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14,278 | 1 | The "FBI was actively investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server" on Sept. 2, 2016. | February 7, 2018 | ethics | matt gaetz | Matt Gaetz was elected to Congress in 2016 representing Florida's 1st District. He was elected to the Florida House of Representatives serving District 4 in 2010. His father is former Sen. Don Gaetz. | florida | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 0 | In a tweet | Gaetz tweeted, "On September 2, 2016, while the FBI was actively investigating @HillaryClinton ’s use of a private email server, #Page said that ‘POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing.’" We found no the FBI was actively investigating Clinton’s server on Sept. 2, 2016. The case had not been officially closed, but reporting indicates the investigation had ceased until the Weiner emails were discovered through a separate FBI investigation. Gaetz’s office since deleted the tweet and said they meant the State Department, not the FBI. The State Department investigation was active then, but it would have been strange for FBI agents to discuss a separate agency’s investigation. We rate this statement . |
3,344 | 4 | Tallahassee is "the ninth-rainiest (city) in the nation. | March 23, 2011 | weather | john buss | John Buss is the water resources manager for the city of Tallahassee. | florida | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | comments before a state House subcommittee | It is Mobile, Ala., Weatherbill concluded, with 66.9 inches of rain each year. Buss said Tallahassee is the second-rainiest city in Florida -- Weatherbill says it's fourth -- and he forgot to mention that the rainfall averages exclude Hawaii and Alaska. But this is still dreary news. Tallahassee is the ninth-rainiest city in the Lower 48. We rate this . |
2,000 | 3 | For every $1 spent on afterschool programs, "we can save over $5, almost $6, in crime costs down the line. | June 28, 2010 | economy;education;crime;poverty | peter kilmartin | Peter Kilmartin has been Rhode Island's attorney general since Jan. 4, 2011. He is a lawyer and retired captain in the Pawtucket Police Department who, until his election, had been a state Representative since 1991. | rhode island | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | a speech at the state Democratic convention | RIDE cited several studies in the report on afterschool and summer-learning programs. All were cited accurately and properly footnoted to enable readers to check the sources." Well, the one cited source we checked -- because it impressed Kilmartin -- turned out to be a study that RIDE misrepresented. Kilmartin was quoting a report he thought he could trust. So we'll give him a . |
9,632 | 1 | A new Colorado law "literally allows residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to 'collectors.' | October 21, 2014 | elections;punditfact | megyn kelly | Megyn Kelly is a journalist with NBC News. Previously, she was a journalist at Fox News and hosted "The Kelly File" on weeknights. | null | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a segment on "The Kelly File" | In a recent segment, Kelly went after a new Colorado law that raises fears of voter fraud for allowing "residents to print ballots from their home computers, then encourages them to turn ballots over to ‘collectors.’" That’s , a fact Kelly later admitted. The big change in Colorado with the 2014 midterm elections is a universal mail-in system for active, registered voters. Those ballots are mailed to voters; voters do not print them out. The only people who have access to an online system are members of the military and Coloradoans who live overseas, and that system predates the most recent law. Kelly’s rates . |
15,516 | 1 | Says Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2014 "helped put together and signed a $25 billion deal to fund a border wall" and now opposes Trump's $5 billion request for a border wall "just because he's a Republican." | December 17, 2018 | immigration;homeland security;facebook fact-checks | bloggers | Blog posting on the Internet | null | 8 | 18 | 24 | 53 | 233 | 396 | a blog post | The Facebook post says Schumer in 2014 "helped put together and signed a $25 billion deal to fund a border wall" and now opposes Trump's $5 billion request for a border wall "just because he's a Republican." There are numerous factual errors here: there was no border barrier deal in 2014. A 2013 legislative package proposed $8 billion for border fencing — not $25 billion for a border wall. More importantly, the border fencing Schumer backed in 2013 is different than how Trump has described his border wall. And the meme glosses over Schumer’s previous support for border wall funding earlier this year, in exchange for protections for Dreamers. We rate this post . |
15,185 | 1 | Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it's a bill, it's called the 'open borders bill.' | October 6, 2018 | immigration;homeland security | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a campaign rally | Trump said, "Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it's a bill, it's called the ‘open borders bill’," written by Feinstein. There is no such bill. The bill introduced by Feinstein, and supported by all Senate Democrats, is meant to stop family separations at the border. The measure does not eliminate the enforcement of immigration laws. Trump gave an and description of the bill. We rate his statement . |
260 | 5 | (Ronald Reagan) raised taxes a billion dollars in his first year as governor of California. | January 10, 2008 | taxes | mike huckabee | Mike Huckabee ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. He is a former governor of Arkansas; he also sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He left hosting a self-titled television show on Fox News in January 2015. | national | 8 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 4 | Myrtle Beach, S.C | In a debate on Jan. 5, 2008, Rudy Giuliani correctly pointed out that Reagan had endorsed a policy of amnesty for some illegal aliens. Read our ruling here. Now, Huckabee's math may be a little off on what that $1-billion would translate to today. It's actually closer to $6.3-billion. But the bottom line, Huckabee's statement about Reagan is . |
8,649 | 3 | More than 3 million young adults ... have gained insurance under (the Affordable Care Act) by staying on their family's plan. | April 1, 2014 | health care | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a public address | Obama said more than 3 million adults aged 19 to 25 got health coverage as a result of an Affordable Care Act mandate that allows those individuals to remain on their families’ private plans. There’s no way to get an exact figure, and estimates range anywhere from less than 1 million to 3.1 million. Obama’s estimate may be quite high, but his point that the law’s mandate has increased coverage in that age range is spot on. We rate his . |
15,487 | 5 | The poverty rate in West Virginia "was 19.1 percent, the fourth-highest in the country. | November 8, 2018 | poverty | mike romano | Mike Romano is a Democratic state senator in West Virginia. | west virginia | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | an op-ed | Romano said the poverty rate in West Virginia "was 19.1 percent, the fourth-highest in the country." He’s right on both counts, so we rate his statement . |
8,069 | 1 | Rhode Island's unemployment insurance system "is the most expensive such system in the country. | November 8, 2013 | economy;government regulation;small business;state budget;states;workers;taxes | kenneth block | Kenneth Block is a software engineer and president of Simpatico Software Systems. He founded Rhode Island's Moderate Party and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010. He switched to the Republican Party in 2013 and made an unsuccessful run for Rhode Island Governor in 2014. | rhode island | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | an interview on Rhode Island Public Radio | Ken Block said Rhode Island's unemployment insurance system "is the most expensive such system in the country." If he had said we were AMONG the most expensive, he would be on solid ground. But he has repeatedly insisted that Rhode Island's program is THE most expensive. The only he supplied was a Tax Foundation report that doesn't directly evaluate the expense of the system. And other measures, from the foundation itself and U.S. Department of Labor, say it's not the most expensive. Because Block was unequivocal, we will be as well. We rate his statement as . (If you have a you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) |
13,991 | 1 | Many firearms experts determined the Las Vegas shooter's use of a bump stock actually prevented more casualties and (injuries) due to its inconsistency, inaccuracy, and lack of control. | October 17, 2017 | crime;guns | michael williams | State Sen. Michael Williams is a Republican candidate running in Georgia’s gubernatorial primary. | georgia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | press release | Williams said many firearms experts have determined that the use of a bump stock in the Las Vegas shooting prevented more injuries and deaths than would have otherwise occurred had he not used a bump stock. Outside of a blog from a pro-gun rights group, we did not find "many firearms experts" making that argument. We did learn that bump stock devices tend to affect a weapon’s accuracy. But we found several firearms experts who attributed the high number of people injured and killed to the shooter’s ability to fire rapidly, which a bump stock would have amplified. We rate this statement . |
1,104 | 1 | Recent census data shows that the average American family spends over $13,000 a year for health care coverage. | September 16, 2009 | health care | bruce braley | a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing Iowa | national | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | a speech on the House floor | Virtually no one cuts a $13,375 check for health care. Most pay 27 percent of it, or even less." Jeff Giertz, the communications director for Braley, acknowledged PolitiFact's interpretation of the data, but added, "Regardless of how you measure it, the costs are high and getting higher — there’s certainly no disputing that." Still, even inadvertently glossing over the meaning of these numbers gives the impression that American families are paying approximately four times as much as they actually are for health care. We rate Braley's statement . |
15,694 | 1 | A photo shows Joe Namath and Al Woodall kneeling on the sideline of a football field during the national anthem. | February 10, 2019 | fake news;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | A post sharing a photo of Joe Namath claims he was kneeling during the national anthem and it was something "all players" used to do. The photo is legitimate, but it was taken sometime during the third quarter after Namath’s teammate, Al Woodall, left the game due to an injury. We also found no that it was regular practice for players to take a knee during the anthem. It was not a form of protest and was not during the national anthem. We rate this post . |
6,423 | 4 | We're up 123,000 jobs over the last year and three-quarters. We're actually, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, down 500 ... auto jobs in Ohio. | September 29, 2012 | economy;jobs | john kasich | John Kasich is the governor of Ohio. A Republican and a former congressman, he defeated Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland in 2010 and was reelected in 2014. He ran for president in 2016. | ohio | 16 | 18 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 3 | a television interview | Parts manufacturing, down 1,200 jobs since Kasich took office, is up 3,900 jobs from the trough of June 2009. It is also worth noting that the figures the governor cited reflect only direct jobs in the auto industry. Some industry analysts, such as the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, also look at two other categories of employment in the industry -- intermediate and spin-off -- in considering the impact auto manufacturing has on the economy. Under that gauge, job growth in other businesses that have a connection to the auto industry also would be considered. On the -O-Meter, a statement that is accurate but needs clarification or additional information rates . |
