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FMD1300 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: NATO, Russia To Hold Parallel Exercises In Balkans 11/02/2016
PRESS TV
Russia’s military and NATO forces are holding parallel military exercises in two neighboring Balkan countries.
Russian troops will participate in war games in Serbia while NATO is conducting military drills in Montenegro, media reported on Monday.
Russian forces’ 13-day military exercise in Serbia is named “The Slavic Brotherhood 2016” and begins on Wednesday.
It will include 150 Russian paratroopers, 50 air force staffers, three transport planes and an unspecified number of troops from Serbia and Belarus, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
The five-day NATO drill in Montenegro started on Monday and involves responding to floods and chemical attacks. It will involve 680 unarmed personnel from seven NATO countries and 10 partner states.
In the past both Serbia and Montenegro were constitutional republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Both countries are socialist republics and traditional Russian Christian Orthodox allies. In 2003 this state union was re-formed into Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2006 the two became independent states.
Since their split, the two Balkan neighbors seem to have headed in different directions strategically.
Montenegro has taken a pro-Western stance which has been awarded by NATO with an offer to join the Northern Atlantic Alliance.
The NATO invitation to Montenegro has met strong opposition from Russia.
Meanwhile, Montenegrin officials have accused Russia of staging an alleged coup in October to topple its pro-Western government because of the NATO accession bid.
Serbia, a NATO partner, has held exercises with the Western alliance, but not such a large one or with foreign troops and equipment participating on its soil. | 0 | [
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FMD1301 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The British government said on Tuesday that most European Union citizens currently living in Britain will be allowed to remain in the country after Brexit in 2019. Outlining plans for a mass registration program, the Department for Exiting the European Union and the interior ministry said EU nationals will be given a two-year grace period to apply for settled status after Britain leaves the EU. The legal status and rights of EU nationals is one of the thornier issues in Britain s complicated exit from the bloc. There are about 3 million EU citizens living in Britain. Caseworkers will be able to use discretion when processing applications, meaning they should not be refused for minor technicalities, and the majority would be granted, the departments said in a statement. The cost of an application should be no more than the cost of a British passport and EU citizens will also be given a statutory right of appeal if denied. We have been clear that safeguarding the rights of EU citizens is our top priority in negotiations, Brexit minister David Davis said. We will support everyone wishing to stay to gain settled status through a new straightforward, streamlined system. | 1 | [
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FMD1302 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Among the few certainties in the current U.S. political environment are that immigration will be a flashpoint, abortion will remain divisive and Texas will sue the administration of President Barack Obama. Since Obama, a Democrat, took office in January 2009, the most populous Republican-controlled state has filed suit against his administration 39 times. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take on one of the more notable cases and decide the legality of Obama’s unilateral 2014 action to shield from deportation more than 4 million immigrants in the country illegally. For Texas politicians, suing Obama is a badge of honor. Its attorney general’s office has an annual budget of more than $600 million, more than five times higher than other major Republican strongholds such as Arizona. Current Governor Greg Abbott sued the Obama administration 31 times when he was attorney general. Current Attorney General Ken Paxton, who succeeded Abbott last year, has sued eight times. “I am enjoying being governor of Texas but there is one thing that I miss. It is that I no longer get to wake up and go to the office and sue the federal government,†Abbott told a conservative forum this month in Austin. No other Republican state comes close to the number of such filings and often they join Texas-led suits, as happened with the immigration filing that now has attracted 25 other states. For Texas, whose $1.6 trillion a year economy is bigger than many countries including U.S. ally South Korea, spending on suits against the federal government is comparatively miniscule, at around $5.1 million as of December 2014, the Texas Tribune reported, based on disclosures it received from the office. The office is a powerful machine with more than a million legal hours billed to litigation and counseling, according to its budget report. The attorney general’s Office of the Solicitor General boasts nearly 20 lawyers who specialize in appellate work in venues like the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Texas and the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. There is also a litigation division of about 30 lawyers with which the solicitor general can team up and present cases such as the one on Obama’s executive action on immigration. Texas loses more often than it wins and it has a great deal of litigation still pending before judges that may outlast Obama’s presidency, which ends in January 2017. Under Paxton, Texas has sued the federal government on issues including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, taxes under Obama’s signature healthcare law and blocking the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the state. Texas is a lead party in the two biggest cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during its current term, which ends in June. In addition to the immigration case, Texas is defending a state law being challenged by abortion providers that contend the Republican-backed statute is aimed at shutting clinics that perform the procedure. The high court is due to hear arguments in the abortion case on March 2 and is expected to hear the immigration arguments the following month. “Texas, being an economically and demographically important state, is a natural to take a leadership role if there is a challenge to federal power that a lot of states want to make,†said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The lawsuits often follow a similar philosophical idea of challenging what Texas and other Republican-governed states see as an overreach of federal power at the expense of states’ rights, he added. “We don’t just represent Texas. You can call it ‘Red State America’ or ‘Tea Party America,’ but Texas is a voice for a lot of those people nationally,†said Chip Roy, a top official in the attorney general’s office who once served as chief of staff for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in November’s election. Cruz, a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, helped bolster his political career when he served as Texas solicitor general from 2003 to 2008. He ramped up the office under Republican former Governor Rick Perry and helped forge challenges to what the state saw as federal overreach. “We are proud to have Texas leading the charge in defending the rule of law,†Cruz said on Tuesday after the Supreme Court announced it would hear the immigration case. Roy said in an interview the state’s leaders and a majority of its citizens want to protect the ideal of governing themselves. “It is part of who we are,†Roy said, “and that actually influences significantly our willingness, and our drive, to push back on Washington when we believe they are overstepping their constitutional authority.†| 1 | [
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FMD1303 | 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 Armani jacket owned by Hillary Clinton that cost $12,000. Claim summaries: Outrage over an expensive Armani jacket worn by Hillary Clinton during her New York primary acceptance speech included some inaccurate details.
contextual information: In early June 2016, Facebook users widely shared articles reporting that Hillary Clinton wore a $12,495 Giorgio Armani jacket to deliver a speech on income inequality. The underlying implication was that Clinton's interest in the plight of middle-class Americans was visibly superficial. Interest in the claim began with a New York Post article that focused not on the jacket, but on Clinton's general wardrobe choices on the campaign trail. Its title referenced the "surprising strategy behind Hillary Clinton's designer wardrobe," and the piece began by noting that Clinton's appearance and style have been publicly scrutinized and mocked for decades. Clinton's New York primary victory speech in April focused on topics including income inequality, job creation, and helping people secure their retirement. It was a clear attempt to position herself as an everywoman. But an everywoman she is not; she gave the speech in a $12,495 Giorgio Armani tweed jacket. The polished outfit was a stark contrast to the fashion choices Clinton had made in the past. As First Lady, Clinton wore frumpy pastel skirtsuits. As a New York senator and secretary of state, she attempted a more serious look, wearing pantsuits in a rainbow of colors—so mocked that they sparked memes. In comparison to Michelle Obama, who has become known as a style icon during her time in the White House and appeared on the cover of Vogue twice, Clinton has never been able to nail down a personal aesthetic that works for her. The article speculated (but didn't confirm) that Clinton paid full price for the clothing and did not wear it on loan from its designers. The paper also suggested that Clinton's fashion choices negatively affected her public perception in the past. The cost of men's suits worn by fellow politicians didn't appear in the article for contrast: It's a marked shift from Clinton's 2008 run, when she regularly recycled outfits such as blue-and-tangerine pantsuits from DC-based designer Nina McLemore. But just like Clinton's fashion choices of the past, the makeover could turn out to be divisive. On one side will be those who say it's an appropriate expense for Clinton, given that she's in the unprecedented position of running for president as a woman—and looking the part is crucial to her success. On the other side are those who will see her spending as being out of touch with her message. Not long after Clinton's 2016 campaign looks were dissected by the Post, a litany of items condensed the article to a single headline: It's true that the jacket was from Giorgio Armani's collection and bore a list price of $12,495. But on June 8, 2016, the jacket's actual retail price was $7,497, and the jacket can now be had for about one-third of that list price. The Post speculated that Clinton paid for the clothing out of pocket, but the website Fashionista, in turn, said that might not necessarily be the case: The Post also posits that Clinton must be spending her own money on all these clothes, as no designer is taking credit for dressing her as they do with First Lady Obama; with Anna Wintour backing her campaign, it would not be outrageous to think that designers might also be quietly gifting clothing to Clinton. (The Post also attacks Clinton's style by mentioning that Michelle Obama has nabbed the cover of Vogue twice; it would be worth noting that Clinton has her own cover of Vogue, for which she wore Oscar de la Renta.) It's unclear whether Clinton purchased expensive clothing for such major appearances (such as her New York speech in April 2016), and it's possible she was loaned articles of clothing to wear by major designers. Stylists Jennifer Rade and Rebecca Klein of Media Style told CNBC that no matter what Clinton did, she would be criticized for her sartorial choices: CNBC But Clinton is "damned if she does, damned if she doesn't," said Rade. If Clinton were to wear a lower-priced wardrobe, she would be criticized for not wearing the same caliber of clothing as her competitors. "It's not appropriate for the forum," Klein said. "She is a presidential candidate. That would be disrespectful... She is dressing for the occasion." A June 2014 Associated Press article examined the matter of the contents of White House closets, noting that as an issue, the debate went back at least as far as Mary Todd Lincoln. The outlet noted that some clothing was gifted to Michelle Obama under specific circumstances: In recent weeks, Mrs. Obama has turned heads with a forest-green Naeem Khan dress and shimmered in a silver Marchesa gown ... her flowered shirtdress for a Mother's Day tea at the White House (recycled from an earlier event) hit just the right note for an audience of military moms. It takes money to pull that off, month after month. Those three dresses by themselves could add up to more than $15,000 retail, not to mention accessories such as shoes and jewelry. Is it the taxpayers who foot the bill? No. (Despite what critics say.) Is it Mrs. Obama? Usually, but not always. Does she pay full price? Not likely. Does she ever borrow gowns from designers? No. The financing of the first lady's wardrobe is something that the Obama White House is loath to discuss. It's a subject that has bedeviled presidents and their wives for centuries. First ladies are expected to dress well, but the job doesn't come with a clothing allowance or a salary. Here's how Joanna Rosholm, press secretary to the first lady, explains it: "Mrs. Obama pays for her clothing. For official events of public or historic significance, such as a state visit, the first lady's clothes may be given as a gift by a designer and accepted on behalf of the U.S. government. They are then stored by the National Archives." The claim also included that Ms. Clinton wore the designer piece to "deliver a speech about income inequality." The Post originally reported that "Clinton's New York primary victory speech in April focused on topics including income inequality, job creation, and helping people secure their retirement," an opener widely condensed to "a speech about income inequality." But in fact, neither claim was accurate; the full text of Clinton's April 2016 New York speech was available online, and the words "income inequality" didn't appear a single time. The wide-ranging speech only briefly touched on a theme of "income inequality," in a much broader sense than the rumor suggested: Now, we all know many people who are still hurting. I see it everywhere I go. The Great Recession wiped out jobs, homes, and savings, and a lot of Americans haven't yet recovered. But I still believe with all my heart that as another greater Democratic President once said, there's nothing wrong with America that can't be cured by what's right with America. That is, after all, what we've always done. It's who we are. America is a problem-solving nation. And in this campaign, we are setting bold progressive goals backed up by real plans that will improve lives, creating more good jobs that provide dignity and pride in a middle-class life, raising wages and reducing inequality, making sure all our kids get a good education no matter what zip code they live in, building ladders of opportunity and empowerment so all of our people can go as far as their hard work and talent will take them. Let's revitalize places that have been left out and left behind, from inner cities to coal country to Indian country. And let's put Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, including our failing water systems like the one in Flint, Michigan. There are many places across our country where children and families are at risk from the water they drink and the air they breathe. Let's combat climate change and make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. Let's take on the challenge of systemic racism, invest in communities of color, and finally pass comprehensive immigration reform. And once and for all, let's guarantee equal pay for women. After the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July 2016, Hillary Clinton's infamous Armani jacket was again negatively compared to the dress worn at the convention by GOP nominee Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, an item of clothing (from Ivanka's own label) that retails for $158. Trump's wife Melania, however, opted for a pricier Margot dress by Roksanda, which retails for $2,190. | 2 | [
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FMD1304 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A former U.S. representative whose lavish Washington office raised questions about use of taxpayer money pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of defrauding the federal government and campaign committees, then trying to cover it up. Aaron Schock, a 35-year-old former Republican congressman from Illinois, was indicted in November by the U.S. Department of Justice on 24 counts, including wire fraud, theft of government funds and filing false federal income tax returns. He entered his plea in a federal court in Springfield, Illinois. “I look forward to the truth and all the facts coming out in this case. I have complete faith in my legal team, the good people of this community, and that justice will ultimately prevail,†Schock said in an emailed statement. Schock, elected to the, U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 at the age of 27, gained a following by posting flashy photos on social media of himself traveling around the world. But he was hounded with questions after The Washington Post reported last year about lavish decorations in his Capitol Hill office based on the PBS period melodrama “Downton Abbey.†Although staff told the Post that the interior design work had been done for free, the story prompted more investigations into Schock’s spending habits, with several media outlets reporting he failed to disclose some expenditures and had to repay others after improperly using taxpayer funds. | 1 | [
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FMD1305 | 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's Mom Leave Him $1 in Her Will? Claim summaries: The will, which surfaced amid a three-generation inheritance dispute, did not prevent Carlson from inheriting portions of his mom's estate.
contextual information: Following the unexpected firing of Fox News personality Tucker Carlson on April 25, 2023, a flurry of claims, both old and new, about the conservative commentator went viral. One long-standing assertion regarding Carlson is that his mother left him only $1 in her will. The claim stems from documents produced amid a multi-generational legal dispute over the inheritance of mineral rights that had been left to Lombardi by her mother. Here, Snopes explains the controversy and the basis for rating the claim. Tucker Carlson's parents were Richard Carlson and Lisa Lombardi. Lombardi, an artist described by contemporaries as a "bohemian," came from several wealthy "pioneer families," including a man, Henry Miller, dubbed "The Cattle King." At the time of Miller's death in 1916, he owned 3 million acres of rangeland in California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. Her family's ownership of this vast expanse declined over the years, but the family retained much of the land's mineral rights. In some cases, real estate transactions allow a person to sell land but retain rights to any profits generated by mining or drilling on the land. Lombardi inherited a portion of her family's mineral rights, which paid royalties in 1993, when her mother died. Carlson's dad and Lombardi divorced in 1976, when Tucker was 6 years old. The elder Carlson was awarded full custody of both of their children, and Carlson had little to no relationship with his mom after the divorce. As reported in a profile of Carlson published by Insider, Lombardi "disappeared from her sons' lives," according to Carlson's childhood friends. Carlson was later adopted by his father's second wife, Swanson frozen chicken heiress Patricia Swanson. Lombardi died on Oct. 14, 2011, while abroad in France with her husband. Just shy of a year later, a lawyer for Tucker and his brother Buckley Carlson filed a petition in Kern County, California, for a court to rule on the succession of property owned by Lombardi. That court was entitled to rule on such a matter due to Lombardi's ownership of mineral rights in that county. With the agreement of Lombardi's surviving husband, Michael Vaughan, the court finalized a settlement ruling that Lombardi died "intestate" (without a will), and that property with mineral interests and royalty shares totaling about $129,684 would be distributed evenly between Vaughan and the two Carlson brothers. That ruling went into effect in July 2013. After finding a handwritten will in 2013 leaving virtually all of her estate to Vaughan, however, Vaughan's family filed a petition in South Carolina, Lombardi's legal residence at the time of her death, to become the legal representative of Lombardi's estate and officially enter the will into probate. This handwritten document contains the instructions that Tucker and Buckley Carlson receive "one dollar each." The Carlsons initially objected to the admission of this will into the South Carolina probate case, describing it as a potential forgery. In addition to the instruction to give $1 to each of her estranged sons, the will also provided that Vaughan get all her property, including the aforementioned mineral rights. The Carlsons dropped their challenge to the will's admission in South Carolina probate court. Kern County ultimately ruled that the will, while legally valid, could not affect the past distribution of settlement funds due to California probate law. Copies of this will were included as exhibits in multiple attempts by Vaughan and other Lombardi family members to overrule the Kern County settlement based on several legal theories, including that the above will invalidated the previous settlement, that Lombardi never gained possession of some or all of the mineral rights in question, and that they were never part of her estate. This latter claim required lawyers for the estate of Lombardi's long-deceased mother to get involved in the dispute. Ultimately, Kern County denied these attempts, finding Vaughan bound by prior admissions in the original case and that the lack of timely admission of the will to the Kern County court was not the fault of the court system. In other words, the Carlson brothers received more than the $1 Lombardi's August 1995 will stipulated, and this decision has been affirmed several times. Just because the will did not affect the Kern County settlement does not mean the document is not valid or not Lombardi's authentic wishes. According to court testimony, Isabell Vaughan, one of Michael's daughters from a prior marriage, "discovered Lisa's handwritten will in Lisa's painting room and office" in the fall of 2013. As described in an Insider profile, "Lisa was basically sort of a hippie and a free spirit," said one attorney who represented the Vaughan family and recalled having conversations about the case. "She was very liberal and she did not agree with Tucker's politics. But she stuck the will in the book, everyone forgot about it, and then she passed away." The Carlsons originally challenged the admission of that will in the South Carolina probate case, arguing that the will "was a forgery" and that Vaughan had already signed documents in Kern County indicating Lombardi left no will. Vaughan's lawyers hired a handwriting expert who concluded it was "highly probable" that the will was authored by Lombardi. The Carlsons voluntarily dropped their objection. This left the admission of the will in Lombardi's South Carolina probate case without any objections or challenges. Legally speaking, then, that handwritten document is the last will and testament of Lombardi, and it effectively cut her estranged sons out of her inheritance. For that reason, the claim at issue in this story is true. In practice, however, the Kern County challenges made by Vaughan and their subsequent appeals—some of which were based in part on that will—have all been denied, and the Carlson brothers inherited a third of their estranged mother's mineral interests in spite of it. | 1 | [
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FMD1306 | 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 This a 'Pollen Cloud' Falling from a Tree? Claim summaries: WARNING: Those of you with allergies may find this video unsettling.
contextual information: At the end of June 2019, a video supposedly showing a large cloud of pollen dropping from a fallen tree went viral on social media, with one iteration posted by the Facebook page BigDawgsTv racking up several million views within a week of its upload date: https://youtu.be/u7JHwplUAnESome viewers were so shocked to see so much pollen emitted by a single tree that they were skeptical of the clip and questioned whether or not it had been doctored. With our sympathies to those who suffer from allergies, we note that this video is authentic. This video was first posted to the Facebook page of the Washington-based company Matts Tree & Landscape in May 2019, along with a message announcing the start of "allergy season": A small portion of a company sign can be seen at the start of the video displaying the first three digits of a phone number (425, a Seattle area code), a logo, and the first two letters of the company name ("MA"). The same sign can also be seen in a photograph posted to the company's Facebook page: photograph While this video may have been shocking to some viewers, this wasn't the first time that an online video captured a large pollen cloud falling from a tree. In May 2018, a Kentucky Facebook user posted a similar video showing a machine shaking the pollen off of a tree, and that clip was picked up and shared by several local and national news outlets: posted picked shared local Sheila McCormick, an adjunct professor of plant and microbial biology at the University of California, Berkeley, talked to Live Science shortly after the latter video went viral in 2018 and explained that while the scene may have been unsettling to some viewers, such pollen clouds aren't unusual: Live Science Pollen is a grainy, plant-produced substance that carries the tools that seed-plants need to create male gametes aka, sperm. While pollen is not actually sperm itself, pollen grains do contain the cells necessary to transfer the male half of the plant's DNA to a compatible plant's female counterparts (like the pistil and female cones). You could say, as Live Science writer Natalie Wolchover once did, that pollen is plant sperm powder ... "This [scene] is not unusual," Sheila McCormick, an adjunct professor of plant and microbial biology at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science. "In general, most plants produce much more pollen than is needed. For example, a single corn plant produces 2 [million] to 5 million pollen grains, and an ear of corn has a few hundred seeds. This is especially true for plants that are wind-pollinated." Pine trees, like the ones in the video above, are no exception. Some species of pine can produce up to 5 lbs. (2.2 kilograms) of pollen in just a few weeks, according to Robert Bardon, associate dean for extension in the department of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. Why make so much pollen? Call it offspring insurance. Specktor, Brandon. "Watch a Massive 'Pollen Cloud' Explode from Late-Blooming Tree."
Live Science. 9 May 2018. Katz, Brigit. "Watch This Pine Tree Unleash a Huge, Fluffy Pollen Cloud."
Smithsonian. 10 May 2018. | 1 | [
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FMD1307 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A New York judge on Monday dismissed a challenge to Canadian-born Ted Cruz’s eligibility to run in the state’s Republican presidential primary election next month, saying the challengers had missed a key deadline for filing. Two New York residents, Barry Korman, 81, of Manhattan and William Gallo, 85, of Manhasset, Long Island, on Feb. 19 filed the petition to block Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, from getting onto the April 19 ballot, saying his birth in the Canadian province of Alberta makes him ineligible to be president. State law requires that a petition challenging eligibility be filed within three days of when a candidate files to be placed on the ballot. Korman and Gallo filed their petition more than two weeks after Cruz filed his paperwork to get on the ballot, the judge said. Weinstein said at an earlier hearing that the case could cause “chaos†if it went ahead. The case was one of several similar challenges to Cruz’s eligibility to run for the White House | 1 | [
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FMD1308 | 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 Ben Shapiro Get PPP Loan Forgiveness? Claim summaries: Today we found out how many real estate agents in California are named "Ben Shapiro."
contextual information: In late August 2022, the internet was awash in heated commentary about the Biden administration's plan to forgive some federal student loan debt. For example, after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro voiced his opinion against student loan forgiveness, others clapped back with the accusation that he himself had received a federal loan that was later forgiven. The viral news site Uproxx published a headline that read, "Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Hater Ben Shapiro Got His Ass Handed To Him By Someone Who Pointed Out That He Had Over $20K Of PPP Loan Debt Forgiven." Many on social media shared a partial screenshot from a database tracking Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans provided by the non-profit news agency ProPublica. Here is one example from Twitter, with the Twitter user's name cropped out for privacy: The ProPublica database entry has much more information that would clarify that the "Ben Shapiro" in question is not Ben Shapiro the commentator. The person with that name who received $20,832 in PPP loans is a Los Angeles real estate agent. We reached out to real estate agent Ben Shapiro for comment and will update this story if and when we receive a response. We searched both the U.S. Small Business Administration's PPP database and ProPublica's database to see whether Shapiro's network of websites (The Daily Wire) received any PPP money and found no evidence that they did. We reached out to Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and will update when and if we receive a response. Shapiro called the allegation a "lie" in a Twitter post responding to the rumor. There is additional context to this controversy, namely that the loans in question are very different in purpose and structure. PPP loans were given out during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, with the intent of preventing businesses from shedding employees or going under. They were designed to be forgiven; that is, if businesses used the money to pay workers and bills like rent and utilities, they didn't have to pay the loan back, and their debt would be considered satisfied. Student loans, on the other hand, were designed to fund higher education, with the expectation that they would be paid back in full. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1309 | 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: Have 3D-printed rhinoceros horns been created in order to prevent poaching? Claim summaries: Several biotechnology firms have developed undetectably fake rhino horns as an anti-poaching measure, but wildlife experts aren't thrilled about the innovation.
contextual information: On 9 July 2016, the Facebook page "The Medical Facts" published the image and explanation shown below, reporting the development of synthetic rhino horn as an anti-poaching measure: image A biotech startup has managed to 3-D print fake rhino horns that carry the same genetic fingerprint as the actual horn. The company plans to flood Chinese [the] Chinese rhino horn market at one-eighth of the price of the original, undercutting the price poachers can get and forcing them out eventually. The International Rhino Foundation (IRF) and Save the Rhino International (SRI) issued a joint statement after "monitoring the progress of four US-based companies that have announced their intentions with varying degrees of success to produce synthetic or bio-fabricated rhino horn, and occasionally also other products including e.g. elephant ivory, lion bones or pangolin scales." In that statement, both groups expressed their opposition to the introduction of fake rhino horn to international markets: statement We are opposed to the development, marketing and sale of synthetic rhino horn [because]: o Selling synthetic horn does not reduce the demand for rhino horn or dispel the myths around rhino horn and could indeed lead to more poaching because it increases demand for the real thing o More than 90% of rhino horns in circulation are fake (mostly carved from buffalo horn or wood), but poaching rates continue to rise annually. o Synthetic horn could give credence to the notion that rhino horn has medicinal value, which is not supported by science. o Users buy from trusted sources and value the real thing. o The availability of legal synthetic horn could normalise or remove the stigma from buying illegal real horn. o It will take time to develop synthetic horn and meanwhile the poaching crisis continues. o How can consumers and law enforcement officials distinguish between legal synthetic horn that looks real, and illegal real horn? o Companies benefitting from making synthetic horn have shown very little commitment to use their profits to help the core problem of rhino poaching; besides which, those profits would meet only a tiny fraction of the total rhino protection costs that would remain to be met as long as demand reduction campaigns falter, as they would with the marketing of synthetic horn. o Finally, the manufacture / marketing / sale of synthetic horn diverts funds and attention from the real problem: unsustainable levels of rhino poaching. A December 2015 National Geographicarticle covered the efforts of one such biotechnology outfit producing synthetic rhino horn (Pembroke) and outlined some conservationist concerns about the unintended consequences of such a venture: article I frankly dont see that its any better, to be honest, says Susie Watts, a consultant for WildAid and co-chair of the Species Survival Network Rhino Working Group, referring to Pembients move to put faux powder on the back burner. While shes aware that people buy rhino horn jewelry, Watts has never heard of rhino horn cell phone cases and chopsticks. But opposition to Pembients synthetic horn plans extends beyond the possible new market it could create. Theres very little, if any, relief on wild populations when we see commercial farming develop or commercial trade of a protected species, says Douglas Hendrie, manager of the wildlife crime and investigations unit for conservation group Education for Nature - Vietnam. The wild trade continues right alongside. Patrick Bergin, CEO of the African Wildlife Foundation, also believes that inserting fake horn into the market could counteract efforts to educate people about why they shouldnt buy wild horn, a strategy most activists push as the best way to reduce demand. If you start to nuance that message with some rhino horn is good, some of it is bad, some of it is legal, some of it is illegal, he says, you lose people and lose the clarity of the message. Theres also concern that fake horn could increase the workload for law enforcement in countries already struggling to contain the illicit trade. According to Hendrie, Vietnam doesnt have the enforcement capacity to regulate the black market along with the legal one. A February 2016 followup article presented a five-point set of objections to the introduction of genetic copies of rhino horn to the market, filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by the Center for Biological Diversity: presented Additionally, U.S Fish & Wildlife Service Law Enforcement Deputy Chief Ed Grace commented: Experience demonstrates that efforts to 'flood the market' with products produced from protected wildlifeeither by producing synthetic alternatives or raising animals in captivity for harvestoften fail to achieve their stated goal. Such efforts often create more demand from consumers, even as products from wild animals and plants continue to command a premium over synthetic or farmed alternatives... We also have significant concerns about injecting products into the market that would make it harder for law enforcement to detect poached and trafficked wildlife products, or allow criminals to disguise the source of illegal products by commingling them with these alternatives. In short, it's true that at least four biotechnology firms have engaged in some form of development of synthetic material genetically identical to rhino horn. Although progress in that area was initially hailed as a potential anti-poaching measure, conservation groups and wildlife officials have since expressed strong skepticism that the overall effects on the rhinoceros population of selling such material wouldn't be deleterious. Members of both groups have espoused positions opposing the introduction of fake rhino horn to any market, citing anticipated demand uptick and burdens on already taxed enforcement agencies. Actman, Jani. "Can Fake Rhino Horn Stop the Poaching of an Endangered Species?"
National Geographic. 2 December 2015. Neme, Laurel. "Petition Seeks Ban on Trade in Fake Rhino Horn."
National Geographic. 10 February 2016. Save the Rhino International. "Joint Statement by the International Rhino Foundation and Save the Rhino International."
July 2015. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD1310 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump s U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt will return to Israel next week for talks related to the peace efforts, a senior administration official said on Friday. The trip is Greenblatt s first to the region since Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital, which created an international uproar. Greenblatt, whose title is special representative for international negotiations, will meet with Fernando Gentilini, the European Union s special representative to the Middle East and stay for U.S. Vice President Mike Pence s trip to Israel later in the week, the official said. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1311 | 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: Were Most Jobs Added in February 2021 'Waiters and Bartenders'? Claim summaries: Some online observers critical of U.S. President Joe Biden sought to undercut a broadly positive employment update in March 2021.
contextual information: In March 2021, new employment figures showed that the U.S. economy added 379,000 jobs in February, the first full month of Joe Biden's presidency. The news was greeted with cautious optimism, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that the gains had "set up a stronger recovery" for the spring of 2021, and The Washington Post reporting that the figures had "surpassed analysts' estimates." Politico wrote that: Wall Street Journal Washington Post Politico U.S. employers added a robust 379,000 jobs last month, the most since October and a sign that the economy is strengthening as confirmed viral cases drop, consumers spend more and states and cities ease business restrictions.The February gain marked a sharp pickup from the 166,000 jobs that were added in January and a loss of 306,000 in December. Yet it represents just a fraction of the roughly 10 million jobs that were lost to the pandemic. On social media, other observers in particular those more broadly opposed to Biden sought to undercut the significance of the jobs figures, claiming that a large majority of the increased employment came in one sector, namely food and beverage services. On Twitter, the libertarian economics blog Zerohedge wrote: wrote Of the 379K jobs added, 286K were waiters and bartenders. The stockbroker and financial commentator Peter Schiff tweeted: tweeted 75% of the 379k jobs "created" in Feb. were waiters and bartenders returning to work. Since many restaurants and bars that closed will never reopen there's a limit to how long this can last... The right-wing British blog Guido Fawkes tweeted: tweeted "US economic recovery sees 379,000 jobs added this week, 286,000 were waiters and bartenders. God bless America and cheers!" Those figures were accurately stated, although "waiters and bartenders" was a reductive description of the occupations in question. As a result, we're issuing a rating of "true." The standard measure of job growth is "total nonfarm payroll employment, seasonally adjusted," a metric that is collated and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), each month. On March 5, the BLS published figures for the preceding month, February 2021, writing that: "Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 379,000 in February..." In effect, this means that there were 379,000 more jobs in the United States in February than there were in January. published The BLS provides in-depth breakdowns of job gains or losses, and unemployment, including details on the demographic and sectoral contours of each month's data. According to the same set of figures, the "leisure and hospitality" sector gained 355,000 of the 379,000 total new jobs in February (Summary Table B). Summary Table B Of those, 285,900 jobs were specifically in "food services and drinking places" (Table B-1). That's the source of the "286K" figure presented by Zerohedge. Those 285,900 jobs made up 75.4% of the total number of new jobs added in February, the percentage figure provided by Schiff in his tweet. Table B-1 However, the "food services and drinking places" subsector is made up of more than just "waiters and bartenders." The following is how that subsector is defined in the official North American Industry Classification System: defined Industries in the Food Services and Drinking Places subsector prepare meals, snacks, and beverages to customer order for immediate on-premises and off-premises consumption. There is a wide range of establishments in these industries. Some provide food and drink only; while others provide various combinations of seating space, waiter/waitress services and incidental amenities, such as limited entertainment. The industries in the subsector are grouped based on the type and level of services provided. The industry groups are full-service restaurants; limited-service eating places; special food services, such as food service contractors, caterers, and mobile food services; and drinking places. The BLS figures for February 2021 don't specify the proportion of those 285,900 jobs composed of specific occupations, but it's highly unlikely they were all "waiters and bartenders." In 2019, the most recent year for which figures are available, the following was the breakdown of occupations within the "food services and drinking places subsector": breakdown As can be seen from those figures, "waiters and waitresses" made up less than one-third of workers within that subsector. If the distribution of occupations was even broadly similar among the 285,900 new "food services and drinking places" jobs added in February, then it would appear highly unlikely that even a majority of those 285,900 new jobs were made up of "waiters and bartenders" alone. | 1 | [
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FMD1312 | 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: There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country that are due in part to the skills gap.
contextual information: During an interview with Fox & Friends, Ivanka Trump discussed one of the challenges of the current economy: job vacancies exist, but many people who aren't working are not qualified to fill them. Her comments came during a week that the White House had devoted to messages about the American workforce. There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country, which is due in part to the skills gap, she said. Upon closer examination, we found that Trump was generally on target, but the impact of the skills gap—the fact that many potential workers do not have the right qualifications to take jobs that are currently open—warrants further explanation. On the numerical side, Trump was spot-on. Every month, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics releases data from a survey called the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS. One of the key statistics in the survey is job openings nationally. In the most recent month for which data is available—April 2017—the survey found 6,044,000 job openings across the country. This represents the first time this statistic has ever crossed the 6 million mark, going back to the earliest data reported in 2000. Since a measure of the raw number of job openings is affected by overall population growth over time, we will also note that the rate of job openings—which is adjusted for the size of the U.S. population—also tied a record in April, reaching a level equaled only in two previous months since 2000. Thus, Trump has accurately portrayed the scale of how many jobs are available today in the United States. Trump used cautious wording; economists agree that a mismatch of skills is clearly part of the problem, as she put it. However, they cautioned against making the oversimplified argument that the skills gap underlies all 6 million job openings. On one hand, some of the current job vacancies are unquestionably due to the skills gap, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. If job-seeking unemployed workers and promotion-seeking but underemployed workers had exactly the right skills, many of the current job vacancies could be filled more quickly. At the same time, for many job openings, the barrier is not necessarily the lack of a college degree or specialized training, he said. In many cases, the barrier can be overcome with on-the-job training and experience. There are many job openings with more modest skill requirements, Burtless noted. They require the new hire to learn some extra skills to become more proficient and productive in their new jobs. A large percentage of job seekers have the capacity to learn those skills on the job fairly quickly. He added that employers who believe every job opening can be filled immediately and with a perfectly trained worker are either living in a dream world or experiencing a Great Depression in which millions of highly trained workers are desperately seeking jobs. The reality, he said, is that for most current job vacancies, the skill set of today’s job seekers is sufficient to fill the vast majority of the vacancies. Another economist, Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute, has testified that for many manufacturing jobs, a drag on hiring comes not only from a skills gap but also from an image gap. Millennials, in particular, she said, may have a distorted view of what high-tech manufacturing jobs look like today, assuming instead that they resemble such jobs from decades ago—dirty, grimy, repetitive, or dangerous. Survey data shows that many workers are no longer interested in manufacturing jobs, and there appears to be a stigma attached to manufacturing work, she wrote. Few parents want their children to work in this industry, and manufacturing is the last career choice for people between the ages of 19 and 33. In an interview, Mathur said it is difficult to determine how much of a factor the skills gap is in today’s job openings. She suggested that it may be the biggest factor, but she also cautioned that the image gap is particularly significant for younger workers and added that other issues exist as well, including an unwillingness among some Americans to relocate to areas with jobs. And of course, even in an efficiently humming economy, any survey taken at a given point in time will find many jobs that are simply open due to transition, or what economists call churn. Many of these job openings will be due to happenstance rather than structural problems with the skills gap. Trump stated, "There are currently 6 million jobs available in this country that are due in part to the skills gap." The number she cites is correct, and she is right to say that the skills gap plays a role. Economists warn against overestimating the role played by the skills gap in all 6 million job openings, both because other factors are involved (such as the image gap) and because the skills barriers posed are often more modest than the need to earn an academic degree or obtain specialized training. We rate her statement True. | 1 | [
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FMD1313 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Katie Holmes has a thing for women. “I’m the youngest of five, I have three older sisters, obviously I’m a mom, and I feel comfortable with telling female relationship stories because I’ve been surrounded by so many women my whole life,†she said. So for her feature directorial debut, Ms. Holmes naturally chose a female protagonist — this one drowning in life’s complications and fighting desperately to keep her daughter from going down with her. In “All We Had,†set during the 2008 financial crisis, she plays Rita, an impoverished Midwestern single mother who, fleeing the latest abusive man, aimlessly heads east with her Ruthie (Stefania Owen). But when her car breaks down after she runs out on the check at a diner, she is offered a second chance by the owner (Richard Kind) and his transgender niece (Eve Lindley). (The film opens Friday, Dec. 9.) In a phone interview from Los Angeles, where she lives when not in New York, the candid Ms. Holmes, 37, spoke about moving behind the camera and keeping Suri, her daughter with Tom Cruise, out of the Hollywood glare. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Had you wanted to direct for a while? I directed an ESPN “30 for 30†on Nadia Comaneci, and it boosted my confidence enough to give a narrative a try. So I went to the book department of ICM and started reading this pile. And Annie Weatherwax’s book really struck a chord in me. I liked that it was a story but that the relationship was unconventional in that it’s more like sisters, and they’re two survivors on the road. It had a quality of hope and healing that I really responded to — about people who falter but are resilient. How hard was it to both direct and act? Well, you don’t sit down — that’s for sure. [Laughs] It was really empowering. I knew that it was going to be very intense, and I had my notebooks of acting notes and directing notes, and the first day I just directed. And so it was the second day that I was like: “Oh God, here we go. If this doesn’t work I’m in big trouble. †But you just go for it. You do fumble and make mistakes. But I came out of it inspired to do it again. Like your characters in “Pieces of April†and “Touched With Fire,†Rita is demanding. Do you gravitate toward this kind of woman onscreen? Yes, [long pause] I think I do. That wasn’t a condemnation. You can condemn me if you want! How did you bond with Stefania Owen? It was challenging because she arrived a week before shooting, and we had to pull off being a very close mother and daughter who really, really need each other. We collaborated on little things — the wardrobe, holding hands at certain times. At the end of the movie, you gave special thanks to “my daughter, Suri. Dreams come true. †It was my first film, and I want her to always know that she’s the inspiration behind everything, and so hopefully it means something as she gets older. Just to let her know how important she is. You’ve spoken highly of your mother’s parenting skills while you were a teenage actress. How do you approach your own mothering? I try to make our world very much an environment that’s just all about being a kid without too much of Hollywood coming into that. And I just enjoy it. Honestly I think that there are so many books and opinions about how to be a great mom, and you have good days and bad days, and sometimes you do great and sometimes you could have done better. But I have to say I’m really enjoying having a . She’s a remarkable person. You’re playing Jacqueline Kennedy again in “The Kennedys: After Camelot,†a that follows her marriage to Aristotle Onassis and beyond. She was an amazing woman that we’re all very much mystified by, and there’s a freedom to taking on a character like that because no one really knows how she felt behind closed doors. And I directed the third episode and had a wonderful time figuring out that world. So they just said, “We want you to direct� Well no, I told them I wanted to. I said, “You’ve got to give me one episode. †[Laughs] We gotta speak up, Kathryn, we gotta speak up and get what we want, because no one’s going to give it to us. So are you still single, or is there a secret marriage we have to talk about? [Laughs] Nooo, I’m not married. But thank you for asking. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1314 | 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: What If Only Taxpayers Voted? Claim summaries: A map doesn't show the results of the 2012 election if only people who pay taxes had voted, but instead was stolen from an article about what voting would have looked like without universal suffrage.
contextual information: On 28 August 2016, the web site The Burning Platform published an image purportedly showing what the electoral map would look like if only taxpayers had been allowed to vote during the 2012 election: However, the map displayed here was stolen from Buzzfeed, then republished alongside extremely inaccurate and misleading misinformation. According to the blog post, the data in this image comes from CNN's 2012 presidential race election poll (as noted in the bottom right-hand corner of this image). poll However, by going to polling page itself, it's clear that no one was asked if they were taxpayers or if they were asked, that answer was not factored into the CNN map. So where did the data actually come from? On 9 November 2012, Buzzfeed published an article featuring several electoral maps representing what the 2012 election would have looked like without universal suffrage. The map, therefore, is a doctored version of Buzzfeed's map for 1920, which showed the results of the 2012 election if only white people (both men and women) had been allowed to vote: Buzzfeed President Barack Obama has been elected twice by a coalition that reflects the diversity of America. Republicans have struggled to win with ever-higher percentages of the shrinking share of the population that is white men a Mad Men party in a Modern Family world, in the words of one strategist. But at Americas founding, only white men could vote, and the franchise has only slowly expanded to include people of color, women, and during the Vietnam War people under 21. These maps show how American politics would have looked in that undemocratic past. [...] While womens suffrage passed in 1920, there were still huge impediments to minorities to vote during that period, for instance in the form of poll taxes (only finally outlawed by the 24th Amendment in 1964). So heres a version of the map that shows only white voters, men and women. Other maps published in the same article used different metrics for comparison's sake such as how the 2012 election would have looked like for example if only white men could vote, if only men (not just white men, but no women) could vote, if only people over age 24 could vote, and finally, how the 2012 election actually played out. Buzzfeed. "What The 2012 Election Would Have Looked Like Without Universal Suffrage."
