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13,847 | 5 | 90 percent of Americans "support universal background checks" for gun purchases. | October 2, 2017 | government regulation;polls and public opinion;guns | chris abele | Chris Abele is Milwaukee County Executive, a position he won in an April 2011 special election to finish out the final year of the term of Scott Walker, who was elected governor in November 2010. The election was the first attempt at political office for Abele, a Milwaukee philanthropist and business owner.
The office is nonpartisan, but Abele has indicated he is a Democrat. | wisconsin | 1 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | a tweet | "Universal" is the term for background checks to be done on every gun sale. We found support for that policy at 94 percent in the latest national poll. Support ranged between 84 percent and 89 percent in the four other most recent polls. Experts say support at or near 90 percent has been consistent for years. For a statement that is accurate and has nothing significant missing, our rating is . |
13,411 | 1 | Last year was one of the deadliest years ever for law enforcement officers. | May 19, 2017 | after the fact;congress;criminal justice;history;crime;public safety | thom tillis | Thom Tillis is a Republican who serves as U.S. Senator from North Carolina. | north carolina | 0 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 | a press release supporting the Back The Blue Act of 2017 | Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said a new pro-police law is needed because 2016 "was one of the deadliest years ever for law enforcement officers." That’s . In fact, 2016 saw a below-average number and rate of officer deaths compared to the last half-century. The 66 officers killed in 2016 pales in comparison to the 1970s and 1980s, and wasn’t much different from the typical year in the 1990s, either. We rate this . |
10,882 | 0 | Bernie Sanders's plan is "to raise your taxes to 90 percent. | October 28, 2015 | taxes | chris christie | Chris Christie announced June 6, 2023 that he is running for the Republican nomination for president. Christie was the governor of New Jersey and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. As governor, Christie won office in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. Prior to that, he was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 2002 to 2008. | national | 21 | 20 | 27 | 11 | 17 | 8 | Boulder, Colo | Christie said that Sanders’s plan is "to raise your taxes to 90 percent." Sanders hasn’t released an official tax plan, either for billionaires or for anyone else. But based on his previous comments and proposals, the tax policies Sanders is advocating are targeted at corporations and affluent Americans. Sanders has dismissed the notion that he wants to set marginal tax rates for billionaires at 90 percent. And on the whole, his tax proposals so far do not envision raising "your taxes" -- that is, those of ordinary Americans -- to anything approaching 90 percent. This is a grossly characterization of the extent and scope of Sanders' plan, so we rate Christie’s . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/94917f97-e53e-4d00-8f83-c9f2de668891 |
20,697 | 4 | Voter ID is supported by an overwhelming majority of NYers, from all across the state, walks of life, & political parties. | December 8, 2021 | voter id laws | lee zeldin | Lee Zeldin is a Republican representing New York's 1st Congressional District. | new york | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a Tweet | Zeldin claimed voter identification requirements are supported by an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers, from across the state, walks of life, and political parties. Zeldin backs the with a private poll of 600 New Yorkers conducted for the Conservative Party of New York. A majority of poll respondents, 57.3%, said they strongly support voter identification requirements for voting in-person or casting absentee ballots while 12.5% said they somewhat support the requirements. The poll showed majorities of each racial group, geographic group, and political affiliation support the requirements, with one exception. Support among Democrats in the poll was at 49%, with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points. The requirements are broadly supported across the country, and according to a single private poll, in New York state as well. We rate this . |
6,095 | 2 | Says Barack Obama "robbed Medicare (of) $716 billion to pay for ... Obamacare. | August 12, 2012 | federal budget;history;medicare;retirement | mitt romney | Mitt Romney is a U.S. senator from Utah. He ran for president in 2012 as the Republican nominee, losing to incumbent President Barack Obama. Prior to that, Romney served one term as governor of Massachusetts, elected to the post in 2002. He was born in 1947 in Michigan, where his father was governor from 1963 to 1969. Romney graduated from Brigham Young University and received both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard University. Romney helped found the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984, which launched or rebuilt such companies as Staples and Dominos Pizza. Romney managed the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City from 1999-2002. He ran for president in 2008 but lost the Republican nomination. He and his wife, Ann, have five sons, Tagg, Craig, Matt, Ben and Josh. | national | 31 | 33 | 58 | 35 | 32 | 19 | an interview on "60 Minutes" | Romney said, "There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare." The only element of here is that the health care law seeks to reduce future Medicare spending, and the tally of those cost reductions over the next 10 years is $716 billion. The money wasn’t "robbed," however, and other presidents have made similar reductions to the Medicare program. We rate this statement . |
19,520 | 0 | Video says COVID-19 vaccines are "weapons of mass destruction" that "could wipe out the human race. | March 28, 2021 | facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a video on Facebook | A video circulating on Facebook claims COVID-19 vaccines are "weapons of mass destruction" that "could wipe out the human race." The is linked to widely-debunked conspiracy theories about a group of so-called global elites’ "secret plot" to create a totalitarian world government and purge a large portion of the planet’s population. There is no to support the that the COVID-19 vaccines are "weapons of mass destruction" that will cause widespread deaths. The video’s is and . We rate it ! |
5,561 | 2 | Says Jeff Reardon cut elementary school music classes, art instruction, teaching positions, basketball and volleyball programs, and he voted to raise school lunch prices. | May 8, 2012 | education;message machine 2012;voting record | mike schaufler | Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Portland, represents Oregon House District 48. | oregon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | campaign mailer | If "Reardon’s cuts" shortchanged children, then most anyone who’s ever served on a school board probably is guilty of the same crime. As are legislators who approve K-12 budgets that result in program cuts. A decision to approve a budget -- or a bill -- that results in larger classrooms, fewer teachers, or more expensive lunches does not mean that that person supports those results. Schaufler’s mailer contains a nugget of but is woefully . We rate it . |
15,600 | 3 | One in three women is sexually assaulted on the dangerous journey north. | January 19, 2019 | immigration;corrections and updates;homeland security | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a speech | Trump said, "One in three women is sexually assaulted on the dangerous journey north." A 2017 report from Doctors Without Borders said 31.4 percent of women had been sexually abused during their transit through Mexico. That's based on a 2015 survey of more than 400 migrants interviewed in facilities where migrants seek assistance. (The majority of migrants interviewed were men.) Doctors Without Borders said its report provided a snapshot in time of the perils migrants face, but said it wasn’t necessarily representative of the entire migrant population traveling through Mexico. Trump’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it . |
17,285 | 1 | It's actually the safest time to fly. | March 13, 2020 | public health;punditfact;coronavirus | ainsley earhardt | Ainsley Earhardt is a co-host of Fox News Channel's (FNC) Fox & Friends (weekdays 6-9AM/ET) alongside Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade. She joined the network in 2007. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | the Fox & Friends show | Earhardt said that "it's actually the safest time to fly." Officials from the CDC and WHO are advising older people and those with chronic health conditions to reconsider travel in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The State Department has issued travel advisories for several individual countries, as well as a global health advisory, related to the disease outbreak. Other countries have taken similar steps. While the disease transmission on airplanes is thought to be a low risk, it is still possible to contract the coronavirus through close personal contact and respiratory droplets. Earhardt’s statement is . We rate it . |
15,300 | 1 | We know dangerous criminals can slip through immigration at airports just like ours. Yet Joe Donnelly stood right here with the radical left against all efforts to secure our most vulnerable entry points. | October 24, 2018 | immigration | national republican senatorial committee | The National Republican Senatorial Committee helps elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate. | national | 1 | 3 | 11 | 18 | 14 | 7 | a digital ad | NRSC said, "We know dangerous criminals can slip through immigration at airports just like ours. Yet Joe Donnelly stood right here with the radical left against all efforts to secure our most vulnerable entry points." Donnelly has stood with Republicans when it comes to immigration. He stood with Democrats and several prominent Republicans, whom he quotes in the video, in decrying Trump’s executive order to halt the entry of people from countries impacted by terrorism. That’s not the "radical left". We rate this statement . |
13,655 | 4 | Undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than the native born. | July 31, 2017 | immigration;corrections and updates;crime;the 2018 california governor's race | antonio villaraigosa | Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, is a candidate for California governor, former mayor of Los Angeles and former state Assembly speaker. | california | 0 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | an interview on MSNBC | Villaraigosa said "undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than the native born." He cited a 2015 study by the National Academy of Sciences that backs up this . In a fact check last year, PolitiFact rated a similar . It cited additional studies by scholars and partisan groups that show that the foreign-born population is less likely to commit crimes than the native-born. It also found that researchers agree more data is needed to get a better understanding of immigration and crime. It said this was a needed clarification. PolitiFact California agrees with these findings. We rated Villaraigosa’s . – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. UPDATE: We have added information to the ‘Our research’ section of this fact check from a March 2017 study by the libertarian Cato Institute. The study’s findings provide additional backing up Villaraigosa’s that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born. PolitiFact California is fact-checking claims in the 2018 California governor's race through our Tracking The series. Hear a you want fact-checked? Email us at [email protected] , tweet us @CAPolitiFact or contact us on Facebook . |
