn off your power at night because the sun isn't shining.\" Clearly, Senator Flake was aware that solar-derived energy can be stored in batteries for later use, as the point he was disputing with his constituent was the state of the art in battery technology Flake maintained batteries couldn't currently provide \"base load power\" levels to cities, while the constituent countered by referencing a solar energy station built by Tesla on the Hawaiian island of Kauai: solar energy station Renewable energy supplies are great because they produce power without filling the air with pollution. Yet, once the sun goes down solar panels become pretty useless. But Tesla and Hawaii have a solution that'll use the sun's rays both day and night using Powerpacks built at the Gigafactory. The Kapaia project is a combination 13MW SolarCity solar farm and 53MWh Tesla Powerpack station on the island of Kauai. In partnership with the KIUC (Kauai Island Utility Cooperative) the project will store the sun's energy during the day and release it at night. The station (along with Kauai's other renewable resource solutions including wind and biomass) won't completely keep the island from using fossil fuels but it will temper the need. In addition to using Tesla's station to battle the island's incredibly high electric bills, it's also part of a long-term Hawaii-state plan to be completely powered by renewable energy sources by 2045. Kauai has its own goal of using 70 percent renewable energy by 2030. With this project the island is getting closer to that goal and can now produce 100 percent of the energy it needs during high usage mid days and low loads via renewables during a brief period of time. Whether Senator Flake was right or wrong about the particulars of the current state of solar energy and battery technologies, he did demonstrate a working awareness of the manner in which energy from the sun is collected and stored, and he did not express a belief that dependence on solar energy would necessarily mean residents would have to go without power at night. The video of the town hall event shows that Senator Flake and a constituent disagreed about the current scalability of power gathered from the sun but were not in disagreement about the existence of solar technologies or the availability of sun-harvested energy at night. Nonetheless, the senator's remarks were misleadingly truncated and altered (replacing \"power\" with \"lights\") and shared online in a form that falsely suggested he did not understand how solar power works. Nowicki, Dan. \"Sen. Jeff Flake Weathers Brutal, 2 1/2-Hour Mesa Town Hall.\"\r The Arizona Republic. 13 April 2017. Logan, Bryan. \"Republican Sen. Jeff Flake Gets Slammed in Raucous Town Hall Meeting.\"\r Business Insider. 14 April 2017. Baldwin, Roberto. \"Tesla's New Solar Energy Station Will Power Hawaii at Night.\"\rEngadget. 8 March 2017.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1el4jkcChqqHT8DLfoNvIU3qatc7yocqm", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 13 April 2017, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona took part in a town hall meeting with some of his constituents that, like several other such events held by U.S. Congress members in the early part of the year, proved to be something of a contentious one for the Republican U.S. senator:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/14/republican-sen-jeff-flake-gets-slammed-in-raucous-town-hall-meeting/22039773/" ] }, { "sentence": "Clearly, Senator Flake was aware that solar-derived energy can be stored in batteries for later use, as the point he was disputing with his constituent was the state of the art in battery technology Flake maintained batteries couldn't currently provide \"base load power\" levels to cities, while the constituent countered by referencing a solar energy station built by Tesla on the Hawaiian island of Kauai:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/08/teslas-new-solar-energy-station-will-power-hawaii-at-night/" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/oct/08/sean-duffy/planned-parenthood-spends-millions-elect-democrats/", "claim": "Millions of dollars are spent by Planned Parenthood to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives and the Senate.", "author": "Tom Kertscher", "posted": "10/08/2015", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "During debate on a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., alluded to secretly recorded videos that prompted the legislation, then he made a claim about the groups political activity. If you watch this debate, you have to ask: How could anybody defend the practices at Planned Parenthood? Duffysaidon the House floor on Sept. 18, 2015, the day the Houseapprovedthe one-year defunding. Harvesting body parts. How could anybody defend that? Its an easy answer. Look in (the) political season. Millions of dollars, millions of dollars are spent by Planned Parenthood to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives and to the Senate. This isnt about babies; this is about money. A reader asked us to check Duffys claim. The videos, the funding The videos, first released in July 2015, show Planned Parenthood officials offhandedly discussing how they sometimes procure tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. The anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, which recorded the videos, alleges Planned Parenthood is illegally profiting from fetal organ sales. But Planned Parenthood says it has done nothing illegal, and that the videos were edited in a misleading way. The defunding bill, which has yet to be taken up by the U.S. Senate, would end federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, diverting the money to thousands of community health centers. Republicans say those clinics could handle the displaced Planned Parenthood patients, but Democrats say the centers are overburdened and sometimes in remote locations. Planned Parenthood gets around$450 millioneach year in federal payments, mostly Medicaid reimbursements for handling low-income patients. That's around one-third of the organization's $1.3 billion annual budget. As for Planned Parenthoods political activity, some of this ground was covered when Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina made a similar claim. She said Planned Parenthood funnels millions of dollars in political contributions to pro-abortion candidates. PolitiFact National rated the statementMostly True. Millions have been spent. But the caveat is that the operational, medical clinics of Planned Parenthood cannot spend money in politics -- separate entities that are affiliated with Planned Parenthood can. Duffys claim Duffys claim was a little different -- that Planned Parenthood spent millions to elect Democrats to the House and Senate. We found,using figuresfrom the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, that that was this case. In the 2014 election cycle alone, Planned Parenthood-affiliated groups that can't give directly to candidates or coordinate with them, such asPlanned Parenthood Votes, a Super PAC, made over$6 millionin independent expenditures. That included $1.85 million spent in support of Democrats and $2.87 million spent against Republicans. In addition, Planned Parenthood's PAC gave nearly$590,000to congressional candidates, all of them Democrats. The numbers would be higher, of course, if previous cycles were included. Our rating Duffy said: Millions of dollars are spent by Planned Parenthood to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives and the Senate. By law, the operational, medical clinics of Planned Parenthood cannot spend money in politics. But separate entities that are affiliated with Planned Parenthood can, and they spent millions just in the 2014 election cycle to elect Democrats. We rate Duffys statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Abortion", "Campaign Finance", "Elections", "Federal Budget", "Health Care", "Women", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "If you watch this debate, you have to ask: How could anybody defend the practices at Planned Parenthood? Duffysaidon the House floor on Sept. 18, 2015, the day the Houseapprovedthe one-year defunding.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.c-span.org/video/?328094-1/us-house-debate-defunding-planned-parenthood" ] }, { "sentence": "The videos, first released in July 2015, show Planned Parenthood officials offhandedly discussing how they sometimes procure tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. The anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress, which recorded the videos, alleges Planned Parenthood is illegally profiting from fetal organ sales. But Planned Parenthood says it has done nothing illegal, and that the videos were edited in a misleading way.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/aug/05/8-things-know-about-planned-parenthood-controversy/" ] }, { "sentence": "The defunding bill, which has yet to be taken up by the U.S. Senate, would end federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year, diverting the money to thousands of community health centers. Republicans say those clinics could handle the displaced Planned Parenthood patients, but Democrats say the centers are overburdened and sometimes in remote locations.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3134/text" ] }, { "sentence": "Planned Parenthood gets around$450 millioneach year in federal payments, mostly Medicaid reimbursements for handling low-income patients. That's around one-third of the organization's $1.3 billion annual budget.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/national/house-bills-hit-planned-parenthood-some-abortion-doctorsb74a790af0564fb5b36caeb4beb85baf-328156471.html" ] }, { "sentence": "PolitiFact National rated the statementMostly True. Millions have been spent.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/05/carly-fiorina/carly-fiorina-says-planned-parenthood-gives-millio/" ] }, { "sentence": "Duffys claim was a little different -- that Planned Parenthood spent millions to elect Democrats to the House and Senate. We found,using figuresfrom the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, that that was this case.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000591&cycle=2010" ] }, { "sentence": "In the 2014 election cycle alone, Planned Parenthood-affiliated groups that can't give directly to candidates or coordinate with them, such asPlanned Parenthood Votes, a Super PAC, made over$6 millionin independent expenditures.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=C00489799&cycle=2014" ] }, { "sentence": "In addition, Planned Parenthood's PAC gave nearly$590,000to congressional candidates, all of them Democrats.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00314617&cycle=2014" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/are-zelenskyy-and-soros-cousins/", "claim": "Are Zelenskyy and Soros Cousins?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "04/11/2022", "sci_digest": [ "If you want to smear a politician in the eyes of some far-right circles, just allege some sort of relationship to billionaire George Soros. " ], "justification": "One common tactic to smear politicians is to claim they are related to George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist who serves as a sort of right-wing boogeyman due to his large investments in \"liberal\" causes. right-wing boogeyman For example, Chelsea Clinton is not married to Soros' nephew, Adam Schiff's sister is not married to Soros' son, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not Soros' niece. In April 2022, as Russia continued its assault on Ukraine, another version of this rumor was circulated on social media, this time falsely claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was Soros' cousin. Chelsea Clinton is not married to Soros' nephew, Adam Schiff's sister is not married to Soros' son, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not Soros' niece. This false rumor was shared on social media along with a claim that this information came directly from the Pentagon: false rumor was shared The Pentagon has released no such statement. We searched the Pentagon's website and social media accounts and found no remarks about Soros and Zelenskyy being cousins. A spokesperson for the Pentagon told Lead Stories that no such statement was released, and a spokesperson for Soros' Open Society Foundation told Politifact that the rumor was \"entirely false.\" Pentagon's website spokesperson for the Pentagon told Lead Stories Politifact that the rumor was \"entirely false.\" The Pentagon did not release a statement identifying Zelenskyy and Soros as cousins, Soros' foundation has denied these rumors, and this claim mirrors a common smear tactic among far-right circles. Furthermore, Zelenskyy was once asked about a similarly baseless rumor, the claim that the Ukraine government was \"installed\" by Soros. In 2020, Zelenskky laughed at the notion, saying: \"I am not familiar with a person named Soros. I have never met him. I'm definitely not one of that 'followers of Soros'. There are probably people who studied at the expense of various donor funds and worked for companies that were founded by such funds. And one of these funds is Soros Foundation. I understand that in fact they received money from the fund of this person for which they studied abroad. The question of the influence of Mr. Soros on Ukraine I do not feel it. I think this is all an exaggeration.\" Fact Check: No Evidence Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Is Cousin To George Soros | Lead Stories. https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/04/fact-check-no-evidence-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-is-cousin-to-george-soros.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Fact Check-The Pentagon Did Not Say That Volodymyr Zelenskiy Is George Soros Cousin. Reuters, 7 Apr. 2022. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-zelenskiy-soros-idUSL2N2W51UM. Releases. U.S. Department of Defense, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. PolitiFact - No, Zelenskyy and Soros Are Not Cousins. @politifact, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/07/facebook-posts/no-zelenskyy-and-soros-are-not-cousins/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Zelensky: Power Is an Opportunity. I Have the Chance to Help. Interfax-Ukraine, https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/640646.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1p5KFAZjPPPMayv9P85V59PjDlcrEqUUl", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "One common tactic to smear politicians is to claim they are related to George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist who serves as a sort of right-wing boogeyman due to his large investments in \"liberal\" causes. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49584157" ] }, { "sentence": "For example, Chelsea Clinton is not married to Soros' nephew, Adam Schiff's sister is not married to Soros' son, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not Soros' niece. In April 2022, as Russia continued its assault on Ukraine, another version of this rumor was circulated on social media, this time falsely claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was Soros' cousin.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chelsea-clinton-george-soros-nephew/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/adam-schiffs-sister-was-married-to-george-soros-son/", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/whitmer-the-niece-of-soros/" ] }, { "sentence": "This false rumor was shared on social media along with a claim that this information came directly from the Pentagon:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20220407211755/https://twitter.com/OsintUpdates/status/1511412673287639041" ] }, { "sentence": "We searched the Pentagon's website and social media accounts and found no remarks about Soros and Zelenskyy being cousins. A spokesperson for the Pentagon told Lead Stories that no such statement was released, and a spokesperson for Soros' Open Society Foundation told Politifact that the rumor was \"entirely false.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.defense.gov/News/releases/", "https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/04/fact-check-no-evidence-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-is-cousin-to-george-soros.html", "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/07/facebook-posts/no-zelenskyy-and-soros-are-not-cousins/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/whataburger-changing-colors/", "claim": "Is Whataburger Changing Their Colors?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "07/11/2019", "sci_digest": [ "A Chicago investment firm acquired a majority stake in the Texas-based restaurant chain. " ], "justification": "In June 2019, the Chicago investment firm Chicago BDT Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the Texas-based restaurant chain Whataburger. The news was unsettling to some Texans who feared that their beloved burger joint would undergo some unwanted changes: acquired Ok, I say we all chip in and buy Whataburger back. Make honey butter chicken biscuits available all day, add kolaches to the menu and change nothing else. Especially not the ketchup. https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 14, 2019 June 14, 2019 Shortly after this news broke, an image purportedly showing a screenshot of a message posted to Whataburger's Twitter account -- in which the restaurant chain announced that they were changing their colors from orange and white to blue, black, and white in honor of Chicago's baseball teams -- began to circulate on social media: circulate social media This was not a genuine tweet from Whataburger: It does not appear anywhere on the company's Twitter timeline, and we were unable to locate any archived versions of this supposed message. timeline Furthermore, the Whataburger Twitter account has responded to several curious social media users to inform them that the above-displayed image is fake. In other words, Whataburger is not changing their signature orange color to blue, black, and white in honor of the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox: The social media post announcing that Whataburger was changing their colors was fake, but the following social media post from Whataburger assuring fans that they will continue to make Texas proud is real: social media post Fernandez, Manny. \"Whataburger Got Sold to Chicago. Texas Is Flipping Out.\"\r The New York Times. 20 June 2019.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_2vu-IJfif8Rbs7eAM6VbLmIXQZPKlFX", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Bo9bany6sBYevlYZ9lgKgDIeP6p7T7sy", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16ikCdtXlaNu69ENY77sZWMO4UhCPZOrN", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In June 2019, the Chicago investment firm Chicago BDT Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the Texas-based restaurant chain Whataburger. The news was unsettling to some Texans who feared that their beloved burger joint would undergo some unwanted changes:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/texas-whataburger-chicago.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Ok, I say we all chip in and buy Whataburger back. Make honey butter chicken biscuits available all day, add kolaches to the menu and change nothing else. Especially not the ketchup. https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l" ] }, { "sentence": " JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 14, 2019", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JJWatt/status/1139592784715931648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "Shortly after this news broke, an image purportedly showing a screenshot of a message posted to Whataburger's Twitter account -- in which the restaurant chain announced that they were changing their colors from orange and white to blue, black, and white in honor of Chicago's baseball teams -- began to circulate on social media:", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/xolesliee1/status/1148678347221819394", "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2428572177164967&set=a.150563561632518&type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "This was not a genuine tweet from Whataburger: It does not appear anywhere on the company's Twitter timeline, and we were unable to locate any archived versions of this supposed message.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/Whataburger" ] }, { "sentence": "The social media post announcing that Whataburger was changing their colors was fake, but the following social media post from Whataburger assuring fans that they will continue to make Texas proud is real:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/whataburger/photos/a.196181800410538/2706720356023324/?type=3&theater" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/food-stamp-hunger-tests/", "claim": "Alabama Lawmaker Wants Food Stamp 'Hunger Tests'?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "02/16/2016", "sci_digest": [ "No, a Republican politician didn't propose saliva-based \"hunger tests\" prior to issuing food stamps." ], "justification": "On 13 February2016, the web site Newslo published an articleclaiming that Alabama congressmanRobert Aderholt proposed the introduction of \"hunger tests\" before food stamps were issued to potential recipients: A top Republican wants the federal government to spend half a billion dollars so states can make people on food stamps pass drug tests. Legislation Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) proposes would cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending by $1.2 billion, then plow $600 million into grants for states to carry out drug testing programs. Federal law doesnt currently allow states to drug test food stamp recipients, an obstacle that has prevented Republicans in Georgia, Wisconsin and elsewhere from carrying out the policy. Aderholts bill would allow drug tests, but not require them. ...in addition to allowing states to wilfully administer drug tests to food stamp recipients, the controversial bill would also require potential recipients to be tested for actual hunger every time prior to being issued food stamps. Look at whats going on right now, the Alabama Rep. said. The United States budget is hemorrhaging money because of drug addicts who are misusing food stamps to purchase narcotics, but what many people dont realize is the fact that they are only part of the problem. There are many other so-called legitimately poor people who are also receiving food stamps, but are using them to buy things like hot-tubs, motorbikes, finance pool parties and getting their hands on the latest iPhone or MacBook...Thats why, as a way of making sure food stamps actually go to hungry people, I propose we introduce hunger tests prior to issuing the stamps to every potential beneficiary. The logistics of it are still in the works, but from what I can gather, wed be using a benign chemical that would be able to tell whether or not a person is experiencing hunger from their saliva. The chemical would be located on the stamps themselves, and upon licking the stamp, as you would a simple stamp at a post office, we would know straight away if a person is trying to trick us or if they really deserve food. While it's true that Rep. Aderholt introduced a bill on 11 February 2016 in support of requisite drug testing for food stamp recipients, all but the first paragraph quoted above was embellished(asNewsloitself indicated). Articleson the self-styled\"hybrid\" news site Newslo(as well as sistersites Religionlo and Politicalo) regularly build upon controversial news items with fabricated details that range from subtle to outlandish. bill Newsloand related pagesdisplay an interactive feature allowingreaders to \"Show Facts\" or \"Hide Facts\": However, contentpublished by Newslo, Politicalo,and Religionlodisplays by default in \"Hide Facts\" mode, ensuring thatmanyvisitors areunaware that fabricated details appearedalongside otherwise accurate news items. In addition to the \"Show Facts/Hide Facts\" feature, Newslo's disclaimerstates: disclaimer Newslo is the first hybrid News/Satire platform on the web. Readers come to us for a unique brand of entertainment and information that is enhanced by features like our fact-button, which allows readers to find what is fact and what is satire. PreviousNewslo, Religionlo,andPoliticalo articles that proved confusing to social media usersincluded items claiming that Marco Rubiosaid women shouldbe placed in custody if it was suspected they were considering anabortion, that Pat Robertsonsaid gay people should wear specific colors by which heterosexual people couldeasily identify them, that Pastor John Piper decreed bikiniwaxes a sin in the eyes of God, that David Bowie was alive but held hostage by operatives of Satan, and that Ted Cruz believed God would not have allowed Antonin Scalia to die at a time that was potentially not politically expedient. abortion colors waxes David Bowie Antonin Scalia ", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dHwwBOf8zim0exaCwC7GrUeTgynfeCxu", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "While it's true that Rep. Aderholt introduced a bill on 11 February 2016 in support of requisite drug testing for food stamp recipients, all but the first paragraph quoted above was embellished(asNewsloitself indicated). Articleson the self-styled\"hybrid\" news site Newslo(as well as sistersites Religionlo and Politicalo) regularly build upon controversial news items with fabricated details that range from subtle to outlandish.", "hrefs": [ "https://aderholt.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/aderholt-bill-will-make-it-easier-states-drug-test-snap-recipients" ] }, { "sentence": "However, contentpublished by Newslo, Politicalo,and Religionlodisplays by default in \"Hide Facts\" mode, ensuring thatmanyvisitors areunaware that fabricated details appearedalongside otherwise accurate news items. In addition to the \"Show Facts/Hide Facts\" feature, Newslo's disclaimerstates:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.donotlink.com/dxr5" ] }, { "sentence": "PreviousNewslo, Religionlo,andPoliticalo articles that proved confusing to social media usersincluded items claiming that Marco Rubiosaid women shouldbe placed in custody if it was suspected they were considering anabortion, that Pat Robertsonsaid gay people should wear specific colors by which heterosexual people couldeasily identify them, that Pastor John Piper decreed bikiniwaxes a sin in the eyes of God, that David Bowie was alive but held hostage by operatives of Satan, and that Ted Cruz believed God would not have allowed Antonin Scalia to die at a time that was potentially not politically expedient.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/marco-rubio-rape-victims/", "https://www.snopes.com/pat-robertson-gay-colors/", "https://www.snopes.com/john-piper-waxing-sin/", "https://www.snopes.com/pat-robertson-david-bowie/", "https://www.snopes.com/cruz-skeptical-scalia-death/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/candace-claiborne-treason/", "claim": "State Dept. Employee Candace Claiborne Arrested on Treason Charges?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "04/15/2017", "sci_digest": [ "Department of State employee Candace Claiborne was arrested and charged in connection with her improperly receiving gifts from Chinese agents." ], "justification": "In mid-April 2017, multiple online sources reported that former U.S. State Department employee Candace Claiborne (purportedly an employee of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton) was arrested on charges of treason: Barack Obama Hillary Clinton The indictment in question was real, although many online reports covering it were inaccurate. Claiborne was arrested on specific charges related to improperly receiving gifts in exchange for her providing information to Chinese agents obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the F.B.I. not \"treason,\" as noted in a Justice Department press release about the case: press release A federal complaint was unsealed charging Candace Marie Claiborne, 60, of Washington, D.C., and an employee of the U.S. Department of State, with obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the FBI, both felony offenses, for allegedly concealing numerous contacts that she had over a period of years with foreign intelligence agents. The charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary B. McCord for National Security, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew W. Vale of the FBIs Washington Field Office. Candace Marie Claiborne is a U.S. State Department employee who possesses a Top Secret security clearance and allegedly failed to report her contacts with Chinese foreign intelligence agents who provided her with thousands of dollars of gifts and benefits, said Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord. Claiborne used her position and her access to sensitive diplomatic data for personal profit. Pursuing those who imperil our national security for personal gain will remain a key priority of the National Security Division. Candace Claiborne is charged with obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements in connection with her alleged concealment and failure to report her improper connections to foreign contacts along with the tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and benefits they provided, said U.S. Attorney Phillips. As a State Department employee with a Top Secret clearance, she received training and briefing about the need for caution and transparency. This case demonstrates that U.S. government employees will be held accountable for failing to honor the trust placed in them when they take on such sensitive assignments Candace Claiborne is accused of violating her oath of office as a State Department employee, who was entrusted with Top Secret information when she purposefully mislead federal investigators about her significant and repeated interactions with foreign contacts,\" said Assistant Director in Charge Vale. \"The FBI will continue to investigate individuals who, though required by law, fail to report foreign contacts, which is a key indicator of potential insider threats posed by those in positions of public trust. Claiborne is required to report any contacts with persons suspected of affiliation with a foreign intelligence agency. Despite such a requirement, the affidavit alleges, Claiborne failed to report repeated contacts with two intelligence agents of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), even though these agents provided tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and benefits to Claiborne and her family over five years. According to the affidavit, the gifts and benefits included cash wired to Claibornes USAA account, an Apple iPhone and laptop computer, Chinese New Years gifts, meals, international travel and vacations, tuition at a Chinese fashion school, a fully furnished apartment, and a monthly stipend. Some of these gifts and benefits were provided directly to Claiborne, the affidavit alleges, while others were provided through a co-conspirator. Claiborne wasn't an \"employee\" of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, other than in the sense that she held a mid-level (not a \"deep state operative\") job at the State Department, which was headed by Clinton from 2009-2013 (in her position as Secretary of State) and is a part of the executive branch, which was headed by Barack Obama from 2009-2017 (in his position as President of the United States). By that standard, Claiborne would also have been an \"employee\" of Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson, as the affidavit that accompanied the criminal complaint against her noted she was still working for the State Department at the time of her arrest: affidavit Candace Claiborne is a 60-year-old Office Management Specialist with the Department of State. She is a United States citizen who resides and works in Washington, D.C. Claiborne has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and law enforcement from the University of the District of Columbia. She joined the State Department in 1999, and has served in a variety of places, including Washington, D.C., Baghdad, Iraq, Beijing and Shanghai, China, and Khartoum, Sudan. According to State Department records, Claiborne has language proficiency in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. She currently works at the Department of State headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the Office of Caucasus Affairs and Regional Conflicts. Claiborne has held a TOP SECRET security clearance since 1999. Candace Claiborne pled \"not guilty\" at her 29 March 2017 court appearance, and a preliminary hearing for her case was scheduled for 18 April 2017. Dmitry, Baxter. \"Former Hillary Clinton Employee Arrested on Treason Charges.\"\r YourNewsWire.com. 12 April 2017. Gerstein, Josh. \"State Department Aide Charged for Hiding Gifts from Chinese Agents.\"\r Politico. 29 March 2017. Miller, John. \"Obamas 'Deep State' Operative Just Got Arrested for Committing Treason The First Domino Has Fallen.\"\r America's Freedom Fighters. 29 March 2017.\r The United States Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. \"State Department Employee Arrested and Charged With Concealing Extensive Contacts With Foreign Agents.\"\r 29 March 2017. United States Code, Title 18. \"Chapter 115: Treason, Sedition, And Subversive Activities.\"\r Accessed 14 April 2017.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dcUCm-7EXVYAvQaVwisKTA4RkEJT5Mo2", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In mid-April 2017, multiple online sources reported that former U.S. State Department employee Candace Claiborne (purportedly an employee of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton) was arrested on charges of treason:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/therightroad1/posts/413333109029979?match=Y2xhaWJvcm5lLHRyZWFzb24sY2FuZGFjZQ%3D%3D", "https://www.facebook.com/Hearthlings.us/photos/a.300824646696325.61112.210063805772410/1148273895284725/?type=3" ] }, { "sentence": "The indictment in question was real, although many online reports covering it were inaccurate. Claiborne was arrested on specific charges related to improperly receiving gifts in exchange for her providing information to Chinese agents obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the F.B.I. not \"treason,\" as noted in a Justice Department press release about the case:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/state-department-employee-arrested-and-charged-concealing-extensive-contacts-foreign-agents" ] }, { "sentence": "Claiborne wasn't an \"employee\" of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, other than in the sense that she held a mid-level (not a \"deep state operative\") job at the State Department, which was headed by Clinton from 2009-2013 (in her position as Secretary of State) and is a part of the executive branch, which was headed by Barack Obama from 2009-2017 (in his position as President of the United States). By that standard, Claiborne would also have been an \"employee\" of Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson, as the affidavit that accompanied the criminal complaint against her noted she was still working for the State Department at the time of her arrest:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/953321/download" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/guthrie-letter-to-pelosi/", "claim": "Rewrite this item \"Dennis Guthrie's Letter to Nancy Pelosi\".", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "09/02/2009", "sci_digest": [ "An op-ed piece about health insurance reform legislation prompted a Charlotte lawyer to send a critical letter to Rep. Nancy Pelosi." ], "justification": "On 10 August 2009, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer published an op-ed piece in USA Today under the title \"'Un-American' attacks can't derail health care debate,\" in which they criticized those who had been engaging in efforts to disrupt debate over health insurance reform legislation (which later became widely known as \"Obamacare\"). op-ed Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer wrote (in part): [I]t is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted \"Just say no!\" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion. These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades. That op-ed prompted Dennis L. Guthrie, an attorney with the Charlotte, North Carolina, law firm of Guthrie, Davis, Henderson & Staton, to pen a (primarily ad hominem) critical letter to Rep. Pelosi the following day, images of which soon began circulating online. Dear Ms. Pelosi: I write to you out of utter disdain! You are as despicable and un-American as the traitor Jane Fonda. I am a soon to be 65 year-old who has voted in every state and local election since 1966. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats alike. I have worked on campaigns for both Republicans and Democrats, white and black. I served the country that I love in Vietnam, as my son did in the Middle East. I was awarded two bronze stars. I have been involved in politics since age 6 when my father was campaign manager for a truly great American Congressman, Charles Raper Jonas, who worked for his constituents and his country, and was to be admired, unlike you. You obviously haven't read the Constitution recently, if ever, the Federalist Papers, or even David McCullough's book on John Adams. You ought to take the time while riding around in your government provided luxury executive jet to do just that. You represent Socialistic and even Marxist principals that our founding fathers tried to avoid when setting out the capitalistic republican form of government represented by our Constitution. I find it interesting that you and your husband are multi-millionaires with much of your fortune being made as a result of your public service. You have controlled legislation that has enhanced your husband's investments both on and off shore. At the same time you redistributed the wealth of others. Our system of a free market economy is being destroyed by the likes of you. You ride around in a Gulfstream airplane at the tax payers expense while criticizing the presidents of companies who produced something for the economy. You add nothing to the economy of the United States; you only subtract therefrom. I would like to suggest that you return to the city of fruitcakes and nuts and eat your husband's canned tuna and pineapple - produced by illegal immigrants and by workers who have been excluded from the protection that 90% of the legal workers in the United States have. I await your defeat in the next election with glee. Dont ever use the term un-American again for protesters who love this country and are exercising their rights upon which this country was founded. By the way, while I served in the Army, I was spit on by the same type of lunatics who support you and who you probably supported in the 60s and 70s. You are an embarrassment to all of us who served so that you would have the protected right of free speech to call us un-American. But at the same time, I have the right to write you to notify you that I consider you to be un-American, as do the majority of the people of this formerly great country. You are a true disgrace to most of the people who served this country by offering themselves for public service in the United States Congress. I feel certain your aides will not share this letter with you, but I intend to share it with many. We contacted Mr. Guthrie at the address included in the letterhead on which the letter was printed, and he confirmed that he did indeed write and send such a letter to Rep. Pelosi. The letter circulated again in 2019 via social media, with one minor revision: The line \"I am a soon to be 65 year-old\" was changed to \"I am a soon to be a [sic] 75 year-old.\" Pelosi, Nancy and Steny Hoyer. \"'Un-American' Attacks Can't Derail Health Care Debate.\"\r USA Today. 10 August 2009.", "issues": [ "investment" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LUg5in-GrizUOcXmKtD5AFu_J2Lro0Uo" }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YGqvGx78otOe67QvqgR2EGfTnZfaEXMC" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On 10 August 2009, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer published an op-ed piece in USA Today under the title \"'Un-American' attacks can't derail health care debate,\" in which they criticized those who had been engaging in efforts to disrupt debate over health insurance reform legislation (which later became widely known as \"Obamacare\").", "hrefs": [ "https://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/unamerican-attacks-cant-derail-health-care-debate-.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-admin-wuhan-lab-grant/", "claim": "Was a $3.7 Million Grant Given to the Wuhan Laboratory by the Obama Administration?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "04/24/2020", "sci_digest": [ "While it isn't unusual to see international cooperation in the field of virology, this claim stretches the truth. " ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In April 2020, reports started to circulate that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had provided the Wuhan Institute of Virology a $3.7 million grant in 2015, while former U.S. President Obama was still in office. These reports were often accompanied by the evidence-free suggestion that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 had \"escaped\" from this lab and the insinuation that, since this lab reportedly received funding from the Obama administration, the pandemic was therefore Obama's fault. circulate This claim received widespread attention on April 17 when a reporter from the conservative outlet Newsmax asked President Donald Trump about it during a White House press briefing. Newsmax reporter Emerald Robinson asked: \"Thank you, Mr. President. U.S. Intelligence is saying this week that the coronavirus likely came from a level 4 lab in Wuhan. There's also another report that the NIH under the Obama administration in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant. Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?\" Trump responded: \"The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million. I've been hearing about that. And we've instructed that if any grants are going to that area we're looking at it, literally about an hour ago, also early in the morning, we will end that grant very quickly. But it was granted quite awhile ago. They were granted a substantial amount of money.\" There's a lot to unpack there, so let's start with the basic claim: Did the Obama administration grant $3.7 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Between 2014 and 2019, the EcoHealth Alliance was awarded a series of grants totaling approximately $3.7 million by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (a division of the National Institutes of Health) to study the \"risk of future coronavirus (CoV) emergence from wildlife using in-depth field investigations across the human-wildlife interface in China.\" Only a portion of this money has been used to fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, however, and approximately $700,000 of this grant money was awarded under the Trump administration. Despite having a grain of truth at its core, the claim that the Obama administration gave a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is therefore misleading at best. It first gained prominence on April 11, 2020, on the heels of an article published in the Daily Mail. The British tabloid claimed that it had obtained documents showing that coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been funded by a $3.7 million grant from the U.S. government: Daily Mail \"Documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday show the Wuhan Institute of Virology undertook coronavirus experiments on mammals captured more than 1,000 miles away in Yunnan funded by a $3.7 million grant from the US government.\" The Daily Mail did not provide links or screenshots to these documents. They did, however, write that this money funded a research paper published in November 2017 entitled: \"Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus.\" This is the title of a genuine paper published by researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It's also true that this paper was partially funded by money granted by the National Institutes of Health. However, when we followed up using the grant number listed in the funding section of the paper (NIAID R01AI110964), we found that the NIH did not directly issue this series of grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. genuine paper funding section The Department of Health and Human Services' Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) shows that NIAID R01AI110964 was awarded to the EcoHealth Alliance for \"understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.\" Between 2014 and 2019, this global environmental health nonprofit organization received a total of $3.7 million from NIH: NIAID R01AI110964 While a portion of these grants funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, this lab did not receive all $3.7 million. Under award number NIAID R01AI110964, NIH also funded studies produced by institutions in the United States, Australia, and Singapore, and the work involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology was an international collaboration with the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance. studies United States Australia Singapore EcoHealth Alliance Furthermore, while these funds were originally appropriated by the NIH in 2014 during the Obama administration, the most recent payment, in 2019, was authorized by the Trump administration. The payments record in the above-displayed image from the Department of Health and Human Services show that the EcoHealth Alliance filed \"Noncompeting Continuation\" applications in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2019, however, the organization filed a renewal application (previously called a \"competing continuation\"). This renewal application was awarded by the NIH under Trump's administration. Here's how NIH defines these two different types of grant applications: defines Renewal: Initial request for additional funding for a period subsequent to that provided by a current award. Renewal applications compete for funding with all other peer reviewed applications and must be developed as fully as though the applicant is applying for the first time. (Previously referred to as \"competing continuation.\") Noncompeting Continuation: Request or award for a subsequent budget period within a previously approved project for which a recipient does not have to compete with other applications. Although the initial grant was approved under the Obama administration in 2014, EcoHealth Alliance's renewal application was approved by the Trump administration in 2019. It should also be noted that these grants were not awarded to fund a laboratory. They were awarded to fund research into how bat coronavirus could emerge and spread to human populations. The purpose of this kind of research, spurred into action by the 2002 SARS outbreak, is to understand the process of how coronaviruses become transmissible to humans. That earlier outbreak was also caused by a coronavirus linked to bats. purpose Is it unusual for the United States to fund research in other countries? In short, no. While this claim is often circulated as if the Obama administration did something unusual, or even nefarious, by awarding a series of grants that would subsequently fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the United States routinely provides funding to international research organizations. In fact, records show that the NIH has provided approximately $2.5 million in additional funding to various organizations in China (including Wuhan University) in 2018 and 2019, under the Trump administration. In 2007, while George W. Bush was president, NIH provided more than $2 million to various research centers across China. records show provided Furthermore, international organizations often come together to solve problems that could impact the global population, such as pandemic. In 2003, for instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) called on countries around the world to develop a diagnostic test for SARS. 2003 World Health Organization On 17 March 2003, WHO called upon 11 laboratories in 9 countries to join a collaborative multi-center research project on SARS diagnosis. This network takes advantage of modern communication technologies (e-mail; secure web site) to share outcomes of investigation of clinical samples from SARS cases in real time. Daily assessment of research results supports immediate refinement of investigative strategies and permits instant validation of laboratory findings. Network members share on the secure WHO web site electron microscopic pictures of viruses, sequences of genetic material for virus identification and characterization, virus isolates, various samples from patients and post-mortem tissues. Samples from one and the same patient can be analysed in parallel in several laboratories and results shared in real time. This network joins the intellectual resources of leading laboratories worldwide for a common goal: the detection of the SARS agent and the development of a diagnostic test. The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a similar call to action: spurred While political leaders have locked their borders, scientists have been shattering theirs, creating a global collaboration unlike any in history. Never before, researchers say, have so many experts in so many countries focused simultaneously on a single topic and with such urgency. Nearly all other research has ground to a halt Lloyd-Smith, James. \"Predictions of Virus Spillover Across Species.\"\r Nature. 29 June 2017. Owen, Glen. \"Wuhan Lab Was Performing Coronavirus Experiments on Bats From the Caves Where the Disease is Believed to Have Originated - With a 3m Grant From the US.\"\r Daily Mail. 11 April 2020. Dilanian, Ken and Courtney Kube. \"U.S. Intel Community Examining Whether Coronavirus Emerged Accidentally From a Chinese Lab.\"\r NBC News. 16 April 2020. Baier, Bret and Gregg Re. \"Sources Believe Coronavirus Outbreak Originated in Wuhan Lab as Part of China's Efforts to Compete with US.\"\r Fox News. 15 April 2020. Apuzza, Matt and David Kirkpatrick. \"Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together.\"\r The New York Times. 14 April 2020. Barclay, Eliza. \"Why These Scientists Still Doubt the Coronavirus Leaked From a Chinese Lab.\"\r Vox. 23 April 2020. United Nations. \"UN Mobilizes Global Cooperation in Science-Based COVID-19 Responses.\" \r Retrieved 23 April 2020. McNeil, Donald. \"Scientists Were Hunting for the Next Ebola. Now the U.S. Has Cut Off Their Funding.\"\r The New York Times. 25 October 2019.", "issues": [ "budget" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gaGlNSk6-QVfeMxhhaoo0nblKpNXg31G" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In April 2020, reports started to circulate that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had provided the Wuhan Institute of Virology a $3.7 million grant in 2015, while former U.S. President Obama was still in office. These reports were often accompanied by the evidence-free suggestion that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 had \"escaped\" from this lab and the insinuation that, since this lab reportedly received funding from the Obama administration, the pandemic was therefore Obama's fault.", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1251305033356005376" ] }, { "sentence": "Despite having a grain of truth at its core, the claim that the Obama administration gave a $3.7 million grant to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is therefore misleading at best. It first gained prominence on April 11, 2020, on the heels of an article published in the Daily Mail. The British tabloid claimed that it had obtained documents showing that coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been funded by a $3.7 million grant from the U.S. government:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211257/Wuhan-lab-performing-experiments-bats-coronavirus-caves.html" ] }, { "sentence": "This is the title of a genuine paper published by researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It's also true that this paper was partially funded by money granted by the National Institutes of Health. However, when we followed up using the grant number listed in the funding section of the paper (NIAID R01AI110964), we found that the NIH did not directly issue this series of grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.", "hrefs": [ "https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698#abstract1", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/04/nih.png" ] }, { "sentence": "The Department of Health and Human Services' Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) shows that NIAID R01AI110964 was awarded to the EcoHealth Alliance for \"understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.\" Between 2014 and 2019, this global environmental health nonprofit organization received a total of $3.7 million from NIH:", "hrefs": [ "https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=R01AI110964&arg_ProgOfficeCode=104" ] }, { "sentence": "While a portion of these grants funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, this lab did not receive all $3.7 million. Under award number NIAID R01AI110964, NIH also funded studies produced by institutions in the United States, Australia, and Singapore, and the work involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology was an international collaboration with the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22975", "https://europepmc.org/article/med/26631385", "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/zph.12480", "https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-210X.13325", "https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/new-coronavirus-emerges-bats-china-devastates-young-swine" ] }, { "sentence": "Here's how NIH defines these two different types of grant applications:", "hrefs": [ "https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide/prepare-to-apply-and-register/type-of-applications.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "It should also be noted that these grants were not awarded to fund a laboratory. They were awarded to fund research into how bat coronavirus could emerge and spread to human populations. The purpose of this kind of research, spurred into action by the 2002 SARS outbreak, is to understand the process of how coronaviruses become transmissible to humans. That earlier outbreak was also caused by a coronavirus linked to bats.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23088.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In short, no. While this claim is often circulated as if the Obama administration did something unusual, or even nefarious, by awarding a series of grants that would subsequently fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the United States routinely provides funding to international research organizations. In fact, records show that the NIH has provided approximately $2.5 million in additional funding to various organizations in China (including Wuhan University) in 2018 and 2019, under the Trump administration. In 2007, while George W. Bush was president, NIH provided more than $2 million to various research centers across China. ", "hrefs": [ "https://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm?ot=&fy=2018&state=46&ic=&fm=&orgid=&distr=&rfa=&om=n&pid=&view=statedetail", "https://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm?ot=&fy=2019&state=46&ic=&fm=&orgid=&distr=&rfa=&om=n&pid=&view=statedetail", "https://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm?ot=&fy=2007&state=46&ic=&fm=&orgid=&distr=&rfa=&om=n&pid=&view=statedetail" ] }, { "sentence": "Furthermore, international organizations often come together to solve problems that could impact the global population, such as pandemic. In 2003, for instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) called on countries around the world to develop a diagnostic test for SARS. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/us/sars-epidemic-researchers-global-collaboration-bears-fruit-sars-gives-up-some.html", "https://www.who.int/csr/sars/project/en/" ] }, { "sentence": "The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a similar call to action:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/europe/coronavirus-science-research-cooperation.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jill-biden-lobsters/", "claim": "Jill Biden Photo Was Doctored To Add Lobsters on Her Outfit", "author": "Jordan Liles", "posted": "12/07/2022", "sci_digest": [ "It might not be the most pressing news of the day, but a misleading picture of a first lady is a misleading picture of a first lady." ], "justification": "On Dec. 4, 2022, the Right Wing Patriots of America Telegram account and Facebook page posted a doctored picture of U.S. first lady Jill Biden that showed a pattern of red lobsters on her outfit. The caption in the post read, \"Has Red Lobster gotten into the fashion business?\" posted In reality, the original photograph of Jill Biden did not show any lobsters on her outfit as she walked along with U.S. President Joe Biden. The original picture was captured by Jim Lo Scalzo of UPI and was captioned as follows, \"U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden return to the White House from a weekend at Camp David in Washington, D.C., on a Sunday in May 2021.\" original picture Reuters first reported on the fake photo with the lobsters on Dec. 5, adding that they had located the picture being shared on Twitter and in a since-deleted Instagram post. reported Twitter \"Fact Check - Image of First Lady Jill Biden with Lobster-Patterned Clothing Is Digitally Altered.\" Reuters, 5 Dec. 2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-jill-biden-lobsteroutfit-idUSL1N32V1S0. Scalzo, Jim Lo. \"Photo: Biden Returns to White House from Camp David - WAX20210523202.\" UPI, May 2021, https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/73bec9a417606f401652001501b10f9c/Biden-returns-to-White-House-from-Camp-David/.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pvcT1kO5B3LA3JMuoLWeHaJ3osd2wbM0", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On Dec. 4, 2022, the Right Wing Patriots of America Telegram account and Facebook page posted a doctored picture of U.S. first lady Jill Biden that showed a pattern of red lobsters on her outfit. The caption in the post read, \"Has Red Lobster gotten into the fashion business?\"", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.ph/hfmLJ" ] }, { "sentence": "The original picture was captured by Jim Lo Scalzo of UPI and was captioned as follows, \"U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden return to the White House from a weekend at Camp David in Washington, D.C., on a Sunday in May 2021.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/73bec9a417606f401652001501b10f9c/Biden-returns-to-White-House-from-Camp-David/" ] }, { "sentence": "Reuters first reported on the fake photo with the lobsters on Dec. 5, adding that they had located the picture being shared on Twitter and in a since-deleted Instagram post.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-jill-biden-lobsteroutfit/fact-check-image-of-first-lady-jill-biden-with-lobster-patterned-clothing-is-digitally-altered-idUSL1N32V1S0", "https://archive.ph/VcZJx" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tommy-lee-letter-to-trump/", "claim": "Did Musician Tommy Lee Write This Open Letter to Donald Trump?", "author": "Dan Evon", "posted": "04/03/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The Mtley Cre musician shared a letter on his Facebook page ... but we have questions." ], "justification": "In March 2020, some social media users encountered an open letter that was supposedly written by Mtley Cre musician Tommy Lee to U.S. President Donald Trump, which started \"Dear fucking lunatic.\" Lee did not write this letter. The Mtley Cre musician posted the letter to his Facebook page (which is likely why some people mistakenly assumed he had written it) on March 20, 2020, and attributed the letter to a man by the name of Craig Alan Wilkins. But \"Craig Alan Wilkins\" didn't write this letter, either. The majority of text in this letter most everything except for the intro starting with \"Do you know how fucking insane you sound, you off-brand butt plug?\" was published on the Daily Kos in December 2017 in an article by \"Aldous J Pennyfarthing.\" Daily Kos Pennyfarthing's letter was written in response to an interview Trump gave to The New York Times in 2017, in which he said, \"Yeah, China. Chinas been. I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybodys ever been treated in the history of China.\" The New York Times Pennyfarthing's original letter started: Dear Fucking Lunatic, I read with interest your recent interview with The New York Times. I couldnt get past the bit about your being the most popular visitor in the history of fucking China a country thats only 2,238 years old, give or take. It's unclear who amended the opening paragraph in this letter. It's possible that a Facebook user named \"Craig Alan Wilkins\" shared Pennyfarthing's open letter with a new introductory paragraph. While the author of the opening paragraph is still uncertain, the majority of this text was written by Aldous J Pennyfarthing, the pen name for author Tom Breuer, and was originally published on the Daily Kos in 2017. This open letter was subsequently published in Pennyfarthing's 2018 book Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump. Tom Breuer Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump Pennyfarthing, Aldous. \"Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump.\"\r Aldous J. Pennyfarthing. 1 April 2018. Pennyfarthing, Aldous. \"Dear F*cking Lunatic: An open letter to Donald Trump.\"\r Daily Kos. 29 December 2017. The New York Times. \"Excerpts From Trumps Interview With The Times.\" \r 28 December 2017.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19ex8hm3keJ-qG16e-DUbkVDFCGKM5UYY", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The majority of text in this letter most everything except for the intro starting with \"Do you know how fucking insane you sound, you off-brand butt plug?\" was published on the Daily Kos in December 2017 in an article by \"Aldous J Pennyfarthing.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/29/1728522/-Dear-F-cking-Lunatic-An-open-letter-to-Donald-Trump" ] }, { "sentence": "Pennyfarthing's letter was written in response to an interview Trump gave to The New York Times in 2017, in which he said, \"Yeah, China. Chinas been. I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybodys ever been treated in the history of China.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/politics/trump-interview-excerpts.html" ] }, { "sentence": "It's unclear who amended the opening paragraph in this letter. It's possible that a Facebook user named \"Craig Alan Wilkins\" shared Pennyfarthing's open letter with a new introductory paragraph. While the author of the opening paragraph is still uncertain, the majority of this text was written by Aldous J Pennyfarthing, the pen name for author Tom Breuer, and was originally published on the Daily Kos in 2017. This open letter was subsequently published in Pennyfarthing's 2018 book Dear F*cking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blue-wave-and-trump-rage-wake-insult-comic-author-from-his-slumber-300637020.html", "https://www.amazon.com/Dear-cking-Lunatic-obscenely-letters-ebook/dp/B07BZ5MM2M/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/21/tim-michels/michels-target-claim-my-company-was-building-keyst/", "claim": "My company was building the Keystone Pipeline when (President Joe) Biden canceled it.", "author": "Kelly Smits", "posted": "07/21/2022", "sci_digest": [ "Michels Corporation, the construction company Tim Michels co-owns, was awarded a contract to build eight pump stations in the United States for the Keystone XL pipeline., It was awarded another contract to build around half of the Canadian portion of the pipeline., Construction of the pump stations was likely nearing completion and construction of the segment of the pipelines Canadian portion was likely one-third complete when President Biden canceled the construction permit for the pipeline in January 2021., In total, however, only about 8% of the pipeline had been built when President Biden canceled the permit." ], "justification": "On his first day in office, President Joe Biden put the final nail in the coffin of the Keystone XL pipeline when he revoked its construction permitvia an executive order. Several months later in June 2021, TC Energy Corporationannounced the terminationof the project, bringing an end to more than a decade of debate and legislative back-and-forth on it. The Keystone XL pipeline would have been an extension to the Keystone pipeline, an already existing structure that brings tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to storage and distribution facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma and eventually to refineries in Texas. The extension would have boosted this by carrying an additional 830,000 barrels per day from Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. Environmental activists, Indigenous communities and climate change experts hailed Bidens decision to cancel the pipeline, which could have damaged sacred sites, caused pollution and water contamination, imperiled wildlife and dramatically contributed to carbon emissions. But the decision was criticized heavily by many Republicans, includingU.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin,former Vice President Mike Penceand most recently Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, who had a personal stake in it all. On June 23, 2022, Michelstweeted: My company was building the Keystone Pipeline when Biden canceled it. Both he and Tony Evers are making us all pay the price. I'll stand by Wisconsinites and ensure you keep more of your hard-earned dollars as your next governor. He made another claim in a video posted with the tweet: Biden killed hundreds of jobs, sent gas prices way up, making everything more expensive. We rated thatMostly False. Michels is the co-owner of Michels Corporation, an energy and infrastructure contractor headquartered in Brownsville, Wisconsin, with locations across the United States and Canada Was Michels Corp. building the Keystone XL pipeline when Biden canceled it? In an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin, TC Energy confirmed that Michels Corp. had been awarded a significant construction scope on the Keystone XL pipeline for both the pipeline and facilities. Michels Corp. provided more details in an email: Michels Pipeline, a Division of Michels Corporation, received a contract related to the Keystone XL pipeline to construct pumping stations. Michels Canada Co. received another contract in Canada to help build the mainline pipeline of the Keystone XL pipeline. According to apost on Michels Corp.'s websitefrom September 2020, Michels Corp. was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct eight pump stations for the pipeline in Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas. Pump stations are facilities along a pipeline that maintain the flow and pressure of oil as it's being transported. They were one type of ancillary facility required for the Keystone XL project, which would have traversed through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Oklahoma and Texas, however, are part of the existing Keystone pipeline structure, so some of the pump stations Michels Corp. was constructing may not have been for the Keystone XL pipeline. The post said that construction on the eight pump stations started in late June 2020 and was scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2021. It also said the company would employ more than 350 workers at peak construction. According to a June 2020post on Michels Canadas website, Michels Canada was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct approximately 260 kilometers (about 162 miles) of the pipeline in Alberta. ATC Energy fact sheetabout the Canadian portion of the pipeline said it would be approximately 530 kilometers (about 329 miles) from Hardisty, Alberta, to Monchy, Saskatchewan. So Michels Canada would have constructed about half of the Canadian portion of the pipeline. The full pipeline was to run around 1,200 miles. So, Michels company was clearly a significant part of building the pipeline, but as stated readers might think it was the primary or even sole contractor. The post said that Michels Canada was projected to hire 1,000 workers each year of the two-year construction period, which was scheduled to begin the summer of 2020 near Oyen, Alberta, and finish in the spring of 2022 near Hardisty, Alberta. At the time Biden canceled the permit for the pipeline, on Jan. 20, 2021, Michels Corp.s construction of eight pump stations in the U.S. was likely nearing completion. Michels Canadas construction of its segment of the pipelines Canadian portion was likely about one-third complete. According to Reuters, only about 8% of the planned Keystone XL pipeline had been built by the time President Biden canceled the permit. In a tweet, Michels claimed his company was building the Keystone Pipeline when Biden canceled it. The way it was stated could leave readers thinking his company was fully responsible for the pipeline. And some of the pump stations his campaign and company cited apparently are tied to the existing portion of the pipeline. So, there is a lack of precision there. But Michels is right that his company had a significant role in the pipeline project. We rate the claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Energy", "Gas Prices", "Jobs", "Wisconsin" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On his first day in office, President Joe Biden put the final nail in the coffin of the Keystone XL pipeline when he revoked its construction permitvia an executive order.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/" ] }, { "sentence": "Several months later in June 2021, TC Energy Corporationannounced the terminationof the project, bringing an end to more than a decade of debate and legislative back-and-forth on it.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.tcenergy.com/announcements/2021/2021-06-09-tc-energy-confirms-termination-of-keystone-xl-pipeline-project/" ] }, { "sentence": "But the decision was criticized heavily by many Republicans, includingU.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin,former Vice President Mike Penceand most recently Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, who had a personal stake in it all.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/26/ron-johnson/johnson-target-keystone-pipeline-job-loss-claim/" ] }, { "sentence": "On June 23, 2022, Michelstweeted: My company was building the Keystone Pipeline when Biden canceled it. Both he and Tony Evers are making us all pay the price. I'll stand by Wisconsinites and ensure you keep more of your hard-earned dollars as your next governor.", "hrefs": [ "https://mobile.twitter.com/michelsforgov/status/1540064803502399488" ] }, { "sentence": "He made another claim in a video posted with the tweet: Biden killed hundreds of jobs, sent gas prices way up, making everything more expensive. We rated thatMostly False.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/21/tim-michels/end-keystone-pipeline-did-cost-jobs-most-were-temp/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to apost on Michels Corp.'s websitefrom September 2020, Michels Corp. was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct eight pump stations for the pipeline in Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.michels.us/blog/kxl-us-facilities/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to a June 2020post on Michels Canadas website, Michels Canada was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct approximately 260 kilometers (about 162 miles) of the pipeline in Alberta. ATC Energy fact sheetabout the Canadian portion of the pipeline said it would be approximately 530 kilometers (about 329 miles) from Hardisty, Alberta, to Monchy, Saskatchewan. So Michels Canada would have constructed about half of the Canadian portion of the pipeline.