A Canadian's View of U.S. Elections
Claim:  E-mail reproduces an editorial from a Canadian newspaper about U.S. presidential candidates. Status:  True. Example:  [Caldwell, December 2007] I recieved this as an email.  Is this real? A Canadian's view of US Elections Theo Caldwell,  National Post (Canada)Wednesday, December 26, 2007 An obvious choice can be unnerving. When the apparent perfection of one option or the unspeakable awfulness of another makes a decision seem too easy, it is human nature to become suspicious. This instinct intensifies as the stakes of the given choice are raised. American voters know no greater responsibility to their country and to the world than to select their president wisely. While we do not yet know who the Democrat and Republican nominees will be, any combination of the leading candidates from either party will make for the most obvious choice put to American voters in a generation. To wit, none of the Democrats has any business being president. This pronouncement has less to do with any apparent perfection among the Republican candidates than with the intellectual and experiential paucity evinced by the Democratic field. "Not ready for prime time," goes the vernacular, but this does not suffice to describe how bad things are. Alongside Hillary Clinton, add Barack Obama's kindergarten essays to an already confused conversation about Dennis Kucinich's UFO sightings, dueling celebrity endorsements and who can be quickest to retreat from America's global conflict and raise taxes on the American people, and it becomes clear that these are profoundly unserious individuals. [Rest of article here.] here Origins:  We've received many forwarded copies of the above-linked article, accompanied by inquiries from readers wanting to know whether it's "real" or "true." The article is "real" in the sense that it is indeed an editorial by Theo Caldwell which was published in the 26 December 2007 edition of Canada's National Post newspaper (and reproduced in that publication's online version), offering the writer's assessment of the candidates vying for the nominations of the two major parties in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Theo Caldwell online Aside from the issue of its origins, the article is not classifiable as "true" nor "false"  it is an editorial which reflects its author's opinions. Last updated:  14 January 2008    Sources:   Caldwell, Theo.  "Democrat or Republican? The Question Is Shockingly Easy."   National Post.  26 December 2007  (p. A27).
In the final days before the election, the Obama campaign has put upan adthat is a sort of Cliff Notes for voters before they walk into the voting booth. It lists many of the points Obama has used against Mitt Romney throughout this contest.It warns about the future of Medicare,support for education, tax breaks for the wealthiest, and banking regulation. On that last point, it says, Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy.This fact-check examines that claim and tries to discern what Romney would do about keeping banks clear of the excesses that contributed to the financial crisis.Romney has not spoken in detail about his financial regulation plans. Sifting through his website, interviews and his public comments, we see these core elements:  He wouldrepeal Dodd-Frank, the wide-ranging law that aims to fix many of the lapses associated with the meltdown. Romney has said he would replace the law but has not gone much beyond that concept. Romney supports the idea of regulations. Extensive regulation is appropriate in an industry that has such an impact on the overall economy, he said in an interviewwithTime. Romney supports rules to ensure that banks have their own money at risk, as this promotes greater caution. You have to have rules for what kind of capital has to stand behind each kind of asset on Wall Street and banks, he said on60 Minutes. This is part of current law. He supports greater transparency for derivatives trading. He told agroup of Americansin London, mainly bankers, that we do need to have greater transparency in the trading of derivatives, so we know whats going on - what kind of exposures various institutions have. Derivatives as investment devices are not inherently bad but they helped hide the weaknesses of the home mortgage market and increased the exposure of many investors when the sector collapsed. Dodd-Frank has a detailed approach to shedding light on derivatives trading. Romney opposes the current plan for orderly liquidations when banks fail. We need to get rid of that provision because it's killing regional and small banks, Romney said in thefirst presidential debate.However, he has not said how he would change the current law. Romney believes regulators should move faster to define the minimum standards for a home mortgage loan. The Obama campaign backs up its claim with aBoston Globearticle from last spring. The article emphasizes that Romney says he would do away with Dodd-Frank without saying what would replace it. Since that time, Romney has said a bit more, captured in that list above, but not much more.In May, one of Romneys top economic advisers,Glenn Hubbard,said the public could expect more detailed proposals on several key fronts, including what to do if one of the biggest banks fails, consumer financial protections, and housing finance. However, those proposals never appeared.The only detail from Hubbard himself targeted the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That agency, created under Dodd-Frank, aims to stand between individuals and the marketing of unfair and deceptive financial services. Hubbard said the bureau might be moved or dismantled, with its functions passed along to existing agencies.The lack of specifics from Romney has left many people reading the tea leaves. Kenneth Scott is professor of law and business at Stanford Law School. I very much doubt that if Romney won there would be a blanket repeal of Dodd-Frank, but there would be an effort at significant amendments, Scott said.Some