Says Cory Booker has accepted over $400,000 from the pharmaceutical industry during his political career.
Both Republican and Democratic voters have little love for prescription drug makers. When asked,four out of five Americanssay the cost of drugs is unreasonable. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has signed on to a bevy of plans to bring prices down. There are too many people profiteering off of the pain of people in America, from pharmaceutical companies to insurers, Booker said at thefirst Democratic debatein Miami. The Trump campaign fired off a reminder that Booker has history with the drug makers. Cory Booker has accepted over $400,000 from the pharmaceutical industry during his political career, @TrumpWarRoomtweeted June 26, the night of the first Democratic debate. FACT: Cory Booker has accepted over $400,000 from the pharmaceutical industry during his political career.pic.twitter.com/1HUfFVBGVU By one measure, that number is correct. But a more granular look at drug maker political money delivers a lower number, and the tweet gives no hint that Booker stopped taking pharmaceutical money in 2017. The Trump campaign sent us toBookers career summary pageon the Open Secrets website, a reliable source of federal political money data. Booker first ran for Senate in 2013. Since then, people and groups tied to the pharmaceutical/health products industry have given Booker $411,948. The number is actually higher. Booker runs a leadership PAC, a common device on Capitol Hill to raise money for a variety of uses, from travel expenses to helping other candidates fund their campaigns.Bookers PACgot $56,000 since 2014, for a grand total of $468,000. Theres an important caveat: That industry group includes much more than drug makers. Drug wholesalers, medical equipment makers and dietary supplement companies all fall under this category. The wholesalers would have a stake in bills aimed at lowering prescription drug costs, but many other companies, such as Nestl, which owns several dietary supplement brands, and Medtronic, maker of insulin pumps and much more, would go untouched by such legislation. Boiled down to drug makers alone, according to data pulled by the Open Secrets staff, Bookers total is $327,000. That includes both donations to his campaign committee and his leadership PAC. One last wrinkle would add some money back in. The Trump campaign tweet was based solely on Bookers federal receipts. But as mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, Bookerraised millions. Some of that came from people tied to drug makers. A notable example is Jonathan Sackler, a member of the family behindPurdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. In 2009,Sackler gave $26,000 to Booker Team for Newark, a joint campaign committee to help elect Booker and a slate of city councilors. At the end of the day, we found that drug makers gave Bookers campaigns upwards of $350,000. Thats less than the tweet claimed, but still a hefty amount. And if drug wholesalers are added in, the gap largely disappears. In June 2017, Booker told NPR he had stopped taking industry donations. We put a pause on even receiving contributions from pharma companies because it arouses so much criticism,Booker said. Recently, hetweeted, Big pharma companies need to be held criminally liable for the opioid crisis. Ive said I would not take contributions from corporate PACs, from pharma executives  they are part of this problem. Big pharma companies need to be held criminally liable for the opioid crisis. Ive said I would not take contributions from corporate PACs, from pharma executives  they are part of this problem.Its time to work on a solution. Chip in to help us run a people-powered campaign As far as his PAC money, that revenue stream has died for Booker. Up through 2016, drug makers had given him $202,000. Since then, as the chart below shows, the amount from drug makers directly is zero, with some ongoing donations from individuals who work for drug makers. New Jersey is home tomany large pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Individuals who work for them have continued to give to Booker, but since 2016, that has fallen from nearly $100,000 to about $26,000. Bookers campaign noted that he joined with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on adrug importation bill. Booker also put forward legislation that would allow the Medicare program tonegotiate lower prices for prescription drugs. These and other measures have drawn strong opposition from the drug industry. The Trump campaign said that in the course of his career, Booker has accepted over $400,000 from the pharmaceutical industry. The number is close. What the tweet ignores is that Booker stopped taking money from pharmaceutical industry PACs and top executives. Since 2016, Booker received zero dollars from drug makers and individual contributions have fallen by 75%. The average reader of the tweet would have no idea that Booker has shunned pharmaceutical money for the past two years. Thats additional context, but Booker did accept the money in years past. That meets our definition of Mostly True.
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here As some high-profile Republicans condemned former U.S. President Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, news reports surfaced citing anonymous sources close to Trump who said he was considering dismantling American partisanship by forming a new "Patriot Party." Capitol insurrection Some of his supporters quickly drafted logos and slogans for the political group, as well as started organizing in far-right corners of social media sites.   