16,305 | 2 | Says Abraham Lincoln said, "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we lose our freedoms it will be because we have destroyed ourselves from within. | July 22, 2019 | history;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." Michael Burlingame, a chair in Lincoln studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, told us Lincoln "was denouncing mob violence which would lead to chaos, provoking the public to demand law and order, which would be provided by an ambitious leader who would rule tyrannically. " The Facebook post contains an element of . But the quote published on the social media platform is not something Lincoln said. We rate it . |
4,509 | 1 | I made a bunch of these promises during the campaign. ... We've got about 60 percent done in three years. | October 25, 2011 | politifact's top promises | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a speech at a fundraiser | Obama’s statement at the fundraiser was clearly in the past tense -- about having already "done" 60 percent of his promises in three years, and a White House spokeswoman made it clear he was relying on numbers from our Obameter. The White House’s subsequent description -- that Obama "has achieved or made progress on over 60 percent of his agenda" -- is essentially accurate based on our data, but that’s not what Obama himself said. By our numbers, the best he can for now is 39 percent. So we rate his statement . |
16,129 | 0 | Remember after the shooting in Las Vegas, (President Donald Trump) said, 'Yeah, yeah, we're going to ban the bump stocks.' Did he ban the bump stocks? No. | June 2, 2019 | guns | kirsten gillibrand | Kirsten Gillibrand is a senator from New York. Gillibrand was appointed as senator in 2009 to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacated seat, as Clinton became U.S. Secretary of State under Barack Obama. Gillibrand won a special election in 2010 to retain her senate seat and won re-elections in 2012 and 2018. From 2007 to 2009, she served as the representative of New York’s 20th Congressional District. Gillibrand received a bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from UCLA School of Law. In 2019, she ran for the Democratic nomination for president and dropped out in August. | national | 4 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | a Fox News town hall | Gillibrand said, "Remember after the shooting in Las Vegas, (President Donald Trump) said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re going to ban the bump stocks.’ Did he ban the bump stocks? No." Gillibrand’s effort to turn Trump into a villain on bump stocks flies in the face of the facts. In reality, bump stocks were a rare area in which Trump accomplished a goal sought by gun critics, and his administration’s rule was more forceful than what the NRA had sought. Thanks to the efforts of Trump and his administration, owning bump stocks is now a felony. We rate Gillibrand’s statement . |
17,237 | 1 | Says Donald Trump tweeted, "Corona vaccine from Israel! Stock market up! Economy even stronger now! Besides US, Israel best at inventions: Judaism, olives. Wonderful vaccine, will stop Corona DEAD around world. Can't make vaccines when being bombed, not have been possible without peace I created in Israel! | March 5, 2020 | israel;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | Trump has tweeted about vaccines, though. On March 2, for example, he wrote : "I am meeting with major pharmaceutical companies today at the White House about progress on a vaccine and cure. Progress being made!" Trump’s tweets draw media coverage, but searching online for the language that appears in the Facebook post we found no mention of anyone saying it. We rate this Facebook post . |
15,354 | 3 | Mark Harris has said he would cut Social Security and Medicare. | October 10, 2018 | medicare;social security | dan mccready | Dan McCready is a Democrat who's running for Congress in North Carolina's 9th District | north carolina | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a debate | McCready claimed Harris "has said he would cut Social Security and Medicare." PolitiFact couldn’t find an example of Harris describing a plan for changing Social Security and Medicare benefits for the people who get them now or stand to get them soon. On Medicare, McCready has failed to prove that Harris said he wants to cut the program at all. But on Social Security, it’s clear from his past and recent statements that his hopes for reform include changes that would limit future government payouts. Harris has used the word "overhaul" and said he’s open to scaling back Social Security for people under 50. However, he’s consistently said his desired reforms wouldn’t affect people who are in the program or stand to benefit from it in the next decade or so. We rate this . This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters’ Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. |
19,865 | 1 | Report: Vaccine related deaths may rival recorded COVID-19 deaths. | June 11, 2021 | public health;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | an Instagram post | A widely shared Instagram post claimed: "Report: Vaccine related deaths may rival recorded COVID-19 deaths." There is no credible report saying this. The came from a guest on a show produced by Alex Jones, who runs a website known to traffic in news and conspiracy theories. The guest said she based her statement on data that soon would be produced by a California man who runs a medical billing company. The CDC says its review of data has not established a causal link between the COVID-19 vaccines and reported deaths. COVID-19 has killed nearly 600,000 people in the U.S. We rate the post . |
3,254 | 3 | Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high" in 2010. | March 11, 2011 | energy;history;oil spill;regulation | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a press conference | We think that’s a fair point. Obama is indeed correct about the record-high levels of Gulf oil production in 2010. However, he ignores a downward trend that began in 2010 and that is projected to fall further over at least the next two years. We think it’s problematic to use the record-setting statistic to buttress the notion that Gulf oil production is on a healthy trendline. On balance, we rate Obama’s statement . |
18,615 | 2 | We're putting our great coal miners back to work. | October 13, 2020 | elections;pennsylvania | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | national | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a speech | Trump said he put coal miners back to work. He stabilized the industry after years of losses under Obama, but then the pandemic began, and the subsequent recession turbocharged the hobbled industry’s decline. The 6,400 job losses the mining industry has suffered in recent months tracks with utility companies’ waning demand for coal. We rate Trump’s statement . |
18,444 | 3 | 24 of every 100 kids in school today speak Spanish. | September 15, 2020 | census;education;race and ethnicity | joe biden | Joe Biden is the president of the United States. A Democrat, Biden served as a Delaware senator from 1973 (elected at the age of 29) until 2009. During his time in the Senate, he served as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, chair of the International Narcotics Control Caucus and chair of the Judiciary Committee. He subsequently served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2016. Biden launched unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008. He received a degree in history and political science from the University of Delaware and his J.D. from Syracuse School of Law. | national | 25 | 64 | 65 | 52 | 55 | 7 | a speech at a Florida event | Biden said "24 of every 100 kids in school today speaks Spanish." Nationwide, according to Pew, the proportion is lower: about 17%. Other times, Biden uses the 1-in-4 statistic to indicate the number of Latino children, and that statement is correct. On his specific statement about the number who speak Spanish, we rate this statement . |
16,036 | 5 | Over 30 states passed the legislation to ban powdered alcohol," and Missouri is not one of them | April 11, 2019 | alcohol;drugs | patricia pike | Patricia Pike is a Republican state representative in Missouri. | missouri | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a legislative debate | Pike said, "Over 30 states passed the legislation to ban powdered alcohol," and Missouri is not one of them. The latest count shows Pike is safely in the right ballpark, with 36 states and Washington, D.C., cracking down on this substance.. We rate Pike’s statement . |
20,607 | 1 | The omicron variant's name is evidence the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax. | November 27, 2021 | facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | The letter after that is xi, which a spokesperson for the organization told the Times wasn’t used "because it is a common last name." It’s the spelling of the surname of the leader of China, for example — Xi Jinping — though the pronunciations are different. The Times reported that because WHO didn’t initially explain why it skipped nu and xi, it prompted speculation that the organization has been too deferential to the Chinese government. But it’s not that the pandemic is a hoax. We rate those claims . |
18,759 | 1 | There are people trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old. | September 7, 2020 | crime;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | In 2018, the BJPsych Bulletin, a British medical journal, published an article that makes the case that lowering the age of consent from 16 to 15 or 14 in the United Kingdom would decriminalize "a large number of ‘underage’ young people engaging in sexual intercourse." It did not entertain the idea of lowering the age of consent to 4. We rate this Facebook post . This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here , for more. |
16,171 | 1 | A retired U.S. Army sergeant faces life in prison for killing two Syrian refugees after discovering they raped his teenage daughter. | April 18, 2016 | criminal justice;crime;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | Our efforts to uncover news about Hayes and such an attack instead turned up a 2010 Fox News story about a man named Steven Hayes convicted of murder and sexual assault in the killing of a mother and her two daughters. We also found a 2009 obituary for Gregory Hayes , a police sergeant who once served in the Army. But the photo that ran with the obit doesn’t match the photo in the Facebook post, nor do any news stories tie that Hayes to the one garnering support on social media. It seems that’s because the grisly tale of rape, murder and vengence described online is fabricated. We rate this Facebook post as . |
11,928 | 2 | David Jolly "has used money and power to try to … drill off our beaches. | June 17, 2016 | candidate biography | charlie crist | Charlie Crist lost the race for Florida governor as the Democratic candidate in 2022. He served as a U.S. congressman from St. Petersburg since 2017 and resigned Aug. 31, 2022 to focus on his campaign. As a Republican, Crist served as governor from 2007 to 2011. Crist left the Republican Party in 2010 to mount a campaign for the U.S. Senate as an independent. Crist lost the race to Marco Rubio. In 2012, he endorsed President Barack Obama and announced that he had registered as a Democrat. He lost his race as a Democratic candidate for governor in 2014. | florida | 15 | 20 | 21 | 20 | 11 | 2 | a fundraising email | Crist said Jolly "has used money and power to try to … drill off our beaches." His campaign’s argument is that Jolly technically lobbied on a failed 2011 bill that would have potentially expanded offshore drilling. But that was several years ago, and about a Jolly made during his House campaign concerning one event in his years as a lobbyist. Crist is ignoring Jolly the congressman’s efforts while in office — however nuanced — to keep drilling away from Florida’s shores. The statement contains an element of but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/c29ba169-b094-41c3-b660-bfcb9bb12d57 |
13,958 | 5 | We're growing union jobs faster than Illinois. | October 24, 2017 | economy;jobs;unions | eric holcomb | Eric Holcomb is the 51st Governor of Indiana.
