Rhode Island spends 52 percent more per capita on human service programs than the national average.
If you're strapped for cash, as Rhode Island certainly is, you're always looking for a way to cut expenses.One area often targeted by pundits, because it makes up such a large share of the state budget, is spending on human services such as Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income people.In April, we looked at one aspect of that portion of the budget, giving aHalf Trueto a statement by Rhode Island Tea Party founder Colleen Conley that Rhode Island has the most generous welfare benefits in New England. (We found that every New England state, except Maine, pays more to its welfare recipients. )During the June 26 broadcast of10 News Conference, Gary Sasse, former director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration and the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, made a related comparison, saying that the state gives out far more benefits than the national average.Speaking of what is now the 2012 state budget, Sasse said that of the $200-million increase [in overall spending], 90 percent is to support human service programs. We spend 52 percent more per capita on human service programs than the national average.When reporter Bill Rappleye asked for specific numbers, Sasse said, Well, we spend about $9,300 per capita on Medicaid programs, and that's soup to nuts, that's everything from RIte Care to nursing homes. The average for the country is about $6,100. There's a $3,000 difference.So the question on human services is not necessarily cutting back on eligibility, but looking at what optional services we provide. We provide about $60 [million] -- probably more than that, probably about $70 million -- in optional Medicaid services that many other states don't provide.We asked Sasse for the source of his assertion that Rhode Island spends $1.52 for every $1 spent nationally.He gave us two.The first is aFeb. 10 presentation developed by the House Finance Committee, which reported that in 2008, a total of $294 billion was spent nationally on Medicaid recipients. That averages out to $6,120 per recipient (19.4 percent of the money went to children, 13.5 percent went to adults, 43 percent was for the disabled and 24.1 percent was spent on the aged).In Rhode Island that year, the state spent $1.7 billion (about 52 percent of it federal funds) or $9,341 per recipient, with children and adults getting less (13.5 percent and 10.1 percent respectively) and the disabled getting a lot more (51.4 percent). House spokesman Larry Berman said the source of those numbers was theHenry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which collects state and federal spending data.The per-enrollee spending is 52.6 percent higher in Rhode Island than the United States. Sasse said that's where his 52 percent statement came from.But what about the per capita spending?Sasse said in an interview that when he said per capita, the population he was referring to was enrollees. However, we believe most people who hear the term will think it's based on the population in Rhode Island.Would the number be different if calculated using the general population?As a second source, he referred us to RIPEC's 2010 How Rhode Island Compares report. It's based onU.S. Census datafrom 2008 and looks at the cost of public welfare -- Medicaid and cash payments to the poor -- on the basis of state population. That report says public welfare costs were $2,036 per Rhode Island resident, which is 51.8 percent more than the $1,341 spent per capita nationally.If you just look at RIPEC's Medicaid numbers, as the House Finance Committee staff report did, per capita spending in Rhode Island is actually 55.8 percent more than the national average, a bit higher than Sasse said.Why does Rhode Island spend so much more?We have very high residential care costs, said Sasse, a factor others have noted.In addition, Rhode Island covers some services regarded as optional by the federal government, such as adult daycare, assisted living for the elderly and hospice care for the dying.Sasse offered no specific suggestions about what to cut. He said that's for the politicians to decide; he's just looking at the basic numbers.Fred Sneesby, spokesman for the state Department of Human Services, said in April after we published our earlier item that it's important to consider other fiscally meaningful differences among states; for example, the percentage of disabled and elderly in Rhode Island is significantly higher than in neighboring states as well as the national average.He pointed us to section of the Kaiser website, StateHealthFacts.org, showing that since the 2004 fiscal year, the state's growth inMedicaid spending has been significantly less than the U.S. average. He also said that eligibility for Rhode Island programs isas strict -- if not stricter-- than Massachusetts and Connecticut.To sum up, Sasse said Rhode Islands per capita human services spending -- by his definition, Medicaid spending per enrollee --  is 52 percent higher than the national average. By that definition, hes correct.Hes also correct in the more common use of per capita -- spending by population.So we rate his claimTrue.As often happens, our research on this item raised questions that go beyond the statement we evaluated. Chief among them: How concerned should we be that Rhode Island spends more than the national average?Advocacy groups rarely address the question directly when they offer their reports and statistics.The 52-percent figure could mean that the state is being overly generous with its benefits.Or it could mean that the characteristics of Rhode Island's population require us to spend more to give the same level of service that other states provide.Or it could mean that the national average is depressed by states that are declining to provide some of the optional services, such as hospice care for the poor, that some Rhode Islanders might regard as anything but optional.Such context would help voters and their leaders make intelligent decisions about where to attack the problem. It would also help them ensure that our money is being spent wisely on the services we want to offer. (Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.)
