In the past year, Floridians, not government, created almost 135,000 new private sector jobs. We netted more than 120,000 total jobs in the first 11 months of 2011; the third most of any state in the nation.
Gov. Rick Scott boasted about job growth, his signature issue, during his second annualstate of the state addressJan. 10, 2012.In the past year, Floridians, not government, created almost 135,000 new private sector jobs. We netted more than 120,000 total jobs in the first 11 months of 2011; the third most of any state in the nation.Were Scott's numbers right?James Miller, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, pointed to his department's Decemberpress releasebased on BLS data that showed 120,200 net jobs between January and November 2011. That includes 134,800 private sector jobs added, but 14,600 government jobs lost.We turned to theU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsto verify.Data from the BLS shows total nonfarm seasonally adjusted jobs in Florida grew from about 7.16 million to 7.28 million, or an increase of about 120,200 between January and November 2011. So that gets us to Scott's claim about netting more than 120,000 total jobs.But the BLS would call that a 10-month change -- not an 11-month change because those numbers start with January and don't show how many jobs were added between December and January.Scott might have wanted to look at the first 11 months of 2011 rather than the 12-month net change because he was sworn into office Jan. 4, 2011, and 11 months of data is available for that year so far. Scott appears to have lopped off theDecember 2010 job loss figuresfrom before he was governor.The BLS provides data for states' 12-month net jobs change, which was 110,500 for Florida for private jobs and 98,000 for total nonfarm jobs (both not seasonally adjusted.) Those figures put Florida third behind Texas and California.Florida is the fourth most populous state in the country behind California, Texas and New York so its not particularly impressive that it would net the third most number of jobs. And by focusing on the number of added jobs rather than the unemployment rate, Scott is able to tell a more positive story. Florida's unemployment rate was 10 percent for November. Only four states had a higher rate -- California, Nevada, Mississippi and Rhode Island. Illinois and North Carolina tied with Florida.Our rulingScott said, In the past year, Floridians, not government, created almost 135,000 new private sector jobs. We netted more than 120,000 total jobs in the first 11 months of 2011; the third most of any state in the nation. Scott's figures are correct, although what he has done here is point to a 10-month job change. We also question how significant it is that Florida ranks third for new jobs, given that we're one of the largest states population-wise. Our unemployment rates would suggest we still have quite a way to go. Still, Scott's numbers are on track. We rate this Mostly True.
A Democratic legislator declared that state aid fully fuels Texas charter schools while schools serving the vast bulk of students field less money. State Rep.Donna Howardof Austin said in her July 18, 2018tweet: Here's the thing. In Tx, charters get 100% state $/pupil funding while district schools (95% students) get about 1/3 funding from state w/ rest coming from local prop taxes (which is why those taxes are so high). Districts getting less b/c scarce $ going to charters. Howard was reacting to a national Associated Pressnews storyon billionaires championing charter schools. Since 2006, the story says, philanthropists and their private foundations and charities--topped by the Walton Family Foundation, run by heirs to the Walmart fortune--gave almost half a billion dollars to 52 state-level charter support organizations to sustain, defend and expand the charter schools movement. Texas charter schools--public schools with charters run most often by private nonprofit entities--have boomed since the 1995 Legislature authorized them by law. Such schools must meet state-set academic accountability standards, but theyre exempted from other laws affecting districts such as teacher certification and elementary school class-size limits. To our inquiry, Bruce Marchand of theTexas Charter Schools Associationcalled Howards jam-packed claim factually squishy solid. The squishy part, Marchand said by email, is the implication that 100% funded charters have something to do with high property taxes and that districts get less money because that money is going to charters. Districts get less, Marchand said, because state dollars follow students based on where theyre enrolled. Lets break down Howards tweet by its factual elements. Howard said charter schools get all their funding from the state: Charter schools get nearly all their funding from state aid, Marchand agreed by phone, drawing 3 percent from grants and federal sources. That heavy state reliance is logical, Marchand and others said, because unlike districts, charter schools lack the authority to levy property taxes. According to a December 2017 Texas Education Agencydocument summarizing charter school funding, state aid to charter schools escalated from nearly $417 million for 2005-06 to about $2 billion in 2015-16. Howard said school districts serve 95 percent of students: Charter schools serve a growing handful of pupils--5.5 percent of Texas public school students in 2017, according to figures we fielded by email from the TEAs DeEtta Culbertson. That year, she said, 705 charter campuses enrolled 296,323 students--a doubling since 2011, according to an August 2018agency presentationnoted by Marchand. (The state caps the number of state-issued charters, but a charter-holder may open more than one school.) An implication: Districts in 2017 served 94.5 percent of public school students. Howard said districts get one-third of their aid from the state:Earlier this year, we reviewed Legislative Budget Board figures to conclude that in the 1980s, lawmakers voted for the state to cover 70 percent of theFoundation School Program, which is the states primary way of funding schools. State aid, we found, ended up covering a little more than half of related state-local costs. State aid covered 44 percent of such costs in 2016; its expected to cover 38 percent of such costs in 2019. Thats more than a third. When we sought Howards factual backup, Jacob Cottingham in her office responded with materials including aJanuary 2018 LBB chartdelivering percentages like what we previously reported. Cottingham also emailed us a spreadsheet isolating state aid going to districts alone.According to the sheet, which Cottingham