One Trump supporter even went so far as to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to establish a formal system for fundraising for the Patriot Party  an effort Trump's official campaign later disavowed. (See our fact check regarding claims that Trump was indeed creating an alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties here.) here Meanwhile, Snopes received several inquiries about the origin of the "Patriot Party" name. One Twitter user alleged activists against fascism actually organized as "The Patriot Party" in the 1960s, decades before Trump supporters attempted to appropriate the title. "The first Patriot Party in the 60s was ... Antifa. I cannot stop laughing," read the Jan. 19 tweet, which included a screenshot of a Wikipedia page that alleged "poor, rural whites in the Appalachian South and Pacific Northwest" formed the radical socialist organization that advocated alongside the Black Panthers. tweet Wikipedia page Black Panthers Based on our analysis of numerous newspaper clippings between 1960 and early 2021, the allegation was true: Though neither the organization nor its members used the name "antifa," a far-left political organization of predominately white Americans called the Patriot Party formed at the end of the civil rights movement to advocate against racism and fascism. Additionally, dozens of hate groups contained the term "Patriot" in their names, and supporters of Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who railed against the country's two-party system during two failed campaigns for president in the 1990s, attempted to start the third party before Trump politics existed. In the late 1960's, a leftist group called the Young Patriots Organization (YPO) formed in Chicago to fight racism and capitalism in solidarity with similarly-minded activists of color, according to the news archives. The group intended to radicalize poor white residents who moved to the Midwest city from Appalachia. It was a poor people coalition, Hy Thurman, a founding member of the YPO, later recalled, according to The Washington Post. Poor people organizing in their own community against racism and supporting the Black power movement at the time. The Washington Post The group had a working partnership with the Black Panthers and Young Lords, a predominately Puerto Rican group. For example, a leader of the YPO spoke at the July 1969 "Conference for a United Front Against Fascism" organized by the Black Panthers, according to Jacobin, a New York-based socialist magazine. Additionally, video footage showed a a YPO member introducing Black Panther Bobby Lee at a rally as someone who's "fighting for some of the same causes we're fighting for." Jacobin footage showed Black Panther Bobby Lee In 1970, amid an internal disagreement over mobilizing strategies, some YPO members broke away from the main organization to start their own group called the Patriot Party, according to the Post. the Post. Donning Confederate flags and Black Panther memorabilia, the socialist radicals quickly opened chapters in cities nationwide, including in southern states. The Post reported: "Like the Panthers, the Patriot Party sought to reach people in poverty-stricken neighborhoods by offering free health clinics, a free breakfast program and even its own 'liberation schools' that sought to impart revolutionary ideals to children. In Eugene, Ore., the group distributed free firewood to rural whites who relied on wood stoves for warmth." A 1970 pamphlet, a portion of which is the feature image for this report, said the group was pushing for "an immediate end to police brutality," freedom for "all oppressed white people" held in prisons, and an end to all sexism and racism. Another bulletin from that year outlining the group's mission said it loved America, and the declaration of Independence, and that the Constitution is "groovy." 1970 pamphlet Another bulletin The Patriot Party, however, dominated news headlines nationwide in early 1970 after police arrested 12 members (all between the ages of 17 and 27) during a raid of an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The apartment reportedly served as the group's headquarters, where authorities said they found weapons, including guns and knives, and leftist literature, according to the archives. "The door was stomped in by the fascist pigs of America in true fascist style," attorney Arthur Turco, one of the Patriot Party members, later said during the court proceedings, with the Panthers and the Chicago Seven backing him up. "They busted in without a search warrant. The guns we had were legally registered." later said Chicago Seven The suspects told officers they were indeed part of the Patriot Party that attempted to convince working-class white Americans to abandon racist beliefs and instead fight capitalism, according to The Associated Press and Post. The Associated Press   Prosecutors charged all 12 members with illegal possession of dangerous weapons, according to The New York Times. The Washington Post reported, citing a book titled "Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times": The New York Times Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times Members were frequently arrested on charges of possessing illegal drugs or weapons  like the Panthers, the Patriots emphasized the importance of being armed  and the ensuing legal battles prevented them from focusing on their goal of organizing the working class. [...] Within just a few years of its formation, the Patriot Partys activities were reduced to distributing a left-wing newspaper, and the group soon effectively ceased to exist. Following the dissolve of the leftist "Patriot Party," a group of anti-Semitic, white supremacists in North Carolina appropriated the name for its own agenda. A 1985 court order prohibited Frazier Glenn Miller  who represented a new, militant breed of Ku Klux Klan leaders and is pictured below  from operating the Carolina Knights of the KKK as a paramilitary organization that threatened, harassed, intimated or harmed people on the basis of race, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Frazier Glenn Miller Carolina Knights of the KKK As a result, he rallied followers under a new name  the White Patriot Party  and resumed "Klan business as usual," the SLPC said.   At least four Marines and some Army soldiers in North Carolina had attended rallies or other events by the White Patriot Party, whose members trained with guns and wore military-style uniforms, The New York Times reported. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in fall 1986: "Leaders of the White Patriot Party long maintained that they were building a 'white Christian army' that would help in the violent formation of an all-white Southern state by the end of the century."   