5,700 | 1 | Says PolitiFact "listed Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin as the Governor who told the most lies" and "our own 'untruthful' Governor Chris Christie made it into Politifact's top five of 'Lie - en Governors'. | June 4, 2012 | candidate biography | loretta weinberg | Loretta Weinberg is a Democratic state senator representing Bergen County. | new jersey | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | a column on Blue Jersey | Weinberg claimed PolitiFact listed Walker as the governor "who told the most lies" and Christie made it into PolitiFact’s "top five of ‘Lie - en Governors’." Weinberg is on both counts. PolitiFact never ranked governors by their falsehoods. Though PolitiFact breaks down ratings by percentages, those figures represent how an individual’s statements have fared on the -O-Meter. They do not show who "told the most lies." We rate Weinberg’s . To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com . |
11,102 | 5 | Guantanamo has "never been a key component of ISIS or al-Qaida propaganda. | December 27, 2015 | terrorism;punditfact | stephen hayes | Stephen Hayes is a senior writer at the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, and author of The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. | null | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | on "Fox News Sunday" | Hayes said, Guantanamo has "never been a key component of ISIS or al-Qaida propaganda." Experts told us that Hayes’ point has merit. Analyses of jihadist propaganda materials show that Guantanamo is rarely mentioned, especially compared to other grievances against the United States, like military airstrikes. Al-Qaida uses Guantanamo less frequently now than it used to, though it was never a primary focus of their propaganda. Because he specified that Guantanamo is not a "key component" of jihadist propaganda, we rate Hayes’ statement . |
23,280 | 1 | Video of Hunter Biden at the White House was taken on the "same day they found cocaine. | July 11, 2023 | drugs;facebook fact-checks | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | an Instagram post | Snopes has rated the that the video shows him doing drugs "miscaptioned." What we do know: This video wasn’t taken the same day cocaine was discovered at the White House. White powder found inside the White House turned out to be cocaine, the Washington Post reported , but it was discovered on July 2. The video of the Bidens was taken on July 4 and shows the family at a Fourth of July celebration. We rate claims the video was taken the same day cocaine was discovered at the White House . |
3,122 | 1 | The president's proposed budget "will help reduce the deficit by $400 billion over the next decade to the lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower was president. | February 22, 2011 | deficit;federal budget;history | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | Cleveland, Ohio | ‘We’ve also got to get our fiscal house in order," he said, "and that’s why I’ve put forth a budget that includes a five-year spending freeze that will help reduce the deficit by $400 billion and will get annual domestic spending down to the lowest levels since Dwight Eisenhower." So where does this leave us? The president meant to say something different and then rephrased the statement several hours later. Still, most people in the room or watching on television who didn’t see his closing remarks would think that Obama was referring to the deficit, which would be . To set the record straight, we give his initial statement in Cleveland a rating of . |
808 | 1 | The McCain campaign is roughly in the position where Vice President Gore was running against President Bush one week before the election of 2000. | October 23, 2008 | elections | john mccain | John McCain was a U.S. senator from Arizona, a post he held from 1987 to his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the U.S. House. He was the Republican nominee for president in 2008. McCain was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent his career in the military, as his father did. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. He was born in 1936 in Panama. | national | 37 | 37 | 31 | 32 | 39 | 8 | remarks by chief strategist Steve Schmidt | Again, McCain's deficit is more than double Gore's. We don't mean to suggest that McCain can't come back and win the election. The question we sought to answer was this: Is McCain running in about the same position that Gore was at this point in the 2000 election, as the McCain campaign says? Simply put, no. We find McCain's to be . |
4,133 | 5 | The proposed transportation bill "could be the largest tax increase in Georgia history. | August 15, 2011 | transportation | david pennington | David Pennington is mayor of Dalton, Ga. | georgia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | a press conference | The latest revenue projection from the tax for Pennington’s northwest Georgia region is $140 million a year. It is possible, if all 12 regions pass the tax, that it could collect more than $1 billion a year, which would be the largest tax increase that we could find. The key will be whether voters in the Atlanta region approve it. Since Pennington said it "could" be the largest tax increase, we believe he gets to drive through the safe lane on his . Our rating is . |
19,936 | 2 | Says people are moving to Milwaukee "in record numbers | June 23, 2021 | population;sports | peter feigin | Peter Feigin is president of the Milwaukee Bucks. | wisconsin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Twitter | While it may be that the pandemic trend of people leaving larger cities for smaller ones has benefited Milwaukee, it seems more likely that it’s too early to tell. And the explosive growth during the 19th and 20th centuries is hard to beat. In one way-back decade, the city saw a 77% population increase. Our definition of is that the contains an element of but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That fits here. |
6,551 | 5 | Says Barack Obama "said when he was running for office four years ago that he would halve the annual deficit by the end of his first term. That simply has not happened. | October 11, 2012 | deficit;federal budget | leonard lance | Leonard Lance is a Republican congressman representing New Jersey's 7th district. | new jersey | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a debate | In a debate against his Democratic challenger, Lance claimed that Obama "said when he was running for office four years ago that he would halve the annual deficit by the end of his first term. That simply has not happened, ladies and gentlemen, and it is greatly disturbing." Lance should have said Obama made that pledge soon after he took office, but the congressman’s overall point is solid. The president vowed in February 2009 to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term, and he hasn’t done it. We rate the statement . To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com . |
8,037 | 5 | A million people … could get health insurance right away" if Texas expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. | November 6, 2013 | health care;medicaid | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | texas | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | remarks at a Dallas synagogue | Obama said, "A million people … could get health insurance right away" if Texas expanded Medicaid as encouraged by the Obamacare law. Estimates show some 1.4 million to 1.7 million would be eligible immediately. We rate his statement as . – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. |
19,947 | 1 | 'LOL' stands for 'Lucifer our Lord.' Satanists end their prayers by saying 'Lucifer our Lord'. | June 26, 2021 | facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | "I feel confident in asserting that this is a hoax," Jarry said. NBC News also debunked the "Lucifer our Lord" in 2012 when it circulated on the social media platform Reddit. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , "LOL" was "originally and chiefly" used in "the language of electronic communications" to express amusement, or to draw attention to a joke. We found no credible sources for the that "LOL" is used by satanists to mean "Lucifer our Lord." We rate this post . |
8,704 | 4 | David Dewhurst currently owes more than $1 million to vendors for services provided to his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign. | April 16, 2014 | campaign finance;candidate biography | dan patrick | As a Houston state senator, Dan Patrick won election as lieutenant governor of Texas in November 2014 after earlier defeating incumbent David Dewhurst for his party's nomination. Patrick also has hosted a daily talk show on AM700 in Houston. | texas | 7 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | a press release | Patrick said Dewhurst "currently owes more than $1 million to vendors for services provided to his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign." To be precise, it's Dewhurst's Senate campaign that had outstanding debts exceeding $1.4 million through 2013. Also, Dewhurst appears to be trying to recoup campaign dollars he has described as stolen; it’s not as if he’s simply a deadbeat. We rate this , which lacked this additional information, as . – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. |
4,529 | 1 | Thirty million Americans, including a lot of people in Florida, are going to be able to get healthcare next year because of that law. | November 1, 2011 | health care | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a Fox television interview | Obama said "Thirty million Americans, including a lot of people in Florida, are going to be able to get healthcare next year because of that law." The CBO, a nonpartisan source, predicts only 1 million people will benefit in 2012, with the significant increases coming in 2014 and 2016. Plus, the law’s future is uncertain. The president is understandably enthusiastic about seeing his signature legislation take effect. But he misstated the timing of how many people will gain health insurance and when. It’s not happening next year. We rate his statement . |
20,724 | 2 | By declining the vax, I am 100% safe from adverse reactions and 99.8% safe from COVID. | December 4, 2021 | public health;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | an Instagram post | An image shared on Instagram claimed that not getting vaccinated against the coronavirus makes a person "100% safe from adverse reactions and 99.8% safe from COVID." The appears to conflate the total survival rate of the virus in the world with an individual’s chance of survival. The COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe and effective in reducing a person’s risk of infection and hospitalization from the virus. Positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been fueled by the unvaccinated. This trend has continued even as omicron has spread. The does contain an element of . By not getting vaccinated against COVID-19, a person does have a 100% chance of being safe from adverse reactions associated with those vaccines. However, developing a serious adverse reaction is rare. And serious health effects related to COVID-19 infection are more common. We rate this . |
16,506 | 1 | Says a photo shows that climate change protesters left trash all over their protest side. | September 20, 2019 | climate change;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | pic.twitter.com/F1JtAqmnVO Around the same time as the 420 event in Hyde Park, climate change activists who were part of a movement called the Extinction Rebellion were protesting at various locations around central London. We found the miscaptioned trash photo in several replies to tweets from activists like Greta Thunberg, who gave a speech to the protesters April 21. The Swedish teenager is also credited with inspiring the Sept. 20 climate strike. The Facebook post is . We rate it . |