Claim:   A KKK chapter successfully sued a black-owned bakery for refusing to make them a birthday cake.  Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2015] The following article has been making it's way across theinternet.  I'm curious to know if it's fake or not.  Origins:   On 23 August 2013, the satirical Tribune Herald web site published a fake news article titled "KKK Wins Lawsuit Against Bakery for Discrimination" (which languished in relative obscurity until April 2015), reporting that the KKK had successfully sued a baker named Elaine Bailey because she refused to provide a cake for the organization's birthday party: article A Georgia court has ruled in favor of Marshall Saxby, the Grand Wizard of a local KKK chapter, in a lawsuit stemming from two years ago when a local bakery denied him service. The three judge panel concluded unanimously that the bakery had violated civil rights laws by discriminating against Saxby when they refused to sell him a cake for his organization's annual birthday party. Elaine Bailey, who owns Bailey Bakeries, refused to bake a cake for the ceremony because it violated her religious beliefs. On 1 April 2015, a controversy involving personal beliefs and catering erupted following a widely-shared local news interview with the owners of the Memories Pizza restaurant in Indiana in which they stated they would (hypothetically) decline to provide pizza for a gay wedding.  An ensuing national debate over the balance between personal beliefs and equitable treatment under the law led many pundits to seek out real-life examples of such scenarios having gone awry. Memories Pizza Among the many editorials published during the Memories Pizza controversy was an article that appeared on the web site Inquisitr on 3 April 2015. That article (titled "Ku Klux Klan Forces Black Baker to Make Racist KKK Cake, So Does Memories Pizza Lose Religious Freedom?") originally referenced the Tribune Herald's  fake news article from 2013 several times: article If the Ku Klux Klan can force a black baker to make racist KKK cakes, does this mean Memories Pizza should automatically be forced to serve gay weddings? If that is the case, should the Westboro Baptist Church be allowed to force gay bakers to make cakes with "God hates f*gs" written upon them? These questions may be rhetorical, but in the case of the former example the event really happened.  In the case of the Ku Klux Klan we already know the answer in Georgia. According to the Tribune Herald, Elaine Bailey, who owns Bailey Bakeries, refused to bake a birthday cake for Marshall Saxby, the Grand Wizard of a local KKK chapter. In response, the Ku Klux Klan leader sued and won by claiming that Bailey's refusal of service was discriminatory against his religious beliefs. The KKK celebrated the decision by saying that "the law says that it's wrong to discriminate against people if you run a business, and that means she was wrong in discriminating against our organization by refusing us service." References to the 2013 Tribune Herald hoax article were subsequently replaced or elided in the Inquisitr's piece: If the Ku Klux Klan can force a black baker to make racist KKK cakes, does this mean Memories Pizza should automatically be forced to serve gay weddings? If that is the case, should the Westboro Baptist Church be allowed to force gay bakers to make cakes with "God hates f*gs" written upon them? These questions may be rhetorical, but if these scenarios did ever occur there is already disagreement over how they should be handled. So what does this mean for supporters and opponents of Indiana's religious freedom law? The first version of the Inquisitr piece referenced "Elaine Bailey" (subject of the 2013 fake news article) as a "black baker," but the original Tribune Herald article on which it was based did not. It's possible that that minor embellishment furthered interest in the original fake news story, as the notion of a black person being "forced" to serve the KKK underscored the debate's polarities.  The Tribune Herald site has since been abandoned, but a disclaimer featured on the site clearly stated that: disclaimer Tribune Herald is a satirical publication meant for entertainment purposes. All articles are a blend of real world events and people into fictional stories.   Last updated:  14 April 2015 In early May 2020, Facebook users reported seeing a headline circulating on the social platform stating, "Pelosi To Seniors: 'You Are Not Entitled to Social Security! It's Gone!'" The story was published on the website BIZ News. website The story contained a number of sensational and false statements such as, "Socialist politicians in the Democratic Party have tried for years to eliminate Social Security, a source of income relied upon by millions in this country just to get by in their old age." While the story didn't actually contain the quote in the headline above, the copy did include an Ebenezer Scrooge-like statement falsely attributed to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:To be clear, no record exists that Pelosi made this remark or the quoted remark in the BIZ News headline. However, a similar, also-fake quote about Social Security that was attributed to Pelosi circulated in April 2020.  similar,  This item is nothing more than an example of junk news. We therefore rate this claim  Speaker.gov."Pelosi Statement on 84th Anniversary of Social Security."