In January 1987, a federal grand jury in Raleigh, North Carolina, indicated Miller and four other members of the White Patriot Party on charges of conspiring to obtain weapons and explosives stolen from a National Guard armory, The Associated Press reported. They were allegedly plotting to blow up the SLPC headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, and murder Morris Dees, a lawyer who co-founded the anti-hate organization. "What we have are dangerous individuals who are fanatics who might do anything, especially now. They hate the federal government. They feel oppressed and intimidated by what we are doing and there is a tendency to strike back," former U.S. Attorney Sam Currin said at the time. U.S. Attorney Sam Currin In the 1992 presidential race between Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, Texas billionaire Ross Perot amassed a following as an independent presidential candidate who criticized both major parties for chasing fame instead of effectively legislating. Ross Perot He captured almost a fifth of the popular vote in the three-way race, making him one of the most successful independent candidates in American history, according to BBC. according to BBC The Jan. 24, 1993, issue of The Morning Call, a local newspaper for Pennsylvania's Allentown, reported: The Patriot Party was born last night. Ross Perot's core supporters in Pennsylvania yesterday held their first convention as an independent party, choosing the name "Patriot Party" on a 43-16 vote at the Harrisburg Hilton Hotel. Perot distanced himself from the third-party movement, however, and later campaigned for Republican congressional candidates. Still, the new political group sought campaign donations, candidates, and voters to try to legally establish itself as a major competitor with the Republican and Democratic parties that championed free-market economics and greater government accountability. "The movement toward favoring the existence of a third political party existed long before Perot came on the scene," National Chairman Nicholas Sabatine III said in fall 1994. "Mr. Perot didn't create the anger, the frustration the cynicism that exists in the minds of Americans around the country." Perot launched a presidential campaign again in 1996, this time as a candidate of the "Reform Party." Reform Party This report was updated to clarify that Perot ran as a presidential candidate for the Reform Party in 1996. On the Jan. 2, 2011, edition of NBC'sMeet the Press, Sen.-elect Pat Toomey, R-Pa., cited a striking statistic in urging the United States to lower its corporate tax rates.Asked by host David Gregory about possible areas where President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans can work together, Toomey suggested several areas, including taxes.I think tax policy is a possible area, one with plenty of landmines but plenty of opportunities,Toomey said. Simplify the code, lower rates. We should be lowering corporate tax rates because we have the highest in the world right now. (Later in the roundtable discussion, Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter repeated the statistic, but we'll check Toomey's quote here. )We wondered whether the U.S. really has the highest corporate tax rates in the world.Using the most straightforward definition of corporate tax rates, Toomey is right. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 32 large, industrialized democracies,ranksthe combined corporate income tax rate in its member nations. That means the highest tax bracket for general corporate income, excluding taxes levied on specific products or services.For 2010, the U.S ranks second to Japan by a fraction of a percentage point -- 39.54 percent for Japan to 39.21 percent for the U.S. But that figure is already outdated: Japan has recently moved to cut its rate for 2011 by 5 percentage points, leaving the U.S. with the highest corporate tax rate among OECD nations.But before we declare Toomey's statement True, let's dig a little deeper.The OECD rate is the statutory rate -- that is, the top corporate tax rate on the books. But many companies pay considerably less than that, due to deductions and other exclusions. Adjusting for these factors produces a statistic called the effective tax rate.The World Bankhas assembled datafrom 183 nations and made a series of statistical adjustments to produce a full international comparison of effective tax rates. By this measurement, the U.S. rate is considerably lower than the published rate -- 27.6 percent. But in a comparative sense, that's still pretty high: Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand produced a higher effective rate in the World Bank study. And Japan's number should fall by the time next year's study comes out.The World Bank also produces another -- and broader -- statistic. This measure factors in not only the corporate profit tax but also a range of other taxes paid by businesses, including the cost of employee taxes borne by the employer. When the World Bank ranked countries from the lowest level of taxes to the highest, the U.S. ranked 124th out of 183 -- meaning corporate taxes were relatively high. A number of other large and/or democratic countries were higher, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Spain and Sweden.This last measure provides a wider snapshot of U.S. tax policy toward businesses, but it also introduces some complications. Factoring in the employer-paid portion of labor taxes makes the corporate tax rate seem higher in countries that provide higher benefits such as pensions or health care through business taxes, while making the rate seem lower for countries that provide less generous benefits through the tax code. So making apples-to-apples comparisons can be tricky.There's also broader context that Toomey doesn't get into.In a previous item, we noted that when all taxes, including those such as personal income taxes and property taxes -- not just corporate taxes -- are taken into account and compared to gross domestic product, the U.S. doesn't rank near the top of the OECD table in total tax burden.Still, if you rate Toomey on his specific wording by looking at corporate tax rates, he's right that the U.S. does now have the highest corporate tax rates on the books, at least among the biggest industrialized democracies, which is most economists' typical yardstick. So we rate his statement Mostly True. In December 2020, readers asked Snopes to check the authenticity and accuracy of a diatribe against outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump, widely attributed to actor and director George Clooney. The speech has been shared many thousands of times over the past three years, in social media posts, and in the form of memes. For unknown reasons, it enjoyed something of a resurgence in October and December 2020. shared thousands October December 2020 A typical post read: George Clooney's response after Trump accused him of being a "Hollywood elite". "Here's the thing: I grew up in Kentucky. I sold insurance door-to-door. I sold ladies' shoes. I worked at an all-night liquor store. I would buy suits that were too big and too long and cut the bottom of the