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FMD1100 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Fraudulent $75 Coupon Scheme involving Meijer Claim summaries: The Meijer supercenter chain is not giving away $75 coupons to users who like and share Facebook posts; it's a form of survey scam.
contextual information: In August 2015, a survey scam promising customers $100 off "Back to School" coupons for the Meijer hypermarket chain began circulating online. The $100 Meijer coupon scam was very similar to other schemes aimed at defrauding the customers of Target, Publix, Kroger, and Home Depot, all of which redirect users to a website where they are asked to like, share, and/or comment on the coupons, ensuring that the scams spread across social media. While each of these scams features slight variations, they typically redirect users to survey sites where they are asked to provide personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and credit card numbers. The Better Business Bureau offers these three tips to identify scams on Facebook: Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos, and headers of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. On 24 August 2015, Meijer confirmed that this $100 coupon was a scam. | 0 | [
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FMD1101 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Because blaming the Muslim migrants who raped and sexually assaulted an untold number of women on New Years Eve would be politically incorrect and certainly not very hospitable A political scandal is developing in Germany as ordinary citizens wake up to the scale of the migrant crime cover-up, and the callous reaction of the mayor of Cologne to mass-sex crime on new year s eve.The Mayor of Cologne has spoken out about the attacks, but her carefully chosen words are unlikely to delight many. Rather than addressing the root causes of the violence unlimited mass migration and a totally failed system of integration the newly elected pro-migrant mayor instead blamed the victims of the sexual abuse for having failed to defend themselves against the immigrant attackers.Here is a video of the shocking chaos that took place on New Years Eve:Speaking on live television this afternoon mayor Henriette Reker, who was near-fatally stabbed in the run up to October elections by an anti mass migration campaigner, said in future women would have to be better prepared in her city to deal with migrants.She remarked: The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don t happen again. This means, they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up. For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves .What form this guidance will take is presently unclear, the mayor could take inspiration from young victim whose modest clothes protected them from the worst consequences of walking at night in areas controlled by migrant men. The woman said: Fortunately I wore a jacket and trousers. a skirt would probably have been torn away from me .Despite her words of warning towards women in the city they could prepare for more violence against them, she refuted the suggestion there was any link between the attacks and migrants, contradicting her own chief of police.An opposition council member has today sounded the alarm bell on the deteriorating state of control the local government has over the city of Cologne, and in an official letter from the council group has warned those planning to come to the famous Cologne council next month the city and the police are unable to guarantee the safety of locals and tourists .Council group leader and lawyer Judith Wolter said in her letter to the people of Cologne today: I want as a member of the Cologne City Council to submit a travel warning for the carnival time in Cologne city centre. Especially the area in and around the central station, the cathedral and the adjoining area towards the banks of the Rhine for tourists (and locals) is no longer considered even in normal times as safe. For months, there is in these areas numerous thefts, open drug dealing, robberies and harassment of all kinds Dozens of women were sexually harassed in public and there was at least one rape. Neither the city nor the police are able to guarantee in the territory described the safety of tourists and locals. Especially for women it must be assumed that a high security risk is here in the evening and night hours. At New Year s Eve there was a legal vacuum and a no-go area for women. With the climax of the Carnival season it is unfortunately expected to be a similar situation .German police have admitted to losing several urban areas to migrant gangs as so-called no-go zones, but this is possibly the first time a public square in the centre of a European city has been acknowledged by officials as having been lost to criminality, and out of the control of police at night.News of the attacks was suppressed for days, with just short reports of isolated incidents in Cologne city centre making it to local outlets on New Year s Day.The Kolnifsche Rundschau described the scene at the railways station as largely peaceful and made no effort to describe those who attacked the young women, one of which told press she had fingers on every orifice after she was stripped near naked.Only after nearly 100 victims of assault and abuse came forwards to police, and stories of attacks started circulating on social media did the truth of the situation start to slowly emerge, forcing local police to hold a press conference on Monday afternoon.Despite the chief of police admitting the enormous scale of sexual assault and confirming the attackers were of North African and Arab origin, much of the mainstream media is still in damage control mode, either trying to shift the focus from migrants, or avoiding the events completely. Via: Breitbart News | 0 | [
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FMD1102 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Deportations of undocumented Mexican migrants in the United States may start rising when President-elect Donald Trump takes office but the process will not begin soon, Mexico’s deputy interior minister for migration said on Wednesday. Trump surged to victory early on Wednesday morning after upsetting pollsters’ predictions to beat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and seize the White House in a campaign that sent the world into uncertainty. The impact of his win was particularly acute in Mexico, where the beleaguered peso currency fell about 10 percent in the aftermath of the vote. Trump, who will be inaugurated Jan. 20, has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, fence off Mexico with a border wall and threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement, putting in danger billions of dollars in cross-border trade. “It may well be that deportations of the estimated 6 million undocumented Mexicans increase but we don’t think it will be a measure that will take place soon or happen quickly,†Humberto Roque Villanueva, the deputy interior minister for migration, told Reuters in an interview. “The Mexicans over there are useful to the North American economy and President Trump, the president-elect, will need to recognize the economic effects of such a campaign promise,†he said. Roque Villanueva also said Mexico stands ready to lobby the U.S. Congress and use all legal means possible to block Trump’s plan for impounding remittances so that Mexico ends up paying for his proposed wall on the southern U.S. border. “They wouldn’t be retaliatory measures. They would be legal responses,†he said. “We’ll be ready for all the craziness.†| 1 | [
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FMD1103 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — In the middle of her dynamic show at the Verizon Center here on Friday, Amy Schumer swigged from a bottle of wine like a movie pirate and asked, “Can I just tell you guys all my secrets?†Giving an arena show the intimate feel of a sleepover requires the presence of a star, and Ms. Schumer doesn’t pretend she isn’t one. “It’s been an insane year,†she said early on. “I’ve gotten very rich, famous and humble. †When she soberly brings up her “passion project,†she’s referring to her appearance in those ubiquitous Bud Light ads. “People say you sold out for money,†she said midstride, before stopping and flashing a look that announced: Duh. Ms. Schumer was a gleefully raunchy comic who found a pointed feminist voice on her Comedy Central sketch show “Inside Amy Schumer. †But in her new global tour, which comes to Madison Square Garden next month, she has slyly found an arena language to match her evolving reputation. Ms. Schumer smuggles social commentary about gender into broad bits. At one point on Friday, she lay down onstage, took off her high heels and invited a guy in the audience to try them on. After she flirted with him onstage, he stepped into the shoes and teetered awkwardly. Then she ordered him to walk around like she had, which he tried to do, uneasily. A man stumbling in woman’s shoes is an easy joke, but this bit of crowd work evoked the old line about Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, except backward and in heels. It got a huge response, but around me, the women laughed louder. The most significant shift in her is one of perspective. Her early work used the voice of a blinkered, entitled party girl who often said dumb and offensive things, many of which were false. And yet there were moments when a different voice interrupted for a punch line that broke the fourth wall, like the : “My best friend is black … in this story. †The early criticism of Ms. Schumer’s work came from comedy snobs who dismissed her jokes as character comedy, shorthand for material rooted in a fake persona, an approach deemed by some to be inferior to in your own personal voice. This distinction between character and personal comedy is rooted in naïve notions about the authenticity of certain kinds of a belief as simplistic as the one that indie are more real than pop stars. But there is some truth (and usefulness) in these aesthetic categories, particularly when it comes to describing Ms. Schumer’s evolution. In her new when Ms. Schumer says something happened to her, she wants you to believe it. She also doesn’t play dumb. She speaks in a confident, savvy voice that doesn’t sound that different than the one you might read in interviews with her. This dovetails with the politics of her comedy, which offers a sustained critique of how the media and culture make women feel insecure and apologetic. You might say Ms. Schumer has merely changed rude personas, replacing the ditsy girl with that of the arrogant celebrity. If so, she’s still keeping a firm eye on her audience’s sympathies. Her harshest gibes are for famous people (Gwyneth Paltrow, the Kardashians) who market fantasies of perfection masked as something more down to earth. Ms. Schumer positions herself as a star so relatable she’s not going to try to trick you into thinking she’s relatable. While she delivered some topical jokes (a funny about gun laws, a scene about meeting Hillary Clinton, for whom she appeared at a before the show) the content of her material — much of it new, some repurposed — could still be described by the title of her first special: “Mostly Sex Stuff. †She still favors a jaunty style of joke that depends on pinpoint pauses. “I’m going to make him wait,†she says about sex on a first date, waiting a beat. “All through dinner. †Pivot, deepening voice: “We didn’t go to dinner. †Most of her laughs, however, are earned not from concise jokes but detailed stories, punched up by an animated performance style. Ms. Schumer has long cut sour material with a sweet glance, but now she uses a more theatrical vocabulary for such incongruities. When she describes telling her boyfriend that she is finished performing oral sex, she employs the cheery voice of a game show host. And when she gets really dirty, Ms. Schumer pairs jokes with pantomimes of tap dancing or a tip of a cap accompanied by a . Ms. Schumer, who made the leap to movies last year with “Trainwreck,†makes a point of saying is her favorite thing, but her comedy, like that of Louis C. K. increasingly leans on acting chops. She moves from prim scold to maniac princess to aggression with alacrity — and without ever seeming as if she’s working too hard. She makes hustle look effortless. Yet after a breakthrough 2015, Ms. Schumer’s stardom has shifted into a slightly precarious position. She remains at the center of pop culture — her book, “The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo,†is on the lists — but often for reasons peripheral to her work. She’s become a fixture on the online controversy circuit, garnering headlines not for the last season of her sketch show, but for accusations that she stole jokes (which she denies) and for criticism of comments about rape from one of her TV show’s writers. Such are part of being a famous and provocative comic today. And she has proved herself canny at negotiating the digital world, creating her own viral moments by releasing a clip of her handling a heckler or posting a photo on Instagram skewering double standards in publishing. Still, Ms. Schumer repeatedly called herself an awful famous person onstage here. “I say what I mean,†she said, “so I probably won’t be able to do this much longer. †It’s unclear exactly what she meant, but it’s the kind of intriguing aside that makes you sit forward in your chair. In comedy, meaning what you say doesn’t beat saying it in a meaningful way. | 1 | [
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FMD1104 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: KABUL, Afghanistan — Approximately 300 United States Marines will return this spring to help fight a resurgent Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the site of a yearslong bloody campaign, American officials in Afghanistan said on Saturday. An American military spokesman in Kabul said the Marines would replace an Army unit stationed in Helmand, and would offer training and advice to members of the Afghan military and the national police. “The Marine rotation is to replace soldiers currently here conducting the train, advise and assist mission,†said Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for United States forces in Afghanistan. “We’re very pleased that the Marines will rotate in, as they have tremendous institutional history in the region. †The Marines were last in Helmand, a hotbed of Taliban fighters and poppy cultivation, in October 2014. Since then, Afghan forces, suffering from leadership woes and plagued by corruption, have struggled to hold territory, with district after district falling to the Taliban. For months now, the insurgents have been at the gates of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. The Afghan military welcomed the news of the Marines’ return. “We have been asking our foreign counterparts in security meetings to increase the level of their troops in Helmand Province to help us on the battlefields,†said Shakil Ahmad, an Afghan Army spokesman. Mr. Ahmad said the security situation in region was rapidly deteriorating. The Taliban appeared unfazed by the news of the Marines’ return. “Our mujahedeen continued their progress in the presence of tens of thousands of Americans and other invading forces,†said Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman. “A few hundred other soldiers won’t become an obstacle on the way of our progress. †Fewer than 8, 400 American troops are currently in Afghanistan, deployed either through NATO to train Afghan forces or as part of a smaller American counterterrorism mission. President Obama declared the United States combat mission in Afghanistan over in December 2014. But in the past year, as violence has spread across the country, the line for the American military between consulting and fighting has increasingly blurred. At the peak of a troop surge in 2011, there were about 20, 000 Marines fighting across Helmand alongside thousands of British soldiers. Western troops fought the Taliban village to village, and tried to win civilians’ hearts and minds by doling out cash for bridges and roads. The Taliban recently told Lashkar Gah residents to store food items, warning that they would once again cut off Helmand’s main highway to the regional economic hub, Kandahar Province. Unlike in the past, fighting between government troops and the Taliban has not diminished with the coming of this year’s winter. Many fear that when fighting intensifies in the spring, the Taliban will be starting from a position of strength around several provincial capitals. Ensuring that Afghan leaders take advantage of the winter to improve leadership and root out corruption will be critical to how they tackle Taliban pressure in the spring, American officials said. | 1 | [
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FMD1105 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Dozens of Illinois social service providers, starved of cash by the state’s long-running budget stalemate, sued Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and six statewide agencies on Wednesday, seeking more than $100 million for unpaid work since July. The plaintiffs, who provide services for sex-abuse victims, the homeless, senior citizens and at-risk youth, are suffering “acute financial hardship†as a result of the unresolved budget fight, according to the lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court. It is the latest attempt at judicial relief by groups hurt by the state’s record-setting, 11-month budget impasse between the Republican governor and Democrats controlling the legislature. The coalition of 64 organizations, calling itself Pay Now Illinois, contended that Rauner’s June 2015 veto of appropriation bills amounted to an unlawful impairment of the their constitutional right to seek a legal remedy for non-payment by the state of their various contracts. “We’ve had to deal with this uncertainty now for the 11th month, over 300 days, without being paid,†said Andrea Durbin, chairwoman of Illinois Pay Now. “We’re seeking to be paid in full for the work we’ve done.†Rauner’s office expressed empathy but urged state lawmakers to approve a spending plan. “While we understand that frustration is driving many worthwhile organizations to seek solutions anywhere, including the courts, the only solution is for the General Assembly to pass a balanced, reform-oriented budget as soon as possible,†Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. In another budget-related development, a plan to change how Illinois taxes its residents and businesses stalled in the House of Representatives after a successful lobbying push by Rauner. The proposed constitutional amendment would have stricken the state’s flat income-tax rates and allowed state lawmakers to impose new, multi-tiered tax rates tied to an individual or company’s level of income. Supporters said it would raise an additional $1.9 billion annually for the state. But facing a Wednesday deadline to pass the House, one of the measure’s sponsors, State Representative Christian Mitchell, said lobbying by the governor’s office convinced up to five Republicans whose backing was needed for passage to withdraw their tentative support. “It’s disappointing because this could have helped us with our budget crisis,†Mitchell, a Chicago Democrat, told Reuters. Rauner’s administration said the measure would cost the state 20,000 jobs in four years and lead to a migration of 43,000 high wage earners from Illinois. | 1 | [
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FMD1106 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The speech from 2001 given by Sotomayor resurfaces following Trump's remarks regarding the Mexican heritage of a judge. Claim summaries: Several outlets attempted to defend Donald Trump's comments about a "Mexican" judge by invoking a 2001 speech given by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
contextual information: In June 2016, several pundits misquoted, paraphrased, or presented incomplete or inaccurate versions of a 2001 speech delivered by Sonia Sotomayor at the University of California in an attempt to defend Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's recent comments about U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. In an interview with CNN, Trump stated that Curiel should recuse himself from a case he was overseeing against the now-defunct Trump University, claiming that Curiel may not be able to give him a fair trial due to his Mexican heritage. The presumptive GOP nominee asserted that his plan to build a massive wall along the U.S. border with Mexico had resulted in a conflict of interest for Curiel in the case involving Trump's for-profit university. "He's proud of his heritage, OK? I'm building a wall," Trump told Tapper. "He's a Mexican. We're building a wall between here and Mexico," he added. Tapper, however, pointed out that Curiel was born in Indiana. "We live in a society that's very pro-Mexico, and that's fine. That's all fine," Trump said at another point in the interview. "But I think he should recuse himself." "Because he's a Latino?" Tapper asked. "I'm building a wall," Trump maintained. While several Republicans have denounced Trump's statements (House Speaker Paul Ryan called it "textbook racism"), others have used Sotomayor's speech to come to his defense. For instance, television personality Eric Bolling equated Sotomayor's comments with those made by Trump: "textbook racism." Justice Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would often make, often more than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life. Better conclusion, not a different conclusion, a better conclusion." She went on to say that our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. "She's basically saying her heritage will determine how she will find cases, not the merits of the case, but what her experiences are." Pundit Ann Coulter criticized Paul Ryan on Twitter, questioning why the House Speaker did not call Sotomayor a "textbook racist." In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor delivered the annual "Olmos Memorial Lecture" at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Sotomayor, who was at that point an appeals court judge, took issue with a quote attributed to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging." Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. "I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." While Sotomayor's speech centered on the idea that her experiences as a Latina woman influenced her thought process, she never said, as insinuated by Bolling, that her heritage—rather than the merits of the case—would determine her decisions. Instead, Sotomayor stated that her heritage does not limit her ability to understand the values or needs of people from different backgrounds: "I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable." As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues, including Brown. However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Others simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference will exist due to the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. "My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage." This is not the first time that Sotomayor's 2001 speech has been scrutinized. In 2009, during Sotomayor's confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court, the soon-to-be justice clarified her comments: "I was trying to inspire (students) to believe their experiences would enrich the legal system," Sotomayor said. "I was also trying to inspire them to believe they could become anything they wanted to become, just as I have." She stated that the context of her words created a misunderstanding. "I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any ethnic, racial, or gender group has an advantage in sound judging," she said. "I do believe every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experience." Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor did deliver a speech in 2001 in which she talked about how her experience as a Latina woman could influence her thought process, as everyone has different life experiences to draw from. However, unlike the sentiment expressed by Donald Trump in his comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, Sotomayor argued that diversity was essential to the progress of law. | 2 | [
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FMD1107 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: X Dear Reader! VDARE.com isn’t just a website. We are the voice of the Historic American Nation . Our goal is nothing less than to develop a full spectrum media network to speak up for our people during this difficult time for our country. Part of that means building institutions which are offline and in the real world. There’s something about a paper journal that suggests permanence, which inclines people to take it more seriously. And because the news cycle is so fast, some of the most important, substantial, and potentially influential writings fall through the cracks and don’t get the attention they deserve. For that reason, we’re proud to announce the creation of VDARE QUARTERLY, a print journal featuring the best material from our webzine. This will replace our yearly anthologies and ensure that the information and analysis you really don't want to miss will get in front of you as quickly as possible. However, we need your help. For us to unveil this exciting new product we need 600 magazines ordered to cover the print expenses. Fill out the form below to instantly receive a digital copy of VDARE QUARTERLY, and when we have the number of necessary subscribers it will go to print and your exclusive paper copy will ship directly to you! Depending on the package you choose, you will receive multiple paper copies (provided enough readers support the community effort). We encourage you to pass these around – they serve as an excellent gift for friends and family, while at the same time helping to build our community. VDARE QUARTERLY is aesthetically pleasing as well as ideologically powerful. But this isn’t just a service we are providing. VDARE QUARTERLY is a tangible manifestation of your investment in us, and in our country. A subscription is one of the most effective ways you can help us build our media network, expand our influence, and build the kind of movement we will need to take back our country and ensure our children have a recognizable America.
We count on your support! Yours sincerely, Peter Brimelow, Editor of VDARE.com VDARE QUARTERLY countdown: 167 already ordered, 433 still to go | 0 | [
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FMD1108 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Dem. candidate for Georgia congressional seat @ossoff: Not an issue I don t live in district, can t vote for myself https://t.co/RcX3MNqMTD New Day (@NewDay) April 18, 2017Democrats used the anger and fury of their progressive base, including hate-filled Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson, to stir up emotions in voters as a way to encourage them to the show up at the polls in Georgia yesterday. They failed Listen to disgusting Hollywood actor/radical activist Samuel L. Jackson tell voters in a state where he doesn t even live to go vote vote for the Democratic Party. STOP Donald Trump, the man who encourages racial and religious discrimination and sexism. Remember what happened the last time people stayed home. We got stuck with Trump! We have to channel the great vengeance and fury that we have for this administration into votes at the ballot box. Ossoff led an 18-candidate field of Republicans, Democrats and independents, the entire slate placed on a single ballot to choose a successor to Republican Tom Price, who resigned to join Trump s administration as health secretary.But Ossoff fell just shy of the majority required to claim Georgia s 6th Congressional District outright, opening the door to Handel, who finished a distant second but ahead of a gaggle of Republican contenders.The investigative filmmaker and former congressional staffer received 48.1 per cent of the vote on Tuesday he needed 50 per cent to avoid a runoff. Handel, meanwhile, received 19.8 per cent of the vote.The rest of the vote was split between several other Democrats and Republicans, as well as two Independents.Here s what President Trump had to say on Twitter about the Democrats failed efforts to embarrass him:Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidates, BIG "R" win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 19, 2017Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel! It is now Hollywood vs. Georgia on June 20th. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 19, 2017In total, Democrats received 49 per cent of the vote, Republicans received 51 per cent of the vote. Daily MailIf Republicans are going to maintain their majority in the House and Senate, perhaps they need to take a few pages from the Democratic playbook. The Democrats are fighting for their lives this is no time for the Republicans to sit back and take their majority for granted.Republican resources were split between eleven Republican contenders. The most prolific fundraising candidate among them raised less than $500,000, not even ten percent of the amount Ossoff raised.The Republican establishment, initially caught flat-footed, ended up spending over $5 million in advertising against Ossoff in the last weeks of the campaign, but it never caught up in the all-important ground game, which typically consists of a positive voter engagement on behalf of a single specific candidate rather than a negative attack on a single candidate.In retrospect, Republicans failed to recognize the unique opportunity the jungle primary provided Democrats who focused all their support behind one candidate. Republican leadership could have made a similar choice from among their eleven candidates, but did not do so. They did, in the end, get some help from the Republican establishment in Washington. Republicans in Georgia sounded the alarm several weeks ago, prompting $2 million in spending from the NRCC to help boost Republican turnout and counter Democrats energy. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House leadership, also dumped in $3 million of its own money and dispatched on-the-ground staffers to the district, Politico reported.Speaker Ryan, however, who has the responsibility to support Republican candidates in the House, did not see the risk of a Democratic victory in Georgia until it was too late.In fact, he was not even in the United States on Tuesday. Instead, he was in Europe, leading a bi-partisan Congressional delegation.For entire story: Breitbart | 0 | [
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FMD1109 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Reductions in public broadcasting funding in 2005 Claim summaries: Would legislation currently under consideration substantially cut federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
contextual information: Claim: Legislation currently under consideration would cut $100 million in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Status: Was true; proposal has been defeated. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005] You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.) Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS: https://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/ A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year—$100 million—and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships. Already, 300,000 people have signed the petition. Can you help us reach 400,000 signatures today? https://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/ Origins: Although a long-outdated piece decrying supposed upcoming cuts in funding for the NEA, NPR, PBS, and Sesame Street has been circulating for years (it addressed legislation already voted upon way back in 1995), recent congressional efforts have brought the issue to public attention again. In June 2005, the House Appropriations Committee voted to sharply reduce federal financial support for public broadcasting. If this budgetary plan were approved, it would eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), money which currently makes up 15% of the funding for public broadcasting. As the Washington Post reported: A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur," and "Postcards From Buster." In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which passes federal funds to public broadcasters, starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million. In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue. The House measure also cuts support for a variety of smaller projects, such as a $39.6 million public TV satellite distribution network and a $39.4 million program that helps public stations update their analog TV signals to digital format. Although this legislation, if approved, would not (as claimed in older petitions) affect funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), it would obviously have a significant impact on public broadcasting outlets, which would have to turn to other sources to try to make up the lost revenue. On 23 June 2005, the House of Representatives decided, by a 284-140 vote, to rescind the House Appropriations Committee's proposed $100 million cut in federal funds from the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Other areas of public broadcasting, however, may still face budget reductions if proposed funding cuts are not overturned: But Elmo and Big Bird remain at risk. The House did not restore all of the public broadcasting funding cuts proposed for 2006. Although yesterday's amendment would bump CPB's general budget back to $400 million, the 2005 funding level, an additional $102.4 million that had been cut from separate public broadcasting programs was not restored. That money underwrites the production of such PBS children's programs as "Sesame Street," "Arthur," and "Postcards From Buster." The money that would be cut also pays for satellite technology, basic equipment purchases, and a federal mandate program to convert public TV stations from analog transmission to digital signal technology. Last updated: 24 June 2005 Sources: Farhi, Paul. "Public Broadcasting Targeted by House." The Washington Post. 10 June 2005 (p. A1). Gold, Matea and Jube Shiver. "Public Broadcasting Funds May Be Halved." Los Angeles Times. 17 June 2005 (p. A28). Murray, Shailagh and Paul Farhi. "House Vote Spares Public Broadcasting Funds." The Washington Post. 24 June 2005 (p. A6). Taylor, Andrew. "House Rescinds Proposed Cut in Federal Support of Public Broadcasting." Associated Press. 23 June 2005. | 1 | [
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FMD1110 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump lost California by a wide margin in November. Yet the state was crucial to his surprise victory overall — thanks to the large number of Californians on his team, and to the specific issues he highlighted on the trail. [A new profile by Scott Lucas of Politico, “How California Gave Us Trumpism,†highlights these factors — as well as the unique role played by Breitbart California in coverage of the shocking murder of Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015: The signal California moment for the marriage of Claremont constitutionalism and Breitbart spectacle came in July 2015, not long after Trump had launched his presidential campaign. On that day, Juan Francisco an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been deported five times, allegedly fired three shots from a handgun while walking along the waterfront in San Francisco. One of those bullets ricocheted off the pavement and struck a passerby named Kathryn Steinle in the back. She died two hours later in a nearby hospital. Breitbart feasted on the story, which it depicted as the ultimate proof of California’s decline and, more broadly, the grievous consequences of unconstitutional immigration run amok. San Francisco’s city leaders were criticized for prioritizing sanctuary city policies in a play for Latino votes, rather than carrying out their basic public safety functions. Mass immigration, the erosion of constitutional norms and liberal politicians all played a role in Steinle’s death, Breitbart argued. From “Unchecked Immigration: A Greater Threat to The USA Than ISIS†and “SF Supervisors Refuse to Answer Questions About Steinle’s Death,†the site published more than 100 news and opinion articles about Steinle’s death. On the campaign trail, Trump quickly held up the incident as the epitome of a broken immigration system. “My heartfelt condolences to the family of Kathryn Steinle. Very, very sad!†the candidate tweeted days after the killing, adding “We need a wall!†Less than a week later, Breitbart News reported that Trump had surged in a poll of its readers, climbing to second place in the GOP primary field, behind Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “Trump’s message about illegal immigration may resonate even more†after the shooting, the site reported, presciently. Lucas correctly identifies the Kate Steinle moment as a turning point in the campaign. As Breitbart News explained in September 2016, it was Trump’s effort to highlight the plight of the victims of crimes by illegal aliens that shifted the entire Republican primary race. As “Blue State Blues: The Graph That Explains Donald Trump’s Surge†recounted: On July 10, 2015, former Florida governor Jeb Bush was the frontrunner, at 16. 3%. Donald Trump was a distant seventh, with just 6. 5% of the vote. Keep in mind that Trump had been running against illegal immigration since he launched his campaign more than three weeks before, with his infamous remarks about illegal aliens from Mexico. None of that had resonated much. And then, on July 1, Kate Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco while strolling along a pier with her father. The murderer, Juan Francisco had been deported five times before, and had been convicted of seven felonies. He later told a local journalist that he had specifically come to San Francisco because it was a “sanctuary city†that would not cooperate with federal immigration officials or enforce immigration laws. Breitbart News focused on that story in the days that followed. Breitbart California’s Michelle Moons, who had covered the protests in Murietta against illegal alien children who had surged across the Mexican border exactly a year before, wrote a series of articles about Steinle. She used her extensive sources in the law enforcement community, as well as among families who had lost loved ones to crimes by illegal aliens, to build the details of the story and place it in a broader context. That was when Trump began to show an interest in meeting with those families, who had reached out to him in the days after the Steinle murder. He met with them on July 10 in Los Angeles, and the enduring image of that event was of the Donald Trump standing silently as he listened to the families pouring out their grief. … From that moment, Trump took off in the polls, and almost never looked back. From seventh place in the RealClearPolitics average on July 10, Trump shot to first by July 19. His dramatic rise is all the more surprising given that only 7 percent of Americans called immigration the “most important problem†facing the country in a Gallup poll taken over the same period. By listening to the families, and giving them a voice, Trump was no longer speaking of illegal immigration in the abstract, but in a concrete, human way. In so doing, he connected with others who had been victimized, or ignored, by their own government on so many issues, from trade to Obamacare. That September 2016 article concluded: “The question now is whether Trump can convince enough voters by November 8 to trust him, as the victims’ families do. †Of course, we now know the answer. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential†people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 | [
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FMD1111 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Republican Party has a Roy Moore problem. Even before it came out that the judge turned Alabama Senate candidate is accused of being a child molester, he was a problem. He had been removed twice from the Alabama Supreme Court for flagrantly defying the law. Moore has said Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress. He waved a gun around on stage at a campaign rally and rode a horse to the polls in Alabama to vote for himself in the primary he would eventually win against establishment-backed interim Senator Luther Strange. Well, it seems that with all of this and then some, sane Republicans have had enough of Roy Moore. One such person is former Jeb Bush campaign strategist Tim Miller. He has a solution to his party s Roy Moore problem: Vote for the Democrat, Doug Jones, to keep Roy Moore the hell away from the United States Senate.Miller happens to be gay, so of course Moore s disgusting homophobia is a problem for him. Then there is, of course, the child molesting. In a column for the left-wing site Crooked Media entitled The Republican Case for Doug Jones, Miller says of his decision, which he calls, obvious : But here we are in the dark abyss of 2017, and in this political moment, child exploitation attempted child rape, even has become a partisan issue. President Donald Trump is even cool with it, as long as the sex predator is on his team. A comrade in genital grabbing if you will. So after Trump essentially re-endorsed Alabama s Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, this particular child predator, on Tuesday, I took what I thought was an obvious step. I donated to the other guy s campaign. But in this instance there was one wrinkle for me. The other guy, Doug Jones, is a Democrat. And I a Republican political operative have never donated to one of those before. Thus, in sharing the fact that I had made the donation on social media, I also noted that this was a first for me, even though it felt extremely obvious. Here is the tweet where Tim Miller announces his crossover:I just donated to a Democrat for the first time in my life if any of yall want to do so as well. Enough is enough. https://t.co/YlDXTXSnyJ Tim Miller (@Timodc) November 21, 2017Tim Miller is right. Roy Moore is absolutely deplorable, and should be nowhere near the United States Senate. This isn t politics, it s morals. Now, it is time for more sane, reasonable Republicans to get out there and do the unthinkable reject a child molester and endorse and donate to the man who prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan while Roy Moore was busy creeping on little girls. It s not that hard.Watch the video of Tim Miller s appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O Donnell below:Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1112 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Eighty percent of the American people support an approach (to federal budget problems) that includes revenues and includes cuts.
contextual information: As President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress continued their high-stakes standoff over raising the debt ceiling and other budget issues, Obama held a press conference to assert that he is a reasonable person. One of the main points of contention is whether an agreement should include tax increases of any kind, such as closing tax loopholes or raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans oppose raising taxes. During a press conference on July 15, 2011, Obama was asked if the negotiations would be going better if he had started making his case to the public months ago, pushing a proposal that included tax increases and spending cuts. Obama rejected the premise, stating, "You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem." He continued, "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements." While we won't weigh in on Obama's diagnosis of being dug in, we were interested in the poll numbers regarding public support for a balanced approach. The most recent poll we found largely supported Obama's statement. A Gallup poll conducted from July 7-10, 2011, posed the question this way: "As you may know, Congress can reduce the federal budget deficit by cutting spending, raising taxes, or a combination of the two. Ideally, how would you prefer to see Congress attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit: only with spending cuts, mostly with spending cuts, equally with spending cuts and tax increases, mostly with tax increases, or only with tax increases?" The answer "only spending cuts" received 20 percent. The other responses were: "mostly spending cuts," 30 percent; "equal spending cuts and tax increases," 32 percent; "mostly tax increases," 7 percent; "only tax increases," 4 percent; "unsure/other," 6 percent. We note that Obama counted in his favor people who favored only tax increases or who were unsure, so he wasn't completely accurate. If you deduct those groups, only 70 percent support the balanced approach. However, the poll did support his overall point. Other polls also showed support for Obama's statement, but not quite at an 80-percent level. A poll from Quinnipiac University conducted from July 5-11, 2011, asked: "Do you think any agreement to raise the national debt ceiling should include only spending cuts, or should it also include an increase in taxes for the wealthy and corporations?" In this case, 67 percent favored including tax increases, while 25 percent favored spending cuts only. Another 8 percent were unsure. In June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that most people, 46 percent, favored a combination of cuts and tax increases, compared with 26 percent who said cuts alone and 13 percent who said raise taxes. An ABC/Washington Post poll from April found the number was higher, at 59 percent. We reviewed polls and consulted experts a few weeks ago for a fact-check on whether people support tax increases or not. Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who studies polls on taxation, told us that polls usually show support for balanced approaches, particularly if people don't have to pay the higher taxes themselves. Generally, combinations of tax hikes and spending cuts are most popular. It seems fair to most people. Spending cuts are favored in the abstract, while tax hikes are favored as long as they don't affect individuals personally. Generally, people don't think anyone should have to pay more than a quarter of their income in total taxes, she said. Finally, a few other cautions on poll numbers: pollsters have long noted that when you ask questions with different wording, you get different results. All the polls we examined phrased the question slightly differently. A few recent polls also suggested that people find the whole debt ceiling debate confusing or that they aren't following it very closely. A Pew Research Center/Washington Post poll from May asked people how well they felt they understood what would happen if the government does not raise the federal debt limit; 47 percent said not too well or not at all well. The July Gallup poll found that 42 percent of respondents were following the issue not too closely or not at all. Returning to Obama's statement, he said, "You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts." Even the best poll doesn't show support quite that high; he would more accurately have accounted for the small numbers that support only tax increases or were unsure, putting the number at 70 percent. However, his overall point is correct: polls show most Americans support a balanced approach when given a choice between cutting spending or raising taxes. | 1 | [
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FMD1113 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday defended a social media post he made two days earlier that included an image depicting Democratic rival Hillary Clinton against a backdrop of cash and a Star of David, while Clinton called the image anti-Semitic. In a tweet on Monday, Trump said he had not meant the six-pointed star to refer to the Star of David, which is a symbol of Judaism. Rather, he said, the star could have referred to a sheriff’s badge, which is shaped similarly except for small circles at the ends of each of its six points, or a “plain star.†The presumptive Republican nominee later released a statement saying Clinton’s criticism of the image was an attempt to distract the public from “the dishonest behavior of herself and her husband.†He was referring to a heavily criticized private meeting last week between former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch as an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state nears a conclusion. His tweet came after Mic News reported on Sunday that the image attacking Clinton | 1 | [
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FMD1114 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Good morning. We’re trying something new this week: California Today, a morning update for our California readers. Tell us what you’d like to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com Across California, public transit agencies are pushing ballot measures in search of money for just about everything related to transit: new rail lines, highway widening and even pothole filling. Santa Clara County will vote in November on a sales tax to finance transportation projects. Similar measures will be on the ballot in Sacramento County and, very likely, San Diego County. Possibly several other Bay Area counties as well. Los Angeles County decided last week to put a tax on the ballot for the third time in just eight years. These small sales tax increases have become perhaps the only realistic way to pay for ambitious transportation projects, said Brian D. Taylor, a professor of urban planning at U. C. L. A. “Voters and elected officials have become very hostile to increases in fuel taxes,†he said. In 2008, voters in Los Angeles approved a sales tax increase for 30 years. That has financed projects like the rail line connecting downtown to the beach, which just opened. (Never mind that the trip is often still faster by car.) Four years later, voters rejected a plan to extend that Los Angeles County sales tax another 30 years. Now we’re headed to the ballot box again — only this time, the sales tax hike would be permanent. • With concerns about climate change growing, Oakland banned the transport and storage of large coal shipments, halting a plan to a use a former Army base to ship coal to China and other overseas markets. • After last week’s Supreme Court ruling, will undocumented immigrants in California, and around the country, go back to avoiding the authorities? Many vow to keep living in the open. • “The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. †Remarks by extremist pastors celebrating the massacre in Orlando, Fla. including one in Sacramento, have brought attention to congregations. • The ad industry is confronting the rise of Facebook. Our media columnist offers a report from Cannes, France. • The drone craze may be heading to the water. OpenROV, a in Berkeley, is building submarine drone kits. • A new battlefront for tech giants: Amazon is going up against Apple, Google and Microsoft in the education technology market for primary and secondary schools. • Airbnb, which helped craft a rental law in San Francisco, is now suing the city to block the law’s enforcement. • Gov. Jerry Brown signed a $171 billion state budget for the next fiscal year, including $2 billion for a fund. He invoked the fable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper†to explain why. [Sacramento Bee] • In a community scorched by wildfire, residents believed their homes were left to burn because firefighters were protecting wealthier areas. [Los Angeles Times] • The Oceanside police said a woman suspected of drunken driving struck and killed a pedestrian, then drove for a mile with the victim’s body lodged in the front seat. [NBC San Diego] • How crazy is the San Francisco rental market? One tenant had his rent hiked to $8, 000 from $1, 800. [SFGate] • A former top Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department official was sentenced to five years in prison. Prosecutors said he tried to block a federal investigation into the abuse of inmates at county jails. [Los Angeles Times] • The artificial turf fields at San Diego schools save lots of water. But parents are worried that the fields, made in part of crushed old car tires, are harming their children’s health. [Voice of San Diego] • Now that LeBron James has brought an N. B. A. title to Cleveland, San Diego sports fans have been ranked the most miserable and in the country. On the bright side, they still get to live in San Diego. [ESPN] You know this bear. It flies on the state flag, and dances on the sideline at U. C. L. A. football games. But how well, exactly, do you want to know this bear? (Especially if you’ve seen the scene of Leonardo DiCaprio attacked by one in “The Revenant. â€) In fact, the last California grizzly bear was killed nearly 100 years ago. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity wants to bring the bears back to the California. Grizzly bears are endangered. In the continental United States, they live only in Yellowstone National Park and a few other remote locations. The bears, the group said, would not be running around downtown San Francisco. They could be safely reintroduced in the remote Sierra Nevada. On its website, the group describes grizzlies as eating mostly nuts, berries, fish and small animals, and only “the occasional person who pokes a camera in their face. †(Not exactly reassuring.) This past week, a black bear, known as a skittish animal, clawed its way into a tent and scratched a man who was camping about 30 miles from Los Angeles. Grizzlies are far larger and more aggressive than black bears. For now, federal and state officials, convinced that a grizzly bear would eventually end up in a campground, have not yet shown interest in bringing them back. California Today is a weekday roundup that stays live from 6 a. m. Pacific time until late morning. What would you like to see here to start your day? Email us at catoday@nytimes. com, or reach us via Twitter using #CAToday. Follow the California Today columnist, Ian Lovett, on Twitter. | 1 | [
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FMD1115 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Are These '16 Easy Tests' to Check Whether Food Is 'Fake or Real'? Claim summaries: A viral video took off on Facebook in June 2019, but its claims about food safety were far from unadulterated.