have looked to Congress for clues. ABloomberg articledescribed the changes Republicans have passed or introduced. High on the list are looser rules governing the trade in derivatives, and especially the financial practice called swaps. Swaps are basically insurance against the risk that a borrower wont repay a loan. It gets more exotic, but thats the central idea, and its very big business. Swaps delivered $7 billion in revenues to banks in the first quarter of 2012. Swaps played a significant role in the 2008 financial crisis.Bloomberg andother news organizationshave listed other areas where Republicans have worked to ease financial regulations, such as reversing the Volker Rule, which limits banks on using customer deposits to invest in trades offered by an arm of the same bank.Bloomberg offered this summary: Dodd-Frank would remain but it would be a revamped Dodd-Frank that would accommodate some of the most profitable and riskiest activities while preserving a patina of protection for investors and consumers.Still, the precise changes Romney would support are unknown. In addition, some would argue that whatever changes emerge would not increase the odds of another financial crisis. For example, Lawrence White, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, believes the current law on big banks makes risky behavior more likely.Repealing THAT part of Dodd-Frank would not roll back regulation on the banks that crashed our economy, quite the contrary, White said.We asked the Romney campaign for more specifics in several areas but received no further information.Our rulingThe Obama ad says Mitt Romneys plan rolls back regulations on banks.Romney has provided scant details on his plans, but he has said that he would push for changes. Romney has never suggested that tougher regulations are needed, and he has said many times that government regulates too much. It is reasonable to conclude his plans would be more in line with current Republican initiatives than the present law passed by Democrats. That direction points toward fewer restrictions than are in place under Dodd-Frank. Certainly, Romney has said that the provisions for the largest banks should be replaced.Conservative analysts would say that these changes would not put the financial system at greater risk.However, the ad simply says Romney would roll back regulations on the institutions that contributed to the financial crisis. How much of a rollback is unclear, but Romney does support a lighter regulatory touch on banks, so we rate the statement Mostly True. Claim:  A hotel restaurant in Nigeria was found to be selling human meat.    : A hotel restaurant in Nigeria was found to be serving human meat.  : Human heads were found in a Nigerian hotel room, which the hotel's owner maintains were planted there as a set up over a business dispute. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, May 2005] Is it true that a Nigerian restaurant was serving human flesh andthe police went there and they discovered Human Heads and flesh in therestaurant kitchen?   Origins:  On 5 September 2013, the Nigerian tabloid Osun Defender published a grisly account (sourced from the Naija Loaded forum) about a local hotel that had been shut down after reports surfaced that its restaurant was selling dishes made of human meat, with police reportedly recovering two fresh cellophane-wrapped human heads at the scene: account forum On Thursday Onitsha police arrested 11 people after they discovered 2 fresh human heads in a hotel (name withheld) very close to the popular Ose-Okwodu market in Anambra state. Two AK47 rifles & other weapons were also discovered in the hotel. The arrest followed tip-offs from area residents on Thursday morning. The hotel owner, 6 women and 4 men were arrested. After police got access to the hotel, they made a startling discovery of two human heads wrapped in a cellophane bag, two AK47 rifles, two army caps, 40 rounds of live ammunition and so many cell phones. "Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday," said a vegetable seller in the area A Pastor who was among the people who tipped off the police on Thursday said: "I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised. So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price." This account was widely picked up by many western news outlets in February 2014, including the New York Daily News, the International Business Times, the Independent, Metro, and Gawker, all of whom unquestioningly reported it as straight news. Daily News International Business Times Independent Metro Gawker This two-year-old story inexplicably got a boost when it was repeated on the Swahili-language section of the BBC's web site on 13 May 2015 and was picked up again from there by western press outlets (such as the Daily Mail) a few days later. BBC Daily Mail But was it true?  The original report included several typical signs of fake news:   The article was completely lacking in verifiable details: The name of the hotel where the gruesome discovery was allegedly made was withheld, the persons quoted in the article were referenced only by vague descriptions and not by name (e.g., "a vegetable seller," "a pastor,"), none of the eleven persons purportedly arrested was identified, and not a single law enforcement officer or other official was quoted, named, or referenced in the story.  The claim stemmed from a single source: No other news outlet was cited by the western media, who merely repeated what Osun Defender had published without further verification. Nor were any follow-up articles published about the incident to reveal such information as whose bodies were being dished out.  