9 November 2012. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1315 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Mexican industry is exploring revising trade rules to ensure U.S. workers benefit from a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to address head-on U.S. President Donald Trump’s biggest beef with the treaty. With talks due to start next month between the United States, Mexico and Canada, Mexican officials have stressed the need to craft a new deal that would strengthen the region against competitors, particularly in Asia. Trump has threatened to ditch NAFTA if he cannot rework it to the benefit of the United States, arguing it has fueled a trade deficit with Mexico and cost thousands of U.S. jobs. Mexican officials say a revamped NAFTA must further integrate the region and are awaiting U.S. negotiating objectives, due to be published on or around Sunday. They point to sectors like autos, where U.S. inputs make up some 40 percent of the value of products imported into the United States from Mexico, while Chinese exports contain only 4 percent, according to the U.S. Center for Automotive Research. “If we integrate further and make Mexico more competitive versus China ... even if our exports rise, U.S. jobs will rise, because when we export (to the United States), they’re exporting too (via U.S. content),†said Jaime Serra, a former trade minister who led the initial NAFTA negotiations for Mexico. However, mindful that Trump needs to be able to claim a more obvious win from the shake-up, they are also looking at rules governing how much of a product is made in the region. NAFTA rules of origin stipulate that to qualify for tariff-free access, some products need to be sourced to a certain degree regionally. Cars, a recurring point of attack for Trump, must meet a threshold of 62.5 percent. Because raising that threshold would not automatically benefit U.S. workers | 1 | [
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FMD1316 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: From a single gust of wind, Clare Hollingworth reaped the journalistic scoop of the century. Ms. Hollingworth, the undisputed doyenne of war correspondents, who died on Tuesday in Hong Kong at 105, was less than a week into her first job, as a reporter for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, on that windy day in 1939. Driving alone on the road from Gleiwitz, then in Germany, to Katowice, in Poland — a distance of less than 20 miles — she watched as the wind lifted a piece of the tarpaulin that had been erected on the German side to screen the valley below from view. Through the opening, Ms. Hollingworth saw, she later wrote, “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns†concealed in the valley. She knew then that Germany was poised for a major military incursion. Hastening back across the border to the Polish side, she telephoned her editor with the news, a world exclusive. The date was Aug. 28, 1939, and her article, published the next day, would become, as the British paper The Guardian wrote in 2015, “probably the greatest scoop of modern times. †On Sept. 1, Hitler’s forces invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II. For the next four decades, Ms. Hollingworth (who over the years contributed articles to The Telegraph, The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal) covered World War II from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and North Africa the Greek and Algerian civil wars hostilities between Arabs and Jews in the waning days of the British mandate in Palestine and the Vietnam War, among other conflicts. Often under fire, occasionally arrested and possessed of such a keen nose for covert information that from time to time she was accused of being a spy — both by local governments and by the British — Ms. Hollingworth was friend, or foe, to seemingly everyone in a position of power in the world at midcentury. She obtained the first interview with Mohammed Reza Pahlavi after he became the shah of Iran in 1941, and what was very likely among the last, after he was deposed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979. In 1965, wanting to cover hostilities between India and Pakistan but discovering that reporters were barred from the front, she simply secured permission from an old acquaintance, Indira Gandhi, who was then India’s minister of information and broadcasting. Ms. Hollingworth was also one of the first Western journalists to report regularly from China, opening The Telegraph’s Beijing bureau in 1973. Her other major scoops included a 1963 article for The Guardian in which she cautiously identified the British intelligence agent Kim Philby as the “third man†in the ring of Soviet spies then known to include the Englishmen Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. Another was a 1968 article for The Telegraph in which she reported the United States’ incipient plans for peace talks with Vietnam. (The talks opened in Paris later that year and were concluded in 1973.) Ms. Hollingworth was never so happy, she often said, as when she was roaming the world equipped with little more than a toothbrush, a typewriter and, if need be, a revolver. Embedded long before the term was applied to journalists, she slept in trucks and in trenches, at times buried up to her neck in sand for warmth on cold desert nights. She once held off an armed Algerian policeman by threatening to hit him about the head with a shoe. Had her eyesight not begun to fail some 20 years ago, it was a life, Ms. Hollingworth made clear, that she would gladly have continued to the end of her days. “I must admit that I enjoy being in a war,†she told The Telegraph in 2011, on the eve of her 100th birthday. In 1989, though nearly 80 and nominally retired, Ms. Hollingworth, attired in a safari suit, her working uniform of choice for 60 years, was spotted in Tiananmen Square shinnying up a lamppost for a bird’ view of the government’s violent crackdown against civilian protesters. She periodically slept on the floor of her home in Hong Kong well into her 90s, just to keep from going soft. Through all her travels, with all their attendant rigors, there was only one thing, Ms. Hollingworth said, that she truly could not abide. “I do not mind not washing for a week or more,†she wrote, “but I do hate getting fleas in my hair. †Her Graham Greene existence, with its typewriter, revolver and most particularly its fleas, was a far cry from the life her conventional, British parents had envisioned for her — one of quiet propriety, dutiful wifehood, charity balls and hunting. Clare Hollingworth was born on Oct. 10, 1911, in Knighton in central England, outside Leicester. As a child, she enjoyed touring the historic battlefields of England and France with her father, who ran the family’s boot and shoe factory. At her parents’ insistence, the young Ms. Hollingworth attended domestic science college in Leicester, an experience that did nothing to make the prospect of hearth and home attractive. (“Although it is useful to be able to make an omelet,†she later wrote, “my domestic science training caused me to hate having anything to do with housework. â€) Partly in deference to her upbringing, she became engaged “to a suitable young man,†though she soon broke off the engagement and further scandalized her parents by announcing her intention to become a journalist. “My mother thought journalism frightfully low, like a trade,†Ms. Hollingworth said in the 2011 interview with The Telegraph. “She didn’t believe anything journalists wrote and thought they were only fit for the tradesmen’s entrance. †In the 1930s, Ms. Hollingworth attended the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and afterward studied at the University of Zagreb, then in Yugoslavia. Working for the League of Nations Union, a peace and social justice group established in Britain in 1918, she was dispatched to Warsaw. There, in early 1939, she aided thousands of refugees from the Sudetenland — the region of Czechoslovakia that had been annexed by the Nazis in October 1938 — arranging travel documents that would let them cross into Poland. She wrote about their plight for small publications in Britain. The Telegraph learned of Ms. Hollingworth’s work in Poland, and on Aug. 25, 1939, while she was visiting London, it hired her as a correspondent. Assigned to cover the prelude to war in the region, she flew to Warsaw the next day. From Warsaw she traveled to Katowice, commandeering an official car from the British consul general there. It was in that car, Union Jack boldly flying, that she drove over the border, past astonished Nazi guards and into Germany on Aug. 28. Ms. Hollingworth’s scoop comprised two parts. The first was her story of Aug. 29, about the advent of war. The second was her report on the start of the war itself. Awakened by explosions at dawn on Sept. 1, Ms. Hollingworth, from her quarters in Katowice, saw German bombers overhead and the flash of artillery fire in the distance. She telephoned a friend at the British Embassy in Warsaw. “The war has begun!†she cried. “Are you sure, old girl?†he said. Her published article notwithstanding, Ms. Hollingworth later wrote, British officialdom persisted in thinking that war remained weeks away. She held the receiver out the window as German tanks roared outside. The embassy was persuaded and soon, too, was her editor. Ms. Hollingworth’s article on the start of hostilities appeared in The Telegraph the next day. Her work from this period is unbylined — few reporters were accorded bylines then — a state of affairs she pronounced as being for the best: It simultaneously spared her parents familial anxiety and social indignity. What followed was more than 40 years of chasing danger, for it was in the most dangerous places, Ms. Hollingworth often said, that the best stories lay. Traveling with British troops in North Africa, she was buried in the sands for the night when she awoke to the sounds of a German reconnaissance party. “A sneeze would have brought death to us all,†she later wrote. She held her breath in the darkness, and the party passed unseeing. In Vietnam, a sniper’s bullet narrowly missed her head. Ms. Hollingworth’s first husband, Vandeleur Robinson, whom she married in 1936, divorced her for desertion 15 years later. (“When I’m on a story, I’m on a story — to hell with husband, family, anyone else,†she told The Guardian in 2004.) Her second husband, Geoffrey Hoare, a journalist whom she married in the early 1950s, died in 1965. Her death was confirmed by Patrick Garrett, her grandnephew and her biographer. Her survivors include a stepdaughter, Hilary Sandre. Over time, some members of the British press grew alienated by what they saw as Ms. Hollingworth’s imperious manner. “Ms. Hollingworth’s snobberies are very tiring, her cozy relations with British embassies irritating,†the English journalist Robert Fisk wrote, reviewing her 1990 memoir, “Front Line. †But she remained a widely admired, even venerated, figure, a recipient of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 and a perennial fixture at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, where she had made her home since the early 1980s. Her other books include “The Three Weeks’ War in Poland†(1940) “There’s a German Just Behind Me†(1942) “The Arabs and the West†(1952) and “Mao and the Men Against Him†(1985). As Ms. Hollingworth made clear in later interviews, though there was no dearth of wars to accompany her old age, she did not truly expect to be called upon to cover them. Yet to the end of her life she slept with her passport and a pair of shoes within easy reach, just in case. | 1 | [
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FMD1317 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump is trying to determine how keeping his promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem could affect his hopes of brokering a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, his secretary of state said on Sunday. Since taking office in January, Trump has shown signs of shelving his campaign pledge to move the embassy from Tel Aviv, while vowing to do what is necessary to clinch a Middle East peace agreement. “The president is being very careful to understand how such a decision would impact a peace process,†Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told NBC’s “Meet the Press.†He spoke just days before Trump starts a Middle East trip that includes meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Israel regards Jerusalem as its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all foreign countries to base their embassies there. The relocation is strongly opposed by many U.S. allies as the Palestinians also claim the city as their capital. Tillerson said Trump’s decision would depend greatly on how it is seen by governments in the region, including “whether Israel views it as being helpful to a peace initiative or perhaps a distraction.†His comments drew a quick response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel’s position has been stated many times before to the American administration and the world,†Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem will not harm the peace process, it will do the opposite. It will advance it by righting a historical wrong and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.†| 1 | [
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FMD1318 | 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: Benefits given to former presidents after they leave office Claim summaries: John McCain would not be eligible to draw a pension after serving two terms as president?
contextual information: Claim: John McCain would not be eligible to draw a pension after serving two terms as president. Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2008] Retirement - Mr. President A point to ponder ... A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year until he is 80 years old. Assuming the next president lives to age 80, Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension. Therefore, it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November. How's that for non-partisan thinking? Origins: We're not sure whether the above-quoted bit of electioneering about presidential pensions was meant to be taken seriously or whether it was intended to be light-hearted or sardonic, but regardless, its basic premise is incorrect. It is true in broad terms that since John McCain is twenty-five years older than Barack Obama (they'll be 72 and 47 years old, respectively, at the time of the next presidential inauguration), the former would probably draw a smaller aggregate pension as a former president than the latter would. (There are no guarantees, of course, since we never know what Fate might have in store for anyone.) It is not true, however, that if John McCain served two terms as president, he would draw no pension at all due to having reached the maximum age limit (80) by then. The pension payments allocated to former presidents are lifetime benefits and do not end or expire once a recipient reaches a particular age. Under the terms of the Former Presidents Act (FPA), former presidents are entitled to "a taxable pension that is equal to the annual rate of basic pay for the head of an executive department" (currently $191,300). This pension is a lifetime benefit that begins "immediately upon a President's departure from office at noon on Inauguration Day." (Presidential widows receive lifetime pensions of $20,000 per year.) In fact, pensions constitute a relatively small fraction of the federal funds that are provided for the maintenance of former presidents, who also receive Secret Service protection, free mailing privileges, travel funds, and allowances to maintain and staff their offices. (Secret Service protection for presidents who began serving after January 1, 1997, is no longer a lifetime benefit and is now limited to ten years.) As the chart below indicates, these additional benefits typically add up to far more than the base pension amount: All of these expenditures on former presidents are but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. federal budget, which currently totals about $3 trillion per year. Since both John McCain and Barack Obama are members of the U.S. Senate, whichever one doesn't win the upcoming presidential election will still have a congressional pension to look forward to. Last updated: August 14, 2008 Sources: Alexander-Bloch, Benjamin. "Former Presidents Cost U.S. Taxpayers Big Bucks." The [Toledo] Blade. January 7, 2007. Smith, Stephanie. "Former Presidents: Federal Pension and Retirement Benefits." Congressional Research Service. March 18, 2008. | 0 | [
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FMD1319 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Obama's Weighs Options for His Final Stab at Israel In his twilight months in office, Obama seeks to undermine America’s closest ally. November 4, 2016 Ari Lieberman
Israelis and the pro-Israel community at large will breathe a collective sigh of relief when Obama leaves office. During Obama’s tenure, relations with Israel were caustic at best. Barely five months after taking office, he publicly launched a scathing attack against Israel – where he perversely insinuated a moral equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian actions – and did so in one of the most virulently anti-Semitic countries on the planet. He later skipped over Israel despite the fact that Israel was a mere 20-minute plane ride away. That was Obama’s opening salvo against America’s closest ally. It was only downhill from there.
Obama utilized high-level administration sources to leak negative information about Israel to sympathetic members of the press. In one such instance, an administration official –probably Ben Rhodes – referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “ chicken-Sh*t .” In another instance, Obama voiced concurrence with French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, when Sarkozy characterized Netanyahu as a “ liar .”
Often, the Obama administration would subject Israeli dignitaries to humiliating treatment during official state visits. Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, was shamefully transformed into a persona non grata. In the most notorious incident, Obama left Netanyahu out in the cold while having dinner with Michelle and his daughters. One commentator dryly noted that Obama treated Netanyahu as though he was the president of Equatorial Guinea.
Ultimately, Obama crossed the line and received significant pushback from Democratic lawmakers and donors. Obama got the message and toned down the rhetoric but his deep-seeded animus against Israel never dissipated and relations with Israel’s prime minister remained toxic.
Tensions surfaced again during Israel’s counter insurgency campaign against the Gaza-based terror group Hamas. Obama held up a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel and then tried to strong-arm Israel into accepting a suicidal ceasefire agreement brokered by Turkey and Qatar, two despotic nations that support Hamas and gave aid and comfort to Islamic State terrorists.
Obama saw Netanyahu’s opposition to the JCPOA, the so-called Iran deal, as a personal attack and allowed his petulant nature to further sour relations. The so-called “settlements” were another point of contention. Obama disregarded a letter of assurance to Israel provided by the Bush administration specifying that “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population[s] centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949…”
Bush gave implicit recognition to existing settlement blocs and the right of Israel to build within those blocs. It is also important to note that no new settlement was created during Obama’s term of office and Netanyahu had even agreed to an unprecedented 10-month moratorium on construction within the disputed territories. But nothing was ever enough for Obama who never wasted an opportunity to excoriate Israel at every turn. His parting shot was at the United Nations General Assembly. During a recent address to that contemptible body, he explicitly singled out Israel for criticism but heaped praise on the xenophobic nation of Indonesia. Obama’s moral compass had gone completely awry.
Despite the fact that Obama is in his twilight months, he can still inflict immeasurable harm on Israel. According to a report featured in the Wall Street Journal , Obama is contemplating several options, each with significant negative implications for Israel. The report noted that he will only implement those options during the transitional period after November 8, so as not to harm Clinton’s presidential prospects.
He may seek to remove tax exempt status for organizations supportive of Israeli communities living in East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Perhaps more ominously, he may seek to impose dictates on Israel utilizing the U.N. Security Council.
In one such scenario, Obama may seek to pass a resolution condemning settlement construction and declaring Israeli communities situated in Judea and Samaria to be illegal. Alternatively, the administration may seek formal recognition of the “State of Palestine” even though such a state has no formal boundaries and rejects Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Lastly, he is said to be considering the possibility of setting up the parameters of a future peace agreement that would entail significant Israeli territorial concessions.
The United States does not have to actively support any UNSC resolution to see the successful passage of anti-Israeli measures. It merely has to fail to exercise its veto powers. France, facing significant problems of its own in connection with its growing radicalized Muslim population, has historically been the fiercest advocate for the Palestinian Arabs. It is likely that the administration would seek to have the French submit a draft resolution and the United States would simply abstain while the permanent and non-permanent members voted, thus guaranteeing passage.
Israel has few friends on the Security Council and American collusion with a body that could arguably be considered today’s greatest purveyors of anti-Semitism, would be an act of extreme betrayal. It would also represent bad policy and would significantly complicate efforts to broker a future peace agreement.
But Israel is not without recourse. There is strong bipartisan support for Israel in Congress and lawmakers from both sides of the political divide have already expressed to the White House their strong opposition to U.N. involvement.
Some, like the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick, have suggested that the Israelis can reach out to the Russians with carrots in an effort to counter Obama’s nefarious plans but this option seems to be a stretch. Moscow has always been in the pockets of the Muslim bloc and its recent vote at UNESCO in support of a resolution denying the Jewish nexus to Jerusalem, serves to reinforce this view. Moreover, even if Russia can be persuaded, relying on Putin for favors is akin to borrowing money from the Mafia and would come with a steep price.
It is ironic that with the multitude of problems currently facing the administration – spiraling healthcare costs, racial discord, cyber breaches, Russia’s seizure of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, ISIS, the meltdown in the Arab world, Iranian terrorism, China’s expansion into the South and East China Seas, the migrant crisis, immigration reform – Obama would choose to focus his negative energies on harming the Mideast’s only democracy and America’s staunchest ally. That fact, in it of itself, speaks volumes about the man. | 0 | [
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FMD1320 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: These are people who claim to love diversity, and they don t love diversity they just want people to agree with them. Ferguson playwright Phelim McAleerVeteran actor Philip Casnoff hadn t read the full script yet when he arrived for the first rehearsal of Ferguson, a play chronicling the shooting of Michael Brown by a Missouri police officer.Casnoff thought he knew what the play, set for a four-day staged reading starting Sunday at the Odyssey Theater, would be about: the wilderness of testimony the grand jury navigated while investigating the day Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot the unarmed 18-year-old. Casnoff presumed a variety of viewpoints, the fog of truth.Then he read the script, which tells the story that Brown didn t have his hands up and that he charged at Wilson.Now, in a case of art imitating life, the play is experiencing the kind of ill will and mistrust that erupted from the city it attempts to portray. Part of the 13-member cast is in revolt Casnoff and four others have quit as the playwright and actors are locked in a fundamental disagreement over how to tell the story of Brown s death.Though the grand jury declined to indict Wilson after some witnesses and physical evidence supported his account of events, the tone of the play shocked some actors. It felt like the purpose of the piece was to show, Of course he was not indicted here s why,' Casnoff said. He said that after he learned who the play s author was, Casnoff, who describes himself as very liberal, left-wing-leaning, thought, Whoa, this is not the place for me to be. Through testimony taken from grand jury transcripts, the play ends with a witness telling a prosecutor that Wilson was justified in killing Brown. The audience is then supposed to vote on whether Wilson should have been indicted.The cast members who quit questioned the motivations of the playwright, Phelim McAleer.McAleer, a conservative filmmaker and journalist from Ireland now living in Marina del Rey, said he s just interested in the truth. The truth is the truth. If it doesn t fit in with their beliefs, they need to change their beliefs, said McAleer, who declined to say whether Wilson should have been indicted but said his research shows the hands-up claim is bogus. All the people who testified that he had his hands up, it was pretty much demolished in grand jury testimony. If the rest of the decidedly more liberal cast resigns some actors are leaning that way McAleer said he ll find a new cast. He also hopes to put the show on YouTube and bring the production to Ferguson itself. There s got to be some actors in L.A. who aren t scared of controversy, he said.During the Ferguson rehearsal, the performers balked after realizing the only witness in McAleer s play who says Brown had his hands up is immediately discredited by an FBI agent.(Although some witnesses told investigators that Brown had his hands up, a Department of Justice report said many of those witnesses accounts were recanted, debunked or inconsistent with physical evidence.)McAleer s play also ends with a damning exchange between a witness and prosecutor. Do you feel like this could have ended up any other way? the prosecutor asks. Yeah, it could have, if Michael Brown had just stopped running toward Wilson, says the witness, who is identified as Witness 48 in the grand jury transcripts, but who is given a pseudonym in the play and cast with a young black actress. It could have ended another way. The officer had no other choice. No other choice, in other words, but to shoot Brown.After those lines were read by actors Deborah Puette and Sydney A. Mason, a kind of awkward quiet fell over the cast members, whose bodies had been bent like question marks as they stared down at their scripts in a rehearsal space near Culver City.The cast questioned the balance of the 55-page script, and even debated the justification for the shooting. Why not shoot him in the leg? asked one actress, Donzaleigh Abernathy, cast to play a witness, her voice booming through the small, windowless space. He didn t have time! responded a younger actor, also playing a witness.Several members requested changes to the script that would include adding another account more sympathetic to Brown to balance out the final witness dramatic testimony. McAleer has rejected those requests, spurring some of the actors departures. He claims that he wrote this to try to get to the truth of it, but everybody s truth is totally subjective, said Veralyn Jones, an African American cast member who resigned. When you come to the matter of what really happened, nobody really knows for sure, because everybody has a different take on it. It just didn t feel right to me. One of the script s most heated critics has been Abernathy, who is the daughter of civil rights movement leader Ralph David Abernathy, who was with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he died. Abernathy, who is black, has not decided to leave the cast yet at least not before she has the chance to meet McAleer at a cast meeting scheduled for Thursday night. I want to hear what he has to say face to face. I actually want to know, on a moral level, how can you do something like this that you know will divide America? Abernathy asked. Does it make you feel good? Obviously he has a personal agenda. What is his personal agenda? McAleer was unapologetic, and waved away criticism. These are people who claim to love diversity, and they don t love diversity they just want people to agree with them, he said.So with or without his cast, McAleer said, the show will go on.Via: LA Times | 0 | [
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FMD1321 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Russia, Turkey and Iran are close to finalizing an agreement on creating four de-escalation zones in Syria, a senior Russian negotiator said on Thursday. The three sides are discussing details of the agreement at meetings in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, Alexander Lavrentyev, who leads the Russian delegation, told reporters. Our main task at this international meeting on Syria is to finalize and establish four de-escalation zones, Lavrentyev said. We are very close to reaching an agreement on creating these four zones. The meetings, which also involve representatives of the Damascus government and some rebel factions, will continue on Friday. Lavrentyev said the agreement was likely to include provisions on the deployment of monitors | 1 | [
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FMD1322 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The murder of Denis Voronenkov, former deputy in Russian Duma, who was shot down in Kyiv, has been organized by the Security Service of Ukraine under the leadership of the CIA. | 0 | [
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FMD1323 | 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: Has Warrick Dunn Built More Than 145 Homes for Single Parents? Claim summaries: If you are going to live in this community, you want to be a part of this community and give back.
contextual information: Warrick Dunn, who played 12 seasons in the NFL as a running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons, has been supporting single-parent families since his 1997 rookie season, when he started the Homes for the Holidays program to provide economically disadvantaged single parents and their children with comprehensive programming for first-time homeownership. In September 2018, the former NFL player's charitable efforts, along with a few facts about his upbringing and the death of his mother, were distilled into a meme that spread via social media. This meme, for the most part, provided accurate information about Warrick Dunn and his charitable efforts. Dunn's mother, Betty Dunn Smothers, was a police officer in Baton Rouge who was killed in 1993 while working a second job as a security guard. Corporal Betty Smothers was shot and killed in an ambush attack while moonlighting as a security guard. She was in uniform and driving a marked patrol car when she and the store manager went to a bank to make a night deposit. As they sat in the patrol car, three suspects approached and opened fire, fatally wounding Corporal Smothers and injuring the manager. All three suspects were arrested after the incident and sentenced to death for Corporal Smothers' murder. Corporal Smothers had been employed with the Baton Rouge City Police Department for 14 years and is survived by her two daughters and four sons. Smothers' passing came just a few days before Dunn's 18th birthday and a month before he committed to playing college football at Florida State University (FSU). He was the eldest of Smothers' children, and by most accounts, he assumed a father-figure role in the lives of his five younger siblings. Here's how the Los Angeles Times described Dunn and his siblings in a December 1994 article headlined "Turning His Grief to Good: Florida State Running Back Warrick Dunn Sets an Example for All": "Derek is doing well at Catholic High. Travis is fast, and Bryson is small, but he's growing. Summer and Samantha are running track and doing well in school." You listen to Warrick Dunn and hear a proud father talking about his children. And then you realize that Dunn is only 19. Still, he's in charge of his brothers and sisters, ages 11-17, now that Betty is gone. She was his best friend, a mother who worked two jobs, 16 hours a day, to keep the family together and to provide a few of the things that make being a kid a little more fun. If there's anything harder than a teenager being asked to go to the hospital in a police car, identify his mother, and then go home to tell his brothers and sisters what happened, he doesn't want to know about it. It was Dunn, handling things as he always had, the father figure, but now without a mother. "I never really had a childhood," he says. "I've never been able to go out and just go crazy, like most kids, because I grew up staying in the house a lot, babysitting." Dunn graduated from FSU and was selected in the first round of the 1997 NFL draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The rookie running back was challenged by head coach Tony Dungy to give back to the community during his time in Florida, and so Dunn decided to start the "Homes for the Holidays" program to help provide homes to single-parent families in honor of his late mother. The program managed to house three families during its first year. By 2018, that number had grown to 159. "My rookie year in the NFL, in Tampa, I was challenged by coach [Tony] Dungy," Dunn said. "He told us, 'If you are going to live in this community, you want to be a part of this community and give back.' From that challenge, I thought about my mom and her dream of homeownership, and that's how it all started. We did three homes in 1997, and now we're up to 159. I grew up in a situation where we needed a lot of support. I lost my mom at 18. Single mom, six kids, and a Baton Rouge police officer. She was gunned down by armed robbers at a bank. When she lost her life, the city of Baton Rouge started a fund for us. And that's how we were able to survive and pay bills. And when I saw that from the city, that really helped me understand what it means to care about your neighbor and to give back and support. I just think now I have been driven for so many years—this is part of who I am, to want to see people smile and help anyone that I can possibly help." Our only quibble with this meme is the statement that Dunn "built and paid for over 145 houses for single mothers." While the former NFL quarterback has certainly donated plenty of time, money, and effort to his charitable endeavors, he did not single-handedly build and pay for all these homes. Dunn's non-profit, Warrick Dunn Charities, partners with other non-profits such as Habitat for Humanity to build homes for disadvantaged families. Even in retirement, Dunn and his Warrick Dunn Charities are still partnering with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for disadvantaged families across the United States. In December, Dunn and Habitat combined to build homes number 158 (in Detroit) and 159 (in Atlanta) and place two families in them before the holidays, furnished, as Dunn likes to say, all the way down to the toothbrushes in the bathroom. Dunn's charity provides a down payment for the home, completely furnishes it, and offers other services such as financial literacy programs to assist single parents as they become first-time homeowners. Warrick Dunn Charities was created from the belief that a better future starts with hope. We are dedicated to strengthening and transforming communities by combating poverty, hunger, and improving the quality of life for families and children. We help families thrive academically, socially, and economically. Warrick Dunn Charities, a 501(c)(3) recognized nonprofit, has helped single parents and children thrive academically, socially, and economically. The organization has awarded millions in home furnishings, food, and other donations to single-parent families and children across the nation to combat poverty, hunger, and ensure families have comfortable surroundings and basic necessities to improve their quality of life. This meme's popularity in September 2018 was likely connected to a controversy surrounding another former NFL player: Colin Kaepernick. A number of social media users shared this meme along with messages stating that Nike should have used Dunn, not Kaepernick, in their latest commercial. This meme misleadingly suggests that Colin Kaepernick has not similarly sacrificed by using his own money for charitable endeavors. However, in January 2018, Kaepernick completed his pledge to donate a total of $1 million to charity over eighteen months, with a list of all the organizations he donated to viewable here. Dunn himself praised Nike's latest advertising campaign for raising Kaepernick's profile as the latter drove the conversation about social justice. "I think it's a brilliant campaign," Dunn said. "They just raised his profile because Kaepernick, the last couple of years, has been the face of this movement of social justice." To be the first guy to come out and really talk about the issues that black kids and black men are being shot and killed, I commend him," Dunn said in a CNN interview. When asked if he thought Nike's stance to create the campaign was a financial or moral decision, Dunn cited the latter. "It's a moral decision. It can't be about finances," Dunn said. "I think overall they (Nike) understand the issues. A lot of their star athlete spokesmen are African American. They have a lot of that demographic, so I think it's important they really go after the issues and not necessarily things that are financial." | 1 | [
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FMD1324 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: By Julian Assange / counterpunch.org
In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.
On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.
The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.
This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.
The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.
We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.
At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.
We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.
That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.
This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either.
Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.
This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.
The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.
Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists.
In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.
WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.
We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks’ motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work.
WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.
Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public.
Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned.
Julian Assange is the founder of Wikileaks. His most recent book is The Wikileaks Files (Verso). 0.0 · | 0 | [
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FMD1325 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Muslim Bloc may have won the battle, but did Israel win the war? October 28, 2016 Ari Lieberman
By now it should be clear to all but the blindest (or rabidly disingenuous) that the United Nations is an organization that has been co-opted by the nefarious interests of Muslim nations and their despotic third world allies. It is an organization rife with prejudice and hypocrisy. An organization that can undeniably and without equivocation be described as today's greatest purveyor of Judeophobia, historical revisionism and conspiracy theories. This fact is best illustrated by three resolutions passed this year by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that deny the indisputable Jewish nexus to the holy city.
On April 12, the 58-member body voted in favor of an asinine and wholly one-sided resolution that referred to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem exclusively by their Muslim names and designated the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, as a “Muslim holy site of worship.” To add insult to injury, the resolution also adopted wild conspiracy theories including a claim that Israel was “planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries.”
Unsurprisingly, the resolution, which was submitted by seven Muslim nations, passed by a wide margin with 33 votes in favor, six against and 17 abstentions. Two nations were absent for the vote. France, Sweden, Slovenia and Spain shamefully supported the vile resolution.
That the resolution would pass was never in doubt given the large number of Muslim and despotic third world nations that constitute the makeup of UNESCO but it was hoped that the resolution would fail to garner European support and Israel could thus claim a moral victory. France with its collaborationist past and proclivity to kowtow to the world’s despots did not disappoint and predictably voted with the rabble.
But following the vote, a crack appeared in the façade of anti-Israel invective so prevalent at the U.N. It appeared that France was having a case of buyer’s remorse. In an address to the French parliament, Prime Minister Manuel Valls termed the resolution “clumsy” and “unfortunate.” He then added in rather sharp and pointed terms that “France will never deny the Jewish presence and Jewish history in Jerusalem. It would make no sense; it is absurd to deny this history.”
France is one of Europe’s strongest advocates for the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority and their Muslim allies at UNESCO should have understood from Valls’ statement that future resolutions with similar toxic content would no longer enjoy automatic European support. Instead of declaring victory and moving on, they pressed their luck by introducing another vile resolution in October.
The October 13 resolution , sponsored by the usual suspects contained nearly identical language as the April resolution. It condemned Israel for various contrived transgressions and again severed the Jewish (and Christian) nexus to the city. This time however, the Muslim bloc was in for a rude awakening. While the resolution passed, the Muslim bloc was unable to garner a majority in the 58-member body.
Of the 24 nations that voted in favor of the resolution (Mexico later withdrew support lowering the final tally to 23), 14 were composed of states with Muslim majorities while a fifteenth, Nigeria, is 50 percent Muslim, making passage of the resolution a forgone conclusion. What was notable was the fact that this time around, the resolution failed to garner a single western European concurrence. Other developing nations, like India, which had hitherto supported Arab-sponsored drafts also abstained. Israel’s behind-the-scenes political offensive aimed at exposing the lunacy of the Muslim initiative was paying dividends.
Following the resolution’s passage, the Palestinians and their Muslim allies suffered additional political reversals. Mexico , asked for a revote because it wished to withdraw support for the motion. Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that his government’s changed position “reiterates the recognition that the Government of Mexico gives the undeniable link of the Jewish people to the cultural heritage of East Jerusalem.”
Brazil soon followed suit echoing Mexico’s position. In a statement, the Brazilian government noted that it would no longer support such one-sided resolutions. Italy, which had abstained, went one step further and announced that it would actively oppose such resolutions in the future. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told an Italian radio station that these resolutions were “incomprehensible, unacceptable and wrong.” He added that “to say that the Jews have no links to Jerusalem is like saying the sun creates darkness.”
Even UNESCO’s director-general, Irina Bokova voiced disapproval by stating that “the heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city.” She later received death threats for voicing objection to the motion.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan introduced a third draft resolution to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee seeking to generate further political terrorism. The proposed resolution once again attempted to sever the Jewish nexus to the city and its holy sites. The 21-member WHC body was expected to pass the resolution by consensus but in a surprise move, Croatia and Tanzania asked for a secret ballot which infuriated the Muslim bloc. Instead of the motion passing by consensus, the vote was 10 in favor, two opposed, eight abstentions and one nation absent.
The two nations opposing were Tanzania and the Philippines. Of the 10 ayes, seven were Muslim. It was a pyrrhic victory at best.
Given the large number of Muslim countries represented at the U.N. and the hostility that most of these nations harbor against Israel, it is a virtual certainty that toxic resolutions of this nature will continue to be sponsored and passed. But as evidenced by recent Arab political reversals, gone are the days that the Palestinians can rely on automatic European and non-aligned support.
Israel has been effectively reaching out to the so-called non-aligned nations and it is having a significant positive impact. Part of the Israeli success lies in the fact that the Jewish state has much to offer these nations in the fields of water technology, agriculture, energy, counter-terrorism, cyber warfare and arms. This outreach has translated to political dividends at the U.N.
Nevertheless, the UNESCO resolutions serve to highlight the noxious nature and malevolence of many U.N. member states. It also underscores the need for the United States to maintain its commitment and assurance to Israel that it will never allow the U.N. to impose terms and dictates on Israel.
There have been rumors circulating that Barack Obama in his twilight months would seek to impose a deleterious settlement on Israel utilizing the UN Security Council. The White House has remained uncharacteristically mute on the subject raising fears that there may be some merit to the speculation.