contextual information: In June 2019, tens of millions of Facebook users watched and shared a viral video that purported to demonstrate "16 easy tests" to determine whether certain foods and drinks were "fake" or "real." The video was posted on 1 June by Blossom, a digital publishing brand that creates viral content, often in the form of "listicles" "8 ways to transform and upgrade your wardrobe," "3 oddly satisfying stress relievers," "4 super cool ways to use ice cube trays," and so on. Within a few days, viewers shared the video more than 3 million times and viewed it more than 85 million times. However, it was removed from Facebook by 10 June 2019, after this fact check was originally published. The video purported to show short clips of DIY food "experiments," along with subtitles that add a degree of detail: The 16 tests outlined in the video constituted a mixture of falsehoods, recycled urban myths, one or two experiments that have a grain of truth to them, and several tests that address types of adulteration that are absent from the United States and many other countries but have been reported in India and parts of the developing world. On the whole, the video served its viewers poorly as a source of reliable information about food safety and adulteration. In a statement sent in response to the spread of the video, a spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told Snopes: Federal law requires that food is safe and properly labeled. For example, all food additives and color additives must be approved by FDA before market entry, and the labeling of food must be truthful and not misleading. We take food contamination and fraud very seriously and do take action when problems arise, especially if it appears that the adulteration was intentional. Consumers should rest assured that most of the practices illustrated in this video are not legal in the U.S. and any FDA-regulated product that violates or appears to the violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, may be subject to seizure, mandatory recall, or other enforcement action ... Consumers should be able to trust that the foods they eat are safe and videos like these can undermine the confidence consumers have in the FDAs role in maintaining the safety our food supply ... For its part, First Media, the company that operates the Blossom brand, told us via a spokesperson: "The video does not claim that all products or specific manufacturers include these materials, nor does it make any health or nutritional suggestions or recommendations. They are demonstrations of things we consider to be important for our global audience, however this content is intended only for informational purposes and as entertainment. First Media We sent the video and its 16 claims to Eric Decker, head of the Department of Food Science in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, one of the leading academic food science programs in the United States. Here is our breakdown of the 16 tests, based on Decker's assessments and the supporting evidence provided to Snopes by First Media. 1. "Processed cheese with chemicals is difficult to melt": The claim that processed cheese is hard to melt is an old one, and a subject we have previously examined in detail. It first emerged in late 2014 when internet users began posting videos of themselves setting fire to slices of American cheese in an effort to prove that the cheese was "fake." detail When asked for supporting evidence, a spokesperson for First Media directed us to a 2015 Vice News article and wrote: "Processed cheese contains an added ingredient known as 'Emulsifying Salt' which is known to 'help bind fats, proteins, and water in cheese.'" Interestingly, the Vice article that First Media relied on as evidence carried the headline "Stop Setting Your Cheese on Fire" and warned: "Videos purporting to demonstrate the evil stuff in processed cheese have started making the rounds online. Problem is, they don't prove anything except how little we know about our food." article In response to this section of the video, Decker told us: "That's exactly the opposite of reality ... There are additives that are added to processed cheese to help the cheese melt ... They take real cheese and they add what they call chelating salts and things like citric acid. That helps break the protein [casein] down. The protein in regular cheese is very aggregated together. So when you melt it, you see these clumps. If you can get those proteins to come apart, then it's much easier to melt the cheese." [Emphasis is added]. 2. "Rice is mixed with plastic bits to increase manufacturer profit": This is another canard. Every so often, for the best part of the past decade, highly questionable and thinly sourced reports have been emerging from China and other Asian countries, as well as parts of Africa, claiming widespread adulteration of rice with plastic. So far, no reliable corroboration of those claims exists, which have caused panic in some countries and have been confirmed as hoaxes. canard reports hoaxes If you add plastic to rice and then cook that mixture, you might be able to identify the plastic by its melting, turning clear, or sticking to the frying pan. But no reliable evidence exists that such rice is bought or sold anywhere in the world (not least the United States) in the first place. When asked by Snopes, First Media declined to say how and where they obtained the rice shown in the video, and whether they had added anything to the rice before filming this portion of the video. 3. 'Baby food contains ground-up rocks advertised as fortified calcium': UNPROVEN First Media told us this test was based on one included in a similar 2015 video, which can be viewed here. However, that video purportedly showed a magnet being used to locate and extract iron filings, not calcium, in baby food. We put that discrepancy to First Media, but they declined to clarify what their video actually showed, and also refused to say how and where they had obtained the baby food purportedly shown in the video or whether they had added anything to it before filming. here Either way, the video is framed in a highly misleading way, describing fortified calcium as "ground-up rocks." Calcium, an earth metal, can be found naturally in rocks and other components of the earth's surface, especially in limestone. On this subject, Decker told us that most supplemental calcium was ultimately derived from a rock. "That's what's in lime [stone]. You can get calcium that comes from oyster shells, you can get calcium that comes from all different sources." He said the description of fortified calcium as "ground-up rocks" was "very misleading." "The calcium they put in baby food would be no different than what they put in any food." 4. "Synthetic supplements burn! Natural supplements won't!": "That's just bullshit," Decker told us. "There's just no basis to any of that. Most synthetic supplements are chemically identical to natural supplements." In response to our request for supporting evidence, First Media directed us to another questionable 2015 video, which can be viewed here. That video also showed a tray of supplements both capsules and tablets baked in an oven. Those that burned or melted were identified as synthetic, those that did not were identified as natural. When asked by us, First Media refused to identify the supplements shown in their own video, and refused to say where and how they had obtained them. here 5. 'Glue' in meat: true This section has to do with something called transglutaminase, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) describes as "an enzyme approved for use as a binder to form smaller cuts of meat into a larger serving of meat. It is a natural substance derived from fermented bacteria ..." describes Transglutaminase is sometimes colloquially referred to as "meat glue," but First Media's video had the potential to cause unnecessary alarm or misinformation by describing it simply as "glue," raising the specter of synthetic acrylic and epoxy glues being surreptitiously embedded in meat products. We can't verify that what is shown in the video is in fact meat glue, but we do know that transglutaminase is regarded as safe by U.S. federal authorities. According to the USDA, "TG enzyme is a food binder that has been used in meat and poultry products for over 10 years. It was determined to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998 for use to improve texture and cooking yields in various standardized meat and poultry products and as a protein cross-linking agent to fabricate or reform cuts of meat." 6. Washing powder is added to ice cream "for shine and lightness": As evidence in relation to this section of the video, First Media sent Snopes a link to a 2018 post on a relatively obscure Indian blog which claimed that ice cream is sometimes adulterated with "Detergents or washing powder to improve smoothness and induce frothing thereby adding to the volume." post The warning appears to have originated with speeches and checklists prepared in 2012 and 2013 by Sitaram Dixit, then chairman of a non-profit organization called the Consumer Guidance Society of India. In a 2013 document, Dixit outlined two tests for determining the presence of washing powder in ice cream: 2012 document "1. Put some lemon juice [in the ice cream], bubbles are observed if washing powder is present. 2. Add 1 ml of Hydrochloric acid (HCl) to a little of [sic] Sugar. If you observe effervescence, then washing powder is present." Despite this warning, no evidence exists of a pattern of behavior whereby retailers or manufacturers do, in fact, add washing powder or detergent to ice cream in order to add to its frothiness. We found no specific reports of any such incidents, either from India or elsewhere. In the context of the United States, we checked the FDA database of product-complaint reports from 2004 to 2018, and found not a single report of washing powder or detergent having been added to ice cream, or any other food or beverage product. database First Media's video might well show lemon juice being added to a mixture of ice cream and washing powder. (The company again refused to say where they obtained the ice cream shown in the video and whether they had added anything to it before filming.) However, the underlying premise of this experiment that manufacturers or retailers do, in fact, add washing powder to ice cream "for shine and lightness" is false. Most of the remaining 10 claims can be traced back to guidelines published in 2015 by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a legitimate statutory agency operating under the aegis of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Indian government. Food adulteration is a serious and widespread problem in India, to an extent that is not replicated in the United States and many other developed countries. Some of the remaining tests in the Blossom video were based on scientifically valid experiments, but they had to do with types of food and drink adulteration that either simply do not occur, or are not prevalent in the United States and many other countries. Although Blossom has an international audience, the brand served its viewers particularly those living outside India poorly by failing to mention any of that crucial context. guidelines problem 7. Milk is adulterated with rice water, but will turn blue in the presence of seaweed: This test can be traced to the FSSAI guidelines, known as "Detect Adulteration with Rapid Test" (DART), which set out the following method: guidelines "Boil 2-3 ml of sample with 5ml of water. Cool and add 2-3 drops of tincture of iodine. Formation of blue colour indicates the presence of starch. (In the case of milk, addition of water and boiling is not required)". As First Media explained to us by email, they used seaweed in their test because it is a good source of iodine. We haven't been able to verify the iodine content of the particular seaweed they used, nor the composition of the milk samples featured in the videos. (The company refused to say where they obtained the milk or whether they added anything to it before filming, and they declined to answer a question about the prevalence of starch adulteration of milk in the United States.) However, the test is at least based on an FSSAI experiment that is scientifically legitimate, as confirmed by Decker. source Nonetheless, it is a test that addresses a type of adulteration (starch in milk) that is not prevalent in the United States and many other developed countries. By failing to provide that crucial context, this section of the video presented a highly misleading impression to tens of millions of viewers. 8. "Old produce is often dyed to make it look fresh" (and rubbing it with oil and water will reveal the deception): This test also originates in the FSSAI guidelines, which set out the following method: "Take a cotton ball soaked in water or vegetable oil. (conduct the test separately). Rub the outer red surface of the sweet potato. If cotton absorbs colour, then it indicates the usage of rhodamine B for colouring the outer surface of sweet potato." Clearly, food products in India feature color additives such as rhodamine B to an extent or frequency that warrants the intervention of the FSSAI. However, the same is not true in the United States. Since 1983, the FDA has banned the two types of rhodamine B for use in drugs and cosmetics due to their carcinogenic properties. Since rhodamine B is not affirmatively listed as safe for use in food, it is therefore also effectively banned for use in food. For that reason, food manufacturers subject to FDA inspections and fearful of punishment for violating food safety regulations don't use rhodamine B. In rare cases when they do, the FDA takes action against them. In light of these facts, it's not clear where or how First Media obtained the sweet potato shown in the video, or whether they added anything to it before filming. banned rare cases 9. "Coffee with additives floats, pure coffee sinks": UNPROVEN This test can also ultimately be traced back to the FSSAI guidelines, but those guidelines set out methods to test for the presence of two specific substances apparently used in India to adulterate coffee: clay and chicory powder. In testing for clay, the FSSAI advised, "Add teaspoon of coffee powder in a transparent glass of water. Stir for a minute and keep it aside for 5 minutes. Observe the glass at the bottom. Pure coffee powder will not leave any clay particles at the bottom. If coffee powder is adulterated, clay particles will settle at the bottom." In the illustration used to demonstrate the clay test, the unadulterated coffee floats on the surface of the glass of water, something Blossom claimed was characteristic of adulterated coffee: In testing for the presence of chicory powder, the FSSAI guidelines advised: "Take a transparent glass of water. Add a teaspoon of coffee powder. Coffee powder floats over the water but chicory begins to sink." Here once again, the illustration shows pure coffee as floating on the surface of the water, while the chicory-adulterated coffee sinks. This is the opposite of what Blossom's video claimed when it stated "pure coffee sinks." For these reasons, among others, this particular test should not be considered reliable. We asked First Media to specify the kinds of additives that were tested in its video, but we did not receive a response to that particular question. 10. Fake salt contains chalk and turns water cloudy: Again, the practice of adulterating salt with chalk is one primarily seen in India. We could find no evidence of such a practice in the United States. As such, the "chalk in salt" test derives from the FSSAI guidelines, which outline the following advice: "Stir a spoonful of sample of salt in a glass of water. The presence of chalk will make [the] solution white and other insoluble impurities will settle down." 11. "Old split peas are coated in green dye to disguise them": It's not clear how widespread the practice of adding green coloring to split peas is, but it has featured in unconfirmed news reports emanating from China and India, and it has also been the subject of viral hoaxes in India. It appears to be prevalent enough in India that the FSSAI included it in some guidelines, advising: "Detection of artificial colour on green peas: Take little amount of green peas in a transparent glass. Add water to it and mix well. Let it stand for half an hour. Clear separation of colour in water indicates adulteration." China India hoaxes However, no evidence shows that the practice is prevalent in the United States or other developed countries. Furthermore, it's not clear that Blossom's video actually shows green dye being removed from split peas, as opposed to the process of chlorophyll degradation, which occurs naturally when green split peas are exposed to the heat of boiling water. 12. "Pure spices burn and ignite, impure spices don't": UNPROVEN This claim too can be traced back to the FSSAI guidelines, but those guidelines specifically related to asafoetida, a gum that is used widely in Indian cuisine. By contrast, the Blossom video referred only to "spices," and showed a spoonful of turmeric. The FSSAI guidelines advised: "Detection of foreign resin in asafoetida: Burn small quantity of asafoetida in a stainless steel spoon. Pure asafoetida will burn like camphor [a flammable wax]. Adulterated asafoetida will not produce bright flame like camphor." While asafoetida adulteration might well be prevalent in India, and lighting a flame under a spoonful of it might indeed be a scientifically valid means of determining whether the asafoetida contains adulterants, it simply cannot be assumed that the same test works for other spices. As Decker observed: "Trying to extend that test to turmeric isn't necessarily accurate, because those two spices have very different compositions." We asked First Media for a list of spices to which the "flame" test applied, but we did not receive a response to that question. 13. Some honey is diluted with water and diluted honey extinguishes a flame in a candle wick: true This test also originates in the FSSAI guidelines, which state: "Take a cotton wick dipped in a pure honey and light with a match stick. Pure honey will burn. If adulterated, the presence of water will not allow the honey to burn. If it does, it will produce a cracking sound." The FSSAI test appears to be valid, and appears to have been replicated by the makers of the video. However, it's worth noting that in the context of the United States, the primary way in which honey is adulterated is by being mixed with corn syrup or cane sugar, not by being diluted with water. In light of that fact, it's not clear where First Media obtained diluted honey, or whether they themselves added water to pure honey before filming. mixed 14. "Pure tea doesn't stain, impure tea stains instantly": Black teas get their characteristic dark colors from the tannins they contain. As such, even unadulterated tea might leave a stain, as anyone who has dropped a tea bag on to a garment or piece of paper can attest. tannins However, the FSSAI guidelines do contain a test that is designed to determine not just whether a tea is "impure," as the video ambiguously claims, but specifically whether old tea leaves have been artificially colored with coal-tar dye: "Detection of exhausted tea in tea leaves: Take a filter paper and spread [a] few tea leaves. Sprinkle with water to wet the filter paper. Wash the filter paper under tap water and observe the stains against light. Pure tea leaves will not stain the filter paper. If coal tar is present, it will immediately stain the filter paper." We asked First Media to clarify what they meant by "impure" tea, but we did not receive a response to that question. As such, we cannot evaluate the validity or reliability of the test shown in the video. 15. 'If butter contains oil, added sugar will turn pink': UNPROVEN First Media cited a source that claimed: "Add a pinch of sugar to a teaspoon of melted ghee in a bottle. Shake well. Check it after 5 minutes, if you see the colour change to red, then it contains vegetable oil." source That purported test can ultimately be traced back to a document published by Dixit, the former chairman of the Consumer Guidance Society of India, whose claims formed the basis of the "washing powder in ice cream" test above. Dixit outlined an experiment for determining the presence of vanaspati, a kind of vegetable shortening, in butter or ghee (clarified butter): "Take one teaspoonful of melted ghee or butter with equal quantity of Conc. Hydrochloric acid in a test tube. Add to it a pinch of cane sugar. Shake well for one minute and let it stand for five minutes. Crimson red colour in lower layer shows the presence of Vanaspati." experiment First Media's video claimed only that the presence of "oil" (presumed to be vegetable oil) would cause sugar to turn pink in butter. However, the source the company cited and the original source both claimed the sugar would turn red, not pink, and the original source said the sugar would turn "crimson red," and only after the inclusion of concentrated hydrochloric acid in the mixture. Without any further details about the precise ingredients and process employed by First Media (which the company failed to provide), and in light of these discrepancies, we can't draw any definitive conclusions about the validity of the test shown in the video. 16. Some fresh produce is coated in wax, and warm water removes the wax: This is the only clearly accurate claim in the video. We can't say for certain that what is shown in the video is indeed wax being removed from a bell pepper by warm water, but there's no doubt that producers and retailers do sometimes apply wax coatings to fruit and vegetables, as Decker outlined: "That's common. Vegetables are waxed a lot. The main purposes of waxing the vegetable, one of them is to give it that shiny appearance, but the other one is to prevent moisture loss." So the application of a thin coating of wax is a real phenomenon, as the video states, but this doesn't indicate that the food is "fake" -- rather, it's a safe, FDA-approved way to help the produce look shinier and last longer. As Decker observed: "All these waxes are edible, anyway. They're approved food additives." approved In summary, this particular section of the video is actually accurate, but it shouldn't be a cause of too much concern for consumers. Snopes.com. "Kraft Cheese Won't Melt?"
30 May 2015. Vice. "Stop Setting Your Cheese on Fire."
23 January 2015. LaCapria, Kim. "Plastic Rice from China."
Snopes.com. 26 October 2016. Subedar, Anisa. "Why People Believe the Myth of 'Plastic Rice.'"
BBC News. 5 July 2017. Food Safety and Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Safety of Transglutaminase Enzyme (TG Enzyme)."
6 February 2017. Narang, Gaurav. "CityGreens Consumer Awareness Initiative. Ice Cream vs. Frozen Desserts and How to Check for Adulteration in Them."
CityGreens. 16 February 2018. Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. "Detect Adulteration With Rapid Test."
February 2015. Mandhani, Apoorva. "Law Commission Recommends Life Imprisonment for Food Adulteration."
LiveLaw.in. 19 January 2017. China Daily. "Fake Green Peas Latest Food Scandal."
31 March 2010. BOOM. "No, This Video Does Not Show How Artificial Colour is Added to Peas."
5 July 2018. The Times of India. "10 Most Adulterated Food Items in Your Kitchen and How to Check Their Purity."
20 October 2018. Update [10 June 2019]: Updated to reflect the fact that Blossom/First Media's 1 June video had been removed from Facebook. | 0 | [
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FMD1116 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: More astronauts have been to the moon than farmers who paid the inheritance tax in 2013.
contextual information: Liberal comedian Bill Maher made an out-of-this-world comparison to poke a hole in the Republican argument that the estate tax threatens the livelihoods of family farmers. Of 5,000 Americans who paid the estate tax in 2013, 20 farmers paid it, Maher said on his April 17, 2015, show. Twenty-four Americans have been to the moon. More astronauts have been to the moon than farmers who paid the inheritance tax in 2013. There obviously is no relation between the number of farmers paying the estate tax and the number of Americans who went to the moon, but as a point of trivia, Mahers claim is an intriguing one. A reader asked us to do the magic that you do, which is determining whether Mahers point is accurate. One small step for fact-checkers ... Caveat No 1: Maher is using the number of astronauts who have been to the vicinity of the moon, not just the number of moonwalkers. Twelve Americans have walked the moons surface over six Apollo missions, starting with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planting an American flag in 1969. (If youre not sure about whether the lunar landing really happened, you wont like this fact-check, but you may enjoy these bona fidemoon misconceptions.) Add another 12 American astronauts who orbited the moon but did not walk on it, and you get 24. NASA chief historian William Barry said the 24 Americans is a solid figure in that it doesnt double count Americans who made more than one lunar trip. There were several astronauts who flew to the Moon and orbited it on one mission and then were lucky enough to go back and land on it on a later mission, Barry said. Jim Lovell, for instance, made two trips to the moon in Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, but he never walked on it. (In this Smithsonian picture, Lovell and his crew emerge from the U.S.S. Iwo Jima after landing the spacecraftApollo 13in the South Pacific.) One giant leap for the truth What Maher calls the inheritance tax and what Republicans call the death tax is more accurately described as the estate tax. Some wealthy families face this tax when they pass on assets (cash, land, homes, stocks, etc.) to heirs after death. Most estates do not owe estate taxes. It affects about 5,500 Americans whose estates exceed the exemption limit of$5.43 million per person. If the estate is worth more than that, an heir could pay a tax rate up to 40 percent on the value of the estate above that limit. Even though it doesnt affect all that many people, it brings in big bucks for the government. Repealing it would cost about $270 billion over the next decade, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. In the week ahead of Mahers April 17 show, House Republicans approveda planto eliminate the estate tax, saying it can prove devastating to families forcing them to sell land, lay off workers, and even shut down entirely. So did this tax really affect just 20 farmers in 2013, as Maher said? The number comes from an estimate by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Tax Policy Center economists wanted to get an idea of how the tax would affect estates, including those with farm and business assets, in 2013. All of their numbers are estimates based on the centersestate tax model. They defined family farms and businesses as estates having farm or business assets less than $5 million and half of the estate. These farms and businesses had taxable returns and total assets between $5 million and up $10 million. Its a definition that hones in on small farms and business the most relevant in responding to the myth that many small farms and small businesses must be liquidated to pay estate tax, said Brandon DeBot, a research assistant at the federal fiscal policy division of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Using the Tax Policy Centers model, an estimated 20 small farms and small businesses would have had to pay the estate tax in 2013, amounting to a total of $6.9 million of tax with an average tax rate of 4.9 percent. So thats not just small farms, its small farmsandsmall businesses, which might not be a farm. Caveat No. 2: The number of farms and businesses is probably not exactly 20, as it is an estimate rounded to the nearest multiple of 10. That means the number is anywhere from 16-24. Caveat No. 3: Maher talked about family farmers, addressing the Republican argument about the plight of farmers who could lose their livelihood because of the estate tax. But family farms can be big farms, and thats where things get more complicated. Maher set up his comparison by discussing the plight of family farmers, but then later dropped the word family. That one word is important. The Tax Policy Center broadened the scope to include all farm and business estates, regardless of size, with at least half of their value from farm business activity. By that method, 120 farm and business estates would have had to pay the estate tax in 2013, said Roberton Williams, a Tax Policy Center fellow who worked on the model. Alan D. Viard, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who studies federal tax and budget policy, says the the estate tax has a lot of flaws, but the effect on farmers is just not the right grounds to criticize this tax. Mahers point was strong, he said. In 2001, House Republicans voted to repeal the death tax.New York TimesreporterDavid Cay Johnston scoured1999 IRS filings, phoned the American Farm Bureau Federation, and interviewed farmers in effort to find examples of working farmers who lost their farms because of estate taxes. He found none, writing that the reality of who is bitten by the estate tax is different from the mythology, as the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries are the heirs of people who made their fortunes through their businesses and investments in securities and real estate. And in 2001, the estate tax wasmore robust than it is now, with a lower exemption level of $675,000 and a higher top tax rate of 55 percent. It is a small number, bottom line, Williams said. Theyre going to be the exception rather than the rule. Our ruling Maher compared 24 American astronauts who have been to the moon to 20 farmers whom he said were the only ones to pay the estate tax. His count for astronauts who have been to the moon is reasonable, counting both American moonwalkers and those who have flown in its orbit during various Apollo missions. The larger point about only 20 farmers paying the estate tax is a little more complicated. A 2013nonpartisan study found 20 small farmsandsmall businesses faced the estate tax in 2013. Maher referred to family farms in setting up his claim. Saying small farms would have been better. And he dropped family in later references. Experts said Maher generally could have been more careful in his wording, but that his bit of trivia largely checks out, as does his point that the estate tax affectsvery few small farmers. We rate his claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/2edf78cd-008c-408e-ae35-939322661e70 | 1 | [
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FMD1117 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Robert O. Work, the veteran defense official retained as deputy secretary by President Trump, calls them his “A. I. dudes. †The breezy moniker belies their serious task: The dudes have been a kitchen cabinet of sorts, and have advised Mr. Work as he has sought to reshape warfare by bringing artificial intelligence to the battlefield. Last spring, he asked, “O. K. you guys are the smartest guys in A. I. right?†No, the dudes told him, “the smartest guys are at Facebook and Google,†Mr. Work recalled in an interview. Now, increasingly, they’re also in China. The United States no longer has a strategic monopoly on the technology, which is widely seen as the key factor in the next generation of warfare. The Pentagon’s plan to bring A. I. to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field. And that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in artificial intelligence among Chinese companies. Last year, for example, Microsoft researchers proclaimed that the company had created software capable of matching human skills in understanding speech. Although they boasted that they had outperformed their United States competitors, a A. I. researcher who leads a Silicon Valley laboratory for the Chinese web services company Baidu gently taunted Microsoft, noting that Baidu had achieved similar accuracy with the Chinese language two years earlier. That, in a nutshell, is the challenge the United States faces as it embarks on a new military strategy founded on the assumption of its continued superiority in technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. First announced last year by Ashton B. Carter, President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, the “Third Offset†strategy provides a formula for maintaining a military advantage in the face of a renewed rivalry with China and Russia. Well into the 1960s, the United States held a military advantage based on technological leadership in nuclear weapons. In the 1970s, that perceived lead shifted to smart weapons, based on Silicon Valley technologies like computer chips. Now, the nation’s leaders plan on retaining that military advantage with a significant commitment to artificial intelligence and robotic weapons. But the global technology balance of power is shifting. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the United States carefully guarded its advantage. It led the world in computer and material science technology, and it jealously hoarded its leadership with military secrecy and export controls. In the late 1980s, the emergence of the inexpensive and universally available microchip upended the Pentagon’s ability to control technological progress. Now, rather than trickling down from military and advanced corporate laboratories, today’s new technologies increasingly come from consumer electronics firms. Put simply, the companies that make the fastest computers are the same ones that put things under our Christmas trees. As consumer electronics manufacturing has moved to Asia, both Chinese companies and the nation’s government laboratories are making major investments in artificial intelligence. The advance of the Chinese was underscored last month when Qi Lu, a veteran Microsoft artificial intelligence specialist, left the company to become chief operating officer at Baidu, where he will oversee the company’s ambitious plan to become a global leader in A. I. And last year, Tencent, developer of the mobile app WeChat, a Facebook competitor, created an artificial intelligence research laboratory and began investing in United A. I. companies. Rapid Chinese progress has touched off a debate in the United States between military strategists and technologists over whether the Chinese are merely imitating advances or are engaged in independent innovation that will soon overtake the United States in the field. “The Chinese leadership is increasingly thinking about how to ensure they are competitive in the next wave of technologies,†said Adam Segal, a specialist in emerging technologies and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. In August, the China Daily reported that the country had embarked on the development of a cruise missile system with a “high level†of artificial intelligence. The new system appears to be a response to a missile the United States Navy is expected to deploy in 2018 to counter growing Chinese military influence in the Pacific. Known as the Long Range Missile, or L. R. A. S. M. it is described as a “semiautonomous†weapon. According to the Pentagon, this means that though targets are chosen by human soldiers, the missile uses artificial intelligence technology to avoid defenses and make final targeting decisions. The new Chinese weapon typifies a strategy known as “remote warfare,†said John Arquilla, a military strategist at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif. The idea is to build large fleets of small ships that deploy missiles, to attack an enemy with larger ships, like aircraft carriers. “They are making their machines more creative,†he said. “A little bit of automation gives the machines a tremendous boost. †Whether or not the Chinese will quickly catch the United States in artificial intelligence and robotics technologies is a matter of intense discussion and disagreement in the United States. Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu, said the United States may be too myopic and to understand the speed of the Chinese competition. “There are many occasions of something being simultaneously invented in China and elsewhere, or being invented first in China and then later making it overseas,†he said. “But then U. S. media reports only on the U. S. version. This leads to a misperception of those ideas having been first invented in the U. S. †A key example of Chinese progress that goes largely unreported in the United States is Iflytek, an artificial intelligence company that has focused on speech recognition and understanding natural language. The company has won international competitions both in speech synthesis and in translation between and texts. The company, which Chinese technologists said has a close relationship with the government for development of surveillance technology, said it is working with the Ministry of Science and Technology on a “Humanoid Answering Robot. †“Our goal is to send the machine to attend the college entrance examination, and to be admitted by key national universities in the near future,†said Qingfeng Liu, Iflytek’s chief executive. The speed of the Chinese technologists, compared to United States and European artificial intelligence developers, is noteworthy. Last April, Gansha Wu, then the director of Intel’s laboratory in China, left his post and began assembling a team of researchers from Intel and Google to build a car company. Last month, the company, Uisee Technology, met its goal — taking a demonstration to the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — after just nine months of work. “The A. I. technologies, including machine vision, sensor fusion, planning and control, on our car are completely †Mr. Wu said. “We wrote every line by ourselves. †Their first vehicle is intended for controlled environments like college and corporate campuses, with the ultimate goal of designing a shared fleet of autonomous taxis. The United States’ view of China’s advance may be starting to change. Last October, a White House report on artificial intelligence included several footnotes suggesting that China is now publishing more research than scholars here. Still, some scientists say the quantity of academic papers does not tell us much about innovation. And there are indications that China has only recently begun to make A. I. a priority in its military systems. “I think while China is definitely making progress in A. I. systems, it is nowhere close to matching the U. S.,†said Abhijit Singh, a former Indian military officer who is now a naval weapons analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. Chinese researchers who are directly involved in artificial intelligence work in China have a very different view. “It is indisputable that Chinese authors are a significant force in A. I. and their position has been increasing drastically in the past five years,†said Lee, a artificial intelligence researcher who played a key role in establishing both Microsoft’s and Google’s research laboratories. Mr. Lee, now a venture capitalist who invests in both China and the United States, acknowledged that the United States is still the global leader but believes that the gap has drastically narrowed. His firm, Sinovation Ventures, has recently raised $675 million to invest in A. I. both in the United States and in China. “Using a chess analogy,†he said, “we might say that grandmasters are still largely North American, but Chinese occupy increasingly greater portions of the A. I. scientists. †What is not in dispute is that the close ties between Silicon Valley and China both in terms of investment and research, and the open nature of much of the American A. I. research community, has made the most advanced technology easily available to China. In addition to setting up research outposts such as Baidu’s Silicon Valley A. I. Laboratory, Chinese citizens, including government employees, routinely audit Stanford University artificial intelligence courses. One Stanford professor, Richard Socher, said it was easy to spot the Chinese nationals because after the first few weeks, his students would often skip class, choosing instead to view videos of the lectures. The Chinese auditors, on the other hand, would continue to attend, taking their seats at the front of the classroom. Artificial intelligence is only one part of the tech frontier where China is advancing rapidly. Last year, China also brought the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Sunway TaihuLight, online, supplanting another Chinese model that had been the world’s fastest. The new supercomputer is thought to be part of a broader Chinese push to begin driving innovation, a shift from its role as a manufacturing hub for components and devices designed in the United States and elsewhere. In a reflection of the desire to become a center of innovation, the processors in the new computer are of a native Chinese design. The earlier supercomputer, the Tianhe 2, was powered by Intel’s Xeon processors after it came online, the United States banned further export of the chips to China, in hopes of limiting the Chinese push into supercomputing. The new supercomputer, like similar machines anywhere in the world, has a variety of uses, and does not by itself represent a direct military challenge. It can be used to model climate change situations, for instance, or to perform analysis of large data sets. But similar advances in computing being made by the Chinese could be used to push ahead with research, which would have military applications, along with more typical defense functions, such as simulating nuclear weapons tests or breaking the encryption used by adversaries. Moreover, while there appear to be relatively cozy relationships between the Chinese government and commercial technology efforts, the same cannot be said about the United States. The Pentagon recently restarted its beachhead in Silicon Valley, known as the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental facility, or DIUx. It is an attempt to rethink bureaucratic United States government contracting practices in terms of the faster and more fluid style of Silicon Valley. The government has not yet undone the damage to its relationship with the Valley brought about by Edward J. Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices. Many Silicon Valley firms remain hesitant to be seen as working too closely with the Pentagon out of fear of losing access to China’s market. “There are smaller companies, the companies who sort of decided that they’re going to be in the defense business, like a Palantir,†said Peter W. Singer, an expert in the future of war at New America, a think tank in Washington, referring to the Palo Alto, Calif. founded in part by the venture capitalist Peter Thiel. “But if you’re thinking about the big, iconic tech companies, they can’t become defense contractors and still expect to get access to the Chinese market. †Those concerns are real for Silicon Valley. “No one sort of overtly says that, because the Pentagon can’t say it’s about China, and the tech companies can’t,†Mr. Singer said. “But it’s there in the background. †| 1 | [
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FMD1118 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does George Soros Own a Lab That 'Developed' COVID-19? Claim summaries: Somehow, some way, business magnate George Soros gets accused of being involved in almost every politically contentious event.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic spread across the globe in March 2020, conspiracy buffs shared memes and videos featuring variations on a common theme the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a human-made creation developed in a Chinese lab owned by all-purpose boogeyman George Soros for the purpose of causing economic disruption that would unseat Donald Trump from the U.S. presidency: We've extensively covered the false notion that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was bioengineered in a lab in Wuhan, China, in a separate article and concluded that: separate article The theory that SARS-CoV-2 was manufactured in, and escaped from, a lab in Wuhan is based solely on the proximity of infectious-disease labs near a potential source of the COVID-19 outbreak. Several scientific claims have been made or manufactured to further bolster the notion that something nefarious is going on with COVID-19 and these labs, but this information comes from non-peer-reviewed papers misconstrued to be actual additions to the scientific record, or from disreputable websites such as Mercola.com. The actual scientific facts known about the novel coronavirus leave little room for it to be a virus of human creation, however. Regardless, the idea of a Soros connection to the COVID-19 pandemic stems from the fact that Wuhan, China, was the apparent origin point of the novel coronavirus, and WuXi AppTec, a Shanghai-based pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and medical device company, operates a "small molecule drug discovery and research services" facility there. And according to the conspiracy theory, Soros "owns WuXi AppTec." QED. origin point WuXi AppTec facility However, Soros holds no executive position at WuXi AppTec, and a list of the company's major shareholders shows that none owns more than 10% of the shares, and all of the largest shareholders are Chinese entities with no discernible connection to Soros himself. shareholders A May 2011 quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that Soros Fund Management, a private American investment management firm, does (or did) have a holding in a related company (Wuxi PharmaTech (Cayman)). However, such institutional investment is common in the business world and does not make the head of any given investment firm the "owner" of all the businesses in which the firm holds a stake. Wuxi PharmaTech (Cayman) When pulled, the thread of Soros to Soros Fund Management, to Wuxi PharmaTech (Cayman), to WuXi AppTec, to a biotech research facility in Wuhan, leads to nothing. All credible scientific evidence indicates the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolved or mutated and was not bioengineered, and the addition of Soros to any far-fetched conspiracy theory indicates nothing so much as a lack of imagination. Marriage, Madison. "Hedge Funds Move to Become Family Offices Is Not Entirely Popular."
Financial Times. 22 October 2015. Kasprak, Alex. "The Origins and Scientific Failings of the COVID-19 Bioweapon Conspiracy Theory."
Snopes.com. 1 April 2020. Secon, Holly et al. "A Comprehensive Timeline of the New Coronavirus Pandemic, From China's First COVID-19 Case to the Present."
Business Insider. 1 April 2020. | 0 | [
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FMD1119 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: We ve all had questions about Huma Abedin but did you know how connected she is to the Saudi government? Does anyone doubt that the Saudis are bankrolling everything the Clintons do? The information below is fantastic and should be seen by anyone even remotely considering voting for Hillary Clinton. Huma Abedin is the definition of shady! The mainstream media has done nothing to seriously vet the connection between the Clinton and Saudi Arabia, and the key role Huma Abedin plays in the life and work of Hillary Clinton are one core link. Abedin not only lived in Saudi Arabia from the time she was two years old, but her mother currently lives in Saudi Arabia and runs the Journal for Muslim Minority Affairs as well as being a dean at a woman s college there.Despite the fawning coverage she has received, there are many unanswered questions about Abedin, especially given her complete access to Hillary Clinton, one of the most powerful people in the world, a former Secretary of State and possible future president. As Vanity Fair William Cohan writes in his piece:Over the years Huma has served in several positions, with increasingly important-sounding titles. She has been Hillary s body woman, her traveling chief of staff, a senior adviser, and a deputy chief of staff when Hillary was secretary of state. Now, based in Brooklyn, she is the vice-chair of Hillary s 2016 presidential campaign.The Facts about Huma Abedin and Abdullah Omar Nasseef To his credit, Cohan s Vanity Fair piece on the secretive Abedin confirms a number of facts that have been reported by conservative media for a couple of years but have been twisted and convoluted by the mainstream media.For example, the Vanity Fair article flatly lays out the information that Huma Abedin was an assistant editor at a publication called the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs from 1996 until 2008. He writes:When (Huma) Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which stated its mission as shedding light on minority Muslim communities around the world in the hope of securing the legitimate rights of these communities. It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business. Huma was an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008. Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book-review editor at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman of the board of trustees. Huma s sister, Heba, 26, is an assistant editor at the Journal.As the masthead of this 1996 issue of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs shows, Huma Abedin was an assistant editor at Journal. Down the masthead you can see the name of Abdullah Omar Nasseef.Aside from helping found the Abedin s family business it s beyond dispute that Abdullah Omar Nasseef was the secretary-general of a group called the Muslim World League. That s not controversial and Cohan does acknowledge this in Vanity Fair:In his early years as the patron of the Abedins journal, Nasseef was the secretary-general of the Muslim World League, which Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman, in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, claims has long been the Muslim Brotherhood s principal vehicle for the international propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology. Although it describes itself a nongovernment organization, the Muslim World League is an effectively an arm of the Saudi Arabian government. As a lawsuit posted on the Philadelphia Enquirer website states a full time employee of the Muslim World League testified as follows: Let me tell you one thing, the Muslim World League, which is the mother of IIRO (International Islamic Relief Organization) is a fully government funded organization. In other words, I work for the government of Saudi Arabia. I am an employee of that government.Second, the IIRO is the relief branch of that organization which means that we are controlled in all of our activities and plans by the government of Saudi Arabia.Keep that in mind, please I am paid by my organization which is funded by the [Saudi] government the [IIRO] office, like any other office in the world, here or in the Muslim World League, has to abide by the policy of the government of Saudi Arabia. If anybody deviates from that, he would be fired; he would not work at all with IIRO or with the Muslim World League.According to the group s own website, the Muslim World League: is engaged in propagating the religion of Islam, elucidating its principles and tenets, refuting suspicious and false allegations made against the religion. The League also strives to persuade people to abide by the commandments of their Lord, and to keep away from prohibited deeds. The League is also ready to help Muslims solve problems facing them anywhere in the world, and carry out their projects in the sphere of Da wah, education and culture. The League, which employs all means that are not at variance with the Sharia (Islamic law) to further its aims, is well known for rejecting all acts of violence and promoting dialogue with the people of other cultures.The group s claim about rejecting all acts of violence is specious given its connection to the Saudi government and the Kingdom s advocacy for sharia law, which it practices with gusto.Desperate to retain the Saudi royal family s iron grip, Saudi Arabia banned all public gatherings. The Saudi Arabian government uses both public beheading and crucifixion as punishments, for example, and in 2012 sentenced a 16-year-old who d protested against the government to both. Saudi Arabia recently sparked international outrage when it executed over 40 people deemed terrorists. Many were beheaded.Following 9/11, the Saudis came under intense government scrutiny for their role in funding terror through ostensively charitable groups. In 2007, ABC News reported Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda s Coffers:Despite six years of promises, U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia continues to look the other way at wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al Qaeda. If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia, Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.The mainstream media has done nothing to serious vet the connection between the Clinton and Saudi Arabia, and the key role Huma Abedin plays in the life and work of Hillary Clinton are one core link. Abedin not only lived in Saudi Arabia from the time she was two years old, but her mother currently lives in Saudi Arabia and runs the Journal for Muslim Minority Affairs as well as being a dean at a woman s college there.Further tying the Clintons to the Saudis is big money. CNN reported in 2008 that donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation include amounts of $10 million to $25 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Vanity Fair points out Huma s ties there after Clinton left her role as Secretary of State:In addition to the State Department and Teneo jobs, Huma was hired as a consultant to the William J. Clinton Foundation to help plan for Hillary s post-State philanthropic activities, and as a personal employee of Hillary s.The Saudis have denied the accusation they ve funded terrorism and also say they complied with U.S. orders, telling ABC that after the Sept. 11 attacks, the country took prompt action and required Saudi banks to identify and freeze all assets relating to terrorist suspects and entities per the list issued by the United States government. One of the organizations specifically singled out for funding terrorism was founded by the Abedin family benefactor. In 1988, Naseef also founded the charitable giving arm of the Muslim World League, an entity called Rabita Trust.Remember the League s connection to the Saudis as stated earlier and it s clear that Naseef was not a loose cannon but effectively acting as an employee of the Kingdom.One of the other founders of the Rabita Trust was Wa el Hamza Julaidan, who that same year would also become one of the four founders of Al Qaeda. In 1984, Julaidan had worked with Osama bin Laden to set up mujahedin training camps in Afghanistan. As U.S. News reported in 2003:Afghanistan forged not only financial networks but important bonds among those who believe in violent jihad. During the Afghan war, the man who ran the Muslim World League office in Peshawar, Pakistan, was bin Laden s mentor, Abdullah Azzam. Another official there was Wael Julaidan, a Saudi fundraiser who would join bin Laden in founding al Qaeda in 1988. Documents seized in raids after 9/11 reveal just how close those ties were. One record, taken from a Saudi-backed charity in Bosnia, bears the handwritten minutes of a meeting between bin Laden and three men, scrawled beneath the letterhead of the IIRO and Muslim World League. The notes call for the opening of league offices . . . for the Pakistanis, so that attacks can be made from them. A note on letterhead of the Saudi Red Crescent Saudi Arabia s Red Cross in Peshawar asks that weapons be inventoried. It is accompanied by a plea from bin Laden to Julaidan, citing an extreme need for weapons. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the government froze the assets of the Rabita Trust for funding terrorism. As the New York Times reported in October, 2001:The Bush administration vowed today to seize the assets of more individuals it says support terrorism, including a prominent businessman from Saudi Arabia, a United States ally whose reluctance to move against people and groups with ties to Osama bin Laden has become a politically sensitive Also on the list is Rabita Trust, a Pakistani charity that at least until recently had Pakistan s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on its board. Administration officials said they warned President Musharraf of the impending order against the Rabita Trust and encouraged him to disassociate himself from what they described as its founder s links to Al Qaeda, Mr. bin Laden s terrorist network.In March, 2002 federal law-enforcement officials conducted raids on 15 organizations that the Treasury Department suspected of laundering money. The New York Times reported:One other place searched today was the office of the International Islamic Relief Organization at 360 South Washington Street in Falls Church, Va., another Washington suburb.That charity has a parent, the Muslim World League, that officials said was also searched. Corporate records show that the Muslim World League, which is financed in part by the Saudi government, is based at the same address as the relief organization, in Falls Church, but that it has used the Herndon building as a mailing address.Last October, the Treasury Department listed another Islamic charity financed by the Muslim World League, the Rabita Trust, as having connections to Al Qaeda.The connection of Abdullah Omar Nasseef to terror funding in general and Al Qaeda specifically is clear and convincing; just as clear and persuading as his connection to the Abedin family is.The Muslim World League was the mother organization of two groups the government believed were involved in funneling money to terrorists the Rabita Trust and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). Both groups are listed on the Treasury department s website. Both Naseef s co-founder Wa el Hamza Julaidan himself and the Rabita Trust as an organization were placed by lists of terror funders by both the United States and the United Nations.The Treasury Department met cited the Rabita Trust for providing logistical and financial support to al Qaida. The Treasury Department s discussion of the IIRO goes into detail about the money and logistics support they provided terror groups and includes information that shows that these provide both legitimate charity services but also act as a money laundering operation to get funds to terror groups:International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO)The IIRO was established in 1978 and, according to its website, the organization has branch offices in over 20 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.Abd Al Hamid Sulaiman Al-Mujil (Al-Mujil) is the Executive Director of the IIRO Eastern Province (IIRO-EP) branch office in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Al-Mujil has been called the million dollar man for supporting Islamic militant groups. Al-Mujil provided donor funds directly to al Qaida and is identified as a major fundraiser for the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).Read more: Breitbart News | 0 | [
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FMD1120 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Chase Wheedle is a Seattle attraction. Claim summaries:
contextual information: FACT CHECK: Is the city of Seattle forcing local businesses to comply with Sharia law? Claim: The mayor of Seattle has "launched" a new "rule" forcing businesses to comply with Sharia law. false WHAT'S Seattle is exploring options to make home loans accessible to Muslims who are unable to participate in standard mortgage programs due to religious proscriptions. WHAT'S Seattle businesses are being forced to comply with tenets of sharia law. Examples: Seattle Mayor Planning to Force Banks to Give Sharia Compliant Homes Loans to Local Muslims https://t.co/QSKZ1XqzMB https://t.co/QSKZ1XqzMB Warner Todd Huston (@warnerthuston) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015 Seattle's Liberal Mayor Caves To Muslims Following Sharia Law - BuzzPo https://t.co/A3m76OJz7r https://t.co/A3m76OJz7r EMERSON E.RODRIGUES (@EMERSON_NALITA) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015 Mayor, no Sharia law applies in America!! Stop this unconstitutional junk. https://t.co/fx7VENmVQx https://t.co/fx7VENmVQx Bunch (@bunch1243) July 17, 2015 July 17, 2015 Origins:On 17 July 2015, the unreliable web site Conservative Tribune published an article titled "ALERT: Seattle Mayor Launches Rules to Force Local Businesses to Comply With SHARIAH LAW" claiming that: article In one major American city, new rules may force banks to comply with Shariah law on lending and interest. One of the major tenets of Shariah law is that Muslims cannot pay interest on loans. In countries with large Muslim populations, theres something known as Islamic banking, which manages to get around this through various machinations. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray wants to see that change, and hes apparently willing to force banks into Shariah-compliant lending if necessary. This means that, if it passes, Seattle will be the first city in America to mandate that its banks allow access to Shariah-compliant financing. That claim was sourced to the TeaParty.org site's article "Seattle Mayor Offers Plan for Sharia-Compliant Housing Rules," which offered the following visual: article That article was a word-for-word copy of a Puget Sound Business Journal article about a potential plan by the mayor of Seattle to help Muslims obtain home loans to buy houses. Quoting both Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Seattle-area Chapter Executive Director Arsalan Bukhari, the article explained that the city was examining housing options available to home-buying Muslims who are prohibited from participating in the traditional American housing market due to religious restrictions that prohibit them from obtaining standard home loans (despite their having desirable credit profiles): article For some Muslims, it can be hard to buy a house, and Mayor Ed Murray plans to do something about it. Murray's housing committee released its recommendations for ways the city can increase housing in the city. Most ideas were what you'd expect, including increasing the city's housing levy and implementing new rules and regulations to foster development of market-rate and lower-income housing. One suggestion would help followers of Sharia law buy houses. That's virtually impossible now because Sharia law prohibits payment of interest on loans. The 28-member committee recommended the city convene lenders and community leaders to explore options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products. More and more lenders are offering Sharia-compliant financing. The sector has grown to more than $1.6 trillion in assets worldwide over the past three decades, and analysts see potential for continued growth as the number of Muslims in the United States and Europe grows. Based on what he called "rough anecdotal evidence," Bukhari estimated a couple hundred people aren't borrowing money for houses due to their religion. He said this includes even high-wage earners, such as the more than 1,000 Muslims who work for Microsoft and more than 500 Amazon.com employees. They could easily qualify for home loans but opt not to apply "simply because they don't want to pay interest," Bukhari said. "We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious beliefs," Murray said. The overall topic of Seattle-area Muslims and banking products was also addressed in another Puget Sound Business Journal article about retirement plans. According to that piece, CEO Thom Poulson of Falah Capital is working to facilitate opportunities for Muslim tech workers to access products such as 401(k)s and mortgages previously inaccessible to them due to religious barriers: article It's estimated that more than 1,000 Muslims in the Puget Sound region work for Microsoft, and for those who closely follow their faith, it can be difficult to participate in the company's retirement plan. That's because Sharia law forbids them from investing in funds with holdings in companies that peddle pornography, alcohol and other vices. It's almost impossible for retirement funds to guarantee all their investments are free from those kinds of businesses. This has become an issue for workers at other tech companies, too. "You have people who aren't getting the full benefits of their employer's offering," said Thom Polson, CEO of a new Seattle company, Falah Capital LLC, which works with Muslims to ensure they're investing while staying true to their beliefs. In partnership with Seattle-based Russell Investments and IdealRatings of San Francisco, Falah set up its first Islamic exchange traded fund (ETF) last fall. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "FIA," the Russell-IdealRatings Islamic US Large Cap Index, the ETF is the first of its kind on the exchange. Polson said a large percentage of the Muslims who work at tech firms are not using their 401(k) plans because they're not Sharia-compliant. "All of our advisory business is about addressing these needs," Polson said, adding his company is working with clients from the Muslim Association of the Puget Sound. The association has a large community center with a mosque in Redmond near Microsoft's headquarters. Next up for Fallah is a possible foray into home mortgages so clients can buy houses without taking out interest-bearing loans, which is against Sharia law. As part Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's landmark housing initiative, the city plans to work with lenders to help observant Muslims buy homes. What these articles address are efforts to help businesses service a significant portion of the local Seattle-area working population who are unable to utilize those business' current offerings due to religious limitations, not to force businesses to comply with tenets of sharia law. Mayor Murray's 13 July 2015 "Action Plan to Address Seattles Affordability Crisis" merely included a policy point of "explor[ing] the best options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products," not mandating that any local businesses offer such products: Action Plan Support the Community in Finding Housing Tools for Sharia-Compliant Lending: For our low- and moderate-income Muslim neighbors who follow Sharia law which prohibits the payment of interest or fees for loans of money there are limited options for financing a home. Some Muslims are unable to use conventional mortgage products due to religious convictions. The City will convene lenders, housing nonprofits and community leaders to explore the best options for increasing access to Sharia-compliant loan products to help these residents become homeowners in Seattle. Last updated: 17 July 2015 Originally published: 17 July 2015 | 1 | [
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FMD1121 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Donald Trump's Outsized Flagpole Claim summaries: Donald Trump violated Palm Beach ordinances by putting up an outsized U.S. flag and pole, then donating the money he was fined to veterans' organizations.