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.michelscanada.com/blog/michels-canada-keystone-xl-pipeline/" ] }, { "sentence": "According to Reuters, only about 8% of the planned Keystone XL pipeline had been built by the time President Biden canceled the permit.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-keystonepipelinexl-builtandpai/fact-check-though-keystone-xl-pipeline-had-secured-most-of-its-funding-it-was-only-8-constructed-idUSL1N2LA2SQ" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mike-kennedy-access-hospitals/", "claim": "Did Representative Mike Kennedy claim that 'access to hospitals' was the cause of the deaths?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "04/27/2018", "sci_digest": [ "According to rumors, the Utah Republican says access to hospitals killed a million or more Americans a year but is that true?" ], "justification": "In April 2018 Utah Republican Mike Kennedy made national headlines as he faced off against Mitt Romney for a Senate seat in that state, prompting the circulation of a meme asserting that the Kennedy had once made a statement about access to hospitals and patient deaths: national headlines meme Although the meme dated to at least 2015, its featured quote appeared in a 24 April 2018 Salt Lake Tribune article: \"Who is that guy who beat Mitt Romney at the GOP convention?\" which reported that: article At the top of the list is to repeal Obamacare. [Kennedy] told delegates, I oppose Obamacare and any scheme that puts the government between doctor and patient. Four years ago, Kennedy made national headlines when, during a legislative task force meeting, he said, Sometimes access to health care can be damaging and dangerous ... Ive heard from National Institutes of Health and otherwise that were killing up to a million, a million and a half people every year in our hospitals. And its access to hospitals thats killing those people. That piece referenced a report and video from Salt Lake station KSTU, but neither source provided complete context. Kennedy was quoted as arguing against Medicaid expansion, and as represented, his remarks were accurately transcribed: report Representative Mike Kennedy, a Republican from Alpine, made the comments in a Health Reform Task Force meeting, in reaction to a story from another doctor. Doctor Kyle Jones told the legislature's Health Reform Task Force about a neighbor who was in a car crash. That neighbor suffered a rare response to pain medicine called toxic encephalopathy. The condition has caused memory loss, seizures and depression, according to Jones. \"Sometimes access actually can mean harm,\" said Representative Mike Kennedy, a family physician. The Republican from Alpine repeated the argument more than once: \"Sometimes access to health care can be damaging and dangerous. And it's a perspective for the [Legislative] body to consider is that, I've heard from National Institutes of Health and otherwise that we're killing up to a million, a million and a half people every year in our hospitals. And it's access to hospitals that's killing those people.\" We were unable to locate any information substantiating Kennedy's claim that access to hospitals killed between one and one-and-a-half million Americans per year. It's possible Kennedy was referencing an ongoing study of the effects of medical mistakes, a topic that was the subject of research published in The BMJ in May 2016, but those figures estimated only 250,000 deaths due to medical error per year at that time. medical mistakes published Kennedy may also have been referencing research published in September 2013, in which researchers extrapolated between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths per year \"associated with preventable harm in hospitals.\" Authors of that study concluded that \"engaging patients and their advocates during hospital care, systematically seeking the patients voice in identifying harms, transparent accountability for harm, and intentional correction of root causes of harm will be necessary\" to reduce preventable hospital deaths but did not recommend restricting access to medical care as a preventive measure. Davidson, Lee. \"Who Is That Guy Who Beat Mitt Romney At The GOP Convention?\"\r The Salt Lake Tribune. 23 April 2018. James, John T. PhD. \"A New, Evidence-Based Estimate Of Patient Harms Associated With Hospital Care.\"\r Journal of Patient Safety. September 2013. Romboy, Dennis. \"Little-Known Mike Kennedy To Take On Mitt Romney In Utah GOP Primary.\"\r Deseret News. 23 April 2018. Roth, Max. \"State Representative To Legislature: Hospitals Can Be Dangerous.\"\r KSTU. 28 August 2014. Johns Hopkins Medicine. \"Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death In The U.S..\"\r 3 May 2016. CBS News. \"Mitt Romney 'Probably Not Too Worried' After Second Place Finish At Utah Convention, Reporter Says.\"\r 26 April 2018.", "issues": [ "accountability" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BRKWLjQPrMP2gCvueaYcB1XNivO4GSry" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In April 2018 Utah Republican Mike Kennedy made national headlines as he faced off against Mitt Romney for a Senate seat in that state, prompting the circulation of a meme asserting that the Kennedy had once made a statement about access to hospitals and patient deaths:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitt-romney-utah-senate-race-primary-donald-trump/", "https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900016591/little-known-mike-kennedy-to-take-on-mitt-romney-in-utah-gop-primary.html", "https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10160469512820372&set=a.100582895371.185095.802800371&type=3&theater" ] }, { "sentence": "Although the meme dated to at least 2015, its featured quote appeared in a 24 April 2018 Salt Lake Tribune article: \"Who is that guy who beat Mitt Romney at the GOP convention?\" which reported that:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/04/23/who-is-that-guy-who-beat-mitt-romney-at-the-gop-convention/" ] }, { "sentence": "That piece referenced a report and video from Salt Lake station KSTU, but neither source provided complete context. Kennedy was quoted as arguing against Medicaid expansion, and as represented, his remarks were accurately transcribed:", "hrefs": [ "https://fox13now.com/2014/08/28/state-representative-to-legislature-hospitals-can-be-dangerous/" ] }, { "sentence": "We were unable to locate any information substantiating Kennedy's claim that access to hospitals killed between one and one-and-a-half million Americans per year. It's possible Kennedy was referencing an ongoing study of the effects of medical mistakes, a topic that was the subject of research published in The BMJ in May 2016, but those figures estimated only 250,000 deaths due to medical error per year at that time.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/doctors-kill-more-people-than-guns/", "https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/short-sale/", "claim": "brief sale", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "02/07/2013", "sci_digest": [ "Account describes women manipulating the short sales of properties?" ], "justification": "Claim: Account describes women manipulating the short sales of properties. PROBABLY Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2013] Recently, our good friend Michael (a local realtor) shared his experience with Leisa and I about an \"Obama supporter\" he encountered while showing homes to a low income, working family in Pontiac, MI. We asked him to please write it down so we could share it with you. As a Realtor for the past 28 years I thought Id seen or heard it all. Until now. I was showing homes in Pontiac, MI. one afternoon recently and showed up at a home at the 4:00 pm time my appointment was scheduled for. After I woke up the homeowner, she let us in and then proceeded to tell my buyers and I that she has already entered into a contract to sell the home on a short-sale. (A short-sale is a sale where the banks accepts less money than is owed on the home). After some chit-chat, she proceeded to tell us that she and her sister (who also lived in the area) were buying each others homes via the short-sale process. I mentioned to her that I thought relatives could not be involved in those transactions. She smiled and said \"We have two different last names so no one knows the difference\". She went on to tell us that each of them owed over 100K on their homes and were in the process of buying each others homes for about 10-15K cash. To top it off, they were each receiving $3,000.00 in government provided relocation assistance at the closing. My buyers and I were amazed that she was outright admitting to fraud and yet, she continued. She began to tell us that the best part of her scheme was that because they currently were not working that they (both) are now receiving Section 8 Vouchers. I said I thought those were for renters and she said \"Thats the best part; me and my sister are going to be renting each others homes so we dont even have to move, and Obama is going to give us each $800.00 a month to pay the rent!\" She then picked up a picture she had framed of Obama and did a little happy dance around her living room and while she kissed the picture she was singing \"Thank you Obama.... thank you Obama.\" So here is the bottom line Both of these scammers got at least $80,000.00 in debt forgiven, $3,000.00 in cash for relocation (when in fact they did not relocate) and to boot, you and I will now be paying (through our taxes) $1,600.00 in rent for each them each and every month .... perhaps forever! And I also would not be at all surprised if they are receiving food stamps and whatever other programs are available for anyone who is willing to lie to get assistance. These women went from working and paying about $900.00 each in mortgage payments to staying home and getting paid $800.00 each per month to live in the same home they had been living in and all they had to do was lie on a few papers. This craziness has to stop! Im sure this kind of fraud is going on each and every day all across the country and no one wants to touch the subject of entitlements because they might OFFEND someone or lose a vote or two. By the way ... she had an almost new SUV in the driveway, three flat screen TV's and a very nice computer set up in her living room which was furnished entirely with nice leather furniture. 'TIS THE NEW 'AMERICAN WAY' Origins: The terms \"under water\" and \"short sale\" in reference to home mortgages have entered common parlance in recent years due to a severe downturn in the housing market. The first refers to a mortgage that is greater than the property's current market value: If a home buyer owes $600,000 on a property that he originally bought for $900,000 but that is now valued at only $300,000, his property is described as being under water. The second refers to a process which has been used by some borrowers to keep afloat financially by shedding their under water properties. When a property owner holds an under water mortgage and can no longer make his mortgage payments, one remedy is for the lienholder to agree to a short sale: that is, to allow the owner to sell the property for less than the amount still owed on the loan. A short sale leaves the lender taking a loss, but it is often preferable to the alternative of the lender's having to foreclose on the property and resell it themselves (with no guarantee the resale would bring in any more money than the short sale did). The unpaid balance still owed to a lienholder by the property owner after a short sale is known as a \"deficiency.\" If the owner with the aforementioned $600,000 mortgage short sells his home for $250,000, he has incurred a $350,000 deficiency. A short sale may or may not relieve the borrower of the obligation to repay that deficiency: whether it does depends on the agreement made between the lienholder and the property owner prior to the short sale. (The amount of a deficiency is considered by the IRS to be a benefit which is taxable as income, but the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 currently allows taxpayers to exclude income from a discharge of debt on their principal residence.) The January 2013 item reproduced above purportedly tells of two women who are supposedly gaming the system by agreeing to buy each other's homes at short sales (in contravention of the rules), then collect a monthly housing assistance stipend for being renters in the homes they formerly owned. The item contains no verifiable details such as names, dates, or addresses (only the mention of a city or state which changes from version to version), but the scenario described would require a number of implausibilities to all be true: A woman who was engaging in a scheme to defraud multiple lienholders and government programs would openly admit to that scheme and describe it in detail to a stranger. The buyers and sellers involved in short sales are required to provide full financial disclosures and are subject to asset checks,making it highly unlikely that this cross-buying scheme could work. A lienholder would almost certainly refuse to proceed with a short sale by an owner who had just bought another property, or to agree to a short sale home purchase by a buyer who herself currently had a property in short sale. The $3,000 in relocation assistance provided to those who short sell their homes under the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program also requires financial disclosure and is not available to those who have purchased a house within the last 12 months, so neither sister would qualify. HAFA Section 8 assistance offered under the Housing Choice Voucher Program (which provides payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income renters) is income- and asset-based. Someone who not only owned her own residential property but was also functioning as a Section 8 landlord could not possibly qualify for Section 8 housing assistance. Moreover, in many areas the waiting list for renters seeking to obtain Section 8 funds is years-long. Also, little of what is referenced here has any direct connection to President Obama. Although the HAFA program which provides $3,000 in relocation assistance was introduced by the Treasury Department under the Obama administration in 2009, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act (which exempts deficiencies in short sales from being considered taxable income) was passed in 2007 during the administration of George W. Bush, and Section 8 housing assistance was established under the Housing Act of 1937 passed during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Last updated: 7 February 2013 ", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": " The $3,000 in relocation assistance provided to those who short sell their homes under the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program also requires financial disclosure and is not available to those who have purchased a house within the last 12 months, so neither sister would qualify.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/programs/exit-gracefully/Pages/hafa.aspx" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/oct/31/barack-obama/obama-says-romney-would-roll-back-banking-regulati/", "claim": "Says Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on banks.", "author": "Jon Greenberg", "posted": "10/31/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "In the final days before the election, the Obama campaign has put upan adthat is a sort of Cliff Notes for voters before they walk into the voting booth. It lists many of the points Obama has used against Mitt Romney throughout this contest.It warns about the future of Medicare,support for education, tax breaks for the wealthiest, and banking regulation. On that last point, it says, Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy.This fact-check examines that claim and tries to discern what Romney would do about keeping banks clear of the excesses that contributed to the financial crisis.Romney has not spoken in detail about his financial regulation plans. Sifting through his website, interviews and his public comments, we see these core elements: He wouldrepeal Dodd-Frank, the wide-ranging law that aims to fix many of the lapses associated with the meltdown. Romney has said he would replace the law but has not gone much beyond that concept. Romney supports the idea of regulations. Extensive regulation is appropriate in an industry that has such an impact on the overall economy, he said in an interviewwithTime. Romney supports rules to ensure that banks have their own money at risk, as this promotes greater caution. You have to have rules for what kind of capital has to stand behind each kind of asset on Wall Street and banks, he said on60 Minutes. This is part of current law. He supports greater transparency for derivatives trading. He told agroup of Americansin London, mainly bankers, that we do need to have greater transparency in the trading of derivatives, so we know whats going on - what kind of exposures various institutions have. Derivatives as investment devices are not inherently bad but they helped hide the weaknesses of the home mortgage market and increased the exposure of many investors when the sector collapsed. Dodd-Frank has a detailed approach to shedding light on derivatives trading. Romney opposes the current plan for orderly liquidations when banks fail. We need to get rid of that provision because it's killing regional and small banks, Romney said in thefirst presidential debate.However, he has not said how he would change the current law. Romney believes regulators should move faster to define the minimum standards for a home mortgage loan. The Obama campaign backs up its claim with aBoston Globearticle from last spring. The article emphasizes that Romney says he would do away with Dodd-Frank without saying what would replace it. Since that time, Romney has said a bit more, captured in that list above, but not much more.In May, one of Romneys top economic advisers,Glenn Hubbard,said the public could expect more detailed proposals on several key fronts, including what to do if one of the biggest banks fails, consumer financial protections, and housing finance. However, those proposals never appeared.The only detail from Hubbard himself targeted the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That agency, created under Dodd-Frank, aims to stand between individuals and the marketing of unfair and deceptive financial services. Hubbard said the bureau might be moved or dismantled, with its functions passed along to existing agencies.The lack of specifics from Romney has left many people reading the tea leaves. Kenneth Scott is professor of law and business at Stanford Law School. I very much doubt that if Romney won there would be a blanket repeal of Dodd-Frank, but there would be an effort at significant amendments, Scott said.Some have looked to Congress for clues. ABloomberg articledescribed the changes Republicans have passed or introduced. High on the list are looser rules governing the trade in derivatives, and especially the financial practice called swaps. Swaps are basically insurance against the risk that a borrower wont repay a loan. It gets more exotic, but thats the central idea, and its very big business. Swaps delivered $7 billion in revenues to banks in the first quarter of 2012. Swaps played a significant role in the 2008 financial crisis.Bloomberg andother news organizationshave listed other areas where Republicans have worked to ease financial regulations, such as reversing the Volker Rule, which limits banks on using customer deposits to invest in trades offered by an arm of the same bank.Bloomberg offered this summary: Dodd-Frank would remain but it would be a revamped Dodd-Frank that would accommodate some of the most profitable and riskiest activities while preserving a patina of protection for investors and consumers.Still, the precise changes Romney would support are unknown. In addition, some would argue that whatever changes emerge would not increase the odds of another financial crisis. For example, Lawrence White, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, believes the current law on big banks makes risky behavior more likely.Repealing THAT part of Dodd-Frank would not roll back regulation on the banks that crashed our economy, quite the contrary, White said.We asked the Romney campaign for more specifics in several areas but received no further information.Our rulingThe Obama ad says Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on banks.Romney has provided scant details on his plans, but he has said that he would push for changes. Romney has never suggested that tougher regulations are needed, and he has said many times that government regulates too much. It is reasonable to conclude his plans would be more in line with current Republican initiatives than the present law passed by Democrats. That direction points toward fewer restrictions than are in place under Dodd-Frank. Certainly, Romney has said that the provisions for the largest banks should be replaced.Conservative analysts would say that these changes would not put the financial system at greater risk.However, the ad simply says Romney would roll back regulations on the institutions that contributed to the financial crisis. How much of a rollback is unclear, but Romney does support a lighter regulatory touch on banks, so we rate the statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Financial Regulation", "Message Machine 2012" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the final days before the election, the Obama campaign has put upan adthat is a sort of Cliff Notes for voters before they walk into the voting booth. It lists many of the points Obama has used against Mitt Romney throughout this contest.It warns about the future of Medicare,support for education, tax breaks for the wealthiest, and banking regulation. On that last point, it says, Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy.This fact-check examines that claim and tries to discern what Romney would do about keeping banks clear of the excesses that contributed to the financial crisis.Romney has not spoken in detail about his financial regulation plans. Sifting through his website, interviews and his public comments, we see these core elements:", "hrefs": [ "https://youtu.be/qXX7JCWKA6Q" ] }, { "sentence": " He wouldrepeal Dodd-Frank, the wide-ranging law that aims to fix many of the lapses associated with the meltdown. Romney has said he would replace the law but has not gone much beyond that concept.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/the_romney_program_for_economic_recovery_growth_and_jobs.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": " Romney supports the idea of regulations. Extensive regulation is appropriate in an industry that has such an impact on the overall economy, he said in an interviewwithTime.", "hrefs": [ "http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/23/mitts-moment-time-talks-to-romney-about-business-budgets-and-beliefs/" ] }, { "sentence": " Romney supports rules to ensure that banks have their own money at risk, as this promotes greater caution. You have to have rules for what kind of capital has to stand behind each kind of asset on Wall Street and banks, he said on60 Minutes. This is part of current law.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7422762n" ] }, { "sentence": " He supports greater transparency for derivatives trading. He told agroup of Americansin London, mainly bankers, that we do need to have greater transparency in the trading of derivatives, so we know whats going on - what kind of exposures various institutions have. Derivatives as investment devices are not inherently bad but they helped hide the weaknesses of the home mortgage market and increased the exposure of many investors when the sector collapsed. Dodd-Frank has a detailed approach to shedding light on derivatives trading.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/mitt-romney-banking-regulation_n_1707456.html" ] }, { "sentence": " Romney opposes the current plan for orderly liquidations when banks fail. We need to get rid of that provision because it's killing regional and small banks, Romney said in thefirst presidential debate.However, he has not said how he would change the current law.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/politics/debate-transcript/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "The Obama campaign backs up its claim with aBoston Globearticle from last spring. The article emphasizes that Romney says he would do away with Dodd-Frank without saying what would replace it. Since that time, Romney has said a bit more, captured in that list above, but not much more.In May, one of Romneys top economic advisers,Glenn Hubbard,said the public could expect more detailed proposals on several key fronts, including what to do if one of the biggest banks fails, consumer financial protections, and housing finance. However, those proposals never appeared.The only detail from Hubbard himself targeted the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That agency, created under Dodd-Frank, aims to stand between individuals and the marketing of unfair and deceptive financial services. Hubbard said the bureau might be moved or dismantled, with its functions passed along to existing agencies.The lack of specifics from Romney has left many people reading the tea leaves. Kenneth Scott is professor of law and business at Stanford Law School. I very much doubt that if Romney won there would be a blanket repeal of Dodd-Frank, but there would be an effort at significant amendments, Scott said.Some have looked to Congress for clues. ABloomberg articledescribed the changes Republicans have passed or introduced. High on the list are looser rules governing the trade in derivatives, and especially the financial practice called swaps. Swaps are basically insurance against the risk that a borrower wont repay a loan. It gets more exotic, but thats the central idea, and its very big business. Swaps delivered $7 billion in revenues to banks in the first quarter of 2012. Swaps played a significant role in the 2008 financial crisis.Bloomberg andother news organizationshave listed other areas where Republicans have worked to ease financial regulations, such as reversing the Volker Rule, which limits banks on using customer deposits to invest in trades offered by an arm of the same bank.Bloomberg offered this summary: Dodd-Frank would remain but it would be a revamped Dodd-Frank that would accommodate some of the most profitable and riskiest activities while preserving a patina of protection for investors and consumers.Still, the precise changes Romney would support are unknown. In addition, some would argue that whatever changes emerge would not increase the odds of another financial crisis. For example, Lawrence White, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, believes the current law on big banks makes risky behavior more likely.Repealing THAT part of Dodd-Frank would not roll back regulation on the banks that crashed our economy, quite the contrary, White said.We asked the Romney campaign for more specifics in several areas but received no further information.Our rulingThe Obama ad says Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on banks.Romney has provided scant details on his plans, but he has said that he would push for changes. Romney has never suggested that tougher regulations are needed, and he has said many times that government regulates too much. It is reasonable to conclude his plans would be more in line with current Republican initiatives than the present law passed by Democrats. That direction points toward fewer restrictions than are in place under Dodd-Frank. Certainly, Romney has said that the provisions for the largest banks should be replaced.Conservative analysts would say that these changes would not put the financial system at greater risk.However, the ad simply says Romney would roll back regulations on the institutions that contributed to the financial crisis. How much of a rollback is unclear, but Romney does support a lighter regulatory touch on banks, so we rate the statement Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-02/nation/31520527_1_dodd-frank-bill-financial-crisis-senator-christopher-dodd" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/creatures-tsunami-japan/", "claim": "Were These Sea Creatures Washed Up by a Tsunami?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/12/2005", "sci_digest": [ "These deep-sea creatures were not found scattered throughout the wreckage pf a tsunami." ], "justification": "In the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, just about any unusual or remarkable photographs connected with oceanic phenomena were being attributed to that disaster, and the following collection of pictures was a prime example: Phuket Deep Sea Creatures - Found At Seaside After TSUNAMI As everyone knows, the tsunami in Southeast Asia was devastating both in the loss of life and economically to the region. However now that the clean up is underway in the region, deep sea creatures that live too deep to be studied are being found scattered throughout the wreckage. These creatures were washed up on shore when the waves hit. Amazing what lives so far below the surface isn't it? It is ironic how terrible human tragedy and natural disaster can lead to unprecedented expansion of scientific knowledge. The theory is the tsunami created enough vertical currents to sweep these deep living creatures to the surface quickly. The gases in their blood expanded rapidly causing death (like divers ascending too quickly). The same set of pictures was dusted off in April 2011 and attributed to the tsunami that hit Japan the previous month: Creatures Found At Seaside After JAPAN TSUNAMI Everyone knows, the tsunami in Japan was devastating, both in the loss of life and economically to the region. However, now that the cleanup is underway in the region, deep sea creatures that live too deep to be studied are being found scattered throughout the wreckage. These creatures were washed up on shore when the waves hit. Although these pictures are genuine images of some rather strange deep-sea creatures, the photographs had nothing to do with a tsunami in the Indian Ocean or Japan. They date from mid-2003 and were taken as part of the NORFANZ voyage, a joint Australian-New Zealand research expedition conducted in May-June 2003 to explore deep sea habitats and biodiversity in the Tasman Sea. These photographs can be viewed on Australia's National Oceans Office web site. NORFANZ National Oceans Office", "issues": [ "loss" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=14y1b809z8RZ6flLWKjkxjmjs66RORerS", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1_FkS-afp5Ex4TQF-GZQ1BgI2ztJj8vUs", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WBf_gzXWp3bfaBcmxE2hAjCceVdflwlC", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1iUw1yfa6Vfja1Jjgt3Tgn01OBBopCHKG", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Gvf6jagfWtPY-cn0Ii9sY-BdBtbK17-M", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sm-fOVYQ3vWX9fZMEqnV0e6JB4w4zxtC", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Rlbp1tSKHnq6YVQ_fg--23Y_ieKFYFUu", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OqlXijG01C57LIf0Javpk0nxdfH8GTOX", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1TBDKpOxvPdYZIWs37X6VP4VXilIrvoeI", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1b3ugKQddBACUvKHZP8EIwMRC6fWtOZkx", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1nhXGzuilujbK372Hb-Ud-N_mLGFvmwN5", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Kev1h89tWMZ2DrsuJAb-cs1W559kXH_7", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Although these pictures are genuine images of some rather strange deep-sea creatures, the photographs had nothing to do with a tsunami in the Indian Ocean or Japan. They date from mid-2003 and were taken as part of the NORFANZ voyage, a joint Australian-New Zealand research expedition conducted in May-June 2003 to explore deep sea habitats and biodiversity in the Tasman Sea. These photographs can be viewed on Australia's National Oceans Office web site.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.environment.gov.au/apps/coasts/discovery/voyages/norfanz/index.html", "https://www.environment.gov.au/apps/coasts/discovery/voyages/norfanz/creature.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/30/steven-rattner/rattner-manufacturing-wages-today-america-lower-av/", "claim": "Manufacturing wages today in America on a per-hour basis are actually a bit lower than average wages in the economy as a whole.", "author": "Katie Sanders", "posted": "03/30/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Former car czar Steven Rattner, who actuallyhates the nicknamehe earned overseeing the auto bailout, is pushing back againstproclamationsof a flourishing American manufacturing industry. Again. Rattner wrote an eye-catchingNew York Timesop-edin January calling the industrys post-recession jobs gains a trickle, arguing we need to get real about the so-called renaissance partly because wages for auto workers and manufacturers dropped far more than the average private-sector worker since the end of the recession in June 2009. He revisited some of those points in a March 30, 2014, appearance on ABCsThis Week, which took a break from coverage of Russia and the missing Malaysianplane to examine the state of Made in the USA. We certainly want these kinds of advanced manufacturing jobs. But remember this, manufacturing wages today in America on a per-hour basis are actually a bit lower than average wages in the economy as a whole, he said. And what I mean by that is there are lots of really good high-paying jobs in sectors like education, like IT, like health care, service sectors that are not just entry-level jobs, they are really high-paying jobs, and this is our competitive advantage. Manufacturing jobs are typically seen as a source of higher pay for people who dont earn college degrees, and President Barack Obama put an emphasis on them in his State of the Union address. So PunditFact wondered if Rattner is right: Are per-hour wages in manufacturing a little smaller than average wages for the rest of the American economy? Rattner pointed toU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics datafor average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in the private sector, which make up about four-fifths of total private-sector employment. The most recent data for February 2014 shows the average hourly private-sector wage was $20.50. The manufacturing industry average was, as Rattner said, a bit lower at $19.43. Hourly wages are almost $3 higher for employees who produce durable goods, such as cars, phones and computers, than those who make nondurable goods, or things like food, gas and clothes. Weekly wages tell a different story, with manufacturers earning almost $122 more a week than the total worker average in February. The reason for the discrepancy between hourly and weekly wages is simple: Manufacturers work more hours. Anyone can work more hours and make more money, Rattner said. But manufacturers also earn more money an hour when you factor in supervisors.BLS data for Februaryshow average hourly earnings are $24.31 for all private-sector employees and $24.72 for manufacturing employees -- the opposite of what Rattner said. Which dataset is better? The question can incite an economists quarrel. Dean Baker, a liberal economist and co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, took issue with isolating a dataset that excludes supervisors, saying analysts see the distinction as arbitrary and are increasingly using the whole workforce for their research. The manufacturing industry has a lower percentage of production employees (70.1 percent) than the average for the private-sector workforce (82.7 percent), which accounts for the higher pay when using Rattner's measure, Baker said. Rattner argues viewing the data his way is more representative of the typical workers earnings without being influenced by the top of the pay scale. Another liberal economist and former Obama administration adviser, Jared Bernstein of the Center for Budget Policies and Priorities, faulted Rattner for excluding benefits on top of wages. Manufacturing workers often have benefits, he said. AnotherBLS source for wage data(yes, there are a lot of them) shows that when looking at total compensation (wages plus benefits), manufacturing workers earn $35.14 an hour, which is higher than the $28.44average for careers in the service-providing industry and $29.63 for all private-sector workers in December 2013. Since it's widely believed that workers trade off benefit pay for lower wages, it's a mistake to just consider wages in this sort of comparison when you're dealing with an industry that pays benefits (as opposed to say, fast food), Bernstein said. Matthew Lavoie, National Association of Manufacturers spokesman, said 97 percent of the groups 12,000 members provide health insurance. Rattner conceded manufacturers earn more than service-industry workers when benefits are included in hisNew York Timescolumn. In our interview with Rattner, he anticipated these objections to his claim. But my point remains the same: The perception that manufacturing jobs are better jobs is out of date, Rattner wrote. Note also that over the past year, per-hour wages for all industries rose by 50 cents per hour but in manufacturing, they rose by only 21 cents per hour. The trend is not manufacturing's friend, as myNYTpiecepointed out. Our ruling Rattner was careful onThis Weekto single out data for per-hour wages when he argued manufacturers are not paid as much as the rest of workforce. His claim relies on the most recent data for production workers in the manufacturing industry, who earn about $1 less than the average of their private-sector counterparts. However, factoring in supervisors shows manufacturers make 41 cents more per hour. Adding benefits gives manufacturers more of an edge. We wont take sides and say what dataset we think is best. What we can say is that Rattner makes an accurate point by one measure. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "Poverty", "PunditFact" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Former car czar Steven Rattner, who actuallyhates the nicknamehe earned overseeing the auto bailout, is pushing back againstproclamationsof a flourishing American manufacturing industry.", "hrefs": [ "http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/03/steven-rattner-hated-being-called-czar/" ] }, { "sentence": "Again. Rattner wrote an eye-catchingNew York Timesop-edin January calling the industrys post-recession jobs gains a trickle, arguing we need to get real about the so-called renaissance partly because wages for auto workers and manufacturers dropped far more than the average private-sector worker since the end of the recession in June 2009.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/rattner-the-myth-of-industrial-rebound.html?_r=0" ] }, { "sentence": "Rattner pointed toU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics datafor average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees in the private sector, which make up about four-fifths of total private-sector employment.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t24.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "But manufacturers also earn more money an hour when you factor in supervisors.BLS data for Februaryshow average hourly earnings are $24.31 for all private-sector employees and $24.72 for manufacturing employees -- the opposite of what Rattner said.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "AnotherBLS source for wage data(yes, there are a lot of them) shows that when looking at total compensation (wages plus benefits), manufacturing workers earn $35.14 an hour, which is higher than the $28.44average for careers in the service-providing industry and $29.63 for all private-sector workers in December 2013.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "But my point remains the same: The perception that manufacturing jobs are better jobs is out of date, Rattner wrote. Note also that over the past year, per-hour wages for all industries rose by 50 cents per hour but in manufacturing, they rose by only 21 cents per hour. The trend is not manufacturing's friend, as myNYTpiecepointed out.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/rattner-the-myth-of-industrial-rebound.html?_r=0" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-stimulus-checks/", "claim": "Are US Citizens Married to Immigrants Excluded from COVID-19 Stimulus Checks?", "author": "Jessica Lee", "posted": "04/24/2020", "sci_digest": [ "The answer, in part, depends on how couples filed their taxes." ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In the weeks that followed the U.S. federal government's March 2020 approval of a $2.2 trillion stimulus package the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to jumpstart a pandemic-broken economy, journalists and economists combed through the legislation's 247-page PDF document outlining who would receive the financial help. CARES 247-page PDF document Early news reports on the bill had highlighted its funding boosts to help newly unemployed Americans, small businesses facing diminished profits, health care facilities on the frontlines of fighting the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, and qualifying taxpayers by giving them one-time checks of about $1,200 (or more depending on how they filed taxes and their number of children). Then, in mid-April, more headlines focused on the intricacies of the multi-faceted policy package including the claim that U.S. citizens married to immigrants wouldn't qualify for the one-time payments like other taxpayers. intricacies the claim The implication was that if spouses of immigrants had different marriages, they'd be richer with the federal government's help. Numerous readers contacted Snopes to investigate the truth behind the claim. For our examination, we first looked at where the claim originated. On April 20, the Los Angeles Times published a news story headlined, \"These U.S. citizens won't get coronavirus stimulus checks because their spouses are immigrants,\" featuring stories of four couples, each of which includes an immigrant and will not be receiving the payments, as well as commentary from immigrant-rights advocates. The following day, CBS News published a story that cited the LA Times' reporting. Then, on April 22, Yahoo!'s lifestyle section republished an article from the so-called ScaryMommy website, a self-proclaimed source of \"entertainment and information for millennial moms online.\" The post included editorialized phrasing, such as: These U.S. citizens won't get coronavirus stimulus checks because their spouses are immigrants story Yahoo!'s lifestyle an article ScaryMommy \"They just hate immigrants, and now, by default, American citizens who associate with them,\" the Scary Mommy post read, referring to the federal administration under U.S. President Donald Trump. \"The government is leaving those people (and their families) out of help, and its heartbreaking.\" A rush of tweets, some lacking important context, followed. Among sharers of the LA Times story was U.S. Sen. Claire Celsi, a Democrat from Iowa, who said on Twitter: Responding to her tweet, however, one user wrote: \"I'm an immigrant. My wife is a US citizen. We got $2,400 as a direct deposit on April 15th. This is no less misleading than posting 'immigrants commit crimes.' It's technically true, but there is no causal link.\" one user Cue this fact check on who is and isn't eligible for the stimulus checks, called Economic Impact Payments, based on 2019 or 2018 tax returns. For those who are eligible, the CARES Act authorized the federal government to send: Additionally, for single tax filers with higher annual salaries but less than $99,000 the federal government is reducing the payments by $5 for each $100 above the $75,000 threshold (similar math goes for payments to families). But to qualify, a recipient must be a \"U.S. citizen, permanent resident or qualifying resident alien\" under guidelines established by the Internal Revenue Service. The latter two categorizations cover foreign-born residents who have obtained green cards to prove their legal status to work and live in the country and Social Security Numbers (SSN). The provision in the CARES Act outlining the payments states: Internal Revenue Service That means immigrants who do not have legal status are excluded from the stimulus payments, even if they have work visas or use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (which the IRS issues to workers without SSN) to pay annual taxes. Additionally, if they file joint tax returns with their spouses, both parties are ineligible for the checks; the CARES Act's provisions require both parties on a couple's return to have SSN and will not accept joint returns with one or more Individual Taxpayer ID numbers. (Different standards apply to military couples, however: \"If either spouse is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces at any time during the taxable year, then only one spouse needs to have a valid SSN,\" according to the IRS.) According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research center, roughly 1.2 million immigrants without green cards are married to a U.S. citizen. Of that amount, the spouses who are U.S. citizens and filed single tax returns regardless of their partner's immigration status qualify to receive an individualized payment amount based on their income. Migration Policy Institute Given that significant caveat, as well as the fact that immigrants with green cards are eligible for the checks, we rate this claim a \"Mixture\" of true and false U.S. citizens who filed joint tax returns with spouses who are immigrants without Social Security Numbers won't receive the payments, but spouses to immigrants with legal status will. H.R.748 CARES Act. All ActionsH.R.748 116th Congress (2019-2020).\rCongress.gov. Accessed 20 April 2020. Marfice, Christina. \"U.S. Citizens Married To Immigrants Are Blocked From Getting Stimulus Checks\".\r Yahoo!life. 22 April 2020. Marfice, Christina. \"U.S. Citizens Married To Immigrants Are Blocked From Getting Stimulus Checks\".\r ScaryMommy. 22 April 2020. Jarvie, Jenny. \"These U.S. citizens won't get coronavirus stimulus checks because their spouses are immigrants\".\r Los Angeles Times. 20 April 2020. Internal Revenue Service. \"Economic Impact Payment Information Center\".\r Accessed 24 April 2020. Migration Policy Institute. \"Profile of the Unauthorized Population: United States\".\r Accessed 24 April 2020.", "issues": [ "economy" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1xT_nvvdr4qSAX7cBuJhRGZs0_wIalQuS", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pqlxec4YYbGabwFqFJZzvANzkEiusgDE", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "In the weeks that followed the U.S. federal government's March 2020 approval of a $2.2 trillion stimulus package the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to jumpstart a pandemic-broken economy, journalists and economists combed through the legislation's 247-page PDF document outlining who would receive the financial help.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/text?fbclid=IwAR02m0Wa0g0InSzH5o1LkqrmEyCR1l2ljF-j293rulP1p7NaKcdtaYXfHRg#toc-H25CA409D9D2844399CF965A38F83F6C6", "https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s3548/BILLS-116s3548is.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Early news reports on the bill had highlighted its funding boosts to help newly unemployed Americans, small businesses facing diminished profits, health care facilities on the frontlines of fighting the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, and qualifying taxpayers by giving them one-time checks of about $1,200 (or more depending on how they filed taxes and their number of children). Then, in mid-April, more headlines focused on the intricacies of the multi-faceted policy package including the claim that U.S. citizens married to immigrants wouldn't qualify for the one-time payments like other taxpayers.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-millionaires-stimulus-checks/", "https://www.scarymommy.com/citizens-married-immigrants-stimulus-checks/" ] }, { "sentence": "For our examination, we first looked at where the claim originated. On April 20, the Los Angeles Times published a news story headlined, \"These U.S. citizens won't get coronavirus stimulus checks because their spouses are immigrants,\" featuring stories of four couples, each of which includes an immigrant and will not be receiving the payments, as well as commentary from immigrant-rights advocates. The following day, CBS News published a story that cited the LA Times' reporting. Then, on April 22, Yahoo!'s lifestyle section republished an article from the so-called ScaryMommy website, a self-proclaimed source of \"entertainment and information for millennial moms online.\" The post included editorialized phrasing, such as:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-20/u-s-citizens-coronavirus-stimulus-checks-spouses-immigrants", "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stimulus-checks-americans-married-spouse-immigrant-social-security/", "https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/u-citizens-married-immigrants-blocked-145343198.html", "https://www.scarymommy.com/citizens-married-immigrants-stimulus-checks/", "https://www.scarymommy.com/" ] }, { "sentence": "Responding to her tweet, however, one user wrote: \"I'm an immigrant. My wife is a US citizen. We got $2,400 as a direct deposit on April 15th. This is no less misleading than posting 'immigrants commit crimes.' It's technically true, but there is no causal link.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/JasonLikesIowa/status/1252757253737918465" ] }, { "sentence": "But to qualify, a recipient must be a \"U.S. citizen, permanent resident or qualifying resident alien\" under guidelines established by the Internal Revenue Service. The latter two categorizations cover foreign-born residents who have obtained green cards to prove their legal status to work and live in the country and Social Security Numbers (SSN). The provision in the CARES Act outlining the payments states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payment-information-center" ] }, { "sentence": "According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research center, roughly 1.2 million immigrants without green cards are married to a U.S. citizen. Of that amount, the spouses who are U.S. citizens and filed single tax returns regardless of their partner's immigration status qualify to receive an individualized payment amount based on their income.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grade-expectations/", "claim": "Does a Student Whose Roommate Commits Suicide Receive a 4.0 GPA?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "10/07/2001", "sci_digest": [ "There are a variety of rumors surrounding higher education bereavement policies that affect students' grades." ], "justification": "Variations: Origins: Although many schools will offer some sort of bereavement consideration under exceptional circumstances, no college or university in the United States has a policy awarding a 4.0 average (or anything else) to a student whose roommate dies. This rumor (or at least its widespread distribution) appears to be of fairly recent origin, dating from approximately the mid-1970s. It most likely started out as an expression of the pressures students feel to achieve good grades in the form of a morbid joke (i.e., \"Even if the pressures of school cause some people to off themselves, there's no reason we can't profit by it!\"), and the joke became a legend when it was spread as true by credulous students, picking up variations along the way. A similar theme of suicide (and student grade consideration for witnessing it) can be found in the pencil suicide legend. pencil Sightings: Dead Man on Campus Dead Man's Curve Additional information: Bennett, Gillian and Paul Smith. A Nest of Vipers.\r Sheffield: Univ. of Sheffield Press, 1990. ISBN 1-85075-256-7 (pp. 69-76). Bronner, Simon J. Piled Higher and Deeper.\r Little Rock: August House, 1990. ISBN 0-87483-154-7 (pp. 32-33). Piled Higher and Deeper Brunvand, Jan Harold. Curses! Broiled Again!\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-30711-5 (pp. 295-298). Curses! Broiled Again! Dickson, Paul and Joseph Gouldon. Myth-Informed.\r New York: Perigee Books, 1993. ISBN 0-399-51839-8. (p. 62). Myth-Informed Reisberg, Leo. \"Hollywood Discovers an Apocryphal Legend.\"\r The Chronicle of Higher Education. 11 September 1998.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Although many schools will offer some sort of bereavement consideration under exceptional circumstances, no college or university in the United States has a policy awarding a 4.0 average (or anything else) to a student whose roommate dies. This rumor (or at least its widespread distribution) appears to be of fairly recent origin, dating from approximately the mid-1970s. It most likely started out as an expression of the pressures students feel to achieve good grades in the form of a morbid joke (i.e., \"Even if the pressures of school cause some people to off themselves, there's no reason we can't profit by it!\"), and the joke became a legend when it was spread as true by credulous students, picking up variations along the way. A similar theme of suicide (and student grade consideration for witnessing it) can be found in the pencil suicide legend.", "hrefs": [ "/college/exam/pencils.asp" ] }, { "sentence": "Bronner, Simon J. Piled Higher and Deeper.\r Little Rock: August House, 1990. ISBN 0-87483-154-7 (pp. 32-33).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/college/piled.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Brunvand, Jan Harold. Curses! Broiled Again!\r New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-30711-5 (pp. 295-298).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/curses.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Dickson, Paul and Joseph Gouldon. Myth-Informed.\r New York: Perigee Books, 1993. ISBN 0-399-51839-8. (p. 62).", "hrefs": [ "../../sources/facts/mythinfo.htm" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-secret-race-database/", "claim": "Data that has been altered or distorted.", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "07/22/2015", "sci_digest": [ "" ], "justification": "FACT CHECK: Is President Obama compiling a \"secret race database\" comprised of \"sensitive personal data\"? Claim: President Obama is compiling a secret race database comprising Americans' sensitive personal data. false WHAT'S Extant data collection methods used by agencies such as HUD track demographic patterns, including race and integration trends. WHAT'S /CONJECTURE: The Obama administration is collecting demographic data for a broader racial purpose, the practice is new, and the openly-compiled data comprises a \"secret race database.\" Example: [Collected via e-mail and Twitter, July 2015] According to an article in the New York Post, President Obama is collecting a nefarious \"secret race database.\" How much of this is true, and how much is misleading hype? So who are the racists again? Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE via @nypost https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE @nypost Yes, Nick $earcy! (@yesnicksearcy) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015 This is movie level horror material yet it's happening. It's real life. https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015 I favor equal opportunity, not govt forcing equal results. This is Affirmative Action on steroids: https://t.co/N3snUnie67 #WakeUpAmerica https://t.co/N3snUnie67 #WakeUpAmerica Senator Dick Black (@SenRichardBlack) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015 Obama collecting Americans' personal info for a secret race database https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf This makes my skin crawl @RandPaul https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf @RandPaul Alexis In NH (@AlexisinNH) July 18, 2015 July 18, 2015 Origins: On 18 July 2015, the New York Post published an article titled \"Obama Collecting Personal Data for a Secret Race Database.\" The article made vague claims that President Obama (or agents of the government working on his behalf, described as \"racial bean counters\") had been quietly collecting sensitive, personal data about American citizens for purposes of racial justice: Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama's racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school all to document \"inequalities\" between minorities and whites. This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make \"disparate impact\" cases against: banks that don't make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don't offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds. The paper offered up one example of the purported secret racial database's reach, pertaining to Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) data collection practices: The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino and publish geospatial data pinpointing racial imbalances. No explanatory links to this nefarious database were provided, but we managed to hack our way into the program to get the full scoop. Actually, we entered \"Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing\" into Google's search box and immediately found HUD's page explaining the program and its purposes. program So secretive is this database that HUD has made numerous documents available describing its overall progress, including links to the Federal Register [PDF] and its most current Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing policy. (They even tried to bury it by issuing a press release about it.) A portion of that openly published, available for all to view documentation is described by HUD as \"[updated data use methods] on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) [aim] to provide all HUD grantees with clear guidelines and the data that will help them to achieve those goals\": PDF current press release HUDs rule clarifies and simplifies existing fair housing obligations for HUD grantees to analyze their fair housing landscape and set locally-determined fair housing priorities and goals through an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). To aid communities in this work, HUD will provide open data to grantees and the public on patterns of integration and segregation, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disproportionate housing needs, and disparities in access to opportunity. This improved approach provides a better mechanism for HUD grantees to build fair housing goals into their existing community development and housing planning processes. In addition to providing data and maps, HUD will also provide technical assistance to aid grantees as they adopt this approach. In short, HUD will be using extant data to identify areas in which fair housing laws may not be functionally applied. Similarly, the Federal Register's lengthy (public, easy to find) summary stated: Through this rule, HUD commits to provide states, local governments, public housing agencies (PHAs), the communities they serve, and the general public, to the fullest extent possible, with local and regional data on integrated and segregated living patterns, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, the location of certain publicly supported housing, access to opportunity afforded by key community assets, and disproportionate housing needs based on classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. Through the availability of such data and available local data an knowledge, the approach provided by this rule is intended to make program participants better able to evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues such as segregation, conditions that restrict fair housing choice, and disparities in access to housing and opportunity, identify the factors that primarily contribute to the creation or perpetuation of fair housing issues, and establish fair housing priorities and goals. The New York Post cited another shadowy instance of \"racial bean counting\": Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records. Again, the National Mortgage Database was hidden in plain sight. In seconds on Google, intrepid searchers could locate the Federal Housing Finance Agency's page devoted to the National Mortgage Database (upon which no mentions of race or racial equality appeared): page In 2012, FHFA began a major initiative to build a national mortgage database on first-lien single-family mortgages in existence any time from January 1998 forward. This project is being jointly funded and managed by FHFA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The information will primarily be used to support the agencies' policy making and research efforts and help regulators better understand emerging mortgage and housing market trends in this evolving and changing finance market. Like the AFFH, the National Mortgage Database was also buried deep in the annals of the publicly accessible and searchable Federal Register. Federal Register From that point on, the Post's article primarily focused on purportedly nefarious and racially motivated actions by \"Obama's brainchild,\" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). (In actuality, the CFPB was primarily the \"brainchild\" of Elizabeth Warren and came into existence as part of Dodd-Frank related financial reforms.) The article claimed the CFPB was compiling separate databases for credit profiles and employment. We were able to locate a Government Accountability Office (GAO) document dated September 2014 [PDF] concerning collection of credit data. However, no portion of that document mentioned race, and we were unable to locate any documents, articles, or other information relating to race-based initiatives and employment efforts undertaken by the CFPB as suggested by the New York Post's article. Elizabeth Warren PDF A final portion of the article claimed that the Department of Education was enforcing segregation by way of race-based data collection (implicitly, at the behest of President Obama). However, a (not secret) page on the U.S. Department of Education's web site indicated that data collection of that description had been ongoing since at least 2000 (eight years before the election of Barack Obama to the presidency). page Last updated: 22July 2015 Originally published: 22July 2015", "issues": [ "asset" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1cCEmuZR3VpwZL4R7jFoPBo-ksgfN15Re" } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "So who are the racists again? Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE via @nypost", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE", "https://twitter.com/nypost" ] }, { "sentence": " Yes, Nick $earcy! (@yesnicksearcy) July 19, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/yesnicksearcy/status/622799389136941056" ] }, { "sentence": "This is movie level horror material yet it's happening. It's real life. https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE" ] }, { "sentence": " Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 19, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AnthonyCumia/status/622662909009731584" ] }, { "sentence": "I favor equal opportunity, not govt forcing equal results. This is Affirmative Action on steroids: https://t.co/N3snUnie67 #WakeUpAmerica", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/N3snUnie67", "https://twitter.com/hashtag/WakeUpAmerica?src=hash" ] }, { "sentence": " Senator Dick Black (@SenRichardBlack) July 19, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/SenRichardBlack/status/622737192494977024" ] }, { "sentence": "Obama collecting Americans' personal info for a secret race database https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf This makes my skin crawl @RandPaul", "hrefs": [ "https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf", "https://twitter.com/RandPaul" ] }, { "sentence": " Alexis In NH (@AlexisinNH) July 18, 2015", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/AlexisinNH/status/622549474238447616" ] }, { "sentence": "No explanatory links to this nefarious database were provided, but we managed to hack our way into the program to get the full scoop. Actually, we entered \"Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing\" into Google's search box and immediately found HUD's page explaining the program and its purposes.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.huduser.org/portal/affht_pt.html" ] }, { "sentence": "So secretive is this database that HUD has made numerous documents available describing its overall progress, including links to the Federal Register [PDF] and its most current Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing policy. (They even tried to bury it by issuing a press release about it.) A portion of that openly published, available for all to view documentation is described by HUD as \"[updated data use methods] on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) [aim] to provide all HUD grantees with clear guidelines and the data that will help them to achieve those goals\":", "hrefs": [ "https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-07-16/pdf/2015-17032.pdf", "https://www.huduser.org/portal/affht_pt.html#final-rule", "https://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2015/HUDNo_15-084" ] }, { "sentence": "Again, the National Mortgage Database was hidden in plain sight. In seconds on Google, intrepid searchers could locate the Federal Housing Finance Agency's page devoted to the National Mortgage Database (upon which no mentions of race or racial equality appeared):", "hrefs": [ "https://www.fhfa.gov/PolicyProgramsResearch/Programs/Pages/National-Mortgage-Database.aspx" ] }, { "sentence": "Like the AFFH, the National Mortgage Database was also buried deep in the annals of the publicly accessible and searchable Federal Register.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/04/16/2014-08566/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records" ] }, { "sentence": "From that point on, the Post's article primarily focused on purportedly nefarious and racially motivated actions by \"Obama's brainchild,\" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). (In actuality, the CFPB was primarily the \"brainchild\" of Elizabeth Warren and came into existence as part of Dodd-Frank related financial reforms.) The article claimed the CFPB was compiling separate databases for credit profiles and employment. We were able to locate a Government Accountability Office (GAO) document dated September 2014 [PDF] concerning collection of credit data. However, no portion of that document mentioned race, and we were unable to locate any documents, articles, or other information relating to race-based initiatives and employment efforts undertaken by the CFPB as suggested by the New York Post's article.", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau", "https://www.crapo.senate.gov/issues/banking/documents/GAO_CFPBDATACOLLECTIONREPORT.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "A final portion of the article claimed that the Department of Education was enforcing segregation by way of race-based data collection (implicitly, at the behest of President Obama). However, a (not secret) page on the U.S. Department of Education's web site indicated that data collection of that description had been ongoing since at least 2000 (eight years before the election of Barack Obama to the presidency).", "hrefs": [ "https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/data.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/failed-constitutional-amendments/", "claim": "Did Failed Constitutional Amendments Include Ban on Divorce, 'United States of the Earth'?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "10/29/2021", "sci_digest": [ "Since 1789, there have been more than 11,000 proposals to change the U.S. Constitution. Some 99.75% of them were left to gather dust. " ], "justification": "In October 2021, a list of what appeared to be failed, and in some cases rather bizarre, historical proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution proved popular on the online forum Reddit. An Oct. 20 post bore the headline \"A list of American amendments that were never approved,\" and consisted of a photograph of a page from a book, containing the following text: Oct. 20 post The following is a very limited list of some of the proposed amendments that never left the halls of Congress: 1876 An attempt to abolish the United States Senate1876 The forbidding of religious leaders from occupying a governmental office or receiving federal funding1878 An Executive Council of Three to replace the office of President1893 Renaming this nation the United States of the Earth1893 Abolishing the United States Army and Navy1894 Acknowledging that the Constitution recognize God and Jesus Christ as the supreme authorities in human affairs1912 Making marriage between races illegal1914 Finding divorce to be illegal1916 All acts of war should be put to a national vote. Anyone voting yes had to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army.1933 An attempt to limit personal wealth to $1 million1936 An attempt to allow the American people to vote on whether or not the United States should go to war1938 The forbidding of drunkenness in the United States and all of its territories1947 The income tax maximum for an individual should not exceed 25%1948 The right of citizens to segregate themselves from others1971 American citizens should have the [in]alienable right to an environment free of pollution. On the whole, the list presented 15 proposed amendments with a very high degree of accuracy. Most were entirely accurate, a few were accurate in their substance, with some relatively insignificant disclaimers necessary, and only one involved a degree of misrepresentation. The source of the list was \"The U.S. Constitution and Fascinating Facts About It,\" a book that has been printed and updated by Oak Hill Publishing, since the early 1990s. The U.S. Constitution and Fascinating Facts About It Oak Hill Publishing As the book suggests, the 15 proposals on the list represent a very tiny fraction of all of the failed proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution over the years. According the U.S. Senate historian, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed since 1789. Of those, only 27 have come into effect, while six others gained the two-thirds majority required in both houses of Congress, but failed to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures. more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed since 1789 The following is a breakdown of the details and context associated with each of the 15 failed amendments included in the list, presented in chronological order. 1876 An attempt to abolish the United States Senate. In April 1876, U.S. Rep. Sobieski Ross, R-Pennsylvania, presented two \"memorials\" (petitions) on behalf of 22 residents of Potter County in northern Pennsylvania, near the border with upstate New York. One called for the \"abolition of the presidency,\" the other called for the \"abolition of the United States Senate.\" The proposed amendments were forwarded to the House Judiciary Committee, but do not appear to have advanced from there. presented two \"memorials\" (petitions) In April 1911, U.S. Rep. Victor Berger, a Socialist from Wisconsin, introduced his own proposal to amend the Constitution by abolishing the Senate. The resolution read, in part: proposal to amend the Constitution by abolishing the Senate Whereas the Senate in particular has become an obstructive and useless body, a menace to the liberties of the people, and an obstacle to social growth... All legislative powers shall be vested in the House of Representatives. Its enactments, subject to referendum...shall be the supreme law, and the President shall have no power to veto them, nor shall any court have the power to invalidate them. Berger's proposal never made it out of committee, but shortly afterwards, the Senate passed a separate resolution that would go on to become the 17th Amendment, which provided for direct popular elections to the U.S. Senate, and replaced the existing method whereby state legislatures selected the members of the upper chamber. separate resolution 1876: \"The forbidding of religious leaders from occupying a governmental office or receiving federal funding.