pants off to make ties so I'd have a tie to go on job interviews. I grew up understanding what it was like to not have health insurance for eight years. So this idea that I'm somehow the 'Hollywood elite' and this guy who takes a shit in a gold toilet is somehow the man of the people is laughable. "People in Hollywood, for the most part, are people from the Midwest who moved to Hollywood to have a career. So this idea of 'coastal elites' living in a bubble is ridiculous. Who lives in a bigger bubble? He lives in a gold tower and has twelve people in his company. He doesn't run a corporation of hundreds of thousands of people he employs and takes care of. He ran a company of twelve people! "When you direct a film you have seven different unions all wanting different things, you have to find consensus with all of them, and you have to get them moving in the same direction. He's never had to do any of that kind of stuff. I just look at it and I laugh when I see him say 'Hollywood elite.' Hollywood elite? I don't have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, Donald Trump has a star on Hollywood Boulevard! Fuck you!"   Some of those posts and memes contained a small number of very minor tweaks in wording, but overall, they accurately and fairly attributed the diatribe to Clooney, who did indeed hammer Trump as a "guy who takes a shit in a gold toilet" and "lives in a gold tower," and did indeed finish his speech by telling Trump "Fuck you!" Clooney's remarks came in the context of an interview with the Daily Beast, published on Sept. 22, 2017. Many of the viral social media posts claimed Clooney was speaking in response to Trump's accusation that Clooney was part of a "Hollywood elite." interview But that's not quite right. The question (or prompt) to which Clooney was responding was, "Trump has been stoking this culture war between "coastal elites" and Middle America  the irony of course being that Trump himself is a "coastal elite." Below is the exchange as it appeared in its original context: On Nov. 14, 2020, supporters of President Donald Trump rallied in Washington D.C., in an event dubbed the "Million MAGA March," either to commiserate with each other about Trump's recent loss in his failed bid for re-election, or to foster Trump's spurious claims that the presidential election had been "stolen" from him. rallied Some posts shared on social media about the event purported to document the display of Nazi and Confederate flags offered for sale at the rally:  However, the photograph seen above was taken in a different time and place that had no connection to "Million MAGA March." It had been snapped at the Braddock's Inn flea market in Pennsylvania over two months earlier, and the vendor displaying the offending material removed it upon request: flea market In late February 2021, several social media users alleged U.S. President Joe Biden used the N-word while addressing world leaders at a virtual event to discuss international security policies. As part of the Munich Security Conference, an annual event that convenes hundreds of policy makers from across the world, Biden spoke on camera for roughly 20 minutes on Feb. 19, describing his administration's desire to be on good terms with the European Union. Approximately three-quarters of the way into his remarks, social media users alleged he uttered the racial slur referring to Black people. Some people accused the president of saying the N-word accidentally, while others raised the possibility that he intentionally made the alleged racist comment. accidentally intentionally One conservative commentator pointed to closed captioning on recordings of the speech on YouTube as alleged evidence of the president indeed saying the word, despite the fact the video platform's captioning system runs on computer-generated, speech-recognition software that is known for error and not necessarily a true indication of what someone said. conservative commentator known for error   To investigate the legitimacy of the underlying allegation  whether the president at any point during the virtual Munich Security Conference event used the N-word for whatever reason  we obtained an official White House transcript, as well as a video recording via C-SPAN, of Biden's speech. White House transcript C-SPAN Considering that the social media posts made use of brief video clips of his alleged comments around the 16-minute mark in the C-Span footage, we focused on that portion of his remarks, specifically. At that point, he said, according to the transcript and video footage: "Look, the range of challenges Europe and the United States must take on together is broad and complex. And Im eager to hear  Im eager to hear  Im eager to hear next from my good friends and outstanding leaders, Chancellor Merkel, about her thoughts on the way forward together." While saying "I'm eager to hear," Biden stuttered, repeating the phrase three times. On the third time, the consonant "mmmm" in the word "I'm" blended with the next word, "eager," to make a "mnnm-eager" sound. That was the source of the social media posts' allegations, despite the fact that the hypothetical insertion of the N-word there would be abrupt and confusing, contextually speaking, no matter what the speaker's reason for saying it. A more plausible reason for the president's phrasing in that moment was his speech disorder. On several occasions, Biden has openly discussed his struggle with stuttering over the course of his life. It is a speech impediment and neurological disorder that may result in repetitions (D-d-d-dog), prolongations (Mmmmmmilk), or blocks (an absence of sound), according to the non-profit National Stuttering Association. The instance Munich Security Conference appeared to be a combination of repeating and prolonging phonetic sounds. discussed his struggle non-profit National Stuttering Association In other words, the claim is false  Biden did not use the N-word in that moment, nor at any other time during the virtual speech. The February 2021 posts were not the first to twist Biden's words to accuse him of using the racial slur. During a 1985 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing  when the president was a senator representing Delaware  Biden read out loud portions of a memo by Louisiana legislators that included the N-word, and supporters of former President Donald Trump attempted to frame that moment of Biden reciting other people's words as an example of his alleged racism. See our fact check into the claim here. here Dan Patrick framed his case