said he built based on LBB data, in 2016, more than $17.8 billion in state aid sent to districts accounted for 39 percent of state spending on public education. The sheet says that in 2019, more than $15.7 billion in state funds projected to go to districts will account for 32 percent of state school aid. Howard said the states one-third share of what schools spend is why school property taxes are so high:  To the contrary, we asked Howard, isnt it changes in the value of local property tax bases that drive how much state aid a district is entitled to receive? Howard replied with a statement noting that a districts per-pupil tax wealth is key to how much state aid flows. When students leave a district for a charter (or private school or drop out), the (districts) property wealth per student increases as there are fewer students, and the state's required minimum share to the district is decreased, Howard said. The TEAs Culbertson separately responded by email: One of the primary drivers of the Texas school finance system is student attendance. If a student leaves a school district for any reason, including moving out of state, enrolling in another school district, public charter school, or private school (including home school), the original school district would no longer incur the costs of educating that student, and the original school districts total funding entitlement would be reduced. Howard said districts get less money because dollars go to charter schools: Cottingham told us Howard reached that conclusion by reviewing changes in per-student state spending on charter schools and districts. Cottingham emailed us anLBB chartshowing Foundation School Program state aid per student enrolled in districts compared with charter schools from fiscal 2010 through fiscal 2016 plus estimated and projected aid for fiscal 2017 through fiscal 2019. The chart shows charter schools consistently getting thousands of dollars more per student in average daily attendance:  SOURCE: Chart,Foundation School Program State Aid and Average Daily Attendance for School Districts and Charter Schools, Fiscal Years 2010-19,Legislative Budget Board, 2018 (confirmed by email, R.J. DeSilva, communications officer, Legislative Budget Board, July 31, 2018) According to the chart, charter schools in 2016 fielded $8,956 in state aid per ADA and school districts on average drew $3,800--meaning charter schools got 136 percent of what districts drew.By our calculations, the chart shows charter schools getting 149 percent of what districts would have gotten in 2017 and 167 percent of what districts would get in 2018 and 190 percent of what districts would get in 2019. Cottingham told us the fact that state aid to districts goes up or down based on the value of local tax bases helps explain why districts are projected to get increasingly less in state aid than charter schools. Charter schools, he said, can count by law on getting each years full average adjusted state-aid allotment in contrast to districts whose allocations are affected by how much theyre expected to reap in property taxes. By phone, Amanda Brownson of  the Texas Association of School Business Officials offered a similar analysis. Another facet noted by Cottingham: The state ponies up the full per-student entitlement cost of each student--costing the state more than each per-student payment sent to districts. Of late, the August 2018 TEA presentation says, charter schools draw an adjusted state allotment of $6,540--equivalent, the agency says, to what a small district receives. Meantime, the presentation says, more than 95 percent of students enrolled in districts are in districts getting less than $6,540 in state allotments. We also heard back from Greg Worthington, a University of Texas doctoral student. By email, Worthington saidlegislation revising the school finance system that passed into law in a summer 2017 special sessionwould result in numerous districts losing chunks of per-student aid as charter schools draw more. Asked how funding of charter schools results in less money for districts, Worthington offered adetailed replycentered on reductions in aid to districts caused by students transferring to charter schools. This shouldnt surprise, Worthington indicated, in that the concept of school choicepromulgatedby the late economist Milton Friedman relies on schools competing for funding tied to enrollment. Friedman said government might be responsible for funding schools, Worthington wrote, but he maintained it isnt supposed to administer education. School choice policies embraced by many ruling Republicans ultimately work to replace the public school system with a market-based education system, Worthington said. Our ruling Howard said Texas charter schools get all their per-student aid from the state while school districts, which serve 95 percent of students, get a third of their funding that way with the rest drawn from property taxes. Also, Howard said, districts get less because scarce dollars go to charter schools. Howards points about student enrollment and state funding going to charter schools and school districts hold up. Its also true that a student who leaves a district school to attend a charter school costs the district state aid while that student brings the charter school thousands of dollars more in per-pupil state aid than what the district would get. This dense tweet lacks the clarification that upticks or slides in local property values greatly affect whether a district faces ups or downs in state aid. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Claim:   An EPA study proposed paying families to allow their children to be exposed to pesticides. Status:  Multiple:  The EPA planned to deliberately expose youngsters to pesticides in order to study what effects those chemical compounds may have on children:  False.  The EPA planned to study children who live in an area where pesticides are used year-round:  True.  The proposed study was canceled in April 2005:  True. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2004] EPA Will Use Poor Kids as Guinea Pigs to Test Toxic Chemicals Dear friend, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced plans to launch an outrageous new study in which participating low income families will have their children exposed to toxic pesticides over the course of two years. For taking part in these studies, each family will receive $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt, and a framed certificate of appreciation. The study entitled CHEERS (Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study) will look at how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed by children ranging from babies to 3 years old. Please take a moment to follow this link and join tens of thousands of citizens in petitioning the EPA to terminate this study prior to its proposed launch in early 2005. More information, related newspaper headlines and petition here:  https://www.organicconsumers.org/epa-alert.htm https://www.organicconsumers.org/epa-alert.htm Please also forward this message. Origins:  Yet again an interesting mix of truth and scare has been loosed upon us all. While the November 2004 e-mail quoted above was relatively factual, its wording left those who received it with an impression far removed from the truth. While the proposed investigation was real, the nature of the test subjects was misunderstood, leading to those who heard of to arrive at some erroneous  conclusions. Through a research project known as the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS), the United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) planned to gather data about pesticide and household chemical exposure in very young children. The study was set to begin in the summer of 2005 in Jacksonville, Florida, and would have entailed monitoring 60 infants (newborn to just shy of 13 months old) for a period of two years. However, while the e-mail left readers with the impression that poverty-stricken families were for the price of a camcorder and $970 heartlessly offering up their tots as lab rats, the little ones to be deliberately sickened by cruel scientists intent upon advancing human knowledge even at the price of 60 babies potentially dealt life-long serious physical ailments by exposure to dreadful chemicals, the truth was quite different. One of the reasons the EPA chose Duval County, Florida, as the site of this research had to do with year-round pesticide use in that area. The children who would have been the subjects of the study live there. In other words, if all the clipboard-wielding EPA people stayed home and the project were canceled before it began, these same children would be exposed to these same pesticides and in the same amounts, due to nothing more sinister than where their parents chose to settle and raise their families. The EPA would not have been administering pesticides to children. Children who were already exposed to pesticides due to where they lived would have been studied by the EPA. Given that these youngsters were coming into contact with noxious chemicals because of where they lived, the EPA saw a good opportunity to examine the effects of such compounds on small children by studying subjects drawn from this particular group. CHEERS would have tracked 60 of these little ones over the course of two years, measuring not only their exposure to pesticides but also to ordinary household chemicals (cleaning products and the like). The parents of kids taking part in the study would have had to keep very careful logs on which products were used and in which amounts in their homes. They would also have been required to videotape their tykes being studied and maintain logs of the little ones' activities. For this, and for allowing researchers into the family domicile every few months to assess the children being observed and to examine the homes, these parents would have received a $970 stipend and would have been allowed at the end of the two years to keep the video cameras. Update: On 8 April 2005, the proposed study was canceled. As to why, Stephen L. Johnson, Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said: Last fall, in light of questions about the study design, I directed that all work on the study stop immediately and requested an independent review. Since that time, many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study. I have concluded that the study cannot go forward, regardless of the outcome of the independent review. EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy. Additional information:       Overview of Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study  (EPA)        CHEERS Fact Sheet  (EPA)  Last updated:  31 August 2005    Sources:   Allison, Wes.  "Nelson Vows EPA Delay Over Pesticide Study."   St. Petersburg Times.  8 April 2005  (p. A6).    Eilperin, Juliet.  "Chemical Industry Funds Aid EPA Study."   The Washington Post.  26 October 2004  (p. A3).    Kirkpatrick, David D.  "E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides."   The New York Times.  9 April 2005  (p. A15).   Associated Press.  "Pesticide Study with Children Delayed."  CNN.  12 November 2004. In May 2017 a widely-shared Facebook post spread the claim that Tajiri, the calf born to internet star April the Giraffe at the Animal Adventure Park in New York, had passed away only a month after his birth: claim     Earlyview.net is one of many "prank" web sites. These sites allow you to create your own fake news story with a few clicks. Users choose a picture, write a headline and description, and then the web site formats the information so that it resembles a genuine news item, which you can then share on Facebook:   April the giraffe became an internet sensation in 2017 thanks to a web cam installed at the Animal Adventure Park. The birth of Tajiri on 15 April 2017 was viewed by more than 1.2 million people on YouTube: YouTube We have our name! Tajiri the baby Giraffe. Tajiri is Swahili for HOPE. We will call him "Taj" pic.twitter.com/J64Bk7QOEp pic.twitter.com/J64Bk7QOEp  April The Giraffe (@AprilTheGiraffe) May 1, 2017 May 1, 2017  April and Tajiri still bring in big crowd (both online and in person) and the zoo regularly posts pictures of them on their social media pages. Furthermore, a local Fox affiliate visited the giraffes on 23 May 2017, long after this death hoax first circulated on social media: Fox Scam:  Advertisers offer kits that enable home workers to make money posting links on the Internet. Example:   If you live in Canada or the US and you have been wanting to work from home, you might be in luck. Google has now released a new 'Work From Home Program' that will allow Americans to work for the titan from the comfort of their own homes. To thousands of North Americans this means that they will soon have a safe and bright future working for one of the fastest growing companies in the world. In the middle of this recession this country and the world is going through, Google has been thriving and reporting profits consistently every quarter.  Completely innovating the Search Engine industry in the late 1990's, Google has had a history of development and innovation, and another one is about to come.  