\". This appears to be a reference to the Blaine Amendments a series of proposals between 1875 and 1876, the first of which was made by James Blaine, a Maine Republican who was a member of the House, and then the Senate, during that period. Blaine's December 1875 proposal prohibited states from allowing religious groups or schools to receive taxpayer dollars, as follows: December 1875 proposal No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect or denomination; nor shall any funds so raised, or lands so used, be divided among any religious sects or denominations. However, it did not address the eligibility of \"religious leaders\" to hold office, and its restrictions relating to public funding were limited to the states, rather than including federal funding. A subsequent Republican revision of Blaine's proposal, in 1876, did expand the funding restrictions to the federal level, but did not involve barring religious leaders from holding office. Republican revision 1878: \"An Executive Council of Three to replace the office of President.\" In the spring of 1878, U.S. Rep. Milton Southard, D-Ohio, introduced a proposal to replace the existing office of the president with a new \"Supreme Executive Council of three.\" The triumvirate was to be chosen by \"qualified electors\" of the states, and taken from three would-be new districts: the Western states; the Eastern and Middle states; and the Southern states. The original proposal can be found here. The exact stage at which the proposed amendment failed is not clear. here 1893: \"Renaming this nation the 'United States of the Earth'\"1893: \"Abolishing the United States Army and Navy.\" Based on a news report from the spring of 1893, and a 1987 New York Times article, both these measures were included in a proposed constitutional amendment put forward in February 1893, by U.S. Rep. Lucas Militiades Miller, D-Wisconsin. news report from the spring of 1893 1987 New York Times article However, Miller may have made the proposals at the request of James Seldon Cowen, a Virginia inventor with eclectic interests and theories, who advanced detailed proposals for renaming the country, as well as abolishing the Army, Navy and their \"schools of organized murder,\" in a book published the previous year. inventor eclectic interests in a book published the previous year 1894: \"Acknowledging that the Constitution recognize God and Jesus Christ as the supreme authorities in human affairs.\"In 1894, U.S. Sen. William Frye, R-Maine, introduced a proposal to amend the preamble to the Constitution and explicitly assert the Christianity of the United States. After the words \"We the people of the United States,\" and before \"in order to form a more perfect union,\" Frye proposed to add the following: proposed to add the following ...devoutly acknowledging the supreme authority and just government of God in all the affairs of men and nations, and grateful to Him for our civil and religious liberty; and encouraged by the assurances of His word, invoke His guidance, as a Christian nation, according to His appointed way, through Jesus Christ,... 1912: \"Making marriage between races illegal.\" In December 1912, U.S. Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry, D-Georgia, introduced a proposal to prohibit inter-racial marriage by way of constitutional amendment. Roddenberry, a white supremacist and racist extremist even by the standards of the early 20th century, explicitly cited his own revulsion at the recent high-profile marriage between Jack Johnson, the Black heavyweight boxer, and Lucille Cameron, a white woman, as the catalyst for his crusade against \"miscegenation,\" as interracial relationships were at that time widely described. In support of his cause, Roddenberry described inter-racial marriage as being \"repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit,\" according to a contemporaneous news report that contains some exceptionally offensive racist language. news report Roddenberry's proposed amendment did not make it past the House Judiciary Committee, but several states subsequently introduced laws banning inter-racial marriage, until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Loving vs. Virginia, that any and all laws prohibiting or restricting marriage based on racial considerations were in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause. did not make it past the House Judiciary Committee ruled, in Loving vs. Virginia 1914: \"Finding divorce to be illegal.\" In February 1914, U.S. Sen. Joseph Ransdell, D-Louisiana, proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw divorce in the United States, arguing that the increased prevalence of divorce posed a threat to \"the home,\" which he described as \"the chief bulwark of society.\" He added: increased prevalence He added The remedy by constitutional prohibition is drastic, but the malady is so fatal that nothing short of it will prove efficacious. In the United States, divorce is spreading with alarming rapidity. It has permeated every walk of life and is prevalent among every class of people. The proposal did not make it out of committee. did not make it out of committee 1916: \"All acts of war should be put to a national vote. Anyone voting yes had to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army.\" Several sources refer to a 1916 petition, signed by a group of Nebraska residents, which proposed to amend the constitution by requiring a referendum in order to declare war. A 1987 New York Times article reported that \"the petition proposed that all those who voted in favor of the United States entering World War I be willing to enlist.\" Several sources We haven't yet tracked down that 1916 petition, but its description in the 1987 Times article was based on the account of a National Archives curator, and so can be relied upon as accurate. We were able to locate a proposal, brought before the House in February 1916, by U.S. Rep. Denver Church, D-California, who similarly called for a popular vote before any declaration of war. However, it's not clear if this was separate to the \"Nebraska\" proposal, or one and the same. a proposal, brought before the House in February 1916 1933: \"An attempt to limit personal wealth to $1 million.\" On May 9, 1933, U.S. Rep. Wesley Lloyd, D-Washington, proposed House Joint Resolution 178, which called for a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to set \"the maximum amount of wealth allowed to any one individual\" at a ceiling of \"1,000,000 gold dollars.\" It's not clear at what stage the proposal died, but it does not appear to have reached a vote in either house. House Joint Resolution 178 1936: \"An attempt to allow the American people to vote on whether or not the United States should go to war.\"true. (The proposed amendment would still have allowed the U.S. to go to war without popular approval, in the event of an attack or invasion). Since the 1910s, several members of Congress advocated for the introduction of referendums as a prerequisite for the United States' entering a war. Most notably, between 1935 and 1936, U.S. Rep. Louis Ludlow, D-Indiana, embarked on what one historian described as a \"war referendum crusade.\" one historian described as In January 1935, he introduced a resolution in the House, calling for a constitutional amendment that would require that, \"except in the event of attack or invasion,\" any Congressional resolution to go to war must be put to a popular referendum, and would not come into effect unless backed by a majority of voters. The resolution was debated in the House Judiciary Committee, where it remained during 1935 and 1936, but advanced no further. 1938: \"The forbidding of drunkenness in the United States and all of its territories.\" In April 1938, U.S. Rep. Gomer Griffith Smith, D-Oklahoma, introduced House Joint Resolution 661, a proposed constitutional amendment that stated: \"Drunkenness in the United States and all Territories thereof is hereby prohibited.\" The proposal was considered by the House Judiciary Committee, but appears to have gone no further. In a copy of the resolution provided to the committee and now held by the National Archives an unknown individual added a handwritten note ironically suggesting an additional section: \"That period of time, commonly known as Saturday night, is hereby stricken from the calendars of the United States, and abolished.\" copy of the resolution 1947: \"The income tax maximum for an individual should not exceed 25%\"true. This one appears to be referring to one of two tax-related proposed constitutional amendments put forward in 1947 by U.S. Rep. Noah Mason, R-Illinois. We haven't yet been able to locate the exact wording of those proposals, but we know that a subsequent compendium of proposed constitutional amendments, compiled by the U.S. Senate Library, described House Joint Resolutions 24 and 256 as both being \"relative to taxes on incomes, inheritances and gifts.\" compendium of proposed constitutional amendments 24 256 We also know that in the previous Congress, in 1945, Mason a Welsh-born conservative Republican had proposed House Joint Resolution 88, which the same compendium described as proposing to \"repeal the Sixteenth Amendment\" which allowed Congress to levy a federal income tax without having to distribute those monies among the states as well as limiting \"income, gift and inheritance tax to 25 percent.\" House Joint Resolution 88 It is therefore highly likely that Mason's subsequent proposals, in 1947, called for substantially the same outcome. 1948: \"The right of citizens to segregate themselves from others.\"In May 1948, U.S. Rep. Oren Harris, D-Arkansas, introduced a proposal to amend the Constitution as follows: \"The right of any number of citizens to voluntarily segregate themselves from others for any lawful purpose shall not be denied.\" introduced a proposal Harris, who opposed racial desegregation, was explicitly responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Shelley vs. Kraemer, which had been published just days earlier. In that opinion, the Court had ruled that racially restrictive covenants which were relatively common at that time and prohibited homeowners in historically white neighborhoods from selling their houses to non-white buyers violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. explicitly responding Shelley vs. Kraemer Harris's proposal languished in the House Judiciary Committee. 1971 American citizens should have the [in]alienable right to an environment free of pollution. In 1968, U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisconsin, proposed a constitutional amendment that stated simply \"Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment. The United States and every state shall guarantee this right.\" proposed Nelson, a progressive Democrat, environmentalist and co-founder of Earth Day, proposed the same amendment again in January 1970, explaining: proposed the same amendment again in January 1970 In its degradation of the quality of American life, in its danger to the future of man himself, I believe the environmental crisis is the greatest single threat to our pursuit of those inalienable rights life, liberty. and the pursuit of happiness which we have recognized as a society. Although that resolution was first introduced in 1970, the 91st Congress lasted until early 1971, so it's reasonable to date it to that year, although 1970 would probably be more suitable. A Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Dissolve the United States Senate | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/A-proposed-constitutional-amendment-to-dissolve-the-United-States-Senate/. Accessed 29 Oct. 2021.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1dUhXBccHJmipPl3AWUSOQnyCMtNJOtKU", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "An Oct. 20 post bore the headline \"A list of American amendments that were never approved,\" and consisted of a photograph of a page from a book, containing the following text:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/eqSN4" ] }, { "sentence": "The source of the list was \"The U.S. Constitution and Fascinating Facts About It,\" a book that has been printed and updated by Oak Hill Publishing, since the early 1990s.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20210308205719/https://www.constitutionfacts.com/userfiles/Constitution967e15pexcerptb.pdf", "https://archive.md/eeaYx" ] }, { "sentence": "As the book suggests, the 15 proposals on the list represent a very tiny fraction of all of the failed proposals to amend the U.S. Constitution over the years. According the U.S. Senate historian, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed since 1789. Of those, only 27 have come into effect, while six others gained the two-thirds majority required in both houses of Congress, but failed to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/SAMVO" ] }, { "sentence": "In April 1876, U.S. Rep. Sobieski Ross, R-Pennsylvania, presented two \"memorials\" (petitions) on behalf of 22 residents of Potter County in northern Pennsylvania, near the border with upstate New York. One called for the \"abolition of the presidency,\" the other called for the \"abolition of the United States Senate.\" The proposed amendments were forwarded to the House Judiciary Committee, but do not appear to have advanced from there. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211027140445/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1876-pt3-v4/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1876-pt3-v4-17.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "In April 1911, U.S. Rep. Victor Berger, a Socialist from Wisconsin, introduced his own proposal to amend the Constitution by abolishing the Senate. The resolution read, in part:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20201217180952/https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/A-proposed-constitutional-amendment-to-dissolve-the-United-States-Senate/" ] }, { "sentence": "Berger's proposal never made it out of committee, but shortly afterwards, the Senate passed a separate resolution that would go on to become the 17th Amendment, which provided for direct popular elections to the U.S. Senate, and replaced the existing method whereby state legislatures selected the members of the upper chamber. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211027150458/https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/17th-amendment/hjres39.html" ] }, { "sentence": "This appears to be a reference to the Blaine Amendments a series of proposals between 1875 and 1876, the first of which was made by James Blaine, a Maine Republican who was a member of the House, and then the Senate, during that period. Blaine's December 1875 proposal prohibited states from allowing religious groups or schools to receive taxpayer dollars, as follows: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/Blaming-Blaine_-Understanding-the-Blaine-Amendment-and-the-No-Fun.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "However, it did not address the eligibility of \"religious leaders\" to hold office, and its restrictions relating to public funding were limited to the states, rather than including federal funding. A subsequent Republican revision of Blaine's proposal, in 1876, did expand the funding restrictions to the federal level, but did not involve barring religious leaders from holding office. ", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.md/SRkrJ" ] }, { "sentence": "The original proposal can be found here. The exact stage at which the proposed amendment failed is not clear. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_American_Register/rN-SEH6m3RQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22supreme+executive+council%22+%22article+xvi&pg=PA279&printsec=frontcover" ] }, { "sentence": "Based on a news report from the spring of 1893, and a 1987 New York Times article, both these measures were included in a proposed constitutional amendment put forward in February 1893, by U.S. Rep. Lucas Militiades Miller, D-Wisconsin. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/St__Louis_Post_Dispatch_Thu__Apr_6__1893_.pdf", "https://archive.md/oZ6vp" ] }, { "sentence": "However, Miller may have made the proposals at the request of James Seldon Cowen, a Virginia inventor with eclectic interests and theories, who advanced detailed proposals for renaming the country, as well as abolishing the Army, Navy and their \"schools of organized murder,\" in a book published the previous year. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/Chicago_Tribune_Wed__Jun_3__1896_.pdf", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/Detroit_Free_Press_Wed__Nov_18__1896_.pdf", "https://web.archive.org/web/20211021161042/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1903-pt2-v36/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1903-pt2-v36-5-1.pdf", "https://books.google.com/books?id=Zv4_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=%22he+shall+cause+the+return+of+said+militia%22&source=bl&ots=IQOMOIzCgp&sig=ACfU3U0aCoCsYzufMmXuaswIYEVFjJYMxQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZs77c5dvzAhWLhHIEHfaXBdMQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22he%20shall%20cause%20the%20return%20of%20said%20militia%22&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "In 1894, U.S. Sen. William Frye, R-Maine, introduced a proposal to amend the preamble to the Constitution and explicitly assert the Christianity of the United States. After the words \"We the people of the United States,\" and before \"in order to form a more perfect union,\" Frye proposed to add the following: ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proposed_Amendments_to_the_Constitution/AFE0AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=christ" ] }, { "sentence": "In support of his cause, Roddenberry described inter-racial marriage as being \"repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit,\" according to a contemporaneous news report that contains some exceptionally offensive racist language. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/The_New_York_Age_Thu__Dec_19__1912_.pdf", "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/The_New_York_Age_Thu__Dec_19__1912_-1.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Roddenberry's proposed amendment did not make it past the House Judiciary Committee, but several states subsequently introduced laws banning inter-racial marriage, until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Loving vs. Virginia, that any and all laws prohibiting or restricting marriage based on racial considerations were in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211021164041/https://wustllawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/1-51.pdf", "https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395" ] }, { "sentence": "In February 1914, U.S. Sen. Joseph Ransdell, D-Louisiana, proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw divorce in the United States, arguing that the increased prevalence of divorce posed a threat to \"the home,\" which he described as \"the chief bulwark of society.\" He added:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211021192339/https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1376&context=law_lawreview", "https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/02/05/100298369.html?pageNumber=8" ] }, { "sentence": "The proposal did not make it out of committee. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211021192339/https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1376&context=law_lawreview" ] }, { "sentence": "Several sources refer to a 1916 petition, signed by a group of Nebraska residents, which proposed to amend the constitution by requiring a referendum in order to declare war. A 1987 New York Times article reported that \"the petition proposed that all those who voted in favor of the United States entering World War I be willing to enlist.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211027201917/https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/03/us/washinton-talk-letters-to-congress-amend-the-constitution-let-us-count-the-ways.html", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Politics_in_America/w9cY89blKl8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22require+a+vote+of+the+people+in+order+to+declare+war%22&dq=%22require+a+vote+of+the+people+in+order+to+declare+war%22&printsec=frontcover" ] }, { "sentence": "We were able to locate a proposal, brought before the House in February 1916, by U.S. Rep. Denver Church, D-California, who similarly called for a popular vote before any declaration of war. However, it's not clear if this was separate to the \"Nebraska\" proposal, or one and the same. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/The_Fresno_Morning_Republican_Sun__Feb_13__1916_.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "On May 9, 1933, U.S. Rep. Wesley Lloyd, D-Washington, proposed House Joint Resolution 178, which called for a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to set \"the maximum amount of wealth allowed to any one individual\" at a ceiling of \"1,000,000 gold dollars.\" It's not clear at what stage the proposal died, but it does not appear to have reached a vote in either house. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211022111558/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1933-pt3-v77/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1933-pt3-v77-11-1.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Since the 1910s, several members of Congress advocated for the introduction of referendums as a prerequisite for the United States' entering a war. Most notably, between 1935 and 1936, U.S. Rep. Louis Ludlow, D-Indiana, embarked on what one historian described as a \"war referendum crusade.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/Ludlow_War_Referendum.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The proposal was considered by the House Judiciary Committee, but appears to have gone no further. In a copy of the resolution provided to the committee and now held by the National Archives an unknown individual added a handwritten note ironically suggesting an additional section: \"That period of time, commonly known as Saturday night, is hereby stricken from the calendars of the United States, and abolished.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/10/28015-scaled.jpg" ] }, { "sentence": "This one appears to be referring to one of two tax-related proposed constitutional amendments put forward in 1947 by U.S. Rep. Noah Mason, R-Illinois. We haven't yet been able to locate the exact wording of those proposals, but we know that a subsequent compendium of proposed constitutional amendments, compiled by the U.S. Senate Library, described House Joint Resolutions 24 and 256 as both being \"relative to taxes on incomes, inheritances and gifts.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=BeoaAAAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PP10&hl=en", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proposed_Amendments_to_the_Constitution/BeoaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22h.+j.+res.+24%22+1947&pg=PA99&printsec=frontcover", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proposed_Amendments_to_the_Constitution/BeoaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22h.%20j.%20res.%20256%22%201947" ] }, { "sentence": "We also know that in the previous Congress, in 1945, Mason a Welsh-born conservative Republican had proposed House Joint Resolution 88, which the same compendium described as proposing to \"repeal the Sixteenth Amendment\" which allowed Congress to levy a federal income tax without having to distribute those monies among the states as well as limiting \"income, gift and inheritance tax to 25 percent.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proposed_Amendments_to_the_Constitution/BeoaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22h.+j.+res.+88%22+1945&pg=PA94&printsec=frontcover" ] }, { "sentence": "In May 1948, U.S. Rep. Oren Harris, D-Arkansas, introduced a proposal to amend the Constitution as follows: \"The right of any number of citizens to voluntarily segregate themselves from others for any lawful purpose shall not be denied.\" ", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=BeoaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=1948+%22segregate+themselves%22+constitutional+amendment&source=bl&ots=GW8pf9Pa_w&sig=ACfU3U3A38jgUOyNHl4oXTE5T5DWKztNTw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjS2rjDuOvzAhW9hHIEHcRzC78Q6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=1948%20%22segregate%20themselves%22%20constitutional%20amendment&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "Harris, who opposed racial desegregation, was explicitly responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Shelley vs. Kraemer, which had been published just days earlier. In that opinion, the Court had ruled that racially restrictive covenants which were relatively common at that time and prohibited homeowners in historically white neighborhoods from selling their houses to non-white buyers violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/The_Camden_News_Wed__May_12__1948_.pdf", "https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/334us1" ] }, { "sentence": "In 1968, U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisconsin, proposed a constitutional amendment that stated simply \"Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment. The United States and every state shall guarantee this right.\"", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2021/10/Problems-in-Environmental-Protection-and-Human-Rights_-A-Human-Ri.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Nelson, a progressive Democrat, environmentalist and co-founder of Earth Day, proposed the same amendment again in January 1970, explaining: ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20211026185639/https://www.nelsonearthday.net/docs/nelson_222-1_cr_19Jan70_envir_resolution.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-last-interrogation/", "claim": "Police Interview Room Suicide", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "01/03/2005", "sci_digest": [ "Video shows a suspect in a police shooting committing suicide in an interview room." ], "justification": "Claim: Video shows a suspect in a police shooting committing suicide in an interview room. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2004] Is this video real? GRAPHIC IMAGE WARNING: Video shows a suicide by gunshot. Origins: Movies and television have planted sensationalized images of certain phenomena into the public consciousness, to the extent that when most of us see the real thing, we're disappointed that it seems so mundane. In films and television programs, automobile crashes are always slam-bang affairs that inevitably end with one or more cars bursting into flame and exploding; thunder is always a very loud, sharp, and short report which occurs simultaneously with a bolt of lightning (rather than a slow, distant, gradually increasing rumbling which arrives well after the lightning flash); and gunshots are usually depicted as producing ear-splitting volumes of sound and, when aimed at another human being, resulting in plenty of gore and splatter. It's no wonder, then, that when the above-displayed video of a detainee shooting himself while in police custody began to circulate, many viewers were skeptical of its authenticity by Hollywood standards, it's so tame as to be almost surreal. As depicted in the video, an uncuffed suspect enters an interrogation room and sits down in a chair, followed by an officer who dumps some keys and sunglasses on a table, checks his cell phone, and leaves the room momentarily. The officer returns several seconds later with a bottle of water and a cup of coffee, then hands the water bottle to the suspect, checks his cell phone again, picks up the coffee, and exits the room a second time leaving the suspect alone and unrestrained, and the door open. The suspect takes a couple of swigs of water, then calmly reaches into his pants with his other hand, pulls out a large-caliber handgun, and shoots himself in the left temple. But what we see in the video is nothing like what most of us might expect. The soon-to-be suicide victim is neither visibly nervous nor distraught as he freely pulls out a gun and places it against his head. (He even replaces the cap on the water bottle before pulling the trigger.) The weapon does not produce an ear-shattering concussive sound in the small room, blood and brain matter don't splatter all over the walls, and the victim's body isn't hurtled out of the chair and onto the floor. The gun makes a sharp popping sound as the suspect shoots himself, blood streams from the victim's head and mouth, his hands drop the gun and water bottle to the floor, and his body slumps but slightly in the chair. Even more unusual to many viewers is the officer's reaction to this event. He doesn't respond with any of the emotions most of us might feel, such as fear, panic, terror, or disgust. Nor does he rush to the victim's aid, check him for signs of life, summon help, or otherwise raise an alarm. \"Oh, fuck,\" he exclaims as he re-enters the room, puts his coffee down on the table, and surveys the scene for a second or two, then adds \"Holy fuck.\" When a second (unseen) officer inquires \"What did he do?\" he responds with, \"Nobody shook him\" (i.e., nobody searched the suspect for weapons), then calmly retrieves the keys and sunglasses and leaves the room. Throughout the short video, the officer's actions seem almost nonchalant: he doesn't act the least bit shocked or horrified that a human being has just died a violent death right in front of him. Instead, the foremost thought on his mind seems to be concern that someone's going to get into big trouble for the oversight of allowing a detainee to retain a weapon. (We realize, of course, that all of this would be viewed quite differently from a police perspective. Officers undergo thorough instruction in the handling and use of firearms, they generally see far more blood and violence on the job than most of us will experience in our lifetimes, and they're trained to respond to emergency situations by following proper procedure rather than reacting with fear or panic. We're simply presenting the average person's reaction to this video, as reflected in the e-mail we've received from readers who have viewed it.) The circumstances behind this video took place on 19 December 2003, when 47-year-old Ricardo Alfonso Cerna was stopped for a traffic violation at about 9:30 A.M. in Muscoy (a residential suburb of San Bernardino County, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles). Cerna fled the scene (in his car and then on foot) before shooting the pursuing officer, sheriff's deputy Michael Parham, twice in the abdomen. (Deputy Parham survived the shooting.) Cerna was soon arrested by San Bernardino police and taken to sheriff's headquarters on Third Street, where he was placed in an interview room just before 11 A.M. in preparation for questioning by Bobby Dean, head of the San Bernardino County sheriff's homicide unit. When Dean stepped out of the room briefly to speak with a detective in the hallway, Cerna pulled the .45-caliber handgun out of his pants and shot himself in the head. Evidently a chain of mistakes led to Cerna, a shooting suspect, being taken into custody without either the arresting officers or the booking officers discovering he had a large, heavy handgun concealed on his person: [Sheriff Gary] Penrod said deputies failed to adequately search Cerna before he was put in a car, and again when he was transferred to the homicide division office. Each receiving deputy may have wrongly assumed the previous officer adequately searched the man, he said. Penrod said confusion among the three agencies involved the Highway Patrol, San Bernardino police and the Sheriff's Department may have contributed to the oversight. \"Obviously there was a mistake made,\" Penrod said by phone. \"It was hectic and it was a guy who was cuffed by somebody other than the transporting officer. (This apparently egregious oversight led to conspiracy-theory speculation in some quarters that Cerna had been \"executed\" by the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, or that the sheriff returned the gun to Cerna and urged him to commit suicide with it the completely implausible scenario of officers' deliberately handing a loaded gun to a suspect who had already shot one policeman notwithstanding.) executed returned As to how the video of Cerna's suicide made it onto the Internet, sheriff's spokesman Chip Patterson said: [A] ranking official at the department was authorized to show the video during a presentation on officer safety at the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Va., several months ago. Following the presentation, dozens of copies of the video were made at the request of law-enforcement agencies across the country. Officials of those agencies wanted the copies for training purposes. Sheriff's officials do not know who might have leaked the video to the public. Some of the officers involved in Cerna's arrest and handling were subjected to disciplinary action, but sheriff's officials wouldn't comment on the specifics of that action or identify the officers involved. Last updated: 19 January 2014 Nelson, Joe. \"Sheriff's Detainee's Suicide Put on Web.\" San Bernardino County Sun. 21 December 2004. Associated Press. \"Arrestee Pulls Hidden Gun, Kills Self.\" CNN.com. 20 December 2003.", "issues": [ "returns" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1m07IJbneLXhaxCyzFQGUgKJ2vgYqc_Ry", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "(This apparently egregious oversight led to conspiracy-theory speculation in some quarters that Cerna had been \"executed\" by the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, or that the sheriff returned the gun to Cerna and urged him to commit suicide with it the completely implausible scenario of officers' deliberately handing a loaded gun to a suspect who had already shot one policeman notwithstanding.)", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20040208002228/https://www.aztlan.net/policeexecution.htm", "https://web.archive.org/web/20040208063739/https://www.aztlan.net/gungiventocerna.htm" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elijah-cummings-said-democrats-gave-black-people-the-right-to-vote/", "claim": "Elijah Cummings Said Democrats Gave Black People the Right to Vote?", "author": "Kim LaCapria", "posted": "07/27/2016", "sci_digest": [ "A meme claiming Rep. Elijah Cummings misattributed responsibility for the 15th Amendment during his 2016 DNC speech was mostly inaccurate itself." ], "justification": "Around 25 July 2016, various versions of the claim reproduced above began circulating, suggesting that Representative Elijah Cummings incorrectly stated Democrats were responsible for giving black people the right to vote during his 2016 Democratic National Convention speech: speech The portion most in line with the meme included the following remarks: It was our Democratic party that pushed open the opportunities for me and millions of children across this great country. It was our party that fought for head start and good schools. And made college affordable and championed affirmative actions and school desegregation, that passed Social Security and Medicare, that fought for veterans back home, that fought for the rights of workers and made the dream of home ownership possible for millions of american families. Yes, it still is our Democratic party. Civil rights and voting rights -- and voting rights. As we democrats -- it is we Democrats who fully understand when you take away a person's right to vote, you take away their ability to shape their own destiny. And it was and it is our democratic party that fights for women's rights, gay rights, the LGBTQ rights. Our party understands that black lives matter. Cummings' quote was ambiguous, but he appeared to say that the Democrats \"fought\" for civil rights and voting rights, a fairly open-ended statement. Many critics held that Cummings' statement was incorrect based on historical fact: The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the \"right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.\" Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means, Southern states were able to effectively disenfranchise African Americans. It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote. The meme reproduced above stated that 141 Republicans voted to approve the 15th Amendment, with zero Democrats in favor, 39 no votes, and seven abstentions. According to the Library of Congress the vote was as follows: voted The House of Representatives passed the 15th Amendment on February 25, 1869, by a vote of 144 to 44 The Senate passed the 15th Amendment on February 26, 1869, by a vote of 39 to 13. The text of the 15th Amendment can be found in the United States Statutes at Large, volume 16, page 346 (15 Stat. 346).Secretary of State Hamilton Fish issued a proclamation certifying the ratification of the 15th Amendment by the states on March 30, 1870. A detailed tally of Senate Vote #586 in January 1869 indicated support by Republicans with 33 \"yea\" votes, and zero for Democrats: indicated While the meme was close to accurate in providing tallies by party for votes on the 15th amendment, it was less so with Cummings' remarks. Putting aside the fact it did not mention any changes in party dynamics between the 1940s and 1970s [PDF], it also misconstrued Cummings' statements to suggest that he incorrectly attributed the 15th amendment specifically to Democrats and not Republicans. PDF C-SPAN. \"Representative Elijah Cummings Delivers Remarks at the Democratic National Convention.\"\r 25 July 2016. PBS. \"Passage Of The Fifteenth Amendment.\"\r (Undated.) Library of Congress. \"15th Amendment To The Constitution.\"\r (Undated.) C-SPAN. \"Representative Elijah Cummings Delivers Remarks at the Democratic National Convention.\"\r 25 July 2016.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=19rz7l1WpaHbUT3NxDc7Nay-NGn9evUUe", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Around 25 July 2016, various versions of the claim reproduced above began circulating, suggesting that Representative Elijah Cummings incorrectly stated Democrats were responsible for giving black people the right to vote during his 2016 Democratic National Convention speech:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4613322" ] }, { "sentence": "The meme reproduced above stated that 141 Republicans voted to approve the 15th Amendment, with zero Democrats in favor, 39 no votes, and seven abstentions. According to the Library of Congress the vote was as follows:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html" ] }, { "sentence": "A detailed tally of Senate Vote #586 in January 1869 indicated support by Republicans with 33 \"yea\" votes, and zero for Democrats:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/40-3/s586" ] }, { "sentence": "While the meme was close to accurate in providing tallies by party for votes on the 15th amendment, it was less so with Cummings' remarks. Putting aside the fact it did not mention any changes in party dynamics between the 1940s and 1970s [PDF], it also misconstrued Cummings' statements to suggest that he incorrectly attributed the 15th amendment specifically to Democrats and not Republicans.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/reversal2.pdf" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dead-fairy/", "claim": "Is This a Photograph of a Dead Fairy?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "05/07/2007", "sci_digest": [ "A photograph purportedly shows the remains of an 8-inch, mummified fairy found in Derbyshire." ], "justification": "Most of the April Fool's pranks that appear on the Internet on or around April 1 have petered out by a day or two later; some of the more subtle satirical articles may continue to circulate for a few days longer before some readers recognize them as humor rather than genuine news stories. For whatever reason, though, a \"mummified fairy\" prank of 2007 was still going strong well after April 1 had come and gone, even though its creator had long since admitted to the hoax and the fictional tale had been exposed by major news outlets: Do fairies live at the bottom of your garden? Maybe not anymore but a recent discovery would suggest that they probably did. What appear to be the mummified remains of a fairy have been discovered in the Derbyshire countryside. The 8 inch remains complete with wings, skin, teeth and flowing red hair have been examined by archaeologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine. X-rays of the fairy reveal an anatomically identical skeleton to that of a child. The bones, however, are hollow like those of a bird making them particularly light. The puzzling presence of a navel even suggests that the beings reproduce the same as humans despite the absence of reproductive organs. The mummified fairy supposedly found in Derbyshire by a dog walker at Firestone Hill near Duffield was the work of former Derbyshire resident Dan Baines, a prop maker. Baines posted an article (titled \"Do Fairies Live at the Bottom of Your Garden?\") presenting an elaborate backstory about the creature's discovery, along with several close-up photographs of the small, detailed fairy figure he created, on a web site a few days before April Fool's Day 2007. The hoax was quite the hit for a few days as netizens debated its details and origins, and then on April 1 Baines 'fessed up by appending the following message to his fairy article: article Thank you for the interest you have shown in my story. Even if you believe in fairies, as I personally do, there will always have been an element of doubt in your mind that would suggest the remains are a hoax. However, the magic created by the possibility of the fairy being real is something you will remember for the rest of your life. Alas the fairy is fake but my interest and belief has allowed me to create a work of art that is convincing and magical. I was also interested to see if fairy folklore is still a valid belief in modern society and I am pleased to say that yes it is! I have had more response from believers than I ever thought possible. As well as an artist I am also a magician and you have been my fantastic audience. That spark of magic ignited your imagination and made your day more memorable and exciting. I believe fairies to be Earth spirits rather than physical beings so my performance was slightly flawed. The question stills begs to answered though, are they made of flesh and blood like you and I? I hope you have not been offended by the events of the past few days but if you are I sincerely apologise. It took 50 years for the Cottingley fairies to be revealed as a hoax; at least youve only had to endure a few days of mystery. The prank was even prominent enough to merit coverage by the BBC: Photographs of a mummified fairy supposedly found in Derbyshire have been revealed as an April Fool's prank. Former Derbyshire resident Dan Baines, 31, who designs illusions for magicians, made the fairy as a prank. The site got 20,000 hits in one day from fairy believers. \"Although I've said it's a hoax, people still believe that it's real,\" said Mr Baines. \"They believe this is just a cover-up so let the illusion continue.\" He added that it had taken him four hours a day to answer all of his emails. \"I've had all sorts of comments including people who say they've seen exactly the same things and one person who told me to return the remains to the grave site as soon as possible or face the consequences,\" he said. The fairy is about eight inches long with details such as a navel, ears and hair added for authenticity. Mr Baines added that he had now become addicted to April Fool's jokes and told people to \"watch this space\" for future pranks. Dan Baines later put his fairy figure up for auction on eBay, where it fetched a high bid of 280.00. eBay BBC News. \"Fairy Fool Sparks Huge Response.\"\r 1 April 2007. The Sun Online. \"Mummy Fetches Fairy Good Price.\"\r 11 April 2007.", "issues": [ "interest" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Rl8YisDCCjgAytoYIoJ5Ra05o25iPxHZ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The mummified fairy supposedly found in Derbyshire by a dog walker at Firestone Hill near Duffield was the work of former Derbyshire resident Dan Baines, a prop maker. Baines posted an article (titled \"Do Fairies Live at the Bottom of Your Garden?\") presenting an elaborate backstory about the creature's discovery, along with several close-up photographs of the small, detailed fairy figure he created, on a web site a few days before April Fool's Day 2007. The hoax was quite the hit for a few days as netizens debated its details and origins, and then on April 1 Baines 'fessed up by appending the following message to his fairy article:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20070406172838/https://www.lebanoncircle.co.uk/DeadFairy.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Dan Baines later put his fairy figure up for auction on eBay, where it fetched a high bid of 280.00. ", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20070522000638/https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK:MESE:IT&viewitem=&item=150107258059" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-jobs-iran-nuclear-deal/", "claim": "Did Trump Kill 100,000 Boeing Jobs By Pulling Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal?", "author": "Bethania Palma", "posted": "05/09/2018", "sci_digest": [ "A viral meme circulating on Facebook jumps to conclusions about the effects of the president's backing out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action." ], "justification": "On 8 March 2018, the liberal Facebook page \"The Other 98%\" posted a meme reporting that 100,000 jobs at aerospace and airplane manufacturing giant Boeing will be lost because President Donald Trump has reneged on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal: The claim that 100,000 American manufacturing jobs would be lost likely came from a Marketwatch report, which states: report Boeing announced the largest of its deals with Iranian airlines in December 2016: 80 jets for Iran Air including 50 of the 737 MAX 8 model. In April 2017, Iran Aseman Airlines signed an agreement to purchase 30 Boeing 737 MAX planes, with an option to buy 30 more. Boeing at the time said the Iran Air deal would support 100,000 U.S. jobs. Dan Curran, a spokesman for Boeing, told us in a statement that the company expects the effect on jobs from the policy reversal to be \"minimal,\" if there's any at all: The production plan that we have put in place was not and is not dependent on the Iranian orders. Boeing has a robust sales backlog of more than 5,800 airplanes, which represents about 7 years of production. Iranian airlines were not included in our order backlog. And there has been no change to our backlog or production rates as a result of the Administrations announcement. At an event in Washington, D.C., Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company had planned for the possibility that the U.S. could back out of the agreement by not committing production slots for planes slated for Iran. event It's too early to know how blowback from the policy reversal will impact Boeing and the economy as a whole, as financial publication TheStreet.com points out: Bernstein's analysts said there may be as much of a chance for Boeing to profit on an Iran fallout as not. \"For defense contractors with significant Middle Eastern exposure, heightened regional tensions could drive increased demand for missile defense, in particular, but potentially also aircraft, ships, missiles, and vehicles,\" Harned and company wrote. [...] Various analysts, including Seaport's Sullivan and Bernstein's Harned, Laughlin and Sheey, were not overly concerned with Boeing falling behind on that production rate. The company has said it did not model the Iranian order into its production rate forecast for the 777 and the order was not part of its firm backlog of those jets as of April, which totaled 94. Any loss to 737 deliveries due to the Iranian deal would also be immaterial given the company had a backlog of 4,622 of those jets as of April. French aircraft dealer Airbus will also lose roughly $20 billion in business as a result of Trump's decision, because although the company is based in Europe, parts used to manufacture the planes are made in the United States. Among other large companies that stand to lose as a result of the decision are General Electric, Volkswagen, and Total, as CNN Money reports: reports Total (TOT), the French oil and gas company, signed a $2 billion agreement to help develop Iran's giant South Pars gas field, together with Chinese state oil company CNPC. Now the company is worried the agreement could collapse in the face of new sanctions. General Electric (GE) received millions of dollars in orders from Iran in 2017, according to company filings, for its oil and gas business. This includes orders for machine parts and equipment used in gas plants. [...] And in 2017, Germany's Volkswagen (VLKAF) announced that it would sell cars in Iran for the first time in 17 years. Koning Beals, Rachel.\"Boeing Will Lose Out on $20 Billion in Iran Deals as Airbus, GE Impacted.\"\rMarketwatch.8 May 2018. Terrarosa, Tom.\"Boeing's Gains From Rising War Fears Could Offset Lost Iran Jet Deal.\"\rTheStreet.com.9 May 2018. Riley, Charles, and Horowitz, Julia.\"Iran Deal: Who Loses as US Sanctions Return.\"\rCNN Money.9 May 2018. DiChristopher, Tom.\"Trump's Iran Nuclear Deal Exit May Spark a Sanctions Battle With Europe That Uncle Sam Already Lost Once.\"\rCNBC.9 May 2018. Tankersley, Jim, andKitroeff, Natalie. \"Boeing C.E.O. Downplays Loss of $20 Billion Contract With Iran.\"\rThe New York Times.9 May 2018.", "issues": [ "profit" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ELDrO6CU0TDy_8mOcz-qXqDFXkH7rQtZ", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The claim that 100,000 American manufacturing jobs would be lost likely came from a Marketwatch report, which states:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boeing-will-lose-out-on-20-billion-in-iran-deals-as-airbus-ge-impacted-2018-05-08" ] }, { "sentence": "At an event in Washington, D.C., Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company had planned for the possibility that the U.S. could back out of the agreement by not committing production slots for planes slated for Iran.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/us/politics/boeing-ceo-iran.html" ] }, { "sentence": "French aircraft dealer Airbus will also lose roughly $20 billion in business as a result of Trump's decision, because although the company is based in Europe, parts used to manufacture the planes are made in the United States. Among other large companies that stand to lose as a result of the decision are General Electric, Volkswagen, and Total, as CNN Money reports:", "hrefs": [ "https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/08/investing/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-sanctions-losers/index.html" ] } ], "label": "neutral" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/feb/12/john-boehner/boehner-says-stimulus-no-triumph-if-unemployment-s/", "claim": "Despite touting the economic stimulus as a great triumph, The very same report, however, notes that unemployment will average 10 percent for the rest of the year.", "author": "Robert Farley", "posted": "02/11/2010", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Soon after the White House released the Economic Report of the President on Feb. 11, 2010, Republicans derided its boast that the massive economic stimulus championed by President Barack Obama may in time be viewed as one of the great triumphs of timely, effective countercyclical macroeconomic policy.Washington Democrats still dont get it, House Republican Leader John Boehner wrote in a press release. Two days after the president brushed off Republicans' concerns that Democrats' job-killing policies are causing great uncertainty for small businesses, the White House is now declaring in a new report that the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' will be one of historys 'great triumphs.' The very same report, however, notes that unemployment will average 10 percent for the rest of the year. The Obama administration promised the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' would create jobs 'immediately' and keep joblessness below 8 percent.The report does, in fact, project that the unemployment rate will hover at about 10 percent through this year. With many press accounts of the economic report highlighting the forecast that job gains for 2010 will average 95,000 a month, those two facts may seem at odds. They are not.A certain number of jobs need to be created every month simply to hold the unemployment rate stable, said Gary Burtless, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. That's because the working-age population is growing.In addition, as the job market improves -- or is even perceived as improving -- some people who had given up on looking for work may get back in the game and be added to the unemployed ranks. So there would have to be about 100,000 jobs added a month just for the unemployment rate to tread water.Even still, the report says, there's evidence the labor market is stabilizing.That's because the economy shed 691,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2009, 428,000 in the second quarter, 199,000 in the third, and 69,000 in the fourth. So to have the number of jobs increasing even moderately is an improvement.But Boehner's statement includes an assumption masquerading as a fact: It's that the stimulus has failed if unemployment rates remain at 10 percent through the year. While Boehner and other Republicans have long cited rising unemployment as proof that the stimulus hasn't created jobs, many reputable and independent economists say it has, and that the unemployment rate would be even worse without it. The Economic Report of the President estimates the stimulus has already saved or created 1.5 million to 2 million jobs, and is on track to save 3.5 million by the end of this year. We gave President Obama aHalf Truewhen he claimed in his State of the Union address that the stimulus has already saved or created 2 million jobs, because that was on the high side of projections from his Council of Economic Advisers, the independent Congressional Budget Office and several other reputable economic forecasters. But we should note all of those forecasters put the number north of 1 million jobs.In other words, just because the unemployment rate may stay at a whopping 10 percent, doesn't mean that the stimulus didn't prevent an even worse catastrophe, Burtless said.As for the last bit of Boehner's statement, we gave aBarely Trueto House Republican Whip Eric Cantor and other Republicans who have continued to claim that Obama promised the stimulus would keep unemployment rates below 8 percent. That was a forecast based on where the unemployment rate was expected to go without a stimulus. That forecast was in line with other independent forecasts at the time, but proved overly optimistic, as Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged again in a press conference on Feb. 11, 2010.So Boehner is correct that the president's economic report forecasts the unemployment rate will remain at 10 percent through this year (even as jobs are added). But again, when Boehner cites that statistic as proof that the stimulus is having no immediate effect on jobless rates as promised, it ignores the possibility that if not for the stimulus the unemployment rate might be even worse. Many economic forecasters believe that's exactly the case. Still, projections about the number of jobs saved or created by the stimulus are just that, projections. And many economists believe it is still way too early to measure its effectiveness. But we think it's misleading to simply point to a stagnant unemployment rate as proof that the stimulus isn't working. And so we rate Boehner's statement Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Economy", "Stimulus" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "While Boehner and other Republicans have long cited rising unemployment as proof that the stimulus hasn't created jobs, many reputable and independent economists say it has, and that the unemployment rate would be even worse without it. The Economic Report of the President estimates the stimulus has already saved or created 1.5 million to 2 million jobs, and is on track to save 3.5 million by the end of this year. We gave President Obama aHalf Truewhen he claimed in his State of the Union address that the stimulus has already saved or created 2 million jobs, because that was on the high side of projections from his Council of Economic Advisers, the independent Congressional Budget Office and several other reputable economic forecasters. But we should note all of those forecasters put the number north of 1 million jobs.In other words, just because the unemployment rate may stay at a whopping 10 percent, doesn't mean that the stimulus didn't prevent an even worse catastrophe, Burtless said.As for the last bit of Boehner's statement, we gave aBarely Trueto House Republican Whip Eric Cantor and other Republicans who have continued to claim that Obama promised the stimulus would keep unemployment rates below 8 percent. That was a forecast based on where the unemployment rate was expected to go without a stimulus. That forecast was in line with other independent forecasts at the time, but proved overly optimistic, as Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged again in a press conference on Feb. 11, 2010.So Boehner is correct that the president's economic report forecasts the unemployment rate will remain at 10 percent through this year (even as jobs are added). But again, when Boehner cites that statistic as proof that the stimulus is having no immediate effect on jobless rates as promised, it ignores the possibility that if not for the stimulus the unemployment rate might be even worse. Many economic forecasters believe that's exactly the case. Still, projections about the number of jobs saved or created by the stimulus are just that, projections. And many economists believe it is still way too early to measure its effectiveness. But we think it's misleading to simply point to a stagnant unemployment rate as proof that the stimulus isn't working. And so we rate Boehner's statement Mostly True.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/27/barack-obama/obama-claims-two-million-more-americans-would-be-u/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/channing-tatum-jenna-dewan-divorce/", "claim": "Did Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan Break Up?", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "04/04/2018", "sci_digest": [ "The celebrity couple announced they had \"lovingly chosen to separate\" in April 2018." ], "justification": "In April 2018, actor Channing Tatum and his wife, actor and dancer Jenna Dewan Tatum, announced plans to separate after nine years of marriage. In an era of celebrity hoaxes, the news was greeted with skepticism by some of our readers. It's true. On 3 April, the pair published a joint statement on their respective Instagram accounts that confirmed their impending separation: Instagram accounts Hey world! So... We have something we would like to share. First off, it feels odd that we have to share this kind of thing with everyone, but it's a consequence of the lives we've chosen to lead, which we also happen to be deeply grateful for. We're living in an incredible moment in time, but it's also a time where truth can easily get distorted into \"alternative facts\" ;) So we want to share the truth so you know that if you didn't read it here then it's most certainly fiction. We have lovingly chosen to separate as a couple. We fell deeply in love so many years ago and have had a magical journey together. Absolutely nothing has changed about how much we love one another, but love is a beautiful adventure that is taking us on different paths for now. There are no secrets nor salacious events at the root of our decision -- just two best friends realizing it's time to take some space and help each other live the most joyous, fulfilled lives as possible. We are still a family and will always be loving, dedicated parents to Everly. We won't be commenting beyond this, and we thank you all in advance for respecting our family's privacy. Sending lots of love to everyone, Chan&Jenna. The couple, who starred together in the 2006 movie Step Up, were married in 2009. They have one daughter, Everly, who was born in 2013. married born Wihlborg, Ulrica. \"Inside Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan's Malibu Wedding.\"\r People. 12 July 2009. Bull, Sarah; Sheridan, Emily. \"And Baby Makes Three! Channing Tatum and Wife Jenna Confirm Birth of Daughter Everly.\"\r Daily Mail. 4 June 2013.", "issues": [ "share" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17xAW6ILGPlkTbtyTW-gJMeOoBYhMyay3", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In an era of celebrity hoaxes, the news was greeted with skepticism by some of our readers. It's true. On 3 April, the pair published a joint statement on their respective Instagram accounts that confirmed their impending separation:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.instagram.com/p/BhFuWBaBGqc/", "https://www.instagram.com/p/BhFuWDWHVkN/" ] }, { "sentence": "The couple, who starred together in the 2006 movie Step Up, were married in 2009. They have one daughter, Everly, who was born in 2013. ", "hrefs": [ "https://people.com/celebrity/inside-channing-tatum-and-jenna-dewan-s-malibu-wedding/", "https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2335563/Channing-Tatum-wife-Jenna-confirm-birth-daughter-Everly.html" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pierre-rehov/", "claim": "The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombings", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "08/17/2006", "sci_digest": [ " E-mail reproduces interview with documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov about the psychology of terrorism." ], "justification": "Claim: E-mail reproduces interview with documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov about the psychology of terrorism. Status: True. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombings By Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker On July 15, MSNBC's \"Connected\" program discussed the July 7th London attacks. One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre's upcoming film, \"Suicide Killers,\" is based oninterviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film. Q - What inspired you to produce \"Suicide Killers,\" your seventh film? A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up. Q - Why is this film especially important? A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude. Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know? A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution. Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings? A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying \"Thank God, my son is dead.\" Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what theybelieve to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy. Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power? A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They thereforeexperience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword. Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology. A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise. Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction? A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way? A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderateMuslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of theProphecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers. A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior. Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings? A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations throughdifferent networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel). Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision? A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide. Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men? A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman? Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation? A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a dooropen by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N. is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. hasmaintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to \"return\" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film \"Hostages of Hatred\"). Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean. A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it. Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East? A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning. Origins: Pierre Rehov is an Algerian-born filmmaker (his family left Algeria for France in 1961, when he was nine years old) who has Pierre Rehov produced a number of documentaries about the Middle East, primarily focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the wake of the 7 July 2005 terrorist bombings in London, he made a number of appearances on television news programs to discuss the causes and nature of terrorism and his experiences in producing films about the subject. Those appearances included a 15 July 2005 interview for MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, the text of which is reproduced above. documentaries bombings appearances Connected We haven't yet been able to obtain a transcript of the 15 July 2005 Connected program, so we can't guarantee that what is reproduced above is a 100% complete and accurate reproduction of Pierre Rehov's interview. However, we have verified that he was interviewed on Connected that day, that the substance of his remarks matched what is contained in the e-mail quoted at the head of this page, and that he offered substantially similar comments on other news programs around the same time as his Connected appearance. comments Last updated: 17 August 2006 Sources: CNN Live Saturday. \"The Psychology of a Suicide Bomber.\" CNN.com. 23 July 2005.", "issues": [ "taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Origins: Pierre Rehov is an Algerian-born filmmaker (his family left Algeria for France in 1961, when he was nine years old) who has", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pierrerehov.com/about.htm" ] }, { "sentence": " produced a number of documentaries about the Middle East, primarily focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the wake of the 7 July 2005 terrorist bombings in London, he made a number of appearances on television news programs to discuss the causes and nature of terrorism and his experiences in producing films about the subject. Those appearances included a 15 July 2005 interview for MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, the text of which is reproduced above.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.pierrerehov.com/films.htm", "https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2005/london_explosions/default.stm", "https://www.pierrerehov.com/media.htm", "https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6862172/" ] }, { "sentence": "We haven't yet been able to obtain a transcript of the 15 July 2005 Connected program, so we can't guarantee that what is reproduced above is a 100% complete and accurate reproduction of Pierre Rehov's interview. However, we have verified that he was interviewed on Connected that day, that the substance of his remarks matched what is contained in the e-mail quoted at the head of this page, and that he offered substantially similar comments on other news programs around the same time as his Connected appearance.", "hrefs": [ "https://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/23/cst.03.html" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/house-25-million-raise-covid/", "claim": "Did the House Give Itself a $25M Raise in Coronavirus Aid Bill?", "author": "David Mikkelson", "posted": "03/31/2020", "sci_digest": [ "Rumors claimed that U.S. representatives were using coronavirus aid legislation to give themselves a pay raise. " ], "justification": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO On March 27, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2.2 trillion economic relief package to assist Americans affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The bill's most publicized feature was that the federal government would be sending $1,200 checks to every adult with an adjusted annual gross income of less than $75,000. CARES While negotiations over CARES were underway, social media posts contended that members of Congress or, more specifically, \"[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the Democrats\" were attempting to sneak a $25 million pay raise for themselves into the bill: However, neither the bill as passed, nor any previous version of it, included a $25 million pay raise for members of Congress. That misperception appeared to arise from a portion of the bill labeled \"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES\" which set aside $25 million for \"Salaries and Expenses\": HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Salaries And Expenses For an additional amount for Salaries and Expenses, $25,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2021, except that $5,000,000 shall remain available until expended, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, to be allocated in accordance with a spend plan submitted to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives by the Chief Administrative Officer and approved by such Committee: Provided, That such amount is designated by the Congress as being for an emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. As Evan Hollander, a communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, explained, these funds were not allocated to provide pay increases to House members: The $25 million funding is to support the Houses capability to telework, including for the purchase of equipment and improvements to the network, he said. The allocation also provides money to cover the cost of paying the staff of the House Child Care Center, food service contracts, paying the House sergeant-at-arms. None of the funds will go to member salaries, which are paid directly from the Treasury pursuant to the Constitution, Hollander verified. explained The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits any law from raising (or lowering) the salaries of members of Congress until after the next national election has taken place, so the House could only raise the pay of representatives elected in the November 2020 election or later (which, naturally, could include current House members who successfully sought reelection). 27th Amendment 116th Congress. \"H.R.748 - CARES Act\"\r Accessed 31 March 2020. Seitz, Amanda. \"Federal Rescue Package Doesnt Give ongress Pay Raises.\"\r The Associated Press. 26 March 2020.", "issues": [ "funds" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17G9bvXJullvKikH4P5AJM0wx3iVPxIbW", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. ", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/2020/03/20/snopes-on-covid-19-fact-checking/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/11/one-year-covid-infodemic/", "https://www.snopes.com/tag/covid-19-vaccines/", "https://www.snopes.com/contact/", "https://www.snopes.com/projects/founding-members/", "https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html", "https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019" ] }, { "sentence": "On March 27, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2.2 trillion economic relief package to assist Americans affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The bill's most publicized feature was that the federal government would be sending $1,200 checks to every adult with an adjusted annual gross income of less than $75,000.