14 August 2019. In February 2017, English-language web sites caught wind of a purported "suicide game" that had reportedly resulted in more than a hundred deaths in Russia. The general premise of the game, which goes by several names but is commonly referred to as the "blue whale" game, is as follows: The player signs up to play the game and agrees to follow instructions over the course of 50 days.  An administrator assigns a series of tasks (anything from cutting yourself to listening to song) that the player must accomplish.  The player wins when they complete the final task, committing suicide, on the 50th day. The claim that the "blue whale" suicide game (named after the way whales sometimes beach themselves and then die) had resulted in a wave of suicides appears to have originated with a misinterpretation of a May 2016 story from the Russian site Novaya Gazeta. That article reported dozens of suicides of children in Russia during a six-month span, asserting that some of the people who had taken their lives were part of the same online game community on VK.com, a social media network based out of St. Petersburg, Russia: Novaya Gazeta We counted 130 suicides of children that occurred in Russia from November 2015 to April 2016 (!) - Almost all of them were members of the same group on the Internet. Novaya Gazeta  reported that "at least" eighty of the suicides were linked to these "blue whale" games, but an investigation by Radio Free Europe found that no suicides had been definitively linked to these online communities: found But while the Russian-language Internet is groaning with profiles of young people playing or seeking to play the game, shocking photographs of self-injury like cutting marked with the game's hashtags, and purported links to teen suicides, not a single death in Russia or Central Asia has been definitively tied to Blue Whale. Over the last six months or so, dozens of suicides and attempted suicides in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have been provisionally linked to the game, although on closer inspection none of them has been found to have a conclusive tie. Furthermore, the Novaya Gazeta report was highly criticized at the time of its publication. For instance, the web site Meduza noted that Noyaya Gazeta arrived at their conclusion that a social media game was causing teenagers to commit suicide because several teenagers from the same social media group had taken their own lives. However, Meduza argued, it is more reasonable to assume that depressed or suicidal teenagers are simply drawn to the same social media groups, not that the groups were causing them to commit suicide: noted The author of the material in the "Novaya Gazeta" states that the community in the social network "VKontakte" bring children to suicide. As a confirmation of this it lists the following fact: a few dozen teenagers who committed suicide were in groups devoted to this topic. However, to reliably establish a causal link in this case is impossible, and it is quite possible to assume an inverse relationship  a teen becomes part of a group due to the fact that it is contains people who struggle with suicidal thoughts. The reasons teenagers commit suicide are well researched. According to data from the General Prosecutor's Office, in Russia 62% of suicides among adolescents are associated with family conflicts and general distress, conflicts with teachers, classmates, friends, and also with the fear of violence by adults and callousness of others. From a report on the topic from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the increase in the number of suicides "occurs in times of economic crisis and sharp social change." For example, in Russia there was an increase the number of suicides from 1987 to 1994, when the USSR collapsed. As soon as the company adapted to its new socio-economic conditions, the number of suicides stabilized. data report Although "Blue Whale" suicide groups have not been directly linked to hundreds of suicides in Russia, the groups do apparently exist. They originated shortly after the death of Rina Palenkova, a Russian teenager who supposedly took her own life shortly after posting a photograph of herself on VK.com. The image was widely circulated on social media, and Rina soon became the central figure of a strange cult-like group:   These groups actively exploited the theme of suicide - continued the cult of Rina Palenkovoy and published shock content: psychedelic and sinister video recording suicides. The creators of the community filled it with strange characters  Hebrew inscriptions, numbers, codes, pictures and video with a strange logo (it turned out to have been borrowed from the logo of a brand of lingerie). Later, groups of creators began to promote them through an interactive quest, ARG, a game with augmented reality. They took the idea of a mysterious quest "Insider", created in 2012  few details exist of the original project, but you can get acquainted with its ominous promo video  and created on that basis a new ARG with the levels and tasks in the real world. Author of the new project "Insiders" Nosferatu by Alexander refused to communicate with Apparat. According to the testimony of other users, the project initially had no relation to suicide, but later it "stole" the administrators of destructive groups. One of the elements of the project was a timer on the site, counting down the 70 days prior to a certain date  according to the F57, until the day of the mass suicides. ominous There is certainly reason to be concerned about groups that venerate and promote suicide, but the creator of the "Sea of Whales" community said that he had no interest in encouraging people to take their own lives. Rather, the group's creator says that they created the game and the surrounding lore to drive traffic to the page: It took just one day, however, for the news website Lenta.ru to get in touch with More Kitov, the creator of the Sea of Whales community (whales "commit suicide" by beaching themselves)  yet astonishingly, he claimed that the administrators of such groups had no interest in grooming minors to take their own lives but were merely interested in boosting their commercial profile.  Lenta.ru He said that Filip Lis, the administrator of the now-deleted community f57, just wanted to increase the number of subscribers to attract advertisers to his page  in Russia, the social network VKontakte is also a popular advertising market, and you can earn a lot of money from popular communities. Having come across this topic, which was trendy with teenagers, Lis launched the myth of the "sect" and used Rina Palenkova (a young girl who reportedly committed suicide) to promote it. He sold her cloned pages, reposts, videos and photos of her grave as well as screenshots of her correspondence. After VKontakte removed f57, he created similar groups. "I looked at all the fuss, got stunned by the hype and created my whales," More Kitov told Lenta.ru. He insisted that his aim was to dissuade teenagers prone to suicidal thoughts, but first it was necessary to "become one of them." Russia has a high baseline suicide rate among young people. In 2013, for instance, 461 minors took their own lives. lives In May 2017, stories appeared in English-language media about the alleged creator of the game, who according to media reports remains detained in Russia. Phillip Budeikin, 21, had apparently confessed to inciting young girls to commit suicide months before (calling them "biological waste", according to some reports) but we were only able to trace these claims back to a November 2016 story on one site, saint-petersburg.ru (translated): site Did you really push the teenagers to death? -*Firmly* Yes. I really did. Do not worry, you will understand everything. Everyone will understand. They were dying happy. I gave them what they did not have in real life: warmth, understanding, communication. How many of them were there? Is it really that, as a number of media outlets write, there are 130 people in the region? -Of course not. Investigation of the "News" is just squalor. There were 17. There were those with whom I simply communicated, whom I knew and who later committed suicide, but without my direct influence. So, come on from the very beginning. When it all started, how it was organized and how did you get to the point of pushing people to suicide? -At first? There are people, but there is a biomass. These are those who do not represent any value to society and are or will only bring harm to society. I cleaned our society from such people. It began in 2013. Then I created "F57" (one of the names of "death groups" "VKontakte" -Ed. ). Just created, see what will happen. It was stuffed with shock content, and it began to attract people. In 2014, it was banned. For a long time I laughed when I saw everyone trying to understand what "F57" means. It's simple. F - Philip, my name. 57 - the last digits of my then number. I thought about the idea for five years. You can say I was preparing. I thought through the concept of the project, specific levels and stages. It was necessary to separate the normal from the biomass. This story was inexplicably picked up months later by international tabloids (alongside claims that the game was spreading across the world), but we remain unable to verify any of the claims. international tabloids spreading Brodetsky, Andrew.  "       ."