Google has now opened it's doors and will be hiring everyday people to work from the comfort of their own homes posting links. The way this works is Google will allow people to signup and receive a package which will contain all the step by step instructions to get setup from home. This will allow Google to hire talent in places like Canada that would otherwise be unreachable and compensate them based on results on a long term basis. What you need: A Computer, an Internet Connection and the desire to make a living working from home. No special skills are required other than knowing how to use a computer and navigate the internet.  Mary, a mother from Toronto, who worked with Google in the experimental parts of this program, is thriving, in the middle of an economic recession, working in the comfort of her own home with Google. From her website: 'I get paid about $25 USD for every link I post on Google and I get paid every week... I make around $5500 USD a month right now' Google has now officially released their new 'work from home' system out to the public. There will be thousand of spots available that are expected to go very soon in the next few days.  The way this works is very simple, Google says.  First you will need to apply for their work from home kits. Google has release a limited amount of kits, all distributed through local websites in your area throughout US and Canada, which will cost $2 of shipping and handling to the public.  Google says this charge is made to cover shipping costs but also to separate the people that are serious about working with them through this program.  Once you have ordered your kit (if you are one of the lucky few to get availability in your area) then you will receive a package that will contain all the instructions you need to start working from home for the online titan. This kit will show you all you need to know, Google says. You will be performing simple and straightforward tasks such as posting links. 'Anybody with basic computer skills will be able to perform these tasks' adding to that they say that 'We understand the psychology of working from home and we want to give our employees tasks that are simple and easy, and reward them generously in order to keep them motivated.' Is this worth quitting your job? If you're lucky enough to receive a kit, you might not even have to.  'We start off our work from home program only requiring 1-2 hours a day of work, earning a great income from the start. This way our work from home employees will see the benefit and start devoting more and more time each day and their salaries will increase accordingly' Google reports. Although they are going very fast since their release earlier today, thousands of positions are still available at the time of this writing.  To apply for a job working from home for Google here are the three steps: Step 1: Get the Google Work From Home Kit, only pay the $2.95 for shipping. (The shipping cost allows Google to screen for serious people).  Step 2: Follow the directions on your package and set up a Google account. Then they will give you the website links to post. Start posting those links. Google tracks everything. Step 3: Google will send out your checks weekly. Or you can start to have them wire directly into your checking account. (Your first checks will be about $750 to $1,500 a week. Then it goes up from there. Depends on how many links you posted online.) Variations:  In December 2009 we began encountering a Yahoo version of the scam, which was the same as the Google scam discussed below, just with Yahoo's name inserted in place of Google's. Origins:  Those searching for employment opportunities that will allow them to work from home are all too often the very people who can least afford to be defrauded. Although many folks daydream about earning livable incomes from the comfort of their dens rather than having to make the trek to their offices each day, they do not as a general rule of thumb search for such job openings with the same fervor as do the elderly, the physically challenged, or parents committed to remaining at home with their preschool children. Members of those groups hunt for work-at-home opportunities because laboring in more traditional job settings is impossible for them. Because genuine offers of work of this nature are few and far between, with the need to secure a steady income becoming more of a pressing issue with each passing non-employed day, those folks are at far greater risk of being victimized by such schemes; their desperation leads them to be gulled by pie-in-the-sky promises and mollified by the wild backstories that go with them, while the financially better off  are more likely to remain convinced something is very wrong with the offer of mucho bucks in exchange for only a few hours'labor performed from home each week by persons possessed of no special training or skills. From 2009 onwards, a proliferation of seeming newspaper articles touting "Google Job Opportunities," "Google Money Master," "Easy Google Profit," "Google Cash Kit," "Google Fortune Kit," "Home Cash System," "Six Figure Program" and the like began popping up on the Internet. Such come-ons are typically emblazoned with "As seen on" taglines followed by an impressive array of logos, including those of ABC, AOL, CNN, MSNBC, and USA Today.Often these come-ons include what appear to be tearsheets from legitimate-looking publications, such as the New York Tribune and Los Angeles Tribune. As for the publications supposedly reporting these stories, while there was a New York Tribune long ago, in 1924 it merged with the New York Herald to form the New York Herald Tribune. (Even that newspaper is no longer around; it went out of business in 1967.) As for the ostensible Los Angeles Tribune, that paper is wholly fictional; it existed only in the television show Lou Grant. Web pages purporting to be personal reports of riches reaped through these programs have also popped up, such as the now defunctBryansMoneyBlog.com. They too were the same sort of come-on. While the promise of vast riches to be gained through working from home is held out to those seeking an answer to their financial problems, that promise is but the worm used to entice the fish into biting down on the hook. Those who sign up for such kits will not soon find themselves on Easy Street; instead, they will find their bank accounts tapped to the tune of approximately $80 a month. While prospective job seekers are told they need to pay a $2 charge for kits that supposedly contain the step-by-step instructions on how to begin working from home (often explained as Google's way of sifting the serious from non-serious candidates), a closer examination of the Terms and Conditions associated with the