A lifelong Hoosier, Gov. Holcomb is a veteran of the United States Navy, served as the state’s 51st Lt. Governor, was a trusted advisor to both Governor Mitch Daniels and Senator Dan Coats, and was a former state chairman of the Indiana Republican Party.
He was elected governor in November 2016, following an unprecedented 106-day campaign and was sworn in on January 9, 2017. | illinois | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a campaign ad | Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said Indiana is "growing union jobs faster than Illinois." The latest report on union membership and representation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics backs Holcomb’s , with Illinois losing 5 percent of its union jobs between 2015 and 2016 and Indiana gaining 4 percent. It’s a trend that predates the Great Recession and, in the bigger jobs picture, is backed by a decade’s worth of unemployment figures in the two states. We rate this statement . |
18,523 | 1 | No prominent Democrats have had the virus but the list of Republicans goes on and on. | October 2, 2020 | facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | deanna lorraine | DeAnna Lorraine was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. House in 2020 in the district currently represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | a tweet | Both go against what public health authorities have recommended for slowing the spread of the coronavirus. We reached out to Lorraine for more or a comment. We haven’t heard back. She's that no prominent Democrats have contracted the coronavirus. We rate her post . |
2,181 | 2 | When Pepper's tax was finally voted down, Pepper laid off cops and closed jails and let criminals run free in the streets. | August 10, 2010 | message machine 2010;taxes | dave yost | David Yost, a Republican, was elected Ohio auditor in 2010. He previously was a county prosecutor from Delaware County in Ohio. | ohio | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | a campaign video | And it says Pepper closed multiple jails, when only one was closed as a result of the 2009 budget. Each commissioner’s vote carries equal weight, yet the video solely blames Pepper for the actions of the entire board, made of two Democrats and one Republican. Solely blaming Pepper also excuses the sheriff, who ultimately decides how to spend the money commissioners allot him. And the county’s hand was forced when voters rejected the 2007 tax increase to fund public safety. We rate the statement . |
10,806 | 5 | Says Donald Trump "supports eminent domain" and the Supreme Court's Kelo decision. | September 15, 2015 | candidate biography;supreme court | club for growth | The Club for Growth is an anti-tax group. | national | 4 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 0 | a television ad | Club for Growth said "Trump supports eminent domain" and the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision. As recently as this week Trump has expressed support for eminent domain, and he has in the past said he agrees with the Kelo decision, which expanded the power, "100 percent." We rate Club for Growth’s . |
14,117 | 1 | In April, "the vast majority will be (filling out their taxes) on a single postcard. | December 21, 2017 | taxes | ivanka trump | Ivanka Trump is an American businesswoman and the daughter of and assistant to President Donald Trump. | national | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | an interview on "Fox & Friends" | Ivanka Trump tweeted that in April, "the vast majority will be (filling out their taxes) on a single postcard." That’s not the case. The recently passed bill takes effect for the 2018 tax year, which people will be filing returns on in April 2019 -- not this coming April. And there is no plan for a postcard filing option. Simple filing options already exist and are widely used, but tax experts do not expect a surge in their use as a result of the tax bill in April 2019. We rate her statement . |
6,298 | 1 | Says Republican U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy "voted against paying our soldiers" and "against increasing combat pay" while voting "to protect his own pay. | August 29, 2012 | federal budget;message machine 2012;military | democratic congressional campaign committee | The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for assisting Democratic candidates for the U.S. House. | wisconsin | 1 | 1 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 9 | a TV ad | The claims are based on Duffy’s votes on "motions to recommit" that preceded final votes on military and congressional pay. Such motions are routinely denied by the majority party as procedural moves. That gives the minority party the chance to structure them for partisan advantage. That’s what is playing out in the ad now. We rate the . |
16,175 | 0 | Quotes Queen Elizabeth II as saying that Trump is "an amazing person" with a "good heart" who could have been her son in another life. | June 7, 2019 | fake news;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | The article claimed that an "unnamed MSM (mainstream media) news outlet in the United Kingdom is claiming they were recently involved in an interview with Queen Elizabeth II where she unexpectedly complimented U.S. President Donald Trump … The alleged insider said executives at the organization are ‘fuming’ because they couldn’t salvage the piece due to her relentless praise of the POTUS." That "insider" was an anonymous member of online forum 4Chan, who posted the account on June 4 (which has since been deleted ) on the forum’s " politically " board. There is no that the queen ever said this and the story contains no legitimate sources. The statement attributed to her appears to have originated in an anonymous post on an online forum, and according to Buckingham Palace’s media center, the queen does not give interviews nor does she speak publicly about political matters. We rate this ! |
3,260 | 4 | Says that Republicans "bragged about how every bill was going to be paid for, right from the beginning" and that the first vote, the repeal of health care reform, violated that rule. | January 19, 2011 | health care;voting record | sherrod brown | Sherrod Brown is a Democratic U.S. Senator representing Ohio. He won his first elected office to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1974. He later served as Ohio secretary of state and was elected to Congress in 1992. He first joined the U.S. Senate in 2007. | ohio | 15 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | a telephone news conference | That's where the exemption that was approved with the House rules comes into play. Brown mentioned that exemption during his teleconference, describing it as a loophole Republicans carved out to avoid the cut-as-you-go restrictions. But with that exemption, the repeal vote didn't violate the rule. That's a point of clarification. We rate Brown’s statement as . |
3,759 | 3 | Gov. Chris Christie caused a 4.1 percent increase in property taxes in 2010, marking the highest increase since 2007. | May 10, 2011 | taxes | new jersey assembly democrats | The New Jersey Assembly Democrats represent the Democratic members of the State Assembly. | new jersey | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a press release | The governor’s aid cuts contributed to the tax hikes, and Christie rejected a tax increase that would have provided more property tax relief. But some Democratic legislators also signed off on aid reductions by approving the state budget. There also are several other factors at play here -- the recession, declining property values, tax appeals, rising costs, a local desire to maintain services and an expensive system of running school districts. We rate the Democrats’ statement . To comment on this ruling, join the conversation at NJ.com . |
1,688 | 1 | The fact that Rick Scott is running for governor as a 'reformer' would be funny if it wasn't so outrageous. This is a man who barely escaped imprisonment. | May 18, 2010 | candidate biography;health care | bill mccollum | Bill McCollum is a former Florida Attorney General. He campaigned to be governor and was defeated in the Republican primary on Aug. 24, 2010. | florida | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | a press release | He was never even personally contacted by investigators." McCollum's statement was that Scott " escaped imprisonment," but the fact is he was never indicted, and the only individuals convicted of wrongdoing associated with the Columbia/HCA ultimately had those convictions tossed out. The corporate convictions aren't tied to any individual and carry only fines, not prison time. While one ABC News report does say he was a target of an investigation, that doesn't translate to escaping a prison sentence. We rate McCollum's . |
7,470 | 3 | The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is a "proven job creator. | May 8, 2013 | jobs | john nygren | John Nygren is a Republican who represents the 89th District in the Wisconsin State Assembly | wisconsin | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | a press conference | Of the three companies we contacted, they reported adding a total of 1,022 jobs of a promised a total of 1,076 in exchange for $28.46 million in tax credits. And WEDC doesn’t deserve sole credit for the largest employer, Marinette Marine, which added more than 1,000 jobs. The state began efforts to help Marinette well before the agency was established. So Nygren’s statement is on the local level, but it’s impossible to measure in the broad sense. We rate his statement . |
4,593 | 4 | The loan guarantee program that helped Solyndra "was a program that was supported by President Bush. | October 30, 2011 | energy;federal budget | david plouffe | David Plouffe is a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. He also managed President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. | national | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | an interview on "Meet the Press" | Plouffe said that the loan guarantee program that awarded half a billion dollars in guarantees to Solyndra "was supported by President Bush." The program was created on Bush's watch by a law he signed and promoted. The program grew under the Obama administration, which ultimately awarded Solyndra's loan guarantee under a new section of the law created by the stimulus. The Bush administration, though, promoted the loan guarantee program, and Bush himself touted it on his way out of office. There's also his administration specifically prioritized Solyndra's project. We find Plouffe's statement . |