15,736 | 4 | We amass about $100 million in debt per hour, which means we've blown through 300, 400, 450 million dollars during this charade. | February 27, 2019 | debt | chip roy | U.S. Rep. Chip Roy was elected to represent Texas' 21st Congressional District in 2018. Previously he worked as vice president of strategy for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank. He also worked as a political operative for several different Texas Republicans. | texas | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | a hearing for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee | There are different ways to show the relationship between the national debt and time, but each calculation is different. Roy’s assessment of debt accrued by the hour is correct if he’s speaking generally about the average growth per hour, but not if he’s trying to literally calculate how much debt was amassed between 10 a.m. EST and 2:25 p.m. EST on Feb. 27 of this year. We rate this . – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. |
12,756 | 0 | Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally.' | November 11, 2016 | fake news | bloggers | Blog posting on the Internet | national | 8 | 18 | 24 | 53 | 233 | 396 | a post on the Internet | A web posting headlined, "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally,' " ranks high on Google searches for the phrase "paid protesters." But the article is 100 percent fabricated, as its author acknowledges. We rate it . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/6e84d1d5-4fe8-48d7-bd4f-8c41e1dc43aa |
654 | 2 | Obama is the Senate's "most liberal. | September 3, 2008 | candidate biography | john mccain | John McCain was a U.S. senator from Arizona, a post he held from 1987 to his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the U.S. House. He was the Republican nominee for president in 2008. McCain was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent his career in the military, as his father did. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. He was born in 1936 in Panama. | national | 37 | 37 | 31 | 32 | 39 | 8 | a TV ad | If McCain had made a more general statement about Obama's ideology last year, he could have been more accurate. But McCain's statement that Obama is the "most liberal" suggests it is a cumulative rating for all of Obama's time in the Senate. But in fact, it is for only one rating for one year. Measurements for other years and by other groups show Obama is not the No. 1 liberal — in some cases, far from No. 1. So we find McCain's statement to be . |
12,433 | 1 | Says Hillary Clinton's energy agenda "will cost the U.S. economy over $5 trillion | September 24, 2016 | energy | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | Roanoke, Va | Trump said Clinton’s energy agenda "will cost the U.S. economy over $5 trillion." The Trump campaign said Trump was referring to one study that looked at how much it would cost to reach Clinton’s climate goal; it referred to a high-end, 30-year estimate of implementation costs. The study did not actually measure the effects on the economy. Critics of the plan say it will reduce GDP by as much as $2.5 trillion. Supporters say it actually will have a net-positive effect. Trump’s statement is not accurate. We rate it . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/c2dc492c-a93b-46ae-b501-e94b7cac3f06 |
12,049 | 3 | Says Hillary Clinton "has called for a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian ... refugees . . . despite the fact that there's no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. | July 21, 2016 | immigration;homeland security;human rights;foreign policy;terrorism | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a speech at the Republican convention | Trump said Hillary Clinton "has called for a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian ... refugees ... despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from." The 550 percent figure is correct. To say that there's no way to screen them to find out who they are or where they come from ignores the extensive screening they undergo. We rate the . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/c874e0c3-26be-4ff3-9659-47161651f5e1 |
5,196 | 1 | Tonight in Ohio, more people came out to vote for Barack Obama in an unopposed race than voted for (Mitt) Romney and (Rick) Santorum combined. | March 6, 2012 | elections | david axelrod | David Axelrod is a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. He is now an analyst for NBC News. | national | 2 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | an interview on NBC | Axelrod’s turned out to be off by a wide margin by the time all votes were counted and was almost certainly at the time he said it. We rate the . UPDATE : Shortly after we posted the item, Axelrod tweeted to take responsibility for his error: "Guilty as charged! I misspoke during an interview last night and PolitiFact rightly called me on it.." |
10,330 | 1 | Most polls show foreign nations have lower regard for the U.S. now than they did before Obama's time. | June 2, 2015 | polls and public opinion;punditfact | gretchen carlson | Gretchen Carlson is a co-anchor of the Fox News Channel morning show Fox & Friends. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | a "Gretchen's Take" on The Real Story | Carlson said, "Most polls show foreign nations have lower regard for the U.S. now than they did before Obama’s time." We’re not sure how she got to most. The consensus among three polls shows the United States generally in higher regard today than Bush’s last year in office. The outliers would be the views of people in a few countries, including Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. It’s to say "foreign nations have lower regard for the U.S." and it’s to say "most polls" show that. We rate it . |
546 | 1 | I have a perfect voting record from organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and all the other veterans service organizations. | July 7, 2008 | veterans | john mccain | John McCain was a U.S. senator from Arizona, a post he held from 1987 to his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the U.S. House. He was the Republican nominee for president in 2008. McCain was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent his career in the military, as his father did. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. He was born in 1936 in Panama. | national | 37 | 37 | 31 | 32 | 39 | 8 | Denver | At the same time, another veterans service organization cited by the McCain critic at the town hall meeting — the Disabled American Veterans — gave McCain only a 20 percent grade in its 2007 voting scorecard. McCain voted for only one of the amendments that the group tallied as key votes, while voting against the other four. Likewise, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a relatively new group that was instrumental in pushing for the expanded GI Bill, says McCain only voted veterans' way on 58 percent of the 155 Senate votes it tallied between 2001 and 2006. Even the Vietnam Veterans of America reports that McCain has voted against 15 of 31 priority bills it tracked between 2001 and 2008. As a result, we find McCain's to be . |
9,749 | 0 | Fluoride in the water, that was originally done by the Nazis! | December 2, 2014 | corrections and updates;history;public health;science;water;punditfact | jesse ventura | Jesse Ventura is an author, a former governor of Minnesota (1999-2003) and a former professional wrestler. | null | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | an interview with Salon.com | Ventura said, "Fluoride in the water, that was originally done by the Nazis!" Two book authors who researched the topic, one a journalist, the other a hydrologist, found no credible of such a connection. A leading anti-fluoridation activist repudiates the story. The most commonly cited Web source for the story was a 16-year-old extract in a fringe Australian publication. And a Holocaust historian we contacted knew of no such project. This remains ! Editor's note: This report initially referred to Ventura as a Navy SEAL, something he includes on his ora.tv biograph y . Readers later pointed out that there’s been a long-running debate on whether Ventura is justified in calling himself a SEAL. For more on his military background, see this story . |
6,331 | 1 | Says U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson "admitted" that Washington, D.C., "changed" him into an insider selling his influence to make millions from powerful special interests. | September 12, 2012 | bush administration;candidate biography;federal budget;message machine 2012 | democratic senatorial campaign committee | The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee works to elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate. | wisconsin | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | a TV ad | His link to these firms is clear, and his own disclosure reports show he has made millions in the private sector as a corporate consultant and advisor, executive, investor and speaker. But we’re examining the that Thompson candidly "admitted" being "changed" by Washington into a corporate influence peddler. Our rating In claiming that Thompson "admitted" he had been changed by Washington and had sold out to make millions, the ad jumbles a snippet from a quote about the failings of himself and other GOP officials while running Washington with his actions after leaving government service. The effect is to make it appear Thompson is condemning his own conduct and private-sector work. We rate the . |
12,186 | 4 | Says Hillary Clinton tripled the number of people with AIDS whose "lives are being saved .. and it did not cost you any more money. | July 26, 2016 | global news service;foreign policy;public health | bill clinton | Bill Clinton was president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He is married to Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. | null | 9 | 12 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 3 | a post on Medium | Bill Clinton said when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, she tripled the number of people with AIDS whose "lives are being saved," and it didn’t cost taxpayers any more money. Clinton took some liberties with the numbers. Treatment rose rapidly by about 250 percent. That’s not quite triple. But Clinton was right that those gains came without additional spending in inflation-adjusted dollars. And while Hillary Clinton can’t take full credit, outsiders said she did set the overall direction for how the program should move forward and intervened in specific ways to help it do more at a lower cost. We rate this . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aaf90740-0469-4739-9301-56482efa914b |
21,511 | 1 | Bill Gates planned a smallpox-type outbreak. | May 22, 2022 | public health;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post claimed that Gates planned a smallpox-type outbreak. That’s unfounded. Gates has spoken about preparing for future pandemics, not orchestrating them. Gates has long been the target of baseless conspiracy theories by people suspicious of his work to fund and promote vaccine development. We rate this statement . |
14,183 | 4 | California is 41st in the nation in per pupil K-12 spending, but "No. 1 in per prisoner" spending. | January 13, 2018 | corrections and updates;criminal justice;education;state budget;states | delaine eastin | Delaine Eastin is a Democratic candidate for California governor. She served in the State Assembly from 1986 to 1994 and then as State Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1995 to 2003. | california | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a town hall | Candidate for governor Delaine Eastin recently claimed California ranks 41st in per pupil K-12 spending but is "No. 1 in per prisoner" spending. She relied on a January 2017 policy center report that backs up the per pupil spending ranking, after adjusting for cost of living. Another ranking that makes a straight spending comparison puts California at 22nd for per pupil spending. Eastin did not make this clear in her statement nor did she note that California’s per student spending has increased in recent years. Eastin’s that California is No. 1 for per prisoner costs is backed up by a 2017 Associated Press report, which listed New York a distant second. While we could not immediately find current figures for New York, we discovered that California’s per prisoner costs are expected to again rise -- to more than $80,000 -- in the next fiscal year, several thousand dollars higher than in recent years. Overall, Eastin’s comparison is supported by recent studies. But her statement could use clarifying information. We rate it . – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. UPDATE: After publication, we added additional context noting the U.S. Supreme Court order prevents California from automatically closing prisons even as its inmate population is reduced. |