programs applicants are signing up for reveals they are instead authorizing monthly charges either to their bank accounts or credit cards, usually to the tune of about $80 a month. Those who attempt to cancel these charges find the task a difficult one, in that only rarely does anyone at the phone number supplied for that purpose actually come onto that line. Those still not convinced they haven't just found the answer to their prayers are invited to closely examine the various web page come-ons. Usually, buried at the bottom of the page in fine print is a statement to the effect that "Google is in no way associated with this website." Barbara "web slight of hand" Mikkelson How to Avoid Falling Victim to 'Work From Home' Scams: Don't pay a company to hire you, not even if such payment is presented as your buying necessary training materials, obtaining required certification, or registering with databases of available workers. Remember, if the process involves your sending your "employers" money, it's probably a scam.  If you have questions about the legitimacy of a job listing, contact your Better Business Bureau, your state or local consumer agency, or the Federal Trade Commission.   Examine your credit card and bank account statements every month, keeping an eye peeled for unauthorized charges. Immediately challenge items you did not approve. Additional information:        Suspicious sites and what to look for   (Google)        How to steer clear of money scams   (Official Google blog)   Last updated:  15 December 2009    Sources:   Buck, Claudia.  "Employment Work-at-Home Deals Often Are Just Scams."   The Houston Chronicle.  30 March 2009  (p. B8).     Turner, Tracy.  "Scammers Tweeting Their Way to Easy Prey."   The Columbus Dispatch.  12 July 2009  (p. D1).     Weeks, Carly.  "As the Economy Tanks, Scams Thrive."   The Globe and Mail.  9 March 2009  (p. L1). Appearing at a rally with President Donald Trump in Charleston, W.Va., Patrick Morrisey -- the Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin -- riled up the crowd by invoking a particularly embarrassing remark by Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential nominee of Manchins party. Joe Manchin strongly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton after she said, Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work, Morriseytold the crowdafter Trump turned over the podium on Aug. 21, 2018. Morrissey's statement has a basis in truth, but it glosses over some context. (We're not addressing the portion of Morrisey's remark about how Manchin voted, since ballots are cast privately, making it impossible for us to verify independently.) On March 13, 2016, as she was running for president, Clinton appeared at a televised town hall in Columbus, Ohio. At one point during the event,Clinton said, Im the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity  using clean, renewable energy as the key  into coal country. Because were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. She continued, And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on. While the latter portion of her comments communicated empathy for coal-mining families, her remark that were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business drew intense criticism, not only from Americans in coal country but also with her allies, who said Clintons phrasing seemed to trivialize the seriousness of coal workers economic dilemma. So how did this episode affect Manchins support for Clinton? Lets review. Manchin and Clinton had known each other for years, and he endorsed her on CBSsFace the Nationon April 19, 2015. I support Hillary Clinton. I know Hillary Clinton, and I find her to be warm and engaging, compassionate and tough. All of the above,  Manchin said. After the town hall remark,MetroNewsreported that a senior advisor to Manchin was troubled and concerned by the comments and reached out directly to the Secretary and her senior advisor for energy. In June 2018, Manchin toldPoliticothat he repeatedly threatened to revoke his support for Clinton after her remark. First, Manchin told Bill Clinton that he would withdraw his support, as the former president pleaded with him not to, Politico reported, Then Hillary Clinton called him. She said, Please dont. Let me come to West Virginia, I need to explain. I said, Thats a bad idea, you shouldnt come, Manchin recounted. But the two sides reconciled, and on March 15 -- two days after the town hall -- Clinton formally reacted to the fallout from her remark, sending aletterto Manchin. Simply put, I was mistaken in my remarks, she wrote. I wanted to make the point that, as you know too well, while coal will be part of the energy mix for years to come, both in the U.S. and around the world, we have already seen a long-term decline in American coal jobs and a recent wave of bankruptcies as a result of a changing energy market  and we need to do more to support the workers and families facing these challenges. She also said in the letter that she supported the Miners Protection Act backed by Manchin, which would provide health benefits and pensions for former miners and family members. I pledge to you that I will focus my team and my Administration on bringing jobs to Appalachia, especially jobs producing the carbon capture technology we need for the future, Clinton wrote. About six weeks later, on May 2, Clinton came to West Virginia for aroundtableat the Williamson Health and Wellness Center. At that event, she talked with Manchin and a former coal miner, Bo Copley. I don't know how to explain it, other than what I said was totally out of context from what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time and I did put out a plan last summer, Clinton said. It was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now we are going to continue to lose jobs. What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to try to help and prevent it. At the roundtable, Manchin also expressed his discomfort with Clintons initial statement. I have two ways to go when that statement came out, Manchin said. I could have said, 'I thought she was my friend, by golly I'm done, I'm gone.' Now that's not the way we were raised, I wasn't raised that way. So, I said I'm going to call her instead. He added, If I thought that was in her heart, if I thought she wanted to eliminate one job in West Virginia, I wouldnt be sitting here, and she wouldnt be sitting here if she felt that way.. Manchins office did not respond to an inquiry, butCNNreported on June 17, 2016, that Manchin remained one of the Democratic Senators who were backing Clinton for president. And in the 2018 Politico