5,642 | 1 | In 2011, Alabama and Massachusetts passed legislation allowing non-citizens who are legal residents to vote in state and local elections. | May 16, 2012 | elections;legal issues | anastasia williams | Anastasia P. Williams is a state representative in Rhode Island, representing District 9 in Providence. | rhode island | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a House Judiciary Committee hearing | Rep. Anastasia Williams, advocating for her proposal to extend state and local voting rights to non-citizens who are permanent legal residents, told a House Judiciary Committee hearing, "In 2011, Alabama and Massachusetts passed this legislation." Williams said, and House spokesman Larry Berman confirmed, that she was relying on information from the General Assembly's Legislative Council, which should be a reliable source. In fact, the information Williams received was . Neither state took such action. "At the time I made this statement, I relied on the information that was provided to me," Williams said in a comment released Thursday. "This statement was not made intentionally." Said House Speaker Gordon Fox, "It is unfortunate that Representative Williams was quoting information provided to her by a staff person and I am addressing this issue internally.". One last thought: we were surprised that a veteran legislator wasn't suspicious about the , given that Massachusetts is a neighbor and Alabama is known for having one of the nation's harshest laws against illegal immigrants. We rate her statement . (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter . To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) |
394 | 1 | I actually started criticizing the war in Iraq before (Obama) did. | April 5, 2008 | iraq | hillary clinton | Hillary Clinton was the 2016 Democratic nominee for president. She served as U.S. Secretary of State during the first four years of the Obama administration. She is formerly a U.S. senator from New York, first elected in 2000. She was a candidate for president in 2008. She previously served as first lady when her husband, Bill Clinton, served two terms as president. She was born in Chicago in 1947, graduated from Wellesley College and earned a law degree at Yale Law School. She and her husband have one daughter. | national | 72 | 76 | 70 | 43 | 31 | 9 | Eugene, Ore | Clinton, meanwhile, weighed in a week later with a statement on Rice's nomination, saying, "In her role as National Security Advisor, Dr. Rice was a member of the team responsible for our flawed Iraq policy. She made several statements about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the lead up to the war." Clinton also said in the statement the she profoundly disagreed and deeply regretted how the war has been conducted. Clinton might be showing moxie by trying to reframe the Iraq issue in a way that puts her on top, but the facts don't support it. On the statement that she criticized the war first after Obama became a senator, the -O-Meter says . |
12,152 | 4 | The Trans-Pacific Partnership "knocks out 18,000 tariffs that other countries place on American products and goods. | August 2, 2016 | trade | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a White House press conference | Obama said the TPP removes 18,000 tariffs that other countries place on American goods. That number is one reasonable estimation, though it’s leaving out a lot of context. The 18,000 number includes tariffs on goods the United States doesn’t currently export but could in the future. We rate the . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/1a77eb5a-b05a-4542-94f3-38d3b270a70a |
5,127 | 3 | Says private-sector job growth in 2011 "places New Jersey in the top third among all of the states. | February 21, 2012 | jobs | chris christie | Chris Christie announced June 6, 2023 that he is running for the Republican nomination for president. Christie was the governor of New Jersey and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. As governor, Christie won office in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. Prior to that, he was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 2002 to 2008. | new jersey | 21 | 20 | 27 | 11 | 17 | 8 | his budget speech | During his budget speech, Christie pointed to New Jersey’s private-sector job growth in 2011, claiming that it "places New Jersey in the top third among all of the states." In 2011, New Jersey gained 39,400 private-sector jobs for a 1.2 percent increase. In terms of net jobs gained, Christie is right. By that measure, New Jersey ranks in 12th place out of the 50 states. But the 1.2 percent increase in private-sector jobs does not support the governor’s . By that measure, the state ranks 31. We rate the statement . To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com . |
1,510 | 0 | The bill also provides full federal funding for abortions… | March 21, 2010 | abortion;health care | john carter | Carter, of Georgetown, was initially elected to the U.S. House in 2002. He is a former state district judge. | texas | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | a press release | All told, this review leaves us agape at Carter's overreach. That is, the law does not provide full federal funding of abortions--and that's clear. Carter could have edited his blast. Instead, he makes an unsupported . We rate his statement as . |
19,339 | 2 | New York, for all of their complaining, Gov. Cuomo's complaining, has only had a 1.5% decrease in revenue" due to the coronavirus pandemic. | February 7, 2021 | economy;state budget;coronavirus | bill cassidy | Bill Cassidy, a Republican, represents a Louisiana disrict in the U.S. House of Representatives. He challenged incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in 2014. | new york | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | remarks on NBC's "Meet the Press" | Cassidy said that "New York, for all of their complaining, Gov. Cuomo's complaining, has only had a 1.5% decrease in revenue" due to the pandemic. New York state saw revenue decline by 1.5% in calendar year 2020. However, the state’s budget is based on a fiscal year that runs from April 1 to March 31, and the calendar year figure Cassidy cited includes nearly three months of relatively normal, pre-pandemic economic activity. This makes it a indicator of the pandemic’s budgetary impact. In fact, state budget officials have already projected larger revenue declines for the full fiscal year. We rate the statement . |
2,818 | 1 | Teachers "are working their third consecutive year -- some longer than that -- without salary increases. | December 8, 2010 | education | kitty boitnott | Kitty Boitnott was president of the Virginia Education Association, an organization of about 60,000 public school teachers, from 2008 to 2012.. | virginia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a news conference | Statistics are incomplete for this year, but indicate teacher pay was flat in most localities and even cut by six school systems. It would be accurate to say most teachers are going without a pay raise for the second straight school year. But Boitnott added a third year and the possibility of "longer." Data shows teachers in every school district received a raise over the last four school years. We rate her statement . |
3,239 | 1 | Texans eat more catfish than residents of all other states combined. | February 26, 2011 | agriculture;food safety | glenn hegar | Glenn Hegar, a former Texas House member initially elected to the Senate in 2007, was elected Texas state comptroller in 2014. Hegar describes himself as a sixth-generation Texan who farms land that's been in his family since the 1800s. He is the former chair of the Sunset Advisory Commission. | texas | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | an oped column | Finally, we contacted David Harvey, an agricultural economist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, and asked him about state-by-state catfish consumption. No such information is available, Harvey said, speculating that’s because it would require fish processors here and abroad to say where they’re sending their fish and the processors don't want to share such details. Not only do Texans not eat more catfish than the whole rest of the country, they ate less, per person, than residents in four other southern states as of 2005. Even by Texas bragging standards, Hegar’s statement smacks as a memorable fish tale. We rate it . |
1,813 | 5 | Georgia has "more illegal aliens than the state of Arizona. | June 17, 2010 | immigration | jeff chapman | Jeff Chapman is a GOP candidate for governor of Georgia | georgia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Jekyll Island gubernatorial debate | The DHS report still listed California in the top spot, with 2.6 million illegal immigrants. But it placed Georgia at the No. 6 spot with 480,00 illegal residents and Arizona seventh with 460,000. Interestingly, just 10 years ago, Arizona was far ahead with 330,000 illegal immigrant residents while Georgia had only 220,000. Chapman appears to have done his homework on this subject. We find his statement . |
5,026 | 1 | Says President Barack Obama "has an Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would raise the price of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon. | February 5, 2012 | environment | newt gingrich | Newt Gingrich is a political adviser and author. A former Georgia congressman, Gingrich served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. Gingrich sought the GOP nomination for president in 2012. | national | 7 | 11 | 21 | 17 | 15 | 12 | an interview on "Meet the Press" | Gingrich warned that under Obama, the EPA plans to raise gasoline prices by 25 cents a gallon. He drew that information from an industry-funded study considering the cost impacts of the EPA’s proposed Tier 3 fuel standards and went right for the high end of the estimate. "Surely he knows that API has a vested interest in presenting a high projection," said Jenkins, of Republicans for Environmental Protection. Even more importantly, the study concluded its cost estimates based on fuel-standard changes that EPA is not considering. When looking only at lowering the sulfur content of gasoline, the cost would be far lower -- even less than a penny per gallon, according to a study commissioned by an environmental group. Gingrich’s statement and misleads, and we rate it . https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/bc4d6c67-20d8-4f5c-b267-c8c971698e88 |
8,479 | 4 | Our economy (in Louisiana) has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession. | February 26, 2014 | economy | bobby jindal | Bobby Jindal is the governor of Louisiana and a candidate for president in 2016. He was elected to his first term in 2007. Prior to that, he served as a congressman from 2004 to 2008, representing the suburban areas north of New Orleans. | national | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" | Jindal said, "Our economy (in Louisiana) has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession." The time frame Jindal’s office said he used -- from 2007 to 2012 -- is a reasonable one, and using that period does make his accurate. However, it’s worth remembering that taking one crack at the numbers can tell an incomplete story. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it . |
565 | 2 | He made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras. | July 26, 2008 | military | john mccain | John McCain was a U.S. senator from Arizona, a post he held from 1987 to his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the U.S. House. He was the Republican nominee for president in 2008. McCain was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent his career in the military, as his father did. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. He was born in 1936 in Panama. | national | 37 | 37 | 31 | 32 | 39 | 8 | a TV ad | The fact remains, too, that Obama could have done a private visit even after the Pentagon raised its objections. Obama had done such visits before. We can't give McCain's campaign any points for accuracy here, but neither can we say Obama is a helpless victim of a baseless attack. To do that we would have to give Obama and his version of the campaign's plans every benefit of the doubt. That leads us to . |