The administration’s objective would be accomplished by actively supporting a proposed anti-Israel resolution, likely introduced by France, or by choosing to abstain rather than exercising a veto. In addition to betraying long-standing commitments to Israel and running counter to strong bipartisan opposition, the notion that the United States would throw Israel under the bus and allow those who engage in despotism and blatant anti-Semitism to have a say on Israel’s fate, is beyond asinine. Hopefully, the outrageous conduct exhibited at UNESCO steers the administration in the right direction. | 0 | [
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FMD1326 | 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: Census Concerns Claim summaries: Scammers pose as census workers to elicit personal information from unsuspecting victims?
contextual information: Scam: Scammers pose as census workers to elicit personal information from unsuspecting victims. Origins: Many modern scams involve the obtaining of personal information (e.g., names, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers), data which fraudsters can use in a variety of ways to loot the bank accounts and credit lines of unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately, scammers often find easy pickings, because some people still offer up such information indiscriminately; and even those who are more cautious about providing personal information only to appropriate authorities are often fooled by crooks who falsely pose as official representatives of agencies such as financial institutions, law enforcement, and government. The census undertaken by the federal government in the United States once every ten years can provide ample opportunities for identity theft scammers. Most citizens know that U.S. Census Bureau officials will be contacting them in person, on the phone, or by mail to verify their addresses and gather information (e.g., name, age, gender) about persons in their households, so during the census period they may let down their guards and more willingly provide information (or entry to their homes) to unauthorized strangers posing as government officials. Reports of con artists taking advantage of these circumstances were not uncommon during previous censuses and have already started rolling regarding the upcoming 2010 census, as these reports from 1990, 2000, and 2009 (respectively) demonstrate: census An 80-year-old North Carolina woman was tied up and robbed by two men she thought were census workers. Con artists claiming to be census employees charged Houston residents $50 after helping them complete their forms. Isolated incidents of con artists posing as census workers have occurred during every census, said Ray Bancroft of the census promotion office. In the North Carolina case, the woman initially allowed only one man into her home and was having a "nice conversation" with him when the doorbell rang and the man told her it was his partner, said Tom Smith Jr. of the Charlotte, N.C., census office. "They tied her up and commenced taking some valuable things from the house as well as her car," Smith said, adding that the woman was not physically injured. In the Midwest, about a dozen people have complained that "someone has come around saying they're taking a census, not saying the U.S. Census Bureau, and then they ask demographic type of questions, generally including some income questions," said Marvin Postma, director of the Kansas City census region office. Con artists posing as census takers have attempted to get Social Security numbers and gain entry into local homes, according to the Better Business Bureau president. "Those are the two things that are most prevalent. It's happening throughout the United States," said Jere L. Bennett, president of the local BBB office. Mr. Bennett said his office has received phone inquiries during the past month about fake census enumerators people who contact residents by telephone and in person wanting information. Some senior citizens in Congressman Bill Foster's district recently received what appears to be a scam letter in the mail that solicits credit card information and donations while falsely appearing to be authored by the U.S. Census Bureau. The eight-page mailer starts with a header identifying the letter as being sent by the "National Census of Senior Citizens" and the "Council for Retirement Security." The letter describes itself as an advocate for senior citizen interests and asks a number of questions about political issues before soliciting a minimum contribution of $14.58 or more by providing credit card information. Since the first phase of the 2010 U.S. Census is already underway, reminders about how to ensure you provide information only to official Census Bureau representatives and provide only the types of information they are authorized to collect are especially timely. The web site of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers some good advice on this topic: BBB If a U.S. Census worker knocks on your door, they will have a badge, a handheld device, a Census Bureau canvas bag and a confidentiality notice. Ask to see their identification and their badge before answering their questions. However, you should never invite anyone you dont know into your home. Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information. Do not give your Social Security number, credit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census. While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, it will not ask for Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, nor will employees solicit donations. Eventually, Census workers may contact you by telephone, mail or in person at home. However, they will not contact you by e-mail, so be on the look out for e-mail scams impersonating the Census. Never click on a link or open any attachments in an e-mail that are supposedly from the U.S. Census Bureau. Last updated: 11 September 2009 Sources: Fuller, James. "'National Census' Scam Targets Senior Citizens." [Chicago] Daily Herald. 7 May 2009. Skorneck, Carolyn. "Count on Scam Artists to Profit from Census." Chicago Sun-Times. 29 May 1990. Walker, Clarissa J. "Bureau Warns of Census Scam." The August Chronicle. 11 April 2000. | 2 | [
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FMD1327 | 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 Fauci Fund 'Gain of Function' Research, Thereby Causing COVID-19 Pandemic? Claim summaries: Statements made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson furthered theories that a manipulated virus spilled over from a lab in Wuhan, China.
contextual information: During a May 10, 2021, airing of his Fox News show, host Tucker Carlson claimed that National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Anthony Fauci helped provide funding for "gain of function" research at a facility in Wuhan, China, that (supposedly) led to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tucker Carlson During that broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson cited an opinion piece regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic that was written by Nicolas Wade. In a nutshell, Wade argued without substantiated evidence that gain of function experiments (we'll explain what those are later) that were prohibited in the U.S. continued at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which ultimately led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2. And because the Wuhan-based institute was not properly regulated, Wade argued, the novel coronavirus was likely to have infected a researcher who would ultimately become the source of the pandemic. cited opinion piece The 13-minute segment began with Carlson criticizing Jeffrey Zeints, U.S. President Joe Bidens appointed official to oversee the COVID-19 response efforts. Carlson then suggested that Fauci said Americans can expect to wear masks indefinitely. (We fact-checked that, too. Fauci did not say that.) fact-checked that The question is why is he doing that? Maybe he likes it, thats possible. But you gotta think at least part of Tony Faucis authoritarian germ hysteria is a cover for something else, Carlson continued. Could it be that Tony Fauci is trying to divert attention from himself and his own personal role in the COVID-19 pandemic? Now, what do we mean by that? Thats when Carlson pivoted to The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandoras box at Wuhan? Wade's opinion piece not a scientific study as was suggested published by the nonprofit science organization Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a reputable group that publishes free-access scientific information concerning science and global security issues. Wade is a controversial science writer whose recent theories on race have been generally disputed by researchers around the world. Wade was a former staff writer for the Science Times section of The New York Times up until 2012 and he authored the controversial book, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. He has been described by researchers at Georgetown University as a sad saga of a former international reporter turned laughing stock. The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandoras box at Wuhan? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists disputed controversial book described By and large, Carlson hyperbolized and generalized Wades main points in his piece, stretching the key takeaways to suggest that the article explains where this virus almost certainly came from. Carlson furthered that Wade makes it clear that more than any other single American, Tony Fauci is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic by laying out a nearly insurmountably large amount of evidence that the virus originated in the WIV. This evidence included conducting experiments funded by American tax dollars to make bat viruses infectious to humans approved and directed by Tony Fauci, argued Carlson. We'll take a closer look at what Wade actually wrote below. As is usual with these sorts of allegations, there is a mixture of half-truths peppered in an alarmist claim meant to incite an emotional response. First, it is important to note that Wade wrote in his opinion piece that of the two theories he believed were plausible, so far neither has direct evidence proving its validity. Each depends on a set of reasonable conjectures but so far lacks proof. So I have only clues, not conclusions, to offer. But those clues point in a specific direction. And having inferred that direction, Im going to delineate some of the strands in this tangled skein of disaster, he wrote. After the Carlson video aired, questions surrounding gain of function research were brought to a Senate health committee hearing on May 11 when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) clashed with Fauci over whether funding from the NIH was used at WIV, suggesting that this might have contributed to the lab leak hypothesis a controversial theory that virus-related experiments accidentally spilled over into the public sphere. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4962333/senator-paul-dr-fauci-clash-research-funding-wuhan-lab We have not funded gain of function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. No matter how many times you say it, it didnt happen, said Fauci. Wade and later Carlson also argued that gain of function research funded by the NIH was the likely source of a laboratory leak a hypothesis that has been contested by the broader scientific community time and again. Since SARS-CoV-2 was first named in January 2020 and subsequently declared a pandemic, conspiracy theorists have peddled notions that the virus was made in a lab and intentionally released as a biological weapon despite rigorous scientific research proving otherwise. conspiracy theorists peddled notions made in a lab biological weapon rigorous scientific research First and foremost, it is true that WIV was one of many research facilities around the world dedicated to the study of coronaviruses. Coronaviruses are one of the most common viruses and were at the center of the SARS 2001 and MERS 2012 epidemics, prompting efforts led by the NIH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and NIH to better understand their potential for a pandemic. Research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of virology was partially funded by NIH. Public Domain Public Domain One form of research conducted at these labs includes the gain of function research. These are experiments to increase the transmissibility or virulence of pathogens to make them more infectious to humans in order to help improve understanding of disease-causing agents and how they interact with humans, as well as their potential to cause a pandemic. In other words, scientists manipulate the genetic code of viruses to change certain elements, making them either more or less dangerous to better understand how they work. But in 2014, the Obama administration called for a pause on funding of such experiments, SARS and MERS viruses in particular, and launched a government-led investigation into the risks and benefits of such research. An ethical analysis white paper written by Professor Michael Selgelid and produced by the NIH Office of Science Policy and published in the journal, Science and Engineering Ethics in 2016 argued that gain of function research poses risks regarding biosecurity and biosafety. Using this guidance, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services developed a framework for guiding funding decisions about the gain of function research, and under the recommendation of experts, the NIH lifted its pause. ethical analysis white paper Science and Engineering Ethics developed lifted And it is true that WIV is located miles from where the first COVID-19 outbreak was detected and that the facility previously received funding from the NIH via the EcoHealth Alliance Inc., a research organization based in New York City, as was reported on the agencys website. But such international cooperation is not unusual, and funding to the lab was also provided through European, Asian, and African organizations as well as the World Health Organization and the European Virus Archive goes global. WIV website To support its work, EcoHealth made subawards to the WIV and other institutions based in East Asia where coronaviruses tend to emerge and are prevalent. A subaward is made when the primary grant recipient (in this case, EcoHealth Alliance Inc.) seeks another organization to carry out part of the grantees research project. In this case, NIH said that it did not establish the terms of the award and that EcoHealth was directly accountable for the performance of the project. In an email to Snopes, EcoHealth Alliance communications manager Robert Kessler said that the organization has neither contributed to nor participated in gain-of-function research. The research proposed in the grant application sought to understand how bat coronaviruses evolve naturally in the environment to become transmissible to the human population, Jennifer Routh, a spokesperson for the NIH, told Snopes. This included studying viral diversity in bat reservoirs, surveying people who work in live animal markets or other jobs with high exposure to wildlife for evidence of bat-coronavirus infection, and analyzing data to predict which newly discovered viruses pose the greatest threat to human health. The application did not propose research to enhance any coronavirus to be more transmissible or virulent, added Routh. The application was subjected to rigorous peer review and was judged to be a high priority, given how SARS-CoV had already emerged in this bat population. To support its work, EcoHealth made sub-awards to WIV and other institutions based in East Asia where coronaviruses tend to emerge and are prevalent. And according to NIH, funds that go to sub-awardees (EcoHealth Alliance) from the primary grantee (NIH) must support the research activities that were approved and funded in the grant, which did not include gain of function research. On May 19, Dr. Francis Collins with the NIH issued the below statement, which the agency forwarded to Snopes: statement Based on outbreaks of coronaviruses caused by animal to human transmissions such as in Asia in 2003 that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and in Saudi Arabia in 2012 that caused Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have for many years supported grants to learn more about viruses lurking in bats and other mammals that have the potential to spill over to humans and cause widespread disease. However, neither NIH nor NIAID have ever approved any grant that would have supported gain-of-function research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans. NIH strongly supports the need for further investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. SARS MERS The 2014 funding pause pertained to a subset of gain-of-function research that could reasonably be anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route. Following the initiation of the pause, this grant was reviewed again and determined by experts to fall outside the scope of the funding pause. funding pause But on Oct. 20, Republicans with the congressional group U.S. House Oversight Committee tweeted a letter written by Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), confirming that EcoHealth had conducted gain of function research at the WIV. The letter was directed to committee ranking member James Comer, R-Ky. Oct. 20 The letter was reported by several publications, including The New York Post, Fox News, and The New York Times. In it, Tabak said that published genomic data demonstrate that the bat coronaviruses studied under the NIH grant to EcoHealth Alliance, INC. and subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) are not and could not have become SARS-CoV-2, referencing an analysis attached to the letter that was not included in the tweet. (Snopes contacted the DHHS to receive a copy of the letter and the referenced analysis but did not receive a reply at the time of this update. We will include a copy of the report when and if we receive it.) The New York Post Fox News The New York Times The letter was also said to contain the fifth and final progress report for Grand R01AI1 10964, which was awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. and included data from a research project conducted during the 2018-19 grant period using bat coronavirus genome sequences already existing in nature. The progress report was submitted to the NIH in August 2021 as part of NIH compliance enforcement efforts, and it shows that EcoHealth Alliance violated terms of the grant by failing to report a bat experiment that made mice sicker: violated The limited experiment described in the final progress report provided by EcoHealth Alliance was testing if spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model. All other aspects of the mice, including the immune system, remained unchanged. In this limited experiment, laboratory mice were infected with the SHC014 WIV1 bat coronavirus. As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do. Regardless, the viruses being studied under this grant were genetically very distant from SARS-CoV-2. Coronaviruses, especially those found in bats, have been studied around the world due to their prevalence in the natural world and ability to infect across species. In fact, there are hundreds of coronaviruses, most of which circulate among animals and some of which can jump to humans in what is called a spillover event. Following the SARS and MERS outbreaks of 2002 and 2012 respectively, the NIAID identified coronaviruses as a priority for researchers to investigate, including how these viruses originate and cause disease, as well as to develop animal study models for new treatments and potential vaccines. studied SHC014 is a SARS-like coronavirus that infects horseshoe bats that has previously been studied by researchers in mouse models to determine the risk of a SARS-CoV reemergence of infection risk from viruses that naturally circulate in bat populations. During the pandemic, the human ACE2 receptor saw renewed interest by the research community for its role as the entry point for SARS-CoV-2 infection. SHC014 previously been studied interest In short, the letter by Tabak stated that mice genetically altered to contain the ACE2 receptor were used as testers to determine whether SHC014 would bind to the receptor. And because the laboratory mice became sicker, it is likely that the virus successfully bound. In July 2021, the NIH published a media kit that described its research involving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs), which are those that show potential in infecting human populations. Research involving PPPs is required to undergo additional scrutiny when it comes to funding, but at the time of the grant proposal, EcoHealth Alliances research did not meet the requirements for further review because it was not shown that these bat coronaviruses could infect humans. published However, grant language allowed for a second review out of an abundance of caution pending results to determine whether the research should be reevaluated or new biosafety measures be enacted EcoHealth failed to report this finding right away, as was required by the terms of the grant, wrote Tabak. EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today [Oct. 20] to submit to NIH any and all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this review. A joint World Health Organization-China study on the origins of COVID-19 published in March 2019 said that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is extremely unlikely. However, the NIH told Snopes that it strongly supports the need for further investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. said Working with a cross-regional coalition of 13 countries, we urge the WHO to begin the second phase of their study without delay, wrote Collins. cross-regional coalition of 13 countries In short, gain of function research is permitted under certain conditions, and some evidence suggests that such experimentation may have occurred in the past at WIV. At the time of this writing, it appears that experiments to manipulate a coronavirus resulted from research conducted by EcoHealth Alliance during the 2018-19 grant period, but there is not yet conclusive evidence to suggest outright that the virus mutated to SARS-CoV-2, or that it spilled over into the surrounding area. Snopes will update this article once further information into the investigation is provided by EcoHealth Alliance and NIH. Until then, we left this claim rating as "Unproven. Sources Andersen, Kristian G., et al. The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, vol. 26, no. 4, Apr. 2020, pp. 45052. www.nature.com, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9. Archive, View Author, and Get author RSS feed. NIH Admits US Funded Gain-of-Function in Wuhan despite Faucis Denials. New York Post, 21 Oct. 2021, https://nypost.com/2021/10/21/nih-admits-us-funded-gain-of-function-in-wuhan-despite-faucis-repeated-denials/. Brief Introduction----Wuhan Institute of Virology. https://english.whiov.cas.cn/Research2016/Brief_Introduction2017/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021.COVID-19 Is a Serious Threat ... But So Are Memes Claiming Its NOT. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/07/woman-who-called-pandemic-a-hoax/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Creitz, Charles. Rand Paul Blasts Anthony Fauci after NIH Admits Gain-of-Function Funding. Fox News, 21 Oct. 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/media/rand-paul-anthony-fauci-nih-gain-function-funding. Did Fauci Say Americans Can Expect to Wear Masks Indefinitely? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-wear-masks-indefinitely/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Geneticists Decry Book on Race and Evolution. https://www.science.org/content/article/geneticists-decry-book-race-and-evolution. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Joint Statement on the WHO-Convened COVID-19 Origins Study. United States Department of State, https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-on-the-who-convened-covid-19-origins-study/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Misinformation on Coronavirus Is Proving Highly Contagious. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/07/30/misinformation-on-coronavirus-is-proving-highly-contagious/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Moving on from Nicholas Wade to Continuing Concerns about Scientific Racism | Bioethics Research Library. https://bioethics.georgetown.edu/2014/08/moving-on-from-nicholas-wade-to-continuing-concerns-about-scientific-racism/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain-of-Function Research. National Institutes of Health (NIH), 18 Dec. 2017, https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research. NIH Says Grantee Failed to Report Experiment in Wuhan That Created a Bat Virus That Made Mice Sicker. https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-says-grantee-failed-report-experiment-wuhan-created-bat-virus-made-mice-sicker. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Partnerships----Wuhan Institute of Virology. https://english.whiov.cas.cn/International_Cooperation2016/Partnerships/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021.Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens. National Institutes of Health (NIH), 8 July 2021, https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens. Samavati, Lobelia, and Bruce D. Uhal. ACE2, Much More Than Just a Receptor for SARS-COV-2. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, vol. 10, 2020, p. 317. Frontiers, https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2020.00317. Selgelid, Michael J. Gain-of-Function Research: Ethical Analysis. Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 22, no. 4, Aug. 2016, pp. 92364. Springer Link, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9810-1. Statement on Funding Pause on Certain Types of Gain-of-Function Research. National Institutes of Health (NIH), 20 Jan. 2015, https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/statement-funding-pause-certain-types-gain-function-research. Statement on Misinformation about NIH Support of Specific Gain-of-Function Research. National Institutes of Health (NIH), 19 May 2021, https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/statement-misinformation-about-nih-support-specific-gain-function-research. Tang, X. C., et al. Prevalence and Genetic Diversity of Coronaviruses in Bats from China. Journal of Virology, vol. 80, no. 15, Aug. 2006, pp. 748190. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.1128/JVI.00697-06. The Origin of COVID: Did People or Nature Open Pandoras Box at Wuhan? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 5 May 2021, https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/. Tucker Carlson Fact Checks and News from Snopes.Com. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/tag/tucker-carlson/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. UCL. Problematical Theories. UCL Division of Biosciences, 13 Feb. 2019, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/biosciences/departments/genetics-evolution-and-environment/research/molecular-and-cultural-evolution-lab/debunking-genetic-astrology/problematical-theories. Was the COVID-19 Pandemic Planned in Rockefellers Operation Lockstep? Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rockefeller-operation-lockstep/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. WHO Report: COVID Likely 1st Jumped Into Humans from Animals. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/03/29/who-report-covid-likely-1st-jumped-into-humans-from-animals/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Why You Shouldnt Fall for the COVID-19 Bioweapon Conspiracy Theory. Snopes.Com, https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2021. Zimmer, Carl, and Benjamin Mueller. Bat Research Group Failed to Submit Virus Studies Promptly, N.I.H. Says. The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/science/bats-covid-lab-leak-nih.html. Update [May 20, 2021]: This article was updated to include statements from the NIH. Update [May 25, 2021]: This article was updated to include additional comments from the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance. Update [May 28, 2021]: This article was updated to include clarification on NIH grant-awarding processes. Update [Oct. 22, 2021]: Article was updated to include new findings established by the House Oversight Committee and a change in rating from Unproven to Research in Progress pending the results of a NIH-led investigation. | 2 | [
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FMD1328 | 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 Hillary Clinton Say 'We Must Destroy Syria for Israel' in a Leaked E-Mail? Claim summaries: Controversy around military action in Syria led to the recirculation of an inaccurate claim about Hillary Clinton.
contextual information: Following controversial airstrikes on Syria in April 2018, a 2017 article published by repeat offender YourNewsWire.com with the claim that Hillary Clinton voiced support for destroying Syria in a "leaked" e-mail popped up and began to circulate again: Syria article Lest We Forget Hillary Clinton: We Must Destroy Syria For israel https://t.co/VxkzUu1IkE pic.twitter.com/Zf4iagpqsv https://t.co/VxkzUu1IkE pic.twitter.com/Zf4iagpqsv Michael Lee (@MichaelLee2009) April 15, 2018 April 15, 2018 The piece included a screenshot of what were purportedly Clinton's views taken from an e-mail, as well as quotes: Clinton Email: We Must Destroy Syria For Israel [...] The best way to help Israel deal with Irans growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad, Clinton forthrightly starts off by saying. Even though all US intelligence reports had long dismissed Irans atom bomb program as a hoax (a conclusion supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Clinton continues to use these lies to justify destroying Syria in the name of Israel. She specifically links Irans mythical atom bomb program to Syria because, she says, Irans atom bomb program threatens Israels monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East. A nearly identical claim (since deleted) was published by a separate site in March 2016. Both attribute the text of the purported e-mail to Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State, a position she held for approximately four years between 2009 and 2013. published held The text is indeed a part of WikiLeaks' "Hillary Clinton Email Archive," and the title search returns three documents in that data set. The same document was also available via FOIA.state.gov [PDF]. three FOIA.state.gov PDF Although its content was characterized as an e-mail authored by Hillary Clinton, that is misleading. It appears that she actually received and forwarded an attachment from James P. Rubin. In all three documents (two forwards and an attachment) it is clear that Rubin authored and sent the commentary to Clinton, stating in his preface that the then-Secretary of State "may not agree" with his stance on Syria: forwarded attachment James P. Rubin commentary From: James P. RubinSent: Monday, April 30, 2012 11:03 AMTo: H Subject: Best of luck on China trip First, I want to wish you and Kurt best of luck getting out of the pickle Mr Chen has you in as you arrive in China. I wanted to pass on something I intend to publish on Syria and Iran, because I think it is worth trying to urge the President and his political advisers to act. As you can see from today's column by Jackson Diehl, the pundits and many in the media will push the Syria issue very hard for the foreseeable future. It may not be on the front burner every day, but it will be close to or at the top of the media's attention indefinitely. Interestingly, the Republicans have showed their hand on the foreign policy debate, in which inaction on Syria is pretty much the only serious criticism they can offer that will stick. As you will see from the attached piece, I believe that action on Syria will forestall the biggest danger on the horizon, that Israel launches a surprise attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Although the pressure has now eased for a variety of reasons, it will return. Action by Washington on Syria, on the other hand, I believe will eliminate much of the urgency for Israeli action. In other words, a more aggressive policy on Syria will eliminate the best case the republican's have going into the November election, will ease substantially the pressure on Israel to attack Iran and possibly spark a wider war in the Middle East, and finally would be the right stance on Syria going forward. I know you may not agree but I thought it was better to share this with you first as at least a new way to look at the problem. All best, your friend,Jamie James P. Rubin Walsh, Nick Paton. "What Do The US, UK And French Airstrikes Mean For Syria's War?"
CNN. 15 April 2018. | 0 | [
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FMD1329 | 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: General Electric China Move Claim summaries: General Electric is moving its x-ray division from Wisconsin to China?
contextual information: General Electric is moving its X-ray division to China. The company is relocating its X-ray business headquarters to Beijing. In August 2011, General Electric announced plans to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to Beijing. In addition to relocating the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China, train more than 65 engineers, and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year but paid no taxes; it is also the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the United States. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation. Immelt is supposed to help create jobs, but it seems the President forgot to specify in which country those jobs were to be created. If this doesn't illustrate the total lack of leadership from this President, I don't know what does.
In July 2011, General Electric Co. (GE) announced that it was moving its X-ray business headquarters, consisting of four executives, from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to Beijing, China, a move intended in part to help develop more medical equipment specifically for the Chinese market. GE did not announce that it was moving the X-ray division itself to China and stated that it did not expect the move to result in any job losses among the 120 employees currently employed at the General Electric X-ray unit based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. General Electric Co. said it is moving its X-ray business headquarters to China to accelerate sales in the country's fast-growing healthcare market, which is the latest sign of China's growing importance to the giant U.S. conglomerate. The X-ray unit will be the company's first business to be based in China. The business has already begun the move, which includes the unit's chief executive and three other members of its executive team, and expects to complete the process by year-end, said Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare Global X-Ray. The senior leadership team's move to Beijing is aimed in part at helping develop more medical equipment specifically for the Chinese market, Ms. LeGrand told a news briefing on Monday. GE stated it doesn't expect the move to result in any job losses in the U.S., where the unit has been based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin X-ray division has 120 employees. The company also mentioned that it is too early to determine how many employees it will hire for the unit's new Beijing headquarters. "As the company grows more global, it's increasingly important for us to become close to our customers," Ms. LeGrand said, adding that she expects 20% to 25% of GE Healthcare's X-ray products to be developed in China during the next three to five years for sale around the world. As China's market has boomed for a range of products, a small but growing number of companies have moved senior executives to the country or sent them for extended stints. Intel Corp. in May announced that Sean Maloney, one of its best-known senior executives, would move to China from Silicon Valley to oversee the chip giant's operations there. Bayer AG's unit, Bayer Healthcare, moved its general medicine headquarters from Germany to Beijing in March, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. of the U.S. temporarily relocated its headquarters to Shanghai for five weeks starting last month. GE has long placed high hopes on China, with CEO Jeffrey Immelt in 2008 calling it the company's "second home market." In January, the company finalized a deal with state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China to inject much of GE's civilian avionics business into a 50-50 joint venture based in China. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt is the chair of the 26-member President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He was appointed to that position by President Barack Obama in January 2011, six months prior to GE's announcement of its plans to establish an X-ray division headquarters in China. | 1 | [
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FMD1330 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Other than the wall and maybe the Muslim ban, the signature issue for Donald Trump the presidential candidate was repealing and replacing Obamacare, which he sold to his voters under the guise that it was about to implode this year, as a matter of fact.We are making great progress with healthcare. ObamaCare is imploding and will only get worse. Republicans coming together to get job done! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2017But while the Congressional Budget Office was scoring Trumpcare, and declared it a complete disaster which would result in tens of millions of people losing their health insurance, they completely put to bed the idea that Obamacare is about to implode.The paragraph isn t the easiest thing to read, especially if you have Donald Trump level reading skills, but here it is:Under current law, most subsidized enrollees purchasing health insurance coverage in the nongroup market are largely insulated from increases in premiums because their out-of-pocket payments for premiums are based on a percentage of their income; the government pays the difference. The subsidies to purchase coverage combined with the penalties paid by uninsured people stemming from the individual mandate are anticipated to cause sufficient demand for insurance by people with low health care expenditures for the market to be stable.Vox translated it this way:Translating from wonk-ese, the subsidies offered to lower-income people under ACA are scaled both to income and to the local price of health insurance. Which means that for heavily subsidized customers, the higher premiums don t drive people out of the marketplace. And there are enough young and healthy people who qualify for generous subsidies to ensure a stable long-term risk pool.Despite the report, Trump is still going along with the idea that Obamacare is set to implode. On Fox News on Monday, he said, It s a disaster if we let it go for another year, it ll totally implode. Here s that video:.@POTUS on #ObamaCare: It s a disaster. If we let it go for another year, it ll totally implode. pic.twitter.com/V0EmWafqHD Fox News (@FoxNews) March 13, 2017Really, that s not the least clever strategy in the world. If you tell people they are going to lose their healthcare anyway, they might be more amenable to eating the shit sandwich the GOP is trying to feed them in place of healthcare. We can t let the nation fall for it. Obamacare is not about to implode. We have time to make it better.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1331 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Recipient Email =>
Donald Trump grabbed a new lifeline. Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 15th, he raised a hand as if to take an oath and declared : “I am a victim!” The great business tycoon, the one and only man who could fix America and make the place great again (trust me, folks), was laying claim to martyrdom — and spinning another news cycle. “I am a victim,” he declared, “of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country. They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
“I am a victim.” That pathetic line echoed in my head, which is why I’m writing this. In my long life, I had seen a large white man stand up in a public arena and proclaim those words — the shrill, self-pitying complaint of the remorseless perpetrator — only once before. That was in a courtroom in lower Manhattan in 1988. The man was Joel Steinberg , a New York lawyer who, over a 12-year period, had brainwashed and beaten into oblivion a woman named Hedda Nussbaum, once a successful young editor of children’s books. In the early years of their relationship, she had run away several times, seeking help, and every time a doctor or friend had called Steinberg to come and get her. At that point — time and again — Steinberg would administer “punishment,” breaking her bones and her spirit. She took on what police would later describe as “a zombie-like quality.”
Some years earlier, a teenage girl had hired Steinberg to arrange an adoptive home for her baby. Instead he kept the child, Lisa, until one evening when she was six years old and “stared” at him in a way he didn’t like. He responded by striking her repeatedly in the head. After which he went out to dinner with his cocaine dealer, leaving the child unconscious on the floor. Nussbaum, by then so traumatized, so absent from anything like life, thought vaguely of calling a doctor, but she was not allowed to use the phone in Steinberg’s absence. Instead, she sat on the floor and watched over the girl as she lay dying.
On trial for the child’s murder, Steinberg blamed everyone but himself. “I’m the victim here,” he whined in court. He swore that he had “never hit anyone,” not anyone , even though he was known to have assaulted a business associate and three other women before he settled into the single-minded, single-handed demolition of Hedda Nussbaum.
Judge Harold Rothwax observed that Steinberg was “a man of extraordinary narcissism and self-involvement” who had “an extreme need to control everyone in his ambit” while he lived a “life of self-gratification.” Yet Steinberg could not see in himself the man Judge Rothwax described. He thought people should feel sorry for him. He had been disbarred and had lost a child (not to mention his Greenwich Village apartment). He railed at those who had conspired to bring him down: the police, the neighbors, the judge, the prosecutor, the expert medical witnesses, his defense attorney, the jurors, the press, and Hedda Nussbaum. “I’m the victim here,” he claimed.
At the time, nearly 30 years ago, the public blamed Hedda Nussbaum. The district attorney, the police, the doctors and psychiatrists who treated her intensively for more than a year before the trial all agreed that, on the evening in question, she was too physically and mentally “incapacitated” either to cause the girl’s injuries or take action to save her. Nonetheless, she was tried and condemned by the press and public opinion, including women who called themselves “feminists.” In court, the jurors were merciless. When they began to deliberate, only four thought Steinberg guilty of murder as charged, five were “in the middle,” and three held out for lesser charges, feeling certain that Hedda Nussbaum had somehow been responsible for killing the child.
They finally agreed upon a verdict of manslaughter. Even then, a woman juror assured the press that Nussbaum was “a very sick woman” who should have been charged and convicted of “some crime.” Another juror, also female, expressed popular opinion this way: “I just feel that she was to blame.” And a third woman juror, who claimed that “certain others” agreed with her, said, “Poor Joel. Joel’s a victim. We have to send a message to the system: ‘You don’t make victims out of nice men like Joel.’”
Judge Rothwax sentenced Steinberg to eight and a half to 25 years. Released after 17 years, Steinberg, now in his seventies, still claims to have done nothing hurtful to anyone. He has not paid a civil court-ordered settlement of $15 million to the birth mother of the dead child, nor has he ever been charged with any crime for what he did to Hedda Nussbaum.
Two lessons lurk in this story, one old and one very up to date. First, it’s a reminder of how much women at that time, even after a great wave of feminism, still blamed women (including themselves) for whatever happened to them at the hands of men; second, a man with a character like Steinberg’s is not the kind of guy you want to choose for high office — or any office at all.
Joel Steinberg stalked a far tinier stage than Donald Trump and he did more deadly damage, but the two men seem to be brothers under the skin, sharing common character defects well described in psychiatric texts: extreme narcissism, a taste for sexual predation, and very similar views of the women on whom they prey. Like Steinberg, who was incapable of seeing himself as the judge accurately described him, Trump seems blind to the real nature of his own behavior. (His current wife describes him as a “boy.”) Neither man seems capable of taking responsibility for the harm he’s done, and when their own actions finally call down retribution, branding them as losers — ah, then come the conspiracy theories and the vindictive wail of the victim.
Men Who Use Women
Last June, I published a piece at TomDispatch venturing to explain why candidate Donald J. Trump was getting “rock-bottom ratings” in the polls from women voters. Nearly 70% of them reportedly couldn’t stand the guy. I pointed out what seemed to me to be the obvious: “Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser.”
In a sworn deposition introduced in divorce proceedings , his first wife Ivana swore under oath that he had torn out her hair and forcibly raped her, raging at her because he didn’t like the results of a “scalp-reducing” procedure (meant to remove a bald patch) performed on him by a plastic surgeon she had recommended. (Before she collected a $14 million divorce settlement, she toned her story down, saying the assault was not “criminal.”)
About one in three American women are survivors of some version of such treatment, euphemistically called “ domestic abuse .” That’s roughly 65 million women voters who, as I wrote last June, “know a tyrant when they see one.” I raise this subject again because the now-infamous tape of Trump’s open-mic Hollywood Access bus ride in 2005 added a new page to the rap sheet of this particular abuser.
In that piece of mine, I traced the history of the principal tactics of coercion used by controlling men like Trump. Some of those tactics, including Steinberg’s favorites, involve physical force, but most, when used by a skilled abuser, require no force at all. Trump applies the handiest tools to his targeted victims regularly, leaving no physical marks behind: threats, intimidation, degradation, put-downs, humiliation, insults, trivial demands, occasional indulgences (a flash of charm, for example, or a bit of feigned reasonableness). The lesson is simple and clear: the mind can be bent and the spirit shattered without battering the body.
I neglected, however, to mention one of the most insidious tactics of such abusers, perhaps because it’s so obvious that it regularly hides in plain sight. In the military, it’s called “pulling rank.” High status is itself a powerful coercive force that can stifle resistance in a lower-status victim and so silence him or her. Status is Trump’s brandished weapon, his open carry. On this, he couldn’t have been clearer in boasting of his pussy-grabbing skills on that Hollywood Access tape : “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
The most chilling moments on that tape, however, occur after Trump emerges from the bus in all his orange splendor, followed by his escort Billy Bush — now a former NBC “personality” — who could be heard on that tape laughing as Trump recounted his compulsive assaults. Bush then greeted his television colleague Arianne Zucker, who like so many women on American TV was less fully clothed than the men around her, and whom Trump had been ogling from the bus while sucking Tic Tacs to freshen his potty mouth for a possible kissing attack. Billy Bush “asked” Ms. Zucker, “How about a little hug for The Donald?”
In that short bus trip across the parking lot, Bush had learned just what to do to get in good stead with his high-status guest, and so, without missing a beat, he threw his lower status co-worker to his peppermint-salivating pal. He then collected a hug from her, too, as Trump is heard exonerating himself with the bizarre remark, “Melania said this was okay.”
It hardly seemed to matter what Arianne Zucker wanted or believed to be okay. Billy Bush’s question wasn’t actually a question, but a notice of what was expected. Clearly, she wanted to keep her job and, just as clearly, hugging predatory, high-status stars and coworkers had never been part of her job description, but was a little instant add-on of coercion from her colleague.Setting the star power aside, all of this amounts to commonplace harassment in what appears to be a hostile workplace , and it just happens to be against the law.
One in three women between the ages of 18 and 24 say that they have been harassed at work . Yet 70% of all workers (woman and men) harassed on the job do not report the offense, often for fear of disbelief or reprisal. Think of all the women in television who were subjected to harassment and worse by Roger Ailes — the charges now reach back 50 years — fired at last by Fox News, only to become official media adviser to whom else but presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Some in the media glossed over Trump’s bragging as just so much “ lewd conversation ” — or as Trump himself put it “ locker room talk ”— while his wife Melania dismissed it as “ boy talk .” In fact, Trump’s unwanted kissing and groping — his self-described M.O. substantiated by one victim after another — can be classified in his home state (under New York Penal Law, Article 130 , Section 130.52: forcible touching) as a Class A misdemeanor. That may not sound serious, but it’s punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000 (chump change for The Donald) and a more sobering potential year behind bars.
It was that tape, all over the media on October 7th, that prompted Anderson Cooper during the second presidential debate to ask Trump three times if he had actually done the sort of things he described to Billy Bush, which Cooper correctly named “sexual assault.” Trump finally answered: “And I will tell you, no I have not” — and women who had lived for five, 10, 20, even 30 years with nagging memories of a Trump assault and humiliation had to restrain an immediate impulse to smash the TV set and instead called a news outlet or a lawyer.
As of this writing, more than a dozen women have gone public with reports of Trump’s sexual attacks since the release of that Hollywood Access tape. They join a list of women and girls who had previously reported offenses ranging from outright sexual assault to crashing dressing rooms at beauty contests where nude and semi-nude women and girls were preparing to compete for the titles of Miss Universe or Miss Teen America. That brings the number of Trump’s accusers , as I write, to at least 24. Journalists and lawyers have generally managed to verify their accounts.
Of course, Trump has repeatedly denied the women’s allegations, saying before, during, and ever since the third presidential debate that he had never seen those women before, had no idea who they were, found them insufficiently attractive to warrant his attention, and that their stories had, in any case, been debunked . None of his claims were true. (And, for good measure, he announced during his version of a Gettysburg Address that he would sue every one of them after the election was over.)
In my June post, I wrote:
“Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser — but with one additional twist… Trump has not confined his controlling tactics to his own home(s). For seven years, he practiced such tactics openly for all the world to see on The Apprentice , his very own reality show, and now applies them on a national stage, commanding constant attention while alternately insulting, cajoling, demeaning, embracing, patronizing, and verbally beating up anyone… who stands in the way of his coronation.”
In this fashion, he humiliated his male Republican primary opponents, demeaning them with nicknames — Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted, Low-Energy Jeb — and denigrated his only female primary opponent, Carly Fiorina, by unfavorably appraising her appearance. (“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”) More recently, of course, he’s disparaged “Crooked Hillary” in a similar fashion . (“Such a nasty woman!”)
Growing Up in America
Hillary Clinton, as Trump himself has acknowledged, is a fighter who will not quit — unperturbed even by his stalking her on stage throughout the second presidential debate and body-shaming her afterwards. “She walked in front of me,” he said of a moment in that debate when she crossed the stage to speak to a questioner in the audience. “Believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” In the third debate, she called him out directly on his behavior. “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,” she said. “He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like.”
Here was something new under the sun: a woman on a presidential debate stage calling out an insufferable man — a serial predator, at that — on behavior so common among men for so long that the vast majority of women in this country have experienced it and learned to call it “life.”
Some women still see it that way. The New York Times , for instance, interviewed a 62-year-old woman voting for Trump who said that other women offended by his “banter” should “ grow up .” I like to think that hers is a good description of what’s happening nationally at the moment, though obviously not in the fashion that she imagined. After all, grown-up women led the way, among congressional representatives, in calling Trump out. Republican Congresswomen Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Martha Roby of Alabama both asked him to withdraw from the race. Kay Granger of Texas, Mia Love of Utah, and Ann Wagner of Missouri said they could not vote for him. Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia withdrew their support. Susana Martinez, Republican governor of New Mexico, said she would not support Trump, while former Republican presidential candidate Fiorina said that Trump should step aside. Republican former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice wrote on her Facebook page: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw.”
Still, don’t expect a serial abuser to be a quitter either. Faced with accusations of abhorrent and criminal acts he can’t acknowledge, plus impending incomprehensible defeat at the polls, and the very real possibility of becoming one of those people he so despises — a loser — Trump casts about for others to blame. Given his character, it’s not surprising that he follows, as if by instinct, what we might call the Joel Steinberg path to self-exoneration — painting himself, and himself alone, as the ultimate innocent victim of abusive others in a world whose every aspect is “rigged” against him.
In his own telling, he, not the women he’s demeaned or assaulted, is the abused one and he’s taking it for us, for America. It’s quite a self-portrait when you think about it and should make us appreciate all the more those women who stepped before the cameras, reported his sexual assaults, and left themselves open to further abuse from Trump and his supporters. They have done something rare and brave. It’s one thing for a woman to say publicly that she has been sexually assaulted or battered or raped. Feminist speak-outs taught us decades ago to support our sisters by sharing our experience in this way. But it’s another thing to name the perpetrator and call him to account. That’s what these women have done. And wonder of wonders, most women and a whole lot of men believe them , and more than 60%, in the tepid language of the pollsters, “have some concerns” about the issue. Count that as a positive change of recent years — a light in dismal times.
On the dark side, you never know what a sore loser and his loyal, bullying, misogynist followers might do. Say, for example, followers of the type who show up outside Hillary rallies with banners reading “Trump that Bitch!” The moment the trial of Joel Steinberg ended, armed guards surrounded him and hustled him off to prison. Unfortunately, when this election is over, whether Trump wins or loses, he’s not likely to go away.