20,703 | 1 | Maybe they're just calling the common cold … the omicron variant. | December 20, 2021 | public health;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post said, "Maybe they’re just calling the common cold … the omicron variant." Scientists are still studying the severity of the disease caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. But the variant is not the same as the common cold, and public health officials are not trying to pass one off as the other, either. We rate this post . |
3,595 | 4 | On taxes, President Barack Obama wants to raise "the top rate to 44.8 percent. | May 16, 2011 | taxes | paul ryan | U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R.-Wis., became Speaker of the House in 2015 and served until his retirement in January 2019. Ryan was elected to represent southern Wisconsin in Congress in 1998 and for part of his tenure chaired the House Budget Committee. He was Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election. He did not seek re-election in 2018. | national | 11 | 16 | 24 | 23 | 7 | 5 | Chicago | So where does this leave us? On Ryan’s number, it’s possible to argue that the actual rate is as low as 42.8 percent rather than 44.8 percent, but that’s open to debate. On his description of what the number means, Ryan -- particularly given that he was working from a prepared speech -- could have been clearer by saying something like, "The various parts of Obama’s tax agenda would together push the highest marginal tax rate up to 44.8 percent." Still, the figure Ryan used is close to what the tax rate would be if Obama’s agenda is followed, and a cross-section of economists we asked thought that Ryan’s presentation of that number was reasonable. On balance, we rate it . |
6,940 | 1 | When the Affordable Care Act was signed, 17 million American children" had a pre-existing condition and were "uninsurable. | January 31, 2013 | children;families;health care | tammy baldwin | Tammy Baldwin was elected to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 6, 2012. She represented Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District from January 1999 to January 2013. She served as a member of the Wisconsin Assembly from January 1993 to January 1999. She was a Dane County supervisor from 1986 to 1994 and briefly served on the Madison Common Council, filling a vacancy, in 1986. | wisconsin | 10 | 14 | 15 | 12 | 7 | 0 | a speech | Baldwin went further than Obama, not implying but declaring that 17 million children could not be insured. Our rating Baldwin said: "When the Affordable Care Act was signed, 17 million American children" had a pre-existing condition and were "uninsurable." It’s possible that as many as 17 million children have a pre-existing health condition, but the figure could be as low as 4 million. And only a fraction of children with a pre-existing condition didn’t have insurance because of that condition. We rate Baldwin’s statement . |
16,746 | 0 | Says President Obama used government funds to pay for his personal vacations for the next 20 years and Trump sent him a bill. | October 29, 2019 | fake news;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | According to CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller, who keeps records of presidential travel, President Obama took 29 vacation trips over his eight years in the White House. The trips spanned all or part of 235 days (not 692). He also made 39 visits to Camp David, totaling around 93 days. Even though the original story was published with a disclaimer, versions of the account were copied and pasted in social media posts with no such explanation and circulated as real news. We rate this ! |
9,432 | 3 | Says Rick Scott "pled the Fifth 75 times to avoid jail for Medicare fraud. | September 19, 2014 | corrections and updates;legal issues | charlie crist | Charlie Crist lost the race for Florida governor as the Democratic candidate in 2022. He served as a U.S. congressman from St. Petersburg since 2017 and resigned Aug. 31, 2022 to focus on his campaign. As a Republican, Crist served as governor from 2007 to 2011. Crist left the Republican Party in 2010 to mount a campaign for the U.S. Senate as an independent. Crist lost the race to Marco Rubio. In 2012, he endorsed President Barack Obama and announced that he had registered as a Democrat. He lost his race as a Democratic candidate for governor in 2014. | florida | 15 | 20 | 21 | 20 | 11 | 2 | a campaign commercial | Crist said Scott "pled the Fifth 75 times to avoid jail for Medicare fraud." If you haven’t heard by now, Scott did invoke his Fifth Amendment rights 75 times in a deposition to avoid discussing a Medicare fraud case. But Crist’s ad is pushing the envelope to say he did it to avoid jail. No one went to prison for the Medicare fraud debacle, nor did Scott actually face the rigors of a grand jury or even federal investigators. The commercial seems to imply Scott was in the thick of the raids, when he was actually sent packing as soon as it became apparent the company faced a major punishment for defrauding the U.S. government. It’s impossible to say if Scott would have gone to jail if he had answered those deposition questions, but experts say he was certainly avoiding possible legal trouble by asserting the Fifth Amendment. We rate the statement . Correction, Oct. 3, 2014, 2:30 p.m.: This version clarifies the context in which Scott asserted his Fifth Amendment right. The change does not affect the ruling. |
5,044 | 2 | Says "as of November, we were ranked 45th in the nation in terms of job creation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. | January 25, 2012 | jobs | barbara buono | Barbara Buono is a Democratic state senator representing part of Middlesex County. Buono previously served in the State Assembly from 1994 to 2001. | new jersey | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | a column | In a column, Buono claimed that "as of November, we were ranked 45th in the nation in terms of job creation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics." Her representative sent us data showing that New Jersey ranked 43 for the percentage of jobs created between November 2009 and November 2011. But that still doesn’t support what the senator claimed. When you analyze growth between November 2010 and November 2011, New Jersey is doing better, ranking 32 for a 0.7 percent increase in jobs. Since the 43rd ranking for the two-year period comes close to the ranking in Buono’s column, we rate the statement . To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com . |
1,888 | 1 | Tarpon Springs takes its homeless to St. Petersburg. | May 13, 2010 | poverty;urban | leslie curran | Leslie Ann Curran is chairwoman of the St. Petersburg City Council. | florida | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a city council meeting | Four shelters confirmed his records. He takes the majority of the homeless people he finds to shelters, which aren't in St. Petersburg. What we're assessing is Curran's that Tarpon Springs takes all of its homeless to St. Petersburg. And we find no to substantiate her blanket statement. We rate her statement . |
16,200 | 2 | As you know, we apprehended over 144,000 people in a single month. That is a pace, which if it continues for 12 months, would put us on a pace for nearly 2 million apprehensions on the border. | June 21, 2019 | immigration | ted cruz | Ted Cruz is a U.S. Senator from Texas, first elected in 2012. Cruz also was a candidate for president of the United States in 2016. He is the former solicitor general for the state of Texas, previously serving as the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a domestic policy advisor on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign, according to his campaign biography. | texas | 8 | 22 | 21 | 48 | 47 | 11 | a press release | Cruz said, "As you know, we apprehended over 144,000 people in a single month. That is a pace, which if it continues for 12 months, would put us on a pace for nearly 2 million apprehensions on the border." Cruz’s assessment of the number of apprehensions includes figures for people who presented themselves to federal officials at ports of entry who were then "deemed inadmissible." These individuals are turned back and are typically not taken into custody. The second part of his statement offered an estimate for future apprehensions based on those figures. Changing demographics at the border make it tricky to estimate future flows, but experts agreed that Cruz’s estimate (144,000 x 12) is far from accurate, since it doesn’t take any other variables into account. We rate this . – The statement contains an element of but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. |
934 | 4 | President Obama's own director of national intelligence, Admiral Blair, put it this way: 'High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaida organization that was attacking this country.' | May 21, 2009 | military | dick cheney | Dick Cheney served as Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 in the administration of George W. Bush. | national | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | a speech at the American Enterprise Institute | Cheney also failed to mention that Blair opposes the use of the controversial interrogation techniques, that he thinks the damage they have caused far outweigh the benefits gained and that they "are not essential to our national security." Cheney neglected to give a full account of Blair's comments. But even that additional context does not refute the core point that Cheney attributes to Blair. Even if Blair has misgivings about the techniques, he has still acknowledged the information from them "was valuable in some instances." We find Cheney's statement . |
21,113 | 4 | Make no mistake: The current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin. | March 14, 2022 | gas prices;foreign policy;ukraine;russia | joe biden | Joe Biden is the president of the United States. A Democrat, Biden served as a Delaware senator from 1973 (elected at the age of 29) until 2009. During his time in the Senate, he served as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, chair of the International Narcotics Control Caucus and chair of the Judiciary Committee. He subsequently served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2016. Biden launched unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008. He received a degree in history and political science from the University of Delaware and his J.D. from Syracuse School of Law. | null | 25 | 64 | 65 | 52 | 55 | 7 | a speech to the National League of Cities | Biden said, "Make no : The current spike in gas prices is largely the fault of Vladimir Putin." By current, Biden means very current. The most recent spike in gas prices has stemmed largely from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But gas prices were rising before the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine became front-page news. About two-thirds of the price rise since gas prices’ low point in May 2020 came before the Ukraine buildup became a major international story, an increase that experts say stemmed primarily from the economic recovery following the pandemic. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it . |