interview, Manchin called his decision to stick by Clinton a mistake. It was a mistake politically. But the article added that to Manchin, her $20 billion commitment to his state was too much to pass up. Is this about me? Or trying to help a part of my state thats never recovered and is having a tough time? Morrisey said Manchin strongly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton after she said, Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work. Its worth noting some of the context that Morrisey left out -- that Clinton had also expressed empathy for coal miners economic challenges in her initial remark, that she later clarified what she had meant to say, and that Manchin had worked to convince Clinton of why her remarks had been unacceptable. Still, none of that changes the gist of Morriseys assertion -- that Clinton said the remark, and that Manchin remained in her camp through the election (while we know he endorsed her, we do not know for sure he voted for her, as ballots are secret). We rate the statement Mostly True. Claim:  Ted Cruz said that veterans should start selling cookies in order to raise funds.  Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2015] There is a meme going around Facebook that Ted Cruz has said that veterans should pay for their care by selling cookies, like the Girl Scouts do. What is the truth?  Origins:  On 6 May 2015, the fake news site National Report published an article reporting that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz had suggested military veterans should start selling cookies in order to raise funds, the way Girl Scouts do: article During a campaign stop in Iowa on Wednesday, Texas Senator and 2016 GOP Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz made a suggestion that some military veterans may find controversial, if not outright offensive: he believes that the office of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon should sell cookies to raise funds, a concept he admittedly borrowed from the Girl Scouts of America. Ted Cruz spoke at a town hall event in Des Moines, Iowa Wednesday morning, answering questions from a crowd of approximately 200 to 250 likely voters. One of the attendees, an Iraq War veteran named Dan with a prosthetic leg, asked Senator Cruz what his administration would do to help veterans, while further asking how Cruzs proposed tax cuts would affect the Department of Veterans Affairs. "We need to be innovative if we want to help veterans. We need to be practical and pragmatic. But we also need to remain vigilant with our governments out-of-control spending, and find ways of mitigating expenses wherever possible," Cruz answered. "So we need a president whose willing to tackle the hard issues, and come up with innovative solutions to these problems, head-on." Although the article was initially published by the fake news site National Report, it was later republished on a spoofed web site designed to look like the real USA Today site. This led many people, including actor James Morrison, author John Scalzi, and reporter David Nelson, to believe that the article was real: USA Today James Morrison John Scalzi David Nelson    The National Report is one of many fake news web sites operating on the Internet. The site's disclaimer states that all articles published on  National Report "are fiction and presumably fake news." disclaimer   Last updated:  11 May 2015 Does New York get the short end of the stick when it comes to federal funding? Gov. Andrew Cuomo said so in atweeton Jan. 14. New Yorkers are just tired of subsidizing other states with our tax dollars. New York subsidizes 42 other states. No state gets back less from Washington than New York state. The federal government must stop shortchanging NY, Cuomo tweeted. New Yorkers are just tired of subsidizing other states with our tax dollars.New York subsidizes 42 other states.No state gets back less from Washington than New York State.The federal government must stop shortchanging NY.#SOTS2021 Is Cuomo correct that no state gets back less from Washington than New York state? We looked at a comprehensive independent analysis and found that Cuomos assertion was close to accurate. Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Budget, told PolitiFact that Cuomo was referencing a widely citedanalysisfrom the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy arm of the State University of New York. The report, published in January 2020, shows four-year totals of funding flows from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2018. The report found that New Yorkers cumulatively sent $116 billion more to the federal government during that period than New York state received from the federal government. The four major categories of federal spending analyzed by the report are direct payments for individuals under programs such as Social Security and Medicare, federal grants to state and local governments, federal contracts and procurement, and wages paid to federal workers. The institute found that during that period, only 11 states received fewer dollars in funding than they sent to the federal government in tax payments  and of these, New Yorks cumulative shortfall was easily the largest. The other 10 states with negative balances with the federal government during that four-year period were, in descending order, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Illinois, Colorado, Nebraska, Washington, Utah and New Hampshire. In the most recent year studied in the report, 2018, New York sent almost $22 billion more to the federal government than it received. Thats a larger sum than the next two statess shortfalls combined, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But when adjusted for population, New York isnt the biggest loser. Its fourth, after three of its smaller neighbors: Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Cuomos mention of 42 states stems from the 2018 figures in the report, which says, Forty-two states had a positive balance of payments with the federal government in 2018, Broadly speaking, federal money flows from high-income states to low-income states through spending by programs such as Medicaid. The system isnt designed to give back each state the equivalent of what its residents and businesses paid. Because New York is home to a large critical mass of very high-income households, as well as a considerable number of merely very affluent (mid-six-figure) residents, the Empire States residents generate a disproportionately large share of federal revenues through a tax system that is, after all, based on a progressive income tax, said E.J. McMahon, founder and