The article appeared flippant in tone (e.g., a pastor's reaction to being informed that he had consumed human flesh was to note how expensive the meat was): "Each time I came to market, because the hotel is very close to the market, I always noticed funny movements in and out of the hotel; dirty people with dirty characters always come into the hotel. So, I was not surprised when the police made this discovery in the early hours of yesterday," said a vegetable seller in the area A Pastor who was among the people who tipped off the police on Thursday said: "I went to the hotel early this year, after eating, I was told that a lump of meat was being sold at N700, I was surprised. So I did not know it was human meat that I ate at such expensive price." Multiple comments left on the Defender's site by local residents (and others) denounced the newspaper for regularly printing false news stories like this one.   All in all, what we had was the western press repeating a single-source story which a Nigerian tabloid had picked up from an online forum.However, overlooked in all that initial U.S. and UK reporting was that other news sources, such as the Nigerian Tribune, had also contemporaneously reported the same event, with additional verifiable details that suggested there might be something to the story: reported According a police source, who pleaded anonymity, he reviewed that during the operation that lasted for hours, the police team, led by a senior police officer attached to the IGP Monitoring Unit, cordoned off the hotel after several intelligence reports that human meat were being served to guests in the said hotel. Though the Onitsha Area Commander, Mr Benjamin Wordu, declined further comments on the matter on the grounds that the police was still investigating the case to make further discovery, it was gathered that during the operation, an Infiniti SUV, belonging to the owner of the hotel, with registration number DA203FST was also recovered. Meanwhile, the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Emeka Chukwuemeka, confirmed the incident and said the police had intensified manhunt to arrest all members of the cartel. Here we have various law enforcement officials cited and referenced by name, which lends a degree of versimilitude to the story.  But all that such reports confirmed was that a raid on the hotel took place, not necessarily that the shocking claims about human meat being served up to unsuspecting restaurant patrons were true. A 29 December 2013 article from the Nigerian publication Vanguard quoted the hotel's owner, Bonaventure Mokwe, as asserting that he had been set up over a motor park dispute between him and some Onitsha natives.  According to Mr. Mokwe, his business rivals planted two rotten skulls (as well as rifles and magazines) in one of his hotel's rooms, and the rumors of human being served to guests were a fabricated excuse that police used to raid the hotel, arrest Mr. Mokwe, put him on trial for murder, and ultimately demolish his hotel: article Prior to the  day I was arrested and my hotel demolished on the directive of  Anambra  State governor, I was involved in a motor park dispute with some Onitsha natives. Within the period , I wrote the Obi of Onitsha  three times asking him to  intervene and call the natives to order but he remained understandably silent. When that failed, I wrote a petition to  the Anambra State Commissioner of Police which  he minuted  to the  Onitsha Area Commander who in turn assigned an Inspector to investigate. But  these efforts ended as soon as they started. When that  failed again, I went to court and obtained an order which was served on the palace of Obi of Onitsha, the police and leaders of the Onitsha natives antagonising  me. Soon after some bus drivers started loading in my park and all hell broke loose, as threats  of all dimension started coming from the Onitsha natives which culminated in the planting of the exhibits in my hotel.   The human skulls and magazines  were  parked in a sac and planted in the wardrobe at my hotel lodging room number 102. I drove into my office around 7 am that fateful day  because I had a land transaction. Before I could settle down, my hotel was surrounded by the police numbering over 100. As I made my way towards my office entrance, some of them were already in the passage. I was taken into my office and shown a search warrant. In the process, one police officer betrayed the whole adventure when he shouted at one of my staff  to be shown room 102. It did not make sense to me then. The first thing I saw when the door of the room was  opened was an unsealed traveling bag on the floor. Some polythene bags were inside the bag and two  on the bed. Nothing was found in the toilet and under the bed. The police then opened the wardrobe of the room and brought out one single Bagco sac, in which  were two rotten skulls, two A.K-47 rifles  that looked unserviceable and two loaded magazines. The mock search exercise started and ended after five minutes or thereabouts at the door of room 102. Incidentally the lodger locked the room and left with the key around 6.30 am, following which the police showed up. I was immediately handcuffed and taken outside the corridor of the hotel, where I was  told to sit next to the exhibits while they took pictures. Soon after that, I, alongside my staff, was taken to the police Area Command Onitsha and paraded before the public and journalists.   According to Mr. Mokwe, the police showed no interest in investigating or arresting the lodger who had occupied the room in question immediately before they had coincidentally arrived to search it: The identity of the person that lodged in my hotel room number 102 on the very day the police came searching was unmasked. Though he gave his name as John Obi, his true identity was that of a native of  Umudie village.  His picture was smuggled and shown to the receptionist who  identified him as the person he gave the receipt of room 102 that fateful day. It was him who planted  the exhibits in the hotel room wardrobe.  