13,742 | 2 | Says Aaron Rodgers "is not the highest tax rate payer" in Wisconsin, it's "the single mom getting 24 grand in benefits with two kids who will lose 80 cents on the dollar if she goes and takes a job. | August 21, 2017 | jobs;poverty;welfare;taxes | paul ryan | U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R.-Wis., became Speaker of the House in 2015 and served until his retirement in January 2019. Ryan was elected to represent southern Wisconsin in Congress in 1998 and for part of his tenure chaired the House Budget Committee. He was Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election. He did not seek re-election in 2018. | wisconsin | 11 | 16 | 24 | 23 | 7 | 5 | a town hall | In Racine, Ryan drew headlines for criticizing remarks made by President Donald Trump about racial violence nine days earlier in Charlottesville, Va. But a portion of the CNN town hall was spent discussing taxes. More on Ryan, Rodgers and taxes In Context : Scott Walker, Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre : Ryan says the U.S. "tax rate on successful small businesses is 44.6 percent," while the business tax rate in Canada is 15 percent. : Trump in Wisconsin says America’s federal business tax rate is the highest "in the world." |
20,447 | 1 | Indiana State Police offers to hire Chicago officers who REFUSE TO COMPLY with vax mandate. | October 21, 2021 | facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | an Instagram post | " A day earlier, Indiana Sen. Mike Braun tweeted something similar: "My office stands ready to help connect Chicago police officers to an Indiana police department that is hiring now and doesn’t have a vaccine mandate. " Fifield’s tweet has since been deleted , but both his and Braun’s drew headlines like one from the Hill that said "Indiana recruiting unvaccinated Chicago officers. " But that doesn’t support the that Indiana State Police has offered to hire Chicago officers who refuse to get vaccinated. We rate this post . |
19,761 | 1 | Black Lives Matter says it stands with Hamas terrorists in Israeli conflict. | May 19, 2021 | israel;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | an Instagram post | (always have. And always will be). " In the May 19 edition of the CNN newsletter Reliable Sources, media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote that "Fox stealth-edited the significant error out of its piece, and only attached a weak editor’s note to the article after I reached out for comment on why it hadn’t done so already. " The editor’s note at the bottom of the story says that "this report’s headline was updated to more closely reflect the Black Lives Matter tweet. " We rate claims that the group said it stands with "Hamas terrorists" . |
17,323 | 2 | Italy has decided not to treat their elderly for this virus. | March 14, 2020 | public health;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post claiming Italy had decided to stop treating elderly COVID-19 patients goes too far. Overwhelmed by the number of cases, the country was relying on guidelines to give priority for some treatments, such as ventilators, to those patients most likely to survive. We rate the . |
16,523 | 3 | For the first time in history, most new hires of prime working age are minorities and women. | September 22, 2019 | economy | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a speech | Trump said, "For the first time in history, most new hires of prime working age are minorities and women." Trump’s re-election campaign said Trump’s is based on an analysis by the Washington Post. But Trump’s phrasing is off. The Post reported that according to data collected by the government since the 1970s, most new hires of prime working age (25 to 54) were minorities, and minority women were predominantly driving the trend. That isn’t the same as saying minorities and women (of all races and ethnicities) account for most of the new hires of prime working age. Trump’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it . |
18,536 | 2 | Says Susan Collins "pushed for policies that benefited her husband's lobbying business. | September 16, 2020 | campaign finance;ethics;taxes | sara gideon | Democrat Sara Gideon has served in Maine’s state House since 2013 and as its speaker since 2016. She is a 2020 candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from Maine. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | an ad | Gideon claimed Collins "pushed for policies that benefited her husband’s lobbying business." Neither piece of cited in the ad proves Collins acted to benefit the business directly. Two actions taken by Collins, prior to marrying her husband, were bipartisan and broad. While her future husband’s lobbying firm, Jefferson Consulting Group, could have been affected by the measures, there is no Collins acted specifically to benefit him. The vote to repeal a withholding tax received broad bipartisan Senate support and resulted in a 95-0 vote. Her push against an Obama initiative involving financial disclosures was on the grounds that such a rule could unduly influence federal contract awards. Neither action was directed specifically at helping her husband’s firm, nor were they even directed at lobbyists, but rather federal contractors generally. We rate the statement . This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more. |
6,894 | 4 | Says since Australia passed tough gun laws, "homicides by firearm have declined almost 60 percent. | January 25, 2013 | crime;government regulation;public safety;guns | stephen king | Novelist Stephen King has published over 50 books since the early 1970s, starting with horror novel Carrie. He lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. | national | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a Kindle Single essay, 'Guns' | King, urging his readers to support an American assault weapons ban, said that since Australia passed tough gun laws, "homicides by firearm have declined almost 60 percent." The raw numbers back him up — but cause and effect are much peskier questions. Scholars we spoke with say the leans King’s way, but is less than conclusive. That’s an important clarification. We rate King’s . |
15,190 | 0 | Says a photo shows Bill Clinton and Christine Blasey Ford posing for a camera and smiling together. | October 8, 2018 | fake news;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a post on Facebook | The sharer notes that the picture "keeps disappearing from my timeline" and encourages others to take their own photos of the image and share it -- which appears to be exactly what happened in the post that, when we reviewed it, had generated nearly 362,000 shares. In reality, the image is a photo of Clinton and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. Gillibrand tweeted the picture from her official Twitter account on July 25, 2016 , on the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. As #DemsInPhilly gather to nominate our next Pres. @HillaryClinton , kicked off #DNCinPHL w/former Pres. @BillClinton pic.twitter.com/nZ1uE18oRp We rate this viral post ! |
14,363 | 3 | The Koch brothers have given" Paul Ryan "$500,000 in campaign contributions. | February 24, 2018 | campaign finance;elections | bernie sanders | Bernie Sanders is a senator from Vermont. Sanders was first elected to the Senate in 2007 and was re-elected in 2012 and 2018. The senator also ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2016, losing the Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton. From 1991 until 2007, he was the representative of Vermont’s At-Large District of the House of Representatives. Sanders was the mayor of Burlington from 1981 to 1989. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Chicago. In 2019, he announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for president and dropped out in April 2020. | wisconsin | 21 | 62 | 48 | 26 | 18 | 0 | a campaign appearance | Our rating At a campaign rally for one of the candidates running for Ryan’s U.S. House seat, Sanders said "the Koch brothers have given" Ryan "$500,000 in campaign contributions." It wasn’t the two Koch brothers but rather one of the brothers, and his wife, who contributed $495,400. The money was given to a joint fundraising committee controlled by Ryan. But it primarily funds campaigns of other Republicans because, by law, only $10,800 could go to Ryan’s own campaign fund. We rate Sanders’ statement . |
8,960 | 2 | $3 billion over the next five years will be taken out of our public schools and be put into vouchers. | May 10, 2014 | children;education;poverty | nan rich | Nan Rich won a seat on the Broward County Commission in 2016. She served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2004 and then was elected to the Florida Senate. She served as leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus 2010-2012 and then was term limited. Rich lost a Democratic primary for governor in 2014. | florida | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | a speech | Rich said that "$3 billion over the next five years will be taken out of our public schools and be put into vouchers." There's not $3 billion in funding that's being removed from a public schools budget and put into a voucher program budget. Instead, Rich was referring to the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which gives corporations tax credits when they give money to allow poor students to attend private schools. Based on the program’s size, it’s possible that it could fund a voucher program in the ballpark of $3 billion over the next five years. But there’s no guarantee that money would otherwise have gone to public schools. And, private school vouchers tend to cost less than what it costs to educate a child in public schools, which complicates how much money taxpayers would pay if the children in private schools instead went to public schools. That’s even more now that the state raised the income eligibility requirements this year. We rate this . |
16,700 | 1 | Says President Trump donated his "second quarter salary to rebuild military cemeteries" and that the media ignored it and every other story of him donating his salary as POTUS. | November 13, 2019 | fake news;military;veterans;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | Q2: Small Business Administration; Q3: National Institutes of Health; Q4: Department of Homeland Security2019 2019 Q1: U.S. Department of Agriculture; Q2: HHS/Office of the Surgeon General The photo of Trump with the child, by the way, is from Memorial Day in 2017 at Arlington National Cemetery. We rate this post . |
12,914 | 1 | Wisconsin's middle class is the "most diminished" in the United States. | January 10, 2017 | families;income;jobs | peter barca |
Peter Barca, a Kenosha native and Democrat, has served two stints in the state Assembly. He was first elected in 1984 before resigning after winning a U.S. House seat in 1993. He served one term in Congress, losing re-election to Mark Neumann. Barca served in various governmental and private-sector posts before winning election to the Assembly in 2008. He was elected Minority Leader of the Assembly Democrats in 2011.
| wisconsin | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | a news conference | Thus, while Wisconsin had the biggest decline of middle class households between 2000 and 2013, its performance in recent years shifts the outcome. Our rating Barca said Wisconsin has "the most diminished middle class" in the United States. An analysis by a respected, nonpartisan research organization found the percentage of middle class households in Wisconsin declined the most of any state between 2000 and 2013. But in the latest version of that analysis — comparing the years 2000 and 2015 — middle class households in Wisconsin did not shrink the most of any state. We rate the . |
3,326 | 4 | Says Jeff Stone = Scott Walker. | March 18, 2011 | candidate biography;state budget;taxes | chris abele | Chris Abele is Milwaukee County Executive, a position he won in an April 2011 special election to finish out the final year of the term of Scott Walker, who was elected governor in November 2010. The election was the first attempt at political office for Abele, a Milwaukee philanthropist and business owner.