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748/text" ] }, { "sentence": "As Evan Hollander, a communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, explained, these funds were not allocated to provide pay increases to House members: The $25 million funding is to support the Houses capability to telework, including for the purchase of equipment and improvements to the network, he said. The allocation also provides money to cover the cost of paying the staff of the House Child Care Center, food service contracts, paying the House sergeant-at-arms. None of the funds will go to member salaries, which are paid directly from the Treasury pursuant to the Constitution, Hollander verified.", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/7jsrU" ] }, { "sentence": "The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits any law from raising (or lowering) the salaries of members of Congress until after the next national election has taken place, so the House could only raise the pay of representatives elected in the November 2020 election or later (which, naturally, could include current House members who successfully sought reelection).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxvii" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/oct/12/paul-ryan/paul-ryan-says-canada-now-has-15-percent-corporate/", "claim": "The Canadians they (dropped) their tax rates to 15 percent. The average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent.", "author": "Louis Jacobson", "posted": "10/12/2012", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Canada doesnt often get mentioned in political debates in the United States, but our northern neighbor had a cameo in the vice presidential debate, cited as a bastion of low taxes.Seeking to draw a contrast with the tax policies of President Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin native, said, Where I come from, overseas, which is Lake Superior the Canadians they drop their tax rates to 15 percent. The average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent.We wondered whether Canada was really as much of a low-tax haven as Ryan indicated.Canadian corporate taxesWe found two measurements of Canada's corporate tax rate from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced industrialized nations. Over the past 15 years, the trendline for both has been consistently downward. Since 1998, the central government corporate rate has declined from 29.12 percent to 15 percent today; while the combination of the central and provincial corporate tax rates has fallen from 42.94 percent to 26.1 percent today.So Ryan is right that Canadas national rate was recently lowered to 15 percent -- the culmination of policies put forward by both center-left prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin and current center-right prime minister Stephen Harper, who took office in 2006. Small businesses today have a special, lower rate of 11 percent.Still, its worth noting that when you take into account average provincial tax rates -- the equivalent of state corporate taxes in the U.S. -- the combined corporate tax rate in Canada rises to 26.1 percent.International comparisonsWhat about Ryans claim that the average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent?We can use the same OECD data to check this claim. Averaging the 2012 tax rates for OECD members, we found that the average for the 34 countries studied is just slightly under 25 percent. Thats just as Ryan said.And in case youre wondering, the top U.S. corporate tax rate, including both federal and state taxes, is 39.1 percent. Thats quite a bit higher than Canadas, and since April, it has been the highest corporate tax rate on the books of any OECD nation.Still, the actual tax rate paid by a company will likely be lower than the official rate, due to deductions and exemptions.Our ratingRyan said Canada dropped its corporate tax rates to 15 percent and that the average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent. Hes correct on both counts, though its worth pointing out that provincial taxes boost Canadas rate to 26.1 percent, and that the actual rate paid by specific companies in certain countries, such as the U.S., can be lower than official rates due to deductions and exemptions. We rate Ryans claim Mostly True.", "issues": [ "National", "Taxes" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/oct/14/charlie-crist/rick-scott-changed-terms-his-promise-create-700000/", "claim": "Says Rick Scott changed his promise from700,000 jobs created on top of what normal growth would be to just 700,000 jobs.", "author": "Angie Drobnic Holan", "posted": "10/14/2014", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Whats 700,000 jobs give or take 1 million? Thats the question a new ad from the Charlie Crist campaign hopes to answer for Florida voters. He made a promise, the ad says, showing video of Gov. Rick Scott from the 2010 campaign for governor. Hold me accountable for delivering on the campaign promises I make, Scott says. The ad then shows Scott promising to create 700,000 jobs on top of what normal growth would be. Later, in reaction to a reporters question on that metric, Scott said, No. The ad is paid for by the Florida Democratic Party, but the Crist campaign approved it and promoted it to the media. So were rating it as coming from the Crist campaign. Since 2010, PolitiFact Florida has been tracking Scotts promise to create 700,000 jobs over seven years, so this controversy is very familiar to us. But if youre just tuning in now, well start the story from the beginning. Because of the states housing-driven economy, Florida took a tremendous hit during the financial crash of 2008. By 2010, state economists said that the bottom had hit and Florida would gradually recover. That July, economists predicted that Florida would gradually recover, adding 1 million jobs by 2017 -- no matter who was governor. On July 21, 2010, Scott unveiled his now famous 7-7-7 plan, promising to create 700,000 new jobs in seven years (actuallythe plan was written to create 661,914 jobs, but the Scott campaign rounded up for effect). The jobs would flow from his pro-business, anti-regulation, anti-tax agenda. During the campaign, Scott said that the jobs would come on top of natural growth. Our plan is seven steps to 700,000 jobs, and that plan is on top of what normal growth would be, Scott said duringa 2010 debatehosted by Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association on Oct. 20. (This is the video shown in the Crist ad.) Accounting for normal growth would make the target 1.7 million jobs over seven years. A few months after Scott took office in 2011, though, he started backtracking. First his staff and then Scott himself announced that they would be counting new jobs toward a goal of 700,000, period, not 700,000 on top of natural growth. When an Associated Press reporter reminded Scott in August 2011 that his original promise was 700,000 jobs on top of natural growth, Scott said, No, thats not true. Members of theSun Sentineleditorial board asked Scott in September 2011 if that was his promise -- Your pledge was for 700,000 in addition to normal growth, wasn't it?'' -- andScott said no. At the time, PolitiFact Florida rated Scott's new positiona Full Flopon our Flip-O-Meter. Scott seems to be sticking to his new metric. In May 2013, Scott said the state was already almost halfway to our 2010 goal of creating 700,000 new jobs in seven years when approximately 302,500 net jobs had been created since December 2010. We rated the claim that he was halfway to his 2010 goal as Mostly False, noting that he still had a ways to go to make it to 1.7 million jobs created. His jobs promise, which we track on our Scott-O-Meter, is ratedIn the Works, because Scott promised the jobs would be created over seven years, and he still has three more years to go. The seven-year yardstick is ignored in Crists latest ad. Our ruling Crists ad says that Scott changed 2010 his 2010 promise of 700,000 jobs created on top of what normal growth would be to just 700,000 jobs. Thats a difference of 1 million jobs, as had been projected by economists. The ad provides a concise but accurate summary of Scotts 2010 pledge and then his public statements that modified the terms. We rate the ads statement True.", "issues": [ "Economy", "Jobs", "Florida" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "On July 21, 2010, Scott unveiled his now famous 7-7-7 plan, promising to create 700,000 new jobs in seven years (actuallythe plan was written to create 661,914 jobs, but the Scott campaign rounded up for effect). The jobs would flow from his pro-business, anti-regulation, anti-tax agenda.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/jul/26/rick-scott/rick-scott-touts-7-7-7-plan-create-700000-jobs-sev/" ] }, { "sentence": "Our plan is seven steps to 700,000 jobs, and that plan is on top of what normal growth would be, Scott said duringa 2010 debatehosted by Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association on Oct. 20. (This is the video shown in the Crist ad.)", "hrefs": [ "http://www.c-span.org/video/?296129-1/florida-gubernatorial-debate" ] }, { "sentence": "When an Associated Press reporter reminded Scott in August 2011 that his original promise was 700,000 jobs on top of natural growth, Scott said, No, thats not true. Members of theSun Sentineleditorial board asked Scott in September 2011 if that was his promise -- Your pledge was for 700,000 in addition to normal growth, wasn't it?'' -- andScott said no. At the time, PolitiFact Florida rated Scott's new positiona Full Flopon our Flip-O-Meter.", "hrefs": [ "http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-09-28/news/fl-rick-scott-jobs-promise-20110928_1_rick-scott-job-growth-jobs-in-seven-years" ] }, { "sentence": "His jobs promise, which we track on our Scott-O-Meter, is ratedIn the Works, because Scott promised the jobs would be created over seven years, and he still has three more years to go. The seven-year yardstick is ignored in Crists latest ad.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/florida/promises/scott-o-meter/promise/588/create-over-700000-jobs/" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/healthcare-profit-1973-hmo-act/", "claim": "Was it against the law to make money from healthcare before the introduction of the HMO Act of 1973?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "12/03/2018", "sci_digest": [ "While there are myriad arguments to be made that the legislation contributed to expansion of for-profit insurance companies, the HMO Act of 1973 is misrepresented in memes." ], "justification": "A long-lived but inaccurate meme on social media ties an act signed into law in 1973 by President Richard Nixon to the development of for-profit HMO and health insurance agencies: Did you know that before 1973 it was illegal in the US to profit off health care? The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 passed by Nixon changed everything. In 1973, Nixon did a personal favor for his friend and campaign financier, Edgar Kaiser, then president and chairman of Kaiser-Permanente. Nixon signed into law, the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, in which medical insurance agencies, hospitals, clinics and even doctors, could begin functioning as for-profit business entities instead of the service organizations they were intended to be. And which insurance company got the first taste of federal subsidies to implement HMOA73 *gasp* ... why, it was Kaiser-Permanente! This text conflates two separate issues: the development of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) in conjunction with alleged cozy ties between Kaiser-Permanente and the Nixon Administration, and the legal permissibility of for-profit healthcare. However, as for-profit health care existed prior to 1973, the Health Maintenance Organization Act clearly did not create or enable that phenomenon. The growth of employer-sponsored health insurance was instrumental to the development of the current for-profit healthcare insurance system in America, which arose largely as a result of federally mandated wage freezes that occurred during and after World War II. This progression was described in a history of American Healthcare by Elisabeth Rosenthal, abridged in a Spring 2017 issue of Stanford Medicine: described When the National War Labor Board froze salaries during and after World War II, companies facing severe labor shortages discovered that they could attract workers by offering health insurance instead. To encourage the trend, the federal government ruled that money paid for employees health benefits would not be taxed. This strategy was a win-win in the short term, but in the long term has had some very losing implications ... Within a decade, the model spread across the country. Three million people had signed up by 1939 and the concept had been given a name: Blue Cross Plans. The goal was not to make money, but to protect patient savings and keep hospitals -- and the charitable religious groups that funded them -- afloat. Blue Cross Plans were then not-for-profit. As time wore on and medical science became both more advanced and more expensive, other organizations realized the existence of a market for plans tailored to younger and healthier people, and by 1951 both Aetna and Cigna were major players in offering major medical coverage in a for-profit model: For-profit insurance companies moved in, unencumbered by the Blues charitable mission. They accepted only younger, healthier patients on whom they could make a profit. They charged different rates, depending on factors like age, as they had long done with life insurance. And they produced different types of policies, for different amounts of money, which provided different levels of protection. Aetna and Cigna were both offering major medical coverage by 1951. With aggressive marketing and closer ties to business than to health care, these for-profit plans slowly gained market share through the 1970s and 1980s. It was difficult for the Blues to compete. From a market perspective, the poor Blues still had to worry about their mission of providing high-quality, affordable health care for all. In 1994, after state directors rebelled, the Blues board relented and allowed member plans to become for-profit insurers. Their primary motivation was not to charge patients more, but to gain access to the stock market to raise some quick cash to erase deficits. This was the final nail in the coffin of old-fashioned noble-minded health insurance. It is inaccurate to say that before 1973 it was illegal in the US to profit off of health care, as Aetna and Cigna had been profiting from health care for over 20 years before that. Ballooning health care costs became a serious political issue in the 1970s, and it was in this environment that the concept of HMOs grew in popularity. An HMO differed from the other insurance models in that it was a prepaid, managed plan that granted a patient access to a specifically contracted network of physicians and specialists, generally combined with some form of financing: HMO In traditional managed care plans (e.g., Health Maintenance Organizations) the money follows the \"member,\" whether ill or not. Although there are many definitions of managed care, generally the term describes a continuum of arrangements that integrate the financing and delivery of health care. Purchasers contract with (or \"own\") selected providers to deliver a defined set of services at an agreed per-capita or per-service price. The concept had existed in various forms prior to the 1970s, but during the Nixon administration the HMO model was viewed as the solution to massive increases in government spending taken on by the federal government through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Both liberals and conservatives supported the concept at the time, as described by Stuart Altman and David Shactman in their book Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care: described Richard Nixon was concerned about health care costs. Federal spending for the Medicare and Medicaid programs had surpassed everyone's expectations. Their cost grew from 4.1 percent of the federal budget in 1961 to 11.3 percent by 1973. HMOs seemed to have everything Nixon needed ... They appealed to Nixon and Republican conservatives became they were a free market approach, and they preserved the private insurance market. Moreover, they did not require large government spending as in the case of liberal, Democratic reform proposals. Differences between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans shaped the trajectory of legislation that would become the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, which was signed into law with bipartisan support. The act initially provided $45 million in grants and loans and $300 million in loan guarantees to spur the development of HMOs: initially With support from a broad coalition in Congress, President Nixon secured the passage of the HMO Act of 1973. The Act enabled individual HMOs to receive endorsement (referred to as qualification) from the federal government, and it required employers to offer coverage from at least one federally qualified HMO to all employees (dual choice). However, the dual choice requirement was never enforced, and many large HMOs, including Kaiser, never sought federal qualification. The Act did facilitate growth in HMO enrollment by helping to create several successful HMOs around the country, and it legitimized the HMO concept. Over time, the restrictions on which HMOs could receive federal endorsements were eased in a series of amendments to the act, leading to a massive increase in for-profit HMOs that medical historian Paul Starr described as the conservative appropriation of liberal reform: described Paradoxically, the efforts to control expenditures for health services also stimulated corporate development. The conservative appropriation of liberal reform in the early seventies opened up HMOs as a field for business investment. And in ways entirely unexpected, the regulation of hospitals and other efforts to contain costs set off a wave of acquisitions, mergers, and diversification in the nonprofit as well as profit-making sectors of the medical care industry. Pressure for efficient, business-like management of health care has also contributed to the collapse of the barriers that traditionally prevented corporate control of health services. In this light, it is fair to say that Richard Nixons support for HMOs presaged a dramatic transition in the American healthcare system that increased for-profit health insurance enterprises, but it is not fair to say that the act itself first made for-profit health insurance legal. The primary emotional hook in the meme is the assertion that the HMO Act was a handout to Edgar Kaiser, a friend of Nixons who donated heavily to his campaign for president. It is true that Kaiser advocated on behalf of the HMO Act to Nixons aide John Ehrlichman, and that the concept proposed in the bill was modeled on HMO plans already offered by Kaiser. The claim that the act was a quid pro quo, however, is belied by the fact that the original 1973 act, in its final form, did not allow Kaisers plan to be recognized: advocated not allow While Kaiser Permanente was in operation for many years before, it did serve as a model for the HMO Act of 1973. Paul Ellwood Jr., MD, a community physician working with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, in 1971 found a model for his health maintenance organization vision in Kaiser Permanente ... Ironically, when Nixon signed the HMO Act in 1973 it had been so diluted by the political process from Ellwoods ideas that Kaiser Permanente, a central model at the outset, did not qualify as an HMO until the act was amended four years later. Such a truth also makes the memes claim that Kaiser was the insurance company to get the first taste of federal subsidies incorrect. Additional controversy stems from a conversation between Ehrlichman and Nixon captured in the Nixon White House tapes that makes it sound as though Nixon believed the motivation behind the act was that the less care [insurance companies] give [patients], the more money they make: conversation Ehrlichman: Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can ... the reason he can do it ... I had Edgar Kaiser come in ... talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because ... President Nixon: [Unclear.] Ehrlichman: ... the less care they give them, the more money they make. President Nixon: Fine. [Unclear.] Ehrlichman: [Unclear] ... and the incentives run the right way. President Nixon: Not bad. Kaiser Permanente contended that this was a crude and inarticulate paraphrase of what Edgar Kaiser was trying to explain to Ehrlichman, and that Nixons later statements to Congress about the act made it clear what the two men were attempting to explain. The issue was that doctors needed to be incentivized to provide preventative medicine to reduce overall healthcare costs, but the rate-based, for-profit insurance model currently in play did not provide incentives for this less profitable area of healthcare, unlike HMOs: crude and inarticulate Despite Ehrlichmans miscommunication, Nixon eventually grasped the Kaiser Permanente model of integrated, preventive health care. In a communication to Congress about his Health Strategy Initiative on Feb. 18, 1971, Nixon called health maintenance an important part of a new national health strategy. He continued: If more of our resources were invested in preventing sickness and accidents, Nixon said, fewer would have to be spent on costly cures. If we gave more attention to treating illness in its early stages, then we would be less troubled by acute disease. In short, we should build a true health systemand not a sickness system alone. ... Under traditional systems, doctors and hospitals are paid, in effect, on a piecework basis. The more illnesses they treat, and the more service they render, the more their income rises. This does not mean, of course, that they do any less than their very best to make people well. But it does mean that there is no economic incentive for them to concentrate on keeping people healthy. All told, little factual basis supports the memes assertion that Nixon altered the legality of for-profit insurance by signing the HMO Act of 1973, or its claims that the act was a secret method for Nixon and his cronies to enrich themselves. The only sliver of truth here is the fact that the increase in popularity of HMOs that occurred after passage of the act (and its amendments) greatly expanded for-profit health care in America. Rosenthal, Elisabeth. \"Insurance Policy: How an Industry Shifted from Protecting Patients to Seeking Profit.\"\r Stanford Medicine. Spring 2017. Sekhri, Neelam K. \"Managed Care: The U.S. Experience.\"\r WHO Bulletin. 2000. Altman, Stuart and David Shactman. Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle.\r Prometheus Books, 2011. ISBN 1616144564. Markovich, Martin. \"The Rise of HMOs.\"\r RAND Graduate School Dissertation. 7 August 2003. Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine.\r Basic Books, 2017 (2nd edition). ISBN 0465093027. Kaiser Permanente. \"Kaiser Permanentes Prominent Role in American Health Care Reform.\"\r 22 June 2007. Wikisource. \"Transcript of Taped Conversation Between President Richard Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman (1971) That Led to the HMO Act of 1973.\"\r 17 February 1971.", "issues": [ "stock market" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "The growth of employer-sponsored health insurance was instrumental to the development of the current for-profit healthcare insurance system in America, which arose largely as a result of federally mandated wage freezes that occurred during and after World War II. This progression was described in a history of American Healthcare by Elisabeth Rosenthal, abridged in a Spring 2017 issue of Stanford Medicine:", "hrefs": [ "https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-health-insurance-changed-from-protecting-patients-to-seeking-profit.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Ballooning health care costs became a serious political issue in the 1970s, and it was in this environment that the concept of HMOs grew in popularity. An HMO differed from the other insurance models in that it was a prepaid, managed plan that granted a patient access to a specifically contracted network of physicians and specialists, generally combined with some form of financing:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/78(6)830.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "The concept had existed in various forms prior to the 1970s, but during the Nixon administration the HMO model was viewed as the solution to massive increases in government spending taken on by the federal government through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Both liberals and conservatives supported the concept at the time, as described by Stuart Altman and David Shactman in their book Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care:", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zVBjKdBo2ioC&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=Altman+S,+Shactman+D.+Power,+politics,+and+universal+health+care:+the+inside+story+of+a+century-long+battle.+Amherst,+NY:+Prometheus+Books,+2011.&ots=5Wr-CbBdDS&sig=TkTD7qwh68pYgmblnNmrJS3hE4M#v=onepage&q=Back%20to%20Nixon%20and%20HMOs&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "Differences between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans shaped the trajectory of legislation that would become the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, which was signed into law with bipartisan support. The act initially provided $45 million in grants and loans and $300 million in loan guarantees to spur the development of HMOs:", "hrefs": [ "https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD172/RGSD172.ch1.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Over time, the restrictions on which HMOs could receive federal endorsements were eased in a series of amendments to the act, leading to a massive increase in for-profit HMOs that medical historian Paul Starr described as the conservative appropriation of liberal reform:", "hrefs": [ "https://books.google.com/books?id=F9bpBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Social+Transformation+of+American+Medicine:+The+Rise+Of+A+Sovereign+Profession+And+The+Making+Of+A+Vast+Industry+Reprint+Edition,+Kindle+Edition&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt1qDT_ITfAhVLCKwKHeOfB28Q6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=conservative%20appropriation%20&f=false" ] }, { "sentence": "The primary emotional hook in the meme is the assertion that the HMO Act was a handout to Edgar Kaiser, a friend of Nixons who donated heavily to his campaign for president. It is true that Kaiser advocated on behalf of the HMO Act to Nixons aide John Ehrlichman, and that the concept proposed in the bill was modeled on HMO plans already offered by Kaiser. The claim that the act was a quid pro quo, however, is belied by the fact that the original 1973 act, in its final form, did not allow Kaisers plan to be recognized:", "hrefs": [ "https://share.kaiserpermanente.org/media_assets/pdf/pointofview/2007/downloads/EFKtoEhrlichman.pdf", "https://web.archive.org/web/20170924040931/https://share.kaiserpermanente.org/article/kaiser-permanentes-prominent-role-in-american-health-care-reform/" ] }, { "sentence": "Such a truth also makes the memes claim that Kaiser was the insurance company to get the first taste of federal subsidies incorrect. Additional controversy stems from a conversation between Ehrlichman and Nixon captured in the Nixon White House tapes that makes it sound as though Nixon believed the motivation behind the act was that the less care [insurance companies] give [patients], the more money they make:", "hrefs": [ "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_(1971)_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973" ] }, { "sentence": "Kaiser Permanente contended that this was a crude and inarticulate paraphrase of what Edgar Kaiser was trying to explain to Ehrlichman, and that Nixons later statements to Congress about the act made it clear what the two men were attempting to explain. The issue was that doctors needed to be incentivized to provide preventative medicine to reduce overall healthcare costs, but the rate-based, for-profit insurance model currently in play did not provide incentives for this less profitable area of healthcare, unlike HMOs:", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20170924040931/https://share.kaiserpermanente.org/article/kaiser-permanentes-prominent-role-in-american-health-care-reform/" ] } ], "label": "false" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-quiet-acts-kindness/", "claim": "Donald Trump's 'Quiet Acts of Random Kindness'", "author": "Dan MacGuill", "posted": "08/07/2020", "sci_digest": [ "A viral Facebook post recounted several supposed gestures of generosity by the U.S. president." ], "justification": "In the summer of 2020, multiple readers asked Snopes to verify the accuracy of a widely-shared Facebook post that listed several \"quiet acts of random kindness\" purportedly performed by U.S. President Donald Trump: Facebook post The post correctly identified Trump's date of birth as June 14, 1946, then presented four incidents as examples of the \"quiet acts of random kindness\" supposedly performed by the businessman turned president. Supporters of Trump have previously promoted similar anecdotes that portray him as generous, and we have examined several of those in depth. correctly examined Overall, the July 2020 Facebook post contained mostly accurate and verifiable claims, along with one long-debunked urban legend. \"In 1995, his car has a flat tire. A black man walking by notices it's owner is wearing a suit. So he steps in and fixes the flat. 'How can I repay you?' asks the gentleman? 'My wife has always wanted some flowers' the man says. A few days later, the black man's wife gets a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a note saying, 'Thanks for helping me. By the way... the mortgage on your house is paid off.'\" This is no more than an old urban legend that has appeared and re-appeared in various forms with certain details changed, including the name of the celebrity who supposedly paid off the mortgage, for decades. Snopes first debunked it in 1998, after a version of the story involving Trump had appeared in Forbes magazine two years earlier. debunked Over the years, similar stories have been told about Henry Ford, Nat King Cole, and Bill Gates, demonstrating that the 1995 version about Trump was just a variation of an old yarn. \"A USMC Sargent spends 7 months in a Mexican prison for a minor charge. He is beaten. After he is returned to America, The man from Queens sends him a check for $25,000, 'To get you started.'\" This anecdote relates to the story of U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who was arrested in Mexico in March 2014 and spent seven months in prison there on weapons-trafficking charges after he crossed the border at San Ysidro, California. His car was found to contain three firearms and ammunition, items he legally owned and was permitted to carry in the United States, but not in Mexico. We examined his case and the complexities surrounding it in a previous fact check. Tahmooressi's protracted detention in Mexico, along with his claims of having been beaten and restrained for weeks on end, caught the attention of several high-profile commentators in the United States, including the broadcaster and U.S. Navy veteran Montell Williams, then-Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren, and Trump. fact check Trump Tahmooressi's mother Jill, who was a vocal and persistent advocate for her son's release and return to the United States, confirmed in a phone call with Snopes that Trump had indeed sent Andrew a check for $25,000 after he was released in late 2014. Trump also enclosed a letter, which Tahmooressi reproduced in her memoir. In that letter, dated Nov. 11, 2014, Trump wrote: memoir \"It is my great honor to present you with this check for $25,000. You have served our country with fortitude and dignity, and we are fortunate to have someone like you as a brave Marine and protector of our wonderful nation. We are proud of you and I wish you and your family the very best for many years to come.\" \"A black bus driver saves a suicidal girl from jumping off a bridge. Our man from Queens sends him a check for $10,000.\" In October 2013, Buffalo, New York, bus driver Darnell Barton made international headlines after he saved the life of a woman contemplating suicide. Barton stopped his bus and comforted the woman, who was standing on the outside of railings along an overpass, before carefully helping her on to the other side of the railings and staying with her while first responders arrived on the scene: saved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyire35WVqMThe Buffalo News reported at the time that Mayor Byron Brown had presented Barton with a $10,000 check from Trump in a ceremony at city hall: reported \"Donald J. Trump wasn't there himself. But in the well-appointed office of Mayor Byron W. Brown, a check for $10,000 from the real estate mogul was presented to the hero bus driver who brought a woman on the brink of suicide to safety. 'Although I know to you it was just a warm-hearted first response to a dangerous situation,' Trump wrote to Darnell J. Barton, 'your quick thinking resulted in a life being saved, and for that you should be rewarded.'\" \"A rabbi's critically ill son needs to get from NYC to California for specialty care. No airlines will fly him. The generous man uses his private jet to fly the child.\" Another accurate description, which we addressed at greater length in a 2015 fact check. In July 1988, the Ten family needed to travel to New York for urgent medical treatment for their three-year-old son Andrew Ten, who had a rare respiratory condition. Because Andrew required the constant aid of a respirator and life support machine but commercial airlines could not accommodate that equipment, the family could not travel to New York on a conventional flight. fact check The boy's father, Harold Ten, an orthodox Jewish rabbi, contacted Trump to ask for the use of his private jet, and the property magnate agreed without hesitation, according to a contemporaneous report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: report Asked why he thought Trump made his private jet available, Ten replied, \"Because he is a good man. He has three children of his own and he knows what being a parent is all about.\" Ten said he believes that Trump fulfilled the Talmudic saying that \"he who saves one person's life is as if he saved the entire world.\" Among the relatives at the airport to greet the child and his parents were the paternal grandparents of the sick boy.\"Donald Trump is a miracle, just a miracle,\" said grandmother Feigy Ten, who came to the airport with her husband, Phillip Ten. Both grandparents thanked Trump's generosity over and over again. Evon, Dan. \"So You Think You Know the Real Donald Trump?\" Snopes.com. 25 July 2016. Snopes.com. \"Did Donald Trump Pay Off a Good Samaritan's Mortgage?\" 3 March 1998. MacGuill, Dan. \"Did Mexican Authorities Arrest and Torture a U.S. Marine for Accidentally Crossing the Border?\" Snopes.com. 5 December 2018. Thompson, Carolyn. \"NY Bus Driver Saves Woman from Jumping Off Bridge.\" Associated Press. 30 October 2013. Terreri, Jill. \"Bus Driver Receives Trump Check, Headed for Rachael Ray Show.\" The Buffalo News. 7 November 2013. Snopes.com. \"Did Trump's Private Jet Carry a Sick Child From California to New York?\" 15 August 2015. Rabi, Yitzhak. \"Orthodox Child with Rare Ailment Is Rescued Aboard Tycoon's Jet.