contextual information: An anecdote about Donald Trump and his outsized U.S. flag and pole neatly encapsulated what so many people found either most appealing or most distasteful about the business magnate and 2016 Republican presidential candidate: to some he was the no-nonsense take-charge type who had the power and influence to thwart those who would insist on allowing the enforcement of petty rules or "political correctness" impede the progress of business and the course of "making America great again"; to others he was a wealthy blowhard who thought the rules didn't apply to him and habitually bullied others into submission to feed his lust for self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment: When Trump purchased and rebuilt Mar-A-Lago the Grand mansion and estate in Palm beach, Florida he got into a dispute with the city, who are well known for being strict on zoning regulations. Trump put up a 50 foot flag pole even though 30 foot is the maximum allowed. The city imposed a 1,000 dollar fine per day. While Trump and the city argued back and forth, finally when the fine had reached 120,000 dollars Trump proposed a solution. He would donate that amount to veterans organizations, would move the flag and pole to a different location in front of the mansion and would only use a 30 foot flag pole. The city agreed. So Trump brought in the company who does Golf course construction had them build a 20 foot high grassy hill and put a 30 foot flag pole on top of it. The basic facts are these: In 1985, Donald Trump paid $10 million for Mar-A-Lago, the name of the Marjorie Merriweather Post estate in Palm Beach, Florida. On 3 October 2006, Trump had an outsized American flag (variously described as being either 15x25 feet or 20x30 feet) installed on an 80-foot-high flagpole at Mar-a-Lago, in violation of local zoning regulations that established a maximum size of 4x6 feet for flags and a maximum height of 42 feet for flagpoles. Trump put up his regulation-violating flag and pole without obtaining either a building permit permit or a variance from local authorities, and the Palm Beach town council accordingly fined him $1,250 (or, in some accounts, $250) for every day the flag remained in place (apparently citing him only for the pole but not the flag itself). Trump in turn filed a $25 million lawsuit against Palm Beach, claiming that the town was selectively enforcing its rules (by not fining other properties that were flying flags in violation of town ordinances) and infringing his constitutional right to free speech. Six months later the two sides finally reached an agreement during "secret, court-ordered negotiations," with the town agreeing to waive all fines against Trump for his code-busting flagpole and to "review its ordinances and codes dealing with flagpoles and flags during the next zoning season," and Trump agreeing to drop his lawsuit, lower the height of his flagpole from 80 to 70 feet, obtain a permit for the pole and move it farther inland, and donate $100,000 "to charities dealing with Iraq War Veterans, [the] American Flag, or the local VA hospital." So, the anecdote reproduced above is true in its broad strokes, although all of the numbers it cites (dollar amounts and dimensions) are inaccurate, the issue was resolved via court-ordered mediation (not by Trump's "proposing a solution"), and the money Trump agreed to donate to settle the matter went to organizations selected by both sides (although Trump had previously stated that if he won his 15x25 feet or $25 million lawsuit, the proceeds would go to military members returning from Iraq). However, the New York state attorney general later sued Trump for paying the fine through his nonprofit Donald J. Trump Foundation instead of from his personal finances: sued The New York state attorney general sued U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his children and his foundation, saying he illegally used the nonprofit as a personal "checkbook" for his own benefit, including his 2016 presidential campaign. Another $100,000 went to another charity in 2007 to settle a legal dispute over a flagpole erected in violation of local ordinances at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club and sometime residence in Palm Beach, Florida. We also haven't been able to verify whether Trump connived to maintain (or even exceed) the height of the original pole by installing a 10-foot-shorter pole on a 20-foot-high hill pictures of the estate show the flagpole rising from a mound, but the height of the mound is difficult to estimate from photographs: Trump's lawsuit maintained that he couldn't bring his flag and pole into compliance with regulations because "A smaller flag and pole on Mar-A-Lago's property would be lost given its massive size, look silly instead of make a statement, and most importantly would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump's and the Club's members' patriotism." In his statements to the news media at the time he typically framed the issue as being one of his standing up to anti-American, anti-flag, anti-patriotic forces, while acknowledging that he hadn't even bothered applying for a permit first (because he didn't think he'd get one) and stating that he didn't believe rules should apply to the American flag (and therefore to him in this instance): "Well, I put up an American flag on the front of the Mar-a-Lago Club, which is a great house, probably the greatest house in America that I turned into a private club very successfully in Palm Beach, Florida. And the flag is very proudly waving, and the town wants me to take it down. Because they say I put it up without a permit and, frankly, had I gone to the town for a permit they wouldn't have given it to me, probably. But more importantly, I say that you don't need a permit to put up the American flag. I don't think they know what their beef is. I'm not sure they really understand what their beef is. They don't talk about the flag. They only talk about the flagpole because they're afraid politically to mention the word flag and the American flag and take it down. And I'll say it's probably one of the most popular things I've ever done because we've had hundreds and hundreds of letters and thousands of requests for everything supporting the flag. Everybody wants it. Everybody wants it up. But the town wants me to take down the American flag, and I told them I'm not doing that. This is probably the wealthiest town it is the wealthiest town in America, in the United States, and frankly it's a town that wants me to take down a flag and they shouldn't be asking for that. So it's been a very, very problematic situation. I'll be responding to them very shortly. And you know, I'm a big I'm a very patriotic guy. I'm very proud of the country, and I don't want to take down the American flag. And I don't believe you need permits to put up the American flag." Long-time Palm Beach Post correspondent Frank Cerabino opined that the Palm Beach flag brouhaha had little or nothing to do with patriotism, but rather was part of a pattern of Trump's using lawsuits to bend local authorities to his will dredging up excuses to sue them for exorbitant amounts of money, then offering to drop the suits in exchange for agreements that provide him with significant business advantages: Oh, he knew what he was doing. Trump, after all, had been fighting with the town poohbahs from the very moment he'd crashed into the complacent, clubby world of Palm Beach to buy Mar-a-Lago, which turned out to be one of those great deals he couldn't afford. Trump knew from experience that Palm Beach was a stickler for adherence to its ordinances. He had once paid a $5,000 fine to the town for replacing a section of dead hedges with replacements that weren't quite tall enough. But Trump had bigger changes in mind than merely out-flagging his neighbors. He was plainly inviting a lawsuit. The town council took the bait, citing the oversized pole and flag as violations of the town code, and fining Trump $250 a day for every day they remained on the estate. Tucked into his patriotic posturing was a completely unrelated legal matter that he made part of his multi-million lawsuit: a complaint about the town code that requires large commercial enterprises to be "town serving." The town requires proof from local businesses that at least 50 percent of their business comes from town residents. So, for example, when Neiman Marcus opened on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, it was allowed to do so by promising that it would only advertise in the town's newspaper, and not in publications that circulated to shoppers who don't live on the island. For Trump, eliminating the "town serving" requirement would mean that he could offer more memberships to his Mar-a-Lago social club to people who had no connection to Palm Beach, making it easier for him to keep his club full. Softening up the town on the flag issue to pursue some other angle was a classic Trump move. Though he has yet to get this particular exemption waived, Palm Beach has learned from experience that Trump's lawsuits are never settled, just dormant. One of his Palm Beach lawyers said recently that the "town serving" issue is still unresolved and ripe for more litigation. Trump [initially] couldn't afford [to maintain] Mar-a-Lago as a single family home. His proposed solution was to chop his National Historic Landmark into something he called Mansions of Mar-a-Lago, a development that would put a public road through the middle of the estate, which would lead to the 10 mini-mansions he would build on the property, including one on the front lawn. The Palm Beach Town Council shot down all of Trump's proposed changes to the property, even when he reduced his mini-mansion plans from 10 to seven. Instead, they encouraged him to find a buyer if he couldn't afford to keep the estate intact. When the town's government refused to bend to his demands, Trump sued. The lawsuit against the Town of Palm Beach, which would prove to be not his last, would eventually cause his neighbors to lawyer up against him. After his Mansions of Mar-a-Lago plan was rejected, Trump found another way to salvage his stake in Mar-a-Lago. He offered to drop his lawsuit if council members allowed him to convert his estate into a new private club on the island. The Mar-a-Lago Club. While Trump was playing defense against the town's constant attempt to rein him in, he went on the attack against the county and its airport. Airlines routinely used a flight path in and out of Palm Beach International Airport in nearby West Palm Beach that brought the planes directly over Mar-a-Lago. This didn't sit well with Trump, who argued that the noise and fumes were ruining his investment, and that the decent thing for the county to do was to move the airport farther west. Trump had been arguing this for years, to no avail, while calling the airport director Bruce Pelly, among other things, a "moron" and "the worst airport director in the country." It turned out to be a useful gripe for Trump, one that he could turn into a new business opportunity, because just south of the airport was 214 acres of vacant scrub land owned by Palm Beach County, land he wanted. So Trump sued the county for $75 million over the airport noise, then negotiated to drop that lawsuit in exchange for the county giving him a 75-year lease on the nearby property for $438,000 a year. That land became the Trump International Golf Club, a $40 million, 18-hole, Jim Fazio-designed course that imported nearly 2 million cubic yards of dirt to transform the flat scrub land into hilly terrain with waterfalls, rock formations, and a clubhouse four stories above sea level. This wasn't the only instance of flagpole bickering in Trump's past. He also reached a (non-court) settlement with local government in 2014 after having raised Old Glory on a 70-foot flagpole at the Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, without obtaining a permit first: Signaling a possible resolution to Donald Trump's running flag feud, the California Coastal Commission said the mogul's oversized Old Glory can stay as long as Rancho Palos Verdes revises its municipal height rules. While not the victory city officials had hoped for, the decision allows for a way forward to legally allow the 70-foot-tall flagpole, which was hoisted without a permit nearly 10 years ago. Having gained the support of much of the coastal city as well as two City Councils through the years the flag now likely can get formal state approval provided the city amends its Local Coastal Program that currently limits structure heights to 26 feet. "I'm disappointed at the Trump Organization for putting up that flag without adhering to the rule of law," said Coastal Commissioner Wendy Mitchell. Commission staff members had recommended that the flagpole be reduced in height to 26 feet and moved closer to the clubhouse on the 240-acre Trump National Golf Course property. Apgar, Sally. "Trump Settles Dispute Over Flag." [Palm Beach] Sun Sentinel. 24 April 2007. Cerabino, Frank. "Trump's War with Palm Beach." Politico. 5 September 2015. Gibson, John. "Donald Trump's Flag Fight." FoxNews.com. 2 November 2006. Littlejohn, Donna. "Coastal Commission Lets Donald Trump's Giant Flagpole Stand." The Daily Breeze. 9 July 2014. Associated Press. "Donald Trump Files $10 Million Lawsuit Against Palm Beach." FoxNews.com. 25 December 2006. Associated Press. "City to Trump: You're Fined!" CNN.com. 19 January 2007. Stempel, Jonathan and Jonathan Allen. "New York Sues Trump and His Charity Over 'Self-Dealing.' Reuters. 14 June 2018. | 1 | [
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FMD1122 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Sunday, President Barack Obama gave an amazing speech at the Rutgers University graduation ceremony.Speaking to well over 50,000 people, Obama went on a subtle Trump-targeted rant to reject the presumptive Republican nominee s divisive, offensive rhetoric. Although Obama never said Trump s name, there was no mistaking who he was talking about as he spoke against building a wall. Obama said as his audience applauded: The world is more interconnected than ever before. Building walls won t change that. Obama continued his anti-Trump attack, criticizing some of the GOP front runner s positions such as Trump s infamous proposal to ban all Muslims from coming into the United States. He continued: Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country that is not just a betrayal of our values that s not just a betrayal of who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism. Addressing the 12,000 graduates listening to his speech, Obama urged them to rise above the strain of anti-intellectualism that Trump has encouraged in his race for the White House. In the process, Obama couldn t help but laugh as he exposed Trump for the idiot that he is. So, class of 2016 let me be as clear as I can be: In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It s not cool to not know what you re talking about. It s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. It s not challenging political correctness. That s just not knowing what you re talking about. You can watch Obama deliver this powerful message below:Obama urged graduates to remain dedicated to learning the truth and keeping an open mind, warning them that only exposing themselves to information that confirms their own beliefs could result in ignorance. Ironically the flood of information hasn t made us more discerning of the truth. It s just made us more confident of our ignorance. Taking the Republican party to task, Obama added that when politicians are not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, while actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we ve got a problem. Soothing frustrations felt throughout the campaigns in this election, Obama reiterated his previous comments on income inequality that he d given during a commencement address at Howard University last week. Obama reminded the graduates how important it was to vote and be involved in the political process: The reason some of these things have not happened even though the majority of people have approved, it s really simple. It s because a huge chunk of Americans, especially young people do not vote. Apathy has consequences. You can watch Obama s full speech below it serves as a reminder to America s youth that they are powerful, and that they should use that power to unify instead of divide our country.Featured image via Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1123 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PC is killing our country. This is called fighting back While counterculture crackpots are working themselves into a lather over the prospect that, in some places, men who think that they re women can go tinkle in the same restroom where a 6-year-old girl is pulling down her panties, one state legislator has decided that it might be time to push back.Indiana State Sen. Jim Tomes, who probably accepts basic biology and believes that people born with a penis are male, proposed a bill that would make it a Class A misdemeanor for trannies to use a bathroom that doesn t correspond to their birth gender.Last week, Tomes uttered the following line that s sure to ignite tempers among the social justice mob: If you were born a man, then you are obliged to use the males restroom. What s next? A hereditary monarchy?Anyone convicted of a Class A misdemeanor could face a year in prison and as much as a $5,000 fine.It should be noted, though, that the language in the legislation makes exceptions for janitors, first aid providers, and parents accompanying children under the age of 8.The bill does, however, cover schools. So if it passes and Little Boy Twinkletoes decides that he needs to use the girls locker room after gym class, then he s facing charges.Indiana saw some action in the culture war last year when the state passed a religious freedom law. That law was widely opposed by American liberals, who hate religious freedom.Via: DownTrend | 0 | [
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FMD1124 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Tucker Carlson Ask Hunter Biden for Help Getting His Son into College? Claim summaries: The Fox News host was once friendly with the presidents son.
contextual information: Since the 2020 elections, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has attacked U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, for allegedly engaging in business practices that benefited him due to his father's position. However, just a few years ago, according to an internet rumor, Carlson was seeking the younger Biden's assistance in getting his son into college. A meme circulating online claims that an email shows Carlson thanking Biden for writing a letter to Georgetown University on behalf of his son, Buckley. This claim is accurate. In 2014, when Joe Biden was serving as vice president, Carlson and his wife, Susie, reached out to Hunter Biden for help in getting their son into Georgetown University. Their email communication was revealed through forensic analysis of a laptop once owned by Biden, which he had purportedly left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. The laptop was obtained by Trump's then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and its contents were published by the New York Post in 2020. The correspondence on Biden's hard drive, a copy of which was also in the possession of the FBI, was largely used to investigate his overseas business dealings during his father's time in the White House, but it also illuminated more about the Carlson-Biden relationship. The emails were given to The Washington Post on a hard drive by activist Jack Maxey, who received it from Giuliani. The Washington Post revealed the details of Carlson's and Biden's communication in May 2022 and was able to confirm, with the help of forensic analysis and interviews with people familiar with the communications, that this and other emails on the hard drive were real. So what did Carlson actually say? The Post shared an image of a few of the emails in which he thanks Biden for writing a letter to Georgetown "on Buckley's [his son's] behalf." He added, "So nice of you. I know it'll help." Carlson's wife wrote to Biden in 2014: "I realize you don't really know Buckley. Maybe you could meet or speak to him, and he could send you a very brief resume with his interests and grades attached." She also wrote: "Tucker and I would be so grateful if you could write a letter or speak to someone in the Georgetown Admissions Office about Buckley." Biden replied that he would be honored to help. "I will do anything you would like me to do," he said. Carlson described his son's interest in squash and fly fishing and wrote, "He loves Washington for all the right reasons, I think, and really wants to go to school here." When Biden agreed to write a letter for Buckley, Susie responded with, "Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!" Carlson admitted that he was once close with Biden in a phone interview with the Post. He said: "Hunter Biden was my neighbor. Our wives were friends. I knew him well. I talked to him many times about addiction, something I know a lot about. And I've said that. I think that Hunter Biden is an addict and that's why his life is falling apart, and I feel bad for him. I've said that many times, and I mean it." He refused to discuss the emails, however, pointing (with apparent irony) to claims that the timing of the laptop's emergence in 2020 had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Previously, Carlson had dismissed and mocked claims of a Russian disinformation campaign as an effort by the establishment and tech giants to protect Joe Biden's 2020 election campaign. It is unclear if Biden ended up writing a letter, but Carlson's son did end up going to the University of Virginia. "I can't confirm these emails. The emails that you're referring to were described by our intel community as Russian disinformation," he said. He added that he could not verify the emails as he did not have access to the account. Hunter Biden declined to comment to the Post. Since 2020, Carlson has regularly criticized the younger Biden on his show, accusing him of getting "lucrative jobs because he had an important father." He did say there were certain lines he would not cross, pertaining to the laptop. In October 2020, he said: "Much of the material on the laptop is of limited relevance to the public. [...] And by the way, if we're being honest, some of the exchanges between Hunter Biden and his father, and they are on there, too, reveal that whatever you say about them, Joe Biden really loves his son, and they're touching." But following the 2020 election, Carlson's anti-Hunter Biden rhetoric grew, and he even poked fun at his addictions in an October 2021 segment: "So again, let's say you were a crackhead through your 40s, made a lot of pornographic videos mostly of yourself, your genitals covered in M&Ms, and then once you got to your 50s, decide, 'Hey, I want to be Andy Warhol.' You probably couldn't do it unless your dad happened to be the president, and that's how Hunter Biden pulled that off." | 1 | [
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FMD1125 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Jay Dyer 21st Century WireSuicide squad is who they call to counsel the people leaving this vapid movie. Possibly the worst superhero film yet, it even rivals the likes of Spawn, Catwoman and Ghost Rider. At least there was Nic Cage, but here, only a confused and garbled CGI wasteland that is as messy as the single mom tats emblazoned every scene. Nothing in this movie makes sense, much less is the plot even coherent, as a selection of the worst of America s convicts are chosen to become Task Force X, a microchipped hit team to take on the meta-humans (X-men, yawn) and the extra-dimensional entities that possess two paper-thin characters.Side note the film is adapted from my old essay, United Skanks of America.This film is one of the few instances I can think of where the overt propaganda is actually more interesting to spot than the film itself. Will Smiff plays a hitman baby-daddy whose only concern is scoring 2 million dollars to buy his daughter s attention. Yes, all those noble baby-daddies are really just striving for ghetto release so they can become responsible parents. Next, a hot chick plays a psychiatrist babe-turned skank who, after falling in love with the joke that is The Joker, morphs into the average American skank, graffiti ed to the hilt with thug-style sleaze. In this sense, Harley Quinn makes sense as a representation of the mental illness that plagues the young western female, as evidenced in their body-defacing obsessions and self-mutilation.Planetary sigils adorn the headdress.As Matt Forney writes:No girl has ever improved her looks with a gaudy mural injected under her skin or a piece of metal dangling from her nostrils. There s no man on Earth who has ever thought about his girlfriend or wife, Man, you know what would make her even sexier? A butterfly emblazoned just over her ass. Yet, despite this objective reality, thousands of girls continue to mutilate themselves at an astounding rate, to the point where more girls now have tattoos than men.Indeed, nothing captures the full throttle ruination of the western female than this slut character which drives the ridiculous simulacrum of a plot by seeking to be reunited with Joker Leto. Since Grant Morrison is an open fan of Crowley, chaos magick and summoning entities through sigils, I am curious which god he offended to have the legions of suck demons inspire his advice to Leto. That is the only explanation.The Crowleyan elements of this film are really the only noticeable esoteric themes, with the Joker now being apparently bi-sexual (perfect embodiment of the ruined western male), and the planetary sigils that adorn Cara Delevingne s headdress. From here, you can divine the rip off of a rehash semblance a story a giant garbage vortex has opened up over a city with the intent of destroying humans who no longer worship the entities as gods. The giant garbage vortex was actually filmed when in reality it opened up over New York the night this film premiered.Faith, the Hillary-hero. Originally, the skank squad was formed through the machinations of Reagan (presumably based on the Latin American death squads) and now, even Obama plays a positive role in the storyline from the comic. Indeed, comic books have long been tools of propaganda, from World War 2 Americanism to Cold War absurdity, comic books have been a staple in the establishment-promoted anti-establishment toxic culture.The sad fact, as I have been arguing for a long damn time now, is that the increase in corporate government control of entertainment realm only results in the degeneration of artistic creativity. I can wait for the 5th version of the plot of Ghostbusters-Avengers-Ghostbusters-Suicide Squad, but can you? Aside from this, the other amazing, little-known tidbit is that since the market for comics is generally teenagers, the script was written by a teen how else would an ancient goddess lithely intone, You don t have the balls! ?Nowadays, comic books are the tip of the queer spear in promoting transgender heroes, fat acceptance heroes that promote Hillary, and the absurd reversing of racial and gender roles (such as Thor becoming a woman and Iron Man a black girl). The cultural degeneration and toxification is a symbiotic relationship as the west devolves at lightning speed into a troglodyte, Morlock genetic experiment, the comic book world then comes to reflect that gluttonous, scooter-bedeviled psych ward in its art. Since comic books now drive the film industry s big blockbuster productions, blockbuster films continue to foist the Disney-Degeneration of social justice warriors rabidly attempting to quell dissent.Meanwhile, the self-devouring ouroboros of the left is its own punishment and destruction. In sum, don t waste your time, as it s all chaos, and no magic. However, if you liked John Leguizamo s farting clown in spawn, you ll probably love the ebonics-speaking crocodile in this garbage.The comedy gold of the farting clown. READ MORE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hollywood FilesTo hear Jay s full podcasts, see more information and learn how you can become a subscriber to JaysAnalysis.Jay Dyer is the author of the forthcoming title, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and his podcast, Esoteric Hollywood, investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix. | 0 | [
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FMD1126 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The left is really great at eating its own. Feminists think Starbucks has a special drink that s racist and they re going after the coffee house because of it. No, we didn t make this up. Just listen to Tucker Carlson s dismay at how ridiculous this is:WEIRDEST CLAIM EVER: PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE = WHITE SUPREMACY: Pumpkin spice just doesn t taste as good when you add a shot of racism, a feminist leader explained as the fall flavor began to pop up in coffee shops around the country. This is a shockingly weird claim, but it shouldn t be surprising.In an editorial published last month, we wrote about the Left s effort to broaden the boundaries of concepts such as white supremacy and racism in a way that impugns the conduct of well-meaning people. Now, a feminist nonprofit is running a campaign to convince festive imbibers of Pumpkin Spice Lattes they re unknowingly boosting the cause of white supremacy.The co-founder of UltraViolet issued the shot of racism statement Sept. 6. I knew Starbucks had a secret menu, but the baristas must really be keeping these racism shots on the down low.A social media post from the group informed readers: That favorite fall drink of yours is funding rent payments to white supremacy. Given the severity of the campaign s language, one may assume profits from sales of Starbucks beloved PSLs are being surreptitiously redirected to the Klan or neo-Nazi groups. In fact, UltraViolet s actual complaint is that a couple of Starbucks 24,000 locations happen to be in properties owned by the Trump Organization.According to UltraViolet s logic, by patronizing any of Starbucks thousands of stores, average consumers of the signature fall beverage are directly boosting the cause of white supremacy. How increased latte profits to the Trump Organization (not even the White House) impact the president s policies on racial matters is left unclear.Read more: WE | 0 | [
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FMD1127 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home › POLITICS | US NEWS › TRIGGERED: JOURNALIST SNOWFLAKES SCARED TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE ‘TURNING ON THE MEDIA’ TRIGGERED: JOURNALIST SNOWFLAKES SCARED TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE ‘TURNING ON THE MEDIA’ 0 SHARES
[10/28/16] Triggered journalists from across the nation are bemoaning the treatment members of the press are receiving at Trump campaign rallies from the Trump supporters the media routinely misrepresents as ignorant racists, fascist Nazis, or disenchanted working whites.
With increasing regularity, these journalist snowflakes are “reporting” their victimization at the hands Trump supporters who chant mean things like, “CNN sucks” and call them names like “presstitutes.”
For members of the media elite, the occasional taunts and jeers signal a dangerous threat to the free press. During an interview with Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer breathlessly asked Trump’s campaign manager to ask Trump to stop calling out the press at his rallies because he is scared “there could be an ugly incident” between Trump supporters and the “hardworking young journalists” who cover his rallies.
A quick review of media stories over the last two weeks reveals more than a dozen articles in major publications with the same “journalists victimized by Trump supporters at rallies” narrative. Trump supporters endure long waits, messy parking, and often obstructed view seating to rally for their candidate. The press, on the other hand, is given their own entrance, sectioned off seating, and protection from event security and the Secret Service.
After an exhaustive search, this Breitbart reporter could find exactly zero incidences of members of the media being physically attacked or assaulted at Trump rallies. None of this has stopped the misleading characterization of Trump supporters creating a “menacing” and “dangerous” environment for these special snowflakes.
The narrative sprung up briefly in August when NBC ‘s Katy Tur wrote a long piece in Marie Claire in which she gives her account of her confrontational relationship with Trump and the backlash his “insults” on her reporting created with his supporters. Here is a small piece from her “no-holds-barred” account:
I was six months into covering the Trump campaign for MSNBC and NBC News, and there I was, in the belly of a World War II battleship, in a press pen made out of bicycle racks, surrounded by thousands of whipped-up Trump supporters.
…
Trump decided to go further in Mount Pleasant, pointing his finger squarely at me and launching a personal attack as millions of Americans watched at home.
“What a lie it was,” Trump said, referring to the claim that he had left the stage abruptly. “What a lie. Katy Tur. What a lie it was. Third. Rate. Reporter. Remember that.” The crowd’s boos ricocheted off the iron hull of the USS Yorktown.
Just a few days after the Tur piece was published, two other NBC press employees — Frank Thorp and Ali Vitali — tweeted out pictures and videos of Trump supporters showing insufficient deference to the press. It was so very traumatic that it inspired several stories, including this one in Real Clear Politics . Post navigation | 0 | [
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FMD1128 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S.A. Freedom Kids performed at a rally for Donald Trump in Florida last January and played a song containing lyrics which were terrifying unless you re pro-war. After that, the kids were a hit, featured at media appearances, with the three pre-teen girls even telling Inside Edition that Donald told them that he planned to listen to their CD all night long. However, that cozy relationship has changed since then.The father of one of the Freedom Kids, Jeff Popick, who authored Freedom s Call, told The Washington Post Monday that he is planning to file a lawsuit against the Trump campaign for violating its agreement with the group. This is not a billion-dollar lawsuit, Popick told the Post. I m doing this because I think they have to do the right thing. And if this means having to go through the court system to enforce them doing the right thing, then that s what I have to do. I m not looking to do battle with the Trump campaign, but I have to show my girls that this is the right thing. Popick said that promises were made by various agents of the Trump campaign.It started in Pensacola. When Popick first reached out to the Trump campaign about performing, he spoke with various people including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. His understanding from the campaign was that the Kids would make two appearances in Florida, where Popick lives. The first event didn t come to fruition, and Popick says he asked for $2,500 in payment for the second performance, in Pensacola. The campaign made a counter-offer: How about a table where the group could presell albums? Popick took the deal.After arriving at the venue, the group found that there was no table, and he said it ended in complete chaos, adding, They clearly had made no provisions for that. Afterward, Popick attempted to contact the Trump campaign to no avail. Popick said money was spent on promotional material for the table, which never existed. In addition, Popick said he lost several promotional opportunities over the confusion with his relationship with the campaign.After Donald opted not to be featured during the Fox News debate due to friction with the network, a Trump campaign representative called Popick to see if the Freedom Kids might perform. Popick tell me if this sounds familiar was promised that there would be huge exposure for the kids from the event, so an agreement was made.The Freedom Kids and their parents flew out to Iowa only to find a message from the campaign saying there was a change of plan. The performers attended the rally but were told not to talk to the media. They just were constantly coming over, wanting pictures, Popick said of the news media. They wanted to take pictures, they wanted to ask questions and I had to be a real jerk. In the end, the trip, flights, rental car and hotel were all paid by Popick.After that, he kept reaching out again and again and again and again, without luck. He was passed around between staffers; calls went unreturned even after calls were promised. Emails Popick sent to the campaign (which he shared with The Post) detail the interaction between himself and the campaign and his ultimate request. We are now asking and DEMANDING for what has been promised to us and is now long-overdue (and has been rightly earned by us); that is, a performance at the convention, an email dated July 9 reads. Or, be made whole. These are guys that insist they re straight shooters, Popick said. I ve invested a lot of time, effort, money, he continued, and it s just been complete silence. Popick has consulted with an attorney who believes that he has a very strong case.Popick was a fan of the reality show star-turned GOP nominee but he s not so sure anymore. At this point, my position is that I have no position, really, Popick said. What he s done to my group or what he s not done for my group doesn t necessarily make him the best candidate, it doesn t make him the worst candidate. I still have to mull that over. He might still be the best candidate as president of the United States or not. This whole story sounds familiar. It sounds like the Trump University scam. We re not sure what Mr. Popick has to mull over. If a person is ripping off your kid, then you wouldn t normally cast a vote for them but we re not going to tell the father of the Freedom Kids how to freedom.Stand in line, Mr. Popick. Donald has been involved in 3,500 lawsuits.Featured image via via screen capture. | 0 | [
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FMD1129 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: West Virginia has the nations lowest workforce participation rate, which hovers around 50 percent, when the national average is about 63 percent.
contextual information: Is workforce participation lower in West Virginia than in any state? Thats what West Virginia University president Gordon Gee wrote in a recentop-ed. Gees Jan. 14 column in the State Journal newspaper was titled, An effective education system is key to West Virginias future. In the column, Gee wrote, As I often point out, our state does not have a job problem. It has a skills problem that leaves many high-paying jobs unfilled. We have the nations lowest workforce participation rate, which hovers around 50 percent, when the national average is about 63 percent. Is this claim accurate? We took a closer look. Economists say the most appropriate statistic in this case is the civilian labor force participation rate, which is calculated on a regular basis by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thestatistictakes the number of people who are employed, adds it to the number of unemployed people who are looking for work, and divides the sum by the total population that is at least 16 years of age, not serving on active duty in the military, and not institutionalized in a facility such as a prison or a long-term-care home. The most recentdataavailable from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from December 2018, showed that West Virginia had a civilian labor force participation rate of 53.9 percent. The figure didnt deviate much throughout 2018, ranging from 53.7 percent to 54 percent depending on the month. The past five years also looked similar to 2018. The average workforce participation rate in 2018 was 53.9 percent. In 2017 it was 53.3 percent, in 2016 it was 53.1 percent, in 2015 it was 52.8 percent, and in 2014 it was 53.1 percent. He would have been a little closer using a similar, but distinct, statistic known as the employment-population ratio. This statistic takes the number of employed people and divides it by the same overall population used in the civilian labor force participation rate. In West Virginia, that was 51.2 percent in December 2018, and was close to that during 2018. So for this part of his statement, Gee was close, and he did say around 50 percent, which gives him some wiggle room. West Virginia did indeed have the lowest civilian labor force participation rate in the nation in December 2018. The next-closest state was Mississippi, with 55.8 percent. And the pattern was much the same for the rest of 2018. In fact, West Virginia has remained in the lowest spot since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting the series on a consistent basis in 1976, said Brian Lego, research assistant professor at West Virginia Universitys Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Thenational civilian labor force participation ratewas 63.1 percent in December 2018, after rising from a low of 62.7 percent earlier in the year. So Gee is on target with his statement that the national rate was about 63 percent. Lego said there are a range of factors that explain the states weak performance. The big picture reasons are related to human capital deficiencies such as lack of skills needed for jobs available, he said. He also cited poor health, drug abuse, and a large number of elderly residents in West Virginia. Gee said, We have the nations lowest workforce participation rate, which hovers around 50 percent, when the national average is about 63 percent. He was very close on all three elements of the statement, and he gave himself some breathing room by using the words around and about. We rate his statement True. | 1 | [
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FMD1130 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: 'Clear Button' Fraud Claim summaries: Do gasoline purchasers who fail to press the 'Clear' button on gas pumps after refueling risk additional charges on their credit/debit cards?
contextual information: Claim: Gasoline purchasers who fail to press the "Clear" button on gas pumps after refueling risk additional charges appearing on their credit/debit cards. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, May 2008] Jim just told me about something that happened to one of his coworkers. She used her credit/debit card to purchase gas at the pump (like most of us do). She received her receipt like normal. However, when she checked her statement, there were 2 $50 charges added in addition to her purchase. Upon investigation, she found out that because she did not press the 'clear' button on the pump, the employee inside the store was able to use her card to purchase his/her own gas! To keep this from happening, after you get your receipt, you must press the 'CLEAR' button or your information will be stored until the next customer inserts their card. Be sure to tell all your friends/family so that this doesn't happen to them! [Collected via e-mail, February 2010] A friend just told me about something that happened to one of his coworkers. She used her credit/debit card to purchase gas at the pump (like most ofus do).She received her receipt like normal. However, when she checked her statement, there were 2 $50.00 charges added in addition to her purchase. Upon investigation, she found out that because she did not press the 'clear' button on the pump, the employee inside the store was able to use her card to purchase his/her own gas! To keep this from happening, after you get your receipt, you must press the 'CLEAR' button or your information will be stored until the next customer inserts their card. Be sure to tell all your friends/family so that this doesn't happen to them. I had never noticed the clear button but I gotgas the other day and sure enough it is there. I shall be using it from now on. Origins: This heads-up about pressing the 'clear' button after purchasing gasoline at a pump using a credit or debit card began appearing in inboxes in early May 2008. Those in the know say there's nothing to this notion that pressing the 'clear' button after refueling will safeguard the pump's user from having his credit card accessed by future users, or indeed, have any other effect. As W. Michael Hardin, an employee of Dresser Wayne, a manufacturer of gas station fuel dispensing units, says: "If a fuel dispenser is operating in its normal mode, the way it was designed to work, your transaction is complete as soon as you hang up the nozzle. There is no need to do anything else at that point or press any buttons. If for some reason you hang up the nozzle incorrectly, and the transaction does not complete, a receipt will not be printed, which would be an indication that something is wrong." In other words, a properly functioning gas pump will conclude its transaction when its nozzle is returned to its cradle. There is no magic to be had from pressing the 'clear' button: a gas pump that is working the way it should will have already closed the transaction by that point, and a misfunctioning one isn't going to be prompted into righting itself by your mashing the 'clear' button a few times. Look instead to your receipt. That the pump dispensed one after you recradled the gas nozzle is a sign that all went well. If a receipt does not present itself, a trip inside the gas station to discuss the matter with the clerk on duty is in order. Some have been taken in by the false alert, such as the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office which was moved to post the warning on its web site. (That office did subsequently post a retraction which set the matter straight.) retraction While some dishonest gas station employees have run additional charges through customers' credit and debit cards, this form of crime is usually a matter of the miscreants' charging some cards two or more times to cover for other fuel purchases paid in cash (which was pocketed by the thieving employees, with the false charges laid against the credit or debit cards of victims used to account for the decrease in the station's fuel inventory). In May 2008, two employees of a gas station in Hopatcong, New Jersey, were caught and charged with theft for attempting to run such a scheme. However, a far more likely threat to the sanctity of one's credit or debit card at a gas station is posed by those who, during the process of refueling their own vehicles, surreptitiously affix 'skimmers' to card-reading mechanisms at gas pumps. (Skimmers collect data from the magnetic strips of cards, information which is later copied to counterfeit cards and used to empty bank accounts or to run up charges against credit accounts.) After installing the skimmers, the thieves quietly withdraw and return later to retrieve their data-enriched devices. Should you discover you've been the victim of any sort of credit or debit card fraud, contact your bank immediately. The sooner you can get in touch with them, and the more information you can provide about where you used the now-compromised card, the better. Regarding debit cards, keep in mind that they do not afford users the same level of protection against fraud that credit cards do. As a general precaution, make it your practice to examine your checking account history and balance several times a month rather than waiting for a statement to arrive in the mail. Report lost cards or suspected unauthorized use immediately. (Generally, the faster you report an incorrect or fraudulent charge, the less you will be liable for.) Consider using credit cards instead of debit cards whenever possible because it is often easier to get unauthorized charges reversed from such instruments. Also, having the problem isolated to your credit card rather than your debit card means not having to deal with the headache of bounced checks during the time it takes to get the matter straightened out. Barbara "credit where credit's due" Mikkelson Last updated: 19 June 2014 Moszczynski, Joe. "Four More Step Up in Gas Station Credit Scam." The [Newark] Star-Ledger. 15 May 2008 (p. 41). | 0 | [
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FMD1131 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Origins of the 7Up Soft Drink Name Claim summaries: Was the soft drink 7Up named for the number of its ingredients?
contextual information: Claim: The soft drink 7Up was named for the number of its ingredients. LEGEND Origins: The power of the enigma lies in its ability to enthrall, to capture the imagination. As a society, we delight in the little mysteries that don't immediately yield up their answers, which is why products whose names we can't fathom hold their appeal. One such product is 7Up. Though the soft drink itself is not the least bit mysterious, its name is. To this day, no one can swear to know the reason for that particular choice of moniker. Here is what is known: 7Up was invented in October 1929 by Charles Leiper Grigg, a man who ten years earlier had formulated a carbonated orange-flavored drink ("Whistle") while working for an employer with whom he later had a falling out. Said contretemps led to his packing up and leaving, and in 1920 the employerless Grigg formed his own soft drink company, the Howdy Corporation to produce "Howdy," yet another orange-flavored soda. Howdy was fairly successful as soft drinks go, but it was unable to seriously challenge Orange Crush, the leader in the field, and over time Howdy lost market shareto its predominant rival. Rather than see his company die by inches, C.L. Grigg cast about for another sort of soda to broaden his company's consumer base. Grigg discarded colas, root beers, and ginger ales in favor of a lemon-lime concoction. Although most every bottler was producing a lemon-lime drink in thosedays, none of those sodas had achieved national prominence, a state of affairs that left a golden opportunity forlornly sitting there waiting to be noticed. And Grigg noticed. In response, he invented the soda we now call 7Up. However, the uncola wasn't known as 7Up for the first few years of its existence. It was originally christened "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda." In his formulation, Grigg had included lithia, a naturally-occurring substance found in minute quantities in bubbling waters fed by underground springs. (Lithia is better known as lithium, a drug used to even out mood swings.) Grigg had the notion that the chemical's presumed healthful aspects would be a selling point with the soda-buying public, hence the "Lithiated" in the name. As for "Bib-Label," it was Howdy Corporation's intent to use paper labels of the sort that could be dropped over the necks of otherwise unlabeled bottles. lithium Fortunately, the unwieldy name was soon morphed to "7Up Lithiated Lemon Soda," and in 1936 the soda was officially re-dubbed "7Up." That same year, the Howdy Corporation became the Seven-Up Company. As to why "7Up," C.L. Grigg never explained how he came up with the cryptic name. Several theories exist about its origin: 7Up was the product of seven ingredients. (Which, in a way, was at least true with regard to the classes of ingredients in that original formulation: sugar, carbonated water, essences of lemon and lime oils, citric acid, sodium citrate, and lithium citrate.) "Seven Up" has seven letters. (This explanation is rather far-fetched, as it posits that the drink was named after itself.) The beverage was originally sold in 7-ounce bottles. (Which it was. Then again, so was Orange Crush.) Its inventor boasted the drink would cure mankind's "seven hangovers." (Grigg did make this statement, but it was rather tongue-in-cheek.) Grigg saw cattle branded with a mark that resembled "7UP." Reasoning that if the brand was distinctive enough to help a rancher identify his cattle, the soft drink inventor concluded it would similarly work to help consumers remember his new lemon-lime beverage. (A former 7Up president and chairman did recount this anecdote in a 1942 speech, saying Grigg had read about the history of cow brands in a Sunday newspaper article, including one brand that consisted of a letter "u" on top and to the right of a number "7.") Grigg won a great deal of money in a craps game thanks to all the sevens that were rolled that night. (Though oft repeated, little supports this tale. What money Grigg needed when he started the Howdy Corporation he obtained by bringing in moneyed partners.) Grigg won a fortune at poker, thanks to the seventh "up" card dealt him. (The same reasons for disbelieving the craps explanation apply to the poker postulation.) It's quite possible the drink's name was meant to be a enigma, given that its creator never publicly explained it. It could even have been a nonsense term meant to leave people wondering after its backstory as a way of generating interest in the beverage. (We humans do love mysteries, after all.) Questions of how it came by its name aside, 7Up has attracted another origin rumor. Many trivia lists circulated on the Internet make the following claim: The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino. Charles Leiper Grigg wasn't an albino. In photographs (albeit black and white ones), albino he appears normally pigmented, and we've yet to encounter a biography of him that makes any mention of his displaying traits of albinism. (By the way, though it is possible for an albino to have reddish or violet eyes, most people with that condition have blue eyes, and some have hazel or brown eyes.) As to where the red dot in the beverage's logo came from, so far the earliest examples we've found of that design have come from the 1970s. Prior to that, the company's trademark for the longest time was a black-outlined white "7Up" on a red background that bore some white bubbles the red dot was nowhere to be seen. In very early ads, the "7up" had wings. Barbara "7Upswept" Mikkelson Last updated: 27 April 2014 The Legend of Dr. Pepper/7Up | 1 | [
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FMD1132 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is Disney's Goofy Character Actually a Cow? Claim summaries: While some might argue that Goofy is actually a cow and not a dog, the popular character can most accurately be described as a cartoon.