Ann Jones, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of several books on violence against women, including the feminist classic Women Who Kill and Next Time, She’ll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It , which Gloria Steinem calls “the one book you should read” on the subject. It includes a chapter on the Steinberg case. She is also the author of the Dispatch Books original , They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — The Untold Story . (Reprinted from TomDispatch by permission of author or representative) | 0 | [
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FMD1332 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: There are two things anyone with familiarity with Fox News host Sean Hannity learns quickly: He is one of the most unlikable people working in television and he is really, really sensitive about it.On Wednesday, Hannity managed to exemplify both of those traits when he learned that Politico reporter Marc Caputo quoted a Marco Rubio staffer as calling Hannity a f*cking a**hole. Rather than take the high road or, better yet, analyze his own actions to figure out why people despise him, Hannity did what comes naturally to him: He threw a very public, very embarrassing temper tantrum.Here s what Caputo said, quoted from an anonymous Rubio staffer, that set Hannity off: "But Marco gives Donald a taste of his own medicine and Hannity gets all offended. He's a pussy and a sellout." Boy, they're angry 2/2 Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) March 2, 2016Crass? Sure. Accurate? Definitely. It s no secret that Hannity has been a big fan of Donald Trump s since the very beginning. He once bragged that he encouraged Trump to get into the presidential race in 2012. He s been a major cheerleader ever since. In February, Trump was facing serious accusations about courting white supremacists so he booked a 30 minute softball interview with his friend Hannity and the issue never even came up. Instead, the two shared some laughs, complimented each other, and generally behaved as if it was a Trump 2016 infomercial paid for by Fox News.So when it came to defending his reputation against this charge of favoritism, Hannity simply ignored his indefensible actions and lashed out. Hilariously, Hannity didn t blame Rubio s campaign staffer so much as the reporter who relayed the message. On Twitter, the conservative pundit went a bit nuts.He tried I know you are, but what am I? Glad Politico let's u use such big words that accurately describes yourself asshole. And u r "impartial" to politics https://t.co/bCn2UL8wc0 Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 2, 2016He tried blaming it on liberals.Typical lib media, u missed my point. I always liked the REAL @marcorubio NOT THE GUY I SAW LAST NIGHT! https://t.co/BETSWuiZ49 Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 2, 2016Before finally landing on Do you know who I am?! Would love to play but I have 14 million radio listeners depending on me. Have fun with your 20,000 Twitter follows https://t.co/BETSWuiZ49 Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 2, 2016Sadly, this is not the first time Hannity has had a public meltdown after being stung by the fact that people don t like him. In 2014, Mediaite ran a survey asking several dozen cable news hosts from Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC what they felt about their fellow pundits. Hannity was overwhelmingly voted worst (even by his own co-workers). He didn t take it well.@TheMattWilstein Lets do the BEST OF MEDIAITE CONCHA. ALL THE REST OF U MEDIAMATTERS WANNABEES SUCK IMHO . #badge of honor Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) December 22, 2014And just like his latest tantrum, Hannity blamed the messenger. Mediaite didn t decide who the best of Fox News was, Fox News hosts did and they all said they didn t like Hannity. Likewise, Politico s Caputo didn t call Hannity a f*cking a**hole , Rubio s campaign did.Hannity may have 14 million radio listeners from the bitter clingin proud clingers set, but he gets absolutely no respect from his fellow media personalities. Even the peers at his own network see through his hack journalism and abrasive personality. And they have a right to be mad. Every time Sean Hannity runs a doe-eyed fluff piece on Trump, it reminds us that Fox News is shamelessly enabling Trump s rise to power. And when you are the guy with 14 million fans who is cheerleading a bigot like Trump, it makes you a f*cking a**hole.Featured image via Fox News screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD1333 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump has decided to name Kelly Craft, a major Republican fundraiser, to be ambassador to Canada as his administration prepares to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, an administration official said on Wednesday. | 1 | [
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FMD1334 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Videos More Than 1 Million ‘Check In’ On Facebook To Support The Standing Rock Sioux Most of the "visitors" are not actually at the protest camp in North Dakota, where the tribe and its supporters are gathering to oppose the pipeline. The planned route crosses the Missouri River just upstream of the reservation, and the tribe says it could contaminate drinking water and harm sacred lands. | November 2, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! A protesters is arrested by police near the Dakota Access pipeline at a construction site in North Dakota, Oct. 22, 2016. (Photo: YouTube)
More than 1 million people have “checked in” on Facebook to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation page , in a show of support for the tribe that has been rallying against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Most of the “visitors” are not actually at the protest camp in North Dakota, where the tribe and its supporters are gathering to oppose the pipeline. The planned route crosses the Missouri River just upstream of the reservation, and the tribe says it could contaminate drinking water and harm sacred lands. Facebook allows people to check in to places even if they are not physically present.
A broadly circulated rumor on social media over the weekend suggested that local police were using Facebook check-ins to track activists protesting the pipeline.
Activists then called for supporters of the protest to check-in en masse, in a move designed to confuse police.
“Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at Standing Rock, ND to overwhelm and confuse them,” one widely shared post said, according to The Guardian .
It’s not clear who started the rumor, but the response was immediate. “The number of check-ins at the Standing Rock reservation page went from 140,000 to more than 870,000 by Monday afternoon,” the Guardian reports. Now, that number stands at more than 1.5 million.
However, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a Facebook post Monday afternoon that it “does not follow Facebook check-ins for the protest camp or any location” and called the report “absolutely false.”
The demonstration of solidarity from these Facebook users comes days after “police and National Guard troops arrested more than 140 protesters near a construction site,” Inside Energy’s Amy Sisk reported on All Things Considered . On Friday, there were reports of police using pepper spray against protesters they removed from land owned by the pipeline company, as we reported .
Here’s more from our previous coverage:
“Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters have been protesting the pipeline since it was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the summer . They are specifically trying to block the portion that is slated to run under the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.”
“Earlier this month, the Standing Rock Sioux lost a bid in federal court to halt construction, paving the way for work on the $3.8 billion pipeline to continue, as we’ve reported . Almost immediately afterward, three U.S. agencies ‘announced a halt to work in one area significant to the tribe.'” | 0 | [
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FMD1335 | 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: Handgun Safety and Registration Act Claim summaries: Would a pending Senate bill require that all handgun owners list their guns on federal income tax returns?
contextual information: Claim: A bill currently before Congress would require that all handgun owners list their guns on federal income tax returns. Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2009] Senate Bill SB-2099 will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own. It may requirefingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun. This bill was introduced on Feb. 24. This bill will become public knowledge 30 days after it is voted into law. This is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Act of 1986. This means that the Finance Committee can pass this without the Senate voting on it at all. The full text of the proposed amendment is on the U.S. Senate homepage, https://www.senate.gov/ You can find the bill by doing a search by the bill number, SB-2099. Variations: An August 2009 version of the Handgun Safety and Registration Act e-mail combined it with the Blair Holt e-mail that truthfully claims a bill before Congress would prohibit ownership of handguns by those who have not obtained firearms licenses. ownership Origins: The item quoted above about a pending Congressional bill requiring gun owners to list their guns on federal income tax is both outdated and contains a good deal of misinformation. The referenced bill, SB 2099 (the Handgun Safety and Registration Act) is not currently before Congress it was introduced to the Senate back in February 2000 (not 2009), and it was referred to the Committee on Finance, where it languished without ever coming to a vote. It also had no provisions for requiring handgun owners to list their guns on federal income tax returns. The issue back in 2000 was Senate Bill 2099, introduced in February of that year by Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. S. 2099 was titled the "Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000" and sought "to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require the registration of handguns, and for other purposes." Senate Bill 2099 Jack Reed The National Firearms Act of 1934 established (among other things) a tax on both the manufacture and the transfer of firearms, required that each person who transfers a firearm file an application National Firearms Act (complete with photograph and fingerprints) with the internal revenue authorities, and authorized the creation of "a central registry of all firearms in the United States which are not in the possession or under the control of the United States." However, the definition of "firearm" used by the 1934 act did not include standard rifles, shotguns, or handguns. It applied only to specialized weapons such as short-barrelled rifles and shotguns, machine guns, silencers, and other "destructive devices" (e.g., grenades, bombs, rockets, missiles, mines). S. 2099 would have expanded the definition of "firearm" to include handguns, thus subjecting them to these requirements as well. The upshot of the Handgun Safety and Registration Act, if passed, would have been the imposition of a $50 tax on the manufacture of all handguns, a requirement that all gun owners register their handguns within one year of the Act's passage (but not, as claimed, list them on their federal income tax returns), and the provision that registration information be made available to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. In practical terms, every handgun owner would have had to obtain a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms registration form and an FBI fingerprint form, then complete and submit both forms (along with a 2x2 of himself and a $5 payment) to the BATF. That the intent of this bill was to effect nationwide registration of handguns is unmistakable. As stated in apress release about Senator Reed's bill: press release The bill would require registration of all handguns, including those currently in private possession, and would make it a felony for any person to transfer a handgun to another individual without prior law enforcement approval. Background checks would be performed on all primary and secondary transfers of handguns, including retail sales, gun shows, Internet sales and all private sales. The claim that this bill could have been passed into law without Congress voting upon it was not true: The Handgun Safety and Registration Act, like any other Congressional bill, would have had to be passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President (or passed again over his veto) in order to become law. Furthermore, the $50 tax specified in the bill would have applied only to gun manufacturers, not gun owners. As noted above, the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000 languished in committee without ever being brought to a vote, and even Senator Reed himself said at the time he submitted the bill that he was not optimistic about its chances of success: I am under no illusion that this legislation will be approved by this Congress or next Congress ... But we must begin the process to create a law that Americans overwhelmingly believe is necessary. Additional information: Misleading E-mail (gunregistration.org) Last updated: 13 August 2009 | 0 | [
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FMD1336 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: ISTANBUL — The Turkish government on Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15, 000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets. More than 100, 000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what the authorities said were connections to a failed coup on July 15 or to terrorists. The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years. Mr. Erdogan has been defiant, saying it was time that the European Union made up its mind on Turkey’s membership, and threatening to hold a nationwide referendum on whether to continue the talks. A recent European Commission report expressed concern that Turkey’s worsening record on human rights and press freedom was making accession increasingly difficult. The Turkish president has advocated bringing back the death penalty, which is banned in European Union countries as a condition of membership, and he has ordered a thorough crackdown on the country’s news media, with 129 outlets now closed. Human rights advocates have also been alarmed by a measure, favored by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, to declare an amnesty for an estimated 3, 000 to 4, 000 men convicted of child abuse and rape, provided they have married their victims. The measure, which applies to what it calls “consensual†cases of child marriage, was scheduled to be debated on Tuesday in the Turkish Parliament, but it was instead returned to committee, forestalling an immediate vote. The legislation has infuriated women’s groups in Turkey and has drawn criticism from United Nations agencies. On Monday, a delegation of socialist members of the European Parliament was rebuffed in its attempt to visit Selahattin Demirtas, the jailed leader of Turkey’s leading opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, at the prison where he has been held in Edirne, in the country’s northwest. Mr. Demirtas is among 10 members of Parliament from that party who have been detained this month over alleged connections with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by the initials P. K. K. which the government considers a terrorist organization. The government has also deemed followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen to be terrorists, blaming them for the attempted coup. A government decree on Tuesday said that 375 groups from various cities had been ordered shut down for what it said were links with terrorists, along with nine news outlets. All the financial assets and property of those organizations were to be seized by the Treasury. The decree said that more than 15, 000 public employees were to be dismissed, including 338 soldiers, 404 military police officers and more than 7, 500 police officers. All of their passports were canceled, it added. The decree stated that all of them were “related, belonging to or in contact with terror organizations and structures that are considered by the National Security Council as acting against national security. †The decree was issued under emergency powers granted to Mr. Erdogan’s government by Parliament after the failed coup. Parliament extended those powers on Oct. 11 for an additional three months. Members of the European Parliament have been strongly critical of Turkey’s crackdown on opponents and on the news media. After debating the issue in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday, they are expected to vote on Thursday to put a temporary halt to accession talks with Turkey. The vote is designed to ratchet up pressure on Turkey to curtail its repressive tactics. Although the resolution already has the backing of the main political groups in the European Parliament, the vote will not be binding because of the European Union’s complicated procedures. Any decision to freeze the talks must be made by other branches of the union. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, or of European Union member states would first need to make a formal proposal to do so, and a majority of the member states would have to vote in favor of the move for it to pass. Many of the Turkish organizations shut down on Tuesday were charities or professional bodies, such as a nationwide group called Our Agenda Is Kids, based in the capital, Ankara the Endoscopy and Laparoscopy Training Association and the Pancreatic Islet Cell Research Association. Some of the organizations had connections to leftist groups or to followers of Mr. Gulen, but others seemed to have no political links at all. | 1 | [
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FMD1337 | 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: Mitt Romney 'Money' Shirts Claim summaries: Photograph shows Mitt Romney posing with children whose shirts spell out the word 'MONEY'?
contextual information: Claim: The photograph shows Mitt Romney posing with children whose shirts spell out the word "MONEY." Example: [Collected via e-mail, February 2012] I've seen this image floating around Facebook for about two weeks now. I was wondering if this is the result of photo manipulation or if it was an honest mistake (or perhaps an intentional joke on the part of the Romney family). I can't trace the origin of this image. Origins: Former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has a net worth estimated (in his own words) to be "between $150 and about $200-and-some-odd million dollars," making him one of the wealthiest U.S. presidential candidates of recent years. (CNBC rated his net worth third on their list of "10 Richest US Presidential Candidates," behind Steve Forbes and Ross Perot.) Mitt Romney's financial assets, along with various finance-related comments the candidate has made during the 2012 presidential campaign, have often been the focus of political criticism, with detractors such as Republican opponent Newt Gingrich terming the former Massachusetts governor a "'rich guy' incapable of connecting with working-class Americans." The photograph displayed above plays on that image of a wealthy, unsympathetic candidate, supposedly showing Mitt Romney being so crass as to pose with a group of children (not his own; Mitt and Ann Romney have five adult sons) wearing shirts that spell out the word 'MONEY' against the backdrop of an American flag. In fact, this picture is a digitally manipulated rearrangement of an Associated Press photograph showcasing the Romney campaign logo, with the young woman on the left wearing a shirt that bears the stylized red-white-and-blue 'R' of that logo, and the rest of the children's shirts spelling out the remainder of the candidate's surname. The original AP photograph and caption were as follows: original Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, poses for a photo with the Fisher family backstage prior to a campaign rally in Elko, Nev., on Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. Campaigning throughout Nevada on Friday, Romney sought to convince weary voters that he alone had the prescriptions for what ails the country, even as the government reported that a quarter-million Americans streamed back into the workforce in January. Last updated: 6 March 2012. | 0 | [
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FMD1338 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: We ve heard it all before He was such a good boy this has nothing to do with his Muslim faith. Never mind that he called 9-11 just before the attack and declared his allegiance to ISIS. The gunman who slaughtered at least 50 people after taking party-goers hostage inside a gay club in Orlando had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, according to California congressman Adam Schiff.Schiff, who serves as top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN: What I ve heard from the Department of Homeland Security this morning is that, according to local police, he made a pledge of allegiance to ISIL (ISIS). He said the shooting was highly indicative of an ISIL-inspired attack .Schiff added: [He] was heard praying in a foreign language and I don t know if this was at some point during the course of the shooting but that s what I m hearing, obviously second hand, coming ultimately from local police. Mateen also called 911 shortly before the shooting and swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, law enforcement officials told NBC News.Law enforcement sources have identified the shooter, who was wielding an AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun, as US citizen Omar Mateen, 29, from Port St. Lucie in Florida.The gunman, who was born to Afghan parents, opened fire on the dance floor inside Pulse night club in the early hours of this morning.At least 50 people were killed and 53 others were injured in the shooting in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.An FBI spokesman said the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, adding that they are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf.Schiff said in a statement: This attack is so painfully reminiscent of the terrible attack at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris, and other ISIS-inspired attacks in recent years. The fact that this shooting took place during Ramadan and that ISIS leadership in Raqqa has been urging attacks during this time, that the target was an LGBT night club during Pride, and if accurate that according to local law enforcement the shooter declared his allegiance to ISIS, indicates an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism. Whether this attack was also ISIS-directed, remains to be determined. But Mateen s father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News his son became angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami several months ago. This has nothing to do with religion, he said. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that . And then we were in the men s bathroom and men were kissing each other. Seddique said Mateen had a job in security and attended Indian River State College, as well as having an associates degree in criminal justice.He was a known quantity to the FBI and was investigated twice before the mass shooting. A senior law enforcement source told the Daily Beast that Mateen was a person of interest both in 2013 and again in 2014.An investigation was opened into the 29-year-old, but the case was closed when no evidence appeared to warrant further probing. He s a known quantity, the source said. He s been on the radar before. Writing on Facebook, Pulse, which described itself as the most prominent gay club in Orlando, urged party-goers to get out and keep running as bullets started flying at around 2am local time.Orlando Police Chief John Mina said the suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the club around 2am, then went back inside and took hostages. There were about 320 people inside the club at the time of the shootings and about 100 people were taken hostage.At around 5am authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages. Nine hero officers used a controlled explosion to distract the shooter before fatally shooting him and were able to rescue about 30 hostages who were hiding in the bathroom of the club.Heartbreaking texts were sent to this victims mother:Here are two additional texts that were sent to Mina Justice by her 30 year old son Eddie:A distraught mother is desperately looking for her son:During the gunfire, an officer was shot, but he was saved by his helmet. It was thought that at least one hostage had been locked in a bathroom with gunshot wounds.Watch here:Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a press conference: Many were saved by the heroic efforts of the men and women of the OPD, the Orange County Sheriffs, Seminal County Sheriff s office. At around 6am local time police tweeted: Pulse Shooting: The shooter inside the club is dead. Twitter accounts which claim to be affiliated to the Islamic State have hailed the shooting, although DailyMail.com cannot confirm whether the terror group was behind the attack.U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson identified the shooter as Mateen, citing law enforcement officials in speaking to reporters.Mateen, a Muslim and father to a three-year-old son, was born in 1986 in New York and married Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, who was born in Uzbekistan, in 2009.His father told NBC News: We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry.Via: Daily Mail | 0 | [
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FMD1339 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: We Are Change
A month ago, this writer told you about an ongoing conflict within the FBI that was validated by online and personal sources concerning the outcome of the Clinton investigation. Now it’s been revealed that the FBI has been flooded with resignations letters by disenfranchised agents ever since Comey decided last July not to indict Hillary Clinton. Comey’s now attempting to save face has reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server claiming that the FBI has now found an additional 650,000 email messages on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, ten thousand of which were found were in a folder called “Life Insurance.” Things are boiling up for the Clinton campaign, what an October surprise!
10,000 new emails found on Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner's computer and phones. They were in a file marked "Life Insurance". #Corruption
— Morgan Brittany (@MorganBrittany4) October 29, 2016
Weiner is under investigation for sending sexually explicit pictures and material to a 15 year old girl and it drags Hillary’s campaign and chances of presidency with it..
Huma Mahmood Abedin, recently divorced from Weiner, has worked with Hillary Clinton since 1996, where she began as a white-house intern She quickly grew her political career to the position of vice chairman of the Hillary campaign.
What could be found on Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s laptop?
A source has a guess at what may potentially be found on Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s computer: Huma’s long-speculated ties to the Muslim Brotherhood , something that U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann asserted in 2012 when she accused Huma Abedin of being a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood . Bachmann then said during a live broadcast interview that “the infiltration of our government is much wider than anyone expected.”
“It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Bachmann stated during a radio interview. “It appears that there are individuals who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood who have positions, very sensitive positions, in our Department of Justice, our Department of Homeland Security, potentially even in the National Intelligence Agency.”
~U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, said.
Huma actually hasn’t been shy about her potential connection to the brotherhood, earlier in 2016 she confirmed that her Muslim Brotherhood-connected mother Saleha Mahmoud Abedin was proud of her .
Saleha Mahmoud Abedin was identified in 2011 as one of 63 suspected leaders inside the Muslim Sisterhood.
Well we are about to truly find out what was on the laptop of Huma Abedin as the FBI as of Sunday filed for the warrant needed to begin looking through the emails.
Again my source asserts that, “Huma Abedin was copying emails and printing them and she was labeled a threat by the FBI in it’s own report about the Clinton investigation.”
Huma herself said in an interview this week with a podcast that she has yet to read the emails she exchanged with her longtime boss, Hillary Clinton, but that she is “mortified” by what may be in them.
“Terrifying,” is how Abedin described the existence of the records in the public domain during an interview on the “Call Your Girlfriend” podcast.
“I confess I have not read anything that has become public,” Abedin, said.
Comey has jumped on this chance to right his wrongs, seizing an opportunity to save his own career and reputation as well as the FBI’s reputation which, according to a source, has been tarnished. Agents are not happy about the outcome and conduct of the former Director, including some agents that have decided enough is enough and are resigning in droves .
The FBI director has been embroiled in an inside fight against his own agents worried about internal leaks. Comey said it himself in his reasoning for announcing the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation.
Ex-FBI Assistant Director of New York, James Kallstrom weighed in on Comey’s actions calling the Clintons a crime family . Kallstrom also acknowledged the fact that agents were rebelling within the ranks including senior agents.
“The agents are furious with what’s going on, I know that for a fact,”
‘The Clintons, that’s a crime family. It’s like organized crime, basically. The Clinton Foundation is a cesspool,”
~former FBI, assistant director, James Kallstrom , said.
Kallstrom additionally told Fox’s Judge Jeanine Pirro, “I think there is something happening, I think something big is going to happen,” when confronted with the question on why Comey chose 2 weeks before the election to announce the re-opening of an investigation, politicizing the investigation.
Kallstrom made sure to not leave out that it was the higher power of the FBI to blame and not the field agents who were involved in the overall investigation into the Clintons server.
Meanwhile several FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys are busy investigating and collecting evidence on the Clinton Fraudation. The investigation backed by none other then the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, who is also investigating Anthony Weiner, who authorized the warrants for the devices to be seized. That means that Preet Bharara is behind both cases on the Clintons – the investigation into the Clinton Fraudation , in which Bharara is leading NY, DC, and Texas branches of the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton’s long time fraud vehicle the “Clinton Foundation”. The Clinton Fraudation investigation was started when Terry Mccauflife was linked to the Clintons and the Chinese mob .
Wikileaks has proven that the Clinton foundation is basically a large money-laundering operation sprinkled with a bit of fraud thanks to Doug Band. Although hacked documents can’t be used for prosecution the new Wiener emails may be identical copies of Huma’s emails that have been leaked in Wikileaks releases, and if it’s true that she printed out copies she could face charges. Additionally there may be evidence of pay-to-play in Huma’s emails as well as fraud, or potentially her ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. We will have to wait to see; stay tuned to WeAreChange for your coverage and analysis of the most eventful election cycle in American history. If what the birds are chirping is true. Is there anything that won’t happen in this election?
#WikiLeaks : Clinton aide details $50M in payments for @BillClinton and how business was mingled with the @ClintonFdn https://t.co/0jhYJkDT0x
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) October 27, 2016
Judge Jeanine : “So he wouldn’t have come out unless he knew it was coming out?”
James Kallstrom: “ Well, I think he couldn’t hold onto it any longer. OK. Because who knows? Maybe the locals would have stepped in on this.”
Judge Jeanine: ” …I think he had to do it.”
The post FBI Rebels, Huma Abedin “Insurance File” Found On Seized Laptop 10,000 EMAILS appeared first on We Are Change . | 0 | [
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FMD1340 | 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 Debt Free America Act, also known as H.R. 4646, aims to eliminate the national debt. Claim summaries: Is the Obama administration proposing a 1% tax on debit card usage and/or banking transactions?
contextual information: Claim: The Obama administration is proposing a 1% tax on debit card usage and/or banking transactions. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, July 2010] The Transaction Tax! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??President Obama's finance team and Nancy Pelosi are recommending a 1% transaction tax on all financial transactions.The bill is HR-4646 introduced by US Rep Peter deFazio D-Oregon and US Senator Tom Harkin D-Iowa.Their plan is to sneak it in after the November election to keep it under the radar.See what Nancy has to say about this wonderful idea!https://tinyurl.com/24dn5udIt's only 1%! This is a 1% tax on all transactions to or from any financial institution i.e. Banks, Credit Unions, Mutual funds, Brokers, etc.Any deposit you make will have a 1% tax charged.Any withdrawal you make, 1% tax.Any transfer within your account, a transfer to or from savings and checking, will have a 1% tax charged.Any ATM transaction, withdrawal or deposit, 1% tax.If your pay check or your Social Security is direct deposited, 1% tax.If you carry a check to your bank to deposit, 1% tax.If you take cash in to deposit, 1% tax.If you receive any income from a bond or a dividend from stock, 1% tax.Any Real Estate Transaction, 1% tax.This is from the man who promised that if you make under $250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax! Remember, he is completely honest and trustworthy.Keep your eyes and ears open. https://tinyurl.com/24dn5ud Folks, Nancy says this would be a minimal tax on the people, but 1 percent every time you pay a bill or make a deposit is not minimal. This would no doubt tax investment transactions as well as bank account transactions.This woman is nuts!!!If you know someone in California get this to them! While at the checkout of Wal-mart in Greeneville, TN I heard that in the future the government may be planning to place a 1% tax on people using debit cards at the check out. I have heard discussion and seen on emails the fear that the Obama administration is going to pass a 'banking tax' that will take 1% of each deposit and 1% of every transaction out of a bank account. Summary: The Obama administration has not proposed or recommended placing a 1% tax on all financial transactions. The idea of the 1% transaction tax stemmed from a bill repeatedly introduced by a single congressman which had no support from any other member of Congress and no chance of passing. Origins: Some members of Congress have what might be termed "hobby horse" issues: concepts about which they introduce legislation in Congress after Congress although their bills not only never come close to passing, but never even clear committee to be put to votes in the first place. The hobby horse of Representative Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania is the notion of eliminating all federal taxes on individuals and corporations and replacing them with a revenue-generating system based on transaction fees (a concept he originally called the "Transform America Transaction Fee" and later referred to as the "Debt Free America Act"). Chaka Fattah Transform America Transaction Fee In 2004 Rep. Fattah presented a bill calling on Congress to fund a study regarding the replacement of the federal tax code with a transaction fee-basedsystem (H.R. 3759), he introduced a similar bill in 2005 (H.R. 1601), again in 2007 (H.R. 2130), and again in 2009 (H.R. 1703). None of these bills was ever put to a vote, and only one of them had so much as a single co-sponsor. H.R. 3759 H.R. 1601 (H.R. 2130), (H.R. 1703) In 2010, Rep. Fattah moved beyond proposing studies and submitted the Debt Free America Act (H.R. 4646), a bill calling for the implementation of a scheme to pay down the national debt and eliminate federal income tax on individuals by imposing a 1% fee on specified financial transactions: H.R. 4646 pay down One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February [2010] by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His "Debt Free America Act" (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent "transaction tax" on every financial transaction whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal. Specifically, the text of the bill stated that: The purpose of [the transaction fee] is to establish a fee on most transactions. Such [a] fee: is different than a sales tax in that a sales tax is charged only on sales to the final consumer, [while] the transaction fee would apply to intermediate users as well as end users is different than a value added tax (VAT), commonly used in European and other countries, in that a VAT is imposed only on a portion of a transaction's value (roughly the difference between an item's selling price and its cost), [while] the transaction fee would apply to the entire amount of the transaction is intended to raise sufficient revenue to eliminate the national debt, which was $10.6 trillion in January 2009, during a period of 7 years, and to phase out the income tax on individuals. [This bill would] impose on every specified transaction a fee in an amount equal to 1 percent of the amount of such transaction. The term 'specified transaction' means any transaction that uses a payment instrument, including any check, cash, credit card, transfer of stock, bonds, or other financial instrument. The term 'transaction' includes retail and wholesale sales, purchases of intermediate goods, and financial and intangible transactions. Persons become liable for the fee at the moment the person exercises control over a piece of property or service, regardless of the payment method. (The bill provided for individuals earning $125,000 or less to receive a credit equal to 1% of their income against the tax, and it gave the Treasury Department discretion to exempt certain transactions on which lower-income people disproportionately relied.) Like Rep. Fattah's other Congressional efforts along these lines, his Debt Free America Act had no sponsors other than himself, languished in committee after being introduced, had no realistic chance of being passed. Thus, although e-mailed warnings about a "1% transaction tax" do reference a once-real piece of proposed legislation, the amount of attention those warnings garnered vastly, vastly outstripped any real possibility that such legislation would actually be enacted. Moreover, some of the additional details contained with such e-mailed warnings were erroneous: Neither "President Obama's finance team" nor Nancy Pelosi is "recommending a 1% transaction tax." The proposal for the Debt Free America Act was purely the effort of a single congressman, with no outside support. Neither Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon nor Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa introduced the Debt Free America Act, co-sponsored it, or publicly supported it. The included link that supposedly showed Nancy Pelosi endorsing the Debt Free America Act antedated the introduction of that bill to Congress; her comments actually referred to a different, earlier transaction tax proposed in December 2009 by Rep. Peter DeFazio. That bill, known as the "Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act" (H.R. 4191), called for the funding of investment in middle class jobs by levying small percentage value taxes on the buying and selling of stocks, futures, swaps, options and other securities. (Although Rep. DeFazio's bill had 31 co-sponsors, it too languished in committee without being brought to a vote.) proposed H.R. 4191 Later versions of this item opened with the statement that "ON JANUARY 1ST 2012, THE GOVERNMENT IS REQUIRING EVERYONE TO HAVE DIRECT DEPOSIT FOR SS CHECKS. WONDER WHY?" The Social Security program did switch over to an electronic payments system as of 1 March 2013 that provided recipients with the options of receiving their benefits payments either through direct deposit to a bank account or via the reloading of a debit card, but that change had nothing to do with the Congressional bill discussed above. Rep. Fattah reintroduced his Debt Free America Act (as H.R. 1125) to the 112th Congress on 16 March 2011. Like Rep. Fattah's previous efforts along these lines, Govtrack.us tagged it with the prognosis "This bill has a 0% chance of being enacted." H.R. 1125 Govtrack.us Last updated: 22 October 2013 | 2 | [
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FMD1341 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump s treatment of journalists is so bad that the Reuters news agency is now advising reporters to treat Trump like they would treat a foreign dictator.On Tuesday, Trump and his team announced that they will no longer send surrogates to appear on CNN, an escalation of the war Trump has been waging against the news network, which he calls fake news because they won t promote his agenda.Trump has even praised Fox New s biased reporting as something CNN should copy.Furthermore, Trump and his team have repeatedly threatened and tried to intimidate journalists for doing their jobs just because they aren t writing puff pieces that kiss Trump s ass.Well, Reuters is doing something about it.For 165 years, Reuters has been bringing us news from around the world. They ve been in the most peaceful and democratic places, but they ve also been in war zones and reported on the most dangerous and tyrannical regimes in world history.In a message to staff on Tuesday, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler advised his reporters to start dealing with Trump the way they have dealt with brutal dictators in the past. It s not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists among the most dishonest human beings on earth or that his chief strategist dubs the media the opposition party, Adler wrote. It s hardly surprising that the air is thick with questions and theories about how to cover the new Administration. Adler then revealed his solution for how reporters should handle Trump.So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world.To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers.We don t know yet how sharp the Trump administration s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere.If Donald Trump thinks his relationship with the media is going to get better because he attacks them, he should think again. Reuters is coming for him and he should be scared, especially if other news organizations follow their example.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1342 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Unless the Democrats can figure out a way to effectively steal the vote from millions, we predict Trump will win in a landslide election. Despite what the media would like Americans to believe, Hillary will be lucky to have Chelsea vote for her in November NEW YORK CITY, New York Meet the Trumpocrats, or so the sizable collection of lifelong Democrats breaking with their party because of their disgust with nominee for president Hillary Rodham Clinton and supporting instead Republican nominee Donald J. Trump call themselves.Christian Rickers, the Virginia-based executive director of the Trumpocrats PAC a Super PAC designed to help his like-minded lifelong Democrats abandon the sinking Democratic ship due to Hillary Clinton s nomination and join the Trump movement walked Breitbart News through why he is leading the effort among Democrats who support Trump for president.Rickers argument centers on trade policy, and Trump s ardent opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that Clinton supported publicly more than 40 times but now claims she opposes. He points back to Bill Clinton s backing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from his time as president, and Rickers says Democrats everywhere should be terrified of how much further Hillary Clinton would go if she s elected president.Rickers said in a phone interview:Rickers said in a phone interview:I m a lifelong Democrat, really since I was a little kid, and I still am a Democrat. But the Clintons for instance, where I am from, my hometown, when I was a kid we had 15 manufacturing plants and we now have one. Nobody does anything there anymore, and that s the same thing happening in a lot of small towns across the country really. The Clintons are really the cause of this, the cause of manufacturing going overseas with NAFTA and the trade deals and all of that. Donald Trump, he says a lot of crazy sh*t, but the one thing that he does say, that he really does want to do something about that and that he wants to protect our people with better trade policies and new trade policies.On the Trumpocrats PAC website is a video of David Muscat Saunders, another lifelong Democrat, talking with Fox News. Breitbart | 0 | [
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FMD1343 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Here are a few facts explaining who the DACA recipients really are. The National UnDACAmented Research Project was compiled by Harvard University researcher Roberto G. Gonzales and published by the Center For Immigration Studies (CIS):In April 2016, the Washington Times reported that a massive anti-deportation infrastructure had emerged to try to protect illegal immigrants from President Trump s crackdown, with advocacy groups coaching potential deportees on how to massage encounters with police, and lawyers and judges working to shield them from charges that would make them priorities for deportation.A video released Monday by a coalition of advocates instructs illegal immigrants not to open the door to federal agents, what proof to demand if they are being arrested and what to say if accosted outside their homes.Meanwhile, attorneys are working to lower charges from some illegal immigrant criminals, hoping to blunt their crimes so they don t show up as high-priority deportation targets.The Washington Times reported on a recent case in California, where an immigrant from India was accused of abusing his wife. The Santa Clara prosecutor told The Daily Beast that he reduced a felony assault charge to a felony accessory after the fact charge in order to spare the man a sentence that would have made him a deportation risk.IJR- The same day that President Donald Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) held a joint press conference in which they reintroduced legislation that would see Congress tackling many of the issues that DACA comprises. What Senator Graham and I want to deliver is the message today, is that we need to do our job right here in the United States Senate, Durbin said. We need to pass, in this month of September, a DREAM Act, a permanent law in this country, that says that these young people will have their chance to become part of America s future. The DREAM Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act has been circling Congress for more than a decade, having first been introduced by Durbin and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in 2001. The legislation has failed to pass each time it has been introduced.Durbin then took a moment to speak directly to the DREAMers, saying, Do not give up hope. If you are one of those DREAMers, Durbin continued, one of those protected by DACA, you need to be part of America in its future. We made a promise to you that if you gave this information to our government about you and your family, it wouldn t be used against you. I don t want that to ever happen. Durbin then turned over the podium to Graham, who said right out of the gate, speaking to the DACA participants, you have done nothing wrong. You ve demonstrated your ability to be beneficial to the country now and in the future, Graham said. The only thing that stands between you and certainty in your life is the Congress. That cannot be that reassuring. Congress is going to have to up its game, Graham opined. | 0 | [
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FMD1344 | 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 IRS Seizing Innocent Americans' Bank Accounts? 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 not new or exclusive to the IRS. Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] I 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. Despite the problems this has caused individuals, the IRS seems relatively unconcerned, except that they want to collect money for whatever reasons. Is this true? Does the IRS have the right to take the money of American citizens from their accounts? Are they acting as a collections agency for the government now? I found this article a tad disturbing, to say the least. Thank you for any 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 numerous conversations about the laws surrounding the confiscation of assets under related laws. Then, on 25 October 2014, the New York Times reported that 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, which contained 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 ordinary 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, leaving the owners to prove their innocence. 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: "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 IRS." 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: "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, IRS-CI 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 (DFO) level. While the act of structuring—whether the funds are from a legal or illegal source—is against the law, IRS-CI special agents will use this act as an indicator that further illegal activity may be occurring. This policy update will ensure that CI continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with CI'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. | 0 | [
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FMD1345 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: An angry black, gay, racist, Democrat victim the poster child for today s progressive in America Gay Black reporter Vester Flanagan was an Angry Barack Obama Democrat. ** He was reprimanded for wearing a Barack Obama sticker at work. ** He had his racial suits tossed from court ** He was a high paid companion ** He attempted to subpoena personnel records on both of his victimsThen he shot them dead Killer Vester Flanagan was a big Obama supporter.The Huffington Post reported:Vester Lee Flanagan, the man suspected of killing two Virginia television reporters Wednesday morning, attempted to subpoena personnel records on both of those victims, as well as other staff members, as part of a lawsuit against the TV station.Flanagan s lawsuit, filed in the Roanoke City General District Court in March 2014, requested $25,000 from WDBJ, the station, which had terminated his employment the previous year. The suit cited wrongful termination, unpaid overtime wages, racial discrimination and sexual harassment for identifying as gay. The case was dismissed due to lack of evidence, although it s unclear whether a settlement was reached.According to an internal memo included in the court documents, after Flanagan was presented with a severance letter in February 2013, he said, You better call police because I m going to make a big stink. A newsroom employee called 911, and police officers arrived to physically escort Flanagan from the building.Memos indicate that Ward videotaped Flanagan as he was escorted out. Flanagan told Ward to lose your big gut, and flipped off the camera.WDBJ objected to Flanagan s request for employee documents, claiming the personnel records were proprietary information and irrelevant to his claims.The court filings also include Flanagan s application for employment at WDBJ and his resume, in which he reported graduating from San Francisco State University with a 3.7 grade point average and his affiliation with the National Association of Black Journalists.Flanagan was offered a position with WDBJ on March 6, 2012, as a multimedia journalist/general assignment reporter with an annual salary of $36,000. However, he quickly racked up a misconduct record during his year of employment.In a performance review in August 2012, Flanagan was given a 1, the lowest rating, for being respectful to coworkers at all times, but a 4 for work diligence and attendance. He was written up in November 2012 for wearing a Barack Obama sticker.By the end of that year, his supervisor was expressing dissatisfaction with the quality of Flanagan s work, as well as his attitude towards his co-workers. Dan Dennison, the station s news director at the time, cited a story in which Flanagan reported on a local church s response to the mass shooting at Newtown, Connecticut. Via: Gateway Pundit | 0 | [
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FMD1346 | 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 at the state level we're spending more on tax expenditures than we are on public safety, health care and education combined.