  Apparat.cc.  May 2016. Meduza.  "Five Major Issues to the Material of "Novaya Gazeta" About Teenage Suicides."
  17 May 2016. Khazov, Sergei.  "Teen 'Suicide Games' Send Shudders Through Russian-Speaking World."
  Radio Free Europe.  21 February 2017. Newsru.com.  " 2013   ,    ,    461 ."
  15 April 2014. Litvinova, Daria.  "Suicide Watch: Why Russian Teens Are Killing Themselves."
  Moscow Times.  27 May 2016. Kates, Glenn.  "A Spate of Teenage Suicides Alarms Russians."
  The New York Times.  19 April 2012. Sinelschikova, Yekaterina.  "Are Russian Internet Communities Responsible for Wave of Child Suicides?"
  Russia Beyond the Headlines.  23 May 2016. Mursaliyev, Galina.  " "
  Novaya Gazeta.  15 May 2016. Claim:  E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies, policies and legislation that have contributed to the current and future US oil supply situation.  Did you know that the United States does NOT have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign. This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France  actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endlessbillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela to be used in propping up their economies. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democrat Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, off Cuba but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming. We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our dirt burms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no burm around it. People wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly nothing. So, America enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil. What the US government also does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "Record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc. amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon. To all you Democrats, when you go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama just keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin through a Democrat's name. William "Bill" Phillips Origins:  Several readers (including members of the Phillips family) have maintained to us that there is no descendant of Frank Phillips matching the description of the putative author of this piece, which itself appears to be a rewritten/expanded version of an earlier article (one not originally attributed to William "Bill" Phillips).  Given the uncertain provenance of the "Phillips" authorship version, we'll address our analysis primarily to the wording of the (presumed) original: article I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up. Ranking businesses according to "bigness" can be based on a variety of different metrics: geographic reach, scale of operations, market value, gross revenues, net profits, etc. Exxon Mobil is certainly one of the world's largest (in terms of gross revenues) and most profitable public companies.  (Many of the world's largest non-public companies are also in the oil business.)  The statement here about Exxon Mobil's being "only the 14th largest [oil company] in the world" refers to the amount of oil and gas reserves that company controls, and it is generally true that the major (public) oil companies have much less access to oil and gas resources than they did a few decades ago, most of which are now controlled by national oil companies: largest profitable non-public reserves Despite record crude prices, the major oil companies are struggling to access resources that are being jealously guarded by national companies with whom they are forced to establish partnerships. As paradoxical as it may seem, high oil prices do not mean a golden age for the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Totalor BP. Of course, with a barrel of oil at more than 140 dollars, they are seeing major profits, but the future has never seemed so uncertain. The problem is access to reserves. The oil majors now control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s, according to figures released by the office of Ernst and Young at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. As a result they are being forced to explore in increasingly extreme conditions. The statement that "94% of the world's oil supply [is] locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States" might be a considered a bit misleading since many of those "hostile" countries have relatively small oil reserves, while the country with the second-largest oil reserves, Canada, is U.S.-friendly (and both Mexico and the United States are also among the countries with the largest oil reserves). reserves This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France   actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. Drilling for oil off of most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts has largely been barred due to a moratorium imposed by Congress in the early 1980s and by an executive order signed by President George H.W. Bush (a Republican) in 1990.  The congressional moratorium has to be renewed every year, and it has remained in place for nearly three decades through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike.  (On 14 July 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the executive order barring offshore drilling that had been signed by his father eighteen years earlier.)  The congressional moratorium is due to expire on 1 October 2008 unless Congress votes to extend it. Some analysts have claimed that if the oil industry could extract oil and gas from oil shale in a cost-effective manner, oil shale deposits in the U.S. (particularly on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, site of the world's largest such deposit) could produce viable oil reserves of about 800 billion barrels (three times the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).  However, the cost and effectiveness of oil shale development (and the resource use and environmental effects attendant to accomplishing it) remain a subject of considerable debate, and oil companies remain barred from undertaking commercial oil shale projects on federal land: At best production is years away, while unpredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land for commercial-scale oil shale projects. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. The subject of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development is another issue that has been pursued across the years through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR.  