for ordering Texas schools to shift money toward higher teacher salaries by suggesting that less than a third of school spending currently reaches teacher pocketbooks. The Republican lieutenant governor,addressing reportersbefore the July 2017 start of a special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott, said: Of all the money we spend on education, less than 32 percent goes to teachers. By email, Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia offered as the basis of Patricks claim astate publicationpresenting statistics such as student enrollment. We did not spot information in the document speaking to what Patrick said. Texas Education Agency figures But when we reached out to the Texas Education Agency, spokeswoman Lauren Callahan responded by pointing out state-posted figures for the 2015-16 school year, the latest year of audited spending totals. That year, according to the agency, state governmentrecorded receipts of $58,796,907,294related to public schools from state, local, federal and other revenue sources. The same year,according toanother agency web page, 347,328 teachers were paid combined base salaries of $18,023,516,741, averaging $51,892. That $18 billion breaks out to 31 percent of the nearly $59 billion in total receipts. Some more money went to teachers, though, in nearly $1 million in stipends such as whats paid to teachers that oversee extracurricular activities, Callahan told us. The resulting total teacher compensation, $19,005,561,634, divides out to 32 percent of the total education receipts. Additional money goes into other salaries. According to the agency, Texas schools in 2015-16 paid more than $24 billion to 68,699 teacher support staff  broken out by TEA into more than 20 job categories including counselors, school nurses and athletic trainers  plus 237,460 administrative, professional, paraprofessional and auxiliary staff  with spending on all employee salaries accounting for more than 70 percent of school-related receipts. Keep in mind, though, Patrick singled out the share of all spending solely devoted to teacher pay. School district advocates When we asked finance experts who advocate for school districts if the equation based on TEA data holds up, we heard back that the math works, but the total-spending figure folds in spending deserving of an asterisk. In emails,Joe Wisnoski, a former TEA finance administrator who advises and lobbies for school districts, andTom Canbyof the Texas Association of School Business Officials each suggested its unfair to compare the $18 billion spent on teacher salaries to total receipts, which count money that doesnt play into school employee salaries, each expert wrote. Wisnoski suggested its more appropriate to compare spending on teacher salaries to operating expenditures, which means not judging the teacher salaries against any money districts raise in bond proceeds or whats spent on capital projects such as buildings or to pay off debt. Wisnoski noted that none of those funding streams would be available to could be diverted to salaries anyway. According to the TEAs posted figures for 2015-16, 2015-16 all funds operating expenditures for schools totaled nearly $49.5 billion --of which the spending on teacher salaries accounted for 36.4 percent, Wisnoski said and we confirmed. There are lots of ways to include or exclude things in the world of school district finances, Wisnoski said, and what is most appropriate somewhat depends on the person making the point and the specific point being made. Canby called the equation that got us to 32 percent of all spending going to teacher salaries a misleading apples divided by oranges calculation. He said he would gauge the share of spending on teacher salaries, starting from 2016actual expenditure totalshe said he fetched from the statesPublic Education Information Management System. Those figures suggest that teacher salaries cost $19,131,375,774 with benefits adding $3,429,356,293. The resulting $22,560,732,067 accounted for 47.7 percent of $47,303,105,584 in operating expenditures statewide, Canby noted. Canby also emailed us a web link to a July 2017commentaryby TASBOs executive director, Tracy Ginsburg, stating that the group had been unable to verify numbers aired by Patrick indicating that of $163,000 spent per classroom, $52,000 is paid to classroom teachers. Ginsburg encouraged readers to consider a June 2017reportby Moak, Casey & Associates, the lobbying and consulting firm whose associates include Wisnoski. That report says that in 2015-16, Texas school employee salaries and benefits absorbed 79 percent of $46.4 billion spent on basic educational costs. The share of that spending on teacher salaries alone doesnt appear in the report, which states that instruction accounted for 61 percent of basic costs, taking into account some 333,000 teachers plus 63,700 education aides. The instruction entry in the report says: Also included here are the salaries and benefits costs of 4,500 librarians as well as the books and other materials that can be found in Texas school libraries. The cost of instructional materials and staff development are also included in this category as instructional costs. Our ruling Patrick said: Of all the money we spend on education, less than 32 percent goes to teachers. This percentage, we found, aligns with the simple comparison of total teacher salaries to all funds spent on public schools. But its worth clarifying that not all funds can be diverted to teacher salaries. You could also say that close to half of available school spending in 2015-16 went to teacher salaries. We rate the statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. The prospect of clipping the wings of Big Bird came up Feb. 5 when  Richard Licht, Governor Chafees director of administration, made an appearance on ABC6s On the Record with Buddy Cianci.The host, former Providence Mayor Vincent Buddy Cianci was grilling Licht on Chafees proposal to eliminate funding for Channel 36, now known as Rhode Island PBS, the states only public television station.Chafee's proposed budget, crafted to close a projected shortfall of $120 million to $125 million, would cut off funding to the station after Dec. 31, 2012.CIANCI: What have you got against 'Sesame Street'?LICHT: I love Sesame Street. I have grandchildren and I always watched it with all four of my children. Tough times make for tough choices.CIANCI: But 'Sesame Street'? My God.LICHT: Hopefully, Channel 36 will be aggressive, go out and find some good charitable sponsors to help support