The police have some questions to answer: why did they not make attempt to arrest the person that lodged in the room, despite the fact that guest's [registration] was sent to them? If it was real, the person who stayed in the hotel room should have been apprehended. It would then be for  him to reveal who gave him the things [he left in the room], because there is no way he could have slept in that room with all those things without knowing. When the identity of the people that orchestrated my hotel set-up became known even by the general public, a petition was written by my lawyer to the Inspector-General of Police, listing their names. But  the police  sat on it because arresting them would have meant releasing me and  that would have meant a state financial liability and embarrassment for the state government.   Mr. Mokwe also maintained that he was set up on criminal charges, and his hotel was demolished, at the behest of a corrupt local government and police force: A week after I arrived [at prison], it became increasingly clear that the incident was a set-up. Matters were  not helped by what occurred when the police first took me to the grave of one Mr Nwonye Akas, a native of Nkwuele Ezinaka Itite village, who died in 1972 when I was still [a toddler], to say I killed and buried the man at the place.  With the police under pressure from the media, most especially by NIPPRON, I, along with three of my staff, was arraigned in court on the 17th of October 2013 and a murder charge along with possession of human skulls and fire arms were heaped on us and we were subsequently remanded in prison. I spent a total of two months and seventeen days at SARS Awkuzu. My hotel demolition had nothing to do with fighting crime, as it was sold to the general public.  When I was bailed, a legal officer with Anambra State government  begged my cousin to tell me to lie low until after the elections. I obeyed. So you can see that its not all about justice, it's about what they can gain from it. They told me to lie low that after electioneering campaign, something would be done to address the issue, but till date nothing has been done.  The state government should sit with my lawyer or appoint someone to sit with my lawyer and agree on how to pay for the damages.  You don't beat somebody and tell him not to cry. Secondly, this matter is impossible to wish away.  No amount of prayer will wish it away. I must be paid everything. Everything I had was destroyed, including my Green Card, in that hotel building. Those  fabricated  charges should be cancelled because they are mere damage control charges intended to fill in the blanks, they have no bearing on me because they were manufactured. You don't charge one for possession when you didnt see anything on him. Also, you don't charge someone for murder when investigation has not been done.      Last updated:  17 May 2015    Oruya, Suzy.  "Police Arrest 11 with 2 Fresh Human Heads in Onitsha."   Nigerian Tribune.  2 August 2013.    Osun Defender.  "Hotel Selling Cooked Human Meat Found in Onitsha."   5 September 2013. PolitiFact has rapped Rob Portman for certain claims made during his U.S. Senate campaign. Weve credited Portman, too, for truthful statements. Thats the nature of the Truth-O-Meter: We play it as it lays.Which brings us to Portmanslatest television ad.In the 30-second spot, Portman points to out-of-control federal spending, dangerous deficits and an economic stimulus plan that he says isnt working. Since the $800 billion stimulus passed, Ohios lost over 100,000 more jobs, Portman says in the commercial.The claim about the stimulus program not working has been batted about repeatedly. The White House said when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in February 2009, that unemployment would peak at 8 percent. Yet it is now 9.6 percent nationally, and 10.7 percent in Ohio.A number of economists say that even more jobs would have been lost were it not for the government spending to stimulate the economy. TheCongressional Budget Offices last quarterly evaluationsaid the stimulus increased national employment by 1.4 million to 3.3 million jobs. There have been mistakes, missteps and gaffes documented in the spending programs, however, and Portman and other Republicans say the spending was poorly focused. This central question will be for historians and economists in the future to settle.Were merely taking note of Portmans claim because of this: He uses a lower number -- 100,000 jobs lost in Ohio since the stimulus passed -- than he used previously. When he put the figure at 150,000 in June,the Truth-O-Meter ruled it Half True-- because only 127,900 jobs had actually been lost, judging by the most widely accepted measure.That was based on Bureau of Labor Statistics figures through May, the most current at the time. The numbers come from surveys of employers and are adjusted as the data becomes more complete. Using updated data, BLS now shows the post-stimulus job losses in Ohio came to 130,000 for the period Portman claimed in his earlier statement..But now its October and Portman is using a lower figure when he speaks. As he said in his newest ad, and repeated during an Oct. 8 debate at the City Club of Cleveland, since the stimulus bill passed, Ohios lost over 100,000 more jobs.Yet heres the thing: Portmans rhetoric might actually be too cautious now. As measured by the latest BLS figures, which go through August and are preliminary, Ohio has 149,200 fewer jobs now than when the stimulus passed. Thats exquisitely close to 150,000.What happened?The state steadily lost jobs through 2009 but the numbers started improving early in the year, continuing through May. The summer saw a retraction, however, reducing Ohios employment count by a total of 19,200 jobs during June, July and August.So Portman was accurate and then some with his recent, more cautious statement. The Half True ruling nevertheless stands for his June claim, because PolitiFact doesnt believe in fortune-telling and Portmans numbers were in fact off when he made that statement.But we give credit where credit is due. So the Truth-O-Meter takes a turn to the right and rules on Portmans newest claim: True. Comment on this item. It's a political fact of life: Incumbency has its perks. You're already in a position of power. Name recognition is not a problem. And, if you're president, your arrival at a venue  whether for campaign reasons or not  is bound to generate headlines. That's the underlying complaint of a tweet presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sent out July 5 as his presumptive Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was preparing to join President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One for a campaign trip to North Carolina. Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, Trump said. We wondered if it was true that the trip was going to be made at taxpayer expense. To some degree, it is. And that's out of necessity. The president doesn't stop being president just because he's campaigning for himself or someone else. Even if he flew to a campaign stop on a commercial jet, he would need a host of support services and personnel to keep him connected and in charge. And that doesn't include the requirements for security. Thus, the president always uses Air Force One, which is one of two specially designed Boeing 747s built in 1986 to include a command center, a medical suite, bedroom, office, two food preparation galleys, and plenty of room for staff and reporters. It's not cheap to operate. According to CNN, the Air Force was reporting two years ago it cost $206,337 an hour to operate the jet. It's not clear what that covers. A General Accounting Officeanalysisof three overseas presidential trips in 1998 reported an hourly cost of $34,400, which would be $50,700 per hourin 2016 dollars. Technically, if the president makes a campaign trip, the campaign or the political party is supposed to reimburse the government for use of the plane to some degree. (The full cost is not reimbursed because some of the costs are directly connected to the responsibilities of being president.) These days,the amountis the price of chartering a 737, which is a bit over $11,000 an hour, according to theWashington Post.Prior to 2010, the required reimbursement was nothing more than the cost of a first-class ticket on a commercial airline. When you have someone traveling on behalf of a campaign, such as Clinton and any staffers who might be accompanying her, the accounting can get even more complicated. But how it's calculated by the White House Airlift Operations office isn't known. The government does not release details of how it figures such costs, and that's been a secret going back to the 1970s,according to CNN. The amount is even more complicated when the president mixes business with politics, such as flying somewhere to give a policy speech or performing another official act but also spending time attending a purely political event, such as a fundraiser. (The North Carolina appearance, in contrast, was purely political.) How much taxpayers end up paying when business is mixed with politics isn't clear because, once again, the formula for calculating the share paid by the campaign and the government is secret. The White House Counsel's office makes a determination on how political a trip is,according to Time magazine. Mark Knoller, the CBS News White House correspondent who has been tracking presidential trips for years, noted in a tweet that presidents have repeatedly told the press that such costs will not be revealed. > Prior administrations also refused, he noted in a followup tweet. But they didn't claim to be most transparent Admins ever. The closest you can get to getting an estimate is to see what the campaigns pay the government. For his re-election in 2004, George W. Bush's campaign paid just under $1 million, according to thePost. But that was when the cost was based on a first-class commercial airline ticket. By 2012, after the rules were changed to be based on chartering a 737, Obama spent just over $3 million. In this case, Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin said the campaign will cover its portion of the costs, although he indicated those costs had not been determined. The Trump campaign didn't respond to an email, but Trump is well aware that campaigns are required, by federal law, to reimburse for expenses. During his trip to Scotland last month, Trump went to great lengths to repeatedly state that federal law requires his campaign to pay for everything, even if it's the use of a conference room in Trump Towers, which he said he would gladly let his campaign use for free. I'm forced, you know, legally, I have to pay myself back,he said. If I use one of my resorts in the United States and we have a press conference or something, by law I have to pay myself back. Our ruling Trump said, Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by Obama and Clinton. How people define a fortune is somewhat subjective, and details about how the costs of using the presidential plane are determined are secret. But based on the information available, it's clear that the campaign is only going to be picking up a small fraction of the $200,000-plus hourly costs of using the plane, with taxpayers footing the bill for the rest. Because Trump's statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rate it Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aa60cf08-a414-40d2-b91a-70999d4188a2 In January 2020, as the 2020 Democratic presidential primary progressed, we received multiple inquiries from readers about the accuracy of a widely shared claim about U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren's professional background.  A social media meme contained the following text: meme "'As Elizabeth Warren closes the night with complaints about cost of college for students, just remember she was paid $400,000 to teach one class' -- Katie Pavlich."   