As of now, both major-party presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are opposed to opening ANWR to oil exploration. pursued factors Last updated:  14 July 2008    Dechaux, Delphine.   "Despite Rocketing Prices, Outlook Is Bleak for Oil Majors."   Agence France Presse.  6 July 2008.     Feller Ben.   "Bush Trumps Congress; Moves First on Drilling."   Associated Press.  14 July 2008.     Forbes, Steve.   "Will We Rid Ourselves of This Pollution?"   Forbes.  16 April 2007.     Guerrera, Francesco and Carola Hoyos.   "Hidden Value: How Unlisted Companies Are Eclipsing the Public Equity Market."   Financial Times.  15 December 2006.     Ivanovich, David.   "Despite 800 Billion Barrel Potential, Oil Shale a Hard Sell."   The Houston Chronicle.  12 July 2008.     Simon, Richard.   "Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling."   Los Angeles Times.  14 July 2008. Despite what online scammers might have you believe, Dr. Mehmet Oz of the former "Dr. Oz" talk show has never endorsed apple cider vinegar (ACV) weight loss gummies or any sort of CBD or keto diet gummies. According to scammy websites where customers can purchase many of these kinds of products, Oz once called keto gummies the "holy grail" of weight loss. However, he never said anything of the sort.  A seemingly countless number of product websites falsely claim that Oz gave his endorsement of weight loss gummies. A few recent examples of the Oz scam appearing on order pages included the product namesRetroFit Keto + ACV Gummies, XtremeFit Keto + ACV Gummies, Optimal Keto + ACV Gummies, Speedy Keto + ACV Gummies, Transform Keto + ACV Gummies, and Ketoviva Keto + ACV Gummies. RetroFit Keto + ACV Gummies XtremeFit Keto + ACV Gummies Optimal Keto + ACV Gummies Speedy Keto + ACV Gummies Transform Keto + ACV Gummies Ketoviva Keto + ACV Gummies While some of the websites for these products have since disappeared, we were able to confirm that they all originally promoted Oz's name. Again, these were just a few recent examples. Going back to 2022, it's possible hundreds of more keto gummy product names falsely mentioned that Oz endorsed them. The websites for these purported weight loss products promised that the candy-like gummies can "melt fat fast without diet or exercise." Always remember with online offers that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  These websites alsofalsely claimed that CBS News, NBC, CNN, Women's Health, Honolulu Magazine, Woman's World, and theDiabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Journal all endorsed, reviewed, or mentioned the products. In truth, none of them ever did. Parent company information for many keto diet weight loss gummies products is often hard to find. Phone numbers for customer support, if they haven't been omitted from the websites, route to call centers that greet customers in a general sense without announcing any company names. Most of them simply begin with, "Thank you for calling customer service." We previously asked one of the call center agents to reveal parent company information or anything about the whereabouts of the people behind the gummy websites. The person provided no details. In our research, we found that many customers who received these products at their doorstep and found a charge on their credit card said that they had no recollection of ever ordering them. Other commenters said that, in addition to not remembering ordering the keto gummies, they also found no charge on their credit card. It's possible that this could have occurred because ofcard-skimming scams, when a criminal places a device on top of a credit card reader at a place of business, all to secretly capture the card's sensitive data. card-skimming scams Customers who shared their experiences also said that the return address for these weight loss gummy products that bore Oz's name was a nameless "fulfillment center" with a P.O. Box in Smyrna, Tennessee, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Many others also said that Tampa, Florida, was the city mentioned on their packages. Oz While a package at the door is the last step of some of these scams, the first step oftentimes involves an alluring paid ad. This kind of an ad might appear next to an article on a website or on Facebook or Instagram.  Clicking on the ad leads to the second step: a fake article that scammers designed to fool readers into believing they're reading from Fox News, CNN, ABC, or other big-name news organizations.  While these kinds of fake articles might look like the website for one of those companies, the address bar at the top of the browser reveals the truth  that the user is not, in fact, on cnn.com, for example, but instead on a strange scam website that's simply pretending to be CNN simply by featuring its logo and article page design. Within the fake articles are links to the third step in the scam: the aforementioned product order pages that misleadingly mention Oz's name. On these pages people fill out their credit card information, a move that, apparently unbeknownst to the customers, enrolls them in recurring charges of hundreds of dollars per month. As we've done in the past, we'll continue to provide more reporting about these dangerous and costly scams in the future. in the past Note: In the past, Ozfaced allegations of promoting a "magic weight-loss cure" for "green coffee extract." However, this had nothing to do with weight loss gummies. allegations Gabriel, Trip. "'Magic' Weight-Loss Pills and Covid Cures: Dr. Oz Under the Microscope." The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/politics/dr-oz-medical-advice.html. Liles, Jordan. "Did Oprah Winfrey Suffer a 'Tragedy' and Endorse Keto Weight Loss Gummies?" Snopes, 12 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-tragedy-keto-gummies/. ---. "Oprah Winfrey 'Allegations' Facebook Ads Are False, Nor Did She Ever Endorse 'Weight Loss Gummies.'" Snopes, 13 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/13/oprah-winfrey-allegations-weight-loss-gummies/. Smith, Daeshen. "Better Business Bureau Warns Customers to Be Mindful of Card Skimming Schemes." Fox10TV.com, 25 Apr. 2023, https://www.fox10tv.com/2023/04/25/better-business-bureau-warns-customers-be-mindful-card-skimming-schemes/. Claim:  George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2013] Facebook is sharing that George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for failure to control him. I find this very difficult tobelieve.  I think this is bogus.   