this.CIANCI (facetiously): Especially in this economy, they're going to just fork over $800,000.LICHT: We aren't the only state cutting back on public television. It's not anything that we're happy about and, again, that's something that might be reversed [if better higher revenue estimates come in], but the facts are, tough times, tough choices.We were interested in whether Licht was correct that other states are cutting back on public television and, if so, how many.We called the governor's office to ask for Licht's source.Meanwhile, we talked to David Piccerelli, president of Rhode Island PBS.The proposal is to fund us through December 31 of 2012 and then shut off funding altogether, he said. In the current fiscal year, the state contributes $922,000 to RIPBS's total budget of $2.9 million. That's 31 percent.Another 27 percent comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund stations throughout the United States. (The CPB itself has been repeatedly threatened with the cutoff of federal funds by conservatives. )The remaining 42 percent comes from fundraising. Piccerelli said about 85 cents out of every dollar raised is from individual donors. Corporate support accounts for no more than 15 cents, down from close to 30 cents on the dollar around 2004-2005, before the Rhode Island economy took a faceplant.Piccerelli said some states HAVE been cutting back their support; Chafee's office sent us information confirming that.Last June,New Hampshire Public Television eliminated20 full-time workers and cut staff salaries by as much as 10 percent after it lost $2.7 million in state funding, or about 30 percent of its budget.At the same time, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, backed by the state legislature,eliminated funding for New Jersey public television, which resulted in the 40-year-old New Jersey Network being taken over by WNET in New York and NJN's nine radio licenses being sold to stations in New York and Philadelphia.Stacey Karp, director of communications for the Association of Public Television Stations, said four other states -- Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania and South Carolina -- have also eliminated funding. For details, she sent us to Skip Hinton, president of theNational Educational Telecommunications Association, a professional association that represents stations in every state.He told us that 38 states were providing direct support to public broadcasting in 2007. It's now down to 32.Of the 32, most have seen pretty significant reductions in state funding over the last four years, he said.At least one state -- Illinois -- increased its contribution to public television, boosting funding by 16 percent last year, following cuts in previous years.Our rulingRichard Licht, Chafee's director of administration, said, We aren't the only state cutting back on public television.Turns out, hes right. Five states have eliminated funding and others have cut their contributions.We rate his statementTrue. (Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.) In November and December 2019, a meme circulated on Facebook warning that human traffickers were leaving zip ties on women's windshield wipers as they shopped to mark them as potential victims/targets for abduction:This was a variation of a familiar meme that we identified as false in July 2019. At that time we reported:  July 2019 Human trafficking affects millions of people worldwide, but its also the frequent subject of viral scarelore  fictional tales intended to frighten audiences, often prompting them to share without questioning the story. millions One such story went viral in October 2018 and again in late July 2019 when social media users shared a meme stating that human traffickers were leaving zip ties (in some posts, black in color) on homes, mailboxes, and cars, of potential female victims to either mark them as targets or distract and abduct them for sex-trafficking purposes when the women try to remove the ties. some The hoax initially centered on San Angelo, Texas, in October 2018 but police there quickly debunked it. We rate the newer variation as "False" as well, because although police in College Station, Texas, addressed the meme and reminded citizens to always be aware of their surroundings, officers were unaware of zip ties being used by human traffickers to mark potential victims. addressed   Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know. Claim:  Photographs show poachers collecting sea turtle eggs in Costa Rica. REAL PHOTOGRAPHS; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2010] Aha, maybe we have just discovered why the sea turtle is going extinct & it is not global warming. !!!!!!!....  Sending you an e-mail of the turtle poachers on the beaches of Costa Rica.  See the 2nd picture too, where the female cannot cover up her own eggs, before the intruder steals away what Nature has given her to protect her young. These people have unfortunately, taught their children nothing for the future generation to cherish. Look at these children and they do not know anything about conservation of Marine Life Protection and look at the disastrous road their parents are taking too... What have they they all gained for the future of Costa Rica's Marine Life protection? World Wide shame in COSTA RICA. Please distribute widely. The Turtle eggs  are stolen to be sold. The PLANET IS THANKFUL.                           Origins:  These photographs do show the collection of olive ridley sea turtle eggs in the coastal town of Ostional, Costa Rica, but those who are gathering them are not "poachers" (i.e. people who catch fish or game illegally), nor are they regarded as threatening the sustainability of the sea turtle population in that area.  As described in a 1998 article by National Public Radio correspondent John Burnett, the gatherers are engaged in a government sponsored conservation activity, collecting a relatively small portion of eggs, which  biologists have averred would otherwise have been destroyed, from the millions of olive ridley eggs laid during the turtles' reproductive season: olive ridley conservation activity In the coastal town of Ostional, located on Costa Rica's Guanacaste Peninsula, a 13-year-old project has helped stabilize the population of the olive ridley sea turtle.  