research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank. New Yorks balance of payments with the federal government could worsen in the coming years unless a change made to the tax code in 2017 is reversed. In the Republican-backed tax bill signed that year by President Donald Trump, lawmakers limited the size of the federal deduction for state and local taxes paid. This change to thestate and local tax deductionmeant that some taxpayers in high-tax states like New York would pay more in federal taxes. Cuomo said that no state gets back less from Washington than New York state. This aligns with a widely cited study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government that looked at every states balance of payments with the federal government from 2015 to 2018. However, that same study notes a slightly different result when population is taken into account. On a per-capita basis, New York ranked fourth, after Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. We rate the statement Mostly True. If former Gov. Ted Strickland had used a theme song in his unsuccessful re-election bid, it might have been I've Been Working on the Railroad.Jobs were the biggest issue of the fall campaign, and Strickland said that thousands would be created by his plan for a 3C Corridor passenger rail system linking Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He described Gov.-elect John Kasichs intention to kill the plan and return a $400 million federal grant as tragic and a job-killer.Critics of the plan claimed that its employment potential was exaggerated, its ridership forecasts were too optimistic and its cost projections too low.Ultimately, Plain Dealer columnist and former editorial director Brent Larkin wrote: Voters never warmed to the idea of spending hundreds of millions on a passenger rail project that would have taken riders from Cleveland to Cincinnati over a period an hour and 15 minutes longer than it would have taken on a New York Central train in 1935.We dont usually look at remarks from columnists, but that comment stopped PolitiFact Ohio in its tracks.We knew that the 3C Corridor was not a high-speed rail plan. We had not realized it was more like a trip back in time.So PolitiFact Ohio asked Larkin where he got his figures.He referred us first to a year-old feasibility report on the proposed Cleveland-to-Columbus-to- Cincinnati Amtrak service.This is the schedule Amtrak said it would run, and the schedule Ohio included as part of its application to the feds for the $400 million, Larkin said. No other schedule was ever formally provided to the feds.The proposed schedule shows a 255-mile Cleveland to Cincinnati trip taking 6-1/2 hours. The first daily train would leave Cleveland at 6:30 a.m. and arrive in Cincinnati at 1 p.m.Larkin then shared a railroad timetable from New York Central Lines, effective Feb 3, 1935. It showed a departure time of 3:10 p.m. from Cincinnati and an arrival in Cleveland of 8:20 p.m., for a travel time of 5 hours 10 minutes -- an hour and 20 minutes faster than the 3C line.Criticism of the 3C as snail rail with an average speed of 39 mph started as soon as the project was proposed.The Ohio Department of Transportation responded in September with a new average estimate of 50 mph and speed up to 79. It shortened the Cleveland-to-Cincinnati trip to 5 hours 12 minutes.But, not so fast.As an October story in the Columbus Dispatch noted, ODOT itself had said a year earlier that the trip couldn't be made in less than 5 hours 20 minutes -- even if the trains didn't stop. ODOTs revised schedule hadn't even been seen by the three freight lines that own the tracks the 3C passenger trains would use, putting its feasibility in serious doubt.And, no matter how weak or strong its support, the optimistic revision still comes up longer than the best rail time of 1935.The schedules speak for themselves, Larkin said.We rate his statement as True. On 24 December 2015, the following meme was published to the Facebook group "MCM [Movie Comic Media] EXPO GROUP." It held that two police officers from Georgia were responsible for a multitude of crimes, including the deaths of more than 250 civilians:  THIS IS HUGE!!!! Why isn't the mainstream media covering this? These two officers in Georgia have killed over 250 people in the line of duty. The officer on the left, Shane Walsh, has killed 41 people in the line of duty, before being killed in cold blood on a cold fall night by his very own partner and best friend on the right, Rick Grimes, back in late 2011. This was due to a custody dispute and argument over who was the better father and lover to Rick's wife, Lori Grimes, who slept with Deputy Walsh several times and was believed to be pregnant with Deputy Walsh's child as well. If that's not bad enough, Deputy Grimes is still allowed to keep his position as a Georgia full-time deputy sheriff and holds custody over his son Carl and his recently deceased wife Lori and Shane Walsh's child Judith. Rick is an unstable father and has killed over 200 people in the line of duty. It's time to speak up and against people like this. While the post, and its accompanying image, were recognizable to many social media users in the United States as a description of the zombie-themed television and graphic novel seriesThe Walking Dead, its appearance in a European group led to some confusion among users unfamiliar with the show. The post was shared tens of thousands of times, and comments included the following: Demented and evil America. Where murderers in the police and other forces are decorated. And celebrated by US government and politicians. I swear the guy on the right is from love actually x As a matter of fact, Andrew Lincoln, the British actor who plays one ofmain characters in The Walking Dead, did indeed have a role in the movieLove Actually. role While most viewers appeared to have shared the post as a joke,manywere genuinely concerned about the two murderous cops and their increasing body count in a fictional, post-apocalyptic Georgia. While his critics decry his economic policies, President Barack Obama keeps insisting that hes had economic success. In a speech in Wilmington, Del., last week, Obama offered several pieces of evidence that, in his view, suggests that the country is rebounding from the recession. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2008, he noted; the auto industry is booming, America is making more oil than it imports, and the deficit has been cut in half, he added. All told, Obama said, weve recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth. That final claim got our attention, so we took a closer look. The evidence We asked the White House for evidence to back up Obamas claim, and they pointed us to theirannual economic reportto Congress. According to the report, the United States is one of only two of the 12 countries that experienced systemic financial crises in 2007 and 2008 but have seen real (gross domestic product) per working-age person return to pre-crisis levels. The 12 countries are France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. Germany is the only other country of these 12 in that category -- that is, that has seen its GDP per person age 16 to 64 return to its pre-recession level. Heres the summary chart from the White House report:    This provides evidence for Obamas claim, because, aside from Germany, all the other countries in this category havent yet returned to their pre-recession level at all. So, case closed? Not quite. There are many ways to measure the economy beyond real GDP per working age. And while the 12 countries studied in the report all experienced bank crises during the recession, Obamas statement was broader than that -- he said almost any other advanced country on Earth. (The list of the most advanced countries on Earth also usually doesnt include Ukraine.) So we ran this measurement past some experts. In general, they agreed with the tenor of Obamas claim, but said it wasnt as simple as relying on the chart the White House provided. The general sentiment is quite right, said Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard University. But to evaluate the statement in its sweeping form, one would have to look at more countries, and one should look at other possible measures of economic performance. Additional measurements On the experts recommendations, we looked at inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, as well as unemployment rates, in a wider selection of advanced countries. We used data from the International Monetary Fund, which considers 36 economies to be advanced. For each of these 36 countries, we calculated the growth between their worst point in GDP and unemployment to 2013, the last year for which full data is available. Positive growth in GDP is good, while negative growth in unemployment is desirable. Each value that is better than the United States (the last country on the list) is highlighted in bold-italic. (The raw data ishere.) Country GDP Unemploym. Country GDP Unemploym. Australia 13.01% 1.49% Korea 15.98% -16.11% Austria 5.93% 2.45% Latvia 15.36% -36.44% Belgium 4.25% 1.82% Luxembourg 6.93% 17.72% Canada 9.96% -14.58% Malta 8.57% -6.14% Cyprus -6.66% 155.94% Netherlands 0.39% 54.15% Czech Republic 2.37% -4.48% New Zealand 9.18% -6.22% Denmark 2.55% -6.25% Norway 5.30% -2.26% Estonia 17.76% -48.36% Portugal -3.90% 50.52% Finland 3.76% -2.87% San Marino -15.98% 61.78% France 4.08% 11.14% Singapore 29.34% -37.19% Germany 8.93% -32.12% Slovak Republic 10.51% -2.20% Greece -16.92% 117.47% Slovenia -1.72% 39.40% Hong Kong 16.96% -40.30% Spain -2.79% 31.38% Iceland 7.10% -45.41% Sweden 12.39% -6.71% Ireland 1.98% -5.83% Switzerland 7.98% -14.67% Israel 19.48% -32.10% Taiwan 19.58% -28.55% Italy -2.09% 45.31% United Kingdom 4.86% -3.13% Japan 7.31% -20.30% United States 9.32% -23.64%  So the United States has clearly done better in expanding GDP and lowering unemployment than most of the economies deemed advanced by the IMF. Still, some countries have fared better, particularly in Asia. It is also worth nothing that some countries, like Estonia, have seen an improvement in GDP, yet their GDP has not yet returned to pre-recession levels. Among the countries beyond the United States that are doing well are Canada, Germany and Switzerland. Israel and some Asian countries, such as Korea and Singapore, have seen improvements as good or better than the United States' in recent years, but they were not as dramatically affected by the recession as North America and Europe. Austan Goolsbee, Obamas former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (which prepares the White Houses annual economic report), pointed to an IMF paper from April,World Economic Outlook: Recovery Strengthens, Remains Uneven. Overall, the report suggests that the United States forecast for economic growth is better than it is for many advanced European economies, with others roughly comparable. In general, the United States is expected to have the highest growth in the coming year -- a projected 2.75 percent. In fact, the report found that the United States economy accelerated faster than anticipated in 2013, while many advanced economies in Europe are still struggling with high unemployment, debt and other financial issues. Canada, too, has seen some growth, but sluggish exports and business investments have kept the growth fairly slow. The strengthening of the recovery from the Great Recession in the advanced economies is a welcome development, the report says. But growth is not evenly robust across the globe. In many advanced Asian economies, for instance, the recovery is steady due in large part to growing exports, domestic demand and strong labor markets. (Japan, which is undergoing structural reforms, is an exception.) Australia and New Zealand -- neither of which was included in the report the White House cited -- have growth classified as stable. Laurence Ball, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, said another factor to consider is thelong-term damagecaused by the recession. Ball looked at 23 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and compared how much they thought they could grow in 2007 to how much they think they can grow now, based on OECD estimates. Ball found that, on average, these countries sustained an 8.3 percent blow to their potential output for growth. While some countries, Australia and Switzerland, took a very small hit to their potential output, Greece, Hungary and Ireland absorbed blows of roughly 30 percent compared to their GDP prospects before the recession. For the United States, the figure is 5.3 percent -- lower than the rate for most advanced countries, but higher than Australia, Switzerland and Germany. This shows that even though the United States has recovered well compared to other countries, it has still lost potential output as a result of the recession, Ball said. Our ruling Obama said the United States has recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth since the end of the Great Recession. The White Houses supporting data is pretty narrow, but other measurements show that the United States has generally fared better since the recession than many -- though not all -- of its peers among the worlds advanced economies. On balance, we rate this statement Mostly True.