contextual information: Classic Disney cartoons have proved to be a consistent source of conspiracy theories, rumors, and urban legends. For instance, we've previously investigated claims that Winnie the Pooh was actually a girl (false), that the Seven Dwarfs were modeled on cocaine addiction (False) and that a topless woman could briefly be spotted in VHS copies of "The Rescuers" (True). urban legends false False True In January 2019, we encountered yet another Disney rumor: This time, the internet asked, is the Goofy cartoon character actually a cow rather than an (anthropomorphic) dog? Although this dog vs. cow debate wasn't entirely new in 2019, that time around it was supposedly supported by an "investigative article" published in 2012 by the website Reel Rundown. While that article did contain some factual information regarding the history of the Goofy character, which is likely the reason why some people have accepted it as a truthful account of Goofy's supposed sordid past, it is peppered with exaggerations, speculation, outright fabrications, and was clearly written with humorous intentions. Reel Rundown Reel Rundown presented their argument as if they were uncovering a vast Disney conspiracy theory aimed at covering up Goofy's unsavory bovine heritage. In the introductory section, entitled "Goofy Is Not a Dog -- The Cover Up," the author argued that Goofy was actually a foreign-born cow and that Disney was forced to conceal this fact due to the political climate in the 1930s: Goofy has always been thought of as a "dog with human features" according to Disney's Mouselinks. However what the Disney establishment isn't telling you is the goofy is really a cow. To be specific an Aberdeen-Angus Cattle. A fact that Disney would love to cover-up considering that Goofy's national origin is anything but American. In 1939 with American nationalism at an historic high, Goofy's true heritage could have created a huge scandal for Disney. A Scandal that would have finished Goofies [sic] career just as it was starting to take-off." The next section, "Goofy's Heritage Revealed," was even more outlandish. Reel Rundown imagined Goofy as a living, breathing, physical animal who was born "Dipalwa Dawala" to Egyptian immigrants in Scotland and was "discovered by Disney talent scouts during a livestock sale." During the "Dark Years" section of the article, the website upped the absurdity and claimed that Goofy's son died from Mad Cow disease. For those who took the time to read the article, it should have been obvious that it was a work of humorous fiction. However, it seems that some readers stopped at the headline and were left convinced that Goofy was actually a cow, not a dog: Although this article was clearly written in jest, some of its curious claims have been spread in support of the "Goofy is a cow" argument. We'll dispel some of this misinformation to stop malicious propagation of rumors about this beloved Disney dog. Disney dog Was Goofy "born" to Egyptian immigrants in Scotland and named "Dipalwa Dawala?" First off, Goofy wasn't "born" anywhere: He was created by Disney animators Art Babbitt and Frank Webb in the 1930s. Goofy was introduced as a side character named "Dippy Dawg" in the cartoon short Mickey's Revue (1932) but underwent some revisions over the next few years. While Goofy has gone by a number of names during his Disney career (including Super Goof, Dippy Dawg, George G. Geef, Goofus D. Dawg, and Goofy Goof), we were unable to find any credible source listing the character as "Dipalwa Dawala." Art Babbitt introduced In fact, the only search results we could find for this term all point back to this Reel Rundown article. In other words, Goofy has never been named "Dipalw Dawala." Does Goofy's old love interest, Clarabelle the Cow, prove that Goofy is also a cow? Reel Rundown ended their humorous work of fiction with an "evidence" section claiming that Disney's history of creating same species couples (Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Daisy, etc.) pointed to Goofy's being a cow since he once had a love interest named Clarabele Cow: Goofy's love interest in the Mickey Mouse clubhouse is Clarabelle the Cow. The on-screen chemistry is obvious. Disney often couples characters with the opposite sex of the same species. Mickey and Mini, Donald and Daisey [sic] both follow this pattern. So why would the writers at Disney have Goofy and Clarabelle coupled up? While it's true that Goofy and Clarabelle Cow were once an item, this is not proof that they were the same species of animal. Clarabelle was the sometimes girlfriend of Horace Horsecollar, who was a horse and not a cow, and the Disney universe includes multiple examples of inter-species couples: Ben Ali Gator, for instance, woos Hyacinth Hippo in Fantasia; Jessica Rabbit (a cartoon human) has a rabbit husband in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog have an ongoing (if one-sided) relationship in the Muppet canon. Outside the Disney universe, Bimbo, a cartoon dog, was the occasional love interest of Betty Boop (a human female), and of course, Tillie Tiger once planted a kiss on Elmer Elephant: The Reel Rundown article was clearly a jape. However, it made us curious about Goofy's actual origins and whether the character was originally intended to represent a dog. In Art Babbitt's character analysis of Goofy from 1934 (available via the website of animator Michael Sporn), Goofy is described as a "composite of an everlasting optimist, a gullible Good Samaritan, a half-wit, a shiftless, good-natured coloured boy and a hick." In his description of how Goofy should be drawn, Babbit mentioned two real-world creatures, neither of which was a cow: website It is true that there is a vague similarity in the construction of the Goof's head and Pluto's. The use of the eyes, mouth and ears are entirely different. One is dog, the other human. The Goof's head can be thought of in terms of a caricature of a person with a pointed domelarge, dreamy eyes, buck teeth and weak chin, a large mouth, a thick lower lip, a fat tongue and a bulbous nose that grows larger on its way out and turns up. His eyes should remain partly closed to help give him a stupid, sloppy appearance, as though he were constantly straining to remain awake, but of course they can open wide for expressions or accents. He blinks quite a bit. His ears for the most part are just trailing appendages and are not used in the same way as Pluto's ears except for rare expressions. His brow is heavy and breaks the circle that outlines his skull. A description of the character from Disney.go.com also compares Goofy to Pluto but notes that Goofy was created as more of a human character: "Goofy was created as a human character, as opposed to Pluto, who was a pet, so he walked upright and had a speaking voice." Disney.go.com When we reached out to Disney for comment, a spokesperson told us that both The Disney Animation Research Library and the Walt Disney Archives agreed that Goofy was indeed an anthropomorphic dog. Erin Glover, Director of Publicity and Communications at Disney Animation, told us: The Disney Animation Research Library and the Walt Disney Archives agree that this question was best answered by Disney Legend Dave Smith: "Goofy was originally created as a human character with dog-like characteristics, thus why he walks upright, wears clothes, talks and has animal features that resemble a dog." The Disney Domain. "The History of Goofy." 13 April 2016. Disney.go.com. "Characters: Goofy." Archived 1 August 2003. Fischer, Tony. "Is Goofy a Dog?" Reel Rundown. 9 January 2019. | 0 | [
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FMD1133 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Sean Hannity was on fire with his opening comments on the Clinton-Uranium One deal bombshell last night. He ripped the Clintons and called on Trump s intelligence and law officials to investigate the scandal. It s a classic Hannity rant: After President Trump won in November, President Obama and his administration they were telling anyone who would listen, Russia! Russia! Russia! Russia interfered with our election. Russia was creating a direct threat to American democracy Hannity mocked. Well if that s the case, why when they have mountains of evidence that we will reveal tonight of Russian bribery going back to 2009, why then would the Obama administration and Hillary in particular sign off on the sale of 20% of America s uranium to Vladimir Putin and the Russians? Tonight, with this new evidence, what we have discovered is that the evidence against the Clintons is overwhelming, it is incontrovertible, Hannity continued. Hillary Clinton and her husband sold out America to the Russians while millions of dollars flowed to their family foundation. And in the process, Clinton created a massive national security risk for every man, woman, and child giving Vladimir Putin control over American uranium. IN CASE YOU HAVEN T HEARD ABOUT THE LATEST ON THE CLINTON-URANIUM ONE BOMBSHELL:Yesterday, the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange sent a cryptic tweet that contained a series of number and letters. Someone out there knows what that code means, and they are very likely shaking in their boots today.4767 5774 6a7a 4d6c 6330 666b 314a 3453 0000 0907 84b4 f787 7616 86f7 a737 5707 5736 Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) October 15, 2017On another front, two writers from separate publications were set to publish what Sean Hannity was calling a huge bombshell story that was due to break today.Last night on Fox News Hannity show, Sean Hannity warned that a huge bombshell would be breaking today. Sean told his audience that Circa News Sara Carter and The Hill s John Solomon have HUGE BREAKING NEWS. Hannity told his audience, Let me put it this way, if I m Hillary or fake news, I won t be sleeping well tonight. Watch:.@seanhannity TICK TOCK Tonight Folks Get ready @HillaryClinton pic.twitter.com/PxbRCgyPwm 'GITMO' BAMA (@President1Trump) October 17, 2017Well, John Solomon and Alison Spann s story did indeed break first thing today in The Hill, and it s a doozy. Will justice finally be delivered to these corrupt, anti-American, self-serving and lying players? Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them. The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking. Former House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers (R-MI)The Hill Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.They also obtained an eyewitness account backed by documents indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.The racketeering scheme was conducted with the consent of higher level officials in Russia who shared the proceeds from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin s commercial nuclear ambitions.The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America s uranium supply.When this sale was used by Trump on the campaign trail last year, Hillary Clinton s spokesman said she was not involved in the committee review and noted the State Department official who handled it said she never intervened on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter. In 2011, the administration gave approval for Rosatom s Tenex subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in a partnership with the United States Enrichment Corp. Before then, Tenex had been limited to selling U.S. nuclear power plants reprocessed uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program. The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions, a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.The Obama administration s decision to approve Rosatom s purchase of Uranium One has been a source of political controversy since 2015.That s when conservative author Peter Schweitzer and The New York Times documented how Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees and his charitable foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the deal while Hillary Clinton presided on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI, in fact, had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee s decision that Vadim Mikerin the main Russian overseeing Putin s nuclear expansion inside the United States was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn t comment.Mikerin was a director of Rosatom s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megwatts program and its commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom s new American arm called Tenam.Between 2009 and January 2012, Mikerin did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire confederate and agree with other persons to obstruct, delay and affect commerce and the movement of an article and commodity (enriched uranium) in commerce by extortion, a November 2014 indictment stated.His illegal conduct was captured with the help of a confidential witness, an American businessman, who began making kickback payments at Mikerin s direction and with the permission of the FBI. The first kickback payment recorded by the FBI through its informant was dated Nov. 27, 2009, the records show. The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.On August 6, 2017, The Washington Times questioned Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein s fishing expedition aimed at digging up dirt on President Trump in his investigation in the Trump-Russia investigation. The special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the Department of Justice, and we don t engage in fishing expeditions, Mr. Rosenstein said on Fox News Sunday. In his first Sunday show interview, Mr. Rosenstein added that special counsel Robert Mueller understands and I understand the specific scope of the investigation and so, it s not a fishing expedition. Mr. Rosenstein s comments come amid reports citing unnamed sources that the investigation has expanded into Mr. Trump s finances unrelated to possible Russian interference in last year s election.Mr. Rosenstein played down the reports: That s not anything that I ve said. That s not anything Director Mueller has said. We don t know who s saying it or how credible those sources are. Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven collusion between Russia and Donald Trump s campaign during the 2016 election.McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife s Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired earlier this year.Bringing down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that had both compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering would seem a major feather in any law enforcement agency s cap.But the Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged.The only public statement occurred an entire year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals.The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered.On Dec. 15, 2015, the Justice Department put out a release stating that Mikerin, a former Russian official residing in Maryland was sentenced today to 48 months in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $2.1 million.Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told The Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau despite the criminal charges that were being lodged. I had no idea this case was being conducted, a surprised Hosko said in an interview.Meanwhile, Julian Assange is jumping on the bandwagon, as he teases that he has a major announcement of his own that is coming soon Russian nuclear bribery investigation reveals that Russia routed millions to the Clintons https://t.co/ti7ycn7auf Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) October 17, 2017 | 0 | [
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FMD1134 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Bookkeeper in a Brothel Claim summaries: A workingman's illiteracy contributes to his stunning success as a businessman.
contextual information: My grandfather used to tell about a country lad who went to the big city to seek his fortune but had no luck finding a job. One day, while wandering through the red-light district, he spotted a "Help Wanted" sign in a window. They were looking for a bookkeeper, but after the madam quizzed the boy about his education and discovered that he could neither read nor write, she turned him away. Feeling sorry for him, she gave him two big red apples as he left. A few blocks down the street, he placed the apples on top of a garbage can while tying his shoe, and a stranger came along and offered to buy them. The boy took the money to a produce market and bought a dozen more apples, which he sold quickly. Eventually, he parlayed his fruit sales into a grocery store, then a string of supermarkets. He ultimately became the wealthiest man in the state. Finally, he was named Man of the Year, and during an interview, a journalist discovered that he could neither read nor write. "Good Lord, Sir," he said. "What do you suppose you would have become if you had ever learned to read and write?" "Well," he answered, "I guess I would have been a bookkeeper in a whorehouse."
According to folklorist Jan Brunvand, after writer Somerset Maugham was accused of stealing the plot of his 1929 short story "The Verger," he explained that he'd heard the tale from a friend and that it was a well-known bit of Jewish folklore. Maugham's claim is supported by this find, harvested from a 1923 joke book: Some fifteen years ago, a friendless and almost penniless Russian immigrant landed in New York, found lodgings on the East Side, and immediately set out to earn a living with racial perseverance and energy. He was of a likable disposition and quickly made acquaintances who sought to aid him in his ambition. One of them sponsored him for the vacant post of janitor, or shammos, to use the common Hebraic word, of a little synagogue on a side street. But when the officers of the congregation found out that the applicant was entirely illiterate, they reluctantly denied him employment, as a shammos must keep certain records. The greenhorn quickly rallied from his disappointment. He got a job somewhere. He prospered. Presently, he became a dabbler in real estate. Within ten years, he was one of the largest independent operators in East Side tenement-house property and was popularly rated as a millionaire. An occasion arose when he needed a large amount of money to swing what promised to be a profitable deal. Finding himself momentarily short of cash, he went to the East Side branch of one of the large banks. It was the first time in his entire business career that he had found it necessary to borrow extensively. He explained his position to the manager, who knew of his success, and asked for a loan of fifty thousand dollars. "I'll be very glad to accommodate you, Mr. Rabin," said the banker. "Just sit down there at that desk and make out a note for the amount." The caller smiled an embarrassed smile. "If you please," he said, "you should be so good as to make out the note, and then I should sign it." "What's the idea?" inquired the bank manager, puzzled. "Vell, you see," he confessed, "I haf to tell you somethings: Myself, I cannot read and write. My vife, she has taught me how to make my own name on paper, but otherwise, with me, reading and writing is nix." In amazement, the banker stared at him. "Well, well, well!" he murmured admiringly. "And yet, handicapped as you've been, inside of a few years you have become a rich man! I wonder what you'd have been by now if only you had been able to read and write?" "A shammos," said Mr. Rabin modestly.
Some like to question the legend's basis on the grounds that if the work-seeker couldn't read, he couldn't have made out what the sign in the window said. "Illiterate" is often mistakenly interpreted as "incapable of making head or tail out of so much as one written word." In real life, any number of folks who cannot read and thus have no hope of making sense of a printed page have learned to recognize by sight a goodly number of key words and phrases, including "help wanted." The illiterate among us manage to catch the right buses, "read" road signs, and order off menus, all by way of having memorized what certain words look like. They exist in mainstream society undetected for years, sometimes fooling even their immediate families. A good story never goes out of style, as this example shows: An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (Floors, sweeping, and cleaning). After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day." Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this, the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed." Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several more times that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly. After a short time, he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pickup truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail, and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now if you had been connected to the internet from the very start!" After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"
The legend's message is twofold: that sometimes seeming adversity is actually the Hand of God arranging future events in our favor, and that often the most momentous decisions we make swing on little more than the expediency of the moment. Taking the second point first, we observe that if the young farm boy in the first example had been able to read and write, he would have gained the job he sought, that of a bookkeeper in a brothel, and thus would never have become the grocery tycoon he ultimately turned out to be. As to what led him to seek the bookkeeping position, he quite by happenstance chose to walk down a particular street, coincidentally on a day when a "Help Wanted" sign was posted in one of the windows. On another day, that sign wouldn't have been there, or he would already have had a job somewhere else. It is ever thus: the directions of lives change depending upon which ad is answered, which interview is given, even which bus is taken. A chance encounter can lead to a marriage and the begetting of children, and just as certainly, the slightly different choice of ad or bus can result in those two people never meeting. Career direction is likewise up for grabs. As much as we like to feel we're masters of our fate, often we're the very last factor to have much influence on unfolding events, even within the confines of our own lives. But there's another message to this legend, one of the power of divine intervention and why it doesn't pay to second-guess God. Today's disappointment can be a necessary, though momentarily painful, ingredient in tomorrow's success, as the snubbed bookkeeper or janitor finds out. Children of the moment that we are, we tend to forget this truth when caught up in sorrow over not getting what we'd set our hearts on, and tend only to remember it again when things ultimately turn out far better than they would have if we'd gotten our shortsighted way. | 1 | [
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FMD1135 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Killed in Kuwait? Claim summaries: A disturbing set of images purportedly shows a pile of dead bomb-sniffing dogs that were put down after their contract with a security company was cancelled.
contextual information: In June 2016, a series of photographs purportedly showing dozens of dead bomb-sniffing dogs circulated on social media, along with the claim that the animals were killed by Eastern Securities after their contract with the Kuwait National Petroleum Company was cancelled: claim Eastern Securities or E Sec was awarded a contract with Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) to provide explosive detection dogs for their oil rigs. When KNPC canceled the contract with Eastern Securities, they were left with 140+ dogs that no longer had a job and were costing them money to feed and house them. Instead of being responsible with the working dogs and finding them homes, Eastern Securities chose the most cost-effective way of dealing with the unemployed working dogs, euthanasia. It is unknown at this time exactly how the dogs were killed or even if the remaining 90 are still alive. The images were first posted by Missy Skye, the founder of My Cats And Dogs in Kuwait, a non-profit dedicated to helping stray animals. The images received wider attention when they were posted to the Instagram page of Kuwait Animal Rescue Unit on 19 June 2016. According to these social media posts, 24 dogs were killed in the 17 June incident: Missy Skye My Cats And Dogs in Kuwait Instagram There was an extremely sad and horrifying animal abuse/massacre incident at a security company based in Kuwait on June 17, 2016 in Kuwait. Due to their contract being revoked, they slaughtered 24 of their US K9 dogs whom were trained by USK9 dog training facility which is located in Louisiana, USA. This security company is an American company which worked with Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). KNPC paid 3000KD (equivalent of $9900)/month to the security company for each dog. Early this morning, a brave lawer, Esmail Al Misri, representing the workers from Nepal at the security company and an avid animal lover, advocate, and rescuer, Mimi Maamoun, went to file a complain at Mina Abdullha police station against the security company. The environment police and municipality registered the case. There are another 91 dogs remaining at the security company. While they abused the dogs by having them on duty for 24 hours without rest, their foreign workers would not dare to speak up and raise any issues with the company as they were also being mistreated and abused. At this point, we as animal lovers in kuwait, USA, and other countries, we need to advocate all the animals by spreading the news and be the voice for these poor animals. We must help save the remaining animals! PLEASE NO DONATION IS NEEDED from/to any individuals or organizations. I will keep you posted as soon as I obtain further information. The reasons the dogs were killed and who is ultimately responsible for their deaths remains unclear. The Kuwait National Petroleum Company denied that they had anything to do with the killings, and unconfirmed sources told the Kuwait Times that the animals had been put down for humane reasons. A local animal rights activist, Mimi Mamoun, disputed that account: disputed The Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) issued a statement denying any link with the reported execution of sniffer dogs that were supposed to be used by the company according to deal with a local contractor. KNPC official spokesman Khaled Al-Asousi expressed regret in a statement to KUNA that the contractor put the animals to death. Reports on social media suggested that at least 24 dogs had been euthanatized due to the cancellation of a contract and unpaid salaries. Unconfirmed sources said that the animals were sick and had been put to death for humane reasons. But local animal rescuer and activist, Mimi Mamoun has disputed this account. The dogs were not sick, only two, three I heard; in fact my Filipino friend who handles the dogs told me that the dogs were healthy and only a few of them were old but they killed them to punished the handlers who has filed complaints at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (shoun) for nonpayment of salaries, she said. The dog training company USK9 Unlimited also commented on the incident, releasing a statement saying that they had not sold any dogs or trained any handlers for Eastern Security since 2009, and that they played no part in the recent mass euthanasia: statement SK9 RESPONSE ABOUT THE KUWAIT INCIDENT: There is a lot of confusion over a story about the alleged massacre of dogs by a Kuwaiti Security company "Eastern Security" (ES), in the country of Kuwait. TO BE VERY CLEAR: USK9 HAD NO PART OF SUCH AN INHUMANE ACT. If if this alleged massacre of dogs is validated, our position shall be one of absolute condemnation of such a gross and vile act against defenseless animals. At USK9, we are true animal lovers and have always believed and treated each and every dog as "man's best friend". To see these type pictures simply makes all of us here sick to our stomachs. USK9 has NOT sold any dogs nor trained any handlers for "Eastern Security" since 2009. Since that time, many other dog suppliers/trainers have sold dogs to ES and we have no way of determining who those suppliers are. We are hopeful that an investigation into the matter will reveal and hold all parties responsible for this tragedy accountable to the fullest extent of the law in Kuwait. USK9 is making every effort to monitor this story as it unfolds through a contact in Kuwait, but we have no way of validating information. We have made a firm demand that the authorities investigate this alleged incident and protect any animals that may be in danger if this incident is determined to be one of animal cruelty and abuse. We have see some media publications in recent days that suggest that the incident is in fact being investigated and we remain hopeful that the remaining dogs will be protected and safe. USK9 will defend itself vigorously against any story or social media postings that depict a false representation that USK9 was even the least bit involved in this alleged incident in Kuwait or is somehow responsible for the alleged incident. Eastern Securities confirmed that 24 dogs had been killed but denied they were responsible fpr the canine deaths. In an e-mailed statement, the company claimed that the dogs had been killed by a rival company in an act of "sabotage": On June 17, 2016, Eastern Securities, one of the premier private contactors providing K-9 security in Kuwait and other Middle East countries, found out, via a social media post, that 24 of its dogs had been killed. In what is developing into a case of corporate sabotage, a veterinarian technician, who worked for the agency where Eastern Securities leases its kennels, went to the kennels in the middle of the night, euthanized 24 dogs, photographed and sent pictures to a competitor of Eastern Securities, that have been since been leaked on the internet. Eastern Securities immediately launched an investigation and during the interrogation of both the veterinarian technician and the K-9 manager, an admission was made that Eastern Securities had nothing to do with the killing of the dogs. Criminal charges were filed against this depraved killer, who put down the dogs and an investigation continues to ascertain and bring to justice the names of additional culprits that helped commit this heinous crime. Eastern Securities has spent years building a reputation as one of the best providers of K-9 security in the Middle East. It is the reason government agencies and top corporations trust us. Taking care of our animals has always been and will always be one of our top priorities. To be targeted by our competitors in such a vile and ruthless manner is a despicable display of greed. We are asking that this case be prosecuted to the fullest extent and are working with the Kuwaiti government to ensure those responsible are held accountable and something this horrific never happens again. We will not stop until all those involved are brought to justice, said Bill Baisey, CEO of Eastern Solutions Group, the parent company of Eastern Securities. Facts to Know: A veterinarian technician, who worked for the kennels where Eastern Securities leased space, went to kennels at 3:00am on June 17, 2016 and killed 24 dogs. Pictures of the dogs being killed were sent to competitors of Eastern Securities. The technician immediately admitted his premeditation and commission of his crime and specifically confirmed the absence of any involvement or wrongdoing by Eastern Securities. The case continues to be under investigation by the Kuwaiti government and criminal charges against the technician were filed. | 2 | [
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FMD1136 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is There an Ancient Alien Satellite Known as the 'Black Knight'? Claim summaries: The explanation is, like many things in real life, much more boring than the conspiracy theory.
contextual information: It's a story that seems like it was dreamed up by science fiction writers: An alien satellite has been orbiting Earth for thousands of years, and the government has kept it a secret. Or so the story goes. According to Space.com, the "Black Knight" conspiracy theory goes like this: For about 12,000 years, an alien satellite orbited Earth, surveilling humanity. It was discovered about 120 years ago, but was the subject of a cover-up. Space.com Then in 2017, UFO conspiracy theorists claimed, it was shot down by the Illuminati, a clandestine group they believe secretly controls the world. claimed The "Black Knight" satellite conspiracy theory continues to get attention online. Here's one example, posted to Twitter on Jan. 3, 2022, with the user's name cropped out for privacy: If there really is an alien craft orbiting Earth and it's the subject of a cover-up, the government is doing a very bad job of it, considering the images that catalyzed the conspiracy theory were taken and shared by NASA. And contrary to what the above post says, the origin of the object in question is known. images We will explain more below, but the object is essentially space junk, and it wasn't shot down, it burned in Earth's atmosphere. According to a debunking of the conspiracy theory published by James Oberg, a former NASA engineer, the image was taken during STS-88, the first shuttle mission to the International Space Station in 1998. The crew of the space shuttle Discovery was sent to space to help assemble the space station. debunking During a space walk in which astronauts were placing thermal covers over trunnion pins, one of the blankets came loose and, to the dismay of the astronauts, drifted away into space. Oberg pointed to video of the moment the thermal cover mishap, which can be viewed here: trunnion pins here Crookes, David and All About Space. The Black Knight Satellite: A Hodgepodge of Alien Conspiracy Theories. Space.com, 17 Dec. 2021, https://www.space.com/what-is-the-black-knight.html. Oberg, James. "Phantom satellite? What IS it? What ISNT it? WHY the confusion?" 21 Oct. 2014, https://www.jamesoberg.com/sts88_and-black-knight.pdf | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1137 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Rewrite this item "Dennis Guthrie's Letter to Nancy Pelosi". Claim summaries: An op-ed piece about health insurance reform legislation prompted a Charlotte lawyer to send a critical letter to Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
contextual information: On 10 August 2009, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer published an op-ed piece in USA Today titled "'Un-American' attacks can't derail health care debate," in which they criticized those who had been engaging in efforts to disrupt the debate over health insurance reform legislation (which later became widely known as "Obamacare"). In the op-ed, Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer wrote (in part): [I]t is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion. These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades. That op-ed prompted Dennis L. Guthrie, an attorney with the Charlotte, North Carolina, law firm of Guthrie, Davis, Henderson & Staton, to pen a (primarily ad hominem) critical letter to Rep. Pelosi the following day, images of which soon began circulating online. Dear Ms. Pelosi: I write to you out of utter disdain! You are as despicable and un-American as the traitor Jane Fonda. I am a soon-to-be 65-year-old who has voted in every state and local election since 1966. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats alike. I have worked on campaigns for both Republicans and Democrats, white and black. I served the country that I love in Vietnam, as my son did in the Middle East. I was awarded two bronze stars. I have been involved in politics since age 6 when my father was campaign manager for a truly great American Congressman, Charles Raper Jonas, who worked for his constituents and his country and was to be admired, unlike you. You obviously haven't read the Constitution recently, if ever, the Federalist Papers, or even David McCullough's book on John Adams. You ought to take the time while riding around in your government-provided luxury executive jet to do just that. You represent socialistic and even Marxist principles that our founding fathers tried to avoid when setting out the capitalistic republican form of government represented by our Constitution. I find it interesting that you and your husband are multi-millionaires, with much of your fortune being made as a result of your public service. You have controlled legislation that has enhanced your husband's investments both on and offshore. At the same time, you redistributed the wealth of others. Our system of a free market economy is being destroyed by the likes of you. You ride around in a Gulfstream airplane at the taxpayers' expense while criticizing the presidents of companies who produced something for the economy. You add nothing to the economy of the United States; you only subtract from it. I would like to suggest that you return to the city of fruitcakes and nuts and eat your husband's canned tuna and pineapple—produced by illegal immigrants and by workers who have been excluded from the protection that 90% of the legal workers in the United States have. I await your defeat in the next election with glee. Don't ever use the term un-American again for protesters who love this country and are exercising their rights upon which this country was founded. By the way, while I served in the Army, I was spit on by the same type of lunatics who support you and whom you probably supported in the 60s and 70s. You are an embarrassment to all of us who served so that you would have the protected right of free speech to call us un-American. But at the same time, I have the right to write to you to notify you that I consider you to be un-American, as do the majority of the people of this formerly great country. You are a true disgrace to most of the people who served this country by offering themselves for public service in the United States Congress. I feel certain your aides will not share this letter with you, but I intend to share it with many. We contacted Mr. Guthrie at the address included in the letterhead on which the letter was printed, and he confirmed that he did indeed write and send such a letter to Rep. Pelosi. The letter circulated again in 2019 via social media, with one minor revision: The line "I am a soon to be 65 year-old" was changed to "I am a soon to be a [sic] 75 year-old." Pelosi, Nancy and Steny Hoyer. "'Un-American' Attacks Can't Derail Health Care Debate." USA Today. 10 August 2009. | 1 | [
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FMD1138 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Watch out readers of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, since the mere familiarity with Russian authors is now sufficient to have a person branded as a Russian conspirator by mainstream media. [In the latest episode in extreme fake news, the foundering Newsweek Magazine has concocted an entire web of Russian connections around Trump’s chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon simply because Bannon knows something about Russian politics and literature. While acknowledging that Steve Bannon, “hasn’t been implicated in any of the ongoing probes†into “murky connections†with Russian hackers and spies, and while further noting that Bannon “isn’t under investigation by the FBI for possible collusion with the Kremlin,†Newsweek writer Owen Matthews insists that something even more nefarious is going on between Bannon and the Kremlin. “But Bannon’s ties to Russia are ideological,†Matthews proclaims, “and therefore, arguably, they’ve had a more profound impact on White House policy with Moscow. †Hitting a new low in fake news, Newsweek doesn’t even bother citing “unnamed sources†in relating its imaginary version of White House intrigue, but simply puts forward unsourced allegations that “Bannon was booted off Trump’s National Security Council in a White House coup†that was partly about “whether to appease a resurgent Kremlin or confront it. †In his rambling piece, titled “Alexander Dugin and Steve Bannon’s Ideological Ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia,†Matthews makes the verifiably erroneous claim that Bannon “has praised not only Putin but also a brand of Russian mystical conservative nationalism known as Eurasianism. †Matthews does not explain to readers how Bannon’s characterization of Putin as a “kleptocrat†that Americans have to be “on guard of†can be considered praise. Nor does Newsweek inform us how Bannon’s mere mention that Putin’s belief system is based on Eurasianism should be construed as anything other than analysis, and has nothing to do with “praise. †Still, in his magnificent house of cards, Matthews imagines that “Bannon and the ’s admiration for Putin has come into direct conflict with the White House’s new policies. †Not content with this sophomoric application of guilt by association, Matthews goes further still, suggesting that the slogan “America first†somehow relates to the worldview of Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, whose philosophy “glorifies the Russian Empire. †This is like saying that Charles de Gaulle must have been in cahoots with Cambodian dictator Pol Pot because the two were nationalists. Despite no ties between Bannon and Dugin, Matthews alleges that they “have common cause in the idea that global elites have conspired against ordinary people — and the old order must be overthrown. †Bannon “seems to admire Dugin,†Matthews proposes, a theory for which he adduces no evidence, evidently springing from his overly fertile imagination. At best, Matthews sees common threads running through Bannon and Dugin’s speeches and concludes that they must somehow be colluding or at very least admire one another. Since Bannon believes that “individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing,†Matthews suggests, he must have Russian ties, because this is “precisely what Putin’s Kremlin is promoting as it backs anti — European Union candidates from Hungary to France. †By this strained logic, anyone who believes that national sovereignty is a positive value must therefore be a supporter of Putin’s Kremlin. After saying literally nothing of substance in his exhaustingly article, Matthews arrives at the ridiculous conclusion that the “ideological honeymoon†between Trump and Bannon is over. “The only question now is whether Bannon can survive the divorce. †Truth be told, Owen Matthews and Newsweek are not completely to blame for their exercise in groundless . They are following the example of an equally fatuous story published by the New York Times last February. Remarkably, the Times dedicated an entire article to Steve Bannon’s familiarity with the writings of Italian philosopher Julius Evola “who inspired Fascists,†and therefore must somehow share his worldview. In the eyes of the New York Times, literacy has now become a crime. “The fact that Bannon even knows Evola is significant,†the article eerily reports, citing Mark Sedgwick, a British intellectual teaching in Denmark. While admitting that the entire connection amounted to “a passing reference by Mr. Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher,†somehow the Times saw fit to produce a essay in a desperate effort to tease out a dark association between the two men. Nowhere but in the discredited mainstream media could such be seriously proposed as anything remotely akin to true journalism. Reporting on the news is being systematically replaced by news fabrication. Apparently, propaganda vehicles like Newsweek and the New York Times have reached the conclusion that their readers are so ideologically driven that facts no longer matter at all. Any story — however baseless and absurd — is worth publishing as long as it advances the narrative that want to believe. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 | [
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FMD1139 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: At least 93 people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck central Mexico on Tuesday, officials said. The state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, saw the highest death toll, with officials reporting 54 deaths. The state of Puebla, where the epicenter of the quake struck, saw at least 26 deaths, the governor said. At least four people were killed in the capital, while nine people were left dead in the neighboring state of Mexico, officials said. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1140 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ministers from Asia-Pacific countries ended their meeting on Thursday with a very good outcome , despite differing views on trade and protectionism, Vietnamese Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh told a news conference. Talks among trade and foreign ministers from Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries on a communique for leaders were extended into a second day in the face of U.S. demands for changes to the language used concerning issues such as free trade and protectionism, officials at the talks said. There were diverse views, but we were able to conclude with very good outcome, which reflects the interests of all APEC economies, the Vietnamese minister said, referring specifically to trade and protectionism. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1141 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Today the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928.
contextual information: Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, have recently expressed similar concerns about the future of working-class Americans, although they differ in their proposed solutions. In his January 2015 State of the Union address, the Democratic president stated his desire to work with Congress to offer free community college to students while creating additional education, child care, and retirement savings programs to support the middle class. He proposed that funding would come from a $320 billion tax increase on the nation's highest earners and financial institutions, including investment banks. After Obama's speech, Cruz told Fox News he was disappointed with Obama's goals to increase government spending and taxes, which he argued would harm hardworking Americans. Cruz claimed that the country's rich and powerful have become complacent during Obama's presidency. "Today, the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than in any year since 1928," Cruz said. Was Cruz correct? He cites West Coast economist Emmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who studies wealth and income inequality. Cruz's spokesman, Phil Novack, indicated that Cruz does not agree with Obama, who stated in his speech that he wants to reduce the top 1 percent's after-tax income. Novack explained that Cruz believes the only way to jumpstart the economy is by championing pro-growth policies like energy development and a flatter, simpler tax structure. Cruz's comparison to 1928 comes from a report by the Pew Research Center, which cites research by Saez. Saez helps steer the World Top Incomes Database, sponsored by the Paris School of Economics, a research center and consortium of French universities offering graduate degrees and post-graduate fellowships in economics. The database, established in 2011, shows the distribution of top incomes for more than 20 countries using data from millions of tax returns collected over about 100 years. Saez stated that he and economists, including Thomas Piketty, built the database from sources such as public-use files of individual tax returns. The public-use micro-files are anonymized to preserve each taxpayer's confidentiality, Saez noted.
To examine changes over time ourselves, we created a chart from the database. The resulting data, covering 1913, the earliest verifiable year, to 2012, shows that 1928 and 2012 were the top two years in which the top 1 percent of the richest Americans earned the greatest share of the nation's income, which the government categorizes into 15 categories, including wages, salaries, self-employment income, and income from dividends and interest. In 1928, the top 1 percent of earners, then comprising about 1.2 million residents, collectively held 19.6 percent of the nation's income. In 2008, the year Obama was elected president, the top 1 percent possessed nearly 18 percent. The 1 percent collectively saw their share of the nation's income increase by nearly 5 percent during the first three years of Obama's presidency. In his fourth year, 2012, the 1 percent (nearly 314 million residents) controlled 19.34 percent. According to the database, that was the greatest share these wealthiest Americans had held since 1928. (No. 3 goes to 1927, when the top 1 percent had 18.7 percent of U.S. income.)
Top 15 years the richest American taxpayers had the greatest share of U.S. income from 1913 through 2012:
Year | Top 1% income share
1928 | 19.6
2012 | 19.34
1927 | 18.68
1916 | 18.57
1929 | 18.42
2007 | 18.33
1914 | 18.16
2006 | 18.06
1926 | 18.01
1913 | 17.96
2008 | 17.89
2005 | 17.68
1936 | 17.64
1917 | 17.6
1925 | 17.6
Source: The World Top Incomes Database, 2011 (accessed Jan. 30, 2015)
Saez informed us via email that Obama and Congress (which shifted to Republican control during his tenure) did little to address wealth inequality up until 2012, as the country recovered from the Great Recession, which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. In a Sept. 3, 2013, report, Saez wrote that in 2012, average real incomes per family in the top 1 percent of earners nationally increased by 19.6 percent, while average incomes among the rest of the population grew by only 1 percent. The report suggested that the entire surge in top 1 percent incomes in 2012 could be attributed to income re-timing—when individuals delay making payments to report a higher income and take advantage of lower tax rates. Saez also indicated that he expects the top 1 percent's income share for 2014 to be slightly lower than in 2012 due to tax increases approved by Congress and Obama in 2013, which raised the nation's marginal income tax rate from 35 to 39.6 percent for married couples earning more than $450,000 annually, starting in 2013. This deal, which also reduced tax deductions for high-earning businesses and individuals, helped the government avoid the fiscal cliff, a term describing the impending impact of tax cuts initiated by President George W. Bush expiring at the end of 2012, coinciding with mandated spending reductions.
Questions about income-inequality research have arisen regarding the World Top Incomes Database and Saez's work, which have become popular sources for politicians discussing income and wealth inequality. Some experts, however, have raised doubts about the Piketty-Saez inequality measurements. Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, noted that the Saez-Piketty data may understate income growth for the bottom 99 percent. He explained that Piketty and Saez limit their focus to pre-tax private income, including wages, self-employment earnings, dividends, interest, rental payments, and, in some cases, capital gains. As a result, Burtless argued, the database does not account for other income sources such as Social Security, unemployment benefits, food stamps, government reimbursement of medical bills, and untaxed fringe benefits like employer contributions to health and retirement plans. If these income items are included, Burtless stated, the bottom 99 percent of income recipients has experienced much faster income growth than what is shown by Piketty and Saez. He suggested that the best statistics on U.S. income inequality come from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which constructs three measures of income: gross market income, pre-tax income (gross market income plus cash and non-cash government transfers), and after-tax income (pre-tax income minus federal income, payroll, and excise taxes). CBO data indicates that from 2009 to 2010, the top 1 percent's share of income increased from 13.3 percent to 14.9 percent. (To clarify, Piketty and Saez report that their research shows the top 1 percent's share of income escalating from 16.68 percent to 17.45 percent.)
Next, we spoke with Robert Litan, another economist with the Brookings Institution, about why income inequality escalated so quickly during Obama's first term. Litan noted that reasons for the rising share of the top 1 percent's income include increasing CEO pay relative to workers, the extraordinary success of tech entrepreneurs, facilitated by the Internet and globalization, and the achievements of financiers, particularly hedge fund managers. A June 12, 2014 article by the liberal Economic Policy Institute also highlights the disparity in earnings and compensation between CEOs and typical workers. Burtless and Litan further explained that Congress and Obama could not have significantly influenced the percentage increase of the top 1 percent's income based on Piketty-Saez measurements. They emphasized that Congress and the president have a more direct impact on after-tax income than on pre-tax income because their decisions directly affect the tax burdens and government transfer payments of families across different income levels.
Our ruling: Cruz stated, "Today the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928." Cruz accurately summarized calculations of income by respected researchers, although this statement does not acknowledge that there are some income streams not included in the cited calculations that would tend to benefit those of us in the bottom 99 percent, relatively speaking. Additionally, tax changes that took effect in 2013 may slightly reduce the proportion of the nation's income held by the top 1 percent. Mark this statement as Mostly True.
MOSTLY TRUE: The statement is accurate but requires clarification or additional information. | 1 | [
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FMD1142 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Budgies demand to be released from weird people’s homes 31-10-16 BUDGERIGARS imprisoned by weirdos around the UK have issued a statement pleading to be set free. The small birds trapped in slightly creepy living rooms and conservatories called for the public’s support in freeing them from the pensioners and loons holding them captive. Budgie Roy Hobbs, who lives in a cage full of mirrors, swings and bells in Hull said: “We don’t guard people’s house, we don’t like to be cuddled, our plumage is offensively luminous and we shit relentlessly. On that basis I’d say we are not ideal pets. “I’m supposed to be flying round the Australian outback, not watching someone’s nan’s TV.” Norman Steele said: Call me an eccentric, but I admire the enigmatic aloofness of the domestic budgerigar. “I bought a pair of budgies for my wife for our tenth wedding anniversary as a way of celebrating our love, and also of letting her know exactly how trapped I felt in our marriage. “Every day I look at them and think ‘You and me both, fellas, you and me both’.”