\" The Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 20 July 1988.", "issues": [ "mortgage" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sez_l4tibTuLcdw0RsPxrtBVV22jhjaP", "image_caption": null }, { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1xBEDcyQXg-wiry9B4gEr57dy6-qQIjvV", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In the summer of 2020, multiple readers asked Snopes to verify the accuracy of a widely-shared Facebook post that listed several \"quiet acts of random kindness\" purportedly performed by U.S. President Donald Trump:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/TrUsy" ] }, { "sentence": "The post correctly identified Trump's date of birth as June 14, 1946, then presented four incidents as examples of the \"quiet acts of random kindness\" supposedly performed by the businessman turned president. Supporters of Trump have previously promoted similar anecdotes that portray him as generous, and we have examined several of those in depth.", "hrefs": [ "https://web.archive.org/web/20160512232306/https://abcnews.go.com/US/page?id=13248168", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/so-you-think-you-know-donald-trump/" ] }, { "sentence": "This is no more than an old urban legend that has appeared and re-appeared in various forms with certain details changed, including the name of the celebrity who supposedly paid off the mortgage, for decades. Snopes first debunked it in 1998, after a version of the story involving Trump had appeared in Forbes magazine two years earlier.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trumped-up/" ] }, { "sentence": "We examined his case and the complexities surrounding it in a previous fact check. Tahmooressi's protracted detention in Mexico, along with his claims of having been beaten and restrained for weeks on end, caught the attention of several high-profile commentators in the United States, including the broadcaster and U.S. Navy veteran Montell Williams, then-Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren, and Trump.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mexico-marine-torture-border-tahmooressi/", "https://archive.is/WTGWn" ] }, { "sentence": "Tahmooressi's mother Jill, who was a vocal and persistent advocate for her son's release and return to the United States, confirmed in a phone call with Snopes that Trump had indeed sent Andrew a check for $25,000 after he was released in late 2014. Trump also enclosed a letter, which Tahmooressi reproduced in her memoir. In that letter, dated Nov. 11, 2014, Trump wrote:", "hrefs": [ "https://jilltahmooressi.org/" ] }, { "sentence": "In October 2013, Buffalo, New York, bus driver Darnell Barton made international headlines after he saved the life of a woman contemplating suicide. Barton stopped his bus and comforted the woman, who was standing on the outside of railings along an overpass, before carefully helping her on to the other side of the railings and staying with her while first responders arrived on the scene:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/9eGIg" ] }, { "sentence": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyire35WVqMThe Buffalo News reported at the time that Mayor Byron Brown had presented Barton with a $10,000 check from Trump in a ceremony at city hall:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.is/REXXF" ] }, { "sentence": "Another accurate description, which we addressed at greater length in a 2015 fact check. In July 1988, the Ten family needed to travel to New York for urgent medical treatment for their three-year-old son Andrew Ten, who had a rare respiratory condition. Because Andrew required the constant aid of a respirator and life support machine but commercial airlines could not accommodate that equipment, the family could not travel to New York on a conventional flight.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-flies-sick-boy/" ] }, { "sentence": "The boy's father, Harold Ten, an orthodox Jewish rabbi, contacted Trump to ask for the use of his private jet, and the property magnate agreed without hesitation, according to a contemporaneous report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:", "hrefs": [ "https://pdfs.jta.org/1988/1988-07-20_132.pdf" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/dec/04/daniel-biss/biss-accurate-sarcastic-tax-hit-opponents-pritzker/", "claim": "These guys are now pretty much living up to the @BruceRauner standard. And falling dismally short of the @MittRomney standard. Even Romney released his full tax returns.", "author": "Matt Dietrich", "posted": "12/04/2017", "sci_digest": [], "justification": " After Democratic gubernatorial candidates J.B. Pritzker and Chris Kennedy released only summaries of their income tax returns on Nov. 27, rival Daniel Biss wasted no time blasting them for what they didnt make public. As Gov. Bruce Rauner has done since first becoming a candidate in 2013, Pritzker and Kennedy released their federal and state 1040 forms, which reveal only basic details of their their tax pictures. The meat of returns, especially for wealthy taxpayers like Pritzker, Kennedy and Rauner, lies in an array of schedules and attachments to those 1040s that illustrate how they made their money, managed their wealth, donated to charity and reduced their tax burdens by leveraging breaks often used by the wealthy. And neither Pritzker, Kennedy nor Rauner have been willing to share such telling information with voters. These guys are now pretty much living up to the @BruceRauner standard. And falling dismally short of the @MittRomney standard. Even Romney released his full tax returns, Biss said in one of many tweets he issued on the topic that day. These guys are now pretty much living up to the@BruceRaunerstandard. And falling dismally short of the@MittRomneystandard. Even Romney released his full tax returns. -DB In April, Biss, a Democratic state senator from Evanston, releasedfive years worthof full tax returns, including Form 1040 cover sheets and attachments detailing deductions, supplemental income and credits. They showed Biss and his wife, Karin Steinbrueck, with quite modest income, averaging just under $55,000 per year over the five years covered in the returns. Biss spent more than seven months criticizing his wealthy competitors for foot-dragging before they released their returns. With nominating petitions now filed for the March 20 Democratic primary and election season in full swing, the Rauner and Romney comparisons likely will become a hammer with which Biss will repeatedly bash his far wealthier opponents. We decided to look into Biss Twitter claim both to check its accuracy and to examine the history of candidate tax disclosure. The Bruce Rauner standard that Biss, currently a state senator, cites refers to the tax disclosures Rauner has made annually since he first became a candidate for governor in 2013. Though Illinois law does not require candidates or officeholders to make public any income tax information, Raunerreleased three years worthof federal and state 1040 forms when he filed his nominating petitions in November 2013. They showed Rauner and his wife Diana had income of $27.2 million in 2010, $28.2 million in 2011 and $53.4 million in 2012. Their effective tax rates in those years were 16.9 percent, 21.5 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Rauner has continued to release the 1040 forms since then. His 2013 returns, released a month before the 2014 election, showed income of $60.15 million and a 24-percent tax rate. In 2014, the Rauners reported income of$57.5 millionand a 26-percent tax rate. Rauners income ballooned during his first two years as governor. In 2015, hereported incomeof $188 million followed by$91 millionin 2016, with tax rates of 26 and 25, respectively. But because Rauner has not released the schedules and attachments that detail how his income was derived, the 1040 forms lend little insight where his money comes from and how he manages it. Pritzker essentially matched Rauners skimpy disclosure when the Democrat filed his nominating petitions on Nov. 27, but Kennedy did even less. Pritzker releasedsummaries of his last three years of taxesshowing adjusted gross income of $14,950,446 in 2016, $9,974,627 in 2015 and $3,137,655 in 2014. His effective tax rates were 27.7 percent (2016), 24.3 percent (2015) and 37.3 percent (2014). Kennedy confined his release of 1040 information to 2016 returns only. For that year, he reported adjusted gross income $1,242,805 and an effective tax rate of 14 percent. The financial picture for Kennedy and Pritzker, at least, is further obscured by their decisions to not release detail about trusts they also benefit from but which are kept separate from the information reported on their personal tax returns. Like Rauner, Pritzker and Kennedy derived their income from interest, dividends and capital gains, not from wages. Candidates in Illinois are are also required to filestatements of economic interestthat detail entities in which they have ownership interests or derive income, and all the Democrats as well as Rauner have complied. But the information value from such reports is quite limited, with disclosures confined to the names of business interests and not the value of individual investments or income they produce. (Click here for current statements of economic interest fromRauner,PritzkerandKennedy.) Biss also accuses his Democratic counterparts of falling dismally short of the example set by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, like Rauner a longtime private equity investor whose wealth had become an issue in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat then-President Barack Obama. Romney released complete income taxes for2010and2011, including hundreds of pages of schedules and explanatory material that allowed a public view into the management of his fortune. They showedRomney paid a relatively low tax rate of 14.7 percent on a total of $42.6 million in income for the two years combined, and that he held considerable assets in offshore tax havens including Luxembourg, Ireland and the Cayman Islands. In an election in which income inequality had become a major issue, this gave Obamas campaign ammunition to portray the former Massachusetts governor as out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. Romney was following what had become standard procedure for presidents and major presidential candidates of both parties following the scandal plagued administration of Richard Nixon, said Joseph Thorndike, director of theTax History Project, which tracks presidential tax releases. Obama also routinely released full returns annually both as a presidential contender and president. Obamas successor, Donald Trump, is the first U.S. president since Nixon, who resigned from office in 1974, to not release any information about personal taxes. A proliferation of wealthy political candidates coming off successful business careers in Illinois and elsewhere likely portends an era of increasing opaqueness when it comes to tax disclosure, Thorndike speculated. I don't know that 1040s are really all that useful without the rest of the supporting materials, Thorndike said. I suppose that they're better than nothing, except that I think you encourage further disclosures of just the 1040s. Governors roles in administering state taxes should heighten public pressure to release full returns, Thorndike said. These candidates if they win election are going to be in charge of collecting taxes from everyone else and it seems reasonable to me that voters want to know how they conducted themselves and whether they've been living up to their civic duty in the way that everyone else is supposed to, he said. Lawrence Noble, senior director the D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, said the current push in Washington for a sweeping federal overhaul, only underscores the shortcomings of the sort of limited tax disclosure practiced by Rauner, Pritzker and Kennedy. All derive the bulk of their income from investments, and are likely to reap significant financial benefit from the current GOP push in Washington to overhaul the federal tax system that most analysts have concluded is tilted toward tax breaks for the wealthy. How much any of the well-to-do Illinois candidates stand to benefit is impossible to gauge without more information than is disclosed in 1040 forms. Where they have their investments, how much they have and how various pieces of legislation will affect them is important, said Noble, a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission. And one of the ways you can tell that is by their taxes and often it's the only way you can tell unless youre just going to take their word for it. Biss sarcastically said his fellow Democratic gubernatorial candidates are living up to the standard for releasing tax information set by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. He also said they fell short of the example set by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Like Rauner, J.B. Pritzker and Chris Kennedy released only their federal and state 1040 forms, which provide only the most basic information on income and taxes paid. And Romney did release two years worth of full returns, including hundreds of pages of detail, when he was running for president in 2012. There is no law in Illinois requiring gubernatorial candidates or governors to release any tax information whatsoever, and Biss is clearly engaging in some campaign hyperbole when he refers to a Rauner standard and a Romney standard. That said, we find the essence of his statements to be True.", "issues": [ "Campaign Finance", "Elections", "Ethics", "Transparency", "Taxes", "Illinois" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "These guys are now pretty much living up to the@BruceRaunerstandard. And falling dismally short of the@MittRomneystandard. Even Romney released his full tax returns. -DB", "hrefs": [ "https://twitter.com/BruceRauner?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" ] }, { "sentence": "In April, Biss, a Democratic state senator from Evanston, releasedfive years worthof full tax returns, including Form 1040 cover sheets and attachments detailing deductions, supplemental income and credits. They showed Biss and his wife, Karin Steinbrueck, with quite modest income, averaging just under $55,000 per year over the five years covered in the returns. Biss spent more than seven months criticizing his wealthy competitors for foot-dragging before they released their returns.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9kf0a7plg6fhcv2/AABNNaI7Hlb6A06OmQytPWSBa?dl=0" ] }, { "sentence": "The Bruce Rauner standard that Biss, currently a state senator, cites refers to the tax disclosures Rauner has made annually since he first became a candidate for governor in 2013. Though Illinois law does not require candidates or officeholders to make public any income tax information, Raunerreleased three years worthof federal and state 1040 forms when he filed his nominating petitions in November 2013. They showed Rauner and his wife Diana had income of $27.2 million in 2010, $28.2 million in 2011 and $53.4 million in 2012. Their effective tax rates in those years were 16.9 percent, 21.5 percent and 19 percent, respectively.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20131125/BLOGS02/131129858/rauner-lifts-the-veil-on-his-earnings-and-wealth" ] }, { "sentence": "Rauner has continued to release the 1040 forms since then. His 2013 returns, released a month before the 2014 election, showed income of $60.15 million and a 24-percent tax rate. In 2014, the Rauners reported income of$57.5 millionand a 26-percent tax rate.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-bruce-rauner-income-tax-returns-met-20151016-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Rauners income ballooned during his first two years as governor. In 2015, hereported incomeof $188 million followed by$91 millionin 2016, with tax rates of 26 and 25, respectively.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-bruce-rauner-tax-return-20171017-story.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Pritzker essentially matched Rauners skimpy disclosure when the Democrat filed his nominating petitions on Nov. 27, but Kennedy did even less. Pritzker releasedsummaries of his last three years of taxesshowing adjusted gross income of $14,950,446 in 2016, $9,974,627 in 2015 and $3,137,655 in 2014. His effective tax rates were 27.7 percent (2016), 24.3 percent (2015) and 37.3 percent (2014).", "hrefs": [ "https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4311024-JB-Pritzker-Tax-Returns.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Candidates in Illinois are are also required to filestatements of economic interestthat detail entities in which they have ownership interests or derive income, and all the Democrats as well as Rauner have complied. But the information value from such reports is quite limited, with disclosures confined to the names of business interests and not the value of individual investments or income they produce. (Click here for current statements of economic interest fromRauner,PritzkerandKennedy.)", "hrefs": [ "https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/publications/pdf_publications/i188.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "Biss also accuses his Democratic counterparts of falling dismally short of the example set by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, like Rauner a longtime private equity investor whose wealth had become an issue in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat then-President Barack Obama. Romney released complete income taxes for2010and2011, including hundreds of pages of schedules and explanatory material that allowed a public view into the management of his fortune.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/presreturns.nsf/Returns/8B6964A1E53D7EDC8525798F004F0B2E/$file/M_Romney_2010.pdf" ] }, { "sentence": "They showedRomney paid a relatively low tax rate of 14.7 percent on a total of $42.6 million in income for the two years combined, and that he held considerable assets in offshore tax havens including Luxembourg, Ireland and the Cayman Islands. In an election in which income inequality had become a major issue, this gave Obamas campaign ammunition to portray the former Massachusetts governor as out of touch with the vast majority of Americans.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/01/23/gIQAj5bUMQ_story.html?utm_term=.2cb1505e35e7" ] }, { "sentence": "Romney was following what had become standard procedure for presidents and major presidential candidates of both parties following the scandal plagued administration of Richard Nixon, said Joseph Thorndike, director of theTax History Project, which tracks presidential tax releases. Obama also routinely released full returns annually both as a presidential contender and president.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/PresidentialTaxReturns?OpenDocument" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/dec/19/jerry-brown/are-jobs-california-growing-hell-lot-faster-texas/", "claim": "California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas.", "author": "Chris Nichols", "posted": "12/19/2016", "sci_digest": [], "justification": "Stoking their long-running feud, California Gov. Jerry Brown recently jabbed at former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, saying Golden State is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. Brown made this claim in the middle of an impassioned defense of climate change science at the American Geophysical Union conference on Dec. 14, 2016, in San Francisco. Weve proved in California that the economy grows. And it grows in part because of the climate rules that weve adopted, Brown said. Perry, a climate change skeptic, was recently selected U.S. energy secretary by President-elect Trump. While Texas governor, he repeatedly visited California in an attempt to lure jobs to the Lone Star State, with the promise of less regulation and lower costs. In his speech, Brown said Perrys critiques about Californias job-killing red tape dont hold up. Now remember our new secretary of energy, he was coming to California to say: Come to Texas because we have all the jobs in Texas. Well, Rick: I got some news for you, California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas, and we have more sun than you have oil! Gov. Jerry Brown makes his claim about California growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas at about the 13:00 minute mark in the video above. With Browns reference of Perry, we took his faster than Texas claim to mean faster economic growth with a focus on jobs. We decided to zero-in on job growth rates in California and Texas, while also weighing GDP and unemployment trends in the states. Well leave the fun comparison of sunshine to oil for Brown and Perry to wrestle with another day. Our research We concede theres no definition for what a hell of a lot faster growth looks like. Still, well do our best to sort out the governors claim. Browns spokeswoman pointed us to several news articles detailing Californias recent economic improvements. Looking solely at 2015 job growth rates, Browns claim appears to hold up. In that year, California added 483,000 jobs, posting a jobs growth rate of 3 percent, based ondatawe crunched from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That pace was twice as fast as Texas 1.5 percent job growth rate. Californias rapid employment gains have slowed somewhat to about 2 percent this year through November. That may not qualify as a hell of a lot faster, but its still greater than Texas roughly 1.6 percent job growth rate so far this year. The business website Kiplinger.com forecast California would rank10th in the nationamong states for fastest job growth in 2016. It noted that Texas was not on its Top 10 list. It wasnt long ago, however, that Texas outpaced California. In 2014, Texas recorded a 3.7 percent job growth rate, ahead of Californias 2.9 percent pace. Looking to the future, Californias job gains may slow. The closely watchedUCLA Anderson Forecastpredicts jobs to grow by only 1.5 percent in the state during 2017 and just 0.8 percent in 2018. Because Brown used the phrase is growing, well judge him on the most recent figures, not future forecasts. Overall economy While the pace of job growth is important, its not the only measurement of a states economic health. And Browns claim could be interpreted as Californias overall economy, not just jobs, is growing much faster than the economy in Texas. In August, PolitiFact Texas took adeep lookat the economies of both California and Texas to evaluate a June claim by Julin Castro, the U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, that Today, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas. It rated the claim True, citing greater jobs, per capita income and GDP growth rates in California. It noted Texas had a lower jobless rate. Building on that fact check, we looked at the most recent economic figures for both states to see if the assessment still holds. We found that Californias GDP grew faster than Texas in the first two quarters of this year, at rates of 2 percent and most recently 2.2 percent compared with Texas 1.3 percent and its most recent quarter, a negative 0.8 percent, according toa news release in Decemberby the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was a different story in 2015 when Texas GDP expanded by 4.8 percent (a figure that was recently revised upward) compared with Californias 3.8 percent GDP expansion. Comparingunemployment rates, Texas, at 4.6 percent in November, has consistently fared better than California, where the rate was 5.3 percent in November, and has hovered well above 5 percent this year. California had one more economic bright spot in 2015: Per capita personal income grew at twice the rate as in Texas,5.4 percentto2.6 percent, according to federal data. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. We took this to mean economic growth with a focus on the pace of job creation. Californias 3 percent job growth rate in 2015, which doubled Texas pace, definitely fits into Brown's colorful claim. But Californias rate has slowed to about 2 percent so far this year, closer to Texas 1.6 job growth rate. Other economic metrics show California faring better than Texas in several, though not all, categories: Californias GDP expanded faster than Texas GDP in the first two quarters of this year, though Texas had a faster GDP growth rate in 2015. Also, per capita income grew twice as fast in California as Texas in 2015, also backing Browns statement. Texas, however, has consistently held a lower jobless rate than California in recent years. Brown, like the states economy in recent years, is on the right track. Although California has expanded jobs and its economy faster than Texas in many cases, there are a few cases where that growth has been strong but not necessarily a hell of a lot faster. We rate Browns statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/158c502a-4b3e-463d-906f-529da13e2451", "issues": [ "Climate Change", "Economy", "Jobs", "California" ], "image_data": [], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In that year, California added 483,000 jobs, posting a jobs growth rate of 3 percent, based ondatawe crunched from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That pace was twice as fast as Texas 1.5 percent job growth rate.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "The business website Kiplinger.com forecast California would rank10th in the nationamong states for fastest job growth in 2016. It noted that Texas was not on its Top 10 list.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T019-S010-states-with-the-fastest-job-growth-in-2016/index.html" ] }, { "sentence": "Looking to the future, Californias job gains may slow. The closely watchedUCLA Anderson Forecastpredicts jobs to grow by only 1.5 percent in the state during 2017 and just 0.8 percent in 2018.", "hrefs": [ "http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/media-relations/2016/ucla-anderson-forecast-slowly-steady-growth-continues" ] }, { "sentence": "In August, PolitiFact Texas took adeep lookat the economies of both California and Texas to evaluate a June claim by Julin Castro, the U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, that Today, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2016/aug/17/julian-castro/julian-castro-says-california-besting-texas-creati/" ] }, { "sentence": "We found that Californias GDP grew faster than Texas in the first two quarters of this year, at rates of 2 percent and most recently 2.2 percent compared with Texas 1.3 percent and its most recent quarter, a negative 0.8 percent, according toa news release in Decemberby the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/2016/qgsp1216.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "Comparingunemployment rates, Texas, at 4.6 percent in November, has consistently fared better than California, where the rate was 5.3 percent in November, and has hovered well above 5 percent this year.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm" ] }, { "sentence": "California had one more economic bright spot in 2015: Per capita personal income grew at twice the rate as in Texas,5.4 percentto2.6 percent, according to federal data.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.bea.gov/regional/bearfacts/pdf.cfm?fips=06000&areatype=STATE&geotype=3" ] }, { "sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/158c502a-4b3e-463d-906f-529da13e2451", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/158c502a-4b3e-463d-906f-529da13e2451" ] } ], "label": "true" }, { "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/incurable-mexican-blood-flu/", "claim": "Is an Incurable “Mexican Blood Flu” Creating a Health Crisis at the Southern Border?", "author": "Alex Kasprak", "posted": "05/17/2019", "sci_digest": [ "Claims of a virulent outbreak at the U.S.-Mexico border mix inaccurate assertions from politicians with the claims of a supplement-peddling conspiracy publisher." ], "justification": "In mid-May 2019, viral claims began to emerge on Facebook warning about XDR-TB, or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, wreaking havoc at the Southern border. For example, a representative Facebook post asserted: post As it turns out, these rumors are not driven by reality but by a company with a history of politically charged health misinformation selling a bogus natural health supplement. The claims made on Facebook mirror the claims made by an entity that calls itself the Institute for Natural Healing in a thinly sourced advertisement: advertisement: Let me describe how dire the current situation isbecause the Government is staying tight-lipped. Its known as the Mexican Blood Flu or its scientific name XDR-T. And you wouldnt wish the symptoms (internal bleeding, coughing up blood, seizures and even suffocation) on your worst enemy. For years it was seen as a third world problem, killing scores of people in the worlds poorest countries And a major outbreak within the U.S. was considered unthinkable. But heres the horrifying truth they dont want you to know a U.S. outbreak has already begun. And officials have no idea how to contain it. The first case was discovered in McAllen, Texas near the Mexican border. An illegal alien was detained by the U.S. Border Patrol suffering from a scorching fever and coughing up blood. The Institute for Natural Healing is a subsidiary of a publishing company known as Agora, Inc., which has a lengthy history of using misleading tactics and politically charged language to get people to purchase supplements, ebooks, or stock tips. Snopes has previously debunked Agora content that suggested Hillary Clinton was hiding a cure for cancer, and an Agora advertisement for a 74-dollar eBook explaining how to protect yourself from an alleged Klebsi plague set to ravage America. The founder of Agora once declared that our customers dont pay us to be right. subsidiary suggested advertisement declared In point of fact, the scientific name of the disease in question is not XDR-T, but XDR-TB, a disease categorization that is a step more serious than multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MDR-TB is resistant to at least isoniazid (INH) and rifampin (RIF), while XDR-TB is resistant to INH and RIF, any fluoroquinolone, and at least three of the injectable second-line anti-TB drugs. Agora often uses made-up names for commonly known conditions or cures to make it harder for potential buyers of supplements or ebooks to research them on their own. CDC made-up Mexican blood flu is another made-up name, and its also a poorly chosen one from a truth standpoint. The McAllen, Texas, incident referenced in the Institute for Natural Healing's advertisement took place in 2013 and concerned a Nepalese man who had traveled through South Asia, Brazil, and Mexico before crossing illegally into Texas, as reported by the Wall Street Journal: reported In medical isolation in South Texas, 100 miles or so from Mexico's border, is a man who embodies one of U.S. health officials' greatest worries: He is the first person to cross and be held in detention while infected with one of the most severe types of drug-resistant tuberculosis known today ... The Nepalese man detained at the U.S. border carries a particularly deadly strainXDR, \"extensively drug-resistant\" TB. His TB is resistant to at least eight of the 15 or so standard drugs, according to a U.S. government description of the case reviewed by the Journal. His XDR strain has been seen only once before in the U.S., in another patient of Nepalese origin, according to the government description. The assertion that a U.S. outbreak has already begun is similarly incorrect: following the McCarren incident, the United States reported zero XDR-TB cases in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, one case was reported in the entire United States. In 2017, the most recent year for which CDC data is available, two cases were reported. According to CDC data, the percentage of TB cases that are drug resistant has remained stable for the last 20 years. one case two data The topic of multiple drug-resistant TB (not XDR-TB) at the Southern border was briefly revived in statements made by U.S. Rep. John Joyce, who in April 2019 participated in a fact-finding mission to the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona. During that trip, according to reporting by the Associated Press, Joyce said that there are 12 cases of multiple-drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis that had been identified in immigrants held in detention in Yuma, Arizona. reporting Yuma, Arizona officials later stated that this information was incorrect, although the person who made the claim to the politician stood by it, according to the Arizona Republic: according After a question from The Arizona Republic about a tuberculosis outbreak, Yuma County officials sought to set the record straight. \"I can say, after confirming with the Yuma County Health District, there is no drug-resistant tuberculosis in Yuma County,\" said Kevin Tunell, a spokesman for the county. \"Further, there are no cases of tuberculosis involving migrants in Yuma County at this time. All told, there is no basis for the claim that an XDR-TB outbreak is present at the Southern border. Belief in such a claim would require taking the word of a company that once sold a $74 eBook created to teach readers how to find an incredible cure for cancer hidden in the Book of Matthew, over the reports of health officials on the ground and health monitoring agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As such, we rank the claim false. once sold inhresearch.com. Mexican Doomsday Virus Crosses U.S. Border.\"\r Archived on 16 May 2019. Sourcewatch. Institute for Natural Healing.\"\r Accessed 17 May 2019. Murphy, Tim. How This Company -- And Mike Huckabee -- Cashed in by Scaring Conservatives.\r Mother Jones. November 2015. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trends in Tuberculosis, 2017.\"\r Archived on 16 May 2019. McKay, Betsy. Dangerous TB Patient Detained on U.S. Border.\r The Wall Street Journal. 1 March 2013. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trends in Tuberculosis, 2016.\"\r Archived on 14 October 2018. Hansen, Ronald J. While Republicans Visited Yuma, A Bogus Tuberculosis Scare on the Border.\r The Arizona Republic. 23 April 2019.", "issues": [ "lien" ], "image_data": [ { "image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1gVMguFDmRhXiSXMXiZQ5w4K6nQaicXPg", "image_caption": null } ], "evidence": [ { "sentence": "In mid-May 2019, viral claims began to emerge on Facebook warning about XDR-TB, or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, wreaking havoc at the Southern border. For example, a representative Facebook post asserted:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.fo/YaENM" ] }, { "sentence": "As it turns out, these rumors are not driven by reality but by a company with a history of politically charged health misinformation selling a bogus natural health supplement. The claims made on Facebook mirror the claims made by an entity that calls itself the Institute for Natural Healing in a thinly sourced advertisement:", "hrefs": [ "https://archive.fo/mKPhu" ] }, { "sentence": "The Institute for Natural Healing is a subsidiary of a publishing company known as Agora, Inc., which has a lengthy history of using misleading tactics and politically charged language to get people to purchase supplements, ebooks, or stock tips. Snopes has previously debunked Agora content that suggested Hillary Clinton was hiding a cure for cancer, and an Agora advertisement for a 74-dollar eBook explaining how to protect yourself from an alleged Klebsi plague set to ravage America. The founder of Agora once declared that our customers dont pay us to be right.", "hrefs": [ "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Natural_Healing", "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sour-honey-cure-cancer/", "https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/02/20/klebsi-plague-agora/", "https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/agora-huckabee-conservative-bible-cures/" ] }, { "sentence": "In point of fact, the scientific name of the disease in question is not XDR-T, but XDR-TB, a disease categorization that is a step more serious than multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MDR-TB is resistant to at least isoniazid (INH) and rifampin (RIF), while XDR-TB is resistant to INH and RIF, any fluoroquinolone, and at least three of the injectable second-line anti-TB drugs. Agora often uses made-up names for commonly known conditions or cures to make it harder for potential buyers of supplements or ebooks to research them on their own.", "hrefs": [ "