Origins:  On 15 July 2013,  the National Report published an article ("George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents") about acquitted defendant George Zimmerman's having filed a civil lawsuit against the parents of the teenager he shot, Trayvon Martin: article George Zimmerman filed a civil suit today just before 5PM EST at the Seminole County, Florida, Courthouse. The suit alleges the parents of Trayvon Martin, failed to control their minor-age son on the evening of February 26, 2012, when Martin repeatedly assaulted Zimmerman, placing him in imminent fear for his life and  resulting in the death of Martin. The civil action specifies that Zimmerman acted in self defense resulting in the case being ruled a justifiable homicide by a jury trial that ended on Saturday with a verdict of not guilty. Desperate state prosecutors charged the victim with 2nd degree murder though they had no evidence of a crime and hoping to stay off more violence and having Florida put to the torch at the criminal hands of rioters months before the start of the states tourist season. The complaint further specifies Zimmerman shares "zero-liability" in the death of Martin as he acted without malice and solely in self-defense. The amount of damages Zimmerman is seeking are unspecified. By the following day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.  However, the article was just a bit of satire from the National Report, a web site which publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." Last updated:  16 July 2013 Amid discussions of statehood for Washington, D.C., in late April 2021, a meme spread on social media positing that the Dakota territory was split into the states now known as North and South Dakota in the late 1800s for the purpose of giving the Republican Party more political power, namely more senators and electors. One example is a meme from U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.:   The meme read, "Congress split the Dakota territory in half in 1889 to admit two new states with 4 Republican senators. So spare us the fake outrage over DC statehood." The text was taken from a tweet posted by journalist Ari Berman on April 22. tweet The meme generally responds to congressional Republicans who have stated that allowing D.C., a heavily Democratic region, to become a state will shift the balance of political power in Congress. Noting the racial demographics of D.C. versus other states, some Democrats have accused Republicans of stonewalling D.C. statehood because of racism. stated racial demographics accused It also characterizes current Republican opposition to D.C. statehood as hypocritical, noting that the national Republican party has benefited historically from addition of new states with Republican populations. Writing for The Atlantic in 2019, Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote: The Atlantic The number of states in the union has been fixed at 50 for so long, few Americans realize that throughout most of our history, the addition of new states from time to time was a normal part of political life. New states were supposed to join the union when they reached a certain population, but in the late 19th century, population mattered a great deal less than partisanship. While McConnell is right to suspect that admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now would shift the balance in Congress toward the Democrats, the Republican Party has historically taken far more effective advantage of the addition of new states. In 1889 and 1890, Congress added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyomingthe largest admission of states since the original 13. This addition of 12 new senators and 18 new electors to the Electoral College was a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority. The strategy paid dividends deep into the future; indeed, the admission of so many rural states back then helps to explain GOP control of the Senate today, 130 years later. Like most things viewed through the lens of history, the reasons North and South Dakota exist as two separate states are complicated by changing context. Business interests, local efforts, and national political wrangling all played a role, but without a doubt, adding North and South Dakota to the growing union of states had the effect of benefiting the national Republican party politically, and they didn't hide that motivation. But comparing the statehood process for North and South Dakota to current advocation for Washington, D.C. statehood is comparing apples to oranges, said Michael Card, associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota.  That period in American history was drastically different to the current circumstances in many ways  namely, at that time, a large number of states were in the process of being added into the Union. One of the major factors in deciding statehood was population counts of non-indigenous American settlers. That figure was set at 60,000 in 1787. set at 60,000 Another contextual difference was that the nature of the political parties have evolved over time, meaning the Republicans and Democrats of today are not representative of the parties with those names from the late 19th century in many ways. Many of the non-indigenous settlers in the southern part of what was then Dakota territory were Union veterans of the Civil War and their families, who were Republicans. Many likely moved far away from the battlefields in the American South in an effort to get away from traumatic memories, Card noted. Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants tended to settle in the north. As USA Today pointed out, "the Republican Party was much more concerned with protecting African Americans and their voting rights from its founding through the early 20th century. In the mid-20th century, both parties' stances on racial equity began to switch." That switch came after Democratic legislators passed voting and civil rights legislation i the 1960s. pointed out Another important point of context the population counts in North and South Dakota justified statehood and that Democrats, who were at that time were in control of national government and aware of the territory's Republican leanings, had slowed the statehood process, in hopes of gaining a political toehold in the region. slowed the statehood But they couldn't stall forever. According to historian Elwyn B. Robinson in the book "History of North Dakota," there were 190,983 inhabitants in North Dakota in 1890, while there were 348,600 in South Dakota. And in the end, it was Democrats in Congress and Democratic U.S. President Grover Cleveland who relented, signing legislation granting statehood to North and South Dakota, along with Montana and Washington. In "History of North Dakota," Robinson noted that local advocacy also came into play when it came to the creation of the two states. At the local level, there was an internal push for statehood from a small group of influential men who were unhappy with the outside control that came with Dakota being a territory, and who wanted political equality of status.  