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FMD1143 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: John McCain's Definition of 'Rich' Claim summaries: Did John McCain say he would define the income level that divides the middle class from the rich as $5 million?
contextual information: Claim: John McCain said he would define the income level that divides the middle class from the rich as $5 million. Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have heard many times that John McCain said (paraphrasing his comment, I'm sure) that the middle class includes people who make under $5 million. I am trying to find that in print to forward to relatives who say it is untrue. Origins: On 16 August 2008, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain made back-to-back appearances at the Presidential Candidates Forum held at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where they responded to questions posed by Pastor Rick Warren. During that forum, Pastor Warren asked both candidates to define "rich" for the purposes of taxation (although, since the candidates appeared separately, the question was not posed to both of them with the same wording). To Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Pastor Warren said: "OK. Taxes, this is a real simple question. Define rich. I mean give me a number. Is it $50,000, $100,000, $200,000? Everybody keeps talking about who we're going to tax. How can you define that?" Senator Obama didn't quite answer the question directly, saying that an income level of less than $150,000 per year was middle class and that his tax plan would call for a "modest increase" in taxes for those making more than $250,000 per year: "Look, here's how I think about it. And this is reflected in my tax plan. If you are making $150,000 a year or less, as a family, then you're middle class or you may be poor. But $150,000 down, you're basically middle class; it obviously depends on the region where you're living. I would argue that if you're making more than $250,000, then you're in the top three percent, four percent of this country. You're doing well. Now, these things are all relative. And I'm not suggesting that everybody making over $250,000 is living on easy street. But the question that I think we have to ask ourselves is, if we believe in good schools, if we believe in good roads, if we want to make sure that kids can go to college, if we don't want to leave a mountain of debt for the next generation, then we've got to pay for these things; they don't come for free, and it is irresponsible. I believe it is irresponsible intergenerationally for us to invest or for us to spend $10 billion a month on a war and not have a way of paying for it. That, I think, is unacceptable. So nobody likes to pay taxes. I haven't sold 25 million books, but I've been selling some books lately, and so I write a pretty big check to Uncle Sam. Nobody likes it. What I can say is under the approach I'm taking, if you make $150,000 or less, you will see a tax cut. If you're making $250,000 a year or more, you're going to see a modest increase. What I'm trying to do is create a sense of balance and fairness in our tax code. One thing I think we can all agree on is that it should be simpler so that you don't have all these loopholes and big stacks of stuff that you've got to comb through, which wastes a huge amount of money and allows special interests to take advantage of things that ordinary people cannot take advantage of. To Republican candidate John McCain, Pastor Warren said: "Ok, on taxes, define 'rich.' Everybody talks about taxing the rich, but not the poor, the middle class. At what point—give me a number, give me a specific number—do you move from middle class to rich? Is it $100,000, is it $50,000, is it $200,000? How does anybody know if we don't know what the standards are?" Senator McCain responded by stating that he didn't think "rich" should be solely defined by income level and that the question was moot because he wanted to cut spending rather than increase taxes on the rich; along the way, he mentioned an income level of $5 million (immediately noting that "I'm sure that comment will be distorted"): "Some of the richest people I've ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education, and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don't want to take any money from the rich—I want everybody to get rich. I don't believe in class warfare or redistribution of wealth. But I can tell you, for example, there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as 'rich,' my friends, and want to raise their taxes and want to raise their payroll taxes. Let's keep taxes low. Let's give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the government take over the health care system in America. So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million? But seriously, I don't think you can—I don't think seriously that the point I'm trying to make here, seriously—and I'm sure that comment will be distorted—but the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues. And, my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in a way that mortgaged our kids' futures. Although this item is "true" in the strictly literal sense that John McCain did make the remark attributed to him, how much importance to place upon it is a subjective issue. Predictably, Democrats painted Senator McCain's remarks as indicative of his being out of touch with ordinary Americans and desirous of giving tax breaks to the rich, while the McCain campaign dismissed the candidate's statement as an obvious joke. (A Democratic National Committee video spotlighted Senator McCain's "$5 million" statement while omitting the remarks that surrounded it; the full exchange in context can be viewed here.) Meanwhile, economists asked to comment on the issue observed that the definition of "rich" is a murky one, and that the dividing line between "poor" and "middle class" (rather than between "middle class" and "rich") is probably the more significant one. Economists said in interviews that neither candidate was wrong because there are no agreed-upon definitions for the terms that describe income segments. "To be fair to both of them, 'rich' is an adjective," said James P. Smith, a senior economist at the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank in Santa Monica. "Economic science is not going to tell you that 'this' is the cutoff point." Yet the $5 million level, Smith said, includes "almost nobody." Experts said that of all the households in the nation, fewer than one-tenth of 1% had an annual income of $5 million or more. Ken Goldstein, an economist for the Conference Board, a business-research group based in New York, said he would define rich as income of about $500,000 or more. "If you set the bar at half a million, you're talking about the top 1% of taxpayers. If you think about the last eight years, those are the folks who have benefited the most." Other economists said they would have gone with a lower figure. Even the moderator who asked the question of the candidates, Pastor Rick Warren of Orange County's Saddleback Church, did not seem to anticipate a reply beyond the lower six figures, urging each man to "give me a specific number ... is it $100,000, is it $50,000, is it $200,000?" Most ordinary Americans tend to massage the definitions of such terms in an attempt to crowd themselves into what many consider the least offensive category. "If you do surveys, 95% of people think they are middle class," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that has analyzed the candidates' tax proposals. "This includes people who are objectively quite poor and people who are objectively quite rich." Burman added: "I guess it says something nice about America that rich people don't want to act like they're better than anybody else and poor people don't like complaining about how tough it is to pay their bills." Economists tend to spend more time debating the definition of poor, in large part because that cutoff has consequences for an array of social programs designed to assist those whose incomes fall below the poverty line. Last updated: 13 September 2008. Sources: Miller, Greg. "Who's Rich? McCain and Obama Have Very Different Definitions." Los Angeles Times. 18 August 2008. Montopoli, Brian. "DNC Looks to Exploit McCain's '$5 Million' Comment." CBSNews.com. 19 August 2008. Reuters. "Obama Rips McCain for $5 Million 'Rich' Definition." 18 August 2008. | 1 | [
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FMD1144 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Andrew Breitbart got under the skin of the left like no other. When he entered the political scene, progressives had been so used to getting a pass from polite conservatives, they didn t quite know what to make of him. By exposing the ties between unions, academia, the media and Democrat party, Andrew made their plan to disrupt everything we hold dear about our country much more difficult to implement.He was 100% correct in his predication about what Obama would do to our country. It s too bad the media did everything they could to bury his message and pretend he didn t exist.Watch Andrew explain Barack Obama s plan to divide our nation just prior to Obama s second term:This video is one of the best examples of how Andrew Breitbart boldly and brilliantly exposed the truth behind the very well organized progressive democrat party: If you can t sell freedom and liberty you s*ck! Here is the brilliant and very funny story about how Andrew Breitbart went from an apathetic liberal to a passionate conservative and the #1 enemy of the left. Truth is light and light is the best disinfectant. No one s light shined brighter on the left than our hero, Andrew Breitbart.Sheriff Arpaio talks about how he spoke with Andrew on the phone just before he died on March 1, 2012:Listen to one of the only witnesses who were present when Andrew Breitbart died:Here is Sean Hannity s tribute to Andrew that shows the amazing work by Breitbart and how he started the citizen journalism revolution :Here is the video Breitbart planned to release before he died. Watch brilliant economist Thomas Sowell explain the significance of this video and Barack Obama s relationship with radical Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell.Here is a trailer from the brilliant movie, Hating Breitbart that was released shortly after his death. It shows his support for conservatives and tea party members: He came out of nowhere and shook things up like no other before him. There will never be another Breitbart.Rest in peace Andrew Breitbart. We ll do our part to help keep your torch lit #War | 0 | [
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FMD1145 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Videos Israel Tracked ‘Anti-Government’ Journalists On Facebook Netanyahu thinks the new channel doesn’t have enough government supervision and is too critical of his government and policies. An Israeli soldier looks at the IDF’s Facebook page at the army spokesperson’s office in Jerusalem.
Israel’s ruling party used Facebook to spy on “anti-government” journalists, Likud parliamentarian David Bitan said in a public debate Saturday.
Bitan openly said he and others had been scouring the Facebook pages of journalists hired recently to set up a new public broadcasting service, saying they were scorned by their left-wing politics.
“We went and we checked the Facebook pages of these people. We saw what they are writing and I will tell you that we are talking about people who are leftist. They want to impose their own agenda on the new channel,” he said in the forum.
Bitan has been the lead crusader against the establishment of the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation. The new radio and TV media outlet, to be launched in recent months, is slated to replace the decades-old Israel Broadcasting Authority.
But Bitan and his cadre, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are looking to stop the new broadcast service, establishing a committee tasked to find a way to keep the old Israel Broadcasting Authority.
Their concern? The new public service channel doesn’t have enough government supervision and is overtly critical of Netanyahu’s government and policies.
This, despite Netanyahu calling the change “essential” and “necessary” two years ago.
Despite this resistance, work has been underway in establishing the new outlet, with deals having been made with unions and generous severance packages being offered to workers who have agreed to quit the old broadcast voluntarily.
The new media corporation has been poaching media personalities from competing outlets and preparing content for the launch date, which has already been postponed several times.
And critics are firing back at the prime minister, saying the new public broadcasting service should be free of political influence. They also see Netanyahu’s actions as a clear attack on media freedom. Local media has also come out to harshly criticize the ruling party.
After Bitan’s comments about surveillance became public, the Union of Journalists in Israel called on the attorney general to investigate the legality of Bitan’s actions.
“Closing down public broadcasting just because the prime minister can’t control it crosses a red line reminiscent of a totalitarian regime and not a democratic society like Israel,” said Yair Tarchitsky, the union’s chairman. He said the government’s actions amounted to McCarthyism.
Bitan, even last week, had not been hesitant to voice his opinions about the change.
“It’s not going in the direction that we want. It is clear that the corporation will be left-leaning, according to what they are talking about. The journalists and workers are talking, they are tweeting, there is a red line that we will not allow it to cross,” said Bitan during an interview last week with Israel’s Channel 2 news.
The Israel Broadcasting Authority was first established in 1948 and was the apartheid state’s sole television and radio outlet until commercial channels began broadcasting in the nineties. | 0 | [
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FMD1146 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Says that unlike Texas, Missouri has a perfect AAA credit rating.
contextual information: Responding to an ad blitz in which Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged Missouri businesses to move to the booming Lone Star State, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon suggested that taxes are lower in his state and that students fare better. Nixon, a Democrat, also singled out credit worthiness in the radio spotwe noticed onlineAug. 27, 2013. Unlike Texas, Nixon said, Missouri has a perfect AAA credit rating. Three days earlier, heposted a similar claimon a Twitter list of ways he ranks the Show-Me State as #betterthantx. His credit claim snagged our attention. Achart posted onlineby the California state treasurer lists state general-obligation bond ratings by three rating agencies. We noticed that Missouri and Texas both earned the highest, AAA rating from both Fitch Ratings and Moodys Investors Service. But Standard & Poors gave Missouri a AAA rating and Texas a rating of AA+, which is its rating immediately below AAA. Via emails from spokespersons for each of those rating services, we confirmed those ratings for both states--and we inquired into the differences. By phone, New York-based Moodys spokesman David Jacobson told us that both states have long been stable borrowers, though Missouri has had its Moodys AAA rating longer--since at least 1972, Jacobson said. In contrast, he said, Moodys lowered its rating for Texas general obligation debt from AAA to AA in 1987. That year, Texas faced a recession that drove down state revenues. In 2010, Jacobson said, Moodys recalibrated its methodology for rating state debt; Texas regained a AAA rating. A Standard & Poors spokesman, Olayinka Fadahunsi, emailed us a Nov. 20, 2012, report by the firm stating it had assigned its AA+ rating to general-obligation bonds issued by the Texas Transportation Commission. The report credited the Texas economy with being diverse and strong and likely to continue to generate additional jobs. Also, it said, state government had strong cash-management practices and low overall debt and retirement liabilities. On the other hand, it expressed concern at the states budgetary pressures, which are primarily related to the growing proportion of school revenues Texas is required to fund, as well as insufficient new sources of recurring dedicated tax revenues to support the increased funding. The report also cited increasing spending pressure from public assistance payments, including Medicaid, plus uncertainty about how the Obamacare law might affect the states health-care expenditures. Based on the analytic factors we evaluate for states, on a four-point scale in which '1' is the strongest, we have assigned Texas an overall score of '1.8, the report said. We asked Fadahunsi to discuss the distinction between the firms AA+ and AAA ratings. By email, he said that there is no one precise financial distinction. The firms general debt ratings methodology, as published Jan. 3, 2011, states that it develops a states credit rating by judging conditions across factors including the governments framework; financial management; economy; budgetary performance; and debt/liability profile. We assess each of these factors utilizing various metrics that we score on a scale from 1 (strongest) to 4 (weakest), the methodology states. For each metric there may be several indicators we evaluate to develop the metric score. We score each indicator individually on the same scale and average the indicators' scores to develop the overall score for the metric. We average the metrics for each factor to develop a composite score for each. The scores for the five factors are combined and averaged with equal weighting to arrive at an overall score which is then translated to an indicative credit level. The report says an overall score of 1 to 1.5 is needed to draw the AAA rating. Separately, R.J. DeSilva, spokesman for the Texas state comptrollers office, pointed us to a December 2012,reportby the Texas Bond Review Board which includes a chart indicating that as of August 2012, Missouri was among seven states with AAA GO debt ratings from the three major rating services. The other perfects were: Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia. Finally we asked Robert Coalter, executive director of theTexas Public Finance Authority, which issues bonds for the acquisition or construction of state buildings, to speak to any financial costs to Texas from not having Missouris three AAA ratings. Coalter said by phone that the effect is minimal, adding that any entity that issues bonds--including state agencies--sometimes obtain ratings from only one or two of the rating services. Also, he said, investment firms conduct their own research before committing to bonds. Coalter said the ratings of Texas debt are outstanding. Our debt is considered to be top quality. Put another way, might the Missouri governors statement be real-world meaningless? I do not believe its significant, Coalter replied. He said the claim sounded like comparing one student scoring 100 on a test with another scoring 99. Our ruling Nixon said that unlike Texas, Missouri has a perfect AAA credit rating. Thats correct, though Texas is close; two major services rate the bigger states GO debt AAA, one rates it AA+, which is its next-highest rating. We rate this claim as True. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | 1 | [
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FMD1147 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: (Before It's News)
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office denied CEI’s May 5, 2016 request for any Common Interest Agreements, which was made under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). His office claimed the records are exempt from disclosure.
CEI is seeking all Common Interest Agreements entered into by the Office of the Attorney General and which are signed by, mention or otherwise include the AGs for other states or territories, as well as certain environmental activists. CEI suspects that these agreements may be a pretext for simply shielding documents from public disclosure.
After supplying a Common Interest Agreement to CEI, AG Schneiderman moved to dismiss our FOIL case against his office. Our October 26, 2016 filing opposes that motion to dismiss on the grounds that there could be more relevant documents yet to be produced, and we also want the common interest agreement ruled invalid, so that it stops functioning as a shield against disclosure of information by AGs.
Case Status: Open Court Level: High Proceedings, Orders, and Opinions Timeline: Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 PDF: Notice of Petition – Albany.PDF Title: Notice of Petition Date: Thursday, May 5, 2016 PDF: CEI NY AG FOIL Common Interest Agreements typo corrected.pdf Title: Request Under New York FOIL Date: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 PDF: FOIL appeal by CEI of NY AG's denial of CEI's FOIL request about common ….pdf Title: CEI Appeal of NY FOIL Denial Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 PDF: FOIL rejection of our FOIL request 6.15.2016.pdf Title: NY FOIL Request Rejection Date: Thursday, July 7, 2016 PDF: Rejection by NY of our FOIL administrative appeal.pdf Title: Administrative Appeal of NY FOIL Request Rejection Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 PDF: Request for Judicial Intervention.PDF Title: Request for Judicial Intervention Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 PDF: Verified Petition – Final Version.PDF Title: Verified Petition Date: Friday, August 26, 2016 PDF: Affidavit of Hans Bader & Exhibits.PDF Title: Affidavit of Hans Bader and Exhibits Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 PDF: NY FOIL.St_. John affirmation signed.pdf Title: Oposition To Motion to Dismiss Date: Friday, September 30, 2016 PDF: NY Motion to Dismiss.pdf Title: New York Motion to Dismiss News Releases : CEI Sues NY AG Schneiderman for Common Interest Agreement on Climate Change Subpoena Campaign Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 | 0 | [
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FMD1148 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Steve Scalise Attend a White Supremacist Convention? Claim summaries: "Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints."
contextual information: On 28 December 2014, the website CenLamar published an article titled "House Majority Whip Steve Scalise Was Reportedly an Honored Guest at 2002 International White Supremacist Convention." According to the site, current House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, then a Louisiana state representative, was a guest speaker at an event hosted by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a group headed by former Klan leader and neo-Nazi David Duke, at the Landmark Best Western Hotel in Metairie, Louisiana, in May 2002. (EURO was a renamed version of Duke's NOFEAR group that advocated fighting for "white civil rights" for "Europeans and Americans wherever they may live.") The dozen years that elapsed between the EURO event in 2002 and the article's publication in 2014 made it markedly difficult to investigate the article's claims. At the time of the convention, much internet-based political discussion occurred solely on message boards, many of which have long since been retired due to inactivity, abandoned, or become otherwise inaccessible for a variety of reasons. Following the article's publication, the claim was circulated and reposted on a number of left-leaning websites. This repetition created the impression that multiple sources were documenting the claim, but the information all pointed back to the same single source: Stormfront.org, a white supremacist message board with a lengthy and notorious history on the web. A 2002 post claiming Scalise attended the EURO conference held in Metairie that year became suddenly notable in late 2014. In that post, the writer stated that EURO's recent national convention held in the greater New Orleans area was a convergence of ideas represented by Americans from diverse geographical regions like California, Texas, New Jersey, and the Carolinas. This indicates that concerns held are pervasive in every sovereign state and republic alike, within an increasingly diminishing view of where America stands on individual liberty for whites. In addition to plans to implement tactical strategies that were discussed, the meeting was productive locally as State Representative Steve Scalise discussed ways to oversee the gross mismanagement of tax revenue or " | 2 | [
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FMD1149 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did a Walmart Customer's Change Get Donated Without Consent? Claim summaries: The nationwide coin shortage in 2020 caused retailers to implement policies on change that occasionally confused cashiers and customers.
contextual information: In the summer of 2020, readers asked Snopes to examine the authenticity and accuracy of a widely shared Facebook post whose author claimed that the cashier at their local Walmart had donated their change without asking for permission in advance or offering alternative ways of paying or receiving their change. On July 20, 2020, Sheryl Jacob posted a photograph of a receipt from the Walmart store on Worcester Road in Framingham, Massachusetts, indicating that at around noon that day, she had purchased two items priced at 49 cents and 88 cents. She paid $2 in cash. The remaining 63 cents in change had been donated, so the cashier didn't owe her any change. In the accompanying post, Jacob claimed that the cashier asked her for $2 (rather than the $1.37 total price of the items) and that she only realized afterward that her 63 cents in change had been donated without her consent. According to Jacob, the cashier said the store's policy was not to give out change in the form of cash. She wrote: "So folks, here we go. Watch your receipt at Walmart. I bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. I paid with cash, $2.00, and they just donated my 63 cents without even telling me. I thought both items were a dollar a piece and didn't think twice about giving her the 2 bucks. Then I looked at the receipt. I questioned the cashier, and she said they don't give change. It's not about the amount of money. It's the principle. They could have told me. At the very least, offer me a Walmart card with 63 cents on it. I feel like I've been ripped off. Who's to say where my 63 cents is going to go? It just says donation. Is this just the beginning? Who's to say they won't find different ways to take more of my/our money in the future? It's not right." In an interview with WCVB, a local news station in Boston, Massachusetts, Jacob said the cashier did not offer her the opportunity to pay with exact change or by credit or debit card. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the United States experienced a nationwide coin shortage in 2020 because lower in-person shopping volumes meant fewer coins were in circulation, but also because the virus slowed coin production at the U.S. Mint. As a result, several major retailers introduced policies to encourage or request customers to pay with exact change, use a credit or debit card, or have the amount of their change loaded onto a loyalty card. Those policies occasionally caused confusion among both shoppers and supermarket staff, as we have examined elsewhere, and this appears to have been what happened at the Framingham Walmart on July 20. A spokesperson for Walmart told Snopes that the company had investigated the transaction in question, which Jacob described accurately, and found it to be an isolated incident. They added that the company's policy is still to give customers the choice of whether to receive change or donate the difference. Since the company corroborated Jacob's account, we are issuing a rating of. However, it's worth noting that by donating the change for Jacob rather than offering her that option, the cashier in question misunderstood Walmart's policy, which is to provide coin change if a customer wants it. | 1 | [
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FMD1150 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: “Brexit means Clusterfuck” confirms Prime Minister
Theresa May has clarified that Brexit actually means one giant, steaming clusterfuck.
The reincarnation of Emperor Palpatine made the statement following the High Court ruling that Parliament would have to give the go-ahead for Britain to officially tell the EU to piss right off.
“Brexit does indeed mean clusterfuck,” said the Prime Minister, giving the pained smile of a woman who knows she’s going to be the historical equivalent of Basil Fawlty.
“But it is the clusterfuck that the people voted for, and by God, we shall see to it that this clusterfuck gets done right and proper.
“I mean, I’d rather not, because it’s going to be dreadful and tedious, but that’s democracy for you.”
Brexiter, Simon Williams, said,”If ‘clusterfuck’ means ‘taking back control’ then I say bring on the clusterfuck and damn the consequences.
“We’ve already told the experts where to go; there is no going back. Brexit means clusterfuck, and I demand to be clusterfucked immediately.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 | [
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FMD1151 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A U.S. judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to withhold federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities, dealing another legal blow to the administration’s efforts to toughen immigration enforcement. The ruling from U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco said Trump’s Jan. 25 order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments and that plaintiffs challenging the order were likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional. The Republican president’s moves on immigration have galvanized legal advocacy groups, along with Democratic city and state governments, to oppose them in court. The administration suffered an earlier defeat when two federal judges suspended executive orders restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries. The government has appealed those decisions. Reince Priebus, Trump’s White House chief of staff, told reporters the administration was taking action to appeal the ruling, adding: “The idea that an agency can’t put in some reasonable restrictions on how some of these monies are spent is something that will be overturned eventually.†“It’s the 9th Circuit going bananas,†Priebus said, referring to the West Coast judicial district where the judge ruled. “We’ll win at the Supreme Court level at some point.†A formal White House statement on the ruling was withering in its criticism of Orrick, saying “an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our nation†and handed “a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country.†“This case is yet one more example of egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge,†the White House said. The U.S. Justice Department said in a statement it would follow existing federal law with respect to sanctuary jurisdictions, as well as enforce conditions tied to federal grants. Sanctuary cities generally offer safe harbor to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Dozens of local governments and cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have joined the growing “sanctuary†movement. Supporters of the sanctuary policy argue that enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities’ trust in local police, particularly among Latinos. The Trump administration contends that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over for deportation illegal immigrants arrested for crimes. The executive order by Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration a cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign, directed such funding to be restricted once the Homeland Security Department determines what constitutes a sanctuary city. Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and several smaller Silicon Valley communities, sued in February, saying Trump’s order was unconstitutional. San Francisco filed a similar lawsuit. The Justice Department threatened last week to cut some funding to California as well as eight cities and counties across the United States. The department singled out Chicago and New York as two cities “crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime,†even though New York City is experiencing its lowest crime levels in decades and experts say Chicago’s recent spike in violent crime has little to do with illegal immigration. Santa Clara County receives about $1.7 billion in federal and federally dependent funds annually, about 35 percent of its total revenues. The county argued it was owed millions of dollars of federal funding every day and that its budgetary planning process had been thrown into disarray by the order. The Justice Department said the counties had taken an overly broad interpretation of the president’s order, which it said would affect only Justice Department and Homeland Security funds, a fraction of the grant money received by the counties. In his ruling, Orrick said the language of the order made it clear it sought to withhold funds beyond law enforcement. “And if there was doubt about the scope of the Order, the President and Attorney General have erased it with their public comments,†Orrick wrote. The judge cited comments from Trump calling the order “a weapon†to use against jurisdictions that disagree with his immigration policies. “Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves,†Orrick wrote. Dave Cortese, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement: “The politics of fear emanating from the Trump White House has just suffered a major setback.†| 1 | [
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FMD1152 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In a settlement that could help thousands of families avoid eviction, New York State will substantially increase the monthly rent subsidies it provides to families with children in New York City, a move that could help reduce the number of people in homeless shelters. The public assistance program, known as the Family Eviction Prevention Supplement, has remained flat since it was established in 2004, even as rents have skyrocketed. Under the settlement, a family of three eligible for $850 per month, for example, would now be eligible for $1, 515, a 78 percent increase. The increase, which could go into effect as early as April, was agreed to on Monday and settled a lawsuit filed in December 2015 by four single mothers — two in the Bronx, one on Staten Island and one in Manhattan. The women said they faced eviction because the monthly public assistance they received from the state was “grossly inadequate†and far below rent. In 2015, rent was $1, 571 for a apartment, and it is now $1, 637. Represented by the Legal Aid Society and Hughes Hubbard Reed, the women were seeking increases in the Family Eviction Prevention Supplement for families with children who are under the threat of eviction and another benefit, known as the “shelter allowance,†for families with children on public assistance. “I feel happy that it’s going to help other women with children,†said Daniela Tejada, 27, one of the plaintiffs, who lives in a apartment in the Bronx with her daughters, ages 6 and 2. “It’s really hard out here. All these rents are superhigh. †The settlement stops short of increasing the basic shelter allowance, which is $400 for a family of three, but focuses on families in imminent danger of losing their housing by greatly increasing the subsidies and expanding eligibility for the program. The program is currently restricted to families with minor children who have been sued by a landlord. Now, victims of domestic violence will be included, even if they are not in court. The new eviction prevention subsidy will put a “substantial dent†in homelessness, Kenneth R. Stephens, a supervising lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, said in an interview. “It is probably the first real positive proposal on a scale that’s consistent with the crisis that we’re facing,†he said. New York City, the most populous city in the United States, has the largest number of homeless people, though most are sheltered. As of last Tuesday, there were 60, 061 people living in shelters overseen by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. That number does not count thousands of other people staying in specialized shelters overseen by other agencies for domestic violence victims and young people. About 51, 000 people were in homeless shelters when Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014. The surge in homelessness has been nearly intractable for the de Blasio administration, which has struggled to find additional shelter and often uses commercial hotels as an expensive stopgap. Mr. de Blasio is expected on Tuesday to unveil a plan to open more shelters so that the city can move people from hotels and eventually transition them to permanent housing. Steven Banks, the former attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society and the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, has pointed to the outdated rental assistance program as one of the drivers of the city’s ballooning homeless population. In an effort to move people out of shelters and to prevent others from being evicted, the city has put in place an array of rental assistance programs, including its own Family Eviction Prevention Supplement. But that program has confused tenants and landlords since the eligibility, caps and amounts differ from the state’s. Under the settlement, the state and city programs will be consolidated. There are about 10, 000 families in the state program and an additional 1, 000 in the city program, according to the Legal Aid Society. The settlement will be converted to a class action to cover those families and others, though three of the initial plaintiffs no longer receive public assistance and will not benefit. Ms. Tejada will see a bump in her subsidy, which is now limited to $850. Her apartment rents for $1, 050, which was lowered from $1, 300, after she fought her landlord in housing court. Currently unemployed, Ms. Tejada, who had worked in a dental office, cobbled together the rent with the Family Eviction Prevention Supplement and child support. “Before, everything would go to the rent,†she said. “Now, at least, I can save and pay for school. †Ms. Tejada said she would like to become a sonographer. This month, Mr. de Blasio and Melissa the City Council speaker, announced that the city would double — to $93 million — the funds allocated to help tenants fight landlords in court. “This settlement, combined with adding access to counsel, is really going to be a game changer,†said Judith Goldiner, a lawyer with Legal Aid. Tenants can win in court, but they still need to pay the rent. “A lawyer can’t keep you in your home without the benefits to keep you in your home,†she said. | 1 | [
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FMD1153 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Gay and lesbian couples could face legal chaos if the Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage in the next few weeks.
Same-sex weddings could come to a halt in many states, depending on a confusing mix of lower-court decisions and the sometimes-contradictory views of state and local officials.
Among the 36 states in which same-sex couples can now marry are 20 in which federal judges invoked the Constitution to strike down marriage bans.
Those rulings would be in conflict with the nation's highest court if the justices uphold the power of states to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. A decision is expected by late June in cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
Top officials in some states, including California, seem determined to allow gay and lesbian couples to continue to marry no matter how the court decision comes out. But some county clerks, who actually issue marriage licenses, might not go along, experts said.
In other states, a high court ruling in favor of state bans would serve to prohibit any more such unions, but also could give rise to new efforts to repeal marriage bans through the legislature or the ballot.
The scenario may be unlikely, given the Supreme Court's role in allowing those lower court rulings to take effect before the justices themselves decided the issue. But if the court doesn't endorse same-sex marriage nationwide, "it would be chaos," said Howard Wasserman, a Florida International University law professor.
Marriages already on the books probably are safe, said several scholars and civil liberties lawyers. "There's a very strong likelihood these marriages would have to be respected, no matter what," said Christopher Stoll, senior staff attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Gay and lesbian couples could continue to marry in the 16 states that have same-sex marriage because of state court rulings, acts of the legislature or statewide votes.
Similarly, the 14 states that prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, including the four directly involved in the Supreme Court cases, could continue enforcing their state marriage laws. That would include Alabama, where a federal judge has struck down the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but put her ruling on hold pending the high court's decision.
Of the remaining 20 states, any that fought unsuccessfully to preserve marriage bans would not have much trouble resuming enforcement. "That state can immediately start saying we're going to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples going forward," said Cornell University law professor Michael Dorf.
That list might include Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Officials in some of those states refused to comment on how they would respond, citing the ongoing Supreme Court case. "I'm just not going to speculate on what the court may or may not do," said Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.
Things might be different in California, Colorado, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia because top elected officials did not contest lower-court rulings in favor of same-sex marriage. Courts in those states issued orders, or injunctions, that forbid the state from enforcing the constitutional amendments or state laws that limit marriage to a man and a woman.
Typically, a participant in the lawsuit that led to the injunction has to ask the judge to undo it. But if the governor and attorney general are same-sex marriage supporters, they may have little incentive to go back into court. In California, for instance, Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris both opposed Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that prohibited same-sex marriage. "I think it's very unlikely that anyone would try to turn back the clock in California," Stoll said.
But Gene Schaerr, a Washington-based lawyer who has defended same-sex marriage bans, said he thinks even in states where the political leadership favors gay and lesbian unions, county clerks who actually issue marriage licenses would be on safe ground if they were to deny licenses to same-sex couples.
In Schaerr's view, only the clerks in Alameda and Los Angeles counties are bound by the 2010 injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. A Supreme Court ruling rejecting a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples would "free the clerks in counties other than Los Angeles and Alameda to adhere to Proposition 8," Schaerr said.
Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, a Republican, said she supports same-sex marriage, but believes voters need to remove the marriage ban from the state constitution — and would replace it with legal protection for same-sex marriage if given the chance. Coffman said she would "gladly defend" such an outcome.
If same-sex marriages cease in Virginia, Attorney General Mark Herring would try to get the state General Assembly to repeal the state's statutory and constitutional bans, Herring spokesman Michael Kelly said.
Some gay rights groups and state officials said the chance the court would not come out in favor of same-sex marriage is remote.
"Recent history of the past eight months, plus all the rulings of the past 20 years, don't indicate that to us this is going to go against us," said Tom Witt, executive director of gay rights organization Equality Kansas. "It could, but a giant meteor could fall on my head in the next five seconds." | 1 | [
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FMD1154 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was Sberbank of Russia restricting cash withdrawals to $20? Claim summaries: After Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, rumors spread on social media that Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, had imposed a very low cash withdrawal limit.
contextual information: In late February 2022, a rumor went viral on TikTok and Twitter that said Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, had imposed a cash withdrawal limit that would be equivalent to $20 in the U.S. The rumor began to spread just after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. TikTok Twitter Russia Russia invasion Ukraine On Feb. 25, the person behind the @bantg Twitter account tweeted: "Sberbank, Russian largest bank, has limited cash withdrawals to $20." tweeted The tweet cited no sources. Another tweet posted on Feb. 26 claimed: "JUST IN: Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, has limited cash withdrawals for its customers to $20 ? #PutinWillFeelThePainSoon." The hashtag referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin. tweet Vladimir Putin Replies under the tweet asked for a source for the information, but @nick82gh did not respond to them. While this second tweet didn't receive many engagements, it was shared the same day to TikTok as a screenshot. Within 48 hours of being posted, that TikTok video received 80,000 likes and was viewed more than 1.4 million times. The person speaking in the video said: "The bank run has started. Russia is going bankrupt. This is the end of [the] Russian economy completely." video Here are the facts: It's true that Sberbank is Russia's largest bank by its amount of assets, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, at the time, we found no reporting or evidence of any kind that backed up the claim that the Sberbank had limited cash withdrawals to $20. We also found no data about anything related to Sberbank causing the entire country of Russia to go bankrupt, as mentioned in the TikTok video. The Wall Street Journal By email, a spokesperson for Sberbank told us: "This information contradicts reality. Sberbank continues to fulfill all of its obligations in full, including the withdrawal of funds from accounts. All funds are available to customers at any time." On Feb. 28, ABC News and The Associated Press reported that Sberbank had been hit with "tough U.S. sanctions," leading to some limits on cash withdrawals: ABC News Associated Press Sberbank and VTB banks are Russias two largest state-run banks and own roughly half of the assets in the Russian banking system. They were targeted last week by tough U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting their businesses internationally and over the weekend barred from the international SWIFT payment system. SWIFT In both Slovenia and Croatia, Sberbank temporarily closed its branches or limited cash withdrawals following a rush by its clients last week. In Croatia, the banks clients will be allowed to withdraw a maximum of about 1,000 euros per day over the next two days. In Slovenia, the branches will be closed for the next two days and then the withdrawals will be limited to 400 euros per day. At the time that this news was published, 1000 euros was equivalent to $1,121, while 400 euros converted to $448. Neither of these figures was anywhere close to a $20 limit. We asked Sberbank for information on cash withdrawal limits for other countries but did not receive a response before this story was published. While we found no evidence regarding Sberbank branches having a $20 cash withdrawal limit, the conflict in Ukraine did lead to fears that the bank could fail, according to a report from Reuters, which cited a warning from the European Central Bank. Ukraine report Also, on a similar subject, The National Bank of Ukraine imposed cash withdrawal limits after the invasion began, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, again, those limits were reported to be nowhere near $20. Instead, the reporting said the limit was "100,000 Ukrainian hryvnia a day, equivalent to about $3,339.13." according to The Wall Street Journal This story will be updated if we receive further information. | 0 | [
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FMD1155 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: At least 61 people have been killed in clashes between different ethnic groups in Ethiopia s Oromiya region, officials said, the latest bout of violence to highlight increasing instability in a province racked by bloody protests in 2015 and 2016. From Thursday, 29 ethnic Oromos were killed by ethnic Somali attackers in the region s Hawi Gudina and Daro Lebu districts, regional spokesman Addisu Arega Kitessa said. The violence triggered revenge attacks by ethnic Oromos in another district, resulting in the killing of 32 Somalis who were being sheltered in the area following a previous round of violence. The region is working to bring the perpetrators to justice, the spokesman said in a statement. The cause of the latest violence was not known, but it followed protests in Oromiya s Celenko town where the region s officials said 16 ethnic Oromos were shot dead on Tuesday by soldiers trying to disperse the crowd. We do not know who ordered the deployment of the military. This illegal act should be punished, said Lema Megersa, the region s president. The clashes are likely to fuel fears about security in Ethiopia, the region s biggest economy and a staunch Western ally. Lema s comments also illustrate growing friction within Ethiopia s ruling EPRDF coalition, since unrest roiled the Oromiya region in 2015 and 2016, when hundreds of people were killed. At that time, the violence forced the government to impose a nine-month state of emergency that was only lifted in August. The unrest was provoked by a development scheme for the capital Addis Ababa that dissidents said amounted to land grabs and turned into broader anti-government demonstrations over political and human rights. It included attacks on businesses, many of them foreign-owned, including farms growing flowers for export. | 1 | [
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FMD1156 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hello America Are we awake yet?AUSTIN, Texas Texas Sheriffs, the Lieutenant Governor, and experts in immigration related issues met at the State Capitol on Wednesday to discuss the federal government s creation of a sanctuary state for criminal aliens through its Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).Jackson County Sheriff Aj (Andy) Louderback, immediate past president of the Sheriff s Association of Texas, told Breitbart Texas that the federal government s PEP program has created a sanctuary state for criminal aliens because it has gutted the immigration system. A press conference was held on the crisis facing Texas that was created by the new immigration policies of the federal government. The sheriffs complained that aliens are being brought into the criminal justice system in Texas but are being released into the community because of the federal policies.In the past, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) could place a 48-hour hold on illegal immigrants when they were wanted on immigration related issues. The PEP program replaced the U.S. Department of Homeland Security s (DHS) Secure Communities plan and now that is no longer possible.The policy was released by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in November, 2014. In January, the program went into effect and Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby exclusively reported leaked training documents detailing how the program would be implemented. Darby dubbed the program, Catch and Release 2.0. Breitbart Texas has reported many examples of criminal illegal aliens who have been previously deported many times only to come back and commit even more serious crimes.In July, Breitbart California s Michelle Moons reported on the murder of Katheryn Steinle. She was killed by an illegal alien who was released by the San Francisco sheriff despite an ICE detainer in effect. Her killer had been deported several times.The same week as Steinle s murder, Darby reported on the murder in Laredo, Texas, of a woman who was killed by her criminal illegal alien husband. He had been deported four times. Despite numerous domestic violence calls to the Laredo Police Department, he was allowed to remain in Laredo until he finally killed her.There have been many other such reports in the past month about violent criminal illegal aliens who commit more heinous crimes after returning from being deported.The lieutenant governor, Texas sheriffs, and the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies spoke at the press conference in Austin, Texas. Their message the federal government has placed the public in danger through its policies, and these policies have essentially tied the hands of Texas law enforcement.Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (speaking) joined Sheriff Aj Louderback; Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne; Victoria County Sheriff Michael O Conner, and Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. (Photo: Breitbart Texas/Lana Shadwick)Sheriff Louderback told Breitbart Texas, This federal program (PEP) replaced a Congress-mandated program and replaced it with a program that now prioritizes criminal behavior and is excluding thousands of criminal aliens. He says the program is forcing Texas sheriffs to sometimes release even violent offenders.Louderback said that criminal aliens know that law enforcement officials in Texas have their hands tied because of these new federal policies. They know they can come into the country illegally and stay here with impunity.He said illegal aliens cannot be held until after there is a final conviction. He said, These criminals bond out and disappear into the country. These policies, say the immediate past sheriff s association president, mean that local jurisdictions have to deal with the costs. Victoria County Sheriff Michael O Connor said criminal aliens are traversing over the border and coming in throughout the country. He said that the sheriffs intend to connect, communicate, and collaborate with community stakeholders to deal with the problem.Victoria County, Texas, is located about halfway between Houston and the Mexico/Texas border. He said his county is a fatal tunnel between Harris County and the rest of the U.S. Sheriff Hawthorne told Breitbart Texas, This is about a secure community program. He said in 2008, law enforcement were able to do that. He said, PEP is, and will be, a failure by this [federal] administration. Lt. Gov. Patrick promised that the senate would pass legislation to deal with the problems of sanctuary cities in the next legislative session. He said that he was confident that the senate now has the votes to deal with this issue. Sanctuary cities legislation was a contentious topic in the senate this past session.Via: Breitbart News | 0 | [
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FMD1157 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is attacking Obamacare instead of the greedy insurance companies who are jacking up the price of coverage, and he got a severe beat down for it.Trump has been talking about repealing Obamacare throughout his campaign and he continued to do so on Twitter Tuesday morning by blaming the program itself for the price increase of insurance premiums.People must remember that ObamaCare just doesn t work, and it is not affordable 116% increases (Arizona). Bill Clinton called it CRAZY Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017He then took a statement made by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton out of context and calling Obamacare lousy healthcare. The Democrat Governor.of Minnesota said The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is no longer affordable! And, it is lousy healthcare. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017But Trump is ignoring the real culprit of these price increases. Because it s not the government raising the prices, it s the greedy insurance companies.The reason the cost of Obamacare is being hiked up is because insurance companies care more about profits than they do about people. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota even pulled its most popular insurance plan from the marketplace in order to force people to buy the more expensive packages.But Trump would rather strip millions of Americans of their health insurance instead of blasting the insurance companies. And Americans slammed Trump on Twitter for it.He also called you crazy, @realDonaldTrump. And he didn t want to scrap O-care, unlike you: he wanted to reform it. https://t.co/rZsvaY3XR1 Evan O Connell (@evanoconnell) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump also Bill Clinton: Donald Trump doesn t know much Matt Haig (@matthaig1) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Just resign so people suffering and struggling in America don t suffer and struggle more with you in charge. #EndTheFarce The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Republicans hate Obamacare so much they plan to keep parts of it for four years https://t.co/qYNQKcaelD Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump and most Americans want to keep large parts of it. https://t.co/c7EZymhdve Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Yet it helped millions who never could get coverage before. I guess that couldn t fit into your tweet. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) January 3, 2017But how will you fix it @realDonaldTrump? Can t just leave millions without healthcare. Share your vision not just your opinion please Uncle Louie G (@UncleLouie) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump so what s your solution then? Leave 22 million people uninsured? Jesse B-H (@mrjessebh) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Thanks to the ACA people with preexisting conditions can now receive healthcare. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 3, 2017@realDonaldTrump Do you plan to replace ObamaCare with the if something happens it happens plan? pic.twitter.com/7jOaJFuGrw RIP My Mentions (@TimDuffy) January 3, 2017Seriously, it s the insurance companies we should all be enraged at. Not the program itself. The program has done a lot of good. The mistake was trusting the insurance companies. That s why we should just pass universal healthcare in this country so that we pay for our healthcare with our tax dollars instead of paying insurance companies every month for plans they ll only raise the cost of when they feel like it.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1158 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: THE WSJ S MARY KISSEL NAILS IT ON THE DEM DEBATE WITH THE THREE CANDIDATES WHO WERE GIVING NO SOLUTIONS ON ISIS: It was one of the most remarkable displays of unintelligible garbage rhetoric that I have ever seen. Amen to that!Mary Kissel: The barbarians are at the gates. We ve seen attacks now from London to Madrid to Beirut to over the Sinai. It is time for American leadership. Hillary said this isn t America s fight. Look, Democrats are dangerously divorced from reality. Hillary says that. President Obama wants to close Gitmo. He said we contained these people. No, we haven t contained them. Bernie Sanders, who s leading in some polls, says the greatest challenge is climate change. What we need is American leadership and the majority of the American people understand we need to send troops back to the Middle East before this global disorder comes to our shores.Marie Bartiromo: I thought it was actually extraordinary, the debate last night. There was no real solution from any of the candidates. They were talking a lot saying nothing whatsoever.Mary Kissel: Saying essentially nothing. It was one of the most remarkable displays of unintelligible garbage rhetoric that I have ever seen. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1159 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Could the IRS be confiscating bank accounts of law-abiding Americans? Claim summaries: Is the IRS seizing the bank accounts of innocent Americans under civil forfeiture laws?