The meme originated in a tweet published on July 30, 2019, by Katie Pavlich, a Fox News contributor and editor of the right-leaning website Townhall. She was referring to Warren's appearance at that evening's Democratic primary debate in Detroit, Michigan. debate Critics of Warren have leveled accusations of hypocrisy against her in the past, and those claims have at times touched on the level of her pay while she taught at Harvard. In 2014, for example, Snopes addressed memes that alleged the U.S. senator "lives in a $5.4 million mansion" and was paid "$350,000 to teach one class," all while purportedly "lecturing" the public on economic inequality. addressed The allegation that Warren was paid $400,000 to teach a single course at Harvard University is one that dates back to her 2012 U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts. In a Senate financial-disclosure statement filed in December 2011, Warren revealed that for "2010 + 2011 to date," Harvard had paid her $429,981 in her capacity as a law professor. disclosure Regardless of one's subjective opinion of the salary paid by Harvard to Warren, it is essential to note that college professors, especially those who work at prominent and reputable institutions like Harvard, are typically expected to do more than just teach courses in return for their salaries, and those salaries can be based on several factors including the volume, quality, and influence of their published research, the level of their expertise and reputation in a particular field, and so on. Similarly, their duties typically extend beyond teaching coursework and conducting research, and can include advising and mentoring students, peer review, organizing and taking part in conferences, moderating or participating in faculty or student groups and organizations, leading or attending departmental meetings, and on occasion representing and boosting the public reputation of their respective institutions by providing expert commentary to the news media  the latter a duty that Warren discharged particularly frequently, before she began her political career. Warren, long recognized as a leading expert in bankruptcy, debt, and consumer law, won several teaching awards, including at Harvard, and wrote or contributed to several dozen academic books, book chapters, and journal articles. One 2010 study found that Warren's academic research was among the most widely cited in the field of bankruptcy and commercial law, in the five years leading up to the 2010 spring semester. awards Harvard several dozen study So while the salary figure presented in Pavlich's tweet (and the subsequent meme) was accurate, it was misleading to claim Harvard was paying Warren more than $400,000 merely "to teach one class." Nonetheless, it is true that the future senator's teaching duties did taper off towards the end of her tenure at Harvard. During the fall 2009 semester, Warren taught contracts law, according to a Harvard course catalog, and she also taught a year-long "Empirical Analysis of Law" course over the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. course catalog In September 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Warren as a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, with responsibility for the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped to conceive and create. As a result, Warren stepped back completely from teaching duties during the fall 2010 and spring 2011 semesters, as reflected in a 2010/11 course catalog. However, she returned to Harvard in July 2011 and taught a course on contracts law during the fall 2011 semester. appointed course catalog taught In 2010, Warren also contributed a chapter entitled "Redesigning Regulation: A Case Study from the Consumer Credit Market" to an academic book entitled "Government and Markets: Toward a New Theory of Regulation," which was edited by David A. Moss from Harvard Business School and Duke University's Edward J. Balleisen. contributed According to Warren's May 2012 Senate financial-disclosure statements, she took unpaid leave from Harvard during the spring and fall semesters in 2012 (that is, during her Senate campaign), and according to her May 2013 disclosure, her tenure as a Harvard professor ended when she joined the U.S. Senate in January 2013. disclosure  disclosure According to Warren's December 2011 financial-disclosure statement, she was paid more than $400,000 by Harvard in 2010 and 2011. During that period, she taught two courses: one in the spring 2010 semester, and another in the fall 2011 semester. From September 2010 to July 2011, Warren was on leave while helping to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and therefore did not teach during that time. Katie Pavlich's July 2019 tweet, and subsequent memes, accurately described Harvard as having paid Warren around $400,000 (in fact it was closer to $430,000) but failed to specify that the salary covered 2010 and 2011. The tweet also misled readers by claiming Warren had been paid her salary simply to teach classes, because academic salaries typically take into account several factors other than the number of courses taught by a professor, and this is especially so for highly reputable academics such as Warren, at prestigious institutions such as Harvard. Finally, the tweet (and memes) also misrepresented the number of classes Warren taught during the period for which she was paid more than $400,000. It was two, not one. Taking into account that set of facts, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture." Snopes.com.  "Did Elizabeth Warren Lie About Her Native American Heritage to Land a Job at Harvard?"
  30 October 2014. U.S. Senate. "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  22 December 2011. U.S. Senate.  "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  11 May 2012. Harvard Law School.  "Elizabeth Warren Wins Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching."
  3 June 2009. Leiter, Brian.  "Top 25 Law Faculties in Scholarly Impact, 2005-2009."
  Accessed 22 January 2020. The Obama White House.  "President Obama Names Elizabeth Warren Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
  17 September 2010. Johnson, Glen.  "GOP Presses Harvard to End Pay for Warren."
  The Boston Globe.  21 September 2011. U.S. Senate.  "United States Senate Financial Disclosure Report for New Employee and Candidate Reports -- Elizabeth Warren."