The office is nonpartisan, but Abele has indicated he is a Democrat. | wisconsin | 1 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | a television ad | Abele’s strongest comes from Stone himself, who has aligned himself closely with Walker’s agenda and politics. Their voting histories are very similar, and they win very similar ratings from interest groups. They are not indistinguishable, though: The transit issue illustrates Stone’s willingness to step out from Republican orthodoxy and work behind the scenes in a bipartisan fashion -- neither of which are Walker trademarks. Stone’s business experience is a notable biographical difference. In the end, Abele’s equation (Stone = Walker) scores out as . |
4,824 | 4 | Our income, our GDP per capita, is almost 50 percent higher than (it is for) the average European. | December 28, 2011 | economy | mitt romney | Mitt Romney is a U.S. senator from Utah. He ran for president in 2012 as the Republican nominee, losing to incumbent President Barack Obama. Prior to that, Romney served one term as governor of Massachusetts, elected to the post in 2002. He was born in 1947 in Michigan, where his father was governor from 1963 to 1969. Romney graduated from Brigham Young University and received both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard University. Romney helped found the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984, which launched or rebuilt such companies as Staples and Dominos Pizza. Romney managed the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City from 1999-2002. He ran for president in 2008 but lost the Republican nomination. He and his wife, Ann, have five sons, Tagg, Craig, Matt, Ben and Josh. | national | 31 | 33 | 58 | 35 | 32 | 19 | an editorial board meeting with an Iowa newspaper | Gross domestic product per capita may not offer the fairest comparison between the U.S. and Europe, mainly because it doesn’t take into account the European trade-off between income and leisure and because it effectively gives heavier weight to a small number of very rich Americans. In addition, there are a number of ways to define "Europe," some of which weaken the accuracy of Romney's statement. Still, as Romney phrased it -- that the United States’ "GDP per capita is almost 50 percent higher than (it is for) the average European" -- his has merit. It’s actually slightly over 50 percent by that measure. On balance, we rate it . |
5,577 | 0 | 20 million people could lose their current coverage" … "including our senior citizens who are on Medicare. | May 9, 2012 | health care;medicare;message machine 2012;tampa bay 10 news | u.s. chamber of commerce | From the chamber's Web site: "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business federation representing 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations. More than 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer." | florida | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 1 | a TV ad | The ad from the U.S. Chamber makes it sound like 20 million older Americans will lose coverage under the health care law. We found no that Medicare beneficiaries will lose coverage under the health care law, and the ad’s points to one cherry-picked statistic that applies to employer-provided insurance, not Medicare. For trying to scare the pants off Florida seniors, we rate the statement ! PolitiFact Florida and 10 News are partnering for the 2012 election season. See a video version of this fact-check here . |
15,675 | 2 | Violent crime is now going down for the first time in a long while. | February 13, 2019 | crime | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a speech | Trump said, "Violent crime is now going down for the first time in a long while." Violent crime has been on a downward trajectory for some time, with an occasional uptick. Official FBI data shows that the violent crime rate went down very slightly — by less than 1 percent — between 2016 and 2017. But that statistic has fallen as recently as 2014, and it has declined in 22 of the past 27 years, with today’s rate half of what it was in 1991. We rate the statement . |
7,268 | 5 | Despite having their budget increased by over 40 percent since 2009 … pending claims for benefits with the (Department of Veterans Affairs) have increased from 391,000 to 890,000 under the Obama Administration. | April 23, 2013 | veterans | tom graves | Tom Graves represents Georgia's 9th Congressional District. | georgia | 5 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | a ZPolitics op-ed | In sum, Graves’ numbers are correct. The VA’s budget has increased by more than 40 percent, and the number of pending claims has skyrocketed from some 391,000 to 890,000 under the Obama administration. Graves also was accurate in noting that the increase took place under the president’s watch. While the VA’s benefits system has been troubled since well before Obama took office, efforts during his administration have not prepared the department for its current challenges. We rate Graves’ statement . |
314 | 4 | George Bush sent people to war without body armor. | January 31, 2008 | iraq | hillary clinton | Hillary Clinton was the 2016 Democratic nominee for president. She served as U.S. Secretary of State during the first four years of the Obama administration. She is formerly a U.S. senator from New York, first elected in 2000. She was a candidate for president in 2008. She previously served as first lady when her husband, Bill Clinton, served two terms as president. She was born in Chicago in 1947, graduated from Wellesley College and earned a law degree at Yale Law School. She and her husband have one daughter. | national | 72 | 76 | 70 | 43 | 31 | 9 | Los Angeles | In March 2007, Clinton and fellow Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia sent a letter to the Comptroller of the United States, calling on him to initiate a GAO investigation to reassess the body armor systems used by the military. The following month, the GAO issued a report, which concluded that "Army and Marine Corps body armor is currently meeting theater ballistic requirements and the required amount needed for personnel in theater, including the amounts needed for the surge of troops in Iraq." Nevertheless, with emerging technology and debate over the best type of body armor, the GAO is reassessing body armor, said Roger Charles, vice chairman of the nonpartisan Soldiers for the Foundation, which has been at the forefront of the body armor debate. Clinton's comment about troops heading into war without body armor, while it wasn't for all, was for some soldiers at the beginning of the war. So we rate Clinton's comment . |
17,276 | 1 | (Barack Obama) set up anti-pandemic programs in 47 vulnerable countries as a way to protect against something like the coronavirus, exactly. Do you know that Trump closed 37 of them? | March 9, 2020 | public health;pundits;punditfact;coronavirus | joy behar | A co-host on the ABC talk show The View. | national | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | an episode of ABC's "The View" | Behar said Obama "set up anti-pandemic programs in 47 vulnerable countries as a way to protect against something like the coronavirus" and "Trump closed 37 of them." News reports in 2018 said the CDC was planning to shrink its operations to help foreign countries prevent infectious diseases because it didn’t expect to receive new funding once the supplement it received in 2014 ran out. But the programs didn’t shut down in the end. The spending bill that lawmakers ultimately passed that year provided more money for those CDC programs than Trump’s budget request originally asked for. Behar corrected her statement. We rate it . |
14,842 | 1 | The Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats. | July 16, 2018 | elections | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | Helsinki | Trump said that "the Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats." There may have been a popular misperception prior to the 2016 election that Democrats had a large number of solidly blue states that made it much easier for them to reach 270 than the Republicans. But professional handicappers never considered states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to be solid for the Democrats, even in the 2008 and 2012 elections — and any notion that they continue to be solidly Democratic going forward was exploded by Trump’s wins in those states, making his use of the present tense dubious. There may even be a modest Republican lean to the Electoral College in this political moment, but we couldn’t find of a permanent bias either way. We rate the statement . |
16,404 | 3 | A federal pilot program to DNA test illegal immigrants showed "something like 30% (of test subjects) are fake families. | August 22, 2019 | immigration | ken cuccinelli | Ken Cuccinelli became acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on June 10, 2019. Cuccinelli, a Republican, was Virginia's attorney general from 2010 to 2014. In 2013, he lost the general election for governor to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. In 2016, he was a adisver to the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Born in 1968, Cuccinelli has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, a J.D. from Geroge Mason University School of Law and an M.A. in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University.
He represented Fairfax County in the state senate from 2002 to 2010.
. | national | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 1 | a panel discussion | Cuccinelli said a federal pilot program to DNA test illegal immigrants showed "something like 30% (of test subjects) are families." It’s not entirely clear where Cuccinelli’s 30% figure comes from. The Associated Press reported that in the latter half of April, border officials identified around 100 possible cases of fraudulent families, and found that one third were fraudulent. But these findings were based on traditional investigative methods like document screening, and happened before the DNA testing program went into effect. An article in the Washington Examiner published on May 18 — about a week after phase one of the DNA pilot program ended — reported the 30% statistic, citing an unnamed immigration official. But in June, the ICE released data that showed around 20% of suspicious cases turned up DNA that disproved a family relationship. The relevant agencies did not respond to our request for information. We rate this . |
21,196 | 1 | Pfizer staged the Will Smith and Chris Rock confrontation at the Academy Awards because it "has a new alopecia medication coming out. | March 28, 2022 | facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a post | But neither drug will be available to the public in the near future. The earliest anticipated date for federal regulatory approval of either drug is 2023. Media reports have said there is no to support the that Will Smith’s slap was staged. The Academy has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Smith, and he apologized for his actions. We rate this . |
9,740 | 4 | President Barack Obama "said over 20 times he did not have the legal authority" to act as he did on immigration. | December 2, 2014 | immigration | michael mccaul | Michael McCaul was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004. | texas | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | a committee hearing | McCaul said Obama "said over 20 times he did not have the legal authority to" act as he did on immigration. The Texan’s count is too high – we see less than 15 solid examples from 2010 into 2014 – but his statement is spot-on about Obama often saying he couldn’t do more absent congressional action. We rate the . |
18,029 | 1 | Wayfair CEO steps down. | July 10, 2020 | facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook .) Wayfair’s CEO and co-chairman, Niraj Shah, founded the company with Steve Conine in 2002, according to descriptions of Wayfair’s executive leadership team on its website. A spokesperson for Wayfair told PolitiFact that Shah has not resigned. We rate this post . |
21,652 | 1 | A photo shows two men on the run who pretend to be homeless and then "attack and rob you. | July 9, 2022 | facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | ohio | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | " We did a reverse image search for one of the booking photos in the post about Columbus, Ohio, and found a May 26 news story about the men, who are accused of wearing clown masks during a deadly shooting in Volusia County, Florida. Both men were indicted on first-degree murder charges, so it would be unlikely that they have since been released from custody and are disturbing an Ohio community. A search of Volusia County online records shows both men remain in custody. The Columbus Division of Police regularly posts booking photos of people who have been arrested and the crimes that they’re accused of committing, but we didn’t find these men among them. We rate this post . |
7,346 | 0 | Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried "not far" from President Kennedy's grave. | May 10, 2013 | history;islam;crime;pundits;religion;terrorism | john depetro | John DePetro is a talk-show host on WPRO. | rhode island | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | a comment on WPRO radio | Saying that Kennedy is buried "not far" from Tsarnaev is like saying Newport is not far from the eastern tip of Cape Cod, that Rhode Island's State House is not far from Derry, N.H., or that the site of the Boston Marathon bombing is "not far" from the the southernmost tip of Narragansett, R.I. And to say that such a distance should somehow spark offense strikes us as mildly , so we rate his statement ! (If you have a you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) |