contextual information: Claim: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seizing bank accounts from innocent American citizens under civil forfeiture laws. : : Civil forfeiture laws enable law enforcement agents and the government to seize the assets of Americans who are neither guilty nor even suspected of any wrongdoing. : Civil forfeiture laws are new or exclusive to the IRS. Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Just read a Facebook post. It was an article regarding the IRS seizing bank accounts of innocent American citizens who have done nothing criminally wrong. Inspite of the problems this has caused individuals the IRS seems relatively unconcerned except they want to collect money for whatever reasons. Is this true? Does the IRS have the right to just take the money of American citizens from their accounts? Are they an acting collections agency for the government now? I found this article a tad disturbing to say the least. Thank you for amy information you might have regarding this article and subject matter. Origins: On 5 October 2014, the issue of civil forfeiture and its effects on American citizens entered the spotlight after HBO host John Oliver addressed the matter at length on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment, Oliver and guest Jeff Goldblum focused on seemingly arbitrary, unfair, and corrupt civil forfeiture practices allegedly perpetrated by law enforcement agents in a number of jurisdictions. Oliver's civil forfeiture segment sparked a number of conversations about the laws surrounding confiscation of assets under related laws. Then, on 25 October 2014, the New York Times profiled an individual who claimed the IRS had seized more than $30,000 in assets from her checking account under laws meant to ensnare drug cartels and organized criminals: For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up. It seems Hinders' run-in with the IRS was triggered by her practice of keeping deposits under the mandated reporting threshold of $10,000. Deposits that exceed $10,000 must be reported to the government under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, but Hinders told the Times that she believed large deposits created unnecessary paperwork for bank employees: Bank Secrecy Act My mom had told me if you keep your deposits under $10,000, the bank avoids paperwork. I didn't actually think it had anything to do with the I.R.S. Former federal prosecutor David Smith, an expert on such seizures, told the paper that the practice of civil forfeiture has shifted to focus on individuals not historically targeted by such laws: They're going after people who are really not criminals. They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law. Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, described the seizures as "structuring" related, referring to suspicion triggered by a large number of deposits near the $10,000 threshold for reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. In response to sudden interest in the IRS's policies regarding "structuring cases," Weber issued a statement indicating the IRS will curtail its seizure activities in cases where no crime is suspected: statement After a thorough review of our structuring cases over the last year and in order to provide consistency throughout the country (between our field offices and the U.S. attorney offices) regarding our policies, I.R.S.-C.I. will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with "legal source" structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying the seizure and forfeiture and the case has been approved at the director of field operations (D.F.O.) level. While the act of structuring whether the funds are from a legal or illegal source is against the law, I.R.S.-C.I. special agents will use this act as an indicator that further illegal activity may be occurring. This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.'s mission and key priorities. The policy involving seizure and forfeiture in "illegal source" structuring cases will remain the same. The IRS is just one of several agencies engaging in civil forfeiture, and Oliver's segment also addressed its application by local and regional law enforcement: Prior to Oliver's segment and the Times' profile, civil forfeiture practices had been extensively profiled in the media: In general, you needn't be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with "probable cause" is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner's guilt or innocence. One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. "The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window," Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There's no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve. Although the IRS has pledged to restrict its civil forfeiture activity to mainly "illegal source" cases, the practice is not limited to the tax agency and remains legal. Last updated: 28 October 2014 Stillman, Sarah. "Taken." The New Yorker. 12 August 2013. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD1160 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does Photo Show Trump Arriving in New York for His Arraignment? Claim summaries: The photo supposedly showed the former president leading a crowd of supporters through the streets of New York City.
contextual information: On April 3, 2023, former U.S. President Donald Trump traveled from his Mar-a-Lago estate to New York City to face historic criminal charges related to alleged hush-money payments to a woman with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter. face historic criminal charges alleged hush-money payments With his booking andarraignment set for the following afternoon at the Manhattan criminal courthouse, a Twitter user posted the below-displayed photo of the former president supposedly making his New York arrival.The photo showed Trump flanked by people in suits, presumably Secret Service agents, leading a massive crowd of people down a city street lined with American flags. following afternoon "President Trump returns to New York," tweeted @Brick_Suit, with the photo. tweeted The photo was fake; it was not a genuinedocumentationof Trump arriving to New York for his booking and arraignment. The Twitter user acknowledged that fact,writing in a reply tweet, "I didn't find this [photo]. I generated it via prompts." writing in a reply tweet The photo was generated by artificial intelligence (AI), with several telltale signs of computer-generated manipulation. For examples, an area near Trump's lower lip showed another trace of lip; the faces of the presumed Secret Service agents and many crowd members were disfigured; some heads looked more like skulls, and the flags' coloring wasn't consistent. Additionally, the man immediately behind Trump not only had signs of digital doctoring in his face but also his right hand. This was not the first digitally created photo supposedly documenting the aftermath of theManhattan District Attorney Office's move toindict Trump on March 30, 2023. Fakephotos of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrating the indictment, Trump clashing with law enforcement officers who were supposedly makinghis arrest, and the former president posing forhisjail mugshotalsospread on social media. indict Trump photos clashing his arrest jail mugshot Given that the photo of Trump leading a crowd was AI-generated it did not authentically show him arriving in New York on April 3, 2023 we rate this claim Getty Image's database of photojournalism included several authentic images of Trump's arrival to New York on April 3, including the one displayed below. database Trump arrived in New York City on April 3, 2023 for his arraignment. (Gotham/GettyImages) "Trump Is Heading to Court. Here's What to Expect." AP NEWS, 4 Apr. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-new-york-arrest-indictment-hush-money-97caa163d876d8c9ac2aad7ca6fd1f3d. "Trump Returns to New York to Face Historic Criminal Charges." AP NEWS, 3 Apr. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-new-york-florida-hush-money-election-764309dce49f81a50bf9f610ffd5ceb6. | 0 | [
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FMD1161 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It may be legal to lobby delegates, but will Donald Trump use his luxurious properties to woo delegates leading up to the Republican Convention in July? And if other candidates before him have used the same tactics, should Donald Trump be criticized because his success allows him to offer more 5-star perks?West Virginia looks perfect for Donald Trump: a struggling working-class state filled with the types of voters who have backed him elsewhere and could deliver one of his biggest victories.But a sweep there might not matter. That s because as many as 34 delegates the entire contingent may be free to back whomever they want at the Republican National Convention.Much the same is true in Pennsylvania, home to a hotly contested April 26 primary, where there are 54 uncommitted delegates. Other states and territories, from Colorado to Wyoming to Guam, will also send squads of unbound representatives.These are the swing voters of the GOP nominating contest, nearly 200 activists and elected leaders beholden to nothing except their personal judgment and empowered to make or break candidacies.If Trump arrives at the July convention in Cleveland just shy of the 1,237 delegates required to secure the nomination outright, these unbound delegates could decide to push him over the top or force a contested convention with successive rounds of balloting. It s the wildcatter of delegate selection, said Ed Brookover, a senior adviser to Trump, who drew an analogy to risk-taking oilmen who drill in unexplored land.The three remaining candidates are identifying these delegates, researching their proclivities and beginning to cajole them. The law surrounding them is so unclear that Trump could conceivably fly them to Florida for a weekend of luxuriating at Mar-a-Lago, his gold-adorned and palm-lined private club where, naturally, they could be subjected to personal lobbying to support Trump.Brookover did not rule out the Trump campaign entertaining delegates at one of Trump s properties or paying for their travel costs to Cleveland. But he added: You certainly can t offer anything which would be considered a bribe. We can t give them $100,000. Charlie Black, who is helping lead Ohio Gov. John Kasich s delegate strategy, recalled working on Ronald Reagan s insurgent campaign in 1976 and struggling to court delegates as industriously as then-President Gerald Ford. People got to stay at the White House, fly on Air Force One and meet Queen Elizabeth, Black said.Federal rules do not provide clear guidance about whether delegates can accept items of value from a campaign, other than reimbursement for their travel expenses. Campaign finance lawyers are divided over whether federal or state anti-bribery statutes would apply to delegates who are not elected officials and if so, what kinds of perks or inducements could be illegal.For entire story: Washington Post | 0 | [
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FMD1162 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The United States said on Saturday it was directly communicating with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs but Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue. The disclosure by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a trip to China represented the first time he has spoken to such an extent about U.S. outreach to North Korea over its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. “We are probing so stay tuned,†Tillerson told a group of reporters in Beijing. “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout.†He said that communication was happening directly and cited two or three U.S. channels open to Pyongyang. “We can talk to them. We do talk to them,†he said, without elaborating about which Americans were involved in those contacts or how frequent or substantive they were. The goal of any initial dialogue would be simple: finding out directly from North Korea what it wants to discuss. “We haven’t even gotten that far yet,†he said. Trying to tamp down expectations, the State Department said later there were no signs Pyongyang was interested in talks. “North Korean officials have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization,†department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. Tillerson previously had offered little detail about U.S. outreach. On Sept. 20, he acknowledged only “very, very limited†contact with Pyongyang’s U.N. envoy. When asked about Tillerson’s assertion and what communication there might be between Pyongyang and Washington, a spokesman for the North Korean mission to the United Nations said he “can’t go further into detail.†Tillerson’s remarks followed a day of meetings in Beijing, which has been alarmed by recent exchanges of war-like threats and personal insults between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. “I think the whole situation’s a bit overheated right now,†Tillerson said. “I think everyone would like for it to calm down. “Obviously it would help if North Korea would stop firing off missiles. That’d calm things down a lot.†South Korean officials have voiced concerns that North Korea could conduct more provocative acts near the anniversary of the founding of its communist party on Oct. 10, or possibly when China holds its Communist Party Congress on Oct. 18. North Korea is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. It conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has threatened to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific. U.S. officials including Tillerson say Beijing, after long accounting for some 90 percent of North Korea’s foreign trade, appears increasingly willing to cut ties to its neighbor’s economy by adopting U.N. sanctions. Tillerson said China’s more assertive posture was due to its realization that North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities had advanced too far. “I think they also have a sense that we’re beginning to run out of time and that we really have to change the dynamic,†Tillerson said. The goal of the sanctions would be getting North Korea’s Kim to view nuclear weapons as a liability, not a strength. Still, the U.S. intelligence community does not believe Kim is likely to give up his weapons program willingly, regardless of sanctions. “(Tillerson’s) working against the unified view of our intelligence agencies, which say there’s no amount of pressure that can be put on them to stop,†Senator Bob Corker told a hearing at the chamber on Thursday. Kim sees nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles as “his ticket to survival,†Corker said. Tillerson agreed that Kim’s nuclear and missile programs were aimed at ensuring his own security, and renewed assurances that the United States did not seek to topple Kim’s government. “Look, our objective is denuclearization (of North Korea),†he said. “Our objective is not to get rid of you. Our objective is not to collapse your regime.†It is unclear how and when any actual negotiations with Pyongyang might be possible. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Monday there were no set preconditions for talks. He added, however, that Pyongyang’s capabilities were too far advanced to simply freeze its program in return for concessions. He also dismissed the idea of negotiating with Pyongyang even as it continued to develop its nuclear weapons program. Tillerson in March suggested the United States would only engage North Korea in negotiations once it gave up nuclear weapons. But he acknowledged on Saturday that denuclearization would be an “incremental process.†“You’d be foolish to think you’re going to sit down and say: OK, done. Nuclear weapons, gone. This is going to be a process of engagement with North Korea,†he said. Trump, who is due to visit China in November, has called for it to do more regarding North Korea and has promised to take steps to rebalance a trade relationship that his administration says puts U.S. businesses at a disadvantage. Chinese President Xi Jinping did not mention North Korea in his opening remarks while meeting Tillerson on Saturday. He instead offered warm words about Trump, saying he expected the U.S. president’s visit to be “wonderful.†“The two of us have also maintained a good working relationship and personal friendship,†Xi said in comments in front of reporters. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1163 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Scam: Facebook Dislike Button Activation Claim summaries:
contextual information: FACT CHECK: Can Facebook users get the "newly enabled Dislike button" by clicking a link and completing a survey? Claim: Facebook users can get the "newly enabled Dislike button" by clicking a link and completing a survey. Example: [Collected via Facebook, September 2015] Origins: In September 2015, in a Q&A session Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg somewhat misleadingly implied to social media users worldwide that the long-awaited Facebook Dislike button would soon be implemented. Predictably, Facebook scammers seized upon this nugget of partial truth in an attempt to more efficiently spread their (mal)wares and make a quick buck. Dislike Not long after inaccurate news stories informed Facebook users they'd soon be getting access to a Dislike button, a number of links resembling the example reproduced above and touting the Dislike button as an feature available by invitation only, were circulated on Facebook. Owing to the then-recent spate of news articles about Facebook's reportedly forthcoming Dislike button, users were more open to believe the link would indeed activate such a feature in their accounts. But users who clicked through to activate the Dislike button were greeted with a page that mimicked the style of Facebook-based content but was hosted outside that social network (alongside an initial red flag, what appeared to be a ticking deadline clock and apparent limited time to act upon the offer). Whether the user shared the item or not, a second inducement soon appeared promising a large cash sum (and coded to prevent easy reproduction): Neither the original embedded URL nor later clickthroughs led to any content hosted on or published by Facebook (which stands to reason, as the Facebook Dislike button rumor was widely misrepresented, and so no real Dislike button was forthcoming). Each of the links was a version of a typical social media survey/sweepstakes scam, such as those that have used Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart as bait by which scammers aimed to collect personal information and page likes from social media users (never delivering on their initial lofty promises once the desired information was collected from the marks). Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau described common hallmarks of social media survey scams: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Legitimate Facebook features are always released through Facebook itself, and rarely require users to leap through hoops in order to enable them (Facebook's Celebrate Pride rainbow profile photo filter was a good example of an official feature released by the social network). When and if the feature described by Zuckerberg in September 2015 (not a Dislike button) readies for release, it won't appear in the form of a shady survey. Celebrate Pride Last updated: 21September 2015 Originally published: 21September 2015 | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1164 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is the 'Jeff Green Foundation' Email Giveaway a Scam or Legit? Claim summaries: Billionaire philanthropists typically don't make multiple errors in grammar, nor do they ask people to respond to foreign email addresses.
contextual information: In May 2022, we received inquiries from our readers that asked if an email message from the "Jeff Green Foundation" was legitimate. According to the email, a philanthropist named Jeff Green had decided to give away $1 million each to 20 different lucky recipients. However, this had all the signs of a classic email scam. Jeff Green scam According to a screenshot captured by a reader, the email appeared like this: We transcribed the scam email below: scam From: Jeff Green Foundation Subject: My philanthropy! To: YOU Reply-To: [email protected] Greetings to you and your family. In a thousand years, I never thought I would do something like this. My Name is Jeff Green, Below is a Link of me and what i do. https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-t-green/?sh=1fc2467a41e2 https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-t-green/?sh=1fc2467a41e2 https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/billionaire-utahn-to-give-away-90-of-his-wealth https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/billionaire-utahn-to-give-away-90-of-his-wealth https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/11/16/richest-utah-native-vows/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/11/16/richest-utah-native-vows/ When I was 17, I met a homeless man named James in Five Points, Denver, Colorado. I spent hours listening to him, his stories, and the twists and turns of choice and fate that led him to a life on the streets. His journey deeply affected me, and I found myself dwelling on it a great deal over the following months, unable to shake one core question that was taking root in my mind - Why is he out here on the streets in the December cold while I am living a more comfortable life? I think this adage is generally true: luck is preparation meeting opportunity. But I also understand that many people experience major life events that obstruct their preparation and as a result, opportunity passes them by. I also believe that we all encounter people who can propel us forward or hold us back. No one gets to their situation in life alone, good or bad. I didn't get to this statistically outlying position alone, and neither did James. Money cannot buy happiness. Money can buy things that make life more enjoyable. But those things and that enjoyment are always fleeting. When you think about the problems you face in life, the accumulation of things is rarely the solution. My philanthropy is not about politics or handouts - it is about getting the best outcomes for all the potential talent, which can only benefit our nation, and humankind. It will help people step up to opportunity, not lay back. I will give away the vast majority of my wealth through data-driven philanthropy before or at my death. My target is more than 90 percent of my wealth. But I will also give of my time, my most precious commodity, to allocate those funds deliberately, and to be personally engaged. So I decided I was going to contact 20 people via their email address which I paid for from a Data Firm. If you receive this email, I am giving you $1 Million. Thinking about it again, I must be crazy to do something like this but crazy is what made me who I am today so lets go for it! All you have to do is reply to this email with your full names and you will be paid $1 Million. My Life's Mission is to deploy capital against humanity's toughest problems. Jeff Green. A search of Twitter showed that several users were curious whether the "Jeff Green Foundation" email was legitimate: Twitter We didn't find any similar messages available on Facebook, but it's likely that some users were discussing the email in private posts only visible to friends. Facebook Some of the paragraphs in the "Jeff Green Foundation" email scam were copied and pasted from the text of a genuine letter written by a real philanthropist named Jeff T. Green. In November 2021, Green truly did pledge to try to give away "more than 90 percent" of his billions in wealth. scam a genuine letter billions However, there's no indication that Green or his foundation had anything to do with the email scam. scam We quickly noticed several issues with the "Jeff Green Foundation" message. Before the email got into the "when I was 17" story from the genuine letter, several words were either capitalized or not capitalized that should have been the reverse. For example, one usage of the word "I" was left to be lowercase as "i" in the same sentence as an oddly-placed comma: "My Name is Jeff Green, Below is a Link of me and what i do." Additionally, the sentence was poorly worded. The message also asked recipients to respond to [email protected]. The idea that a billionaire philanthropist would publish an email with such poor grammar and, at the same time, ask people to respond to a fairly generic Hungarian email address, did not scream "legitimate." We reached out to a company associated with Green to see if they had been alerted to the scam that used his name. We will update this story if we receive a statement. scam In sum, no, the "Jeff Green Foundation" emails that promised $1 million each to 20 different people was not a legitimate giveaway. Jeff T. Green. The Giving Pledge, https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=430. Stack, Peggy Fletcher. Richest Utah Native Vows to Give Away 90% of His Billions. The Salt Lake Tribune, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/11/16/richest-utah-native-vows/. Swant, Marty. Billionaire Jeff T. Green, Founder Of The Trade Desk, Joins The Giving Pledge. Forbes, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/martyswant/2021/11/16/the-trade-desk-founder-jeff-green-joins-list-of-billionaires-to-sign-the-giving-pledge/. Tavss, Jeff. Billionaire Utahn to Give Away 90% of His Wealth. KSTU, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/billionaire-utahn-to-give-away-90-of-his-wealth. | 0 | [
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FMD1165 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Georgia Marshall has had just about enough of the white privilege performance art masquerading as a patriotic revolt against the tyranny of something something EVIL GUB MINT! Ever since the Bundy terrorists seized a wildlife refuge in Harney County, the entire county has been seriously pissed off at the presumption of these idiots that they speak for the residents. Unlike the Bundy cosplayers, the residents of Harney are grown ups who have worked very hard to build a working relationship with their government: The progress we ve made in this community compared with the sh*t we went through years ago when you could not stand in talk to a manager, she told the crowd. Granted, it s not a lot of progress but it s coming. Marshall pointed out that an organization called the High Desert Partnership was already working damn hard for the residents of Harney County. We are the poster child of the ranching community, of the environmental community, of the government community! she exclaimed. Have we ever had anybody put together a refuge plan in this god damn nation? Hell, no, we haven t! But it happened here and it happened in Harney County. This is how grownups behave. If you don t like how the local government works, you push and you compromise and you talk and you keep pushing until things start to get better. On the other hand, when you re an entitled, self-important little shit like Ammon Bundy, you pull out your gun, holler about freedumb! and demand your every whim be catered to. Especially getting snacks.Here s the awesome video of Georgia taking the Bundy morons behind the woodshed for a shellacking:Now, if it seems odd that a group of anti-government jackasses would show up in Oregon and make demands for a community they don t belong to, you re not crazy. When the Bundy boys originally rolled into town, they were all about the Hammond family not serving the full sentence for their crimes. But, the Hammonds said Holy crap! These yahoos aren t with us! Please let us serve our time in peace and the Bundy boneheads suddenly found themselves without a cause. So, as wealthy entitled white people, they defaulted to Waaaaahhhh! The government is oppressing us! and demanded they be given more free stuff because in right-wing Murika, rich white people get everything and screw everyone else.I hope Georgia and the other residents of Harney get their wish for a Bundy-free county so they can live their lives the way they want, not the way a group of wannabe martyrs and cheap knockoff revolutionaries say they should.Featured image via screencap. | 0 | [
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FMD1166 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states.
contextual information: In an advertisement urging lawmakers to fund public education, the Texas Association of School Boards bullets a half dozen claims about the states public schools ranging from current student enrollment to a reminder that legislators cut education aid in 2011.One claim in the ad, whichappears onlineand also filled a page in the April 24, 2013,Austin American-Statesman, was especially familiar--and flawed.Now Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states, the ad said when we looked.A few days earlier, werated as Mostly Truea similar claim by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who like the school boards group depended on preliminary spending estimates calculated by the National Education Association, the nations largest teachers union. In February 2012, the association said that Texas schools are spending $8,400 per student this year on items such as salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and energy. Its breakdown suggests Texas per-student expenditures trailed such spending in every state but two.Those calculations place Texas 48th among the states in per-student spending.And how might someone conclude, like the school boards association, that Texas ranks 49th? The compiled figures, shown on Summary Table K in the associations report, downloadablehere, reflect spending within each state plus schools in the District of Columbia, which has current estimated expenditures of more than $14,000 per student. Consequently, the Texas spending level falls 49th among the 50 states plus D.C. By phone, Catherine Clark, associate executive director of the school boards association, confirmed that the group relied on the NEA calculations in declaring Texas as 49th in education spending among the states. If spending in the D.C. schools figures into that conclusion, Clark said, then were wrong.Our rulingThe group said Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states.Texas ranks 48th among the states, according to preliminary figures, and 49th only if one also considers spending in the schools in Washington, D.C., which is not a state.This claim is close to accurate, but without the D.C. clarification, it rates as Mostly True. | 1 | [
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"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1167 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The President of the European Council has finally recognized that Europe cannot handle the massive influx of migrants crossing from North Africa into Italy and has called for measures to shut down the maritime route across the Strait of Sicily. [Ironically, just two days ago, Council President Donald Tusk criticized Donald Trump’s recent executive order putting a moratorium on new visas for nationals of seven particularly dangerous seedbeds of terrorism, calling the U. S. President a “demagogue†who poses an “existential threat†to the EU. And yet, Tusk seems to have taken a page from his namesake’s recent actions, boldly proposing that the route be “closed down. †“The flow of migrants from Libya into Italy and the EU is not sustainable,†Tusk said Thursday after a meeting in Brussels between European and Libyan officials. “Europe has proved it is able to close down irregular routes of migration, as we did on the Eastern Mediterranean route,†Tusk said. “We have discussed the example of our cooperation with Turkey and other countries in this part of the region. Now it is time to close down the route from Libya to Italy. †Populist leaders in Europe were quick to highlight what they consider the hypocrisy of the Council President, who has tended to downplay Europe’s migrant crisis. The Leader of Italy’s Northern League Party, Matteo Salvini, challenged the EU official for his slowness to recognize the problem and his sudden which occurred just after President Trump decided to draw a line in the sand on the problem of international terrorism and its links to migration. “When we at the League said the same thing five years ago,†Salvini asked, “weren’t we racists?†referring to accusations leveled against the League for its warnings of the dangers of unchecked immigration. Libyan Prime Minister Fayez who met the press together with Donald Tusk, said that the problem of illegal migration is “something dramatic†and affects security, and social, economic and political stability. “We must find ways to deal with all these aspects of the phenomenon,†said, noting that migrants need to be held back “in their countries of origin,†before they embark on the dangerous journey toward Europe. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 | [
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FMD1168 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Israel Destroy the Palestine National Library, the Azhar Library, and the 'National Cultural Center'? Claim summaries: A cultural center was indeed destroyed in Gaza in August 2018, but a viral meme contains some inaccurate and misleading information about it.
contextual information: In May 2019, a set of images supposedly showing the Palestine "National Cultural Center" before and after it was destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) went viral on social media, along with the claim that the IDF had also destroyed the National Palestine Library and the Azhar Library. Many social media users presented these images as if they were recent, even comparing them to the fire that had broken out at Notre Dame Cathedral a few weeks prior. The photographs used in this meme were real, but they were not taken recently, and the accompanying information was inaccurate or misleading. These photographs show the Said al-Mishal Centre (not the "National Cultural Center") in Gaza, which was destroyed during an airstrike on August 9, 2018, at the end of a "round of escalation" between the militant group Hamas and the IDF. Here's how the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center summed up the events that eventually led to the Centre's destruction: On August 8 and 9, 2018, there was a fifth round of escalation between Hamas and the IDF. Hamas and other terrorist organizations fired about 180 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli territory. The IDF responded with extensive attacks on Hamas infrastructure and assets. During and between the rounds of escalation (from the end of May to August 9, 2018), more than 610 rockets and mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory. At the same time, contacts were held to reach an agreement between the sides, mediated by Egypt and the UN envoy to the Middle East, but so far without result. The Israeli military maintained that the Said al-Mishal Centre was targeted because it was being "used by the Hamas terror organizations' interior security forces for military purposes." However, Sameer al-Mishal, the director general of the Centre, disputed this assertion, and the Palestinian Performing Arts Network released a statement claiming that the IDF was attacking the culture of Palestine: "The centre was a symbol of Palestinian cultural heritage and was purposefully targeted by the Israeli occupation because art and culture reinforce and strengthen Palestinian national and cultural identity." While we were able to find a number of reports concerning the destruction of the Said al-Mishal Centre in August 2018, as well as several images showing the aftermath of that attack (including the image featured on the right-hand side of this meme), our search for news reports about the destruction of the Palestine National Library was less successful. The claim that Israel destroyed the "Palestine National Library" likely refers to a July 2018 bombing at a Hamas training facility in Gaza. YnetNews reported that the five-story, unfinished building, which sat on a network of tunnels, had originally been planned as a national library. The Hamas training facility in Gaza that the IAF attacked on Saturday was meant to be the "Palestinian national library," the IDF said. The facility, located next to the Sheikh Zayed mosque, is an unfinished and abandoned five-story building in the al-Shati refugee camp, which was meant to be used for public or government services for the Palestinians, or at the very least for housing. Instead, the IDF said it has been used for years as an urban warfare training facility for Hamas, and in recent months, Hamas has also been using it to drill survival in the tunnels. A tunnel was dug under the building, which connects to Hamas's massive underground tunnel network in the strip. While this building may have been intended at one time to house a "Palestinian National Library," the edifice apparently never operated in this function. Again, it's unclear exactly what facility this meme is referring to as the "Azhar" library. Our best guess is that it is referencing the Al-Azhar University - Gaza (AUG) Library of the Faculty of Agriculture. While that library is still standing as of this writing, one of its branches was severely damaged by "Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2009." It contains a huge collection of materials in Agricultural and Animal Sciences essential for students in the Faculty of Agriculture. Al-Azhar University - Gaza (AUG) has the only faculty specialized in Agriculture in the Gaza Strip. However, the library was severely damaged during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2009. The total destruction of the library forced the university administration to combine what was left of it with the central library in a hall named the Faculty of Agriculture hall. We were unable to find many additional details about this attack. A contemporary article from the New Humanitarian didn't mention the library specifically, but it did report that Al-Azhar University - Gaza was damaged during an attack in 2009, and that thousands of students were unable to return to school due to "issues related to war." Al-Azhar, Gaza's second-largest university, generally seen as pro-Fatah (the political faction associated with Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank), was hit on the same day. Three thousand of the 20,000 registered students could not return this semester due to issues related to the war, said public relations officer at Al-Azhar University Sameh Hassanin, who also said there had been a 20 percent increase in the number of students unable to afford fees since the offensive ended. There is also a library at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, but we found no reports concerning the destruction of that library. | 0 | [
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FMD1169 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did the Trump Campaign Have To Issue Refunds for Recurring Donations? Claim summaries: A report by The New York Times outlines Trump donors who were surprised to find their bank accounts drained.
contextual information: In early April 2021, Snopes readers asked about social media posts and memes that claimed that former U.S. President Donald Trump "tricked" them into making recurring campaign donations. For instance, one such meme said contributors to the campaign who though they were making a one-time donation "were unaware the fine print stated they would be billed the same amount every single week until election day." Donald Trump In many cases, these claims are rather exaggerated, mean-spirited takes on a New York Times story, as we will explain below. As we previously reported, it's true that the Trump campaign was soliciting recurring donations with a pre-checked box, even after the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election. It's also true that many Trump supporters demanded refunds from the Trump campaign, although it seems mathematically impossible that the number of people who requested refunds was in the millions (as was claimed in social media posts). New York Times story previously reported The April 3 Times report details the experience of Trump donor Stacy Blatt, a retiree who was in hospice care, suffering from cancer, when he discovered his bank account depleted from those recurring donations. Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaughs dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trumps campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500. It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution federal records show it was his first ever quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge until Mr. Blatts bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help. What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud. Contrary to the takes offered in partisan memes and posts, Blatt and others like him were not "low IQ," but instead, fell victim to the complicated and evolving wording in a pre-checked box on Trump's online donation portal, according to the Times. As a result, the Times reported, the Trump campaign and WinRed, a for-profit company that processed the online donations, were forced to issue $122 million in campaign contribution refunds to people like Blatt. pre-checked box As Election Day neared in November 2020, the Times report described what amounted to a sense of panic that cropped up inside the Trump campaign, as Democrats out-raised and spent them. During that time, the text on the online donation portal for Trump's donation website changed from simply asking donors to make donations a monthly gift, to including a pre-checked box with more complicated text that made donations weekly. asking donors As the election drew closer, text in that bright yellow box went from containing a pre-checked field that in March 2020 simply said, "Make this a monthly recurring donation," to more complicated and emphatic demands by late 2020 that contained fake ultimatums. As of Sept. 30, 2020, the box looked like this: looked like this As the pre-checked box evolved, the result was an increase in refunds issued to donors who had missed the finer print in the box that allowed the refunds to be weekly recurring. The refunds issued by the Trump campaign outpaced and dwarfed the $21 million in refunds issued by his political rival, now-U.S. President Joe Biden. The effect can be seen in a graph posted by Shane Goldmacher, the Times report's author: The evolution of the text in the box on Trump's online donation portal can be viewed by clicking on various dates via the Internet Archive. Internet Archive A search for Blatt's name can be found on OpenSecrets.org, a campaign finance transparency tool run by the nonpartisan organization Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. It confirms the Times reporting that Blatt, who listed himself as retired, was billed $500 multiple times by the Trump campaign between mid-September and October 11, 2020. Sadly, Blatt died of cancer in February 2021, according to the Times. found on OpenSecrets.org We sent emails to WinRed and the Trump campaign seeking comment, but didn't get an answer in time for publication. We will update if we do. But we note that in their public statements responding to the Times story that neither Trump nor WinRed refute the financial figures or facts laid out by the Times. Instead, the stance taken by both WinRed and Trump is that the Times' report was unfairly negative about their approach to fundraising. In a series of tweets, WinRed called the Times report a "hit piece" and said WinRed's practices were comparable to that of ActBlue, the fundraising portal that serves Democratic candidates. "So when Republicans do it to stay competitive, its nefarious, and when Dems - who created the technology - do it, its a 'platform for little experiments that gently squeeze even more money out of donors,'" WinRed tweeted. called tweeted In a statement responding to the report, Trump referenced his pre- and post-election disinformation campaign, namely false claims that the 2020 election was beset by a massive-scale voter fraud conspiracy. Like WinRed, Trump said his own fundraising efforts were based on those of ActBlue, and also like WinRed, he claimed that the percentage of donors who formally disputed the charges with their financial institutions was low: statement We learned from liberal ActBlue and now were better than they are! In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also The Times story reported that WinRed "typically granted [refunds] to avoid more costly formal disputes." It also pointed out that while WinRed is a for-profit company, ActBlue is a non-profit organization. As such, WinRed "makes its money by taking 30 cents of every donation, plus 3.8 percent of the amount given. WinRed was paid more than $118 million from federal committees the last election cycle; even after paying credit card fees and expenses like payroll and rent, the profits are believed to be significant." We reached out to ActBlue for a response to WinRed and Trump's comments. A spokesperson told us by email that the average contribution amount across the platform in 2019-2020 was $38.08. The spokesperson also referred to this portion of the Times report that included a statement by ActBlue: was $38.08 ActBlue said in a statement that it had begun to phase out prechecked recurring boxes unless groups were explicitly asking for recurring contributions. Some prominent Democratic groups, including both congressional campaign committees, continue to precheck recurring boxes regardless of that guidance. Still, Democratic refund rates were only a small fraction of the Trump campaigns last year. On April 7, 2021, Timothy Miller, a writer for the political news site The Bulwark, tweeted that he received a fundraising text from the National Republican Congressional Committee with a similar, pre-checked fundraising box: Despite aggressive efforts to pursue claims of widespread voter fraud, no evidence was ever presented by the Trump camp that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 election. Biden won by 7 million votes and 74 electoral college points. widespread voter fraud won | 1 | [
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FMD1170 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Senate Democrats To FBI: Put Up Or Shut Up About Emails (TWEETS) By Darrell Lucus on October 30, 2016 Subscribe
If there was any doubt that FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that the FBI was reviewing potential evidence in the Hillary Clinton email affair backfired spectacularly, it was erased on Saturday night. Four top Senate Democrats gave Comey an ultimatum –give us a full accounting of what you know about this, and do so by Monday.
Senators Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Tom Carper, and Ben Cardin fired off a “what the hell is going on here?” letter to Comey and his nominal boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, demanding answers about Comey’s “vaguely worded” letter on Friday afternoon. They are the ranking members of the Senate committees that were most involved in the email server investigation–Intelligence (Feinstein), Judiciary (Leahy), Homeland Security (Carper), and Foreign Relations (Cardin).
Read the full letter here, courtesy Cardin’s Twitter feed.
— Senator Ben Cardin (@SenatorCardin) October 30, 2016
In a colossal understatement, they pointed out that the letter didn’t answer any questions, but in fact left a lot of them unanswered. For one thing, Comey’s letter didn’t clarify whether the FBI even had the emails in its custody, let alone had a chance to review them. Comey also didn’t say whether Hillary sent the emails, or if they even had anything to do with the investigation. Additionally, it represented a radical departure from FBI and Justice Department policy against doing anything that could potentially influence an election.
The Senators also noted that Comey had told his own troops that he didn’t know just how significant those emails were, and that there was a possibility that his letter would be “misunderstood.” In light of the fact that this letter has already been misunderstood, Feinstein, Carper, Leahy, and Cardin want Comey and Lynch–in truth, Comey–to give the Senate “detailed information” about the FBI’s actions no later than the close of business on Monday. To not do so, they add, “would be irresponsible and a disservice to the American people.”
There were already a number of reasons why Comey should be very afraid. For one thing, at the time, the FBI had not even obtained a warrant for the emails it discovered on the laptop of longtime Hillary aide Huma Abedin while investigating her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, for inappropriate texts with a teenager. So Comey felt the need to alert the House and Senate about these emails, when his people hadn’t even asked a court to review them.
We also know that Comey’s rumored excuse–that the emails were likely to be leaked unless he told Congress about them first–doesn’t wash. Judge Jeanine Pirro , no fan of Hillary, thinks Comey could have easily solved that problem by privately notifying the committee chairmen and putting them on notice that he would know who was behind any leaks.
But on Sunday afternoon, The Washington Post reported that the FBI hadn’t gotten a warrant for those emails despite knowing for at least a month that those messages were potentially relevant to the email server case. It finally obtained a warrant on Sunday night. How is Comey going to explain that to the Senate, especially since he knew how explosive this could have been?
It’s no wonder that Comey’s own troops are steaming mad at him, according to Newsweek and Vanity Fair’s Kurt Eichenwald. Here’s what Eichenwald has learned, by way of review. Word from inside @FBI . FURIOUS at Comey, think he's mishandled public revelations from get go. "Outrageous incompetence" one agent told me.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …his original decision to lay out info on clinton case, then opine on what it meant outside of criminal findings, infuriated these folks..
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 Re: anger within @FBI at Comey. I am getting this at the Special Agent, ASAC and SAC level. Those are the troops. (Most of em GOPrs)….
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …for Comey to have so angered ppl at the field office level is really, really bad.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 If Comey's improper comment on ongoing investigation changes polls, @FBI reputation as apolitical will never recover cause of his screwup.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016
While Feinstein, Leahy, Carper, and Cardin played good cop, their boss, Minority Leader Harry Reid, played bad cop, accusing Comey of breaking the Hatch Act . I wouldn’t quite go that far. But when the best-case scenario is that Comey was grossly incompetent, that isn’t good.
Comey’s actions may not have risen to the level of criminal conduct. However, it is clear beyond any doubt that he cannot lead. Eichenwald has talked to a number of DOJ officials from both parties who feel the same way. Every current/former Dept. of Justice official I speak 2, GOP or Dem, says Comey must resign/be fired 4 election interference. All outraged.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 30, 2016
Unless Comey has a very good explanation for this–and frankly, I doubt there is one–we need to hear only two things from him after he briefs the Senate. He needs to apologize to the American people, and he needs to resign.
( featured image courtesy FBI Flickr feed, part of public domain) About Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC . Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook . Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello. Connect | 0 | [
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FMD1171 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: November 2015 Ads THE WIKILEAKS LIST: At Least 65 Mainstrea Media Reporters Were Meeting with and/or Coordinating Offline with Top Hillary Advisors
A few of the “journalists” meeting offline with Hillary advisers
Thanks to Wikileaks we now know that at least 65 mainstream reporters were working closely with the Clinton campaign this election year. They were invited to top elitist dinners with Hillary Campaign Chairman John Podesta or Chief Campaign strategist Joel Benenson.
NO FOX NEWS REPORTERS MADE THE LIST!
These 65 mainstream reporters CAN NEVER BE TRUSTED:
As previously reported — At least 38 top national reporters attended a different dinner at John Podesta’s house in April 2015.