  14 May 2013. In his Democratic convention address, former President Bill Clinton took a shot at President Donald Trumps economic record during the coronavirus pandemic, saying the 45th president has botched his handling of the twin health and economic crises. Donald Trump says were leading the world, Clinton said. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple. Using the most clear-cut multi-nation comparison  comparing January to June 2020  Clinton is right. But its worth noting some differences in how countries address unemployment. We turned to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank whose members are advanced industrialized countries. The group collects economic statistics for all its members, including unemployment rates. We chose 20 countries for which data was available, including most of the countries in western Europe, plus Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Israel. For consistencys sake, we compared January to June because only two of the countries reported data for July. As the following chart shows, the United States was among the few countries to show a dramatic increase in the unemployment rate between January and June. The U.S. is the peach-colored line with the steep climb; you can see each country highlighted if you hover over the list of countries at the bottom. The United States saw its unemployment rate increase from 3.6% to 11.1%. That works out to a little under 3.1 times higher in June than January. No other country saw such a big increase. The only other nation that saw its unemployment rate more than double over that period was Canada, which saw its rate increase 2.2 times. Canada actually had a higher unemployment rate in June than the U.S. did, at 12.3%, but the scale of Canadas increase was more modest than the United States because Canada had a higher rate to start, at 5.5%. Using U.S. data for February instead of January doesnt change the picture much. The U.S. unemployment rate in February was 3.5%, making the increase through June about 3.2 times. There are a couple asterisks to Clintons statement. If you compare January to July, a month for which data isnt available for most of the OECD nations, the increase in the United States was still substantial, but just short of three times higher. The unemployment rate rose from 3.6% in January to 10.2% in July, meaning an increase of 2.8 times. Its also worth noting that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen for three straight months, amid a zigzagging reopening and a volatile economy. So the unemployment rate is likely to bounce around a bit before it settles down. Finally, the OECD itselfnotessome differences across countries. Some nations have used more aggressive efforts than the United States to subsidize workers to remain on payrolls. And some countries, such as the United Kingdom, do not count temporarily laid-off workers as unemployed, while the United States does count such workers as unemployed. Clinton said the United States is the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple since the coronavirus pandemic began. Thats accurate for the broadest comparison  a 20-nation selection of OECD nations between January 2020 and June 2020. The rate in the U.S. was 3.1 times higher in June than in January. Only Canada came close, with the unemployment rate 2.2 times higher over that period. However, extending the U.S. data to July showed that the increase fell slightly below three times, and there are some complications in making cross-country comparisons. We rate the statement Mostly True. UPDATE, Aug. 20:This article has been updated with additional context about the complications of making cross-country comparisons of unemployment rates. The rating remains the same. On 25 October 2015 the web site Huzlers published an article reporting that "Jake," the character seen in State Farm Insurance's ubiquitous "State of Unrest" television commercial, had been murdered by his wife in a fit of rage over his infidelity: State of Unrest It is being reported that Jake From State Farm was reportedly found dead in his apartment bedroom Saturday night. According to authorities, Jake was killed by his wife after finding him in bed with another woman. Jake From State Farm was murdered by his own wife for allegedly cheating on her. Very Ironic, considering that the original Jake From State Farm commercial was about being unfaithful. According to State Farm, Jake would be a good neighbor to all of his clients, but when he needed help, nobody was there for him. Jakes wife was arrested a few hours following the murder. A true hero quoted State Farm. Nothing about this story is true, as it originated on Huzlers, a well known fake news site.  Also, real news articles (especially those reporting on deaths) tendto include the real names of actors and not refer to them solely by the names of characters they played on television. Finally, "Jake from State Farm" has dispelled this himself rumor on Twitter: dispelled  (This story might have made more logical [satirical] sense if the putative murder victim were actor Justin Campbell, who played the husband suspected of infidelity by his wife in the popular "State of Unrest" State Farm commercial, and not actual State Farm agent Jake Stone, who filled the role of the innocent insurance agent Jake.)      Justin Campbell Huzlers bills itself as "the most notorious urban satirical entertainment website in the world with the most shocking headlines and articles shared by trillions around the world." In December 2020, right-leaning observers and prominent Republican politicians cried foul after a federal court judge blocked attempts to remove thousands of names from voter rolls in Georgia, ahead of January's two U.S. Senate run-off elections in the state.  On Dec. 28, Politico reported that: Politico A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner  the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state  concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties. The bulk of the registrations that the counties sought to rescind, more than 4,000, were in Muscogee County, which Biden won handily in November. An additional 150 were from Ben Hill County, which Trump won by a wide margin. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas responded by tweeting: "This is absurd. This is an obvious case for recusal. For Stacey Abrams sister to refuse to recuse  and issue this decision despite her indisputable bias  undermines the integrity of the entire judicial system." Donald Trump Jr. wrote "Nothing shady here..." tweeting wrote Doug Collins, the outgoing Republican congressman who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2020, said Abrams Gardner should recuse herself from the case because "her own sister is a party!" said   In reality, Abrams was not a party to the case on which her sister ruled in December 2020. Collins stated a significant falsehood in claiming otherwise.  Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Leslie Abrams Gardner are indeed sisters. Over the years, Abrams has repeatedly confirmed as much, including when she congratulated Abrams Gardner on her U.S. Senate confirmation and appointment as U.S. District Court judge for the Middle District of Georgia, in 2014 and 2015. 