18,856 | 1 | CNN says Dick Cheney will be advising Biden on foreign policy. | November 7, 2020 | elections;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | Former President George W. Bush, whom Cheney served with, is one of the few senior Republicans who have congratulated Biden on his victory. But there’s nothing to support the claims in these posts, and CNN hasn’t reported on Cheney joining the Biden team. We rate them . This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here , for more. |
1,780 | 0 | Ninety-four percent of the bills that pass the Senate have no debate, no vote, no amendments, no reading of the bill, no online disclosure. | May 26, 2010 | transparency | jim demint | Jim DeMint is a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina. He is now president of The Heritage Foundation . | national | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 | YouTube video of a floor speech | Indeed, those unfamiliar with Senate procedures might be shocked to learn that even 56 percent of legally binding bills passed the chamber without debate. But DeMint wasn't content to limit himself to such . In making his point, he ran up the score. Ultimately, we find that DeMint's goals, laudable though they may be, are undercut -- not strengthened -- by the math he chose to present in his floor speech. We'll own up to our own mathematical error, but we stand by our overall judgment from the initial article: ! |
23,337 | 4 | Florida "decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery. | July 20, 2023 | corrections and updates;education;history;race and ethnicity | kamala harris | Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States. Harris was elected as a senator from California in 2016. She previously was California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. From 2004 until 2011, she was the district attorney of San Francisco. Harris received a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Howard University and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of Law. In 2019, she ran for the Democratic nomination for president and dropped out in December. On Aug. 11, 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate. | florida | 2 | 16 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 0 | a speech to the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority | Harris said Florida "decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery." That is not the only lesson Florida students would be taught under the standards that also include many other aspects of Black history and slavery. But the one Harris cited is included, and has drawn significant criticism. The middle school standards approved by the Florida state education board say students should learn about "skills" learned by slaves that could be "applied for their personal benefit." Several historians who have studied slavery cast doubt on this lesson’s educational value. We rate this statement . CLARIFICATION, July 28: We updated this story to clarify a paraphrased quote from Katheryn Russell-Brown. |
14,217 | 4 | On taxes, "if you go back and look 50 years ago, individuals paid about 7 percent of the total and corporations paid 5 percent. Fast forward 50 years: individuals still 7 percent, corporations (are) down to 2 percent. | December 14, 2017 | wealth;taxes | richard cordray | Richard Cordray is running for Ohio governor in 2018. Cordray was appointed as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during President Barack Obama's administration. He is the former attorney general of Ohio and a Democrat. | ohio | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | a speech | Cordray said in a speech, "If you go back and look 50 years ago, individuals paid about 7 percent of the total and corporations paid 5 percent. Fast forward 50 years: individuals still 7 percent, corporations (are) down to 2 percent." He was referring to taxes paid as a percentage of GDP, which wasn’t clear from his remarks. And, a growing portion of the individual income tax figure he cites was effectively taxes paid by businesses as "pass-throughs" on individual tax filings. Overall, though, his numbers are in the ballpark. We rate this . |
3,155 | 5 | The American people have endured 21 consecutive months of 9% or higher unemployment [and] 2.6 million jobs have been lost," since the stimulus bill was signed. | February 17, 2011 | jobs | george allen | George Allen was a U.S. senator from 2001-2007. He was governor of Virginia from 1994-1998. | virginia | 8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 1 | a press release | Allen said "the American people have endured 21 consecutive months of 9 percent or higher unemployment," and that "2.6 million jobs have been lost" since the stimulus bill was signed in February 2009. The unemployment moved above 9 percent in May 2009 and has been at that level or higher for 21 months. Since March 2009, 2.57 million jobs have been lost, which rounds up to the 2.6 million figure cited by Allen. Allen ignores the number of jobs saved or created by stimulus, but the figures he uses in his are correct. We rate his statement . |
22,154 | 2 | Mark Kelly "voted to allow prison inmates to receive stimulus checks five separate times. | October 11, 2022 | federal budget;ad watch | saving arizona pac | Saving Arizona PAC is a political action committee with at least $13.5 million in backing from billionaire Peter Thiel. It supports Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Blake Masters. | arizona | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | an ad | Saving Arizona PAC claimed Kelly "voted to allow prison inmates to receive stimulus checks five separate times." Stimulus checks have been sent to Americans three times in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Inmates were eligible to receive all three payments. There weren’t five votes by Kelly or five payments to inmates. Kelly, who wasn’t in office when the first stimulus package passed, voted for two of the measures, one signed by Trump and one signed by Biden. He also voted not to exclude inmates from the Biden package, which was the only vote specifically about inmates getting stimulus checks. The statement contains an element of that Kelly voted in favor of stimulus checks, which prison inmates were eligible to receive. But the ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, including that Kelly was not even in office when one of the stimulus payments was approved, with support from Republicans. We rate it . RELATED : Fact-checking ads in the 2022 election campaigns RELATED: Arizona fact-checks |
15,409 | 3 | This election marks the largest Senate gains for a president's party in a first midterm election since at least President Kennedy's in 1962. | November 7, 2018 | elections | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a press conference | If the results hold and Republicans win in Mississippi, Florida and Arizona, Trump would be correct that Republicans’ Senate gains in the 2018 midterms (+3) represent the largest first midterm Senate pickup since President John F. Kennedy’s Democratic party gained four seats in 1962. Those races are not yet called, though. While Republicans are in a better position in all three states, Trump is counting gains that are not yet certain. We rate statements based on what's known at the time they were made. So we this rates . |
5,848 | 5 | Fireworks have never been safer, and their use continues to increase each year. | June 26, 2012 | economy;financial regulation;patriotism;regulation | bill weimer | Bill Weimer is the vice president of Youngstown, Ohio,-based Phantom Fireworks, the nation's largest retailer of consumer fireworks. | ohio | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a newspaper column | But, the statistical record shows that the rate of injury from fireworks declined nationally while their use increased dramatically, and while laws governing their consumer use loosened. There still are injuries, but the annual rate has plateaued even while consumption continues to grow. We found no stronger explanation than the concurrent regulatory and policing work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to make fireworks safer. Weimer’s is accurate. On the -O-Meter it rates . |
8,763 | 1 | Many" of the founding fathers were "very actively involved" in cockfighting. | April 3, 2014 | animals;history | matt bevin | 46-yearold investment manager. | national | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | a radio interview | Bevin said that "many" of the founding fathers were "very actively involved" in cockfighting. In looking at the most prominent founders, we found no indications that any of the founders were avid and frequent participants. We rate the . |
7,715 | 5 | State law says that once the state appraises a piece of property, they can only pay it a certain amount above appraisal. | August 7, 2013 | city government;corrections and updates;sports | kasim reed | Kasim Reed is Mayor of Atlanta. | georgia | 5 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | an interview | Or will "some other resources," as Reed described them in the interview, come into play. Stay tuned. Reed’s statement is based largely on the state attorney general’s interpretation of a portion of the Georgia Constitution, which is appropriate because the land will be purchased by a state agency. Given that, we reverse our earlier ruling. We rate Reed’s statement . |
10,635 | 4 | The United States is about 100th in voter turnout among the industrialized nations, and Texas is near the bottom in terms of voter registration and voter turnout. | August 5, 2015 | elections | bruce elfant | Bruce Elfant won election as Travis County tax assessor-collector in 2012. | texas | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | an interview with Dick Ellis, KOKE FM, Austin | Elfant said the U.S. is "about 100th in voter turnout among the industrialized nations and Texas is near the bottom in terms of voter registration and voter turnout." Texas is nearly last among the states in voter registration and turnout and U.S. voter turnout ranks low internationally, though that's among all nations, not the limited number of countries considered industrially developed. We rate the statement . – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. |
1,329 | 5 | The State of Texas does not even use the E-Verify system to determine if someone is legally in our country when they apply for a job. | January 14, 2010 | immigration | kay bailey hutchison | Kay Bailey Hutchison, initially elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993, did not seek re-election in 2012. She ran for governor in 2010, losing the Republican nomination to incumbent Rick Perry. | texas | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 0 | a debate | Ten states require their state agencies to participate in E-Verify; three more — South Carolina, Arizona and Mississippi — require all employers to use it, too. In 2008, though, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour aired these misgivings: "I am concerned about mandating the E-Verify system as the sole source from which an employer in Mississippi can verify a potential employee’s eligibility, especially since the federal government itself has said E-Verify is not a reliable system." The bottom line: Texas uses the same method of checking legal residency that most states use. But Hutchison correctly said the state doesn't use E-Verify. We find her statement . |
3,728 | 0 | Because Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a 30-bill job creation package, "New Jersey ranks 50th in the nation in job creation. | May 12, 2011 | jobs | lou greenwald | Lou Greenwald is a Democratic state Assemblyman representing parts of Burlington and Camden counties. He also serves as the Assembly Majority Leader. | new jersey | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | a message on Facebook | Yet when we look at three- and six-month periods, the Garden State is faring a little bit better. But Greenwald’s biggest here is to blame Christie’s vetoes from February and March for employment changes that occurred several months earlier. That makes the not just , but . ! To comment on this ruling, join the conversation at NJ.com . |
2,590 | 0 | Patrick Rose "voted to explore a state income tax. | October 17, 2010 | message machine 2010;voting record;taxes | jason isaac | Jason Isaac was initially elected in 2010 to represent District 45 in the Texas House. He's a 2018 candidate for the U.S. House seat to be vacated by Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio. | texas | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | a TV ad | Can't get any plainer than that." Our take: Isaac would have had a legitimate point if he'd limited himself to saying Rose voted to study a property tax mechanism that's related to income. But his statement grossly overstates things. Indeed, we'd suggest, if Watson's proposal had even been judged the back door to an income tax, it would never have drawn legislative backing. ! |
18,008 | 1 | The Supreme Court ruled today NO VOTING BY MAIL !!! | June 26, 2020 | corrections and updates;elections;public health;supreme court;coronavirus;texas | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| california | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post suggested the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down voting by mail nationwide. That’s far from the . The high court rejected an expansion of mail-in voting in Texas in late June. It also voted down an effort to make the practice easier in three counties in Alabama in early July. But those rulings in no way take away existing rights to vote-by-mail in dozens of states across the nation. We rate the . – The statement is not accurate. Update: This article has been updated to show the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency motion to expand mail-in voting in Texas. A decision on the merits of the case is still pending. CapRadio's PolitiFact California will continue answering questions about vote-by-mail and similar topics through the November 2020 election. Email us your questions at [email protected] , or contact us on Twitter or Facebook . |