contextual information: Jefferson Smith has his sights set on the Portland mayor's office, but state issues seem to arise in his campaign. It's little wonder, given that he has represented Portland in the Oregon House since 2009. One fact he has taken to repeating—first during a candidates' forum hosted by Family Forward Oregon and Mother PAC, and later during a Rotary Club meeting—is that at the state level, we're spending more on tax expenditures than we are on public safety, health care, and education combined. Tax expenditures is government-speak for what most of us call tax breaks. "I think we should think about money beyond tax breaks," he said just before making his claim. "That is a handy tool. But it is a tool we've been using for years and years and years." Sure, tax breaks come in many different shapes and sizes—seniors can deduct medical expenses, and businesses can receive breaks for green building improvements—but could they really outweigh the amount the state spends on some of its core programs? We began to investigate. Smith's campaign wasn't very helpful—staffers had no source for his claim, and his spokeswoman, Stacey Dycus, told us the idea was a random remark he made while explaining something. We were on our own. Thankfully, we know our way around the state budget. Our first stop was the state's 2011-2013 tax expenditure report. The report clearly lays out the amount of tax expenditures—or breaks—for the current biennium. All told, the state gives about $12 billion in income tax breaks, $19 billion in property tax breaks, and just over $100 million in others, for a grand total of $31.3 billion in forgone revenues. Getting those figures was the easy part—the hard part was figuring out what to compare them to. The state's budget can be divided and analyzed in dozens of ways. Generally, though, we talk about the state's general fund and lottery budget—this budget deals with the money that the state has the most discretionary power over—and the total funds budget, which includes cash we receive from the federal government for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, as well as food assistance programs. Let's start with the all-funds budget. The current budget accounts for nearly $59 billion in total spending—this is without the tax breaks. Of that, $13.5 billion goes to education, and $3.6 billion goes to public safety. The health care figure is a little harder to determine. The best estimate we could find is the total funds budget for the Oregon Health Authority—the executive bureaucracy that handles the majority of the state's health care work. That budget is just over $12 billion. If you add those three budget areas, you get $29.1 billion, about $2.2 billion short of the tax breaks the state provides. By this measurement, Smith is correct. Now, another way to approach this would be to look at the general and lottery funds budget. This method might be somewhat fairer, given that so much of the total funds budget is made up of federal dollars. All told, the current general and lottery funds budget includes about $11.7 billion for health care, education, and public safety. Obviously, that's quite a bit less than the $31.3 billion in state tax breaks. The problem here is that you can't directly compare those two figures. We mentioned earlier that there's a report that clearly lays out the various tax giveaways, but it doesn't explain exactly how that money would be rerouted if it were being collected by the state. For instance, $19 billion of those giveaways are for property taxes. Most of that money would go to municipalities if it were collected—not the state. There is an argument to be made that about 40 percent of the property tax revenue would go to local schools—relieving a burden on the state and freeing up cash, but that's all indirect. That said, about $12 billion of those giveaways—the portion that comes from income taxes—would end up in the state's general fund budget. Again, that's slightly more than the $11.7 billion the state allocates to those three program areas. We wanted to add a little context to all of this because tax policy is never so simple, so we made calls to individuals in the state's legislative fiscal and revenue offices and to the state's chief economist. Paul Warner from the revenue office explained it most clearly. "Smith is technically correct," he said, "that there's about $31 billion in lost revenue." But he cautioned that there would be many steps to try to collect those dollars. The revenue document itself addresses this as well. It notes that the dollar impact listed for tax breaks is not the amount of revenue you could gain if you wanted to repeal all of them. It gets very technical and somewhat tedious here, so we'll give you just one example: Federal land, which Oregon has a lot of, is exempt from property taxes. And, Warner notes, there's federal law that prohibits us from taxing federal land. Certainly, some of these tax breaks are up for grabs if the Legislature decided to mine a few of them for increased revenues. On the books are laws for home mortgage deductions, along with tax cuts for green energy and property tax exemptions for private aircraft. Smith knows that. Last year, he pushed for a package of bills that would have reduced some of these credits, including one that would put a sunset date on all income tax credits, subtractions, and exemptions. Indeed, the Legislature has since instituted a six-year cycle in which all credits will be reviewed before being renewed. That's a little beyond the point, though. As for our ruling, Smith's claim is accurate. The state does spend more on tax breaks than it does on public safety, health care, and education. This holds true whether you look at the larger all-funds budget or the smaller general and lottery funds budget. However, there is some important context here, including the fact that many of those tax breaks are off-limits to state lawmakers. We rate this claim Mostly True—accurate but requiring some clarification. | 1 | [
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FMD1347 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A college professor in Puerto Rico created a new mobile app to make a game out of stopping President Donald Trump’s border walls. [Professor Carlos Marcial Torres created a new mobile app game based on the classic hit Tetris. The app is titled, “Stop the Wall. †He opens the game with a screen depicting President Trump. “The game is ‘reactionary.’ Reacting to Trump’s xenophobic, racist and hate phrases and thoughts. We use technology to combat all that,†Torres, 33, Al Dia reported. Torres added many “Trump phrases†into the game, and at one point he adds, “The wall just got 10 feet taller,†followed by, “I would build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. †The game is distributed both on iTunes and Google Play. Google says the game has been downloaded to Android devices between 100 and 500 times, while Apple does not indicate the number of downloads. Apple does say the app has not received enough ratings to have a displayed average rating. The game’s description on the download page states: Finally, a game based on a classic block puzzle where you have to stop Donald Trump’s Wall of Infamy. Have fun while being socially conscious. Compete against your friends to see who can #StopTheWall longer. Share your high scores with all the people in your social networks. Invite your friends (and even Donald Trump) to try and beat your high score. Torres continues, saying, “The immigration issue is one of the most important and significant of the moment, and Trump is one of the most followed guys in the world. †He said people from countries all over the world have been downloading his app. Those include Taiwan, Australia, the U. S. Mexico, China, Norway and the United Kingdom. The professor claims he also built the app to protest the lack of economic support of local filmmakers by the Puerto Rican government. Torres ends the game with more “Trumpisms,†and a score screen stating “#MakeAmericaMexicoAgain. †“Build that wall, build that wall, build that wall†and “Mexico will pay for the wall, and they’re going to be happy about it,†players hear when signing out of the app. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 | [
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FMD1348 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Let s just get this out of the way Chris Wallace is a flaming liberal and a total a**! He blatantly goes after conservatives with a vengeance but gives liberals a pass. Today was no exception with Wallace trying to grill Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow. Sekulow hammered Wallace in a heated exchange over whether President Trump is being investigated:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_g__BK9Jx0TRANSCRIPT OF THE HEATED EXCHANGE: WALLACE: A look outside the beltway at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, where the world s top golfers are competing in today s final round of the U.S. Open.The investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump associates and whether the president has tried to shut down that probe took some dramatic new turns this week.Joining me now is Jay Sekulow, a member of the president s legal team.Jay, I want to start with the president s tweet Friday that I discussed with Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. Here it is again: I am being investigated for firing the FBI director by the man who told me to fire the FBI director. Witch hunt.Has the special counsel, Robert Mueller, formally notified the president that he is under investigation?JAY SEKULOW, TRUMP LEGAL TEAM: The president has not been notified by anyone that he s under investigation. That tweet, Chris, was in response to The Washington Post story that alleged that five unnamed sources, anonymous sources, leaked to The Washington Post that the president was, in fact, under investigation. So that tweet was in response to that. There s been no notification of an investigation. Nothing s changed since James Comey said the president was not a target or subject of investigation. Nothing s changed.WALLACE: Well, but you don t know that he isn t under investigation now, do you?SEKULOW: Well, no one s notified us that he is. So I I can t read people s minds, but I can tell you this, we have not been notified that there s an investigation to the president of the United States. So that nothing has changed in that regard since James Comey s testimony.WALLACE: I I want to go after another part of this tweet. Why is he going after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. First of all, he seems to imply that Rosenstein is investigating, and that s not true. It Mueller. And, secondly, he made it clear in an interview with NBC that that he decided to fire Comey well before he ever met with Rod Rosenstein. Take a look.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP[)TRUMP: I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.TRUMP: He made a recommendation. He s highly respected. A very good guy. Avery smart guy. The Democrats like him. The Republicans like him. he made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.(END VIDEO CLIP)WALLACE: I want to ask you a direct question, does the president think that Rod Rosenstein has done anything wrong?SEKULOW: The president has never said anything about Rod Rosenstein doing anything wrong. Here s what what is the legal situation here. There is a constitutional issue when you have this scenario. The president made a determination based on consult of advice. He decided ultimately. He s the commander in chief. He gets to make that decision that James Comey had a go. That was coming, by the way, from groups right, left, and center over the last year. You you and I know that. So there had been concern about James Comey.It was put forward in a memorandum that s what the president s referencing from the deputy attorney general and the attorney general requesting the removal of James Comey as the FBI director. And, ultimately, that s the president s determination.So here s the constitutional threshold question, Chris. The president takes action based on numerous events, including recommendations from his attorney general and the deputy attorney general s office. He takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended. And now he s being investigated by the Department of Justice because the special counsel under the special counsel relations reports still to the Department of Justice. Not an independent counsel. So he s being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. So that s the constitutional threshold question here. That s why, as I said, no investigation WALLACE: Well, I what what what s the question (INAUDIBLE). I mean you you stated you stated some facts. First of all, you ve now said that he is getting investigated after saying that you didn t.SEKULOW: No.WALLACE: You you just, sir, that he s being SEKULOW: No, he s not being investigated!WALLACE: You just said that he s being investigated.SEKULOW: No, Chris, I said that the any let me be crystal clear so you you completely understand. We have not received nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the United States, period.WALLACE: Sir, you just said two times that he s being investigated.SEKULOW: No. The context of the tweet, I just gave you the legal theory, Chris, of how the Constitution works. If, in fact, it was correct that the president was being investigated, he would be investigating for taking action that an agency told him to take. So that is protected under the Constitution as his article one power. That s all I said. So I appreciate you trying to rephrase it, but I m just being really direct with you, Chris. This is let me be WALLACE: No, I I sir, I didn t rephrase it. The tape will speak Jay, the tape will speak for itself. You said he is being investigated. And it s not that big SEKULOW: Chris, he is just no, Chris that s (INAUDIBLE) unfair, Chris.WALLACE: Wait a minute wait a minute. Jay, and it s not Jay, it s not just being investigated for firing Comey. There s also the question of what he said to Comey when Comey was still the FBI director. So there s more than just the fact that he fired Comey.SEKULOW: He Chirrs, let me be clear, you asked me a question about what the president s tweet was regarding the deputy attorney general of the United States. That s what you asked me. And I responded to what that legal theory would be. So I do not appreciate you putting words in my mouth when I ve been crystal clear that the president is not and has not been under investigation. I don t think I can be any clearer than that.WALLACE: Well, you don t know that he s not under investigation again, sir. I mean you might SEKULOW: You know, I can t read the mind you re right, Chris, I can t read the minds of the special prosecutor.WALLACE: Well, then, good, OK, so we re in agreement, you don t know whether he s under you don t know whether he s under investigation.SEKULOW: But I have not been notified. No one has been notified that he is.WALLACE: You don t know whether he s under investigation or not.SEKULOW: Chris, I WALLACE: The question I m asking you is, does he think that Rod Rosenstein it s a very simple question does he think that Rod Rosenstein did anything wrong?SEKULOW: The president has not expressed any opinion about Rod Rosenstein.WALLACE: Does he think that Robert Mueller has done anything wrong?SEKULOW: First of all, he has not said anything about Robert Mueller. And, Chris, let me say something here. You re asking me if I had a conversation, which I have not had, about Robert Mueller with the president of the United States on or anyone else for that matter. I can t discuss that and would that with you. Unlike James Comey, who leaks information to the press, I actually respect the attorney-client privilege. Apparently he did not.WALLACE: Does the president believe well, you re speaking for his legal team, so you re out here to represent him and tell us what the president s belief is, is that correct?SEKULOW: No, I m out here to tell you what the facts are and the legal issues are. I m not to tell you what the beliefs are. I m not the client s conscience, I m his lawyer.WALLACE: I understand that and the and the client have you spoken the have you spoken to the president at all?SEKULOW: Yes, but I m not going to discuss those conversations with you. Those are privileged under the attorney-client privilege.WALLACE: Well, I assume that if he asked you to say something, for instance, Marc Kasowitz said all kinds of things about after Comey s testimony. I assumed he was speaking for the presidentSEKULOW: Marc Kasowitz made a general statement to the press after the testimony of James Comey. That s what that was about. This you re asking me now questions about what people are thinking in their minds, which I don t read minds, and you re asking me also what I may or may not have had a conversation with the president about and you understand this. I respect the attorney-client privilege, unlike James Comey.WALLACE: Does SEKULOW: I want to be real clear on that too. I m not going to give you conversations I ve had with have or have not had with the president of the United States. So when I ve had conversations with the president of the United States WALLACE: Well, I your SEKULOW: As his lawyer, it s privileged, period.WALLACE: Does the president think that Rosenstein, because you talked about this constitutional theory that he took action, that s on the advice SEKULOW: Yes.WALLACE: Although he says he didn t take it on the advice of Rosenstein, does he think that Rosenstein should recuse himself, and is healing the groundwork to fire Rosenstein and Mueller?SEKULOW: I ve had no conversations and I ve heard nothing without that at all. Nothing. I think this Chris, this points out let me tell you one thing quickly about the constitutional theory, as you called it. It s actually called the Constitution. You know, the president has certain (INAUDIBLE) authority under the Constitution. It s WALLACE: Well, you called it the constitutional theory, sir.SEKULOW: Yes, it is a constitutional theory based on the Constitution.WALLACE: I understand that.SEKULOW: Not so-called. It s the constitutional theory. It s part of the Constitution. The president has inherent authority.Here s what you re trying to here s what you re trying to do, Chris, and I appreciate that you re you re trying to push back.WALLACE: Well, now you re reading minds again. Now you re reading minds again.SEKULOW: No, Chris, I deal with fact and law. You were asking me to read people s minds. That I don t do.WALLACE: Well, don t tell me what I m trying to well, don t tell me what I m trying to do because you don t know what I m trying to do. Actually, what I m trying to get is a straight answer out of you. Let me ask you this SEKULOW: Yes, well sure.WALLACE: As a matter of law, does the president think that he can be indicted under the Constitution?SEKULOW: The president I haven t had that conversation with the president, but the president can t be indicted under the Constitution of the activity alleged in something like this. Of course not.WALLACE: Why is that?SEKULOW: Because there s not an investigation. And there s there s no (INAUDIBLE) against the president.WALLACE: Well, you don t know whether there s an investigation. Oh, boy, this is weird. You you don t know that there s whether there s an investigation. You just told us that.SEKULOW: Chris, you re asking me to speculate so then what you re asking me to do is to speculate on WALLACE: And it would matter. I m asking you as a matter of law, not whether there s an investigation. Does the president think he can be indicted as president?SEKULOW: For for WALLACE: That s a constitutional issue, isn t it?SEKULOW: For obstruction of justice? No, the Constitution s WALLACE: No, for any of it.SEKULOW: Now, Chris, you know, let s let s be realistic here. You know what the the answer is. Can president be indicted for obstruction? You know what the position has been at the Department of Justice since the 1970s and again stated in 2000. That s not what president that s now how you engage a president. There s a political process if somebody did something wrong. You re talking about you re conflating a constitutional process, criminal law, with an issue of political consequence. So I am his lawyer. I m not his political advisor.WALLACE: Senator Dianne Feinstein, a top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded to the president s tweet this week with this statement. The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn t apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. Is she wrong, sir?SEKULOW: Yes, she s wrong. First of all, Dianne Feinstein also called for an investigation of James Comey and Loretta Lynch for that whole episode regarding her engagement and calling it a, quote, matter, not an investigation. But with regard to this particular issue, I mean the tweet there s nothing illegal or inappropriate about the tweet. If the tweet came on the heels of a Washington Post story that had five anonymous sources and didn t even identify the agency from which those sources came from, and that s what he tweet in response to. It s that simple, period.WALLACE: Final question, the president just just added John Dowd, a high-powered Washington lawyer, to his legal team. Should we expect him to hire other criminal lawyers? And, in a sense, is he preparing for a potential legal battle here?SEKULOW: Look, I mean John Dowd is is a legal legend, you know that, in in in the in Washington, D.C., and the president is doing the appropriate thing by hiring lawyers necessary, if there was to be an investigation, if there were to be an investigation, you have the lawyers in place. We ve got a great legal team led by Marc Kasowitz. We ve got John Dowd on the team. This is a solid team. Contrary to some of the press reports, a deep team, if necessary.WALLACE: Do you think I I I misspoke. I m going to ask one more question. Because I m not allowed to ask you what the president thinks, do you think that he should stop SEKULOW: Of course.WALLACE: Do you think he should stop tweeting about this case?SEKULOW: Look, I here s the thing on that. You know, people have been asking me that. Look, the president has changed the way in which engagement goes in I mean you ve got great ratings, no doubt about it, Chris. But let s face it, the president speaks to 107 million people through his social media platforms. He revolutionized the election process by utilizing media in a different way. So I I think, look, the president knows the effectiveness of social media. He s been very effective at it. Again, I m his lawyer, I deal with the issues. Nothing that he s tweeted is causing me any issues whatsoever at this point. Nothing.WALLACE: Jay, thank you. Thanks for coming in.SEKULOW: Thanks, Chris.WALLACE: It s always it s always interesting to talk to you. Please, come back, and we ll SEKULOW: Thanks, Chris.WALLACE: We ll continue it and maybe this time we ll get on this you know what, be here in studio and we can stay on the same wavelength.SEKULOW: There we go.WALLACE: All right, sir SEKULOW: Happy Father s Day.WALLACE: Happy Father s Day to you too, sir. | 0 | [
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FMD1349 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Facebook Inc (FB.O) Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Thursday the company was committed to helping U.S. congressional investigators publicly release Russia-backed political ads that ran during the 2016 U.S. election. Things happened on our platform in this election that should not have happened, Sandberg said in an interview in Washington with Axios news that was broadcast on its website. We told Congress and the intelligence committees that when they are ready to release the ads, we are ready to help them. Axios asked Sandberg what the world s largest social network knew about the extent of Russia s use of its platform and if ads on Facebook that had been placed by Russian accounts and Donald Trump s presidential campaign had overlapped in terms of target audiences. She appeared to sidestep the questions and said only that targeting on Facebook was often very broad. The interview was the first by a senior Facebook executive since the company disclosed last month that it had found some 3,000 politically divisive ads believed to have been bought by Russia before and after the presidential campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia used cyber-enabled means in an attempt to help Trump win the White House, an allegation the Kremlin has denied. Sandberg was in Washington for meetings with U.S. lawmakers. Sandberg told the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday that Facebook planned to add an African-American to its board of directors, a source familiar with the closed-door meeting said, but she offered no details. The board has been criticized for its lack of diversity. She and two other Facebook executives, Erin Egan and Elliot Schrage, also met privately with Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat and member of the House Intelligence Committee. Facebook and other major internet companies including Alphabet s Google (GOOGL.O) and Twitter (TWTR.N) are on the defensive as they try to limit fallout from a torrent of revelations about how Moscow sought to use their platforms to sow discord in the United States and influence the election. Sandberg told Axios that Facebook began hearing rumors around Election Day last November of Russian attempts to use the platform to spread propaganda but did not give a precise timeline about when the company began its review. Sandberg said she supported the public release of those ads, and the pages to which they were connected. Information about how the ads targeted specific types of users would also be released, she said. Asked if Facebook contributed to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton s defeat last year, Sandberg, an open Clinton supporter during the campaign, did not answer directly but said it was important the website was free from abuse during any election in any country. Congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating Russian interference in the election, including whether there was any collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Trump has denied that there was any collusion between his campaign and associates and Russia. Sandberg acknowledged that the company had erred in how it handled the issue of foreign interference last year. It s not just that we apologize. We re angry, we re upset. But what we really owe the American people is determination to do a better job of preventing foreign meddling, she said. We don t want this kind of foreign interference on Facebook, Sandberg said. She said the company had been too permissive at times in terms of how advertisers were allowed to target users. Sandberg said it was important to protect free expression on Facebook and that if the Russian ads had been bought by legitimate accounts instead of fraudulent ones, many would have been allowed to run on the site. She criticized Twitter s decision this week to remove a campaign video from Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. Twitter took down the video, saying a remark Blackburn made about opposing abortion was inflammatory. Twitter later reversed its decision. In that ad, there are a lot of things that people don t like, that I don t like. ... But the question is, Should divisive political or issue ads run? Our answer is yes because when you cut off speech for one person you cut off speech for all people, she said. Sandberg said Facebook wanted other internet companies to work toward making ad purchases more transparent, and she said Facebook was talking with lawmakers who want to introduce legislation on the issue. Representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter are expected to testify about Russian influence at hearings before the Senate and House intelligence committees on Nov. 1. | 1 | [
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FMD1350 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Amateur president Donald Trump is donating his second-quarter salary to the Department of Education, the White House announced Wednesday. During her daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was besieged with questions about Trump s Twitter announcement saying that he s banning transgender Americans from serving in the military, told everyone about the $100,000 donation. Huckabee Sanders then handed the check signed by the former reality show star to Education Secretary Betsy Devos, a billionaire.Now, while they may seem generous on the surface, Trump has proposed slashing the Education Department by $9.2 billion. That s a 14 percent reduction so $100,000 is a mere drop in the bucket.And while he s profiting from his businesses, typically every weekend when the 71-year-old needs a break, he threw his relatively meager salary at the very department he s stripping funding from.DeVos announced that the money would go toward hosting a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics camp for children at the department. We want to encourage as many students as possible to pursue STEM fields, DeVos said.Trump's donation to Dept of Education: $100,000.Spending cut to education in Trump's proposed 2018 budget: $9,200,000,000. Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) July 26, 2017Trump donated his first quarter salary of about $78,000 to the National Park Service. Just like Huckabee Sanders did today, Sean Spicer made a big show of handing over the Trump s salary to benefit the National Park Service, but his budget slashes the Department of the Interior by 12 percent.Trump s first paycheck of $78,333 went to a department he planned to slash by $1.6 billion in funding. We see a pattern here!Shortly before Trump s inauguration, Mar-a-Lago doubled its annual membership fee to $200,000. He s literally profiting from his presidency by using his Florida resort for official government business. Each weekend Trump spends at one of his businesses, the visit generates revenue for the alleged president. And we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill.But hey, he gave departments which he s slashed funding for his paycheck, so he s a really good guy, right? Here, have a penny while I take a billion dollars from you. It s all good.It does make a good photo-op, though.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1351 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PokeTheTruth on November 15, 2016 · at 6:39 pm UTC
President-elect Trump has much to learn and do but he needs the right people in his administration. The people “in the know” are the ones that must engage with Mr. Trump now, before it’s too late.
I want to share a letter written by an anonymous American to the editors of the American Conservative website.
Title: Isn’t Anyone Going to Step Up?
Dear American Conservative,
I’ll be brief. President-elect Trump is looking for a few good men for his cabinet and other key staffing positions. See: : https://www.greatagain.gov/serve-america.html .
As you know, the president-elect is surrounded by militarists who wear a political cloak known as neo-conservatism, a.k.a. “neocons”. They are standard bearers for globalism and the new world order. They use the Pentagon’s Department of War as the overt mechanism to enforce their agenda of what I call the “3-B” foreign policy: Bribing other nations with financial and military aid, Bullying them with economic sanctions when those countries reject the demand of fealty and Bombing their resistance into submission.
Bribing, Bullying and Bombing is a perversion of statesmanship and must end as America’s platform for relations with other nations.
What Mr. Trump is currently presented with are Washington beltway insiders and career bureaucratic policy makers. These are NOT the people to be part of his new administration. The brain trust he needs are people like you conservatives, who can think and reason with an intelligentsia based upon commonsense and reason founded in the core of federal republicanism.
My own grandfather and father came to America not because of government subsidies or nationalistic fervor wrapped around a false sense of patriotism, nor for the many freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. They came for what Lady Liberty offered with open arms; the opportunity for a better life. My father prospered by working hard, not by scheming to demand the wealth of others.
Mr. Jon Basil Utley wrote this excellent article about John Bolton (see: http://www.theamericanconserva … ).
I ask Mr. Utley to do more, to consider filling out an application to serve in Mr. Trump’s administration. In fact, all you men should step up and submit your C.V. and get an interview. At least one of you might get face time to explain why these militarists (i.e., neocons) are the most dangerous plotters and planners of planetary chaos and must not be hired but instead purged from all forums of power that influence the federal government.
There are many well-educated people in the field of economics, commerce, healthcare, foreign relations, etc. who have never served in a presidential administration and most likely have no interest in doing so. This is understandable. But if there ever was a time that good men such as yourselves were needed by America, it is now. Please think about it, what it would mean to the country, what it would mean to yourselves and posterity.
In the 18th century, a group of men became known as the founding fathers of the federal republic. Those men have passed on and that is why our nation needs new visionaries to guide her back on the right path. Become more than your current station in life; the writers of prose on paper. Become the 21st century paladins to carry on the principles of equal justice under the rule of law, of civil society founded in representative democracy, of prosperity and peace, awaiting in the womb of hope to be born again. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1352 | 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 Starbucks Support Calls To 'Defund the Police'? Claim summaries: Outraged supporters of law enforcement officers called for a boycott after an evidence-free meme appeared in July 2020.
contextual information: In the summer of 2020, a new nationwide wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality was accompanied by a rising campaign to substantially divert funding away from police forces, as well as to replace existing models of local law enforcement. The movement, referred to in shorthand by the somewhat imprecise phrase "defund the police" faced intense opposition from some right-leaning quarters, especially supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. As a result, companies and organizations faced condemnation for their supposed association with the "defund the police" movement, and in July, readers asked Snopes to examine one such claim. condemnation A widely shared meme read: meme "Starbucks says Defund the Police. Let's defund Starbucks. Ask all friends and family not to be Starbucks patrons. Dunkin coffee is just as good!" We could find no evidence of any instance in which Starbucks, as a company, called for police forces to be defunded or abolished, promoted or supported the "defund the police" campaign, or indeed used the words "defund the police" (or similar phrases) in its public utterances or on its social media accounts. As a result, we are at a loss as to the origins of the false claim that "Starbucks says defund the police." The company has on several occasions articulated support for the Black Lives Matter movement and opposition to racial injustice, but that is clearly not the same as supporting the "defund the police" campaign. several occasions articulated support Black Lives Matter We found no evidence that Starbucks supports the "defund the police" campaign. By contrast, we found ample evidence of the company's partnering with various police forces as part of the "Coffee with a Cop" initiative, which encourages police officers and members of the public to meet in their local Starbucks caf with the aim of creating understanding, rather than hostility, between law enforcement agencies and the communities they police. Coffee with a Cop It's worth noting that that initiative seeks to repair and improve relations between police forces and local communities, especially people of color within those communities. As such, it is actually rather antithetical to the "defund the police" movement, whose proponents often argue that those relationships are damaged beyond repair and efforts to reform policing have failed and should no longer be attempted. argue Mac Guill, Dan. "Has Ford Motor Co. Donated Millions to 'Defund the Police'?"
Snopes.com. 10 July 2020. Starbucks. "Black Lives Matter: Starbucks Update on Standing Against Racial Injustice."
12 June 2020. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1353 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would have stronger policing powers over the derivatives market, along with a boosted budget, under legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. The bill, introduced by Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Mark Warner in the Senate and Elijah Cummings in the House of Representatives, also would add new tasks to the regulator’s rulemaking agenda. “The only way to make sure that derivatives can never lead to a financial crisis and taxpayer bailouts again is to put in place clearer rules and stronger oversight,†Warren said in a statement. The bill likely will fizzle in the Republican-led Congress. It could also become part of this year’s election fights, as the relationship between Wall Street and Washington frequently moves to center stage in presidential and congressional campaigns. Democrats such as Warren, who is campaigning for her party’s presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, regard the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law passed after the 2007-09 financial crisis as crucial for preventing another massive meltdown. That law greatly expanded the CFTC’s reach, as swaps and derivatives had played a key role in the breakdown of banks and other firms. They also seek further regulation, saying vulnerabilities persist in the financial system. The presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, real estate developer and television star Donald Trump wants to repeal Dodd-Frank. Many in the party say the law has gone too far, drying up liquidity and freezing capital. The proposed legislation “gives the CFTC a stable funding stream and the tools necessary to help deter future illegal acts by permitting penalties large enough to impact the bottom lines of even the largest financial firms,†Cummings said. The CFTC currently is funded through annual appropriations from Congress, unlike the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is backed by user fees and fines. CFTC Chair Timothy Massad has sought a change, saying millions of dollars more in funds would help the agency keep up with technology advancements in the markets it oversees and with “high-powered defense teams†in its enforcement cases. Republicans in Congress say the funding process keeps the agency accountable to elected leaders. The Democrats’ bill would move the CFTC to the same model as the SEC. It would also put certain foreign exchange swaps under CFTC jurisdiction, change how derivatives are treated in bankruptcy, require posting initial margin in inter-affiliate swaps, and require regulators to review derivatives clearinghouses. | 1 | [
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FMD1354 | 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: According to Ted Cruz's tax proposal, businesses are required to pay a 16 percent tax on their earnings, as well as on the wages they distribute to their employees.
contextual information: Ted Cruzs tax plan, envisioningtax returns that fit on postcards, would whack businesses twice over, Marco Rubio says. We wondered about that. In the Jan. 14, 2016, Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, S.C., Sen. Rubio of Florida said that under the plan advocated by Sen. Cruz of Texas, businesses basically will have to pay a tax, both on the money they make, but they also have to pay taxes on the money that they pay their employees. A moment later, Rubio said Cruzs plan does not eliminate the corporate (income) tax or the payroll tax. Businesses will now have to pay 16 percent on the money they make. They will also have to pay 16 percent on the money they pay their employees. Cruz disputed that characterization, saying in part that a critical piece that Marco seems to be missing is that this 16 percent business flat tax enables us to eliminate the corporate income tax. It goes away. Cruzs plan replaces the corporate income tax, the payroll tax and others with a flat tax. Does it also make businesses pay 16 percent on profits and payroll, as Rubio said? Cruzs plan outlined After emailing Rubios campaign about how he reached his 16 percent conclusions, we turned to Cruzs tax plan asoutlined by his campaign. Under the Simple Flat Tax, Cruz says on a campaign webpage, the current seven rates of personal income tax will collapse into a single low rate of 10 percent. For a family of four, the first $36,000 will be tax-free. The Child Tax Credit will remain in place, Cruz proposes, and the plan revamps the earned-income tax credit while preserving deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments. Heres the flat-tax postcard as envisioned by Cruz: SOURCE:Web page,The Simple Tax Plan,Ted Cruz presidential campaign (viewed Jan. 20, 2016) Next up: the 16 percent element. On Cruzs website, we spotted no direct indication the 16 percent would apply to payroll spending. For businesses, Cruz says there, the corporate income tax will be eliminated. It will be replaced by a simple Business Flat Tax at a single 16 percent rate. The current payroll tax system will be abolished, while maintaining full funding for Social Security and Medicare. Cruz further says the business flat tax will be based on revenues minus expenses such as equipment, computers, and other business investments. In general, Cruz says, his proposed tax overhaul will deliver a tremendous economic boost, according to the well-respected Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit thatdescribes itselfas a leading independent tax policy research organization. Independent breakdowns We fetched the foundationsOctober 2015 analysisof Cruzs plan which, the foundation said, would replace the corporate income tax and all payroll taxes with a 16 percent Business Transfer Tax, or subtraction method value-added tax. In addition, his plan would repeal a number of complex features of the current tax code. Farther along, the analysis spelled out a payroll aspect. Specifically, the foundation said, Cruzs plan: Enacts a broad-based, 16 percent Business Transfer Tax or value-added tax. This tax is levied on all business profits, less capital investment. This would include the payroll of business, government, and nonprofit institutions, as well as net imports. The tax would exempt from taxation the purchase of health insurance. A business transfer tax is also often known as a subtraction-method value-added tax. While its base is identical in economic terms to that of the credit-invoice VAT seen in many OECD countries, it is calculated from corporate accounts, not on individual transactions. The foundation also said: Under current law, some taxes on labor are explicitly levied on nominal wages, reducing take-home pay, while others are implicitly passed on to workers through lower nominal wages. The business transfer tax would also fall substantially on payrolls, but it would do so entirely through implicit reductions in nominal wages rather than explicit reductions in take-home pay. Thats a bit gobbledy-gooky for us. A foundation official, Kyle Pomerleau, told us by phone and email that what Rubio said largely holds up, though it would be wrong to conclude businesses under Cruzs plan would pay 16 percent on the same money twice. That is, Pomerleau elaborated, Cruzs plan eliminates the existing payroll tax, which is 15.3 percent of wages (half of that paid by employers, the other half by employees), but the plan counts payroll expenditures as part of net business profits, which are taxed at 16 percent. Even though his plan gets rid of the payroll tax, Pomerleau emailed, his new Business Flat Tax will end up taxing that payroll by disallowing its deduction at the business level. Another authority, Joe Rosenberg of theUrban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told us by phone that Rubio was accurate about Cruzs plan presuming he meant what most people define as profit by his phrase what you make. Rosenberg walked us through how he sees Cruzs plan working: Say a business buys something for 50 cents at wholesale and has to pay its employees 50 cents, accumulating $1 in costs. Then the business sells the something for $1.10, drawing a 10-cent profit. Under the Cruz plan, Rosenberg said, the business pays the flat tax solely on the 60-cent difference between the $1.10 in sales and the 50 cents spent on the wholesale purchase. And, Rosenberg noted, theres another way to pin what Cruzs plan subjects to the 16 percent tax -- by isolating what the business makes, the 10 cents, and then adding the 50 cents in employee payroll. Its very fair to interpret what Sen. Rubio said as correct, Rosenberg said, though its also worth mention (again) that Cruzs plan eliminates existing payroll and income taxes. Broadly, Rosenberg didnt agree that Cruzs plan whipsaws businesses, saying: Its a change in the way theyre taxed. Its not taxing something twice. We didnt hear back from Rubios camp about his claim nor did Cruz aides engage. Footnote: A Jan. 14, 2016,foundation postby economist Alan Cole says Cruz and Rubio arent proposing entirely distinct tax approaches. In fact, Cole wrote, if you put together two taxes from Rubios plan (and fiddle with the rates), you can actually synthetically construct the business flat tax from Cruzs plan! Our ruling Rubio said that under Cruzs tax plan, businesses will now have to pay 16 percent on the money they make. They will also have to pay 16 percent on the money they pay their employees. Under Cruzs plan, that rate applies both to net income and payroll expenditures though the way this description was phrased by Rubio merits clarification. That is, the 16 percent would not be applied to what a business makes and separately applied again to money paid to employees. Also unsaid: The proposed tax would replace taxes including payroll and income taxes. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | 1 | [
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FMD1355 | 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: No, 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' has not passed away. Claim summaries: Highly dubious websites posted false and distasteful articles that prompted unwarranted concern among the reality TV star's many fans.
contextual information: In late 2019, readers asked us about blog posts that were widely shared on social media and falsely claimed that the reality television star Duane Chapman, known as "Dog the Bounty Hunter," had died either by suicide or from a pulmonary embolism. Those reports were false. Beginning on Nov. 20, admirers of Chapman and his late wife, Beth, who died in June after herself being the subject of death hoaxes, began posting tributes to him and sharing one of two blog posts. hoaxes The first purported to be hosted by a website with the domain name whatnow.actual-events.com, but when internet users clicked on the story on social media, they were redirected to the domain newspanel.suzeraincollections.com. There, the story carried the headline "Duane 'Dog' Chapman Died of Pulmonary Embolism. He Didn't Survive His Second Attack. He Was 66 -- WGN." first The highly dubious website falsely attributed the claim about Chapman's death to WGN America, a real U.S. television network that broadcast the Chapmans' most recent reality show "Dog's Most Wanted." The hoax article also misleadingly used WGN America's logo in a sharebait video that purported to be a television news report about Chapman's death, but that paused after a few seconds and required users to share the article on social media in order to continue watching: In reality, WGN America had no connection to the story and did not report on Chapman's death in November 2019, because Chapman did not die in November 2019. The specific claim that Chapman had died from a pulmonary embolism (a blocked artery in the lungs) was rather insidious. At first glance, it appeared especially plausible to many fans of the television star because he was in fact diagnosed with that very problem in September 2019. diagnosed The second blog post shared by social media users was even more distasteful than the first. It falsely and misleadingly used the logo of BBC News, a highly reputable and widely trusted information source, to report that Chapman had taken his own life. In this instance, social media users shared an article that appeared to be hosted on the domain bbc-newsroom.actualeventstv.com, but which redirected to news-room.easystepsdiy.info. On social media, the post carried the headline "Duane 'Dog' Chapman Died of Suicide After Depression Attack on His Sickness -- BBC News" but when users redirected to the source, the article's headline proclaimed: shared proclaimed "Breaking: (Actual Suicide Video) Duane 'Dog' Chapman Died of Suicide After Depression Attack on His Sickness -- BBC News." Despite the extremely distasteful claim that the video in the article contained footage of Chapman's suicide, it contained nothing of the sort and, just as in the first article, the video stopped after a second or two and required viewers to share the post on social media in order to continue watching. The claim that Chapman had taken his own life was, like the claim he had died of a pulmonary embolism, particularly insidious. In the season finale of "Dog's Most Wanted," broadcast by WGN America on Nov. 6, Chapman spoke about the recent death of his wife from cancer, and the considerable difficulty he was experiencing in coping with her loss. At one moment in the episode, he reportedly discussed how he had contemplated taking his own life, such was his grief. People magazine quoted Chapman as saying: People "I just hope that I dont live very much longer without her, because now she made the first step, shes through the gate," he added. She paved a way for me. I want to take a [god damn] pain pill so bad. I feel like if I did something to myself right now and passed away suicidal and I got to heaven and was like, Hi honey, and would she go, You [dumb ass], why would you do that? Or would she go, Wow, youre here. Ill be like Of course Im here. You left me. Im here. So, am I obligated to do that? Because of that widely reported revelation, a report that Chapman had died by suicide would have appeared somewhat plausible to many readers. The dubious nature of the websites involved, and the absence of any corroborating evidence or reports by actual news organizations, meant that some readers would have immediately recognized the stories as hoaxes. However, a significant number were taken in by them, and shared them on social media, to the extent that Chapman himself intervened. He provided the gossip website TMZ a photograph of himself holding the Nov. 19 edition of the Denver Post, and a handwritten sign that read "I'm alive!" Chapman then posted a screenshot of that article to his own Instagram page the next day. photograph Instagram If you need help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. Or contact Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. Kasprak, Alex. "Outdated: Beth Chapman Death Hoax."
Snopes.com. 22 April 2019. Lee, Ashley. "Dog the Bounty Hunter Reveals Pulmonary Embolism Diagnosis."
The Los Angeles Times. 28 September 2019. Dugan, Christina. "Dog the Bounty Hunter Contemplates Suicide After Wife Beth's Death on 'Dog's Most Wanted' Finale."
People. 6 November 2019. TMZ. "Dog the Bounty Hunter: Nope, He's Not Dead...Look, I'm Alive!"