20,254 | 1 | The top 1% pays 90% of income taxes. | September 14, 2021 | income;taxes;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post criticizing the message on a dress worn by Ocasio-Cortez said that "the top 1% pays 90% of income taxes." According to the latest IRS figures, 97% of federal income taxes in 2018 were paid by half of the taxpayers — which includes taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of almost $44,000 and up. We rate the post . |
12,269 | 2 | Prop 56 cheats schools out of at least $600 million. | August 16, 2016 | education;public health;taxes | no on 56 campaign | The No on 56 campaign opposes California's proposed $2 per pack cigarette tax. It is funded by tobacco companies
Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. | california | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | radio and online advertisements | The No on 56 campaign is running ads that say the proposed tobacco tax "cheats schools out of at least $600 million a year." The measure includes an exemption from the state’s school funding guarantee. A portion of its revenues, estimated at up to $1.4 billion, could otherwise have been directed toward school funding. But past tobacco taxes and a tax to fund mental health services have also legally avoided this guarantee. Those had exemptions allowing their revenues to fund health services. This doesn't mean, however, that money will be taken from schools or community colleges under Prop 56. The measure, in fact, sends about $20 million to schools for tobacco prevention programs. The that Prop 56 "cheats" schools goes too far. It might have been accurate to say the measure exempts most all revenue from going to schools. But the term chosen by No on 56 is . We rate the . – The statement contains some element of but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aabdc989-5155-4716-837a-cae1783eac21 |
7,493 | 0 | Says a "rape kit" can be used to "clean out" women, "basically like" dilation and curettage. | June 23, 2013 | abortion;health care;public health | jodie laubenberg | Jodie Laubenberg, who represents a Collin County district, has been a Texas House member since 2003. | texas | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Texas House debate on Senate Bill 5 | Laubenberg said a rape kit is equivalent to dilation and curettage surgery. A rape kit consists of items a medical specialist employs to gather related to a possible sexual assault. It is not the same as the D and C procedure, which removes the lining of the uterus. We find this unsupported and . . UPDATE, 10:20 a.m., June 25, 2013 : After this article posted, we heard back from Laubenberg. We amended the story to include her comments about her statement. The -O-Meter rating was not affected. |
500 | 1 | Did Obama know that Tony Rezko was saving him $300,000 on the purchase of his home? | June 4, 2008 | ethics | republican national committee | The Republican National Committee is the national arm of the Republican Party. | national | 4 | 5 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 2 | a news release | The GOP offers no proof that the price paid by the Obamas was anything other than a matter of negotiation, or that the Obamas would have had to pay $300,000 more if not for the Rezkos' purchase. In fact, the seller specifically confirmed that the Obamas' offer of $1.65-million was the best offer he received on the house. Further, the seller confirmed that he did not offer the Obamas a discount on the price of the house "on the basis of or in relation to the price offered and accepted on the lot." Having the Rezkos as flexible buyers on the vacant lot might have helped the Obamas get the house they had been trying to buy, but there's just nothing to support the GOP that the Rezkos saved the Obamas $300,000. We say . |
4,149 | 3 | Before Medicare, only 51 percent of Americans 65 and older had health care coverage and nearly 30 percent lived below the poverty line. Today, thanks to Medicare ... nearly all seniors have coverage and 75 percent fewer struggle in poverty. | June 30, 2011 | medicare;poverty | ron kind | Democrat Ron Kind has represented Wisconsin's third congressional district since 1996. | wisconsin | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a news release | Kind spokeswoman Leah Hunter said the congressman did not mean to suggest Medicare was the sole reason for the poverty-line change. Let’s bring this home. Kind claimed that basically half of seniors lacked health insurance before Medicare, and the program reduced the share of seniors in poverty by 75 percent. His statistics pan out, but he overplays his hand by making Medicare the hero for getting seniors above the poverty line when experts agree other things, chiefly Social Security, are the reason. We rate this . |
18,261 | 0 | Says Nancy Pelosi passed a bill awarding a $9 billion contract to her husband's company. | August 23, 2020 | corporations;ethics;federal budget;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A Facebook post asserted that Nancy Pelosi used her position on the House Appropriations Committee to pass a bill giving her husband a $9 billion contract to sell Postal Service properties. However, Pelosi hasn’t held a seat on the House Appropriations Committee for 18 years and no such bill exists. We rate this post ! |
23,082 | 1 | House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for the immediate "expulsion and prosecution of Rep. Adam Schiff for committing crimes of treason against the United States. | May 17, 2023 | congress;facebook fact-checks | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | a post | PolitiFact reached out to McCarthy and Schiff for comment, but did not receive replies. We rate the that McCarthy called for Schiff’s immediate "expulsion and prosecution" . RELATED: Durham report criticized elements of FBI's investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 RELATED: Rep. George Santos has been indicted. Will he face consequences in Congress? |
1,954 | 4 | Marco Rubio's "economic proposals will add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit. | July 19, 2010 | bush administration;federal budget;pundits;taxes | rachel maddow | Rachel Maddow is the host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show”. She formerly hosted a radio program of the same name on the defunct Air America network. | florida | 5 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 1 | comments on her MSNBC show | We realize we're not going to be able to change people's basic economic philosophies. We're not here today trying to disprove supply-side economics, or boost another economic thought. Based on our analysis, we do think it's a stretch for someone like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to suggest the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were revenue neutral. And yet we also see the logic in the argument that lower taxes could stimulate investment in the economy, creating an army of new taxpayers. Rubio, himself, realizes spending cuts also will be necessary to offset at least some of the tax cuts he's proposed -- and to shrink the federal deficit. Rubio's campaign announced he would roll out ideas to cut government spending on July 26 in Jacksonville. And we'll be ready to examine them. But in this case, we're sticking to Maddow's that Rubio's "economic proposals will add $3.5 trillion to the federal deficit." The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, repealing the estate tax and continuing to adjust the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation will increase the federal deficit $3.4 trillion between now and 2020. That's right about on the mark, and only measures the impact of three of Rubio's tax cutting ideas. But unlike Maddow, we do want to leave some leeway for the economic growth those broad-based tax reforms could generate, as well as Rubio's spending cuts, still to be revealed. We rate her statement . |
21,272 | 2 | It's been proven that sugar triggers and causes cancer. … So the best thing to do to prevent cancer is to avoid sugar. | April 10, 2022 | public health;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a video on Facebook | "It’s been proven that sugar triggers and causes cancer," a video on Facebook said. "So the best thing to do to prevent cancer is to avoid sugar." Although consuming large amounts of sugar can put a person at higher risk of certain cancers, sugar itself is not carcinogenic. Avoiding sugar altogether will not stop cancer from growing and doing so could also lead to unhealthy weight loss. We rate this . |
1,706 | 3 | Says the Arizona immigration law "expressly bans racial profiling. | May 23, 2010 | immigration | john cornyn | John Cornyn is a U.S. senator from Texas, former Texas attorney general and former justice on the Texas Supreme Court. He earlier served as a Bexar County state district judge. | texas | 11 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 1 | on NBC's "Meet the Press" | PolitiFact concluded that the revised law has too much wiggle room to back up Brewer's statement that it lays "to rest questions over the possibility of racial profiling." Of course, Cornyn didn't venture as far as Brewer. He simply said the law expressly bans such profiling, and it does — though the law also expressly leaves room for profiling that passes constitutional muster, a significant and legally squishy factor that Cornyn's statement doesn't acknowledge. Experts expect the profiling topic to be thrashed out for years to come. We rate Cornyn's statement as . |
323 | 5 | When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper . . . and we would fry squirrel. | January 18, 2008 | candidate biography | mike huckabee | Mike Huckabee ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. He is a former governor of Arkansas; he also sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He left hosting a self-titled television show on Fox News in January 2015. | national | 8 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 4 | an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe | he told us. "With hot biscuits and gravy and fried squirrel and corn on the cob – it's like dying and going to heaven!" He said cooking them is easy: "Fry them to a beautiful golden brown on all sides and then turn the heat down; cover the skillet and put in water or maybe good cooking wine. You just let them steam in that for 15 minutes or half an hour," he said We found recipes on other Web sites that also looked promising: squirrel cacciatore, squirrel croquettes and squirrels in cream sauce. Yum! |
20,275 | 1 | CDC says expect a polio-like outbreak coming in children in the next four months. | September 15, 2021 | public health;facebook fact-checks | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | a Facebook post | The symptoms can look like polio symptoms . But the agency didn’t warn of a flood of children suffering from this disease. Since the CDC started tracking it in August 2014, there have been 665 confirmed cases , including 32 cases in 2020 and 15 in 2021. Less than one person in a million will ever develop it, according to the Washington State Department of Health . We rate this post . |