2014 2015 The case in question was Majority Forward and Gamaliel Warren Turner vs. Ben Hill County Board of Elections et al. Majority Forward is a non-profit voter registration organization, and Turner is a resident of Muscogee County, Georgia. According to Abrams Gardner's Dec. 28 ruling, the basic facts of the case were as follows. Earlier in December 2020, Tommy Roberts  a City Council member in Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County  challenged the eligibility of 328 registered voters in the county. Based on his own cross-referencing of the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address database, Roberts contended that those voters had moved out of the state and were therefore no longer eligible to vote in Ben Hill County.  ruling The board of elections in Ben Hill County determined that Roberts' challenge to the eligibility of 152 of those voters was likely valid, and they designated those 152 voters "pending hearing" and contacted them to advise that they would only be allowed to cast provisional ballots in the January 2021 Senate run-off election, and would subsequently have to "cure" those ballots by providing proof of their residency. In Muscogee County, a man named Ralph Russell brought a similar challenge, claiming to have found 4,033 registered voters in Muscogee County who, according to the National Change of Address database, had moved out of state. The Muscogee County Board of Elections determined that Russell's challenge was probably valid, and contacted those 4,033 "targeted voters" to inform them they could only cast provisional ballots, and would have to provide proof of residency. Turner was one of those targeted voters. On Dec. 23, Majority Forward challenged the actions of Muscogee and Ben Hill counties, and filed for a temporary restraining order on Dec. 27. On Dec. 28, Abrams Gardner granted that order, meaning the counties were ordered, for the next eight days, not to remove the targeted voters from registration lists, or require them to cast only provisional ballots. Since that time period covered the Jan. 5, 2021, elections, the targeted voters were therefore allowed to vote as normal in the U.S. Senate run-off elections. Abrams Gardner's reasoning can be examined in the ruling itself.  ruling The defendants in the case filed a motion to request that Abrams Gardner recuse herself. They argued, in part, that Fair Fight  the voting rights group founded and chaired by Abrams  was involved in similar litigation before the U.S. District Court in Georgia's Northern District, and the same lawyers represented Fair Fight and Majority Forward in the cases. They also argued that Abrams Gardner's ruling in the Majority Forward case could have a bearing on the judge's decision-making in the Fair Fight litigation, which directly involved Abrams, since she is the chairperson of that organization. The defendants wrote: motion wrote In addition, any relief rendered in the instant case as it relates to the NCOAR [National Change of Address Registry] would likely be cited as persuasive authority in the Fair Fight Litigation. Abrams interest could therefore be substantially affected by the outcome of this proceeding. For this reason, Judge Gardners impartiality might reasonably be questioned were this case to proceed before her. In a footnote to her Dec. 28 ruling, Abrams Gardner noted the request for her to recuse herself, but stated simply, "The Court has reviewed the motion and finds no basis for recusal." Abrams Gardner added that "an order detailing the court's reasoning" was forthcoming. As of Dec. 31, no such order was available on the case's online docket.  Contrary to Collins' claim, Abrams was not a "party" to the Majority Forward litigation on which her sister ruled in December 2020. However, she is the chairperson of Fair Fight, a voting rights organization that acted as a plaintiff in a very similar case, albeit in a different U.S. District Court, in Georgia, at the same time.  Whether that connection, in combination with her familial relationship with Abrams Gardner, should constitute grounds for recusal, is ultimately a matter of subjective interpretation. But Collins undoubtedly erred when he claimed that "Stacey Abramss sister is ruling on a case in which her own sister is a party!" In May 2023, an old rumor began to spread in a scammy article that claimed singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson was "forced" by producers of NBC's "The Voice" to lose weight. However, this was a false story. It was created in order to push a scam meant to fool consumers into signing up for expensive monthly subscription charges for keto and apple cider vinegar (ACV) weight loss gummies. The scam article appeared on exclusiveinsiderdeals.com. The website's domain was registered with Namecheap, while its hosting was with Cloudfare. exclusiveinsiderdeals.com registered The story showed the false headline, "Kelly Clarkson Forced To Lose 30 Pounds By 'NBC' Producers... She Lost 50! (Her Diabetes Finally In Control)." The page was misleadingly designed by scammers to resemble the "Today" show website. According to the story, Clarkson consulted with Dr. Mehmet Oz of the former "Dr. Oz" talk show, who told her to try to start her supposed weight loss journey with keto and ACV gummies. None of this was true. Clarkson, Oz, NBC, "The Voice," and "Today" had no involvement with any of this. Names and faces were used completely without permission. Over the years, a large number of CBD and keto products have been featured with this same sort of scammy article. For example, in 2018, we previously published a very similar fact check about Clarkson being fired from "The Voice." It, too, led to a diet supplement scam. fact check As of May 26, one of the products that was being pushed with Clarkson's name was SlimDNA Keto + ACV Gummies. Dr. Oz's name and a number of other scammy aspects also appeared on a SlimDNA product page on slimdnabrands.com. This domain was registered with Tucows and received hosting from Cloudfare. slimdnabrands.com If any readers were victim to one of these gummy scams, we recommend reaching out to your credit card company to alert them of the matter. These sorts of CBD and keto gummies scams often attempt to rope customers into hidden subscription charges of hundreds of dollars per month. We recommend being proactive and calling your credit card company immediately in order to stop further charges from taking place. Brockington, Ariana. "Blake Shelton Announces He Is Leaving 'The Voice' after Season 23." TODAY.Com, 12 Oct. 2022, https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/blake-shelton-leaving-voice-season-23-rcna51798. Evon, Dan. "Was Kelly Clarkson Fired from 'The Voice'?" Snopes, 20 Dec. 2018, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clarkson-fired-voice/. "WHOIS Domain Lookup." GoDaddy.Com, https://www.godaddy.com/whois/. 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.)