20 November 2019. | 0 | [
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FMD1356 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: But what about that whole unfair student debt thing that Hillary and Bill are so concerned about?While Arizona State University has almost doubled its tuition over the past 10 years amid claims that it needs more state money, the school somehow had the funds to give half a million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.According to The Arizona Republic, the public university paid $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation to host the former president-Bill Clinton; former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and their daughter, Chelsea, during a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) event in 2014. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill s wife, is the current front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential race.Mark Johnson, an ASU spokesman, told The Republic that the university was a payment for the event not a contribution to the Clintons. ASU played host to the CGI University in March 2014, which featured former President Bill Clinton and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a program aimed at bringing together college students to find practical, innovative solutions to global challenges, Johnson told the newspaper. The report you cited reflects the fact that the university co-invested in this educational and promotional opportunity, which was co-produced for our students, and for students from around the world. No state funds were used for this purpose. The Republic also reported that while the university has lobbied the State Department, university officials claim the lobbying occurred after Hillary stepped down from the position.The CGI U website also boasts that more than 1,100 students attended the event to raise $60,000 and participate in a Day of Action in the community. Student attendees had the opportunity to attend plenary sessions, working sessions, and other special events covering topics across CGI U s five focus areas and allowing them to network with their peers, build skills, and identify potential partnerships, the website for the event states. Youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities joined students at the CGI U meeting to help them gain the skills and knowledge needed to take action on their commitments. Earlier this month Arizona s Board of Regents voted to approve tuition increases for both undergraduate and graduate students at ASU, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) also recently approved a budget that cut more than $100 million from public universities, The Arizona State Press reported. In this regard ASU seems to hold themselves accountable to their own pet projects, as opposed to ASU students, Richard Moorehead, a senior history major at ASU, told Campus Reform. The money they wasted on the Clinton Foundation event could have been used for scholarships and genuine education. I realize bringing high-profile speakers can raise the profile of the university, but no speaker s time is worth $500,000, especially if that money is funneled into a presidential campaign, Moorhead said. He did not attend the CGI U event.Ryan Hartwig, a recent ASU graduate, told Campus Reform that the $500,000 was way too much for any celebrity or politician. It really makes me question what ASU does with their money, while they continue to complain about state budget cuts, Hartwig said.The Washington Free Beacon reported that ASU has said it did not use state funds to pay the Clintons, but the university has not disclosed where the money actually came from.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) participated in the event last year but told The Republic that had he known the price tag, it wouldn t have been worth it. Frankly, if I had known that that was the situation, that they were being paid $500,000, I would have spoken up at the time that I thought it was outrageous, McCain said.Via: Campus Reform | 0 | [
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FMD1357 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: House Speaker Paul Ryan is a snake, a hypocrite, and a weasel. He is also an incredible coward. Part of being a public servant is listening to the people. However, that is definitely not a value that Speaker Ryan shares. On Friday, Planned Parenthood advocates showed up at his Capitol Hill offices, only to be greeted with guards at every turn. It seemed that Ryan and his cronies were expecting the people to show up, sporting their pink I Stand With Planned Parenthood shirts, with boxes and boxes of petitions in tow, signed by tens of thousands of Americans who are demanding answers to Ryan s plans to take away healthcare from millions of American women.When the advocates were blocked by Capitol Hill police, finally a staffer had to escort them to Ryan s office. When they got there, the door was locked and heavily guarded. There was a sign that read, Please knock, only scheduled appointments will be admitted. Since this was Ryan s regular office and not the one reserved for the Speaker of the House whomever that may be at any given time there is no way to know if Ryan himself was there. However, it is reasonable to assume that people were in there, oh, you know working, during the day on a Friday.Finally, after being turned away from Ryan s office, the advocates were allowed into the office of Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), who fully backs what they were doing. People in that office listened to what they had to say, and they were able to leave their petitions there, and Speaker Ryan will be getting a large delivery later. Here are the photos of the advocates waiting patiently outside Ryan s office:.@SpeakerRyan's office sent 6 security guards to block delivery of 87K #IStandWithPP petitions telling Ryan not to defund Planned Parenthood pic.twitter.com/56QHwhjR2q Planned Parenthood (@PPact) January 6, 2017.@SpeakerRyan's office is appointments-only & conveniently closed now right when we came by to drop off thousands of #IStandWithPP petitions pic.twitter.com/wCqOjzZION Planned Parenthood (@PPact) January 6, 2017.@SpeakerRyan wouldn't listen to the thousands of people who say #IStandWithPP but #reprohealth champ @RepGwenMoore opened her doors to us! pic.twitter.com/seHrZJoxZw Planned Parenthood (@PPact) January 6, 2017Eric Carthart, who works with Planned Parenthood Action Fund, says of what Ryan did: Paul Ryan may have locked his doors, but he can t drown out our voices, said Eric Carhart of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Millions of women, men and young people, nearly half of whom are people of color, rely on Planned Parenthood for reproductive health care, including nearly 60,000 in Wisconsin. If Paul Ryan is going to take away our health care and the care of millions of people the least he can do is meet us face to face. Paul Ryan should be ashamed of himself. It s his JOB to listen to the taxpaying citizens who pay his salary. He works for us, not the other way around. We will keep fighting. We are not going away. His extreme, draconian, anti-woman agenda will not be tolerated in the United States of America in the year 2017.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1358 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Austria said on Wednesday it had some evidence that nine foreign oilfield workers abducted by Islamist militants in Libya in 2015 were killed the same year, though it was still trying to verify the information. The four Filipinos, two Bangladeshis, one Austrian, one Czech and one Ghanaian worked at the al-Ghani oilfield for equipment firm VAOS, which specializes in Libya and has offices in Austria and Malta. An Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman said a crisis team was trying to verify information from a militant Islamist website suggesting that all or some of the hostages may have been killed in 2015. They were seized in March of that year. We have some evidence that the worst is to be feared. We are working on verifying the information. It is still unclear what happened exactly to whom, the spokesman said. Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz had contacted the family of the Austrian man. Even if it turns out that the evidence is correct it will be extremely difficult to retrieve bodies from the area where fighting continues, the spokesman said. The Derna Mujahideen Shura Council, a group based in the eastern Libyan city of Derna, said this week that it had recovered the bodies of five of the workers in May 2015 during clashes with rival militants from Islamic State. It said it had handed the bodies over to Libya s Red Crescent. In a statement, the Council said it later found a laptop containing a photo of one of the employees, and a video of the killing of four Filipino workers, and was able to match them to images of the kidnapped employees. The bodies were buried in marked graves and special procedures are under way to return them to their families , the group said. The Red Crescent declined to comment. At the time of the attack, Islamic State militants made no financial or political demands as armed factions in Libya often do, but IS beheaded 11 Libyan security guards it had captured. VAOS said it had received no warning from Libya s state oil company advising it to evacuate personnel before the attack. The firm said it began operating in Libya in the 1980s, when the country was under Muammar Gaddafi s iron rule. Libya fell into widespread factional violence, hampering oil production, after rebels overthrew Gaddafi in 2011. VAOS has relied on its own security arrangements in the North African state. Its clients have included BP, Repsol and Austria s OMV. | 1 | [
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FMD1359 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It turns out the words affordable and care were both horrendous lies pushed by the Left in order to prop up the most dangerous man to every occupy our Oval Office.If you like your insurance carrier, you can keep your insurance carrier. The nation s largest provider of health insurance announced this morning that it may choose to stop offering individual coverage after 2016, and will pull back on its marketing efforts immediately in this market. If the losses continue and United pulls out of next year s exchanges, it will set up a very bad moment for ObamaCare and for Democrats just weeks before the election:UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) today reported revised expectations for 2015, reflecting a continuing deterioration in individual exchange-compliant product performance, and provided an initial outlook for 2016. In recent weeks, growth expectations for individual exchange participation have tempered industrywide, co-operatives have failed, and market data has signaled higher risks and more difficulties while our own claims experience has deteriorated, so we are taking this proactive step, said Stephen J. Hemsley, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group. We continue to be pleased with the growth and overall performance of our Company outside of the individual exchange products and look forward to strong, positive and broad based earnings growth across our enterprise in 2016. UnitedHealthcare has pulled back on its marketing efforts for individual exchange products in 2016. The Company is evaluating the viability of the insurance exchange product segment and will determine during the first half of 2016 to what extent it can continue to serve the public exchange markets in 2017.Don t kid yourselves. If United is going to pull back on marketing efforts for 2016, it s because they don t see themselves being in the market in 2017. Just by announcing it, United has set up the expectation of withdrawal for investors, who do not want to have good money chasing after bad.Assuming nothing changes in the fiscal model and after three years, it s not likely to suddenly improve that would create a huge gap in choice for many Americans in the next open enrollment period. That would normally begin in October 2016, unless HHS decides to delay it, as they did ahead of the 2014 elections. Many voters will suddenly find their coverage expired, forced to choose another plan from a smaller list of options, all of which will no doubt become even more expensive for everyone thanks to the decline in competition. It s going to act like a bombshell on the election, especially for Democrats running to hold seats in Congress, and perhaps even in the presidential election.Philip Klein explains why prices will move even higher than usual:The year 2017 is significant for insurers, because that s the year when several programs designed to mitigate risk for insurers through federal backstops go away. The hope was that those programs would act as training wheels for Obamacare in its first few years of implementation, but after that, the insurers were supposed to be able to thrive on their own. UnitedHealth s statement suggests otherwise.If UnitedHealth and other insurers decide to exit, remaining insurers will be forced to take on even more high-risk enrollees, prompting them to either raise rates further or exit themselves. That in turn would deprive individuals of choices and remove competition, a key purpose of the exchanges. Klein sat in on a United conference call this morning, and got the scope of the losses:UnitedHealth expects to lose over $200 million on Obamacare in 2016 alone Philip Klein (@philipaklein) November 19, 2015So don t expect United to suddenly see a reason to get back into the 2017 market, not without hefty risk-corridor subsidies which under any other circumstances would be called corporate welfare. Given that Congress isn t likely to reverse course and underwrite ObamaCare losses, the path to the exit remains the likely course for United, and perhaps some of its competitors, too.United says it will remain committed to its Medicaid and Medicare businesses, and of course it will stick with its employer-based group coverage, where the issues of ObamaCare regulation have less impact. But this is a reversal for United on the individual markets, as Forbes Bruce Japsen points out. Just last month, United s CEO declared that they still considered this a growth market.United has discovered that the trade-offs in mandates and forced coverage don t pay off. It s a bait-and-switch for insurers by the Obama administration, but it s even worse of a bait-and-switch for consumers. In my column today for The Fiscal Times, I argue that the financial model of ObamaCare has left consumers with a fistful of broken promises, and the worst of both worlds.Via:Hot Air | 0 | [
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FMD1360 | 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 Marco Rubio is proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program in tax credits and $1 trillion in new military spending.
contextual information: The word "conservative" was uttered 18 times during the Fox Business News Republican presidential debate on Nov. 10, 2015. The first 17 references made in the Milwaukee Theatre were emphasized particularly by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. (Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the word once.) Paul called himself the only fiscal conservative among the eight candidates on stage and made a point to contrast himself with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in one of the more contentious exchanges of the night. Rubio had just defended his proposal to increase a child tax credit when Paul interjected, "We have to decide what is conservative and what isn't conservative. Is it fiscally conservative to have a trillion-dollar expenditure? We're not talking about giving people back their tax money. He's talking about giving people money they didn't pay. It's a welfare transfer payment," Paul said of Rubio's tax credit plan. "So, here's what we have. Is it conservative to have $1 trillion in transfer payments—a new welfare program that's a refundable tax credit? Add that to Marco's plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative." Defending the tax credit and his defense spending proposals, Rubio said the family is the most important institution in society and that the world is a stronger and better place when the United States is the strongest military power. But is Rubio proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending? And $1 trillion over what period of time? Rubio's tax plan includes creating a new, partially refundable child tax credit of up to $2,500 per child. It is meant to offset income and payroll taxes and is considerably larger than the $1,000 credit that is currently available. Refundable tax credits help people at the lower end of the income scale, in that people who are too poor to pay any income tax can get money back from the government. Paul's campaign referred us to a March 2015 analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation of a tax plan proposed in the Senate by Rubio and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. That analysis estimated the credit would result in a loss of tax revenue of about $170 billion per year. That's the equivalent of $1.7 trillion over 10 years—10 years being a common time frame for federal budget planning. But it's worth noting that Paul didn't say 10 years in making his claim. We'll note that, unlike the original Rubio-Lee plan, Rubio as a candidate is proposing that the credit would be phased out at higher income levels—beginning at $150,000 for an individual and $300,000 for a family. That would mean the lost revenue would be something less than $1.7 trillion over 10 years, but still well above $1 trillion, said Kyle Pomerleau, director of federal projects at the Tax Foundation, a free market-oriented think tank. That's because relatively few people at the higher incomes have children and would be eligible for the tax credits, he told us. In other words, the tax credit is expensive, Pomerleau said, because it's large and nearly universal for families. The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, also did an estimate of the original tax credit proposal and came up with a figure similar to that of the Tax Foundation—an estimated loss of nearly $1.58 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years. Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told us the center hasn't analyzed Rubio's current proposal. But he said a loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years is a fair estimate. Paul's characterization of Rubio's tax credit as welfare is a stretch, however. Eleanor May, Paul's campaign spokeswoman, said giving people a refundable credit—meaning giving them more than they paid—is a welfare transfer payment from one group of people to another. But as our colleagues at PunditFact noted, even the most expansive definition of welfare—including the cash program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children), traditional food stamps, Medicaid, and the food program called Women, Infants, and Children—doesn't include tax credits. Rubio, whose campaign did not respond to our requests for this article, noted in the debate that everyone who works pays the payroll tax. Rubio has backed more defense spending since at least March 2015, when he and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a budget amendment to increase the Pentagon's budget. At the time, Rubio argued that adjusted for inflation, defense spending had declined by 21 percent since 2010—a claim PolitiFact National rated Mostly True. Rubio's amendment proposed restoring defense spending levels to what had been proposed in the spring of 2011, for fiscal 2012 going forward, by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Gates' proposal was prior to spending limits that were imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011, which became law in the summer of 2011. Returning to the so-called 2012 proposed spending levels would add $1 trillion in defense spending over 10 years, Benjamin Friedman, a defense research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, told us. That is also the estimate made in a July 2015 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The morning after the Milwaukee debate, Rubio was asked in a Fox News interview, "So, where are you going to get the trillion dollars from that Rand Paul says we shouldn't be spending?" Rubio didn't address the figure, saying, "First of all, before we fund anything, the federal government should be fully funding national security." But he has made references to the $1 trillion cost in the past. In a September 2014 speech, Rubio said he agreed with a recommendation by the bipartisan National Defense Panel to return to the 2012-level spending, which we are on track to be around $1 trillion short of through fiscal year 2022. And on his campaign website, Rubio says he would restore defense spending to the 2012 level and begin to undo the damage caused by $1 trillion in indiscriminate defense cuts. Our rating: Paul said Rubio is proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending. It's estimated that over 10 years, a common time frame for federal budget planning, Rubio's child tax credit would result in the loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue, and his plan to reverse declines in Pentagon spending would cost $1 trillion. But it's a stretch to call the tax credit welfare, and in making his claim, Paul didn't state that the $1 trillion costs would be over 10 years. We rate Paul's statement Mostly True. More debate claims: Go here for PolitiFact National's fact checks on statements made during the Milwaukee debate. And here for PolitiFact Wisconsin's night-of review of the debate. | 1 | [
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FMD1361 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: French President Emmanuel Macron told U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday that he was worried about the possibility that the United States could unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Macron s office said in a statement. The French President expressed his concern over the possibility that the United States would unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the statement said, after Macron and Trump spoke over the phone. Mr Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed that the question of Jerusalem s status had to be dealt with in the framework of peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, with the aim in particular to establish two countries, Israel and Palestine, living in peace and security side by side with Jerusalem as capital. Trump has not yet made a decision on whether to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner said on Sunday, a move that would break with decades of U.S. policy and could fuel violence in the Middle East. | 1 | [
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FMD1362 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, the top Republicans in the United States, plan to meet next week to try to unite their party, with both men focused on the Nov. 8 presidential election, but the Wisconsin congressman also perhaps looking further ahead. Speaker of the House of Representatives Ryan has invited Trump, this year’s likely Republican presidential nominee, to meet on Thursday with Ryan and other congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, Ryan’s office said in a statement on Friday. A key part of the conversation is sure to be Trump’s combative, in-your-face campaign persona and Republican leaders’ requests for him to tone it down, but political analysts said Ryan will have other considerations in mind, as well. One issue is likely to be his own future, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Ryan, 46, lost his 2012 campaign for vice president as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Ryan probably has serious doubts that Trump, like Romney, can win this year, Sabato said. If so, Ryan will want to find a balance between accepting Trump, 69, as the nominee and keeping some distance from him, just in case the real estate mogul’s campaign ends in disaster. “Suppose Trump loses overwhelmingly. Would you want to have been siding with the captain of the Titanic, or maybe seen as someone who was begging the captain to watch out for icebergs?†Sabato said, adding that a Trump defeat could push the party in a different direction in 2020, maybe toward Ryan as the nominee. As chairman of the Republican Party convention in Cleveland in July, Ryan’s political tightrope will be especially perilous. One of his objectives will be to provide political cover for his 246 House Republicans so they can choose to embrace or run away from Trump, depending on their home districts’ politics, with the goal of preserving control of the House, analysts said. Ryan dropped a bombshell on Thursday when he said he was not ready to endorse Trump until he shows he can unify the party, still reeling from a bitter primary campaign that left many establishment Republicans stunned at Trump’s victory. One moderate Pennsylvania congressman, Representative Charlie Dent, said he thought most of his fellow House Republicans would be comfortable with what Ryan said, because they were “conflicted†themselves over whether to support Trump. Some Republican lawmakers worry that Trump is not conservative enough; others are more bothered by Trump’s “divisive, incendiary remarks and lack of substance,†said Dent, who put himself in the latter category. However, a conservative Republican congressman, Raul Labrador of Idaho, told CNN that Ryan “needs to reconsider what he’s doing†concerning Trump. “A lot of people that are voting for Donald Trump are totally disaffected with what we’re doing in Washington D.C., and he (Ryan) almost kind of slapped them in the face when he said what he did,†said Labrador, who endorsed Ted Cruz but says he will vote for Trump now that Cruz is out of the race. As speaker, Ryan has struggled with his deeply divided colleagues over budget issues, funding the battle against the Zika virus, rescuing Puerto Rico from a debt crisis, and helping Flint, Michigan, deal with their contaminated water system. Ryan is “trying to jawbone Trump into adjusting his positions†to line up better with the party establishment, said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar and political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The “unprecedented†move by a congressional leader to distance himself from his party’s expected nominee, Ornstein said, showed Ryan trying to mold a “less confrontational and divisive approach to minorities and a less isolationist and combative approach to our allies.†In a swipe at Trump on Friday, President Barack Obama warned that occupying the Oval Office “is not a reality show.†| 1 | [
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FMD1363 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Greek parliament passed a law on Tuesday to make it easier for people to change their legally recognized gender, a move that angered the Church but was welcomed as long-overdue by human rights groups. The law will allow people to change their gender on official documents with a court ruling, and without requiring medical tests or sterilization, as is the case now. It has been condemned as immoral by the Greek Orthodox Church and as a monstrosity by right-wing politicians. Until now, anyone needing to officially change their gender had to be diagnosed with a gender identity disorder and have their reproductive organs removed, a practice condemned by human rights campaigners. Absolutely no tradition, no perception of family calls for people to be sidelined or tossed aside into a social and institutional abyss, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who supported the law, told a heated discussion in parliament. The law applies to anyone over the age of 15 and allows a person to change legal gender twice. Applicants must not be married and a final decision will be taken by a court. The main opposition conservative New Democracy party voted against the bill saying it was a sloppy attempt to divert public attention from Greece s financial woes. Your only goal is to stay in power, said conservative lawmaker Simos Kedikoglou. You ve found various methods of deception and this bill is the latest proof. Supporters rallied outside parliament during Monday s debate, holding a banner reading: Transgender rights are human rights . The Church had urged the government to withdraw the bill. For every human, gender is a sacred legacy. It is a precious thing for a woman to know about her feminine nature, and for a man to be aware of his male nature, Bishop Nicolaos of Mesogaia told Greek Skai TV. The Church, he said, embraced people with difficulties. The bill passed by 171 votes in the 300-seat parliament, but it exposed fissures in the ruling coalition of Syriza and right-wing Independent Greeks party. Most Independent Greeks approved the bill in principle but voted against an article setting the minimum age at 15, arguing that was too young. | 1 | [
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FMD1364 | 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: Valuable U.S. Coins Placed into Circulation Claim summaries: Were three valuable U.S. coins deliberately placed into circulation in New York in April 2006?
contextual information: Claim: A collector deliberately placed three valuable U.S. coins into circulation in New York in April 2006. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] A friend told me that she heard that a millionnaire put a penny worth a million dollars in circulation by using it to buy a hot dog at a vendor cart. Supposedly you can tell because it has a "J" under the year. Origins: One of the many windfall schemes that some of us dream about in our idle moments is fortuitously turning up a rare old coin worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars perhaps through discovering one stashed away by a relative who has forgotten about it, uncovering one hidden beneath some dirt or debris, or simply finding one in a handful of change. The last of these routes rarely yields lucky finds anymore, as collectors and treasure-seekers have long since plucked every coin of significant value from circulation, but in April 2006 the odds of making such an advantageous discovery got a little bit better. To help introduce more people to "the magic of coin collecting," Scott A. Travers, a 44-year-old former vice president of the American Numismatic Association and author of The Coin Collector's Survival Manual, decided to mark National Coin Week in mid-April 2006 by deliberately spending three valuable old pennies as he made routine purchases around Manhattan. "I'm planting a seed, and I hope that a new generation of people will come to appreciate the history that coins represent," he said. The three coins Scott Travers spent were all relatively low-mintage U.S. one-cent pieces nearly one hundred years old: a 1908-S Indian Head cent, and 1909-S VDB and 1914-D Lincoln cents. (In the conditions released by Travers, at the time those coins were worth roughly $200, $1,000, and $300, respectively.) Mr. Travers said he put the 1908-S 1909-S VDB 1914-D 1914-D Lincoln cent into circulation on 12 April 2006 when he purchased a pretzel from a food stand outside the NASDAQ offices in Times Square, and a few days later he spent the 1909-S V.D.B. Lincoln cent to buy a bottle of water from a different vendor in Times Square, then walked a block to a newsstand where he used the 1908-S Indian Head cent. Within a few weeks, seven people came forward saying they had found the $1,000 coin (i.e., the 1909-S V.D.B. Lincoln cent), but Travers said that although the proffered coins were real, none of them was the one he released into circulation. As of 2009 there had been no reports of anyone's finding any of the three rare pennies, but Scott Travers may never find out what happened to them, as it's quite possible the valuable cents ended up lost, squirreled away as oddities by people who didn't know their true value, or retrieved and sold by lucky finders unaware the coins were deliberately placed into circulation. Indeed, Mr. Travers has tried the same stunt more than once, and he hasn't ever learned the fate of some of the valuable coins involved in those previous attempts: Travers has spent rare coins before. In 1999, he did it to coincide with the numismatic association's convention in New York, although he never found out whether one of the rare pennies was rediscovered. Past coin drops, in 1997 and 2002, succeeded in sparking interest in coin collecting, but Travers doesn't know if anyone "cashed in" by finding the coins. Travers has met many people who believe they've discovered his coins, and though they may have found valuable coins, they weren't his. Last updated: 17 March 2011 Healey, Matthew. "Find a Penny, Pick It Up, Sell It for 1,000 Bucks." The New York Times. 14 April 2006 (p. B3). Schapiro, Rich. "Coins in Circulation May Be Worth Up to $1,000, Says Expert." [New York] Daily News. 9 January 2009. | 1 | [
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FMD1365 | 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: Macy's sent a letter to Rick Perry requesting that he reject the equal pay bill.
contextual information: A reader forwarded anemailto us in which state Rep. Senfronia Thompson urged a boycott of Macys department stores on the day after Thanksgiving 2013. The fact that Macy's doesn't support equal pay for women should stop you from shopping there on Black Friday, the Houston Democrat wrote, saying that her equal-pay proposal cleared the Legislature earlier this year, but then Macy's sent a letter to Rick Perry urging him to veto the law, which he ultimately did. Thompsons House Bill950was among 24 bills PerryvetoedJune 14, 2013. It would have created state law similar to 2009s federal Lilly Ledbetter Act, which gave plaintiffs more time to sue over pay discrimination in federal courts. AnAug. 6, 2013,news storyin theHouston Chroniclereported that Texas Retailers Association members including Macys and Krogers had written Perry in May asking him to kill the legislation because, they said, it would lead to open-ended litigation and duplicate federal law. Thompson spokeswoman Milda Mora told us by phone that the representative learned of the letters from theHouston Chroniclereporter in August and checked with the governors office, which provided her with copies that Moraemailedto us. One written on Macys letterhead (clickhereor scroll down to view it) concluded, The federal requirements under Lilly Ledbetter are unnecessary and would be harmful to Texas employers. We urge you to veto this legislation. Macys spokeswoman Bethany Charlton confirmed that her company sent the May 31, 2013, letter, which was signed by a company vice president. By email, Charlton said the company absolutely supports equal pay for equal work among men and women but believes existing laws provide strong remedies for discrimination. Perrys logic was similar: House Bill 950 duplicates federal law, which already allows employees who feel they have been discriminated against through compensation to file a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said his June 14, 2013,veto statement. Progress Texas, the pro-Democratic organization that distributed Thompsons email and is organizing theboycott,disputesPerrys statement that the bill would have duplicated federal law, saying that the Ledbetter protections need to be codified in state law for them to apply to cases in state courts. The groups executive director, Ed Espinoza, told us by email that his group launched a boycott of Macys and other retailers when the news broke in August. An Aug. 7, 2013,Chroniclenews blog postsaid Thompson took part in that boycott also, canceling a planned appearance at a Macys store to mark the states annual sales-tax holiday. Mora said that Thompson, who was quoted in an Aug. 9, 2013 Texas Public Radionews storyas saying she had previously been a card-packing member of Macys, but had not shopped there since the letters became public. Our ruling Thompson said Macy's sent a letter to Rick Perry urging him to veto her equal pay measure. As the Houston newspaper reported, Macys wrote the governor May 31, 2013, saying We urge you to veto this legislation. The claim is 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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FMD1366 | 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 governmental shutdown in Australia lead to the dismissal of all Members of Parliament? Claim summaries: It's difficult to boil down one of the most turbulent periods in Australia's political history into a meme.
contextual information: On the heels of the longest federal government shutdown in United States history, and on the potential precipice of another shutdown in February 2019, Facebook users started to share a meme about how the country of Australia handled their own government shutdown back in 1975: The text of the meme stated: "In 1975 Australia had a government shutdown. In the end, all the members of Parliament were fired and then elections were held to restart from scratch. They haven't had another shutdown since." This meme is largely accurate. Australia's government was effectively shutdown due to a budget impasse in October 1975, the prime minister was dismissed, both houses of Parliament were dissolved, and a new election was held. Since then, Australia has not had another government shutdown. However, Australia's constitutional crisis in 1975, often referred to as "The Dismissal," was a bit more complicated than portrayed in this meme. Furthermore, the meme is often offered up on social media as a solution to government shutdowns in the United States, but Australia's government doesn't function in the same manner as the U.S. government. Some of the key differences that enabled "The Dismissal" to occur in Australia is that the country is both a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy, which means that despite Australia's having elected officials, the head of state in Australia is still the Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, as represented by the governor-general). While the Queen rarely exercises her power and is often viewed as a mere figurehead in Australia, the monarch (and in turn the governor-general) is afforded some powers in the country's constitution. During the constitutional crisis of 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr used his constitutional authority to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. constitutional monarchy Australia's constitution also permits a "double dissolution" procedure to resolve deadlocks between the House and Senate: The Australian Constitution gives almost identical powers to the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill (proposed law) must be agreed to by both houses in order to become law. The drafters of the Constitution saw the possibility of a deadlock occurring between the two houses, in which there may be disagreement over a bill. Section 57 of the Constitution provides a mechanism to resolve the disagreement, by dissolving both houses of Parliament and calling an election to let the voters decide what the outcome will be. The double dissolution mechanism only relates to a bill that originates in the House of Representatives. While the viral meme states that members of parliament were "fired" due to the government shutdown, that isn't exactly accurate. Both houses of parliament were dissolved, so all of the seats in the House and Senate went up for election again. The "fired" lawmakers therefore still had a chance to retain their seats by winning them back in a subsequent election. In 1975, Prime Minister Whitlam and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) held a majority in the House of Representatives, but the Opposition controlled the Senate. When the two parties failed to pass appropriations bills to fund the government, Governor-General Kerr dismissed the prime minister and commissioned Malcom Fraser of the Liberal Party as the caretaker prime minister. Fraser then passed an appropriations bill, and Kerr dissolved Parliament, setting up a double dissolution election to be held the following month. Here's a summary of what took place from the Australian Broadcast Corporation: Australian Broadcast Corporation The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government by the Governor-General, on November 11, 1975, still stands as the most dramatic and controversial event in Australias political history. The decision of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, to dismiss the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and install the Liberal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister, on condition that he called an election, was a sensational development that ended a three-week parliamentary stand-off. The crisis began on October 15, when the Opposition parties announced they would block the governments Supply Bills in the Senate, as a means of forcing the government to an election. Whitlam refused to call an election and three weeks of parliamentary debate and public campaigning convulsed the political system. On November 11, Whitlam sought a half-Senate election from the Governor-General. Kerr rejected the advice and dismissed Whitlam. He commissioned Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister. Fraser immediately secured the passage of Supply through the Senate and recommended a double dissolution of the parliament. The election was held on December 13, 1975. The Fraser-led Coalition won the largest victory in Australias federal history. The Parliament of Australia website provided some additional context to this historic event: context Several weeks later, and after intense negotiations and a third attempt to enact the appropriation bills, the new Governor-General took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of acting at his own initiative to invoke his power under sec. 62 of the Constitution: There shall be a Federal Executive Council [in practice, the Government] to advise the GovernorGeneral in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council shall be chosen and summoned by the GovernorGeneral and sworn as Executive Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure. (emphasis added) Governor-General Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Government, even though it still enjoyed majority support in the House of Representatives to which, by constitutional convention, it was responsible. To replace it, Kerr appointed a caretaker Liberal Government with Fraser as prime minister. In justifying his decision, the Governor-General argued that, in the Australian system, the confidence of both Houses on supply is necessary to ensure its provision: When ... an Upper House possesses the power to reject a money bill including an appropriation bill, and exercises the power by denying supply, the principle that a government which has been denied supply by the Parliament should resign or go to an election must still applyit is a necessary consequence of Parliamentary control of appropriation and expenditure and of the expectation that the ordinary and necessary services of Government will continue to be provided. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 104) In this position the Governor-General was supported by the Chief Justice, who wrote that: the Senate has constitutional power to refuse to pass a money bill; it has power to refuse supply to the Government of the day... a Prime Minister who cannot ensure supply to the Crown, including funds for carrying on the ordinary services of Government, must either advise a general election (of a kind which the constitutional situation may then allow) or resign. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 105) Not surprisingly, the two houses reacted very differently. The Senate acted almost instantaneously to pass the stalled appropriation bills. The House agreed to a motion expressing its lack of confidence in the newly-designated prime minister and requesting the Speaker to ask the Governor-General to have Whitlam again form a government. But before the Speaker was allowed to deliver this message, the Governor-General declared, at Frasers request and by pre-arrangement, a double dissolution of both houses. As Solomon put it: In the 1975 double dissolution, the Governor-General had to dismiss a Prime Minister (who controlled a majority in the House of Representatives) and appoint another (who lacked the confidence of that House) to find an advisor who was prepared to recommend to him the course he wished to adoptnamely the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament under section 57. (Solomon 1978: 169) While some Americans may look at Australia's constitutional crisis of 1975 as a "solution" to modern U.S. government shutdowns, "The Dismissal" remains one of the most controversial events in Australia's history: Australia.gov.au. "How Government Works."
Retrieved 14 February 2019. AustralianPolitics.com. "Comparing the American and Australian Political Systems."
Retrieved 14 February 2019. Whitlamdismissal.com. "What Happened."
Retrieved 14 February 2019. Barnett, Bronwyn. "The Dismissal: Through the News Camera Lens."
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max. "The Crisis of 1974-75."
Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 14 February 2019. ABC.Net.Au. "The Dismissal, Australia's Constitutional Crisis."
Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max. "Australia Had a Government Shutdown Once. In the End, the Queen Fired Everyone in Parliament."
The Washington Post. 1 October 2013. | 1 | [
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FMD1367 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: How did this man get this license plate? How did it pass the DMV s rules of no vulgarity? It s obvious that it s a plate that bashes President Trump but someone in the DMV let it pass through. Now he s going to fight for his right to keep an obviously vulgar license plate? Maybe he should grow up and have a decent plate on his car. The Trump-bashing is childish and this guy was a teacher!What does this license plate say? Don Butler of Richmond, a former teacher, says he chose the F and the K because they re the first and last letters of the word flunk, and President Donald Trump has flunked. The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, however, says he needs to give up the plate.The letters FTRU MPK grace the back of his Lexus SUV.But the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles sent Butler a letter demanding he send back the plate because it violates state rules.Butler requested a hearing, and he ll make his case to keep the plate on Monday morning. There s no question that it s an anti-Trump message, he said in a phone interview Friday.But the former middle school teacher and retired lawyer says he doesn t understand DMV s concern. The F and K in the plate are the first and last letters of the word flunk, he said, and that s why he choose them. I think that Trump has flunked miserably, he said. Apparently they re trying to read something else into it. I have no idea what they think it means. SUUUUURE! IT S PRETTY OBVIOUS THAT IT S VULGAR!READ MORE: RICHMOND | 0 | [
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FMD1368 | 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: Dell Hospital Facebook Appeal Claim summaries: Rumor: Dell Hospital will contribute money towards the medical care of a 5-year-old rape victim every time a message is shared.
contextual information: Claim: Dell Hospital will contribute money towards the medical care of a 5-year-old rape victim every time a message is shared. Example: [Collected via Facebook, October 2010] This guy raped a five year old little girl. He ruined her life, she is alive & in the hospital can't move and can never have children, or a normal life. This guy goes by different names he is in hiding & has AIDS. The girl came out positive. Please help us catch this animal. Every time this message is fwd the Dell Hospital will donate $.15 to Maria's medication & treatment. Please dont hesitate to fwd this. It could've been youre daughter or sister. God bless. Thank you!. Forward this to as many people as you can. Origins: The account given in the above entreaty for funds to help pay the medical costs of a five-year-old rape victim named Maria is just another in a long line of hoaxes playing on the idea that some entity will pay out money every time good-hearted souls use Facebook's "share" feature to pass along information to their social network friends. The notion that various business entities will pony up funds for a good cause whenever someone forwards, texts, likes, posts, shares, or otherwise disseminates a particular message is one of the longest-running hoaxes on the Internet. hoaxes This item is similar in form to another widely circulated Facebook hoax about raising funds for the medical care of a child rape victim, but at least that other example was based on a real-life event (even if its appeal for money was spurious). In this case, however, the message is not based on any actual incidence of crime. child rape The Dell Childrens Medical Center of Central Texas has been bedeviled by this rumor since October 2010, at which time they posted an alert about it on their web site: alert ALERT: SPAM Text Message Makes Claim A false text message has been circulating that describes an incident involving a 5-year old girl. The message states that every time you forward it to someone, Dell Children's Medical Center will donate 15 cents to cover the child's healthcare expenses. This message is spam and is in no way affiliated with Dell Children's Medical Center or the Seton Family of Hospitals. If you receive this message, please delete it. If you want to make a difference in the life of an injured or sick child, the best approach is still the old-fashioned one: donate your money and/or time, not a text message or Facebook wall post. Last updated: 11 May 2015 | 0 | [
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FMD1369 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Friday, Donald Trump and several of his GOP colleagues will speak at the National Rifle Association s annual Institute for Legislative Action leadership forum. Without a doubt, the event is going to be overrun with racist, right-wing gun nuts especially because Bearing Arms editor Bob Owens is co-sponsoring the event.Owens is probably tickled pink that he s going to see Trump at the event, as the two men have tons in common. One of the main similarities between them is that they re both wildly racist. When Owens isn t spewing nonsense about radical Democrats needing to be hanged for starting a civil war against conservatives and gun owners, he s dabbling in his other hobby smearing the families of slain black children.Owens has repeatedly targeted and gone out of his way to torture the grieving families of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Jordon Davis with his vile hate speech. Not too long after Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, Owens called the teen a violent, drug-abusing thug who appeared to get off on hurting people and a semi-literate violent criminal. He also trashed the musical about Martin s life, saying that it was an attempt to whitewash a thug s death. In 2013, Owens said that Martin s mother had raised a monster and that her activism against the Stand Your Ground laws that helped her son s murderer George Zimmerman get acquitted were merely for personal enrichment. Owens said: As for why Fulton and her attorneys and Democratic lawmakers in general want Stand Your Ground laws repealed, that s blisteringly obvious as well. Money.A provision of Stand Your Ground law in many states is that if a person is found not guilty during a criminal trial, then that defendant win (sic) civil immunity, and that keeps the families of deceased street thugs from suing the survivors for millions of dollars in civil court. Owens remarked, Good people will arm themselves against violent young predators like Trayvon Martin because any society that hopes to survive simply has no choice. Owens attitude toward younger victims of senseless, racially motivated attacks didn t improve over time. When 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot by police officers who claimed they thought his toy gun was real, Owens placed the blame on Rice s family once again. Owens said: The Rice family doesn t care anymore about being responsible after Tamir s death than they did about teaching him to be responsible with realistic toy guns while he was alive. Owens also condemned Lucy McBath for becoming an activist against Stand Your Ground laws after her son Jordon Davis was shot and killed. Owens said, she has become radicalized, and now travels the nation attempting to strip law-abiding citizens of their most basic natural right as a human being, the right [to] bear arms for self-defense. Owens complete lack of human decency has been seen throughout Trump s campaign, not only within the candidate himself but also in his supporters. One thing has become clear: Trump really appeals to America s worst, and has gained a massive following amongst racists. Just this week, White Nationalists at The American Freedom Party said that Trump had several KKK delegates that the media isn t aware of. He s gotten the support of white nationalists like David Duke and William Johnson, who admitted that he wants Trump s divisive rhetoric to make racism more mainstream.As Owens has chosen to ignore the fact that racism exists and that racially motivated attacks have become a major issue in the United States, it s clear that Trump s ignorant, hateful rhetoric is the perfect messaging for the NRA sponsor. And just as Trump never backs off from a one-sided feud, Owens isn t going to stop torturing these suffering families with his disgusting comments.Featured image via Twitter | 0 | [
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FMD1370 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: An investigation conducted by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department has concluded that the Frost Kennel dog-handlers hired by the DAPL, were not properly licensed to handle security in the State of North Dakota, nor are they a registered security company in the State of Ohio. On Sept. 3, Democracy Now journalist, Amy Goodman, and film crew captured Frost Kennel workers attacking land protectors with guard dogs, sparking a national outcry.
Dakota Access Pipeline Company Attacks Native American Protesters with Dogs & Pepper Spray:
According to North Dakota’s Grand Forks Herald , Frost Kennels, who was working under a private security company called Silverton, refused to cooperate with investigators, and as a result, they were supposedly only able to identify the Frost Kennel workers exposed in social media . This includes Ashley Nicole Welch, who was the main aggressor.