8,467 | 2 | Says Alex Sink supported "higher property taxes. | February 10, 2014 | taxes | republican party of florida | The Republican Party of Florida represents Republicans in Florida. | florida | 2 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 10 | 4 | a campaign mailer | The Republican Party of Florida says Sink supported "higher property taxes," referring to her somewhat lukewarm opposition to 2008’s Save Our Homes Amendment 1, which adjusted property taxes in a way that lowered them for most homeowners. The is in that it implies to voters she wanted to raise property taxes across the board. That wasn’t the case; Sink wanted to keep taxes at the same level, not raise them. There’s an element of here, but it leaves out context that would give a different impression. We rate this . |
13,873 | 0 | Jason Aldean gig canceled after he sells out to liberals on 'SNL'. | October 8, 2017 | fake news;punditfact | asamericanasapplepie.org | A website associated with fake news. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | a headline | We’ve fact-checked plenty of stories that originated from websites run by or affiliated with Blair, including TheLastLineOfDefense.org , FreedomCrossroad.us , OurLandOfTheFree.com and FreedomJunkshun.com . AsAmericanAsApplePie.org uses the same website architecture as these other sites, and carries a disclaimer that reads , "As American as Apple Pie is here to be your beacon of something you can kinda rely on sometimes but not really." We reached out to the site but did not hear back. This story capitalizes on real events but inserts details into the narrative to confuse readers. We rate it ! |
8,657 | 5 | Drone technology now allows an individual to be recorded in their homes by drones as small as birds and immediately uploaded to the internet. | April 1, 2014 | crime;privacy issues | chris taylor | Wisconsin state Rep. Chris Taylor, a Madison Democrat, was elected to the Assembly in a special election in August 2011. An attorney, she is the former public policy director of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. | wisconsin | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | a news release | That authorization was limited to the Arctic. Our rating Taylor said that "drone technology now allows an individual to be recorded in their homes by drones as small as birds and immediately uploaded to the internet." There are legal and operational obstacles to making this scenario a reality, we learned. But Taylor’s carefully worded statement was about the state of the technology, and her scenario is technically possible right now. We rate her statement . |
15,988 | 0 | Says New York Democrat Jenna Tull was recorded saying, "Americans should be euthanized when they hit 70. They just become too dumb….and think of the money we'd save! | April 23, 2019 | fake news;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a Facebook post | "No surprise to me, same folks who kill full term babies. I knew they would come for old people next! Evil," wrote another. They don’t have to worry about voting her out of office, though. We rate this post ! |
17,832 | 5 | Infection rates in Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties have consistently been among the lowest in the state. | May 11, 2020 | public health;coronavirus | george borrello | George Borrello is a Republican state senator representing a district in western New York. | new york | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a press release | Borrello said that "infection rates in Allegany, Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties have consistently been among the lowest in the state." A look at the data from the end of March to mid-May confirms that the infection rate in each of the three counties was usually in the bottom one-third of counties in the state, and by the time Borello made his statement, they were all in the bottom one-fifth of counties. By contrast, Erie and Niagara were consistently in the top half of counties as measured by infections per capita. We rate the statement . |
9,521 | 4 | If Florida had not taken the stimulus, it "would have led to the firing of 20,000 teachers. | October 10, 2014 | economy;education;stimulus | charlie crist | Charlie Crist lost the race for Florida governor as the Democratic candidate in 2022. He served as a U.S. congressman from St. Petersburg since 2017 and resigned Aug. 31, 2022 to focus on his campaign. As a Republican, Crist served as governor from 2007 to 2011. Crist left the Republican Party in 2010 to mount a campaign for the U.S. Senate as an independent. Crist lost the race to Marco Rubio. In 2012, he endorsed President Barack Obama and announced that he had registered as a Democrat. He lost his race as a Democratic candidate for governor in 2014. | florida | 15 | 20 | 21 | 20 | 11 | 2 | a gubernatorial debate | Crist said that if Florida had not taken the stimulus it "would have led to the firing of 20,000 teachers." The Education Department identified 19,166 full-time equivalent jobs affected by the stimulus money. That’s close to what Crist said, but that figure includes not just teachers but other types of school workers as well. In addition, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact number of teachers who would have been laid off statewide, since districts would have had discretion in how to handle budget cutting and may have had other options to reduce spending beyond laying off teachers. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so we rate it . |
14,722 | 0 | Investigators: Anthony Bourdain was killed by Clinton operatives. | June 10, 2018 | fake news;crime;punditfact | yournewswire.com | A website associated with fake news. | null | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 9 | a blog post | Sean Adl-Tabatabai, editor-in chief at YourNewsWire.com and author of the report, told us the investigators referenced were "online sleuths who dug up Anthony’s tweets and joined the dots." He also pointed again to Bourdain’s May tweet as proof of the Clintons’ involvement. We found no that the Clintons played any role in Bourdain’s death. Bourdain died by suicide and was found unresponsive in his hotel room by a close friend, CNN reported . We rate this statement ! |
23,323 | 1 | Videos show Planned Parenthood "aiding sex traffickers in their crimes. | July 16, 2023 | abortion;facebook fact-checks | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | an Instagram post | A Live Action Instagram post claimed videos showed Planned Parenthood aiding sex traffickers in their crimes. Planned Parenthood said the videos, released in 2011, were edited to show only parts of conversations Planned Parenthood employees had with people whom Live Action had hired and posed as sex workers and sex traffickers. The employee in one video was fired for acting inappropriately; an employee in a different video followed the law and company protocol. These videos show staged events involving undercover actors. Live Action’s post omits that context and other actions Planned Parenthood took following these incidents, including alerting federal authorities of alleged sex trafficking involving minors. We rate this . |
696 | 0 | Obama ad contends that John McCain endorses Rush Limbaugh's comments about immigration. | September 18, 2008 | immigration | barack obama | Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. | national | 124 | 165 | 163 | 71 | 71 | 9 | a video ad | The Obama campaign suggested McCain presented to a different face when speaking to Latinos at the National Council of La Raza Convention in July, but the full text of his answer does not back that up. Anyway, these relatively minor points raised by the Obama campaign are overshadowed by the larger import of the TV ad, which attempts to link McCain to seemingly racially insensitive remarks by Rush Limbaugh. As ABC’s Jake Tapper so aptly notes in his Political Punch blog , "even if one is uninclined to see Limbaugh’s quotes as having been taken unfairly out of context, linking them to McCain makes as much sense as running a quote from Bill Maher and linking it to Obama. " We are inclined to think the Limbaugh quotes were lifted out of context, and we think that presenting them in an ad about McCain’s immigration policy — as if McCain somehow endorsed those comments — isn’t just , it’s "pantalones en fuego" . |
3,293 | 3 | Since President Obama took office, gas prices have gone up 67 percent. | March 11, 2011 | cap and trade;climate change;economy;gas prices | johnny isakson | Johnny Isakson, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Georgia | georgia | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0 | a Twitter post | There are two elements to Isakson’s : the actual statistics and his implication that Obama is to blame for rising gas prices. Isakson’s precise statement about gas prices is accurate. They have increased. But the overall statement, intended as a political broadside, leaves out important details and takes things out of context. We rate this . |
22,886 | 2 | Fewer people get hurt playing rugby" than American football. | April 13, 2023 | public health;sports | joe biden | Joe Biden is the president of the United States. A Democrat, Biden served as a Delaware senator from 1973 (elected at the age of 29) until 2009. During his time in the Senate, he served as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, chair of the International Narcotics Control Caucus and chair of the Judiciary Committee. He subsequently served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2016. Biden launched unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008. He received a degree in history and political science from the University of Delaware and his J.D. from Syracuse School of Law. | null | 25 | 64 | 65 | 52 | 55 | 7 | a speech to the Irish parliament | Biden said that "fewer people get hurt playing rugby" than American football. Significant academic research suggests that rugby results in higher rates of overall injuries and concussions than American football does — often two to three times higher. Other studies paint a more nuanced comparison in injury rates between the two sports. However, even these studies suggest that injuries from rugby can be serious, both in real time and over a lifetime. We rate the statement . |
18,557 | 5 | Wisconsin Republicans have not passed a single bill in 6 months. | October 4, 2020 | public health;states;coronavirus | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| wisconsin | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | A viral Facebook post says, "Wisconsin Republicans have not passed a single bill in 6 months," criticizing a lack of legislative action amid the coronavirus pandemic. The timeframe is largely accurate. It’s been more than five and a half months since the Legislature passed any bill. It’s not unusual in an election year for the Legislature to adjourn from spring until the new year. But the Wisconsin Legislature’s inaction is unusual for this year, as lawmakers have done less than almost any other state to address the pandemic despite being one of just 10 full-time legislatures in the nation. That makes this a reasonable statement. We rate this . |