For 10 months of the year, usually around the third quarter of the moon, olive ridleys swim by the hundreds of thousands to a single mile of beach at Ostional in an ancient reproductive rite little understood by scientists. They scuttle onto the sand, dig a hole with their flippers, and drop in an average of 100 leathery, white eggs the size of ping pong balls. Over the course of a five-day "arribada," literally, an arrival, nesting females will leave as many as 10 million eggs in the black, volcanic sand. Mass nesting is nature's way of ensuring that after the turkey vultures, feral dogs and raccoons have eaten all the fresh eggs they want, there will be enough left over to produce a sustainable population of olive ridleys. In the early 1980s, scientists learned that because of limited space on the beach, females arriving later destroy the first laid eggs. The researchers wondered: why not let poachers have the doomed eggs? Under a law written especially for Ostional, the government allows an egg harvesting cooperative to collect all they can during the first 36 hours of every arribada. Coop members then truck the eggs around the country, selling them to bars and restaurants. In return, the community must protect the olive ridley. Coop members clean debris from the nesting areas and patrol the beach day and night for poachers. Forty days later, when the hatchlings emerge, children from the Ostional Primary school run to the beach. "We protect the tortugitas when they crawl to the ocean. If we don't, the vultures will get them and bite their heads off," says a local 8-year-old boy, breathlessly. A Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) representative noted that the activity pictured here is controversial but legal (Ostional is the only part of Costa Rica where sea turtle egg gathering is allowed), and that investigation to determine its overall effect on the olive ridley population is ongoing: STC Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) has seen a lot of recent communication among conservation groups and turtle advocates concerning these photos showing sea turtle eggs being harvested in Costa Rica. The reality is that this harvest is the only remaining LEGAL harvest of turtle eggs in that country. The community of Ostional on the Pacific Coast is permitted to harvest all of the olive ridley eggs that are deposited during the first couple of days of an arribada (when thousands of turtles return to nest at the same time over about a week). The eggs are packaged and marked for sale around the country, with much of the income returning to the community. While I don't personally agree with this egg collection, the project is endorsed by the Costa Rican government for the time being. This is a very controversial subject among sea turtle scientists, conservationists and community members in Costa Rica. Among other issues, the legal sale of any turtle eggs in the country opens the door for clandestine egg harvesting from other parts of the country. The photos being circulated have served as a catalyst for the Costa Rican National Sea Turtle Conservation Network (of which STC is an integral part) to initiate an investigation of the scientific justification for this egg harvest. Specifically, the group is investigating the validity of claims that the harvest increases (or at least doesn't reduce) overall hatching productivity on this beach. The claim put forth is that during an arribada, many of the first nests to be laid are dug up and destroyed by females attempting to nest in the same spot days later. Not only are the earliest nests often destroyed, the rotting eggs become putrid and attract lots of bugs and predators, thus threatening the last nests deposited. A committee of the CRNSTCN was formed (on which STC's scientific director, Dr. Emma Harrison serves) to investigate the issues surrounding this legal harvest further. In addition to an independent investigation of the issue, questions are being asked of the people in charge of the project to help determine whether there is sufficient monitoring of the program and its impacts on the Ostional olive ridley population.  Based on the results of this investigation, there could be some recommendations for changes in the future. For the time being, what you see in these photos is completely legal and regulated by the Costa Rican government, though it remains quite controversial, and there is a formal review of the program underway by independent biologists in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica Tourism Board has also placed a notice on its web site in response to the circulation of these photographs: notice A chain of emails is circulating on the Internet with false information regarding the Conservation and Use of Ridley Sea Turtle Eggs Project (Lepidochels olivacea) at the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge in Guanacaste. There are 12 photos of the legal gathering of eggs accompanied by text labeling it as "theft" and an "international shame." The Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) seeks to clarify that the images actually represent a model of sustainable development in the Ostional community, approved in 1990 by executive order for the Protection, Conservation, and Recovery of Sea Turtle populations enacted on November 28th, 2002 and by Fishing and Agriculture law approved on April 25th, 2005. The legal use and allotment of resources plan, far from being an embarrassment, is the pride of the country and has been applauded and recognized by national and international scientists.  The Ostional National Wildlife Refuge witnesses up to 200,000 Olive Ridley turtles during the rainy season and about 15,000 in the dry season. Upon their arrival, the sea turtles lay thousands of eggs and destroy a large portion of them as they return to the ocean. That's why, under the sustainability development concept, the nearby rural areas are allowed to remove a specified amount for commercial purposes in Costa Rica under the Ostional Internal Development Association (ADIO). ADIO assures a rational use of the eggs and avoids massive and uncontrolled removal by communities. The association works together with the Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET), the Costa Rica Institute of Fishing and Agriculture (INCOPESCA), and the Biology Department of the University of Costa Rica. Only ADIO has permission to commercialize turtle eggs in the country, packed in sealed bags displaying the association's logo and sold with corresponding invoices. Any other consumption is illegal.    Reuters.  "Caribbean Turtles Said Threatend by Catches, Trade." In mid-June 2021, thousands of Twitter users circulated the below-displayed tweet including images purportedly taken from an eighth-grade textbook in Louisiana that introduces the Civil War through the perspective of Kate Stone, a 20-year-old, wealthy white woman whose family owned more than 100 slaves. below-displayed tweet "There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders," read the tweet authored by Joshua Benton, who's the founder of Harvard University's Neiman Lab. "This is how one of them introduced the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves." Joshua Benton   Benton added to clarify his point:   That clarification was largely true. State law allows local school systems to establish required textbooks for students  since, according to the Louisiana Department of Education, educators "closest to students are best positioned to decide which instructional materials are appropriate for their district and classrooms." Louisiana Department of Education For the purpose of this fact check we focused on Benton's underlying claim: that the Louisiana Department of Education reviewed a textbook called "Louisiana Our History, Our Home" for eighth-grade teachers to possibly include in social studies classes, and that that piece of literature introduces readers to the Civil War via the perspective of a wealthy, white woman whose family owned more than 100 slaves. Under Louisiana law, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education oversees teams of teachers who regularly review textbooks submitted by publishers to determine if, or to what extent, they meet the state's teaching objectives in core subjects (English language arts, math, science, and social studies). A document outlining that process reads: Under Louisiana law document The Department conducts the review of instructional materials. This process supports local school systems and educators in making informed decisions regarding which materials to adopt and purchase locally. The state does not recommend or adopt textbooks or instructional materials. [...] There are no requirements to use any of the textbooks and instructional materials that have been state reviewed. Pending the outcome of the state reviews, the state Department of Education lists the textbooks on its website for local school boards to consider while creating curricula, or for parents and students to see. on its website The list ranks the books on a three-tiered scale, with a "Tier I" label for learning materials that are of "exemplary quality and meet all criteria" and a "Tier III" designation for resources that "do not meet the non-negotiable criteria." meet all criteria Let us note here: A financial incentive exists for local school systems that opt for books with the state's highest rating. Administrators can buy "Tier 1" materials using state funding; however, they must come up with local dollars to help cover the cost of "Tier 3" resources, according to state records. Also, school systems can instead forgo the state's review process altogether and rely on their own ratings of textbooks, or they can adopt a combination of state-reviewed and locally-reviewed materials. state records As of this writing, the state department's list of "Instructional Materials Reviews" indeed included the textbook to which Benton referred in his viral tweet  titled "Louisiana Our History, Our Home" and published by Clairmont Press in 2015. Also, as Benton correctly stated, just one other textbook exclusively designed for eighth-grade social studies classes was similarly reviewed. Here's a screenshot of a portion of the list for proof: list Louisiana Our History, Our Home Clairmont Press just one other textbook   Considering that evidence, it was true the Louisiana Department of Education reviewed the book for eighth-grade teachers to possibly use in classrooms and made that fact known on the department's website, despite the fact that local school districts ultimately decide what students read on a community-by-community basis. Furthermore, the state department rated "Louisiana Our History, Our Home" with a "Tier III" label, citing a range of issues from its sourcing to interactive activities for students. Ted Beasley, the agency's director of communication, elaborated in an email to Snopes: This Clairmont Press resource is Tier III, which is the lowest rating we have. This is the lowest possible rating we can give a resource. We rate all resources submitted by publishers. Tier 3 signifies materials that do not represent quality. We do not have data on the number of systems or schools utilizing the referenced textbook. The state's review of the controversial book, however, did not explicitly note anything about the purported introduction to the Civil War via the story of Kate Stone, a 20-year-old white woman whose family operated a planation in northeast Louisiana and at one point owned more than 100 slaves. (She documented the war's impact on them in diaries, and publishers later compiled those writings to create "Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone.") The state's review of the controversial book Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone Next, we investigated whether the textbook indeed included the pages shown in Benton's tweet and below.   From Twitter user @jbenton   From Twitter user @jbenton  Firstly, we attempted to contact Benton to learn how he made his alleged discovery. We were waiting on his response, as of the initial publication of this report. Beasley told Snopes the state department was unable to confirm the authenticity of the pages. So, we reached out to Clairmont Press, as well as the textbook's listed author, Alecia Long, with the following questions: We have not received responses from them, but we will update this report when, or if, that changes. In sum, until we uncover verified evidence to corroborated the images in Benton's tweet thread, we cannot give this claim a traditional Snopes rating, so we therefore rate it "Research in Progress." In follow-up tweets, Benton elaborated on his purported discoveries within the textbook, including a chapter that aimed to tell the story of Louisiana's post-war years by first sharing the experience of a Confederate soldier who eventually served as Louisiana's governor, Francis R. T. Nicholls. And, as of this writing, his biography on the state's Secretary of State website described Nicholls as a politician who considered the Antebellum Period as "a golden age in Louisiana" with the "planter approach to less government-low taxes, few official services and little involvement by Blacks in the political processes." post-war years Francis R. T. Nicholls his biography Antebellum Period