Ashley Nicole Welch. Source: Facebook | 0 | [
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FMD1371 | 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 Jamaica Ban K-Pop? Claim summaries: A 2018 satirical article continues to get traction online.
contextual information: In June 2021, messages began to circulate on social media claiming that the country of Jamaica had banned K-Pop music. However, Jamaica has not banned K-Pop. This claim originates from a satirical article published in 2018 on the website 8satire.com. In addition to having "satire" in its name, 8satire.com (which previously published content as "8shit") also carries a disclaimer labeling its content as fiction: "8Shit is a satire news and humor website. All its content is fiction (except those posts under the serious category) and shouldn't be taken as real. All references, names, and marks of institutions on this website are used as contextual elements, like in any novel or science-fiction story." It should also be noted that while Jamaica is most famous for reggae music, Jamaicans enjoy a variety of different musical genres. The Jamaican Observer reported in 2019 that a K-Pop party hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Jamaica was well-attended by young Jamaicans. Despite South Korea being approximately 13,473 km away from Jamaica, the K-Pop wave has breached Jamaican shores. Last September, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Jamaica hosted its annual K-Lovers' Party and Talent Competition, as well as its inaugural Korean Language Speech Competition. The events were well-attended by young Jamaicans who openly expressed their love for Korean culture by singing along to popular K-Pop tracks in the Korean language, dancing to the music, and participating in the two competitions. It was surprising to see the display of talent, particularly because there are not many places to learn Hangul, the Korean language, in Jamaica. The events represented the growing interest in Korean culture among Jamaican youth. | 0 | [
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FMD1372 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: I accompanied Iraq’s elite counterterrorism force and other units from the Iraqi military and the federal police into Falluja at the end of June, during the final days of their long battle to wrest back control of the city from the Islamic State. Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to the Islamic State, more than two years ago, and the militant group had all that time to learn the city, sowing traps everywhere. It was only after a long siege that the Iraqi forces moved to take the center. In the last stages of the battle, members of the counterterrorism force, in coordination with other Iraqi units, fought their way into the neighborhood of Al Jolan in Falluja, where Islamic State fighters were making their last stand. As we moved through the streets, gun battles raged, and the insurgents’ improvised mortars exploded among the narrow alleyways and rubble in a effort to halt the advance of Iraq’s security forces. What, exactly, the Islamic State fighters were holding out for was lost on me. The city had been surrounded for months. Nearly all the civilians were gone, either driven out by their rulers’ brutality in the early days, or escaping during breaks in the fighting as the Iraqi forces approached. The Iraqi Army, special forces and the federal police relied on heavy artillery, close air support from United States aircraft and a patient advance through the city. The remaining Islamic State fighters were forced to be opportunistic. During one visit with the Iraqi special forces, I saw a soldier who had been shot through his right calf, either by a sniper’s round or random gunfire. Gruesome markers of the battle dotted the roads leading into Falluja. A charred body of an Islamic State fighter had been left on the side of a road that the Iraqi forces had bulldozed through a small field south of the city as they began the assault. A metal cable was tied tight around one of the body’s legs, and the head had been lopped off. A police commander chastised two Shiite militiamen who were taking cellphone pictures of each other stomping on the corpse triumphantly. Much of the heavy fighting in Falluja was done by the counterterrorism forces. The units were designed for night raids and targeted extractions. Instead, as the fight to retake Iraq has turned into a series of urban battles and checkpoint fights, the small, specialized units have been called on for infantry assignments. For the counterterrorism units, Falluja was the latest in a long string of assaults. They have been sent wherever the fighting was heaviest and the target most critical while the government has struggled to reconstitute its failed and deserted regular army. It has left the elite units threadbare, run down. Islamic State fighters had built underground bunkers in homes they had commandeered. When the Iraqi counterterrorism forces moved in, they discovered steel doors covering holes cut in the marble and tile floors of the houses. In other buildings in the city center, storage bunkers held caches of weapons. As the Iraqi forces advanced block by block, courtyards and rooftops became vital vantage points, sniper nests and, despite the brutally hot weather, crash pads under the sun. During one of my final days in Falluja, Islamic State fighters hiding out in the city showered us with large mortar shells, probably made in a makeshift factory set up in someone’s kitchen. The unit I was traveling with discovered large stocks of crudely made mortar rounds: improvised mortars, or IRAMs. In one house, ordnance, including explosives, was piled in the kitchen. Other deadly ingredients — bags of ball bearings, rusty screws, nails and other shrapnel — were strewed about. Other homes in Falluja had been converted into torture chambers and, according to some of the security forces, dormitories for the Islamic State’s sex slaves. Iraq has been at war since some of the soldiers were in grade school. But evidence of the Islamic State’s brutality took aback even some of the most soldiers. One officer, who spoke openly only on the condition of anonymity, citing military protocol, told me that the Islamic State was different from the insurgents he was used to fighting. You can negotiate with insurgents, he said in English laced with military jargon he picked up from years of working with United States Special Forces, but the Islamic State fighters seemed to have embraced unbridled and inflexible savagery. Another officer, Lt. Hassan Almosawi, from Iraq’s Emergency Response Brigade, took me to an Islamic State prison his unit had discovered in a once upscale neighborhood in central Falluja. Homes in the area were outfitted with bars on the doors and grated metal sheets welded over the windows. Some of the rooms — possibly for the female slaves — were furnished with fans, carpets, pillows and blankets. Nearby, we discovered a home where the Islamic State had established a torture operation. A heavy chain with a hook at the end hung from the ceiling of a parlor, and car batteries were arrayed on the floor near the wall, connected to an transformer. Across the street from the prison and torture chamber, in a former school, decomposing bodies were tangled in a hastily dug grave, left to rot in the heat. The victims had been blindfolded and appeared to have been killed as the Islamic State fled the city. Almost 60, 000 Iraqis who managed to escape Falluja were now stuck in the desert in Anbar Province. Though Falluja is on the doorstep of Baghdad, only 40 miles away, the authorities were limiting access to the capital for fear that retreating militants might try to infiltrate the city. The fleeing families have been forced to live in camps in the desert, like the one I visited in Amiryat Falluja, south of the Euphrates River. Women and children sleep in the open, exposed to heat and gusts that whip the fine desert dust through the frames of unfinished trailers. Aside from a few older men, there are few men or boys in the camps. They have been taken to screening where the government tries to weed out possible Islamic State fighters. After weeks, some of the displaced families still have no word about what has happened to their men. Most of the forces securing Falluja and the surrounding area are Shiite. But the families, and the detained men, are Sunnis. And though there have been few verified reports of extrajudicial killings or abuse, the people’s resentment and fear are being carried in whispers. Victory is never the end of the story here. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1373 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In 2008 Barack Obama promised to shut down the coal industry:Hillary also promised to shut down the coal industry as part of her campaign platform. When politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary put special interests and lobbyists who are using phony climate change to collect billions in federal green subsidies over working Americans, you know these people are no longer public servants but instead, self-servants. Watch:There was a time, not so long ago, when this city on the Ohio River employed up to 15,000 people in the steel mills whose rusting warehouses still line the streets. Now the figure is closer to 800.First, it was costs associated with the repeated regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, after 1994 and the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) it was cheaper competition from places such as Mexico. In the end, there was no way Weirton could compete, and an industry that has fed and clothed the city for generations essentially died. Her husband introduced Nafta, said a former steel worker, sitting at the the bar of the Columbia Club, located at one was once Gate No 1 of the Weirton Steel Corporation s main factory. He had worked at the plant for 34 years. If anyone in this in this state votes for her, they re crazy. It is communities such as this that Donald Trump has been targeting hard with his pitch about the evils of Nafta and the need to bring jobs well-paid manufacturing jobs in particular back to America. Polls collected by RealClearPolitics suggest he leads Hillary Clinton in West Virginia by between 18 to 27 points.While his policy is not hard on detail, Mr Trump has vowed repeatedly to bring jobs back from places such as Mexico and China.But in places such as Weirton, down to fewer than 20,000 people from a peak of 33,000 it is hard not to feel that while some parts of the country may have seen the benefits of global trade, this hardscrabble community, with its fast-food joints and strip bars, has been passed by.Ed Sutton, a city government worker who said he would be voting for Mr Trump, said that nothing had replaced the steel jobs . They talk about creating all these jobs. But they re just retail jobs that pay minimum wage, or just above, he said.Ms Clinton, meanwhile, said this spring, in a comment she came to quickly regret, she was going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business . IndependentTrump s appeal is vast and broad for many blue-collar workers and former workers across America. Listen to these former steel workers in PA, living in a Democrat stronghold explain how they never imagined they would be voting for a Republican: | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1374 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Here s more proof that liberals don t like free speech unless it s THEIR speech It s no secret that CNN is anti-Trump with their coverage every single day. They ve also been caught telling some huge whoppers on air that social media calls them out on. Blatant lies about President Trump caused him to go after the network with the nickname of fake news . Well, it stuck and now they are known as FNN aka Fake News Network.Jaxon Jester wanted to boldly wear a FNN t-shirt for a field trip to Atlanta s CNN headquarters but his teacher made him take the shirt off His right to freedom of speech was violated and the entire incident has raised questions about who did the right thing: UNDER FIRE A Georgia family is under fire for allowing a seventh grader to wear a T-shirt that mocked liberal news network CNN on a school field trip to CNN s Atlanta headquarters but the boy s parents think the school violated the First Amendment by making their son take it off.Nancy and Stan Jester, of Dekalb, are both local elected officials, she a county commissioner and he is a member of the local school board. Their son, seventh-grader Jaxon, wore a shirt mocking the CNN logo as FNN with the caption, Fake News Network. A teacher asked him to remove it before the tour, but the school has since apologized to the Jesters. However, the parents want an apology for Jaxon because, they say, the whole thing was his idea and he has the right to free speech. This year when the CNN tour was announced, my 7th grade son Jaxon asked me if he could purchase an FNN-Fake News Network shirt to wear for his field trip, Stan Jester wrote in a blog post. As an advocate for the First Amendment, I agreed to his request. Jester continued: His mother cautioned him that he might cause a controversy and needed to be prepared for that. He was fully aware of the implications of his decision and made the affirmative choice to wear his shirt. The boy s father wrote that he is disappointed by the hypocrisy of the decision to make his son change his shirt. Some students are celebrated when they make a controversial display during the National Anthem. My student was forced to remove his shirt because someone didn t like it. I defend speech and expression, even if I disagree, or it makes me uncomfortable, he wrote.AJC S LIBERAL MAUREEN DOWNEY GIVES HER TWO CENTS WORTH:The Atlanta Journal-Constitution s Maureen Downey wrote a column asking, Was a Dekalb board member wrong to allow son to wear insulting T-shirt to CNN tour? At the end of her column, Downey declared that, As a parent who has chaperoned a lot of field trips, I would avoid sending my child off with an attitude or attire that could create problems not only for teachers, but parent chaperones, most of whom take off work to give their time. READ MORE: FOX NEWS | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD1375 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Chile s presidential hopefuls wrapped up campaigning on Thursday in a race that has pitted billionaire Sebastian Pinera s promise for change against center-left candidate Alejandro Guillier s defense of a recent raft of progressive reforms. With their six rivals trailing far behind, Pinera and Guillier are widely expected to place first and second, respectively, in Sunday s election, allowing them to move on to an eventual Dec. 17 run-off. Pinera, a 67-year-old former president, has portrayed himself as the best bet for reviving growth that has slowed in recent years in the world s No.1 copper producer. He has vowed to cut the corporate tax rate and scale back outgoing President Michelle Bachelet s tax, labor and education reforms that Guillier has vowed to deepen. Bachelet cannot run for office again because of term limits. Chileans face an important decision. They re going to have to choose between change or continuity, Pinera told journalists on Thursday on the last day for campaigning before the election. Guillier, a bearded former journalist-turned-Senator, has tapped concerns that Pinera would mark a setback for gains made in Bachelet s government for students, women and workers | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1376 | 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 Stacey Abrams' Sister Oversee a Court Case Involving Abrams? Claim summaries: A Republican Congressman saw a conflict of interest involving the Abrams sisters in December 2020.
contextual information: In December 2020, right-leaning observers and prominent Republican politicians cried foul after a federal court judge blocked attempts to remove thousands of names from voter rolls in Georgia, ahead of January's two U.S. Senate run-off elections in the state. On Dec. 28, Politico reported that: Politico A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties. The bulk of the registrations that the counties sought to rescind, more than 4,000, were in Muscogee County, which Biden won handily in November. An additional 150 were from Ben Hill County, which Trump won by a wide margin. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas responded by tweeting: "This is absurd. This is an obvious case for recusal. For Stacey Abrams sister to refuse to recuse and issue this decision despite her indisputable bias undermines the integrity of the entire judicial system." Donald Trump Jr. wrote "Nothing shady here..." tweeting wrote Doug Collins, the outgoing Republican congressman who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2020, said Abrams Gardner should recuse herself from the case because "her own sister is a party!" said In reality, Abrams was not a party to the case on which her sister ruled in December 2020. Collins stated a significant falsehood in claiming otherwise. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Leslie Abrams Gardner are indeed sisters. Over the years, Abrams has repeatedly confirmed as much, including when she congratulated Abrams Gardner on her U.S. Senate confirmation and appointment as U.S. District Court judge for the Middle District of Georgia, in 2014 and 2015. 2014 2015 The case in question was Majority Forward and Gamaliel Warren Turner vs. Ben Hill County Board of Elections et al. Majority Forward is a non-profit voter registration organization, and Turner is a resident of Muscogee County, Georgia. According to Abrams Gardner's Dec. 28 ruling, the basic facts of the case were as follows. Earlier in December 2020, Tommy Roberts a City Council member in Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County challenged the eligibility of 328 registered voters in the county. Based on his own cross-referencing of the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address database, Roberts contended that those voters had moved out of the state and were therefore no longer eligible to vote in Ben Hill County. ruling The board of elections in Ben Hill County determined that Roberts' challenge to the eligibility of 152 of those voters was likely valid, and they designated those 152 voters "pending hearing" and contacted them to advise that they would only be allowed to cast provisional ballots in the January 2021 Senate run-off election, and would subsequently have to "cure" those ballots by providing proof of their residency. In Muscogee County, a man named Ralph Russell brought a similar challenge, claiming to have found 4,033 registered voters in Muscogee County who, according to the National Change of Address database, had moved out of state. The Muscogee County Board of Elections determined that Russell's challenge was probably valid, and contacted those 4,033 "targeted voters" to inform them they could only cast provisional ballots, and would have to provide proof of residency. Turner was one of those targeted voters. On Dec. 23, Majority Forward challenged the actions of Muscogee and Ben Hill counties, and filed for a temporary restraining order on Dec. 27. On Dec. 28, Abrams Gardner granted that order, meaning the counties were ordered, for the next eight days, not to remove the targeted voters from registration lists, or require them to cast only provisional ballots. Since that time period covered the Jan. 5, 2021, elections, the targeted voters were therefore allowed to vote as normal in the U.S. Senate run-off elections. Abrams Gardner's reasoning can be examined in the ruling itself. ruling The defendants in the case filed a motion to request that Abrams Gardner recuse herself. They argued, in part, that Fair Fight the voting rights group founded and chaired by Abrams was involved in similar litigation before the U.S. District Court in Georgia's Northern District, and the same lawyers represented Fair Fight and Majority Forward in the cases. They also argued that Abrams Gardner's ruling in the Majority Forward case could have a bearing on the judge's decision-making in the Fair Fight litigation, which directly involved Abrams, since she is the chairperson of that organization. The defendants wrote: motion wrote In addition, any relief rendered in the instant case as it relates to the NCOAR [National Change of Address Registry] would likely be cited as persuasive authority in the Fair Fight Litigation. Abrams interest could therefore be substantially affected by the outcome of this proceeding. For this reason, Judge Gardners impartiality might reasonably be questioned were this case to proceed before her. In a footnote to her Dec. 28 ruling, Abrams Gardner noted the request for her to recuse herself, but stated simply, "The Court has reviewed the motion and finds no basis for recusal." Abrams Gardner added that "an order detailing the court's reasoning" was forthcoming. As of Dec. 31, no such order was available on the case's online docket. Contrary to Collins' claim, Abrams was not a "party" to the Majority Forward litigation on which her sister ruled in December 2020. However, she is the chairperson of Fair Fight, a voting rights organization that acted as a plaintiff in a very similar case, albeit in a different U.S. District Court, in Georgia, at the same time. Whether that connection, in combination with her familial relationship with Abrams Gardner, should constitute grounds for recusal, is ultimately a matter of subjective interpretation. But Collins undoubtedly erred when he claimed that "Stacey Abramss sister is ruling on a case in which her own sister is a party!" | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD1377 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PARIS (AP) — A political party that would abolish marriage — one whose founder wanted AIDS patients rounded up and branded homosexuality “a biological and social anomaly†— is now winning LGBT votes in France. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1378 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is a snake oil salesman. Anyone who paid attention during the election knows that, and increasingly, the people who took Trump at face value are beginning to realize it. Radio host Michael Savage was one of Trump s most rabid supporters, but on his show last week, he admitted to having an awakening, of sorts, and he s waking up in a nightmare of Trump s broken promises.It s not as if Savage, who s famous for quotes like this: Barack Obama is elected for another four-year term, he ll be president for life. He ll be the new Hugo Chavez. He ll do away with the two-term limit and win the 2016 election with 90 percent of the vote. We have less than six months to make sure this doesn t happen. Before Lyndon Johnson intervened to make sure blacks would become dependent on the government for just about everything they needed to live, black participation in the labor market was equal to or greater than that of whites. Today the official African-American unemployment rate which doesn t take into account the enormous number of blacks who aren t even trying to find jobs is around 14 percent. In fact, when you count those who don t even try to find a job, it s nearly 50 percent. When the numbers are added up, under this administration more than 60 percent of young black people are no longer even part of the labor force. It s the lowest ever recorded in our history. End affirmative action. We ve had a black president, black cabinet members from both parties, a black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As much as the left fashions themselves as being progressive, they re not. In reality, today s leftist movement is made in much the same way as a sausage it s a blend of fascist, communist, and socialist ideologies from twentieth-century Europe, with a pinch of Nazism, all ground together, yet retaining the flavor of its various parts. has suddenly grown empathy and has become aware of all the people a Trump presidency can hurt. Nope, Savage is disillusioned because Trump seems to be buddying up to some black guys.Savage, who has been credited with enabling Trump and his legion of racist white men, has been called Trump s ideological spirit animal. He shares Trump s hatred for People of Color, and despite being Jewish, Savage supports Israel but has a complicated relationship with Jewish people. It s no wonder, then, that Savage experienced some existential angst when Trump was seen cozying up to Kanye West, who Savage called a psycho rapper. Then, a caller had this so say: I think as badly of it as I think of a lot of the things he s doing, the caller said, referring to Obama. Talking about, you know, Obama and how he agrees with Obama on so many things. When he was running for president, he didn t agree with Obama on nothing; neither did I, neither did you, neither did any of the people voting for him, and now he talks about how he has great respect for him and he s calling him for his opinion and to invite this rapper up to Trump Tower had he told us he was gonna do these things, do you think this movement would have been as big as it was? I don t think so. Savage agreed with the caller, and said, I don t think you re alone. He then complained about Trump s appointments of establishment Republicans (no complaints about billionaires, though) and the fact that Trump is no longer talking about building a wall. I m waking up and it seems to be a nightmare, Savage said. One day after another, they seem to be tilting so far away from what they promised that it s hard to even remember what it is that he promised. Here s the audio:Featured image via Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images. | 0 | [
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"1",
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] | 0 |
FMD1379 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near a large Shi ite mosque in the Afghan capital on Friday that killed at least one person and wounded five others. The blast hit the Qala-e Fatehullah area of the city, near the Hussainya mosque, and came as security forces were on alert for possible attacks during Ashura, the holiest celebration in the Shi ite religious calendar. President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement saying that the attackers would not be able to shake the unity of the Afghan people with their inhumane and irreligious attacks. A statement from Islamic State, which has claimed a string of attacks on Shi ite targets over the past two years, said its fighters had carried out the attack. Afghanistan, a mainly Sunni Islamic country, has mostly avoided the sectarian violence that has devastated countries such as Iraq, but there have been increasing numbers of attacks on Shi ite targets in recent years. Security officials said at least two attackers had been killed as they carried out the operation, apparently intended to hit the mosque, just a month after 20 people were killed during prayers at another Shi ite mosque in Kabul. A hospital run by the Italian aid group Emergency said five wounded had been brought in following the blast but a witness at the scene said eight or nine people had been wounded or killed. The local affiliate of Islamic State has claimed several attacks on Shi ite targets in Kabul in recent years and the government has allowed the Shi ite community to place armed guards near mosques ahead of Ashura. No reliable census information exists on the size of the Shi ite community in Afghanistan, but estimates range around 10-20 percent, with most coming from the Persian-speaking Hazara and Tajik ethnic groups. | 1 | [
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"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1380 | 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 if labor force participation rate were the same as when Barack Obama became president, unemployment would be 11 percent.
contextual information: At the Texas Republican Partys 2012 convention, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told the crowd that the high stakes in Novembers election include American jobs.If the amount of Americans were in the workforce today like they were when President Obama took office, the labor force participation rate, our unemployment rate would be 11 percent today, the House Budget Committee chairman said in his keynote speech June 9, 2012.We decided to check.First, we defined our terms.The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the U.S. labor force participation rate by taking the total workforce -- people who are employed or job-hunting -- and dividing by the total civilian population aged 16 or older. (People in military, medical or penal institutions are excluded. )The general unemployment rate, which is the one most people are familiar with, expresses how many people in the labor force are unemployed.Generally, climbs and dips in the general unemployment rate are a reasonable indicator that more Americans are losing jobs or getting hired, respectively. But in times of recession, high numbers of workers simply stop looking for jobs. Common reasons they give are retirement, disability, going to school or caring for household members,according toresearchers at the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank who drew on federal data.But when adults stop looking for work, the overall workforce shrinks, which can have the effect of reducing the unemployment rate -- which could lead to erroneous conclusions about U.S. economic conditions.To counteract that effect, the BLS also calculates what it calls the U-6 unemployment rate, which folds in people who stopped job-hunting and people who took part-time jobs for economic reasons. Since the U-6 rate was first published in 1994, its three highest points have all accompaniedrecessions, first in 1990-91, then 2001 and most recently 2007-09.Of late, Republicans have taken to highlighting this distinction, as Ryan does here.His claim can be restated this way: If the same percentage of Americans were employed or looking for work inMay 2012as in January 2009, general unemployment would have been 11 percent instead of 8.2 percent.We asked Ryans office for his backup materials, and spokesman Kevin Seifert sent us data, calculations and supporting news coverage.Seifert told us by email thataccording to the BLS, the January 2009 workforce participation rate was 65.7 percent, while the May 2012 rate was 63.8 percent. Applying those to the May 2012 population of 243 million, he said, gives a labor force of 159.6 million at the first rate and 155 million at the latter rate.Subtracting the real labor force (155 million) from the hypothetical labor force (159.6 million) shows that 4.6 million more people would actively be seeking work right now instead of being characterized as discouraged, etc., he wrote.Adding 4.6 million unemployed workers to the May 2012 unemployment count, which was 12.7 million, would give a total 17.3 million unemployed, Seifert said. Then, 17.3 million unemployed people divided by 155 million would give a general unemployment rate of 11.2 percent, Seifert said.We checked thenumbersand math for ourselves, then asked Cheryl Abbot, a Dallas-based regional economist for the labor bureau, for help analyzing the calculations. It looked to us like Ryan should have divided by the hypothetical labor force, rather than the real May 2012 labor force (to correctly describe the unemployment rate of the larger, hypothetical group), and Abbot agreed. But neither that distinction nor small differences due to causes such as rounding off numbers seriously affected the result.Accepting the assumption that all 4.6 million adults added to the labor force would be unemployed -- and using BLS figures that were not rounded off as much as the ones Seifert used to describe his math to us -- Abbot got a result of 10.9 percent.Our rulingThe general unemployment rate in June 2012 would have been 10.9 percent if the labor force participation rate had remained at the 65.5 percent in place when Obama became president. Thats about 11 percent.We rate Ryans statement True. | 1 | [
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"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1381 | 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: Will Trump's Name Appear on COVID-19 Stimulus Checks? Claim summaries: While the unprecedented move could potentially delay these payments, U.S. Treasury officials insist the checks "are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned."
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.
In April 2020, millions of Americans who lost income due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic were waiting for promised relief payments from the United States government. So when news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump was making the "unprecedented" move of having his name added to these stimulus checks—a decision that could potentially delay their arrival by several days—many citizens took to social media to voice their displeasure. Trump's name is indeed being added to the COVID-19 stimulus checks, otherwise known as Economic Impact Payments. As of this writing, however, officials at the U.S. Treasury Department insist this will not result in any delays.
The Washington Post first reported on Trump's decision on April 14, 2020. According to the news outlet, Trump's name is expected to appear in the memo line of the check, not as the payment's official signatory, and this will be the "first time that a president's name appears on an IRS disbursement." The Treasury Department has ordered President | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1382 | 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: Accountant in a house of ill repute 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 and 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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"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD1383 | 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 United States has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP.
contextual information: As congressional Democrats and Republicans sit down for high-stakes budget talks,the rhetoric has flown furiously to familiar territory.Republicans want cuts and reforms to entitlement programs, while Democrats insist that revenue must be on the table, too. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., made the case for the latter inan interview on MSNBCon Nov. 12, 2013. This country has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP, she said. It doesn't feel that way when you hear about austerity and we have to cut this and we have to cut that. It's because the income inequality is greater than it has ever been. We wondered if she was correct. The numbers dont lie Schakowskys office sent us figures from theEconomic Research Serviceof the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to those numbers, the GDP per capita, when adjusted for inflation, hit $45,633 this year, which surpassed the previous high of $45,360, which was set in 2007 prior to the most recent recession. It was barely higher, but higher all the same. (The government defines the GDP gross domestic product as the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property within the country.) We were curious how the data was calculated, so we contacted Mathew Shane, an economist with the USDA who put the figures together. He told us that the 2013 number was partially based on a projection, since the year is not yet completed. But if that projection is borne out, he said,then GDP per capita will be at its highest level ever. Its close, Shane said. We hit a peak in 2007 when the crisis hit. Theres been no income growth in real terms since 2007. The difference between (2007 and 2013) is a very modest difference. We, essentially, finally regained what we were in 2007. I guess we could say were projected to be slightly better than we were in 2007. If I guess doesnt sound definitive enough, we also sought out another source:the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the government agency that calculates the nations GDP. The bureaus analysis also backs up Shanes findings. By the second quarter of this year, GDP per capita had surpassed 2007 levels. The third quarter of 2013 is the highest on record, said Thomas Dail, spokesman for the bureau. Finally, GDP per capita, even when adjusted for inflation, hasgone up and upfor more than a century. In other words, Schakowsky could have said what she said at virtually any given point during the last 150 years and had a pretty good chance of being right. Our ruling Schakowsky said, This country has never been richer, if you look at per capita GDP. We found that GDP has trended upward throughout much of America's history and the current level is only slightly higher than pre-recession levels. But the numbers show Schakowsky is right. We rate her comments True. | 1 | [
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FMD1384 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump and his team made a great deal of the campaign about Hillary Clinton s email security (including gleefully exploiting hacked emails stolen by Russia and released by Wikileaks), so one might think their own email security practices would be stellar. Alas, like so many of Trump s criticism of Hillary, his team s own security efforts are much, much worse.To prove this point, tech site Gizmodo created a test to see how well Trump s staff handles email security. Adding even more fuel to the fire, they also included James Comey who had played a central role in perpetuating lies about Hillary Clinton s emails in the days leading up to the election.Three weeks ago, Gizmodo Media Group s Special Projects Desk launched a security preparedness test directed at Giuliani and 14 other people associated with the Trump Administration. We sent them an email that mimicked an invitation to view a spreadsheet in Google Docs. The emails came from the address [email protected], but the sender name each one displayed was that of someone who might plausibly email the recipient, such as a colleague, friend, or family member.Disturbingly, a number of Trump associates fell for it.Some of the Trump Administration people completely ignored our email, the right move. But it appears that more than half the recipients clicked the link: Eight different unique devices visited the site, one of them multiple times. There s no way to tell for sure if the recipients themselves did all the clicking (as opposed to, say, an IT specialist they d forwarded it to), but seven of the connections occurred within 10 minutes of the emails being sent.Even more disturbing, both Newt Gingrich and (now former FBI director) James Comey seemed to buy into the premise, while remaining slightly skeptical. Comey, for instance, asked the sender to explain to him what was in the attached document. Surely a better response than just clicking on it, but still dangerous. By asking a potential hacker to explain him or herself, the (former) FBI director only opened the door to further chances to be hacked. He also appeared to believe the email was really from a friend based solely on the name attached the the email account.Is it legal to do this? Some journalists were skeptical.@ashleyfeinberg Did did Gizmodo send the FBI director a spoofed email and then confess to the federal crime at the FBI director s expense on Gizmodo? Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 9, 2017However, Gizmodo s defense is pretty solid. For starters, they never collected any actual passwords or contact information for any of the recipients (regardless of whether the marks took the bait). Secondly, they slapped so many disclaimers on the emails that you would have to be extremely oblivious to not understand what was happening a test which, it turns out, some of Trump s friends seem to have failed.For journalistic reasons it provides a lot of insight into just how susceptible some of Trump s closest advisers are to being hacked. Far from having the moral high ground to lecture Democrats, it turns out that Trump s team is comprised of technology-challenged suckers capable of exposing a lot of sensitive information to would-be hackers. If Gizmodo can trick them with an email containing numerous disclaimers that this was a potential hack, a real hack infinitely more subtle could be a serious threat.Comey himself acknowledged that it appears Russian attempts to hack America s democracy appears to be ongoing and warned that it would likely rear its ugly head in 2018 and 2020. He should be extra cautious.Meanwhile, it s unlikely that Trump will be able to appropriately respond to this threat. He may not even recognize it exists. He talked a mean game about Hillary s email security, but the closest he ever came to commenting on his own understanding of cyberwarfare was claiming his 10-year-old son Barron was good with computers. Given that level of ignorance, Trump isn t likely to start leading by example.Yikes.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD1385 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: An Alabama state court on Friday rejected Governor Robert Bentley’s request to block a legislative committee from releasing evidence about wrongdoing stemming from his relationship with a former aide to be used for impeachment proceedings. A Montgomery County State Court judge was still hearing arguments on Friday evening over the governor’s motion to halt impeachment proceedings in the Alabama House of Representatives. The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin the process on Monday. Bentley, who is accused of using state resources for personal use, has denied any wrongdoing and has refused to step down, as demanded by top political leaders. Bentley’s troubles began last year when recordings surfaced of him making suggestive remarks to a former senior adviser, Rebekah Mason, before his wife of 50 years filed for divorce in August 2015. Bentley has denied having a physical affair with Mason, who is married. She resigned as questions about the pair’s relationship began to dominate Alabama politics. On Wednesday, the Alabama Ethics Commission found that Bentley probably violated ethics and campaign finance laws. The Judiciary Committee’s report on Friday accused Bentley of ordering state law enforcement officers to track down copies of an embarrassing recording that suggested an affair with the Mason. It also accused him of retaliating against an official who discovered the relationship. The committee plans to begin its impeachment process on Monday. The panel’s process would lead to a recommendation to the full House on whether to impeach. Bentley remained defiant at news conference on Friday. “Once again, let me say, I do not plan to resign,†he told reporters without taking questions. “I have done nothing illegal. If the people want to know if I misused state resources, the answer is simply no, I have not.†The Ethics Commission on Wednesday said it found that Bentley had accepted a contribution and made a loan to his campaign outside the legal time frame, and that he used campaign funds to pay the legal fees of Mason, local media reported. The commission has declined to disclose the evidence of its finding because it was referring it to the Montgomery district attorney’s office, which could bring criminal charges against the governor. | 1 | [
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FMD1386 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Worst Of Saudi Economic Slump Yet To Come 11/07/2016
PRESS TV
Experts say the outlook for Saudi economic recovery will remain murky for many months to come with some even warning that the worst of the economic slump for the kingdom is yet to come.
Reuters in a report quoted several Riyadh-based experts as saying that there would be a high degree of uncertainty over the status of the Saudi economy in 2017. That would mainly be a result of the remaining challenges from the private sector.
The Saudi economy may appear to have escaped a fiscal and currency crisis that loomed at the start of 2016. However, experts said, threats from certain basic problems still remain and will haunt the kingdom next year.
The government owes its success to temporarily escape crisis to unpaid bills rather than sustainable spending cuts.
The government has reduced or suspended payments that it owed to construction firms, medical establishments and even some of the foreign consultants who helped to design the economic reforms, Reuters added quoting the experts. The estimated unpaid dues for construction firms alone totaled 80 billion riyals.
Experts further warned that this could store up obligations for Riyadh in the future.
Reuters elsewhere emphasized that signs of the economic slump could be seen in Riyadh and other major cities, where discounts of 50 percent or more are offered by stores selling clothes and consumer electronics, and there is a surge in people offering second-hand cars for sale.
The biggest uncertainty may be how authorities can push through a key part of their reform drive, added the report. The most important issue for the Saudis may be determining how they plan to foster a vibrant private sector that does not depend on oil revenues while at the same pushing ahead austerity policies that are suppressing private demand.
Experts also warned that the status of the Saudi job market over the next few years. Between 1 million and 2 million of Saudi Arabia’s 10 million foreign workers may leave over the next couple of years as the economic slowdown causes lay-offs and the government seeks to steer Saudi citizens into jobs previously held by foreigners, Reuters added. | 0 | [
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FMD1387 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Carmela Tyrell November 6, 2016 Surviving Off-grid: 5 Ways to Manage Chimney Creosote
The government is doing everything it can to deter people from burning wood , it still remains popular with home owners that don’t want to use oil or other more expensive fuels. Wood is also very popular with off gridders, preppers, and homesteaders because it can be harvested from natural resources or grown for this purpose.
Many people that burn wood are plagued by creosote that builds up in chimneys. As dangerous as this problem can become, preventing or reducing creosote buildup is not as hard as it seems to be.
Here are five ways you can reduce or prevent creosote buildup in your chimneys.
Do not forget to inspect your chimneys on a regular basis and clean them even if the creosote only looks like it is in the early stages of buildup.
How Does Creosote Form?
Have you ever blown on a mirror or piece of glass so that some of the water vapor from your lungs condenses on the glass? If so, then you may also know that condensation occurs because the glass is cooler than the air exiting your mouth.
In a similar way, when hot gas and smoke enter the chimney, they are hotter than the stove pipe. If the pipe is not hot enough, then creosote will condense out of the smoke and be deposited in the chimney. Video first seen on Corey Binford .
The Three Degrees of Creosote Buildup
As with many other situations in life, creosote build up may not be especially dangerous at first. However, if it is left unchecked, or not taken care of soon enough, it can become a very expensive problem. As you review the three degrees of creosote buildup, bear in mind that simply cleaning up the mess is only part of the problem. You will still need to take active steps to prevent or at least slow down further creosote buildup.
1st Degree
Just about every chimney will build up layers of soft black material known as soot. If you can easily brush the black layer of material out of the chimney, chances are there is actually very little creosote in it.
Many people consider this a good sign because it means the fire is burning hot enough to reduce the amount of temperature difference between the smoke and the chimney. While this stage isn’t especially dangerous, you will still need to clean out the chimney on a routine basis in order to keep good air flow.
2nd Degree
At this level, you will start to see more creosote in the soot. There will be quite a few shiny black flakes of material that can still be removed if you put some effort into it. If you see this kind of soot, it is very important to increase the air flow in the burning area.
3rd Degree
This type of creosote buildup forms layers of a tar like coating on inner surfaces of the chimney. If you think about how cholesterol builds up in arteries, then you have a pretty good picture of what I mean.
3 rd Degree creosote also contains a good bit of unburned fuel . As a result, when it does catch fire, it can be quite dangerous. The third degree of creosote buildup is caused by cool burning fires with inadequate ventilation, or by a flue that is too large.
Here are five ways to resolve this type of buildup. You may need a combination of answers in order to reduce the level of creosote buildup as much as possible.
1. Keep a Robust Airflow
Have you ever lit a candle, and then put it in a glass cup? If so, then you have also probably seen soot build up on the sides of the glass.
When a fire burns under any kind of restricted air flow, the soot from the fire will also concentrate and condense into smaller areas. Typically, fireplaces that have glass doors, or are otherwise closed off will have the most problems with airflow.
Here’s what you can do to remedy this problem: Keep the ash bin and grate area as clean as possible. Open the damper so that more air gets into the fireplace. If you cannot get enough air moving in the fireplace, try using a fan or blower to push more air in through the damper. Make sure that the fan is made of metal or some other non-flammable material. Aside from purchasing a new model, you may also find some old, or vintage blowers at a flea market for a much lower price. Never underestimate the power or durability of these old, but incredibly durable blowers and fans! In some cases, downdrafts from the outside can also cause poor air circulation inside the stove. You can try adding a partial cover to the top of outer pipe. Alternatively, add an insert with an inward curve that will also reduce the amount of downdraft that can get down the chimney.
2. Keep the Fire Hot
Even though you may think of a piece of wood as a single object, it is actually made up of all kinds of molecules. This, in turn, means that some molecules will have a higher kindling point than others.
If the fire is not hot enough, some of the molecules that require a hotter temperature will escape into the chimney and form a layer of creosote if the conditions are right. Later on, if the temperature inside the chimney gets hot enough, these particles will catch fire and burn.
The hotter the fire is, the better chance there is of these molecules being reduced to heat and ash in the fireplace. In addition, the hotter the fire is, the hotter the chimney will be. When the chimney is hot enough, all the gunk that forms creosote cannot collect.
Here are some ways to increase the heat output from a wood fire: add a few handfuls of coal to the wood fire. Coal burns at a higher temperature and will also last longer. Without a question, anyone that has used a coal fire on a freezing winter night can tell you just how delightful they are! install heat retaining bricks in the fireplace. This will increase the temperature inside the burn area and help keep the temperature steadier. insulate the chimney pipe with bricks. This is especially important if you are using a metal chimney, as they will always be cooler on the inner surface. The insulation will help, however it will not entirely solve the problem if it is caused by using a metal chimney.
3. Check the Size of the Flue
Consider a situation where you want to heat up a cup of coffee over a campfire. Chances are it will only take a few minutes to achieve this goal. Now let’s say you want to heat up a gallon of water over the exact same campfire.
Heating up a gallon of water will take longer than a cup because there are more atoms to deal with. In a similar way, when the flue is too large, there is simply too much material for the fire to contend with. A wood stove should not have a flue larger than six inches.
When you reduce the size of the flue, it allows less heat to escape. Some people have noticed a 20% or better increase in heat produced by fireplaces that have an optimally sized flue. Therefore, you will be reducing creosote problems and get more heat at the same time.
Depending on the construction of the stove and chimney system, you may not be able to simply rip the whole thing out and start over again. Your best option will be to insert a sleeve into the chimney so that it has a smaller internal diameter. Even though these sleeves are usually made of metal, the surrounding brick in the chimney should keep it warm enough to reduce the risk of creosote build up. If you still get too much creosote, focus on increasing the heat produced by the fire and the amount of air flow going up into the chimney. Remember, the more air flow you have going up the chimney, the harder it will be for particles to stay still long enough to attach to inner surfaces. You may also want to let the wood season longer than a few months, and choose some type of wood other than pine. Look for wood that has less resin or sap in it. It is also very important to stay away from pellets or other types of pre-manufactured wood because they may be designed to burn at lower temperatures than what you will need to heat up an over sized chimney.