The Clinton campaign sent out invites to New York reporters in April 2015 on their off-the-record meeting on how to sell Hillary Clinton to the public
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 0 | [
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FMD1172 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump may be working to silence government agencies like the Department of the Interior, home to the National Park Service, as well as the EPA and the USDA s science and research office, but some government employees are not having it. Operating anonymously, a group of rangers from the National Park Service, with the help of some friends, are running a Twitter account that s going after Trump s efforts to muzzle science.The name on the account is AltUSNatParkService. They ve been around since 2015, but only became well known over the last day or so as Trump worked to remove scientific information from the White House website, and seems to be ordering any agency or department that publishes climate science to shut it.In addition to posting photos from our beautiful national parks, these rangers have also launched a very obvious offensive effort against Herr Trump by being a veritable fount of climate science.These are people who will not be silenced.These are people who will not allow their colleagues to be silenced either.And besides the climate science they re tweeting, they re also taking very pointed digs at Trump. Take a look below:Hello, we are the Alternative National Park Service Twitter Account activated in time of war and censorship to ensure fact-based education. https://t.co/Ez8twyES7p AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Hi @JettGoldsmith This accnt being run by several active NPS rangers and friends. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Mr Trump, you may have taken us down officially. But with scientific evidence & the Internet our message will get out. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 24, 2017Respect goes out to our brothers and sisters at the @BadlandsNPS. When they silence you, we will speak for you. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 24, 2017Think about what happened for employees at #BadlandsNationalPark to actually DELETE factual tweets on climate change. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 24, 2017The US president has silenced national parks & environmental agencies from reporting climate change & #BeerCanAppreciationDay is trending! AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017There $ a rea$on WHY Pre$ident Trump want$ u$ $ilenced on #Climate $cience. Don t let US institutions be cen$ored AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Tonight Trump gagged National Park Services & signed executive order to restart Dakota Access & Keystone XL pipelines. #climate AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Shoutout to the anonymous crews at .@BadIandsNPS continuing the great work of the original before Trump s (tiny) hand came down. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017The Badlands were created over eons through the gradual erosion of sediment. The erosion of U.S. democracy, however, will be far more rapid. BadlandsNPS (@BadIandsNPS) January 25, 2017We don t want any trouble. We just want to keep peer-reviewed factually accurate climate science flowing out of US institutions. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Did no one tell President Trump about the Streisand Effect? You silence our colleagues officially, and we will scream when we get home. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017We re fighting for our right to live, to exist.To have peer-reviewed science be published by our institutions. #climate #ResistTrump AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017And should we win the day, the 24th Jan will no longer be known as an American day, but as the day when the world declared in one voice AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017 We will not go quietly into the night!We will not vanish without a fight!We re going to live on!We ll fight climate change denial pic.twitter.com/HWNhAKmaBz AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017To understand what s best for our parks, we need to have access to US science data on climate & the environment. We must not be silenced. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Then they explain what has happened:Want some real fact to go with your alt-president? US national parks posted tweets about climate change that were later deleted. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017The National Park Service shut its own Twitter operation briefly on Friday after an apparent clampdown. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017The park service had retweeted photos about turnout at President Donald Trump s inauguration. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017But the accounts were reactivated the next day after an apology for mistaken retweets. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Since then the park service tweets have been about park news and scenery. South Dakota park then posted tweets about climate science data. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017President Trump has called climate change a hoax & the White House deleted the climate change policies on its website on inauguration day. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017A media blackout has also been introduced over our colleagues at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Fun fact: The White House is surrounded by NPS land, and during Occupy they supported the protesters despite the mayor s objection. AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017Can t wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS.You can take our official twitter, but you ll never take our free time! AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017They re also actively supporting a Scientists March on Washington to show this administration that science will not go down without a fight any more than women, people of color, LGBTQ people and anyone else marginalized will.Perhaps the sudden popularity of this account will give employees of other muzzled agencies some ideas for how to keep their information flowing. In the age of social media, it s far more difficult to silence people. Trump is going to have some serious problems here.Featured image by Workman, CC-BY-3.0 via Wikipedia | 0 | [
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FMD1173 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Who Was Michael Myers? Claim summaries: The face of the mass-murdering Michael Myers character in the 'Halloween' films was originally a Captain Kirk mask.
contextual information: One of the most iconic masks in movie history is the one worn by the crazed killer Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise of slasher films, the first installment of which was released in 1978. According to rumor, this frightful face originated with a character from a very different series and medium: Captain Kirk from television's Star Trek. The 1978 horror film Halloween was produced on a very limited budget, and director John Carpenter didn't have the funds to create a custom mask. Carpenter told the Hollywood Reporter in a 2015 interview that the movie's art director instead picked up a Captain Kirk mask at a magic shop and made a few alterations to create the iconic look of Michael Myers. He explained, "There was a choice we had to make because we didn't have any money to make a mask. So the art director went up to Bert Wheeler's magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard, which was right up the street from our offices, and he got two masks. One was a clown mask, and one was a Captain Kirk mask. It was supposed to be Captain Kirk. It looked nothing like William Shatner, nothing like anybody, really. It was just a strange mask, which was perfect for us. So we spray-painted it, altered the eye holes, and just did a couple of things with the hair, and there you had it. I like to think it's Shatner, but it's not really." Similar versions of the story have been told by other members of the crew, including Rick Sternbach, who worked as an illustrator/designer on Halloween 2, and William Shatner (who portrayed Captain Kirk) himself. Sternbach's account is of particular interest because he was one of the first to transition this movie legend into a movie fact. He stated, "I was hired as an illustrator on Halloween 2 in 1981, working for production designer J. Michael Riva. In a supply cabinet at Pumpkin Pie Productions, we had one mask left from the original Halloween and no idea where to get any others for the sequel. It appeared that we'd need to check out some of the toy stores and such, but I noticed that there was some wording molded into the neck area. There was a model number and the words 'Don Post Studios.' I made a call, read off the model number, and the word came back, 'It's our Captain Kirk mask.' I asked if we could buy a number of them, and was told, 'We'll give you a box, just give us credit.' With that, I turned the official dealings over to the higher-ups." | 1 | [
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FMD1174 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Jay Dyer 21st Century WireIn the famous treatise by Miles Copeland, Game of Nations, the devious middle eastern CIA operative spills the beans in this infamous 1969 work on covert operations and regime changes. Not only does Copeland detail the various US puppets and stooges, but also how game theory played into the predictive computer models available even in the late 60s. The regime change models of the 50s and 60s would be studied as part of Rand Corporation and other think tank and NGO models for remodeling, not just the Middle East, but any nations that run afoul of the Western globalists. This is a partial talk the full is available by subscription at JaysAnalysis.com. Watch:Jay Dyer is the author of the best selling title, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and his podcast, Esoteric Hollywood, investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix.SUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD1175 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Saying their patience is at an end, conservative activist groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and other powerful interests on the right are mobilizing to pressure Republicans to fulfill their promise to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act. Their message is blunt and unforgiving, with the goal of reawakening some of the most extensive conservative networks in the country. It is a reminder that even as Republicans control both the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade, the party’s activist wing remains restless and will not go along passively for the sake of party unity. With angry constituents storming town meetings across the country and demanding that Congress not repeal the law, these new campaigns are a sign of a growing concern on the right that lawmakers might buckle to the pressure. “We’ve been patient this year, but it is past time to act and to act decisively,†said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, which is coordinating the push with other groups across the Kochs’ political network. “Our network has spent more money, more time and more years fighting Obamacare than anything else. And now with the finish line in sight, we cannot allow some folks to pull up and give up. †The new mantra could be summed up as repeal, replace or revolt. Beyond the Koch network, other conservative groups like the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks are also increasing the pressure. All together, the new campaigns will involve advertising, rallies, phone calls to the Capitol switchboard and efforts to confront lawmakers in their offices with documentation of their own words about the need for repeal. The Koch groups are calling their campaign “You Promised,†and are prepared to spend heavily, they said. The initial phase, which will cost in the low six figures, will include a nationwide digital advertising campaign featuring testimonials from people who say they were harmed by the Affordable Care Act. On Tuesday, the groups will kick off the effort with a rally near the Capitol, from which they will dispatch activists to congressional offices. Beyond that, Americans for Prosperity said it was prepared to bring “significant resources†to bear as needed. FreedomWorks, which is planning a rally in Washington on March 15 to inaugurate its “month of action†on the Affordable Care Act, is sending its activists to Capitol Hill armed with sheafs of paper with quotes from Republicans who have called for repeal. The plan is to track down those Republicans and make them face their own words. “I think that the only way we get members of Congress to stay the course on this is with constituent pressure,†said Noah Wall, the national director of campaigns for FreedomWorks. If that does not work at first, he added, “I’m going to fill their offices with really angry constituents, and they’re going to listen. “And if they don’t,†he continued, “I’m going to go back into their district and fill their district offices with angry constituents. And we’ll do this again and again. †The sudden caution of the Republican Party leadership, as it grapples with the enormously complicated challenge of replacing the Affordable Care Act, has baffled conservatives who have been fighting the health law for years. In the House, Republicans have voted dozens of times to dismantle the law, and it has been a primary issue in congressional races since 2010. Repealing the law, many conservative lawmakers believe, is the one clear mandate they have from voters. “The reality is, this is existential for Republicans,†said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, which has been sending emails regularly to its 100, 000 members warning that Republicans could be stalling the repeal indefinitely. The group plans to directly target party leaders like Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, in a new phase of the campaign. “If they don’t repeal Obamacare and replace it,†Mr. McIntosh added, “I don’t think they’ll stay in the majority in the next election. †Implicit in the repeal push is a threat that conservative groups have always wielded over the party when they feel it is not being true to its convictions: primary challenges. And this early rift between the party’s activist wing and its leadership in Washington could be a taste of what Republicans can expect now that they control the government entirely and are no longer able to blame Democrats for blocking their agenda. After making bold promises over the past few years on issues like overhauling expensive government programs, rewriting the tax code and defunding Planned Parenthood, Republicans face voter demands to follow through. Republicans remain unable to agree on a health care plan that satisfies both moderates and . As President Trump himself acknowledged last week when he tried to explain the delay — “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,†he said — it is no easy task to pass a measure that could leave millions uninsured. And polls now show American’s attitudes toward the law are improving as they worry about what could happen if it is suddenly jettisoned. Democrats, who have been cramming town meetings to implore Republican lawmakers not to take apart the health law, seem content to let their opponents fight it out in the hope that the divisions will lead to an impasse. “Their rhetoric that has enabled them to stir up the far right is in collision with the truth,†said Thomas E. Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The repeal effort by the conservative groups is intended to sway members of Congress who may be hesitating because of public pressure back home. That pressure, conservatives said, is no reason to renege. “This issue has been litigated in four federal elections, and the result has been historic Republican majorities in Congress,†Mr. Phillips of Americans for Prosperity said. “That’s why there is no sympathy when some Republicans talk about contentious town halls or a few hundred calls into their office. †Americans for Prosperity, which has spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising opposing the Affordable Care Act, is bringing back some of the subjects of its initial ads — ordinary people who spoke about the problems with “ medicine†— for its new push. And it is arming activists with supporting evidence — it found, for instance, that 98 percent of Republicans in the Senate, or 51 of the 52, had voted at one point to repeal the law. “Congressional Republicans have promised an Obamacare repeal in unequivocal terms,†Mr. Phillips said. “It’s time for them to keep their promise. †| 1 | [
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FMD1176 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte s critics and allies in the Senate vowed on Wednesday to block a lower house move to slash the annual budget of a public-funded human rights agency opposed to his bloody war on drugs to just $20. The house, dominated by Duterte s supporters, voted on Tuesday to allocate a 2018 budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20) to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which has investigated hundreds of killings during the president s ferocious anti-narcotics crackdown. Vice President Leni Robredo, who was not Duterte s running mate and has locked horns with him numerous times, said the lawmakers move effectively abolishes the CHR, a constitutional body. Duterte s signature campaign has left thousands of mostly urban poor Filipinos dead. Critics say the lawmakers are trying to retaliate against the CHR for pursuing allegations of executions by police during sting operations, which police deny. The CHR is among the domestic and foreign rights groups that Duterte frequently admonishes, accusing them of lecturing him and disregarding Filipinos who are victims of crimes stemming from drug addiction. The upper house minority bloc, composed of six staunch critics of the president, will seek to restore the 678 million peso budget the government and a Senate sub-committee had proposed for the CHR. Senator Risa Hontiveros described the plan to cut the budget to almost nil as a shameless rejection of the country s international and national commitments to champion human rights . Several allies of Duterte in the 24-seat chamber said they would scrutinize the house move and try to ensure the commission had a budget that would allow it to work properly. Senator Richard Gordon said the CHR had a job to do and should not be restricted. That is their role | 1 | [
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FMD1177 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Tuesday morning, Donald Trump started off his day by tweeting yet another outrageous lie about President Obama, apparently unsatisfied with his weekend tweetstorm accusing his favorite Muslim Kenyan socialist nemesis who totally isn t an American citizen of tapping his wires at Trump Tower. 122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision! Trump claimed after apparently seeing a Fox News report that 122 have returned to the battlefield except not even Fox News was stupid enough to attempt to pass that off on President Obama.122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017In reality, 113 of those who have returned to their old ways were released under George W. Bush, while 9 were released under President Obama.This is something anyone even The Donald can easily fact check, but for some reason we will never understand he is so committed to the lie that he ignores verifiable data that proves him wrong. Naturally, the American people stopped by to tell him where he can stick his fabrications:Trump's Gitmo tweet is a boldfaced LIE.111 prisoners released under GEORGE BUSH returned to the battlefield pic.twitter.com/rOpYog3177 Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) March 7, 2017Without even digging into it, Trump took what he saw on Fox News and blamed Obama.Except, it was Bush. pic.twitter.com/qfseaUdnkl Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump I see you got your Infowars briefing this AM. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump Which battlefield are they headed to? Bowling Green? Kristina Wong (@mskristinawong) March 7, 2017Hmm, @realDonaldTrump, I wonder what intelligence agency gave you that info Oh right. My bad, bro. pic.twitter.com/v0CiImFIB5 Josh S nchez (@jnsanchez) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump remember when he claimed a sitting president wiretapped him? That was idiotic.Oh wait, that was you. Anthony Domanico (@ajdomanico) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump A huge number of them are from Russia, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, yet those countries are not in the travel ban. Why? Dave Hogg ? (@Stareagle) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump So, Donnie. Buddy. Do you have fact checkers? Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump what do you do when the President is a brainwashed, uninformed conspiracy theorist? Impeach. KG ? (@KG_NYK) March 7, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/CDWixIRRXH Stephen Patten (@StevePatten) March 7, 2017Trump is getting desperate in his attempts to distract Americans from his administration s numerous ties to Russian oligarchs. He has even demanded and Republicans have acquiesced that any probe into his Russia contacts be bogged down by an investigation into his stupid claims about President Obama tapping his wires. You re not campaigning anymore, Trump. Facts matter now, because most of us do still care about the truth.Featured image via Getty Images (Chip Somodevilla)/screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD1178 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The European Union told Britain on Tuesday it must make more concessions in talks over its departure from the bloc, offering little hope of a breakthrough for Prime Minister Theresa May at a summit later this week. May traveled to Brussels on Monday for dinner with senior EU officials, hoping to nudge the Brexit talks forward to look at future ties which she says will help London make advances on calculating a financial settlement. But hours after the dinner, ministers from EU countries, even those such as the Netherlands that have much to lose if there is no Brexit deal, said May needed to go further on detailing how much Britain will pay when it leaves the bloc. After losing her governing Conservatives majority in a June election and struggling through the party s annual conference, May has little room for maneuver unable to increase her offer on the Brexit bill for fear of angering her own party. We, the 27 together, find it extremely important that substantial progress is made on all three areas, Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders told reporters. But he also said the EU would offer May an olive branch at their summit on Friday by saying they would start preparing among themselves for talks on a post-Brexit transition in order to be able to engage with Britain swiftly after London delivers. I hope that in the UK the reality comes in that this is a possibility to come to the next stage in December, Koenders said in Luxembourg where ministers were preparing for the summit this Thursday and Friday. After the Brussels dinner on Monday, May and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the pace of Brexit negotiations should be stepped up after they stalled largely over the size of the divorce bill. The EU s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier struck a note of caution on Tuesday. It takes two to accelerate, he told reporters as he arrived to brief EU ministers in Luxembourg. One step after another... We are not finished with the first step. Neither side signaled there would be much movement at the EU summit after five rounds of talks, and some EU ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday said it was hard to negotiate with a prime minister under pressure from Brexit hardliners. Sometimes it s very difficult to see and understand what Britain really wants from these negotiations, said Finland s deputy minister, Samuli Virtanen. It seems that at the moment EU 27 is more unanimous than UK 1. With only 17 months before Britain leaves, the lack of progress in the talks have prompted companies to get ready not only for London leaving without a deal but also for a prolonged lack of certainty which makes investment decisions difficult. Britain s Brexit minister David Davis said separately that London had no plans to walk away from the negotiations and that he hoped the looming EU summit would build on the momentum and spirit of cooperation we now have. At the summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, May is due to set out Britain s Brexit position and then leave the room as the other EU leaders discuss the progress of the talks to unravel more than 40 years of union. According to a draft of the conclusions for the summit, the EU are unlikely to agree with May that it is time to move the talks forward, but will instead suggest starting a discussion on transition among themselves. That comes after May also talked on the phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in recent days, with sources saying both Paris and Berlin rebuffed her advances and stuck to the EU line. Foreign minister Boris Johnson told the British parliament on Tuesday he hoped our friends and partners in the EU would discuss the transition period, saying if we re going to get on to that kind of question, now is the time for them to do so . British officials have increasingly accepted that Friday will not bring the breakthrough they had hoped for, but believe an improved tone may mean that might not be too far off. The PM is pleased with how the dinner went, it was productive, it was a friendly discussion, a May spokesman said. We have been absolutely clear that we can only resolve the financial implications of the UK s withdrawal and other issues as part of the settlement of all the issues. But members of her party have reduced May s room for maneuver, with some Brexit campaigners saying if there was no progress on Friday, the prime minister should walk away. It s all about the money and if she ups the bid now, that is a really hard sell politically, a senior source in May s governing Conservative Party told Reuters. | 1 | [
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FMD1179 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Obamacare might work if you're getting a subsidy but it is killing the folks who have no subsidies or no employer who helps pay for costs but even they are getting hit hard. Part of the reason wages are stagnant is because wage increases have to go into health care increases.
Premiums would be rising faster without Obamacare? What I know is that friends who don't qualify for Obamacare have a $10,000 deductible and $1500 monthly premium. Some tell me their out-of-pocket costs have doubled. How does one budget for Obamacare?
And now Hillary wants to open up the exchanges to illegal aliens. Sure, we can pick up the tab for that, too. | 0 | [
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FMD1180 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Financial Times Fumbles Trump’s Central Banking Criticism
Populists stick to tradition of central bank-bashing … If anyone still doubts the affinity between support for Trump in the US and for Brexit in the UK, they should look no further than the two movements’ attitude to monetary policy. –Financial Times
The “populism vs. globalism” meme is increasingly evident in the mainstream media just as we predicted, and analyzing it can generate considerable insight into elite plans and societal positioning.
This Financial Times article provides us further information in a short editorial. Interestingly, it is not by any means persuasive propaganda. It would have been far more effective in the 20 th century than today when so many more people are beginning to be educated about free-market economics.
More:
Donald Trump has accused the Federal Reserve of keeping interest rates too low for what is healthy for the economy in order to make the Obama administration, and by extension Hillary Clinton, look good. Theresa May, more elegantly but no more justifiably, used her party Conservative party conference speech to attack the Bank of England’s policy of quantitative easing.
In both cases, the technocrats at central banks are accused of making policy that helps rich elites and hurts the more deserving common people, be they small savers or hardworking families.
So far so good. But toward the end of the article we are – unfortunately for the argument – provided with more specifics. This is where the article’s logic weakens and then disintegrates.
A cursory search of “populism” or “populism vs. globalism” will reveal a tremendous amount of commentary in a short period of time. In fact, this particular dominant social theme seems to be a foundational feature of upcoming arguments in favor of globalism.
But it is fatally flawed – as this article offers in a few sentences that are meant to be damning but instead reveal the basic bankruptcy of this rhetorical approach:
Traditionally, populists have berated central banks for their obsession with “sound money”: tight monetary policy, high interest rates and the gold standard. ¨
In about 25 words, the article seems to sabotage its entire argument and by extension the larger meme.
Is this the best that can be done? Probably so. It provides terrible testimony as to the state of elite memes generally.
For one thing, central bank criticism in the past few decades has not focused on central bank “obsession with sound money.”
On the contrary, most modern criticism regarding central banking focuses on the endless debasement of the fiat currency monetary facilities spew relentlessly.
Additionally, critics of central banking in the past decade or more have been sounding the alarm regularly about too-low interest rates. Rates so low, in fact, that they have now gone into negative territory.
Finally, in addition to mischaracterizing modern central bank criticism, the article doesn’t even attempt to grapple with cogent criticisms of central banking that are common on the Internet today.
These criticisms are rooted in the free-market economics of the Austrian School, which is in many ways the basis of all modern economics.
Marginal utility shows us clearly that markets create valid prices. Yet central banks “fix” the value and volume of money via interest rates and in other ways.
This cognitive dissonance is at the heart of the disaster of modern central banking.
Ask a central banker if he believes in price fixing, and you should receive a credible, necessary response: Price fixing destroys prosperity by substituting dictates for market competition. And yet … price-fixing is central banking’s significant – sole – methodology.
In the Internet era, memes have to be convincing and logical to have an impact with the intelligentsia that elites have traditionally sought to propagandize – as they are thought leaders. But here we have one of the most important dominant social themes – populism vs. globalism – being presented in a major financial newspaper in a most unpersuasive way.
This is probably why the fallback position when it comes to reasserting a necessary matrix of elite propaganda increasingly focuses on censorship.
The kind of comprehensive effort necessary to reestablish the once-commonly accepted disinformation of the 20 th century is probably beyond the scope of even the most authoritarian propagandizing short of genocide.
Conclusion: Bur wait, is that a potential world war staining the horizon? … | 0 | [
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FMD1181 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Share on Facebook Share on Twitter There are articles floating around the internet suggesting that the Russian government has claimed that America never landed on the moon. This is absolutely ridiculous. Neither the Russian government nor any of its representatives have alluded to this. They are, however, calling for an international investigation regarding “murky details” that surround the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972. ( source ) Why a mainstream news outlet like the Washington Post would title an article “Russian official wants to investigate whether U.S. moon landings actually happened ” is curious, to say the least ( source ) Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s official government Investigative Committee, has argued that such an investigation could bring to light what’s been kept in the dark for a number of years with regards to these trips into outer space. Markin and the Russian government are referring to the disappearance of film footage from the original moon landing in 1969. They are also referring to the (approximately) 400 kilograms of lunar rock that was obtained during multiple missions between 1969 and 1972. “We are not contending that they did not fly (to the moon), and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific – or perhaps cultural – artefacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened.”– Vladimir Markin ( source ) From the U.S. side, NASA did admit that the original recordings of the first moon landing had been completely erased. Despite this, they also said that they had managed to remaster the original television broadcast of the landing. According to Bob Dean, United States Army Command Sargent Major, who also served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) of NATO as an intelligence analyst, there is more footage that has been erased and hidden than we’ve not been told about: “Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’‘socially unacceptable,’‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.” (source) What Really Happened Out There?
For anybody who has done any research regarding our trips to the moon, there is definitely no lack of mystery. A lot of this has been sparked by NASA astronauts themselves who have made some remarkable claims. There are so many statements from so many astronauts it’s really hard to pick the best ones.
You may instantly place this topic in the conspiracy realm, but with all of the evidence that’s emerged within the past few years alone, nobody can rely have any sound rebuttal against it. Remember, a wise man once said that “condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”
“I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been covered up by governments for quite a long time. Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone, they have been coming here for a long time.” – Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14, 6th man to walk on the moon. ( source )( source )( source )( source ) “There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon.” ( source ) – Dr. Brian O’Leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor “In my opinion I think they were worried that it would panic the public if they knew that someone had vehicles that had this kind of performance … so they started telling lies about it. And then I think they had to cover another lie, you know, tell another lie to cover their first lie, now they don’t know how to get out of it. Now it’s going to be so embarrassing to admit that all these administrations have told a lot of untruths…. [and that] there are a number of extraterrestrial vehicles out there cruising around.” ( source ) – Gordon Cooper, Former NASA Astronaut, Aeronautical Engineer, and test pilot; one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States
“At no time when the astronauts were in space were they alone. They were under constant surveillance by UFOs.”– Maurice Chatelain, who worked at NASA. He holds 12 patents. His expertise was to invent radio equipment used to go to the moon. Here is an example of one of his patents. ( source )
There are many more examples to choose from, and the quotes coming from NASA personnel and the people who have been in outer space could fill pages. Think about that for a moment.
For examples of declassified documents, and more verified quotes that go beyond NASA and into the military, political, and academic realms, you can click here .
You can access all of our articles on this subject by visiting the exopolitics section of our website HERE .
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 | [
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FMD1182 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is Biden's Logo a Reference to China's 'Three Red Banners'? Claim summaries: Conspiracies are often in the eye of the beholder.
contextual information: Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here In October 2020, messages started to circulate on social media claiming that the three red stripes on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's logo were a reference to the so-called "three red banners" that outlined the socialist policies of Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Communist Party of China in the 1950s: This is a genuine image of one of the logos the Biden-Harris ticket has used in their campaign as well as a genuine screenshot (to the right) from a Wikipedia page about the three red banners. However, the logic used to connect these two dots Mao described a portion of his socialist policies as "three red banners," therefore, items with three red stripes are about socialism does not hold up under the lightest scrutiny. three red banners For starters, "three red banners" is a reference to an ideological philosophy, not a specific visual design. In other words, China did not have a physical flag representing the three red banners in a similar fashion displayed on Biden's logo. This claim is attempting to connect a textual description of a 1950s policy with a visual representation of the letter "E" in the campaign logo. Here's how QZ described Mao's "three red banners": described The long history of Chinas obsession with numbered policies starts with Mao. The Three Red Bannersthe General Line for socialist construction, the Great Leap Forward and the peoples communeslaid out how Maos socialist policies would transform China. But they are the de facto culprits of the Great Famine, Yang said. The first banner is an ideological slogan that calls on Chinese people to build a socialist state. The Great Leap Forward, initiated by Mao in 1958, aims to transfer China into an industrialized country. And the peoples communes put households together in rural areas where they shared everything from food to farm tools a way to discount individuality and centralize more manpower and resources for agricultural and industrial production. The claim that Biden's logo is a reference to the socialist policies of Mao in China during the 1950s is based solely on the fact that Biden's logo contains three red lines. As the "three red banners" does not refer to any specific visual design, one could connect these socialist policies to any item adorned with three red stripes. By this logic, anybody living in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Ohio, or working for the New York City Fire Department could be labeled a communist as these entities all use flags containing three red stripes. Hawaii Puerto Rico Ohio New York City Fire Department In addition to the logical flaws of this comparison, Mekanism, the ad agency that created Biden's logo, has already explained what this logo is supposed to symbolize. explained Aimee Brodbeck, the company's designer and art director who led the team that created the logo, said that the stripes and the colors of the logo were nods to the American flag. More specifically, Brodbeck explained that the three stripes represent the three branches of the U.S. government. explained "The logo is approachable and strong, just like the Biden name. By incorporating nods to the American flag, the logo is a representation of Biden's investment in America. The 3 stripes represent the branches of government and the strength of unity with Biden. The logo also nods to the familiarity of the Obama "O" logo where 3 stripes are seen. Smith, Lilly. "Experts Weigh in on the Biden-Harris Logo: 'It Could be Scribbled on a Napkin and I'd be Happy."
Fast Company. 12 August 2020. Hofford, Alex. "Charted: Chinas Great Famine, According to Yang Jisheng, a Journalist Who Lived Through It."
QZ. 10 March 2016. | 0 | [
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FMD1183 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s hard to tell if the men assaulting this female reporter are refugees or Germans. One thing is clear however, there is now an attitude permeating Germany that it s okay to openly commit sexual assault on women. Hmmm .isn t there a culture in the Middle East that has the same mindset? This is a perfect example of the Left putting an ideology before the most vulnerable in their society. To hell with protecting their women and children, welcoming Muslim males, who have no intention of assimilating with Europeans, appears to be the primary concern of progressives in the failed EU expiriment. The sex attack on the Belgian TV journalist Esmeralda Labye (42): she was attacked by two men while the camera was running on a live broadcast for the channel RTBF. The incident occurred around 1.30 am in the Old Market. The perpetrators are still at large.On the evening Labye spoke in a television broadcast about the events in Cologne: At first it was only fooling around behind me. Then a hand landed on my breast. I was shocked. https://youtu.be/DYQB81Bpd9MLive from the carnival in Cologne, the presenter on the national broadcaster, Esmeralda Labye, was explaining that things are going relatively well , while passers-by were making obscene gestures and whispering in her ear.Reminder: The final carnival festivities in Cologne, one of the most popular events in Germany, began last Thursday, surrounded by a heavy security after violence that took place at New Year . A total of 2,500 police officers were deployed, three times more than last year .The New Year s night was marred by violence , including sexual abuse , attributed to North African asylum seekers or immigrants.Via: DH.be | 0 | [
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FMD1184 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: A Stanford study has confirmed election fraud by demonstrating discrepancies in exit polls. Claim summaries: Two researchers released a paper (not a study) examining whether primary election fraud that favored Hillary Clinton had occurred.
contextual information: On 8 June 2016, the Facebook page "The Bern Report" shared a document authored by researchers Axel Geijsel of Tilburg University in The Netherlands and Rodolfo Cortes Barragan of Stanford University suggesting that "the outcomes of the 2016 Democratic Party nomination contest [are not] completely legitimate: That social media share described the document as "a fantastic research piece put together by a couple of college students, Rodolfo Cortes Barragan & Axel Geijsel." That document (properly termed a "paper," not a "study," as the latter term implies some form of professional vetting) concluded with the statement that the data examined by its author "suggest that election fraud is occurring in the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential Primary election" and that "this fraud has overwhelmingly benefited Secretary Clinton at the expense of Senator Sanders": document Are the results we are witnessing in the 2016 primary elections trustworthy? While Donald Trump enjoyed a clear and early edge over his Republican rivals, the Democratic contest between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernard Sanders has been far more competitive. At present, Secretary Clinton enjoys an apparent advantage over Sanders. Is this claimed advantage legitimate? We contend that it is not, and suggest an explanation for the advantage: States that are at risk for election fraud in 2016 systematically and overwhelmingly favor Secretary Clinton. We provide converging evidence for this claim. First, we show that it is possible to detect irregularities in the 2016 Democratic Primaries by comparing the states that have hard paper evidence of all the placed votes to states that do not have this hard paper evidence. Second, we compare the final results in 2016 to the discrepant exit polls. Furthermore, we show that no such irregularities occurred in the 2008 competitive election cycle involving Secretary Clinton against President Obama. As such, we find that in states wherein voting fraud has the highest potential to occur, systematic efforts may have taken place to provide Secretary Clinton with an exaggerated margin of support. In an appendix, Geijsel and Barragan stated that their research was still in progress and had not yet been subject to peer review, but since the information was highly topical they believed it better to pre-release their findings due to the ongoing primary ballot count in California (among other factors): Statement on peer-review: We note that this article has not been officially peer-reviewed in a scientific journal yet. Doing so will take us several months. As such, given the timeliness of the topic, we decided to publish on the Bern Report after we received preliminary positive feedback from two professors (both experts in the quantitative social sciences). We plan on seeking peer-reviewed publication at a later time. As of now, we know there may be errors in some numbers (one has been identified and sent to us: it was a mislabeling). We encourage anyone to let us know if they find any other error. Our aim here truly is to understand the patterns of results, and to inspire others to engage with the electoral system. The post-introduction portion of the paper began with a comparison of outcomes in "primary states with paper trails and without paper trails," holding that potentially inaccurate results led the researchers to "restrict [our] analysis to a proxy: the percentage of delegates won by Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders." After identifying via the Ballotpedia web site 18 states that use a form of paper verification for votes compared to 13 states without such a "paper trail," they concluded that states without "paper trails" demonstrated a higher rate of support for Hillary Clinton: Analysis: The [data] show a statistically significant difference between the groups. States without paper trails yielded higher support for Secretary Clinton than states with paper trails. As such, the potential for election fraud in voting procedures is strongly related to enhanced electoral outcomes for Secretary Clinton. In the Appendix, we show that this relationship holds even above and beyond alternative explanations, including the prevailing political ideology and the changes in support over time. The information included in the Appendix didn't explicate exactly what those alternative explanations might be: Are there other variables that could account for our main effect (states without paper trails going overwhelmingly for Clinton)? We conducted a regression model and included the % of Non-Hispanic Whites in a state as of the last Census, the states electoral history from 1992 to 2012 of favoring Democratic or Republican nominees for President (i.e., the blueness of a state), and our variable of interest: paper trail vs. no paper trail. As expected, race/ethnicity and political ideology played a role: The Whiter and more liberal a state, the less it favored Clinton. However, the effect for paper trail remains significant. States with paper trails show significantly less support for Clinton. As such, even beyond the potential for other likely factors to play a role, the potential for fraud is associated with gains for Clinton. Dependent variable: Percent support for Clinton in the primaries In the paper's second portion, the researchers examined discrepancies between exit polls and final results by state, a subject of debate (hashtagged #ExitPollGate on social media) that antedated the publication of their paper and was addressed in a Nation article disputing the claim that exit polls revealed fraud. The Nation's analysis held that fraud detection exit polling varied significantly from the type of exit polling typically carried out in the United States: While exit polls are used to detect potential fraud in some countries, ours arent designed, and arent accurate enough, to accomplish that purpose. [A polling company VP], who has conducted exit polls in fragile democracies like Ukraine and Venezuela, explained that there are three crucial differences between their exit polls and our own. Polls designed to detect fraud rely on interviews with many more people at many more polling places, and they use very short questionnaires, often with just one or two questions, whereas ours usually have twenty or more. Shorter questionnaires lead to higher response rates. Higher response rates paired with larger samples result in much smaller margins of error. Theyre far more precise. But it costs a lot more to conduct that kind of survey, and the media companies that sponsor our exit polls are only interested in providing fodder for pundits and TV talking heads. All they want to know is which groups came out to vote and why, so thats what they pay for. As well, standard exit polling conducted in the U.S. can be very inaccurate and systematically biased for a number of reasons, including: including o Differential nonresponse, in which the supporters of one candidate are likelier to participate than those of another candidate. Exit polls have limited means to correct for nonresponse, since they can weight only by visually identifiable characteristics. Hispanic origin, income and education, for instance, are left out. o Cluster effects, which happen when the precincts selected arent representative of the overall population. This is a very big danger in state exit polls, which include only a small number of precincts. As a result, exit polls have a larger margin of error than an ordinary poll of similar size. These precincts are selected to have the right balance of Democratic and Republican precincts, which isnt so helpful in a primary. o Absentee voters arent included at all in states where they represent less than 20 percent or so of the vote. As the New York Times put it, "[N]o one who studies the exit polls believes that they can be used as an indicator of fraud in the way the conspiracy theorists do." Nonetheless, Geijsel and Barragan contended in their paper that: Anomalies exist between exit polls and final results Data procurement: We obtained exit poll data from a database kept by an expert on the American elections. Analysis: On the overall, are the exit polls different from the final results? Yes they are. The data show lower support for Secretary Clinton in exit polls than the final results would suggest. While an effect size of 0.71 is quite substantial, and suggests a considerable difference between exit polls and outcomes, we expected that this difference would be even more exaggerated in states without paper voting trails. Indeed, the effect size in states without paper voting trails is considerably larger: 1.50, and yields more exaggerated support for the Secretary in the hours following the exit polls. The expert whose numbers were utilized for the paper wasn't expressly cited by name, but his moniker appeared on the linked spreadsheet: Richard Charnin. Charnin indeed lists some impressive statistical credentials on his personal blog, but he also appears to expend much of his focus on conspiracy theories related to the JFK assassination (which raises the question of whether his math skills outstrip his ability to apply skeptical reasoning to data). spreadsheet conspiracy theories Geijsel addressed questions about exit poll numbers in a subsequent e-mail to a blogger who was highly skeptical of his research: skeptical In short, exit polling works using a margin of error, you will always expect it to be somewhat off the final result. This is often mentioned as being the margin of error, often put at 95%, it indicates that there's a 95% chance that the final result will lie within this margin. In exit polling this is often calculated as lying around 3%. The bigger the difference, the smaller the chance that the result is legitimate. This is because although those exit polls are not 100% accurate, they're accurate enough to use them as a reference point. In contrast to the idea that probably 1 out of 20 results will differ. Our results showed that (relatively) a huge amount of states differed. This would lead to two possibilities, a) the Sanders supporters are FAR more willing to take the exit polls, or b) there is election fraud at play. Considering the context of these particular elections, we believe it's the latter. Though that's our personal opinion, and others may differ in that, we believe we can successfully argue for that in a private setting considering the weight of our own study, the beliefs of other statisticians who have both looked at our own study (and who have conducted corroborating studies), and the fact that the internet is littered with hard evidence of both voter suppression and election fraud having taken place. That blogger passed the anlysis on to his father ("a retired Professor Emeritus in Mathematics and Applied Statistics at the University of Northern Colorado"), Donald T. Searls, Ph.D., for comment: comment I simply asked him to review it in full and send me his comments as to its methodology and his view as to its validity. For the record, he has been a Republican for as long as I can recall and has no interest in voting for the Democratic nominee, whoever that might be. I received his response via e-mail today. Here is what he wrote: I like the analysis very much up to the point of applying probability theory. I think the data speak for itself (themselves). It is always problematic to apply probability theory to empirical data. Theoretically unknown confounding factors could be present. The raw data is in my mind very powerful and clear on its own. My personal opinion is that the whole process has been rigged against Bernie at every level and that is devastating even though I don't agree with him. I called him after receiving his response to [ask him to] clarify his remarks on the application of probability theory to the data. His comment to me was that he did not believe it was necessary for the authors to take that step. If he had done the study himself, he would not have bothered with doing so. As he said, the data speaks for itself. Although Geijsel cited a number of sources to substantiate the claim that fraud was well-documented in the 2016 primary season, most of those citations involved persons with an interest in the overall dispute (such as groups party to lawsuits). That factor doesn't necessarily cast doubt on the researchers' findings, but it highlights that not much independent and neutral verification of their conclusions has occurred yet. Cohn, Nate. "Exit Polls, And Why The Primary Was Not Stolen From Bernie Sanders."
27 June 2016. Geijsel, Axel and Rodolfo Cortes Barragan. "Are We Witnessing a Dishonest Election?"
7 June 2016. Holland, Joshua. "Reminder: Exit-Poll Conspiracy Theories Are Totally Baseless."
The Nation. 7 June 2016. Booman Tribune. "My Dad's View of Election Fraud Study."
11 June 2016. Booman Tribune. "Election Fraud Study Authors Respond."
13 June 2016. | 2 | [
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FMD1185 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Tweet Widget by Black Power Front
With students joining workers in revolt against South Africa’s neoliberal regime, young people are demanding to know why Black police are engaged in the same kind of repression that was previously used by white governments “to systematically counter Black resistance?” In a letter to Black cops, activists note “an increase and worrying pattern of anti-Black police violence.” An Open Letter to Black South African Police Officers by Black Power Front
“As a Black Police Officer, you must understand that the struggles of Black workers and students are actually your struggles too.”
Dear Black Police Officer,
How are you today? Well, we hope. You may be wondering who we are, why we have decided to write to you and perhaps why we are addressing you as a “Black Police Officer” -- as opposed to just saying “Police Officer.”
Who are we? We are the Black Power Front or BPF. We are a non-party political pro-Black platform which seeks to serve as an instrument to organize and collaborate with like-minded Black individuals and organizations, under a common program that provides practical responses to what is commonly understood as the Black Condition today.
Why have we decided to write to you? First, given the nature of your work, it is not always easy to sit down with you and just talk about issues that affect our country and, in particular, the Black community.
Second, like other members of the Black community, we in the BPF are deeply disturbed by the continued brutality of the police against Black workers and students -- particularly those who engage in legitimate protest action. And third, the BPF holds the view that, given where Black people find themselves economically, socially and otherwise today in relation to other racial groups, it is extremely urgent that like-minded Black groups and individuals (everywhere in the world) come together in exclusive spaces, and engage in constructive dialogue, with the view to find ways of getting Black people out of the quagmire they currently find themselves in.
The anti-Black role of the police before 1994
As members of the Black community, you would know that, in the Azanian (South Afrikan) context, from the 1400s onwards, various forms of colonial police structures were key instruments in enabling the European invaders to advance and bolster their evil agenda of slavery, colonization and land theft. It was these colonial police structures that were used to systematically counter Black resistance, through amongst others the capture, torture and in many cases beheading of our warrior ancestors such as uKumkani uHintsa, Kgosi Toto, Kgosi Galeshewe, uKumkani uStuurman and many other heroes and heroines of Black resistance.
In the 20 th century, it was through these European colonial police structures that successive white supremacist regimes in Azania (South Afrika) were able to murder and torture our freedom fighters and ordinary Black people. They were directly responsible for the murder of our people in Sharpeville and Langa in 1960. The execution by hanging of martyrs like Vuyisile Mini and Solomon Mahlangu, in 1964 and 1979, respectively.
It was the colonial European police who assassinated visionaries such as Onkgopotse Tiro and Steve Biko, in 1974 and 1977, respectively. It was them who murdered the young Zolile Petersen and Christopher Truter, during the student uprising of 1976. And it was them who ensured that many of our revered freedom fighters such as Kgalabi Masemola, Mangaliso Sobukwe, Lekoane Mothopeng, Pandelani Nefolovhodwe, Nkosi Molala, Muntu Myeza and many others, were banished to Robben Island.
Even though it is often argued that the White Police Officers who were involved in these atrocities against Black people were acting under the orders of their superiors, the truth of the matter is that, at an individual and basic level, they knew that what they were doing to Black people was wrong, inhumane and unjustified.
The anti-Black role of the police after 1994
Given this painful history of centuries of systematic and state violence against Black people, the declaration of “freedom” on April 27, 1994, created a legitimate expectation on the part of many Black people that the type of wanton violence and naked brutality that the successive colonial white supremacist regimes unleashed on Black people would be a thing of the past. But to our horror, even after the declaration of “freedom” in 1994 and the installation of a government that is led by Black people we began to see an increase and worrying pattern of anti-Black police violence.
This type of anti-Black police [U1] brutality was palpable in the killing of Andries Tatane, young Nqobile Nzuza, Mike Tshele, Lerato Seema, Osiah Rahube, Jan Rivombo and of course the brutal and targeted assassinations of Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki and other Black workers in Marikana, in August 2012.
All of these anti-Black atrocities beg the question: how it is possible that a government that is led by people who, as part of the Black community, have first-hand experience of the brutality of state violence through the police, do not just unleash the same type of state violence against their own people, but also seek to justify the use of such anti-Black violence?
Our attitude towards Black police officers
By highlighting the involvement of Black Policer Officers (after 1994) in the killing of ordinary Black people who are simply fighting for their right to be human the BPF does not seek to create the mind-set that Black Police Officers are the enemy of the Black community or that Black Police Officers are inherently bad people. Of course, there are many examples of Black Police Officers who don’t just do their job with integrity and dedication, but also do a lot of good work in the Black community.
This notwithstanding, the main focus of this letter, however, is not so much the individual conduct of Black Police Officers but rather the continued use of Black Police Officers (as a state function) in the brutal suppression of the right of ordinary and mainly poor Black people to freely articulate their social, economic and political concerns and aspirations.
Our appeal to Black police officers
As the BPF, we regard Black Police Officers as members of the Black community first and therefore an integral part of Black life in Azania. We also hold the view that the on-going demands by Black workers for decent wages and better working conditions or those of Black students for free-decolonized-Afrocentric education, are not just demands that will benefit individual Black Police Officers (majority of them Black young people), but also their children who might be at university or will be going there in future. Therefore, as a Black Police Officer, you must understand that the struggles of Black workers and students are actually your struggles too.
As the BPF we fully understand that, just like all ordinary Black people, Black Police Officers are under severe financial stress and like most Black people, they are struggling to make ends meet. For these reasons, the BPF’s clarion call to all Black Police Officers is as follows:
* Understand that the economic struggles and frustrations of ordinary Black people are your struggles and frustrations too. And that Black workers and students continue to be oppressed by the same system that is responsible for your personal financial stress;
* As part of the Black community, you must (through your labor unions), engage the management of the SAPS to stop the state’s campaign of apartheid-style violence that is currently being unleashed on Black people in general;
* You are our Black Brothers and Sisters and must never allow yourselves to be used by self-serving politicians as part of an elitist anti-Black-pro-capitalist plot that uses the pretext of “law and order” to justify the murder of poor Black people and wanting that Black people timidly accept their status as economic slaves in the land of their ancestors; and
* Lastly, Black students and workers are not fighting against you (as Black police officers) but against the anti-Black-pro-capitalist system that is using some of you against your own Black Sisters and Brothers.