8,269 | 4 | If you make the average amount of people in Wisconsin, $50,000, you got $1.60 less a week in taxes" under the state income-tax cut, but "it didn't show up in your paycheck. | December 5, 2013 | state budget;taxes | kathleen vinehout | Democrat Kathleen Vinehout is a Wisconsin state senator from Alma, in western Wisconsin. The former university professor and dairy farmer was elected to the Senate in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. She ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to run against Gov. Scott Walker in the gubernatorial recall election in 2012. | wisconsin | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | a speech | The average income she cites is slightly high but within reasonable rounding range. She uses a reliable source for her tax-change numbers, and they are on target or very close, with the caveat that the analysis is set up for income ranges rather than a precise income. She’s right that the tax cut did not just show up in workers’ paychecks, due to inaction by the state. With the clarifications noted, we rate her . If you wish to comment on this item, please click here to go to JSOnline.com. |
1,270 | 0 | A recent Obama executive order could "lead to a number of investigations by Interpol in the United States, potentially aimed at American officials. | January 4, 2010 | homeland security;foreign policy | newt gingrich | Newt Gingrich is a political adviser and author. A former Georgia congressman, Gingrich served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich sought the GOP nomination for president in 2012. | national | 7 | 11 | 21 | 17 | 15 | 12 | an interview on 'The O'Reilly Factor' | While the Times did report on the executive order, the story debunked many of the claims being made about it. Charlie Savage, the reporter who wrote the story, wrote in a Twitter message : "Debunking hysterical conspiracy theories about Obama's Interpol executive order." That's exactly what Gingrich's claims are: conspiracy theories, based on wild conjecture, not reality. For fanning the flames of paranoia, Gringrich's claims earn a . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/7c646785-156a-4922-b957-12ef24ec4fb9 |
3,434 | 4 | Hackers broke into Virginia's prescription-drug database (and) ... obtained more than 8.2 million patient records and a total of nearly 36 million prescriptions. | April 14, 2011 | drugs | rick scott | Rick Scott, a wealthy Florida businessman, was first elected Florida's 45th governor on Nov. 2, 2010 and re-elected Nov. 4, 2014. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and is running for re-election in 2024. | florida | 15 | 36 | 42 | 42 | 38 | 8 | testimony before Congress | The Virginia Department of Health Professions did send a notification letter to all persons whose prescription records in the database contained a nine-digit number that could have been a Social Security number. None of the database information was lost, Powers said, and the PMP continues to operate. So a hacker did break into the database and posted a ransom note claiming to have obtained the records Scott referenced. But it's not clear whether the hacker really obtained access to the records. We rate Scott's . |
4,701 | 2 | We have more natural gas in this country than Saudi Arabia has oil. | November 16, 2011 | energy;new hampshire 2012 | jon huntsman | Jon Huntsman was the governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009. He served as ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011. He is a Republican candidate for president in 2012. | national | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | an editorial board meeting with the Nashua Telegraph | We don't know whether Huntsman meant "proved" resources, estimates of technically recoverable resources or production totals when comparing U.S. gas to Saudi oil. Using the first two measures, his numbers fall short. If he was talking about production, he is correct, although Huntsman used the word "has," and not "produces." We rule his . |
14,917 | 2 | Says he made "a record investment in schools. | June 19, 2018 | education;state budget | scott walker | Scott Walker, a Republican, is the former governor of Wisconsin. He was first elected in November 2010. He survived a recall election in 2012, defeating Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett after igniting controversy with a bill curtailing public-employee union collective-bargaining rights. He won re-election to a four-year term in November 2014 and was a 2016 presidential candidate before dropping out in September of 2015. He was defeated by Tony Evers in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Walker is a former Milwaukee County executive and former member of the state Assembly. | wisconsin | 26 | 45 | 39 | 40 | 44 | 11 | a TV ad | He refers to the $11.5 billion being spent on kindergarten-through-12th grade schools in his 2017-’19 state budget. In raw dollars, that is a record in Wisconsin. But inflation, of course, is crucial in measuring dollars over time. On that score, seven state budgets spent more on schools than Walker’s current budget does. The governor’s statement contains an element of , but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, making it . |
747 | 5 | Senator McCain has been talking tough about earmarks, and that's good, but earmarks account for about $18-billion of our budget. | October 7, 2008 | federal budget | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | Nashville, Tenn | Another report found that appropriations bills in fiscal year 2008 included $16.5 billion for earmarks. Those numbers are lower than previous years because earmarking dropped considerably following the congressional lobbying scandals of 2005 and 2006. But even at their peak in 2005, when earmarks hit $52-billion, according to the Congressional Research Service and the OMB, that was only 16 percent of that year’s deficit of $318-billion. The numbers show Obama gets his earmark number correct. We rate his statement . |
2,619 | 2 | Says Washington's reach extends to "even telling us what kind of light bulb we can use. | November 2, 2010 | legal issues;regulation;technology | rick perry | Rick Perry is the U.S. Energy Secretary and was governor of Texas from late December 2000 through 2014. He was re-elected in 2002, 2006 and 2010. He unsucessfully ran for president in 2012 and 2016. | texas | 26 | 24 | 43 | 30 | 31 | 18 | a book | Not yet, though the 2007 law steps up efficiency requirements and that's expected to result in consumers purchasing and using different bulbs. These factors give Perry's statement an element of . We rate it . Editor's note: This statement was rated when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to . |
19,913 | 1 | Sen. Raphael Warnock "voted for welfare for politicians plan. Up to $25 million of government money for Warnock's own political campaign. | June 22, 2021 | national;campaign finance;congress;elections | national republican senatorial committee | The National Republican Senatorial Committee helps elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate. | georgia | 1 | 3 | 11 | 18 | 14 | 7 | an ad | The NRSC ad says Warnock "voted for welfare for politicians plan. Up to $25 million of government money for Warnock’s own political campaign." It’s to call the public financing for political campaigns "welfare." The goal of public campaign finance is to reduce the influence of rich donors and give more power to average Americans who want to donate to campaigns. That’s not comparable to "welfare" programs designed to help poor people with basic living expenses. Also, unlike programs associated with welfare, the public financing program would not come from tax dollars but surcharges on legal cases and settlements. The is also speculative. Warnock hasn’t said if he would choose to opt into the program, which wouldn’t go into effect until a 2028 campaign cycle. Warnock first has to win re-election in 2022 under existing campaign finance rules. We rate this statement . RELATED: SC Rep. Cunningham did not vote for $5M in tax funds to go to campaign coffers RELATED: Fact-checking Mark Walker's video on HR 1’s campaign-finance provisions RELATED: Did Spanberger, other House Democrats, vote to use public money for their campaigns? |
9,826 | 5 | January through November 2014, the year so far, were the hottest first 11 months of any year recorded. | December 17, 2014 | environment;climate change;energy;history;science;weather | sheldon whitehouse | Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democratic U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. | rhode island | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | a Senate floor speech | It may not feel like global warming is a problem when below average cold is sending a collective shiver through much of the United States. But the U.S. makes up only 6 percent of Earth's land mass and less than 2 percent of its surface area. Whitehouse reported the data accurately. We rate his as . (If you have a you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) |
20,777 | 1 | As a youth, "I got arrested" protesting for civil rights. | January 11, 2022 | candidate biography;race and ethnicity | joe biden | Joe Biden is the president of the United States. A Democrat, Biden served as a Delaware senator from 1973 (elected at the age of 29) until 2009. During his time in the Senate, he served as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, chair of the International Narcotics Control Caucus and chair of the Judiciary Committee. He subsequently served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2016. Biden launched unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008. He received a degree in history and political science from the University of Delaware and his J.D. from Syracuse School of Law. | null | 25 | 64 | 65 | 52 | 55 | 7 | Atlanta | Biden said that as a youth, "I got arrested" protesting for civil rights. Biden may have participated in one of two flare-ups over racial discrimination in housing that occurred near his home in Delaware when he was in a teenager. However, there is no that Biden was actually arrested in the sense of being booked at a police station and facing any consequences in the criminal justice system. At times, Biden himself has described the police’s actions as driving him home, rather than putting him under arrest. We rate the statement . Caryn Baird contributed to this article. |
5 | 4 | New Mexico moved "up to" sixth in the nation in job growth. | May 10, 2007 | null | bill richardson | Bill Richardson is the former governor of New Mexico, having served two terms in that position from 2003-2011. Richardson is also a former congressman, U.S. secretary of energy, and ambassador to the United Nations. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, and was President Barack Obama’s initial nominee for secretary of commerce in 2009. | national | 2 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | a TV Ad | Richardson is correct, but doesn't mention the fine print. In touting his economic record as New Mexico's governor, Richardson's campaign produced a TV ad noting the pace of the state's job growth while he's been in office. Although the state was ranked sixth in August 2006 for job growth, it most recently ranked 15th. A more accurate statement would be to say that the state "ranked as high as sixth in the nation." |
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in Dataset Viewer.
LIAR2
The LIAR dataset has been widely followed by fake news detection researchers since its release, and along with a great deal of research, the community has provided a variety of feedback on the dataset to improve it. We adopted these feedbacks and released the LIAR2 dataset, a new benchmark dataset of ~23k manually labeled by professional fact-checkers for fake news detection tasks. We have used a split ratio of 8:1:1 to distinguish between the training set, the test set, and the validation set, details of which are provided in the paper of "An Enhanced Fake News Detection System With Fuzzy Deep Learning". The LIAR2 dataset can be accessed at Huggingface and Github,
Example Usage
You can load each of the subset as follows:
import datasets
dataset = "chengxuphd/liar2"
dataset = datasets.load_dataset(dataset)
statement_train, y_train = dataset["train"]["statement"], dataset["train"]["label"]
statement_val, y_train = dataset["validation"]["statement"], dataset["validation"]["label"]
statement_test, y_test = dataset["test"]["statement"], dataset["test"]["label"]
Citation
If you find our work useful in your research, please consider citing:
@article{xu2024enhanced,
author={Xu, Cheng and Kechadi, M-Tahar},
journal={IEEE Access},
title={An Enhanced Fake News Detection System With Fuzzy Deep Learning},
year={2024},
volume={12},
number={},
pages={88006-88021},
keywords={Fake news;Fuzzy logic;Benchmark testing;Social networking (online);Deep learning;Task analysis;Natural language processing;Classification algorithms;Deep learning;fuzzy deep learning;fake news;fake news detection;fact-checking;NLP;classification systems;benchmark},
url={https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3418340},
doi={10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3418340}}
@inproceedings{xu2023fuzzy,
author = {Xu, Cheng and Kechadi, M-Tahar},
title = {Fuzzy Deep Hybrid Network for Fake News Detection},
year = {2023},
isbn = {9798400708916},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3628797.3628971},
doi = {10.1145/3628797.3628971},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Information and Communication Technology},
pages = {118–125},
numpages = {8},
keywords = {Classification Systems, Deep Learning, Hybrid Learning Models, Fuzzy Deep Learning, Fake News Detection},
location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Ho Chi Minh</city>, <country>Vietnam</country>, </conf-loc>},
series = {SOICT '23}
}
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