History of North Dakota Statehood was a quiet revolution, accomplished by less than two hundred men. The first leaders were Yankton politicians, but all came from southern Dakota and all were Republicans. With few exceptions, they were conservative, middle-class business and professional menbankers, lawyers, ministers, railroad employees, and newspaper editors. They were of the older American stock and came from New England, New York, or the states of the Old Northwest. They were Republicans because Dakota was a one-party regiona result of the long years of territorial status when the Republican party had control of the United States government. The idea of splitting the northern region off from the southern one started with this group, but not because of political power in Washington, D.C., Robinson wrote: "From the beginning the Yankton leaders, a small oligarchy with much influence, planned for the division of the territory at the forty-sixth parallel. Division seemed natural. The railroads ran east and west, so that southern and northern Dakota had little contact with each other." When Robinson described the decision to ultimately split the territory into two when admitting it into the Union though, he noted that it was pushed hard by the Republican Indiana senator who would become the 23rd U.S. president, Benjamin Harrison: Finally, the program of division, with southern Dakota becoming a state and northern Dakota a territory, was dropped in favor of a bill to admit two states. Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana pushed it hard and the large population of Dakota (in 1890, North Dakota alone had 190,983 inhabitants and South Dakota 348,600) made further denial seem unjust and irresponsible. In the presidential campaign of 1888 the Republican platform called for admission of two states. Ordway and the Dakota Democrats finally dropped their single-state bill. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Omnibus Bill of February 22, 1889, authorizing the framing of constitutions in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. When the bill finally passed the House of Representatives, some of the members threw books and papers into the air in celebration and there was a general handshaking of congratulation. A step toward equality of status had been taken. Updated rating to "Mixture" and added additional context. As wildfires raged across Australia at the start of 2020, an interesting claim about wombats, a short-legged marsupial, started to circulate on social media. According to this rumor, wombats were braving the fires to find lost animals and then leading them back to their burrows for safety: rumor   Reports from Australia that countless small animals have escaped death because wombats, unusually, opted to share their massive, complex burrows. Even reports that they have been observed exhibiting "sheperding behavior." While this social media post claims that it is based on "reports from Australia," we have seen no documentation of these supposed hero wombats. In fact, a number of Australian experts have said that they were skeptical of the claims. Jackie French, author and director of The Wombat Foundation, told IFLScience: IFLScience "Wombats are extremely short-sighted. They focus mostly on food and dirt. It would be hard for them to see well enough to shepherd, nor have I seen one do so." Scott Carver, a senior lecturer in wildlife ecology at the University of Tasmania, told the Associated Press no evidence exists that wombats were "sharing or encouraging other animals" to take refuge in their burrows. Associated Press While wombats may not actively be seeking out animals in need, it is quite possible that distressed creatures have found their way into wombat burrows on their own. Wombats are efficient diggers and can create burrows stretching up to 650 feet. Associate Professor Steve Johnston from the University of Queensland also noted that wombats may abandon these underground tunnels in order to dig a new one. This leaves some opportunities for other animals to seek shelter. 650 feet Johnston told the Brisbane Times: Brisbane Times "A lot of those wombat burrows could be empty, so animals could easily make their way into those burrows to escape the fire ... Wombats will often make a burrow system and then move on, so those empty burrows become open [to other animals]." Wombats are typically very territorial and will even charge and chase out animals that invade their space. However, students at the University of Melbourne set up cameras near one wombat burrow in 2019 and found other animals, including koalas and bunnies, venturing inside these underground tunnels. Kath Handasyde, an expert in native mammal ecology and physiology, said that the wombat was likely sleeping or in another chamber when these other animals explored the burrow. Here's a video where she explains the situation. video In short, wombats are not actively shepherding animals into their burrows for safety. However, it is certainly possible that animals fleeing the fires have taken refuge in the wombats' underground tunnels. In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity shared a video taken during the Australian fires in 2020 showing how one animal, the common brown butterfly, was using wombat holes to survive the flames:   Greenpeace Australia, the social media account that posted the viral message recounted in this story's introduction, later updated its Instagram post to remove the "shepherding" part of the claim: Instagram   Dupuy, Beatrice.  "Wombats Not Herding Animals Into Their Burrows During Australia Fires."
  Associated Press.  14 January 2020. Bradford, Alina.  "Facts About Wombats."
  Live Science.  30 October 2015. Layt, Stuart.  "Experts Question Reports of Wombats' Heroic Bushfire Efforts."   Brisbane Times.  13 January 2020. Nimmo, Dale.  "Viral Stories of Wombats Sheltering Other Wildlife From the Bushfires Aren't Entirely True."
  ABC News Australia.  15 January 2020. Hooper, Claudia.  "A Wombat, a Koala and a Rabbit in a Burrow."