4. Make Sure the Wood is Fully Seasoned and Dry
Have you ever tried to start a fire during or after it rains? If you are camping, chances are you use a number of methods to dry the wood out as much as possible so that it produces more heat than smoke.
In a similar way, when wood is not fully seasoned and dried out, it will produce more creosote. Fires that produce a lot of smoke also have the following problems: there is less airflow, which reduces the amount of oxygen available to the fire the fire will burn cooler because water impedes combustion smoke is also a sign that more fuel is escaping into the air than you would get from a cleaner burning fire.
There is no substitute for time when it comes to seasoning wood. You can try keeping logs closer to the fire place for a few days before you actually burn them. Just remember to rotate them often so that the log dries out more evenly.
Chopping the log into smaller pieces might help too. This will increase surface area, which in turn will speed up water evaporation. You will still need to rotate the wood around to ensure the fastest possible drying.
When it comes to seasoning wood , many people make the mistake of covering the wood with a waterproof, air tight tarp. The wood will release water vapor, however it will fall right back onto the wood and be absorbed all over again.
You will be better served by keeping the wood loosely covered and in a warm, sunny spot while it is drying. As with drying the wood out indoors, do not forget to rotate the woodpile every few days so that the pieces dry out as much and as evenly as possible.
If the weather is especially damp, humid, or rainy, it may be of some help to cut the wood into smaller pieces. No matter how you look at it, increasing surface area always speeds up evaporation. It may seem like a lot of extra work, however it will pay off when you have hotter fires and fewer problems with creosote.
5. Do Not Overload the Stove With Wood
When you have had a long, hard day, it is tempting to load the stove with as much wood as possible so you won’t have to add more through the night. On the other side of the equation, when you put too much wood in the stove, it reduces air flow.
Aside from this, when fires burn, they also release some water vapor. When there is too much wood in the stove, some of that vapor may just land on the wood and increase its moisture level. No matter how well seasoned the wood is, that increased moisture will cause the fire to burn poorly.
Here are some ways to resolve this problem: start off by adding just one piece at a time to the fire. If the fire burns well, try adding a second piece. Keep adding more pieces as long as the fire burns cleanly. Do not forget that you may not be able to add as many pieces at one time on rainy days or ones where it is impossible to prevent a downdraft from the chimney. install an automatic wood feeder. Even thought a wood feeder can take up a good bit of space, it may be a better solution than trying to manually feed the stove. Use coal and other materials that might burn longer during times when you won’t be available to feed the stove more wood.
Wherever you live in (an apartment or a house), chances are the building will have a chimney, and there will also be a stove available for burning wood . Getting started with wood burning is not especially difficult, but avoiding creosote buildup in the chimney can be challenge.
Be careful about the condition of the fire, the wood, and ventilation issues that may lead to creosote buildup. Once you find a way to reduce the speed of creosote buildup, do not forget to inspect the chimney on a regular basis.
A clean chimney is not just a safe one, it is a valuable asset that will help you burn wood efficiently and get the most from it.
Carmela Tyrell for Survivopedia. 464 total views, 463 views today | 0 | [
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FMD1388 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Just another interesting discovery in a story that has already exposed a very corrupt government that favors illegal aliens over American citizens The gun used in the seemingly random slaying of a woman on a San Francisco pier belonged to a federal agent, a law enforcement official briefed on the matter said Tuesday.The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, said a police check of the weapon s serial number shows it belonged to a federal agent. The official declined to elaborate further.The San Francisco Police Department, which is investigating the case, declined to comment.The revelation was the latest dramatic twist in a tragic case that has become a new flashpoint in the country s debate over immigration policies.The suspected gunman, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, has been deported to his native Mexico five times and is suspected of living in the United States illegally when Kathryn Steinle, 32, was gunned down last week while on an evening stroll with her father along San Francisco s popular waterfront area.Federal officials transferred Sanchez to San Francisco s jail in March to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge after Sanchez completed his latest prison term for illegally entering the country.The San Francisco sheriff, citing the city s sanctuary city policy, released Sanchez in April after prosecutors dropped the drug charge, despite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request to hold him for federal authorities so deportation proceedings could begin.Sanchez pleaded not guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder.He told two television stations who interviewed him in jail that he found the gun used in Steinle s killing wrapped in a shirt on the pedestrian pier she was walking on. Sanchez said the gun went off in his hands, and his public defender, Matt Gonzalez, said Tuesday that the San Francisco woman s death appeared accidental. San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has defended Sanchez s release and the city law requiring it to ignore ICE detainer requests. The sheriff said ICE could have obtained a warrant or court order to keep Sanchez in custody. ICE knew where he was, Mirkarimi said Monday. He said he will continue to ignore ICE detainer requests.State and federal Republicans, meanwhile, said they would look into the matter.Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate s homeland security committee, criticized federal officials and demanded to know why Sanchez was not deported. Does that make any sense to you? Johnson demanded to know at a hearing Tuesday. Because I ll tell you it doesn t make any sense to the American public. Republican state Sen. Jeff Stone said he would introduce legislation in Sacramento to require cities to comply with ICE detainer requests.At Sanchez s arraignment Tuesday, prosecutor Dianna Garcia argued against releasing Sanchez on bail, saying, This was an act of random violence, shooting an innocent victim in the back. The judge set bail at $5 million, which Gonzalez said will keep Sanchez jailed pending trial.A downcast Sanchez spent most of the hearing with his head bowed, appearing to fight back tears while the judge explained the charged to him. Sanchez was aided by a Spanish-language interpreter and entered his plea in Spanish.Outside court, his attorney said Sanchez has a second-grade education and a non-violent criminal record.He could face life in prison if convicted.Via: FOX Carolina | 0 | [
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FMD1389 | 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 Every Single School Marching Band in DC Just Boycott Trump's Inauguration? Claim summaries: While many high school marching bands did not apply to play at Donald Trump's inauguration, these schools cited a variety of reasons and are not boycotting the event.
contextual information: On 14 December 2016, misleading reports appeared that not one high schoolmarching band in Washington, D.C. would participate in Donald Trump's inauguration: Donald Trump is so unpopular that not even high school marching bands want the opportunity to perform at his inauguration. Although this is typically an honor for any band asked to participate, there is nothing typical or honorable about Trump being named president-elect. The Facebook group "American News X" distorted the truth even further when they published a meme stating that "not one high school marching band" was willing to perform at the inauguration: American News X High school marching bands, both inside and outside of Washington D.C., have not "boycotted" Donald Trump's inauguration. The rumor isa sensationalized and exaggerated version of a genuine news reportpublished by NBC Washington'sAndrea Swalec, whichstated that interest in playing the 2016inauguration appearedlower than normal, and that bands in the D.C. area did not apply to participate: report At least one D.C. public school marching band has participated in the past five inaugural parades, but none applied for consideration this year. Ballou High Schools Majestic Marching Knights performed Destinys Childs Lose My Breath at George W. Bushs second inaugural parade in 2005, and stepped along Pennsylvania Avenue as they played James Browns I Got You (I Feel Good) at Barack Obamas second inaugural parade eight years later. But the beloved band decided to take a break in January and not apply to play in the inaugural parade after several other recent performances, the principal said. Dunbar High Schools band marched in Obamas first inauguration in 2009 but the school will sit this one out because they are rebuilding the band, the principal said. Eastern High School also chose not to participate, the principal said, without elaborating. A D.C. Public Schools spokeswoman said she was not aware of any band in the district that had applied to participate in President-elect Donald Trumps inaugural parade Jan. 20. However, that is not the same as an organized boycott. While it is true that high school bands in the D.C. area did not apply to play Trump's inauguration, theschools cited a variety of reasons to miss the event (a boycott not being one of them). Furthermore, the area's involvement in the last five inaugurations may speak to the lack of interest this year: But politics may not explain the low interest in the inaugural parade; an unwritten rule of the band world may play into why some bands didnt apply. University of Maryland band director Eli Osterloh said that after performing in an inaugural parade, some bands opt to wait about 10 years before applying again, as a courtesy to other applicants. None of this means that the event will be missing a marching band. Drum Corps International events director Sue Kuehnhold said that bands from the president's hometown could be selected to play at the 20 January 2017 inauguration. Swalec, Andrea. "DC-Area Marching Bands Opt to Sit Out Trump's Inaugural Parade."
NBC Washington. 14 December 2016. | 0 | [
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FMD1390 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — After Dean G. Skelos, the New York state senator, was sentenced last month on federal corruption charges, one of his lawyers asked the judge to allow Mr. Skelos to remain free on bail while he appealed his conviction. Her argument: A case pending in the United States Supreme Court, challenging the conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, could help undermine the criminal charges against Mr. Skelos. “It is extremely likely that the court will reverse the conviction in Governor McDonnell’s case,†Alexandra A. E. Shapiro, the lawyer, told the judge. Her prediction proved accurate. And within moments after the Supreme Court reversed Mr. McDonnell’s conviction on Monday, defense lawyers from Illinois to New York were citing the unanimous ruling as grounds to challenge past and pending criminal corruption cases brought by the Justice Department. “This is a sign of the court saying to prosecutors, ‘You are overreaching,’†said Leonard Goodman, a lawyer for former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 and is scheduled to be resentenced in August. “They think they have unfettered discretion to take down any elected officials. †Current and former prosecutors strongly disagreed. In Manhattan, a spokesman for Preet Bharara, the United States attorney there, said in a statement on Monday, “While we are reviewing the McDonnell decision, the official actions that led to the convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos fall squarely within the definition set forth by the Supreme Court today. †Mr. Bharara has repeatedly said he remains committed to ending a pattern of corrupt acts by elected officials, and most recently, his office won the convictions of Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver, a former State Assembly leader. Still, there was agreement among legal experts on Monday that the ruling would make it harder for the government to win corruption convictions. For the second time since 2010, the court narrowed the avenues that prosecutors have to file such charges. The decision could even discourage some cases from being brought in the first place. “The bar is now higher in terms of what you have to prove,†said Randall D. Eliason, a former chief of the public corruption section at the United States attorney’s office in Washington. “This will leave a lot of unsavory conduct unpunished. †Mr. McDonnell was accused of accepting gifts, loans and vacations from an affluent Virginia businessman who wanted the governor’s help dealing with state officials. “Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns,†Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court, adding that “setting up a meeting, talking to another official or organizing an event (or agreeing to do so) — without more†— does not fit the definition of an “official act. †In 2010, in a decision also involving honest services fraud, the Supreme Court set aside the conviction of Jeffrey K. Skilling — the former chief executive of Enron, the bankrupt energy company — ruling that the law could be used to prosecute only bribery or kickbacks, not more limited actions like “self dealing,†in which an official secretly takes an action for personal gain. Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal nonprofit group, said the combination of rulings was likely to have a major impact because elected officials involved in wrongdoing often did not have the power to personally deliver the favor that had been requested. Mr. Bookbinder said examples of cases that might now be harder to prosecute included those of Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, who pushed the Defense Department to select a particular contractor after receiving gifts and pleaded guilty in 2005, and Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, who was convicted in 2009 of taking bribes from a company that asked him to press executive branch officials to buy its products. “The Supreme Court seems to be giving people a way to go ahead with corrupt conduct, with kind of a wink and a nod,†Mr. Bookbinder said. Joel Bertocchi, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, cautioned against overstating the impact of Monday’s ruling. “Having the same set of facts, they may be able to file different charges,†he said. But defense lawyers and some conservative legal groups that have been critical of the Justice Department said they hoped the ruling would bring real change. They argued that the government had, in its zeal to win headlines, filed charges in recent years for activities that did not meet the standard for federal corruption. “Once again, it has taken the U. S. Supreme Court to remind prosecutors that they do not have a blank check to read all kinds of unintended and overly broad criminality into vaguely worded statutes passed by Congress,†said E. G. Morris, a lawyer in Austin, Tex. and the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The precise impact of the McDonnell ruling on the Skelos and Silver cases was not immediately clear. Lawyers for Mr. Skelos, the former State Senate majority leader and a Republican, had no comment on the decision. But at Mr. Skelos’s sentencing last month, Rahul Mukhi, a prosecutor in Mr. Bharara’s office, argued that Mr. Skelos’s corrupt acts had gone far beyond those taken by Mr. McDonnell, and that the cases were not “factually analogous. †“McDonnell involved only meetings,†Mr. Mukhi said. “This case involved, overwhelmingly, legislation. †Mr. Bharara’s office had said, for example, that Mr. Skelos supported legislation in Albany to benefit companies that arranged payments to his son, Adam B. Skelos, who was convicted along with his father. The elder Mr. Skelos received a prison term his son was sentenced to six and a half years. Lawyers for Mr. Silver, a Democrat who received a sentence, said Monday that the McDonnell decision “will be central†to their client’s appeal. The lawyers, Steven F. Molo and Joel Cohen, said the decision “makes clear that the federal government has gone too far in prosecuting state officials for conduct that is part of the everyday functioning of those in elected office. †Noel J. Francisco, who argued Mr. McDonnell’s case before the Supreme Court, said that he hoped the ruling would be the end of his client’s prosecution and that the charges would be dropped entirely. “They brought the case they brought,†he said, “because that was the most they could get a conviction on. That theory has been squarely rejected. †| 1 | [
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FMD1391 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A federal watchdog said on Friday it was reviewing the circumstances surrounding U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s controversial flight last month to Kentucky, where he spoke to business leaders and viewed the solar eclipse. “Responding to inquiries received from members of the public, we are reviewing the circumstances of the Secretary’s August 21 flight to Louisville and Ft. Knox to determine whether all applicable travel, ethics, and appropriation laws and policies were observed,†Rich Delmar, counsel to the Treasury’s Office of Inspector General, said in a statement. Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager, and his wife, actress Louise Linton, traveled on a U.S. government plane to Kentucky where they viewed the Aug. 21 solar eclipse with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others. Linton posted a photo of herself on social media getting off the plane and listing the designer brands she was wearing, triggering criticism over the display of wealth and privilege. The Washington Post, which first reported the review, said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden last week requested a “detailed explanation†of the travel and justification for use of the government aircraft. An independent watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also had sought records of the trip, saying it seemed to have been planned to enable Mnuchin to be at a site that had views of the total eclipse. The eclipse visible in Washington only obscured about 80 percent of the sun. The Post said Treasury secretaries and other Cabinet members not involved in national security have traditionally flown on government aircraft on rare occasions, usually taking commercial flights for domestic travel. Treasury officials have said the trip was official government travel, with Mnuchin speaking to Louisville business leaders before visiting Fort Knox, where a large portion of the U.S. gold reserves are held. Delmar said the Office of Inspector General was looking into various issues raised by the flight. “When our review is complete, we will advise the appropriate officials, in accordance with the Inspector General Act and established procedures,†he said in the statement. | 1 | [
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FMD1392 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Senior figures across the Democratic Party would like Media Matters for America founder David Brock to step back from politics as he hurts the party’s cause, according to a report from The Daily Beast. [Brock, who founded the watchdog Media Matters for America as well as Super PACs such as Correct the Record and American Bridge sees himself as a key figure in rebuilding the Democratic Party following Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency. Recently, Brock has pleaded for funding to help him build an war room, which seeks to hold the the current administration accountable on a daily basis and, in his own words, “kick Trump’s ass. †He aspires to make his Shareblue website “the Breitbart of the Left. †However, according to multiple sources at The Daily Beast, many Democrats believe he damages the party and just wish he would go away. Talking to The Daily Beast, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, described Brock’s ability to improve the party’s electability as “nonexistent,†adding that “he does not have the kind of understanding of what kind of coalition you have to bring together to win national races. †“I don’t think David Brock has been helpful to the party to date, and I don’t think he will be a big part of its future,â€a former Clinton campaign official also told the news site, while another said that they “did not want to deal with Brock’s bullshit,†describing his campaign efforts as “useless,†adding that “you might as well have thrown those [tens of] millions of dollars down a well, and then set the well on fire. †A source close to The Daily Beast also said that while Brock had reached out to various Clinton campaign staff to join his “war room†effort, they all declined because “no one wants anything to do with him. †Other former employees of Brock also said that he tends to “overstate his level of impact and importance,†adding that “that he cares less about progressive policies and moving the ball forward, and is actually more focused on stroking his ego. †Brock’s main project, the watchdog Media Matters for America group, was in 2012 exposed as attempting the wholesale destruction of conservative media. A leaked internal document showed that Brock’s organization hoped to “bring litigation against Fox News and its feeders. †However, the organization now reportedly pivots its focus towards Breitbart, instead of FOX News. Another one of Brock’s organizations, Correct the Record, spent $1 million to hire online trolls to “correct†supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders ( ) across social media. Defending his record, Brock told The Daily Beast that “people are free to question my motives, but it should be pretty clear by now that the groups that I’ve created are committed to a more progressive America.“ “I’m interested in building organizational capacity to resist and oppose Donald Trump,†he continued. “I think that should be everybody’s goal on the left, to destroy Donald Trump, not to destroy each other. †You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 | [
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FMD1393 | 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 COVID-19 Stimulus Legislation Delayed Because of Pelosi? Claim summaries: The president repeatedly blamed the U.S. House Speaker for not caring about Americans since she would not agree to his terms for COVID-19 relief aid.
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 After a months-long political debate over how to address America's pandemic-stricken economy and just 13 days before the 2020 presidential election, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office announced she and U.S. President Donald Trump's top emissary, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, were inching toward an agreement on a new economic stimulus package. "Both sides are serious about finding a compromise," tweeted Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, on Oct. 20. The announcement came after repeated claims by Trump that Pelosi was the sole roadblock in his administration's plans to spend about $1.8 trillion on unemployment benefits, schools, and other initiatives adding to $3 trillion in emergency relief that the federal government approved in spring 2020. In a nationally televised town hall on Oct. 15, for instance, Trump said of Pelosi: "We are ready to sign and pass stimulus, but shes got to approve it," he said. "Shes penalizing our people. Im ready to sign a big, beautiful stimulus." Days later, while speaking to a Milwaukee news reporter, Trump suggested that Pelosi, who was running a reelection campaign to represent California's 12th Congressional District, was not negotiating in good faith and purposefully delaying a consensus until after the Nov. 3 election. That way, in theory, she and Democrats could restart stimulus talks with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the White House. "She thinks it's good politically for her not to approve it," Trump said. In an interview with Bloomberg, Pelosi denied that accusation by the president and his supporters and said she would not be negotiating with the White House if she did not want an agreement. Nonetheless, a closer look at the stimulus negotiations showed a more complex debate. It was not just Pelosi with whom the White House needed reconciliation to pass COVID-19 economic relief in fall 2020 as the president alleged. Here's what was true: Members of Congress and the White House reached an impasse over COVID-19 emergency spending in fall 2020. Mnuchin and Pelosi had intermittently negotiated terms of a comprehensive relief package since August, and the Democrat-led House approved a package totaling about $2.2 trillion concurrently. Weeks later, as the election crept closer, Trump said in media interviews that he would sign a package that was greater than House Democrats' proposal, even though key Republicans wanted him to go the opposite direction in negotiating. "I would rather go bigger than that [$2.2 trillion] number, but we'll see," he said on Fox & Friends. "[Pelosi] doesn't want to do anything until after the election, because she thinks it helps her. I actually think it helps us because everyone knows she's the one who's breaking up the deal." Fox & Friends All of that said, the Democrat-approved plan overlapped in some areas with the White House's proposal to help small businesses and pay each eligible U.S. citizen a one-time $1,200 check. But this was key: Trump's GOP allies in the Senate were skeptical of any proposal greater than $1 trillion. For months, they had debated economic stimulus measures smaller than the White House's initial proposal of about $1.6 trillion, which later grew to $1.8 trillion before Trump said he wanted to spend more than Democrats. Reuters reported: "Senate Republicans have repeatedly stated their opposition to additional COVID-19 relief spending near the $2 trillion mark and have focused instead on smaller initiatives." Reuters reported The Republicans were focusing on one-off initiatives to help businesses and families instead of a comprehensive spending bill. They supported one measure in particular that totaled about $650 billion in emergency economic relief, or about one-third the amount of Trump's proposal. In other words, the disagreement over funding was not along party lines, with Senate Republicans taking Trump's side and Pelosi leading an oppositional force, like most political battles over Trump's first term. Rather, key Republicans were skeptical of a relief package greater than $1 trillion and had not expressed support for the White House's proposal. As proof of that lack of enthusiasm for Trump's COVID-19 spending plan, the leading GOP vote-counter, Sen. John Thune, told reporters on Oct. 19 that "itd be hard" to find the necessary Republican support to pass the $1.8 trillion package. Additionally, multiple news reports said McConnell told Senate Republicans the following day that he had advised the White House against making any deal with Pelosi before the election significant evidence that the House Speaker was not the only barrier to a compromise. The New York Times reported: multiple The New York Times Mr. McConnells counsel, confirmed by three Republicans familiar with his remarks, threw cold water on Mr. Trumps increasingly urgent push to enact a fresh round of pandemic aid before he faces voters on Nov. 3. It underscored the divisions within the party that have long hampered a compromise. Republicans are growing increasingly anxious that Mr. Trump and his team are too eager to reach a multitrillion-dollar agreement and are conceding far too much to the Democrats. Republicans fear that scenario would force their colleagues up for re-election into a difficult choice of defying the president or alienating their fiscally conservative base by embracing the big-spending bill he has demanded. The Washington Post added: added Many Senate Republicans oppose a massive new spending bill and McConnell is not eager to hold a vote that would divide his conference just before the election, when most Senate Republicans want attention focused on the Barrett nomination. [...] McConnells remarks Tuesday indicate that even if Pelosi and Mnuchin do manage to reach a deal, any vote in the Senate would wait until after the election. If Democrats win a number of seats in the November elections, they could seize control of the Senate beginning in January. Nonetheless, if or when Pelosi and Mnuchin reached an agreement, Trump suggested on multiple occasions without evidence that he could convince naysayers to agree to whatever he wanted. "He'll be on board if something comes," Trump said of McConnell's reluctance in the Fox News interview. "Not every Republican agrees with me, but they will." Fox News interview The time window for an agreement before the Nov. 3 election was narrowing as of this report. Hammill, the spokesman for Pelosi, on Oct. 20 tweeted that Mnuchin and Pelosi had a 45-minute conversation earlier in the day that showed they were "serious about finding a compromise" and moving closer to an agreement in the coming days or weeks with the help of congressional committee chairs. In sum, considering McConnell, the Senate Majority leader, had reportedly told the White House to not make a deal with Pelosi proof that the House Speaker was not the only barrier to an agreement as well as a comment by another Senate Republican that "it'd be hard" to rally his colleagues around Trump's plan for emergency economic spending, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and falsehoods. Factba.se. "Interview: Charles Benson of WTMJ4 Milwaukee Interviews Donald Trump - October 17, 2020."
Accessed 20 October 2020. Rev. "Donald Trump NBC Town Hall Transcript October 15."
Accessed 20 October 2020. Nancy Pelosi Newsroom. "Dear Colleague: Update on Effort to Reach Coronavirus Relief Agreement Before Election."
18 October 2020. Nancy Pelosi Newsroom. "Transcript of Pelosi Interview on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
18 October 2020. Nancy Pelosi Newsroom. "Dear Colleague on Urgency to Pass Relief Bill with Values and Common Sense."
15 October 2020. Nancy Pelosi Newsroom. "Transcript of Pelosi Interview on MSNBC's The ReidOut with Joy Reid."
19 October 2020. Taylor, Andrew. "Deadline Looms, But COVID Relief Deal May Be Far Off."
The Associated Press. 20 October 2020. Zeballos-Roig, Joseph. "Senate Republicans Are Pouring Cold Water on Approving A Multi-Trillion Dollar Stimulus Deal As Trump Pushes For A Larger Relief Package Than Democrats."
Business Insider. 20 October 2020. Henney, Megan. "Trump Says He Want A Bigger Coronavirus Relief Package Than Pelosi's $2.2T Proposal."
FOXBusiness. 20 October 2020. Stein, Jeff, et. al. "Trump Makes $1.8 Trillion Economic Relief Offer, But Deal With Pelosi Remains Elusive."
The Washington Post. 9 October 2020. Cornwell, Susan. "Trump Pushes For Major COVID-19 Deal Over Senate Republican Objections."
Reuters. 20 October 2020. House, Billy, et. al. "Pelosi Mnuchin Narrowing Gap on Stimulus, to Talk Again Tuesday."
Bloomberg. 19 October 2020. Fandos, Nicholas. "McConnell Advises White house Not to Strike Pre-Electino Stimulus Deal With Pelosi."
The New York Times. 20 October 2020. Stein, Jeff, and Werner, Erica. "McConnell Warns White House Against Making Stimulus Deal Before Election, Sources Say."
The Washington Post. 20 October 2020. | 2 | [
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FMD1394 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on Friday for the United States to step back from its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital after the United Nations voted against the move despite what he called ugly and unforgivable U.S. threats. More than 120 countries defied President Donald Trump on Thursday and voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital. Despite threats, the U.N. took an honorable stance, Erdogan said at a meeting of his AK Party in Istanbul. The U.S. should turn back from this wrong step. Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor. A total of 128 countries backed the resolution, which is non-binding, nine voted against and 35 abstained. Twenty-one countries did not cast a vote. The U.S. attitude ahead of the U.N. vote will be remembered in the history of democracy as an ugly and unforgivable act, Erdogan said. Trump s warning appeared to have some impact, with more countries abstaining and rejecting the resolution than usually associated with Palestinian-related resolutions. The White House picked up the phone and called these countries one by one, threatening them blatantly, Erdogan said, without elaborating. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD1395 | 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 Martinez has voted to raise taxes and utility rates while ending free bus service for seniors.
contextual information: Austin voters should doubt mayoral aspirant Mike Martinezs commitment to an affordable city, his opponent in a Dec. 16, 2014, runoff maintains. The narrator of a Steve Adler TV ad says that as an Austin City Council member, Mike Martinez has voted to raise taxes and utility rates while ending free bus service for seniors. That statement is made against this visual backdrop: Source: TV ad from Steve Adler, Austin mayoral candidate,Mike Martinez Record on City Council, posted online Dec. 2, 2014. Martinez has been a council member since June 2006. So its no surprise he would have had a say on taxes and rates charged by the city-owned utilities, though unsaid here is that no single council member controls any such decisions; its been a seven-member body, including the mayor. Martinez also chairs theeight-person boardoverseeing Capital Metro, which provides local bus and limited rail service. So he could have voted on fares charged the elderly. Lets recap Martinezs actions on fares, city taxes and utility rates. Bus fares To our inquiries, Adlers campaign didnt provide comprehensive backup for his ad claim. But by email, spokesman Jim Wick pointed out a September 2010Austin American-Statesmannews storystating the Cap Metro board voted to require bus riders 65 and older to pay 50 cents a ride or $15 for a 31-day bus pass, starting in 2011. The story also said the board was deciding to charge seniors and people with disabilities to ride buses for the first time since 1989. For Capital Metro, spokeswoman Francine Pares told us by email Martinez has been a board member since June 2007 and chairman since January 2010. Pares also confirmed the boards decision to charge the 50-cent fares, though she said that change was adopted at the boards November 2010 gathering, which Martinez didnt attend, she said. According tominutes of the Nov. 10, 2010, board meeting, the six members who were there unanimously approved a resolution authorizing higher fares in part, the resolution said, to generate additional operating revenues while striving to meet growing demand for transportation options. Martinez and another board member were recorded as absent. Pares told us theboard in September 2013approved another increase in senior fares, to 60 cents, effective in 2015. Generally, she said, senior citizens receive 50 percent off regular fares. By phone, Martinez agreed he and fellow board members agreed to charge the fares for elderly residents. But that happened, he said, only after a state panel issued marching orders including a recommendation calling for Capital Metro to raise more money from fares. In a 2010 report, the staff of the Sunset Advisory Commission recommended the authority charge a bus fare of 50 cents for groups currently riding free. The commission had said 30 percent of Capital Metros passengers were riding for free and, it noted, the board had rejected proposed fares in 2008 and 2009. In its finalJuly 2011 reporton Capital Metro, the commission said: While fare increases are difficult, requiring only a portion of its ridership to bear the burden of these increases is not equitable or sustainable, especially in bad financial times. Martinez pointed out the sunset review occurred in keeping withlegislation passed into lawby the 2009 Legislature, which wanted Capital Metro to get its finances in order. City taxes On taxes, Wick of Adlers camp offered as backup news stories indicating thatin 2009, Martinez said taxpayers would have to pay a little more in taxes and fees through 2010 to maintain services andin 2010, the council acting to raise the citys property tax rate from 42.09 cents per $100 of property value to 45.71 cents; the city tax on a median value home was expected to increase $52 to $843. Wick followed up by emailing us achart made by Adlers campaignindicating city property taxes on a median-valued home going up on Martinezs watch. For a non-campaign analysis, we turned to the Travis Central Appraisal District; the chief appraiser, Marya Crigler, emailed us achartindicating city property taxes on a median-value homestead in 2007 were $715; in 2014, the comparable figure was $1,014. We converted the 2007 figure to 2014 dollars, using afederal inflation calculator. Upshot: Adjusted for inflation, city taxes on a median-value Austin homestead went up $278, or 34 percent, from 2007 through 2014, Martinezs council years. Over those years, according to the district, the median taxable value of an Austin homestead went from $177,257 to $228,032. Adjusting for inflation suggests there was a nearly $18,800, 9 percent, increase. Martinez agreed property owners paid more in taxes in his council tenure, results influenced by surging property values, he said. Still, he said, in five of eight years, council members voted to keep the citys property tax rate the same or to lower it. When the rate was raised, he said, the economy was in recession. For another fact check, the city provided this chart of tax rates, which shows the council raised the rate three times in Martinezs tenure, most recently for 2013, but cut the rate four times, most recently for 2014. In September 2014, the council left the 2014 rate intact for 2015. Utility rates In 2011,we found Mostly Truea claim that Austin Energy, the city electric utility, was considering its first hike in rates since 1994. The base electric rate, covering staff, the electric system, power plants, vehicles and the like, hadnt changed since 1994. Meantime, residential customers were paying less for electricity than they once had, taking inflation into account. On June 7, 2012, the council unanimously voted to raise the base rate, theAmerican-Statesmanreported. The news story said: The complicated new rate structure will hit customers in different ways; generally speaking, the larger and more energy-hungry the home, the higher the percentage increase, effective October 2012. A typical home, which uses an average of 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month over the course of a year, will see its monthly bill rise by $8, to $113, according to Austin Energy calculations. A home that uses a lot of electricity would see its monthly bill increase by $59, to $332, the story said. How would Adler have voted? We asked Wick how Adler would have voted on the bus fares, tax and utility rate hikes we confirmed. Theres no simple answer, Wick said by email, but Adler favors free fares for senior citizens. Our ruling Mike Martinez has voted to raise taxes and utility rates while ending free bus service for seniors. Austin residents pay more in taxes and could be paying more for electricity thanks to council actions Martinez supported. He also backed a decision by the Capital Metro board to charge half fares to elderly bus riders who had previously not been charged, though Martinez hardly did this by himself; its worth clarifying, too, that Capital Metro was under pressure to improve its finances and that Martinez missed the vote creating the then-50-cent fare. We rate this statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | 1 | [
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FMD1396 | 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: Passing the Starbucks Claim summaries: Starbucks isn't giving away free lifetime passes to celebrate their 44th anniversary. It's a survey scam.
contextual information: Claim: Starbucks is giving away free lifetime passes to Facebook users who like and share a post. Origins:In October2015, links began circulating on Facebook promisingusers free lifetime passes to the Starbucks coffee chain in celebration of the brand's 44th anniversary: The embedded links involved a variety of URLs, some of which included entirely unrelated scam-bait terms like "iTunes" and "Apple." Users who clicked through to claim their purported lifetime pass to Starbucks were routed to a pagereading "Starbucks Is Giving Free Lifetime Pass on it's [sic] 44th Anniversary (83 Pass Remaining)," which clonedthe style of Facebook-based content (but was hosted on a non-Facebook URL): As noted, URLs visible in the posts didn't point to any credible domains or sites linked to Starbucks. Users were invited to share the come-on via Facebook in order to further spread the hoax, which was a standard survey/sweepstakes scam intended to lure visitors into signing up for various costly subscription offers. By now,most social media users are familiar withsurvey scams: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait by scammers(seeking personal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users). 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 Bureauillustrated how folks might spot and avoid bad actors utilizing the reputations of brands on social media: 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. Starbucks did once give away a lifetime supply of free coffee to 14 people as part of their "Starbucks It's a Wonderful Card Ultimate Giveaway" promotion (the 10k hammered gold cards from which were used by the scammers for the picture displayed above), but that giveaway ended early in 2015. promotion Last updated: 25 October 2015 Originally published: 25 October 2015 | 0 | [
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FMD1397 | 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 President Donald Trump took more than a month to allocate Congress emergency funding to tribes and only did so after tribes sued. Claim summaries: The $2.2 trillion CARES Act included $8 billion for tribal governments.
contextual information: Native American tribes have beenamong the hardest hitby the coronavirus pandemic, and Joe Biden claims that President Donald Trump has not done enough to help. Donald Trump has failed to live up to our trust and treaty obligations to Native Americans,Biden told The Arizona RepublicMay 21. He took more than a month to allocate Congress emergency funding to tribes and only did so after tribes sued. He has failed to provide tribes with adequate protective personal equipment and medical supplies. Its unacceptable. Indian treaty rightsrecognized and established rights, benefits, and conditions for tribes who agreed to cede millions of acres of land to the United States and to accept the United States protection. Under a trust responsibility legal principle, the United States federal government is obligated to ensure the survival and welfare of Indian tribes. Is Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, right that it took more than a month for tribes to get funding allocated by Congress, and that it happened only after suing the Trump administration? The chronology lines up, but omits important context. The Treasury Department has argued that payments were delayed because it is required to consult with tribes and the Interior Department regarding how much money to allocate to tribes.That consultation processstartedbefore the lawsuit over the delay in payments.A separate lawsuit filed by tribes to prevent corporations in Alaska from receiving aid has also affected the process. Congress passed theCoronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, and Trump signed it into law March 27. The $2.2 trillion measure included a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund for states, local governments, and tribal governments. The law set aside $8 billion for tribal governments. The law said the Treasury secretary had to make the payments within 30 days; so by April 26, all entities were supposed to have received funds. It wasnt until May 5 that the Treasury Departmentsaidit would begin making funds available to tribal governments. So that part of Bidens claim adds up. By May 5, the Trump administration was facing several lawsuits by multiple tribes: for delay of payment. The lawsuits also challenged the administration for intending to direct some of the funds to theAlaska Native Corporations, which are regional and village corporations recognized under Alaska law and created by Congress as part of theAlaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. In the lawsuit to stop the corporations from getting a share of the $8 billion, tribes argued that corporations do not meet the statutory definition of tribal government, or Indian tribe and therefore did not qualify for the relief. A federal district judge on April 27 issued apreliminary injunctionto prevent the Treasury from giving money to the corporations. Pending a final determination, the judge did not direct the Treasury secretary to immediately disburse the entire $8 billion to the tribes. In its May 5 announcement, the Trump administration said it would begin paying tribes 60% of the $8 billion, or $4.8 billion, based on population data. The remaining 40% would be paid at a later date based on employment data and tribe expenses related to COVID-19. Amounts calculated for corporations would be held back until pending litigation relating to their eligibility is resolved. The Navajo Nation, which joined tribes in the lawsuit, on May 5saidthe judges April 27 ruling led to the (Treasury) Departments announcement to begin distributing funds to federally-recognized tribes. In a separate lawsuit over the delay in the disbursement of funds, lawyers for the Trump administrationarguedthat providing funds to tribal governments required a more involved and difficult process than the one for states and local governments. While the CARES Act imposed a 30-day deadline for funds disbursement, it also called for a consultation process among tribes and the Treasury and Interior departments. According to the Trump administration, Treasury staff spent about 2,200 hours on efforts to get tribes the appropriated money. The same federal district judge from the corporations case said that those hours of labor arguably should have produced better results, but a court intervention was not warranted. Egregious delay is the governing standard, and the Secretary is not there quite yet, even in the midst of a public health crisis, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta wrote in a May 11opinion. Mehta did not find that the Treasury secretary was lagging unreasonably behind in delivering the funds. The Secretary has not been twiddling his thumbs, he said, citing language from a precedent. Mehta said he would not give the Treasury department a deadline for disbursing the rest of the funds, but if it took the department double the amount of time Congress directed for the disbursement, then the question of egregiousness becomes a closer one than it is today. Biden said Trump took more than a month to allocate Congress emergency funding to tribes and only did so after tribes sued. It did take more than a month for tribes to begin receiving funds appropriated by Congress, and they began to flow after lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration. But a consultation process for disbursing the funds began before the administration was sued. We rate Bidens statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD1398 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The private investigator, Robert Mueller, had investigated allegations of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia, and the so-called Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. He could not prove any of the accusations against the American president. Despite this, the American intelligence services believe that Russia was also broadcasting misleading news on social media, to help elect Donald Trump. | 0 | [
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FMD1399 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In the late 20th Century, author and attorney Mike Godwin said that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches. Soon, though, Godwin s Law was used to invalidate any mention of Hitler, which effectively worked to white-wash a significant portion of 20th century history.Who knows, that could be why we re seeing a rise in holocaust denial and the election of Donald Trump. Now, a Yale Professor is taking on that very issue, saying that our fear of making Hitler comparisons is making us historically illiterate.Yale history professor, and author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder isn t going so far to say that Trump is like Hitler, but he is saying that there are a lot of lessons to be learned from Hitler, specifically in how democratic republics fail and that our refusal to even talk about Hitler simply feeds our intellectual laziness.So the way to start the discussion about comparisons is to point out that Americans are extremely lazy about history. I mean that s one way in which were definitely number one among major nations. And one of the ways we re lazy about history is that as soon as anyone suggests that the past might be useful, then we say but wait it s not exactly the same and therefore I m just going to discard it. In that way in two or three seconds we give ourselves an excuse not to think about history.Source: Business InsiderHere s the video:var playerParam = {'pcode':'BhdmY6l9g002rBhQ6aEBZiheacDu','playerBrandingId':'6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e','skin': {'config': '//player.ooyala.com/static/v4/stable/latest/skin-plugin/skin.json'} };OO.ready(function() {window.pp = OO.Player.create('container', 'B1MWNzYTE6PYNvENSzDs8rjZyVjOKMu8', playerParam); });The main reason for studying history, other than the fact that it s fascinating as hell, is to learn from what our forebears got wrong as well as from what they got right. Clearly, a hell of a lot went wrong during the late part of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th Century. There were the robber barons, there was the Great Depression and there was the rise of fascism that killed millions of people. Perhaps if we weren t so lazy about history, we wouldn t need to talk about income inequality and banks wouldn t be too big to fail. If Mike Godwin hadn t been so wildly misinterpreted, perhaps we would not have have been silenced when comparing Trump s white nationalist following to that of Hitler. Instead, neo-nazis are now an actual voting bloc and the nation s press secretary can conveniently ignore the fact that Hitler gassed six million Jews. Hey, at least Spicer is getting us to talk about history.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 | [
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