#FreeDecolonisedAfrocentricEducationNow! | 0 | [
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FMD1186 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Theres nothing in the [RhodeMap RI] plan that takes away local government control and local zoning control.
contextual information: The RhodeMap RI long-term economic development plan continues to spark controversy throughout Rhode Island. This week, Republican legislators announced they would submit legislation to free municipalities from having to incorporate it into their local planning. This follows comments made by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello in December to radio station WPRO-AM, where he stated that the plan is never going to come before the House or the Senate in its totality and that they were never going to vote on it. The controversy began in mid-September with the release of a 200-page draft of the plan, which is intended to guide efforts to improve the state's economy. During meetings that sometimes devolved into shouting matches, critics argued that if RhodeMap RI were implemented, local cities and towns would be relinquishing control to the federal government on affordable housing and land-use issues because the plan was funded, in part, by a $1.9 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant. Supporters contended that there is nothing in the plan that would infringe on individual property rights or local control over zoning. As the debate is likely to continue in the coming months, we decided to examine a statement made late last year by Kevin M. Flynn, associate director for planning for the state Division of Planning, who oversaw the plan's development. Addressing concerns about ceding municipal control, Flynn told EcoRI News that there is nothing in the plan that takes away local government control and local zoning control. We asked Flynn how he backed up his statement. While we awaited a response, we read through the RhodeMap RI plan and found nothing to indicate a threat to local control, suggesting Flynn's statement was accurate. However, things became more complicated when we examined other documents, including the Planning Division's grant application, the grant agreement, and HUD's description of the Sustainable Regional Planning Grant Program, the source of the $1.9 million. According to HUD, the program is intended to support planning efforts that integrate land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments. It also aims to enable local and state planners to consider issues such as energy use, climate change, public health, and social equity in economic planning. Agencies that apply for such grants must agree to generate plans aimed at producing, among other objectives, equitable land use planning that furthers the federal Fair Housing Act and complies with other civil rights laws. Additionally, those agencies must agree to analyze and overcome barriers to housing discrimination—in HUD's words, to affirmatively further fair housing. Critics view those provisions with alarm, arguing that they essentially give the federal government license to override state and local government control. They point to a long-running legal dispute involving New York's Westchester County as Exhibit A. When Flynn got back to us, he referred us to Article XIII of the Rhode Island Constitution, which empowers cities and towns to adopt and amend their charters and enact and amend local land use laws. He also cited state zoning enabling legislation, which delegates zoning authority to cities and towns. "A plan is simply that. A plan," Flynn said. "A plan has no power to modify constitutional or statutory law. The economic development plan could never supersede state law," he asserted. Looking for more impartial views, we reached out to more than ten national housing law experts. The four who responded agreed that communities do not cede zoning control when they accept HUD grants, but they had some caveats. For example, Brian Gilmore, an associate professor and director of the Housing Clinic at Michigan State University College of Law, stated, "I wouldn't say they've ceded total control. I would say they have obligations." Robert G. Schwemm, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, echoed this sentiment, noting that it is illegal to use local zoning power to maintain segregation. However, Schwemm added that HUD has no direct power over local zoning authority. "HUD could deny the grant or take back money, but that's a remote possibility," he said. The idea of a fund cutoff is virtually unheard of, as historically, the Fair Housing Act has been enforced weakly. "They're doing more than has been done in the past," he said of the Obama administration. HUD's Annual Report on Fair Housing 2012-2013 indicated that the agency received 495 analyses by cities and towns examining fair housing choice, but took enforcement action in only five instances. Here's why Westchester County is significant. In 2006, a housing advocacy group sued the county in federal court, arguing that it had defrauded taxpayers by accepting $50 million in HUD grant money while failing to remove barriers to fair housing as required by its agreement with HUD. HUD later became a plaintiff in the suit. A judge ultimately agreed with the plaintiffs, and a landmark settlement was reached requiring the county to spend $50 million to build or acquire 750 affordable housing units in communities that were more than 90 percent white. Now, the county and HUD are disputing whether the county has complied with the settlement and whether it must amend its zoning ordinances to do so. The county has lost at least $20 million in HUD grants so far. We contacted the county for its perspective on HUD grants and local control. "The experience in Westchester has been caveat emptor," said Ned McCormack, Westchester communications director and senior adviser to County Executive Robert P. Astorino, using the Latin phrase for "buyer beware." "Once you take any money from HUD, your interpretation of what is expected in return and their interpretation vary widely." Our ruling: Kevin M. Flynn stated that nothing in the RhodeMap RI plan takes away local government control and local zoning control. Technically, there is nothing in the plan's language that appears to compromise local zoning law or control. However, his statement does not acknowledge the strings attached to the HUD grant. In accepting the $1.9 million from HUD to develop the plan, the state agreed to, among other things, expand housing opportunities for underserved populations based on race, ethnicity, or economic status, and is thus obligated to do so. In fact, HUD has taken legal action against grant recipients such as Westchester County that, in its view, failed to live up to their agreements. While rare, it has happened. For the record, in December, 26 Rhode Island cities and towns were awarded nearly $5.3 million in HUD grants through the Community Development Block Grant program. On balance, we rate Flynn's claim as partially accurate but lacking important details or context, which aligns with our definition of "Half True." (Correction: Article XIII of the Rhode Island Constitution spells out home rule for cities and towns. The article number was incorrect in the original version of this item.) | 2 | [
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FMD1187 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Political donations from the DeVos family Claim summaries: A chart purportedly shows how much money Betsy DeVos and her family contributed to Republican senators.
contextual information: On 7 February 2017, Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education in the new Trump administration by a narrow 51-50 margin, with the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Mike Pence. All the votes approving DeVos were cast by Republican senators, leading some of her detractors to theorize that she had essentially paid for her position through campaign contributions. This theory was illustrated by several charts circulated online that allegedly documented the amount of money DeVos had contributed to various senators. The chart displayed above first appeared on Reddit, but the data it incorporates was taken from a report published by the Center for American Progress. That report included another chart showing the DeVos family's campaign contributions. A similar report filed by the Center for Responsive Politics stated that "Betsy DeVos and her relatives have given at least $20.2 million to Republican candidates, party committees, PACs, and super PACs" since 1989. In the 2016 cycle alone, the family had given at least $10 million as of late October to a host of GOP candidates and committees. Much of that $4.4 million went to super PACs supporting the White House bids of Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, as well as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and businesswoman Carly Fiorina, along with the Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners Action Fund and the super PAC started by Republican strategist Karl Rove, American Crossroads; the latter two groups helped support numerous Republicans in tight House and Senate races. However, these charts do not show how much Betsy DeVos personally contributed to Republican campaigns. A second chart from the Center for Responsive Politics documented that Betsy DeVos herself was only responsible for about 7% of these contributions. It should also be noted that these charts tally cumulative donations made over the span of two and a half decades, although the 2016 campaign cycle comprised the bulk of those donations. None of this information establishes that the contributions were made with the intent of gaining office for Betsy DeVos or that they had that effect. Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, received $43,200 from the DeVos family but voted "No" during Betsy DeVos' confirmation hearing. Although nearly all the Republican senators who had received contributions from the DeVos family voted "Yes," so did all the Republican senators who had not received any contributions from the DeVos family. The Washington Post posited a much more likely explanation for the confirmation vote breakdown: partisanship. If Democrats controlled the Senate, DeVos would have lost her confirmation. There is every reason to believe that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell let [Susan] Collins and Murkowski vote no on DeVos for political reasons, holding enough votes in reserve to assure she would win. The motivation was partisan support for a Republican nominee, not that a small fraction of his past campaign financing depended on DeVos's generosity. The Washington Post also noted that while the DeVos family contributed millions of dollars to Republican candidates, their contributions constituted only a sliver of the total money raised by those campaigns. It's no secret that DeVos and her family have been major donors to the Republican Party over the last few decades. In 1997, DeVos wrote that her family was the "largest single contributor of soft money" to the Republicans. Occasionally, a wayward reporter will try to make the charge that we are giving this money to get something in return or that we must be purchasing influence in some way. [...] They are right. We do expect some things in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment; we expect a good and honest government. Furthermore, we expect the Republican Party to use the money to promote these policies and, yes, to win elections. During DeVos' confirmation hearing in January 2017, Senator Bernie Sanders asked her about how much her family had contributed to the Republican Party over the years, and she averred that an estimate of about $200 million might be accurate. Sanders: Mrs. DeVos, there is a growing fear, I think, in this country that we are moving toward what some would call an oligarchic form of society, where a small number of very, very wealthy billionaires control, to a significant degree, our economic and political life. Would you be so kind as to tell us how much your family has contributed to the Republican Party over the years? DeVos: Senator, first of all, thank you for that question. I was pleased to meet you in your office last week. I wish I could give you that number. I don’t know. Sanders: I have heard the number was $200 million. Does that sound in the ballpark? DeVos: Collectively? Between my entire family? Sanders: Yeah, over the years. DeVos: That’s possible. Sanders: Okay. My question is, and I don’t mean to be rude. Do you | 1 | [
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FMD1188 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Whoa. The day after he fired now-former FBI Director James Comey, Donald Trump did perhaps the dumbest thing a person under investigation for collusion with Russia could possibly do: he gave highly classified information directly to representatives of the Russian government. How classified? It s stuff we haven t even shown our allies.The Washington Post reports that when Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, Trump bragged to the Russians according to a White House official:Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities. Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling, a former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official who worked with Team Trump told the Post. Russia, armed with the information Trump handed them, can now use it to identify the U.S. ally or gain more information about intelligence operations. This is code-word information, the official said. Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies. One official tells Buzzfeed that it s far worse than what has already been reported. Russia could identify our sources or techniques, the senior U.S. official explained. I don t think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out. If that partner learned we d given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first that is a blow to that relationship, the official said, adding that Trump also informed the Kremlin about defensive measures the United States has taken. I m sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details. The meeting, which occurred just after The Donald fired James Comey for requesting additional resources for the Russia investigation, was off-limits to U.S. press, but Trump allowed Russian media in to take photographs. The White House readout does not discuss Trump s decision to give away our nation s secrets to the country that financed and executed a hacking a propaganda operation intended to install him in the Oval Office.Featured image via screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD1189 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is an extreme narcissist who always demands unwavering loyalty from his cable news surrogates. No matter how outrageous his words or deeds, Therefore, it comes as no surprise that during an appearance on ABC s This Week, Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union actually suggested that Trump s chaotic excuse for governing the nation is actually helping move the GOP legislative agenda alone.First, former conservative radio host and #NeverTrump Republican Charlie Sykes was able to weigh in, saying: The role that the president is playing, rather than showing leadership of any kind, he is sowing chaos, confusion and destruction. Schlapp said in response: I get the fact that there s an opinion on Donald Trump that a lot of people don t like Donald Trump. The president does want to get it done but he wants to get it done within the context of the other aspects of these polices. So Dreamers are going to have to be accompanied with border security. And [Obamacare] CSR payments are going to have to be accompanied by other health care reforms. That s where the very outspoken Van Jones chimed in: You just described probably the most complicated set of negotiations in the history of the republic, that this guy is ramming through. Schlapp tried to cut Jones off, but Jones wasn t having it, and plowed on: I m not finished yet, I m not done. The problem you are having is what you are describing is something that would require real leadership, real finesse. On BOTH sides! Schlapp desperately pouted.Jones calmly continued: I ll say on both sides. But your guy, who you are going to love and defend I understand it s your job you have to admit he s his own worst enemy. In order to do what you just described, you would need discipline and focus. That s when Jones really let the bomb drop: That this isn t normal, and Senator Bob Corker started openly questioning Trump s stability and fitness to serve. Jones said: We are so into the crazy now, when something significant happens, we don t notice. [Corker] is not a bomb thrower. And when someone of his stature and his temperament says World War III, that should be a all-cars-stop-on-the-interstate moment. What is going on? Van Jones is correct. This is a very dangerous situation, and Trump s cable news lackeys are enabling this playing of Russian Roulette with our lives and the future of the nation. If we land in a nuclear war, you know who to blame it s the Matt Schlapp s of the world, not the Van Joneses.Watch the incredible conversation below. | 0 | [
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FMD1190 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did Biden Revoke $250M That Trump Pledged to Historically Black Colleges? Claim summaries: A copypasta meme circulating on social media got several facts wrong.
contextual information: In early February 2021, social media users shared a copypasta meme spreading the baseless rumor that U.S. President Joe Biden had revoked millions of dollars in funding from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), a charitable organization that provides scholarships for Black higher education students and institutions, which former President Donald Trump had pledged to give to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) over the next 10 years. Here is an example of the meme circulating on social media: We found no evidence of any truth to this claim. It appears to be a case of a rumor spread by way of copypasta text forwarded via social media platforms by people copying and pasting it from profile to profile. copypasta We reached out to UNCF to ask about the meme. Lodriguez Murray, senior vice president of public policy and government affairs told us that there is no truth to it. Murray pointed out that UNCF is a private, nonprofit organization and as such, receives money from private donors, not the federal government. Instead, UNCF advocates the federal government. He also pointed out that federal funding is the purview of Congress, not the executive branch. purview The copypasta, Murray said, "sounds like a lie and no one should ever use UNCF's good name or HBCUs or populations traditionally held down by systemic racism to make their erroneous case." Murray also pointed out that as part of his campaign, Biden had promised more funding for higher education, which included $70 billion for HBCUs and other institutions that serve minority students. more funding | 0 | [
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FMD1191 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Mike Trainor...still owes $250,000 to the state.
contextual information: Talk-radio host and former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Buddy Cianci Jr. recently referred to a member of Governor Chafees staff as the guy who still owes $250,000 to the state.Ciancis jab at Michael F. Trainor, aired on Sept. 1, 2011 on WPROs The Buddy Cianci Show.Because it wasnt the first time that Cianci had made the comment -- and because a bankruptcy judge had discharged most of Trainors debt nearly a year ago -- we thought it was worth looking into.Trainor has built a career in public relations representing some of the states high-profile politicians and corporate players. He was an advisor and spokesman for Lincoln Chafee during Chafees successful 2010 run for governor.But Trainor has had his own public relations problems ever since it became known late last year that he and a business partner from Connecticut defaulted on a $250,000 federal small business loan granted through the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.According to the EDC and bankruptcy court documents, heres what happened:The duo and two of their partners started a Rhode Island company, called Genesis Distribution & Marketing, in 2006 to distribute and market retractable window screens and hurricane shutters.Trainor and his partners had already bought a company in Connecticut that distributed and installed hurricane shutters. And they planned to buy three more in the South that made the shutters. In January 2007, the EDC loaned the business $250,000 through the federally funded Small Business Loan Fund to buy inventory, furniture, fixtures and equipment and hire three employees.But the business was short-lived.Just two months after receiving the EDC loan, the partners fell behind on their payments. In 2008, the company folded.Trainor and his partner from Connecticut, who had pledged their homes as collateral for the loan, talked with representatives from the EDC about a settlement. But the talks broke off in August 2009, when Trainor notified the agency that he was filing for bankruptcy.By then, the housing market had tanked along with the value of Trainors house.The partners had repaid $36,326 of the loan; with interest and late fees, the debt on the loan at the time totaled $250,723.In September 2010, a bankruptcy judge granted Trainors petition for Chapter 7bankruptcy.An explanation of the ruling in the bankruptcy court documents states: The chapter 7 discharge order eliminates a debtor's legal obligation to pay a debt that is discharged.The EDC loan was written off on Nov. 30, 2010. The agency concluded that it couldnt recover any money from its lien on Trainors home because the mortgage balance exceeded the propertys value.In December, 2010, Trainor, who was being considered for a job in the Chafee administration, toldThe Providence Journalthat he had not walked away from his obligations, saying hed like to negotiate a settlement with the EDC.Governor Chafee discussed Trainors situation on Channel 12 Newsmakers in December 2010, saying that there would be an effort made to repay the EDC. [Well] make sure Mike does that, he said.So it certainly sounded then as though Chafee and even Trainor himself believed that Trainor still owed the EDC the money.Chafee hired Trainor as spokesman when he took office in January, a job that paid $129,235.That month, Trainor also repaid the state $20,788.75 in taxes -- which were not dischargeable in the bankruptcy -- owed on his failed business. In return, the state Division of Taxation removed the lien on his property. Six months later, in July, the bank sold his house at a foreclosure auction. Trainor served seven months as Chafees spokesman before he was transferred, in August, to the Department of Higher Education. His salary has dropped to $88,177. So, does he still owe the $250,000, as Cianci claims?That debt was discharged, Andrew S. Richardson, a lawyer and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Trustee in the Trainor case, said. (He) can no longer be forced to pay the obligation -- nor can the creditor take any steps to try and collect it.In other words, Richardson said, theres no legal obligation that Trainor repay the loan.But other lawyers who specialize in bankruptcy see it differently.Most people understand (bankruptcy) as destroying the debt but technically the discharge in bankruptcy doesnt destroy the debt at all, Jason Kilborn, a lawyer, law professor and resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute in Virginia said. It does not destroy the obligation from a moral or even a legal obligation. It just prevents the creditors from collecting on that debt.The American Bankruptcy Institutewas founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues.In other words, the debt remains, even though the creditors are forced to write it off as uncollectable.So if the debt remains but Trainor isnt obligated to repay it, does he really owe the state money?We called Cianci and challenged him on his use of the term owes. Trainors bankruptcy discharge, he maintained, doesnt change the fact that Trainor still owes the EDC the $250,000.Maybe it was discharged, he said, but in the mind of the taxpayer who fronted the 250 grand? Yeah, he still owes it.Said Richardson, the trustee: I think it depends on whose point of view youre looking at, the creditor or the debtor.We agree.Practically speaking, the bankruptcy ruling and the fact that the mortgage on the Trainors home exceeded its value made it impossible for the EDC to recoup its money.But even after the debt was discharged in bankruptcy Trainor and Chafee both said theyd make an effort made to repay the EDC.After all, a debt can be owed even if its never collected.For that reason, we rule Ciancis statementMostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD1192 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In the runup to the 2016 election Matt Drudge linked to reports that Hillary Clinton’s health was faltering. For weeks the ‘rumors’ were denied by mainstream media , especially left-leaning web sites.
As the election drew closer, The Huffington Post and other non-partisan web sites claimed that Clinton had an unbeatable lead. On November 4th, just days before the election, Huff Post went so far as to suggest that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning the election. All the while, alternative media researchers, journalists, commentators and bloggers were highlighting the fact that polls actually showed a dead even race , with Trump leading in some cases.
When Wikileaks released tens of thousands of emails, the propaganda went into full swing with claims that the emails sourced from the DNC and Clinton Campaign were fake, even though numerous third-party organizations certified their validity.
If you were to ask the experts, Drudge Report , Infowars , Breitbart , The Daily Sheeple , and other alternative media web sites were peddling fiction. In fact, “peddling fiction” is the exact terminology used by President Obama to marginalize the detailed economic reports being disseminated by Alternative Financial web sites like Zero Hedge .
The fiction narrative, championed by entrenched media personalities, was pushed across social media by millions of anxious Hillary fans. According to them, everything coming from independent media was a lie – it was fake.
As it turns out, Clinton’s health problems were confirmed when she was recorded stumbling about following a September 11th ceremony in New York. The Wikileaks were, in fact legit. Trump won by an electoral landslide. And the economy continues its downward spiral.
One report after another being disseminated by what left-leaning pundits call “fake news websites” has been confirmed as accurate, proving that there was a concerted effort to stifle free speech and real journalism.
Hillary Clinton made mention of it in her Deplorables speech, warning that a lot of fake information was being released through racist web sites across the web.
And if she had her way, no one would have ever read anything but positive information about her, while everything else was disappeared Orwellian-style, never to reach the masses that eventually elected Donald Trump to the Presidency.
What this year’s Presidential election has proven is that alternative media is a force to be reckoned with, and the establishment is scared shitless.
But they won’t let it happen again.
Earlier this year President Obama turned control of the internet over to the United Nations, effectively eliminating free speech protections enjoyed by citizen journalists in America. It may have sounded crazy when we sounded the alarm before the internet takeover, but the today’s actions by Google and Facebook provide further evidence that the establishment media and Deep State politicians are preparing a digital lock down on any and all information that has not been approved by an as of yet unknown Truth Panel.
A Facebook spokesman said it will explicitly ban sites that traffic in fake news from using the Facebook Audience Network, saying they fall under the category of misleading, illegal or deceptive sites already barred. The audience network places ads on other websites and mobile apps.
Earlier Monday, Google said it plans to prevent Google ads from being placed “on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose” of the website. The policy would cover sites that distribute false news, a Google spokeswoman said.
False news stories, particularly those that spread widely on Facebook, became an issue during the recent presidential election. Google experienced its own mishap on Sunday when a story on a right-wing blog erroneously stating Donald Trump won the popular vote appeared atop some Google search results.
…
“While implied, we have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news,” the Facebook spokesman said. “We vigorously enforce our policies and take swift action against sites and apps that are found to be in violation. Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance.”
Full report
The moves by Google and Facebook follow a recent de-monitzation effort at Youtube that has target alternative media. As noted in their “Advertiser Friendly content guidelines, they appear to be targeting alternative media directly by banning:
C ontent that is considered “not advertiser-friendly” includes, but is not limited to:
Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown So basically, anything newsworthy is no longer advertiser friendly, and these organizations will now determine whose news will or won’t be seen based on what is sure to be propietary algorithms and human curation.
The bottom line is this: the time and energy required to produce the amount of video content and investigative journalism that we saw during the election is astronomical. Thousands of journalists, bloggers and concerned citizens spent countless hours reporting the news the mainstream media wouldn’t. Many of those people depend on advertising revenue to cover their most basic costs, including their monthly mortgages and the food they put on the table.
The aim with policies like this, which will no doubt be overseen by establishment hacks, is to starve independent media. In turn, they will starve the people of the information they so desperately need to understand what is being done to them.
This is only the beginning.
Hattip Daisy Luther | 0 | [
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FMD1193 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Gawker Media, whose fierce independence afforded it an unsparing approach to web journalism that influenced news organizations across the internet and the wider media world, was sold to Univision at auction on Tuesday, giving the freewheeling company an outside owner for the first time since its founding 14 years ago. Univision bid $135 million to beat out the digital media publisher Ziff Davis, according to three people with direct knowledge of the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity because the price had not been made public. A bankruptcy judge is to officially approve the sale at a hearing later this week. The sale came two months after Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a concession to the financial pressure the company faces from a $140 million legal judgment in an lawsuit by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea. Making matters worse for Gawker was Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who acknowledged after the Hogan trial that he had funded the lawsuit and was providing financial support for other legal cases against the company. Univision will not assume the $140 million judgment. Univision, best known for its television network, has recently moved aggressively to expand its online portfolio, and adding Gawker’s sites fits with its plans to extend its reach beyond viewers. Univision bought a large stake in The Onion this year and acquired full control of Fusion, the news site and cable channel that it started with the Walt Disney Company in 2013. Univision also owns other digital media companies, including The Root, a site focused on issues. In a statement, Nick Denton, Gawker’s founder and chief executive, said: “I am pleased that our employees are protected and will continue their work under new ownership — disentangled from the legal campaign against the company. We could not have picked an acquirer more devoted to vibrant journalism. †Univision declined to comment. For Gawker, the sale is the end of an era. Founded in 2002 by Mr. Denton, a former journalist for The Financial Times, the site attracted young journalists who took on articles that traditional media organizations were sometimes reluctant to pursue. The company had its critics, who said its sites skirted the boundaries of good taste. It initially had only two sites — Gawker, a news and gossip site that largely covered New York media and society, and Gizmodo, a gadgets and technology blog. What journalists initially lacked in monetary compensation, they made up for in a kind of industry cachet. Employees went on to found influential sites like The Awl and work at publications like The New Yorker and Time. “One thing that has always been true about Gawker is that it was an amazing incubator of talent,†said Adam Moss, the editor in chief of New York magazine, which has hired many former Gawker journalists. He added, “To a large extent, the voice that they worked out at the beginning became a kind of template for the way people talk on the web. †Mr. Denton was known for saying that journalists too often share the most interesting stories they know only with each other at the bar after work, and the company held the value of entertaining readers seemingly above all else. Over the years, Gawker Media espoused a gossipy, wry tone that often made much of the traditional media seem . The company blogs now include Jezebel, which is aimed at women, and Deadspin, the sports site. But Gawker’s approach has also been to its detriment. Mr. Bollea sued Gawker Media in 2012 over its publication of a video that showed him having sex with the wife of a friend. He has been unable to collect from Gawker on the $140 million judgment because of its bankruptcy filing. Mr. Denton, who is personally liable for $10 million and jointly liable for $115 million, filed for bankruptcy this month, listing $10 million to $50 million in assets and $100 million to $500 million in liabilities. Gawker had revenue of $17. 8 million for the year through July 21, according to filings in connection with the bankruptcy. It reported $48. 7 million in revenue in 2015 and $43. 8 million in 2014. Mr. Thiel’s battle with the company began in 2007, when Valleywag, one of Gawker’s blogs, wrote a post saying he was gay. “I had begun coming out to people I knew, and I planned to continue on my own terms,†Mr. Thiel wrote in an in The New York Times that was published online on Monday. “Instead, Gawker violated my privacy and cashed in on it. †He wrote that he was “proud to have contributed financial support†to Mr. Bollea’s case and would continue to support him “until his final victory. †Last summer, after Gawker published and then removed an article about a married male media executive who sought to hire a gay escort, the company was thrown into turmoil over disagreement about whether the post should have been taken down. Two top editors resigned, and Mr. Denton vowed to make the site nicer. Since the verdict in the Hogan case was handed down by a Florida jury in March, Gawker’s typical defiance has been tinged with resignation. During a party in July at The Box, a burlesque club in Lower Manhattan, the drinks flowed freely, and so did cheeky jokes about Mr. Thiel and the company’s bankruptcy. Last week, at its offices near Union Square, Gawker held its final party as an independent company. It was billed as a affair — the wine and beer were gone by 8 p. m. — and the mood was somewhere between reunion and Irish wake. “We have shown with our backs against the wall the kind of character and determination and verve and style that I think we can absolutely be proud of,†Mr. Denton told a crowd that had assembled on the large area that has become the company’s default gathering place. “In a week, we’re going to know the identity of the company’s new owner, and I’m hopeful and confident that the parent company that the sites will be under will allow them to thrive. †In a note to employees, Vivek Shah, the chief executive of Ziff Davis, said his company had withdrawn from the auction “once we felt the price and terms exceeded our threshold. †When Gawker filed for bankruptcy, Ziff Davis submitted a $90 million offer for the company. A stalking horse bidder, Ziff Davis would have assumed ownership of Gawker if no other bidder had emerged. As part of its agreement for being the first bidder, Ziff Davis will collect a $2. 475 million breakup fee. It was not clear what the sale would mean for Mr. Denton. Whether he stays on at Univision may not be up to him, and there have been indications that he may be ready to step away. In the last year, Heather Dietrick, Gawker Media’s president and general counsel, has taken on more of a leadership role. It was also not clear whether Univision would hold on to Gawker. com, the flagship site that was at the center of the Hogan suit. Under Univision, Gawker will become a relatively small part of a large company. That could work in Gawker’s favor if it is allowed to operate on its own, without too much oversight from its new parent. But Univision, which has indicated in the past that it planned to go public, could also reshape Gawker in its own image. Gawker’s business was also a draw for Univision. Univision and Gawker had been in discussions about a potential investment before the Hogan trial, but those talks collapsed. | 1 | [
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FMD1194 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hillary Clinton won at least four of five primaries on Tuesday, pushing her closer to the Democratic presidential nomination as her considerably weakened rival Bernie Sanders vowed to press on with his insurgent campaign.
Clinton won big in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, while claiming a narrower victory in Illinois. Missouri remained too close to call. Sanders’s campaign had hoped his raw message of economic justice would prevail in the industrial heartland.
But with her victories, Clinton was on track to collect a large share of the more than 1,000 delegates she still needed to lock up the contest. Sanders ended the day further behind in the delegate count — and needing to win a slew of upcoming states by improbably large margins.
“We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November,†Clinton said at her victory party here Tuesday. As if to prove the point, she quickly pivoted to the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.
“Our next president has to be ready to face three big tasks: First, can you make positive differences in people’s lives? Second, can you keep us safe? Third, can you bring our country together again?â€
Clinton’s indictment of Trump’s policy positions sounded like a preview of arguments to come.
“When we hear a candidate for president call for the rounding up of 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering the United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong,†Clinton said.
Clinton has been eager to refocus her campaign to confront Trump more directly. But asked Tuesday if she was concerned that a protracted primary fight with Sanders would hobble Democrats ahead of the contest against a Republican nominee, she declined to encourage Sanders to leave the race.
Her campaign emailed a fundraising pitch Tuesday evening warning of the dangers of a Trump presidency and of complacency among Democrats.
“Tonight, Donald Trump could become the presumptive Republican nominee for president,†the donation request began. Too many Republicans tried to ignore him until it was too late, it said.
“It’d be easy for us Democrats to do the same thing now — Trump is so offensive, so vulgar, so self-evidently awful. You could look at him and think, ‘there’s no way he’ll ever get elected,’ and then just wish him away. But we can’t.â€
Sanders held a rally before about 7,000 people in Phoenix on Tuesday night, a week ahead of Arizona’s primary.
He said his campaign had “defied all expectations†but made no mention of the three states that had already been called in Clinton’s favor.
“What excites me so much as I go around the country is to see the incredible energy of people who love this country but know we can do so much better,†Sanders said to loud screams.
In a statement several hours later, Sanders vowed to fight on, saying: “With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination.â€
Some of his die-hard supporters expressed hope that he could still pull out the nomination.
“I still think the revolution is coming,†said James Homan, 55, a sound engineer for rock musicians, who has homes in Illinois and Arizona.
Homan expressed frustration that, as he saw it, “the fix was in†for Clinton among Democratic Party leaders, but he said he could see paths for Sanders to prevail, including the possibility of more fallout from the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Democratic primary voters were split on the candidates’ key attributes, with Clinton seen as more electable and Sanders as more honest, according to preliminary exit polls reported by ABC News.
By roughly 2 to 1, voters across Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois and Missouri said Clinton had a better chance than Sanders of beating Trump in a general-election matchup. But roughly 8 in 10 said Sanders was honest and trustworthy, compared with about 6 in 10 who felt that way about Clinton. Sanders has dominated among honesty-focused voters all year, while Clinton has won by a wide margin those who care more about electability.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, had scored an upset victory last week against Clinton in Michigan and saw Tuesday’s contests as a chance to pull off more come-from-behind wins in states where voters feel damaged by globalization.
Repeating his playbook from Michigan, Sanders hit Clinton hard on her past support for “disastrous†trade deals, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement when her husband was in the White House.
After Clinton’s loss in Michigan called her economic message into question, her campaign moved to retool her stance on trade by strengthening her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and emphasizing support for manufacturing in her jobs plan. In Ohio, Clinton took specific aim at elements of the pending trade package seen as harmful to the auto and steel industries.
Just over half of Ohio Democratic primary voters said free trade takes away U.S. jobs, according to the early exit polls. In Michigan, Sanders won among voters with that view by double digits. The anti-trade cohort was slightly larger in Michigan (57Â percent) than in most states voting Tuesday, with less than half of Democrats in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina saying trade costs U.S. jobs.
“I lost my house when the stock market crashed,†said Williams, a member of the local cement finishers union. “I’m an angry voter, how ’bout that? I’m angry about the way the country is working for the blue-collar worker. Hillary gets a big, fat zero on that.â€
In Missouri, Sanders aides were optimistic in part because much of the state closely resembles Kansas, where the senator easily defeated Clinton in the Democratic caucuses early this month. It’s worth noting, however, that Missouri was the smallest of the Democratic delegate prizes Tuesday.
Before the polls closed in Missouri, Clinton’s campaign announced that she had been endorsed by the mother of Michael Brown, the teenager whose 2014 shooting by police in Ferguson, Mo., brought more attention to officer-involved slayings of unarmed black men.
Multiple polls in the days leading up to Tuesday’s contests showed Sanders closing in on Clinton in the three states in the industrial Midwest.
In Chicago, where Clinton spent her childhood, Sanders sought to leverage support from voters disenchanted with the tenure of the city’s embattled Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton ally. Emanuel’s approval ratings have dropped to all-time lows amid controversies over a police shooting and school closings, and his popularity with African American voters has taken an especially big hit.
In the closing days of the race, Sanders blasted Emanuel’s decision to close schools in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods, and Sanders ran television ads featuring some of the mayor’s critics.
And Tuesday, Sanders had breakfast with Cook County Commissioner Jesús “Chuy†GarcÃa, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Emanuel in the Democratic primary last year.
Clinton’s lead in Florida was never in doubt, and she ended up capturing almost the same number of votes as the Republican winner, Trump — perhaps a preview of how competitive the state will be in November.
Florida posed several challenges for Sanders. It held a closed primary, meaning independent voters, who have propelled him to victory in other states, were not allowed to participate. The state’s voting population also includes a large number of older voters, who have sided with Clinton in previous contests.
Sanders’s aides have argued that the back half of the nominating calendar is more favorable to him, with several potential victories in the West and no contests remaining in the Deep South, which has been Clinton’s strongest region by far.
Sanders thinks he is well-positioned in all three states with contests next Tuesday: Arizona, Idaho and Utah. His decision to spend election night in Arizona signaled his intention to vigorously contest that state in the coming week. | 1 | [
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FMD1195 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is not mincing words when it comes to the bigotry that runs rampant among Donald Trump supporters. While speaking in New York at a fundrasier focused on LGBTQ issues, Hillary pointed out what we already know: many on the Trump Train are straight up bigots, and there s no way around that fact. She said: You know, just to be grossly generalist, you could put half of Trump s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. Hillary then went on to make sure that people knew that she understands that not all of Trump s supporters are like this; in fact likely many are disturbed by many of his statements and the behavior of some of their fellow Trump supporters, and they are likely just desperate for change and have been duped into believing Trump can deliver it. She continued: That other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they re just desperate for a change, she said. They don t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they re in a dead end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well. She also added that if you know folks who might vote for Trump, do something about it: If you know anybody who s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention. Hillary is right, of course. Donald Trump is a demagogue, and this is how demagogues work. They prey on the desperate, they exploit and magnify divisions, all for their own gain of political power. Trump is in no way fit to be president, and his very candidacy is already endangering the country. To that end, we need to listen to Hillary, get out the vote, and make sure she wins, for the future of our own lives and this great nation that we all love.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1196 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Croatia s opposition parties on Thursday demanded a no-confidence vote in the government over its handling of a crisis at the country s largest company, Agrokor, but analysts said the ruling coalition would likely survive. The government intervened in April because Agrokor [AGROK.UL], the largest employer in the Balkans, faced a debt and liquidity crisis. Given its importance, the crisis could have destabilized the economy. The opposition led by Social Democrats says a liquidity loan agreed this summer with creditors including foreign investment funds to finance Agrokor s operations through a 15-month period of restructuring lacked transparency and favored some creditors. The SDP has a responsibility to expose corrupt activities, the SDP leader Davor Bernardic told reporters. The government and Agrokor s crisis manager Ante Ramljak rejected the opposition charge and said it achieved the best possible loan terms in the circumstances. A debate and vote must take place by early December and the conservative-led coalition has a small but firm parliamentary majority. I don t think this is a particularly wise move for the top opposition party (Social Democrats) as they are likely to achieve little. I see it rather as an effort to divert attention from political weaknesses within their own ranks, said political analyst Davor Gjenero. | 1 | [
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FMD1197 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was Joel Osteen nominated by Paul Ryan for the position of House Chaplain? Claim summaries: Rumors about the outgoing House Speaker tapping the televangelist originated with a satirical post on a message board.
contextual information: Shortly after outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan fired House Chaplain Patrick Conroy in a closed-door meeting at the end of April 2018, a rumor that the House Speaker had nominated televangelist Joel Osteen as his replacement started to spread online: fired spread Paul Ryan did not nominate Joel Osteen to be the new House Chaplain. This rumor originated with a satirical post on the message board Democratic Underground: post In a surprise move during the weekend, Speaker Ryan proposed that Prosperity Gospel champion, Joel Osteen, become the new chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives. In a brief comment, the Speaker said, "America needs to become more prosperous. It needs a new approach to individual wealth. Pastor Osteen carries that message and shows us the way. Working Americans should be grateful to pay more taxes to the Federal Government. As Jesus, himself, said, 'It will be returned an hundred-fold.' Joel, my good friend, suggests that the road to a more prosperious America will come through even higher taxes on low-income citizens, who will benefit in the end, of course. I agree with the good Pastor, and will be introducing new legislation to that effect soon." The author of this post, a user identified as "MineralMan," wrote in the comments that the "evil grin" emoticon included at the bottom of the post indicated that the text was satirical. Forum users also compared the text to articles on the Borowitz Report, a well-known satirical blog published in the New Yorker: Borowitz Report Zanona, Melanie. "Ryan Explains Decision to Dismiss House Chaplain."
The Hill. 27 April 2018. | 0 | [
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FMD1198 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Why are we demonized for speaking the truth? H/t FOTM’s Trail Dust
More than a year ago, in May 2012, Lance Roberts wrote that “ Without government largesse many individuals would literally be living on the street.” As much as 1/5 or 22.5% of the average American’s income is dependent on “government transfers.”
One of those “government transfers” are Social Security Disability benefits.
There are two types of Social Security Disability benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI): Earned disability benefits for those who have held jobs for significant periods of time and paid at least partially into Social Security before becoming disabled. Social Security Disability (SSI): Unearned disability benefits for individuals who have petitioned to be classified as disabled, although many of them have never worked and have never paid into Social Security.
Under Obama, t he number of Americans claiming disability has surged to the highest levels on record since the beginning of the last recession. What is most notable, however, is when the surge of disability claims began – exactly two years from the beginning of the financial crisis. This was when the 2 years of extended unemployment insurance began to run out.
Unlike welfare, disability isn’t term-limited, and in some cases it’s become permanent unemployment insurance for the unemployable or those who simply refuse to work.
Today, more than 28 million Americans who are of working age have a disability – a level higher than at any other time in recorded history. There are approximately 11 million SSDI or earned recipients and approximately 7 million SSI or unearned recipients.
But how many of those on disability are actually disabled?
Luke Rosiak reports for the Washington Examiner , July 30, 2013, that a study by the Social Security Administration found some disturbing, but unsurprising, attributes of disability recipients: Recipients of federal disability checks often admit that they are capable of working but cannot or will not find a job. Returning to work is not a goal for 71% of the SSDI recipients, and 60% of the SSI recipients. Most have never received significant medical treatment and not seen a doctor about their condition in the last yea r, even though medical problems are the official reason they don’t work. Those who acknowledge they’re on disability because they can’t find a job say they make little effort to find one. Of those who say they’re actually looking for a job, most say they’re looking only for part-time jobs that will allow them to keep their disability benefits. The unearned disability recipients are in less pain than their counterparts who had paid into the system. In other words, they are using SSD as a substitute for welfare. These individuals are typically overweight, uneducated and from broken homes. There are practical barriers to weaning recipients off the disability rolls. The jobs they’d be candidates for often don’t provide health insurance, which is essential for those with medical problems, and they’d rather receive the SSD benefits. Many also say they don’t have transportation to work. 72% of the small number of SSDI recipients who started a job while on disability got cash under the table , as did 70% of the small number of SSI recipients who started a job while on disability. 24% of the SSDI recipients lack even GEDs, as do 43% of the SSI recipients. Only 18% of SSDI and 15% of SSI recipients said, during the past 4 weeks, they could not do social activities with family or friends because of their physical health or emotional problems. As many as 96% of SSDI and 91% of SSD recipients admit whatever physical health or mental problems they have do not hinder or limit them from the kind or amount of work or other daily activities they do. In other words, they are not really so disabled they can’t work. 47% of SSDI and 41% of SSD recipients are obese ; 30% of both groups are overweight; only 21% of SSDI and 25% of SSD recipients are of normal weight. 28% of SSD recipients had never worked for pay, i.e., they never had a job! Most SSD recipients don’t bother to educate themselves about or avail themselves of government programs to wean them off disability, such as the Plan for Achieving Self-Support, Earned Income Exclusion, and Continued Medicaid Eligibility after they get off disability benefits. Many disability recipients also receive other government welfare benefits: 28% of SSDI and 81% of SSD recipients are on Medicaid; 80% of SSDI and 42% of SSD recipients are on Medicare; 18% of SSDI and 52% of SSD recipients are on food stamps. The lack of a spouse is a significant factor: 54% of SSDI and 88% of SSD recipients are not married. 11% of SSDI and 21% of SSD recipients have been receiving disability benefits for 20 years or more.
Source: Public use file round 4
America’s national debt now exceeds our GDP and is closing in on $17 trillion. It doesn’t take an Albert Einstein to know that our super-extended welfare state cannot continue as it is. Indeed the danger signs are already visible.
In three years, by 2016, the first of the Social Security funds — Social Security Disability — will be in full collapse.
Brian Faler reports for The Washington Post , May 30, 2012:
“ The disability program pays benefits averaging $1,111 a month, with the money coming from the Social Security payroll tax. The program cost $132 billion last year, more than the combined annual budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior and Justice. That doesn’t include an additional $80 billion spent because disability beneficiaries become eligible for Medicare, regardless of their age, after a two-year waiting period. The disability program is projected to exhaust its trust fund in 2016, according to a Social Security trustees report released last month. Once it runs through its reserve, incoming payroll-tax revenue will cover only 79% of benefits, according to the trustees. Because the plan is barred from running a deficit, aid would have to be cut to match revenue.”
Lastly, since the American Medical Association recently declared obesity to be a “disease,” expect even more Americans to apply for and receive Social Security Disability benefits.
~Eowyn | 0 | [
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FMD1199 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Fair allocation Claim summaries: Did Barack Obama say 'a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably'?
contextual information: Claim: During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama said, "a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably." Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] Well, Barack has finally decided to step up and tell us what he has in mind for us with his promises of 'change.' Just a few short days ago, he had an interview with the Wall Street Journal to further discuss his economic plans/policies for the future and he spelled it out quite clearly. As you can see from the excerpt quote from that interview (below), he plans on officially doing away with capitalism and replacing it with his much favored system of socialism. Many of us already knew of his strong socialist tendencies in the past, but he has now put it out there officially on record. It is amazing that this article, and specifically this quote, is getting overlooked, especially when he is so direct and brazen about his plans. Every single American who works for a living should be absolutely scared spitless. Pass this along to everyone you can. Quote from Wall Street Journal: "a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably." Barack Obama, WSJ, 6/17/08 If this doesn't scare Republicans to get out the vote, I don't know what would!! Origins: This item comes from a 17 June 2008 Wall Street Journal article about Senator Barack Obama's economic plans for the U.S., some of which was based on an interview Senator Obama gave to that publication.not article Sen. Obama cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces. "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably. (The phrase "a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably" also does not appear in the Wall Street Journal's transcript of Senator Obama's interview.) transcript As for whether the phrase in question is a fair summary of Senator Obama's economic philosophy (whether or not he actually uttered those words), here is what he said during the portions of the interview apparently summarized by that phrase: I do believe the tax policies over the last eight years have been badly skewed towards the winners of the global economy. And I do think there is a function for tax policy in making sure that everybody benefits from globalization or at least the benefits and burdens are shared a little more easily. If, as some talk about, we've got a winner-take-all economy where the highly skilled, highly educated are reaping huge rewards and the unskilled or even semi-skilled are getting a much smaller share of the economy, then our tax policies can help cushion some of the blow through providing health care. So if people lose their jobs they're not losing their health care as well. That actually makes a more flexible work force that makes workers more mobile and less resistant to change. If we've got investments in education, that will make us more competitive in the long run. We've got to pay for that like anything else. But it would be a mistake to say I view our tax code only as a distribution question. I also think that our tax code has come to distort a lot of economic decision making so I'd like to see simplification as part of an overall tax agenda. On the corporate side, for example, one of the things I've asked my folks to look at is: Are there ways we can close existing loopholes in tax havens at the same time as we're lowering overall rates? We've got this new problem: The biggest problem with our tax code when it comes to the business side is that we have one of the highest tax rates corporate tax rates on paper but our effective tax rate is one of the lowest ... You know, how much you pay in taxes as a corporation a lot of times is going to depend on how good your lobbyist is, as opposed to any sound economic theories. So those distorting effects I'd like to actually remove and eliminate from our tax system, but obviously that's a complicated and difficult task. The last time we did it was in 1986. We're going to have to, I think, revisit that. I say that the combination of globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers. I would add an anti-union climate to that list. But all weakens the position of workers, particularly blue-collar workers, in the economy, and some of it is just historical. You know after World War II,we were in this unique position where Europe was decimated, Japan was decimated. China was off the grid because of Mao. And so we didn't have a lot of competition out there, and now other countries are rising and automation has supplanted a lot of work that used to be done by middle-class workers. We have drastically increased productivity since 1995, and there was the theory that if you increase productivity enough some of these problems of living standards would solve themselves. But what we've seen is rising productivity, rising corporate profits but flat-lining or even declining wages and incomes for the average family. What that says is that it's going to be important for us to pay attention to not only growing the pie, which is always critical, but also some attention to how it is sliced. I do not believe that those two things fair distribution and robust economic growth are mutually exclusive. You get to a point, I think, if you have a participatory income tax, for example, where you might be discouraging work because marginal rates are so high. You might undoubtedly get to a point where the capital gain and dividend taxes are so high that they distort investment decisions and you're weaker economically. But you know if you've got a sensible policy that says, we're going to capture some of the nation's economic growth ... and reinvest it in things we know have to be done, like science and technology research or fixing our energy policy, and then that is actually going to be a spur to productivity and not an inhibitor. Last updated: 17 August 2008 Sources: Davis, Bob and Amy Chozicks. "Obama Plans Spending Boost, Possible Cut in Business Tax." The Wall Street Journal. 17 June 2008 (P. A1). Davis, Bob and Amy Chozicks. "Barack Obama on Economics: 'We're Going Through a Big Shift.'" The Wall Street Journal. 17 June 2008. | 0 | [
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