  University of Melbourne.  15 April 2019. IFL Science.  "Viral Posts Claim Wombats Share Their Burrows During Australian Fires."   Retrieved 16 January 2020. In August and September 2021, an old quotation, attributed to the English novelist George Orwell, re-emerged on social media. For example, on Sept. 5, the Scottish historian William Dalrymple posted the following widely shared tweet: "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more they will hate those that speak it." George Orwell   In reality, Orwell never wrote or uttered those words, even though they have a broadly Orwellian ring to them. Rather, that maxim was first written by a conservative writer in 2009, but has been almost universally misattributed to Orwell in the intervening 12 years. The bogus Orwell quotation has appeared in countless social media posts and opinion columns in recent years, with various small tweaks. Former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who railed against former President Donald Trump before leaving the Senate in 2019, included it in a Washington Post column in May, and in a Senate speech back in January 2018. column Senate speech In February 2019, former FBI Director James Comey also used it to criticize Trump, but the quote has also been favored by conservatives, and by supporters of whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. In 2012, rapper Soulja Boy posted a version of the same quote on Twitter. used it to criticize Trump favored conservatives Edward Snowden Chelsea Manning Soulja Boy However, the earliest version we could find, and apparently the original, came in a May 6, 2009, column by the conservative writer Selwyn Duke, on the right-leaning website RenewAmerica.com.  May 6, 2009, column Duke's column railed against what he presented as political correctness and left-wing censorship and contained several Orwellian references, including his use of the phrase "today's 1984 Britain," and his use of the line "telling the truth is a revolutionary act." (To add irony upon irony, the true provenance of that quotation is unclear, and Orwell almost certainly did not come up with it).  Orwell almost certainly did not come up with it In conclusion, Duke wrote, "The further a society drifts from Truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." Several years later, Duke himself firmly asserted authorship of the line, writing, "You can imagine my surprise when I learned people were quoting it and that Orwell was taking credit for it." firmly asserted authorship of the line Snopes was unable to find any earlier version of the quotation than Duke's, despite consulting a newspaper archive that stretches back far beyond Orwell's lifetime. As a result, we are satisfied not only that the quote did not originate with Orwell, but also that its original author was indeed most likely Duke. The nasty political ads have been gone for weeks, but the launch of a marketing campaign aimed at trumpeting Ohios improving economy offers a preview of the next great election battle.JobsOhio, the states private economic development agency, is on air witha 30-second commercialthat celebrates workers of all stripes and conveys an optimistic message.The agency is the brainchild of Republican Gov. John Kasich, who has ridden Ohios rising fortunes to rising poll numbers. And the Thrive in Ohio spot, which also asks viewers to share their success stories ona web site, has rankled Democrats hoping to unseat Kasich in 2014.Never mind that the spot doesnt feature Kasich or identify him or the governors office in any way. Democrats see a calculated political move bankrolled by state development money. The push also includes print advertising and will cost $1.4 million,the Columbus Dispatch reported.Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, one potential challenger to Kasich, haspublicly calledon Kasich to suspend the campaign, declaring it a waste of taxpayer dollars.Given the dust-up surrounding the JobsOhio blitz and the role the states economy is sure to play in the gubernatorial race, PolitiFact Ohio decided to evaluate the claim central to the TV spot.In the past year alone, Ohio businesses have created more jobs than almost every other state in the country, an unseen narrator says, his words scored to an inspirational piano melody. And its only the beginning.So how does the statement stack up when peeled away from such slick marketing?Laura Jones, communications director for JobsOhio, cited employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Via email, Jones said the numbers showed that from October 2011 through October 2012, only California, Texas and New York created more jobs than Ohio.Jones referred us to the bureausRegional and State Employment and Unemployment report. According to seasonally adjusted employment numbers in October, 30 states reported statistically significant increases in employment year-over-year -- Ohio among them.Table E, found on page seven of the 21-page report, breaks down the employment trends by state. Since October 2011, according to preliminary data, Ohio has added 96,500 jobs. Indeed, that increase ranks fourth, behind the more-populated California, Texas and New York.Because the report was dated Nov. 20, three days after JobsOhio posted the commercial to YouTube, PolitiFact Ohio went back to look atthe previous months report, which evaluated the period from September 2011 and September 2012. We found the Buckeye State in the same position: fourth among states with statistically significant employment increases.We also checked with George Zeller, an economic research analyst from Cleveland. He was familiar with the Thrive in Ohio campaign and, after paging through the BLS reports agreed that the numbers cited by JobsOhio were legitimate.But what do the numbers prove?What theyre saying there is that Ohios No. 4, Zeller said. What you have to recognize is that of course were going to gain more jobs than Vermont, because Vermont is smaller. There are 50 states, so being fourth is higher than others. But were by no means at the top.Zeller makes a valid point. Ohio, by virtue of being one of the nations most populous states, is destined to have and add more jobs than smaller states. Ohio is the seventh-most populous state,according to Census figures, ranking behind California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. In terms of jobs added, Ohio is up there with other highly populated states.Zeller also noted that Ohios recovery, while real, is coming slowly. At current pace, said Zeller, citing his research, it will take the state 11 years to recover all jobs lost during the recession.Theres nothing untrue about what [JobsOhio] said, Zeller continued via telephone. Now does that mean that we are outstripping the rest of the country? No. First of all, because we lost more jobs than the rest of the country did  we have to do a lot more to make them up.Of course Democrats will come armed with other numbers as the gubernatorial fight nears. They often citeBLS datathat show the states unemployment rate began dropping in early 2010, under Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and and Democratic President Barack Obama.To their point, its worth noting that public policy set outside Ohio affects the states economy. Exhibit A: The federal governments bailout of the U.S. auto industry, a huge Ohio employer.As such, Democrats argue that Ohio was en route to economic recovery months before Kasich defeated Strickland in the November 2010 election. Ironically, Kasichs constant ballyhooing of these improved prospects was at odds with the message pushed by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and might have helped Obamas re-election bid this year.Now that the race for the White House in the rearview mirror, it is no surprise that Democrats see the JobsOhio commercial as the unofficial kickoff of Kasichs re-election campaign. Perhaps that makes this the unofficial kickoff of PolitiFact Ohios monitoring of the contest, whether its FitzGerald, Strickland or another candidate who takes on the incumbent governor in 2014.For its Thrive in Ohio campaign, JobsOhio said businesses here have created more jobs than almost every other state in the country over the last year. A second later, the ads narrator added: And its only the beginning. That qualifier is appropriate given the perspective Zeller supplied. Considering Ohios size, a statement about the states comparatively high level of job creation is not the ultimate benchmark of success.JobsOhio seems to realize this. On the Truth-O-Meter, the agencys statement rates True.