23,024 | 1 | New Washington state law allows "government to take away minors from parents if they refuse to agree to gender-transition surgery. | May 10, 2023 | children;legal issues;sexuality;facebook fact-checks | the gateway pundit | The Gateway Pundit is a conservative website. | null | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 3 | a Facebook post | Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign legislation that broadly prohibits gender-affirming care for transgender minors, leading to claims that the government could "kidnap" transgender children from their parents. The bill does not grant the state unilateral power to "kidnap" or take custody of a child receiving gender-affirming care from a family, but it does change how custody disputes between parents are resolved. A California law that took effect in September provides legal protections for parents fleeing states that have banned gender-affirming health care for youths. The law does not permit the state to take custody of a child if one parent disagrees with a child’s decision to seek gender-affirming health care, as some claims have suggested. The Washington law does not allow "government to take away minors from parents if they refuse to agree to gender transition surgery." We rate the . |
14,644 | 2 | I've lived" in Milwaukee "all 61 years of my life. | May 13, 2018 | candidate biography;education;population | andy gronik | Democrat Andy Gronik, a businessman who lives in the Milwaukee suburb of Fox Point, announced in July 2017 that he would run for governor of Wisconsin in 2018 in his first run for public office. He dropped out of the race on June 21, 2018. | wisconsin | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | a candidates forum | Our rating Gronik told an audience made up largely of Milwaukee teachers at an education forum in Milwaukee: "I’ve lived here (in Milwaukee) all 61 years of my life." Gronik acknowledged to us that he grew up in one Milwaukee suburb, Glendale, and now lives in another, upscale Fox Point. "Milwaukee" as sort of a blanket term for the city and its close-in suburbs is not entirely . But in the context of Gronik’s , it’s . We rate his statement . |
11,339 | 3 | The Chris Hani Baragwanath in South Africa is "the world's third-biggest hospital. | February 29, 2016 | global news service;health care;public health | chris hani baragwanath hospital | The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is based in Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa | null | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a page on the hospital's website | Administrators of the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, said theirs is the third-largest in the world. Today, the hospital has 2,888 useable beds. A hospital in Belgrade, Serbia, has 3,470. The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is large, but not as large as it believes. We rate this statement . |
895 | 1 | You can't read a speech by George Washington . . . without hearing him reference God, the Almighty. | April 8, 2009 | pundits;religion | rush limbaugh | Rush Limbaugh is a conservative radio talk show host. His website describes him as "America's Truth Detector; the Doctor of Democracy; the Most Dangerous Man in America; the All-Knowing, All-Sensing, All-Everything Maha Rushie; defender of motherhood, protector of fatherhood and an all-around good guy." | national | 0 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 17 | 12 | a radio broadcast | "They were sort of products of the 18th century Enlightenment," said John Ferling, a retired professor at the University of West Georgia whose book, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon , is due to be published in May. "They thought in terms of there being a Supreme Creator who created life and the universe but then didn't intrude in things from that point on." So Washington wasn't nearly the devout Christian that Limbaugh suggested he was and he did not refer to God in all his speeches as the talk show host claimed. We find Limbaugh's is . |
15,548 | 1 | 2,000 illegal aliens were arrested by ICE in 2017 for murders committed here in the United States! | December 31, 2018 | immigration;fake news;facebook fact-checks | viral image | Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine. | null | 4 | 13 | 35 | 53 | 711 | 331 | a post on Facebook | This Facebook post claims that in 2017, ICE arrested 2,000 undocumented immigrants for murder. The number appears to stem from an ICE report detailing how many immigrants the agency arrested for being in the country illegally in fiscal year 2018. But it is being misinterpreted and misused. According to the report, those arrested for immigration offenses had a combined 2,028 homicide charges and convictions in their records. But those offenses could have been accumulated over many years — not just 2017 — and didn’t necessarily happen the same year ICE arrested these people. In addition, a homicide could be a murder, but it could also be an accidental killing. Finally, ICE didn’t pick any of these folks up for murder; it picked them up for being in violation of the nation’s immigration laws. We rate this . |
4,443 | 3 | Even a 100 percent tax on millionaires would only fund four months of government operations, failing to seriously address budget deficits and debt. | October 9, 2011 | deficit;federal budget;taxes | paul ryan | U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R.-Wis., became Speaker of the House in 2015 and served until his retirement in January 2019. Ryan was elected to represent southern Wisconsin in Congress in 1998 and for part of his tenure chaired the House Budget Committee. He was Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election. He did not seek re-election in 2018. | wisconsin | 11 | 16 | 24 | 23 | 7 | 5 | a television interview | Newer data tells a bit different story, even while somewhat bolstering Ryan’s point. But he misfires in suggesting a limited budget impact from such a hypothetical tax. In the year he chose, the federal deficit would have been wiped out. So, Ryan is close to the mark on his math but the details work against his overall point. We rate his . |
16,435 | 1 | Workers have begun removing spires of Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom ahead of Hurricane Dorian. | August 29, 2019 | weather;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | Using FotoForensics, a visual analysis tool, we were able to isolate the manipulation. The tool results indicate that someone cloned part of the blue sky and placed it over part of the castle spire on the left-hand side. The right-hand spire appears to have been removed altogether. The Facebook post is not accurate. We rate it . |
13,670 | 3 | At the end of 2016, there were 23 percent fewer federal prosecutions than in 2011, so (prosecutors) looked at this scourge (opioid deaths) and they let it go by. | August 8, 2017 | drugs;crime | donald trump | Donald Trump is the former president of the United States. He was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice." Trump's statements were awarded PolitiFact's 2015, 2017 and 2019 Lie of the Year. In November 2022, he announced he would run for president in 2024. | florida | 36 | 85 | 120 | 194 | 360 | 179 | a briefing on opioids | Trump said "at the end of 2016, there were 23 percent fewer federal prosecutions than in 2011, so (prosecutors) looked at this surge and they let it go by." Trump made the statement in the context of rising opioid overdose deaths. An analysis of data shows that federal drug charges overall declined 23 percent between 2011 and 2016. But that data doesn’t tell us anything about opioid cases specifically. Where Trump misses the mark is his suggestion that the drop in prosecutions is to blame for the opioid epidemic, which started before Obama’s tenure and then grew worse during his presidency. Obama could have done more earlier to address the epidemic, experts said, but there is no that his strategy on federal drug prosecutions led to a spike in opioid overdose deaths. We rate this . |
133 | 3 | Sen. Obama "made the very argument he is now criticizing back in November 2006. | October 25, 2007 | foreign policy | hillary clinton | Hillary Clinton was the 2016 Democratic nominee for president. She served as U.S. Secretary of State during the first four years of the Obama administration. She is formerly a U.S. senator from New York, first elected in 2000. She was a candidate for president in 2008. She previously served as first lady when her husband, Bill Clinton, served two terms as president. She was born in Chicago in 1947, graduated from Wellesley College and earned a law degree at Yale Law School. She and her husband have one daughter. | national | 72 | 76 | 70 | 43 | 31 | 9 | null | After that, he says the reduced forces in Iraq would still have a role to play in sending a message to Iran and Syria. But it's an exagerration to say that he has dramatically switched positions. The Clinton campaign is right when it asserts that there is little difference between Clinton and Obama on Iran policy. Both advocate aggressive diplomacy and economic sanctions, and both say a military strategy cannot be ruled out. But selectively quoting Obama from the November speech is a weak point for this argument, so we rate this . |
13,631 | 3 | I'm one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money. | March 31, 2017 | campaign finance;congress;ethics;history | beto o'rourke | Beto O’Rourke is a former representative of Texas’s 16th Congressional District. He represented the district from 2013 until 2019, when he gave up his seat to run a senate campaign against incumbent Ted Cruz, which O’Rourke lost. He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Columbia University. In 2019, he ran for the Democratic nomination for president. | texas | 7 | 11 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Dallas | O’Rourke said: "I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money." Unsaid: no candidate can take corporate cash; that’s illegal. Otherwise, we found, O’Rourke was one of at least five (not two) House incumbents to keep no PAC contributions in the run-up to the 2016 elections. He also hasn’t accepted PAC aid into 2017 though he drew on about $297,000 in PAC donations in his House bids of 2012 and 2014--actions not recapped in his Dallas call for contributions. We rate this . – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. |
1,125 | 4 | In the 1950s, "A lot of people got rich — and they had to pay a top tax rate of 90 percent. | October 2, 2009 | taxes | michael moore | Michael Moore directed the movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" and is a well-known documentary filmmaker. His movies includes "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9/11," and "Sicko." He won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2002 with "Bowling for Columbine," and he was a nominee in 2007 for "Sicko." Michael Moore's Web site is www.MichaelMoore.com. | national | 2 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 0 | his movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" | The top marginal tax rates paid by the richest Americans were far higher in the 1950s than they are now. In 2009, the top marginal rate was 35 percent on income above $372,958. And although Moore didn't use the term "marginal tax rate," he did say "top tax rate." People without CPAs might that for a person's average tax rate (it's not), but it's valid wording. And so we rule this one . |
20,183 | 1 | Pfizer CEO has not yet had vaccine. | August 22, 2021 | facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | an Instagram post | Some social media accounts posted that news as if it was new. It wasn’t. Neither is this interview. Bourla is vaccinated against COVID-19. We rate this post . |
6,609 | 3 | Women in Barack Obama's White House are earning less than men. | October 26, 2012 | jobs;women | mitt romney | Mitt Romney is a U.S. senator from Utah. He ran for president in 2012 as the Republican nominee, losing to incumbent President Barack Obama. Prior to that, Romney served one term as governor of Massachusetts, elected to the post in 2002. He was born in 1947 in Michigan, where his father was governor from 1963 to 1969. Romney graduated from Brigham Young University and received both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard University. Romney helped found the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984, which launched or rebuilt such companies as Staples and Dominos Pizza. Romney managed the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City from 1999-2002. He ran for president in 2008 but lost the Republican nomination. He and his wife, Ann, have five sons, Tagg, Craig, Matt, Ben and Josh. | national | 31 | 33 | 58 | 35 | 32 | 19 | a campaign mailer | In the broadest sense, the Romney campaign is on solid ground when it says that "women in Barack Obama's White House are earning less than men." But the closer you look at the data, the less striking this conclusion becomes. First, the Obama White House has more equitable pay rates than the economy as a whole. And second, when you look at employees who have the same titles, only a small fraction of women are out-earned by men, a difference that might be explainable by differences in experience and longevity rather than discrimination. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it . |
11,988 | 5 | Over the last six years, the state of Illinois spent about $320 million on illegal immigrants. | April 20, 2016 | immigration;health care | bill mitchell | Rep. Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) is an Illinois state representative for the 101st district. | illinois | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | a speech | Mitchell claimed that the state of Illinois spent $320 million on health care for illegal immigrants over the past six years. The state’s independent audit reports on the All Kids program from 2009 to 2014 support his . There’s no direct or research that shows Mitchell failed to mention any important unseen benefits of the program that would significantly change the context of his argument. We rate this . |
11,775 | 1 | California's Capitol building is "second only to Disneyland," among visitor sites in the state. | April 7, 2016 | tourism | richard pan | Richard Pan is a pediatrician and serves in the California State Senate representing the Sacramento region. He is a Democrat. | california | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | remarks at a Capitol budget hearing | State Sen. Richard Pan said the state Capitol is "second only to Disneyland" in visitors in California. This center of state government draws about a bit more than one million annually. But that’s peanuts compared with Yosemite, the San Diego Zoo or Monterey Bay Aquarium, which attract between two and four times as many per year. A state spokesman said the about the Capitol is "an old wives’ tale." If it ever was correct, it’s long outdated and now just flat out . We rate that part of the senator’s statement . – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/2e813aa3-54dd-4d3b-9d6d-493ac130feab |
5,254 | 2 | Every 1 percent increase in the cost of health insurance today causes about 30,000 Georgians to be uninsured. | March 7, 2012 | health care | judson hill | Judson Hill is a Republican state senator from Marietta. | georgia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | a speech | That’s based on 3 percent of Americans living in Georgia. Considering the recession’s impact in Georgia and that a larger percentage of Georgians were uninsured between 2008 and 2010, maybe the total is higher. Custer, the Georgia State expert, believes Hill is close with his estimate. We’re a little more skeptical about the senator’s math. Our rating: . |
23,159 | 1 | Pfizer funneled $12 million to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as part of a deal to promote mRNA COVID jabs to the American public. | June 6, 2023 | health care;facebook fact-checks;coronavirus | instagram posts | Posters on Instagram, where people share photos and graphics and sometimes add filters. | null | 3 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 405 | 140 | a screenshot on Instagram | An Instagram post claimed that "Pfizer funneled $12 million to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as part of a deal to promote mRNA COVID jabs to the American public." The post credited anti-vaccination advocate and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the ’s source. That’s a distortion of Kennedy’s comments, but Kennedy did not provide any information to back up a related assertion — that Pfizer contributes $10 million toward Cooper’s salary. A spokesperson for his campaign said the statement was not meant to be taken literally. A spokesperson for CNN called his remarks "fabricated and ." We rate this . |
19,512 | 1 | Says Rachel Levine was Time magazine's "Woman of the Year. | March 29, 2021 | sexuality;facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| null | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a Facebook post | (Until 1999, the magazine named a "Man of the Year.") Levine was not spotlighted on one of those Time covers, either. Time magazine covers frequently crop up on Facebook and other social media platforms. They have targeted former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama in the past. We rate this Facebook post . |
6,667 | 1 | Clayton County offers the lowest operating millage rate in Metro Atlanta. | November 2, 2012 | taxes | clayton county government | Clayton County government serves about 250,000 residents and has a five-member board of commissioners. The county seat is Jonesboro, located approximately 20 miles south of Atlanta. | georgia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a web post | We checked on Monday and it was gone. In closing, the county’s website claimed it had the lowest operating millage rate in metro Atlanta. That information, the county now says, was based on outdated information and was going to be removed. Kudos to Clayton for correcting the information. The was . |
1,676 | 4 | California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, a Republican, "gave $10,000 to Al Gore's recount" effort in 2000. | May 14, 2010 | campaign finance;candidate biography;elections;message machine 2010 | meg whitman | Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay and the 2010 Republican gubernatorial nominee in California. Largely self-financing her campaign, Whitman lost the general election to then-Attorney General Jerry Brown. | national | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | a campaign commercial | Ultimately, there is no way to prove with any certainty whether Steve Poizner was simply writing a check for his wife, as he suggests. Experts tell us it could have happened that way. But under the law, the fact that he signed the check officially makes the donation his, and the listing of his employer, rather than his wife's, on the disclosure form provides additional that he was the intended donor. So while the case isn't conclusive, its strongly suggestive. We rate the Whitman campaign's . |
18,696 | 1 | Says Joe Biden had an iPad at his podium during the debate. | October 22, 2020 | facebook fact-checks | facebook posts | Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
| national | 24 | 50 | 108 | 245 | 1,410 | 570 | a post on Facebook | Then around the 1:58:00 mark, Biden can be seen grabbing what looks like pieces of paper and a pen and leaving the stage with his wife, Jill Biden. Contrary to what the narrator in the Facebook video says, around the 1:58:08 mark, someone approaches Trump’s podium and removes a notepad with a brown, cardboard back. Another person then approaches the vice president’s podium and removes an identical notepad. There is nothing in the video to suggest that either person picked up an iPad. We rate this . |
21,929 | 1 | Says President Joe Biden "recently said that 48.8% of Wisconsin voters are threats to democracy. | September 5, 2022 | elections;wisconsin | republican governors association | the gubernatorial campaign arm of the Republican Party. | national | 0 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Email | The Republican Governors Association claimed that Biden "recently said that 48.8% of Wisconsin voters are threats to democracy." But the president clearly separated Republicans who embrace Trump’s far-right, election-denial positions from mainstream Republicans, who still may have cast a vote for Trump in 2020. And in Wisconsin, recent polling shows that there is not uniform support for Trump or his views, even among Republicans. That would mean Biden’s "MAGA Republicans" comment wouldn’t refer to every Wisconsinite who voted Republican in the last election. We rate this . |
7,080 | 1 | The fiscal cliff agreement was "the largest tax increase in history. | March 3, 2013 | federal budget;health care;taxes | paul ryan | U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R.-Wis., became Speaker of the House in 2015 and served until his retirement in January 2019. Ryan was elected to represent southern Wisconsin in Congress in 1998 and for part of his tenure chaired the House Budget Committee. He was Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election. He did not seek re-election in 2018. | wisconsin | 11 | 16 | 24 | 23 | 7 | 5 | an interview | William McBride of the business-backed Tax Foundation said that in "nominal dollar terms," the fiscal cliff tax hike is the largest in history, but "certainly not as a share of GDP." Our rating Ryan said the fiscal cliff agreement is "the largest tax increase in history." For this type of statement, raw dollars is a virtually meaningless measure, given that it doesn’t truly compare the size of tax increases over time. And as a share of the economy, the fiscal cliff tax increase is clearly not the largest tax increase in history. We rate Ryan’s statement . |
12,068 | 0 | Unemployment numbers "are artificial numbers. These are numbers that are massaged to make the existing economy look good, to make this administration look good when, in fact, it's a total disaster. | July 24, 2016 | economy;elections;history;jobs;labor;workers | donald trump jr. | Donald Trump Jr. is the son of President Donald Trump and his former wife Ivana Trump. | national | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 6 | an interview on CNN | Trump Jr. said that unemployment numbers "are artificial numbers. These are numbers that are massaged to make the existing economy look good, to make this administration look good when, in fact, it's a total disaster." The economists with whom we spoke said Trump is to question the integrity of the federal unemployment data. The method of developing the estimates have been used for decades, their limitations are widely recognized, other economic indicators have confirmed their reliability, and there's no that they have been massaged for political purposes. Because his is in the realm of the , we rate it ! https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/5ff3b1f3-79ac-4f4e-bce9-8a10cc1ddcfa |
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