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FMD2400 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Whenever the Brexit process runs in to complications or political failures of Theresa May is discussed, one can wait for news on the Skripal Case. This way the British Prime Minister attempts to deflect criticism in the UK and attract sympathy from the EU. | 0 | [
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FMD2401 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Libyan forces fighting in Benghazi have lost four men and seen 10 wounded so far in December, five months after declaring victory in a campaign to control the eastern city, a medical source said on Monday. Three of the dead from the Libyan National Army (LNA) were killed by snipers and one by a landmine as it faces resistance from a group of fighters in the Benghazi district of Khreibish. There have been daily clashes in the area and occasional air strikes. LNA commander Khalifa Haftar declared victory in a three-year military campaign against an array of Islamist militants and other fighters in Benghazi in early July. The fighting is part of a broader conflict that developed following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar has opposed a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground. | 1 | [
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FMD2402 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: by Lambert Strether
By Lambert Strether of Corrente .
Tomorrow, election day will be only one week away. In this post I want to talk about two distinct subjects. First, I want to talk about the sort of calculation that a Martian might make when confronted by the choice we will face in the voting booth. Then, I’d like to paint a brief picture of what election day would look like, in a world where I didn’t want to claw out my eyeballs.
A Martian Looks at Election Outcomes in 2016
I say “Martian,” because a Martian is so detached that the 30,000-foot view looks like a close-up, and I think in this election detachment is a virtue (see above at “claw out my eyeballs”).
So a Martian would feel that despite the all the sound and fury, the numbers have not been that crazy (assuming one trusts them). Among registered voters: Emphasizing how remarkably stable the '16 race has been — going back to Sept. 2015 https://t.co/odFykkIm8m pic.twitter.com/2CKuS9Qi9G
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) October 31, 2016
RealClearPolitics has a similar chart averaging all the polls with a vertical scale that makes the swings a lot bigger. To me, the pattern of the race is that Clinton starts out with, and retains, a natural institutional advantage of around four points. Again from the head-to-head RCP chart, Trump has closed and then pulled even six times: September 2015, December 2015, February 2016, May 2016, July 2016, and September 2016. And each time either Clinton’s institutional advantages have re-asserted themselves, or Trump has shot himself in the foot (take your pick). Trump is closing now. Can he pull ahead and close the deal? Unknown. Based on past performance, no. Then again, as I remarked before the latest email eruption, “a week is a long time in politics,” Wikileaks has yet to drop its final shoe, and each campaign probably has a garbage truck full of oppo fired up and ready to go.
Paradoxically, Martians are not warlike, since the thin air, small population, and harsh conditions on Mars make war a species-threatening event. For the same reason, Martians prize the deep memories of elders while treating every child as precious. And Martians resist “Marsization,” because the one time there actually was a single, Mars-wide, cosmopolitan class of elite overlords they tried to invade the Earth, and who knows where that would have led! So if you were a Martian, and you believed that Clinton’s election would lead to a new war , and you believe that endorsing Bowles-Simpson and “hemispheric trade” in a speech at Goldman Sachs mean a Grand Bargain and TPP passage respectively, then you might look askance at a likely Clinton victory. What do do? If you had a Martian friend who followed American elections obsessively — this is similar to Southeast Asian countries where people obsessively follow English Premier League football — this is what your friend might tell you:
The last thing you want is for Clinton to be able to enact her (real, private) agenda. Sure, she might make some small good changes, but if you throw war, a Grand Bargain, and the surrender of national sovereignty with another so-called trade deal on one side of the scale, it’s hard to see what outweighs them on the other, at least in terms of concrete material benefits.[1] So, working on the assumption that Clinton will win, what you need is:
A Republican House . Here, the checks and balances built into the American system favor gridlock, and gridlock is your friend, since little legislation will get passed. Whether the House Republicans impeach Clinton if the Senate is in Democrat hands is an open question, but with Clinton having privatized the email server for her public office and the shenanigans at the Clinton Foundation , the Clinton administration will provide a target-rich environment. I woudn’t put it past them to try to take Clinton’s security clearance away!
A Democrat Senate . The emergence of left(ish) party barons with independent power bases is the untold story of election 2016. Warren is at least sound on banksters and financial power, and Sanders, while not a Bolshevik, is well to the left of the Democrat mainstream. That’s a Good Thing. Both are prolific fundraisers who don’t need the DNC. If the Republicans hold the Senate, the tendency will be for Democrats to stick together. If the Democrats do, then Baron Warren and Baron Sanders (and allies like Sherrod Brown ) will feel more free to drag the party left.
A close race . If Clinton wins, she’ll claim a mandate if the margin is a tenth of a percent. But in the same way that anybody can print money, but the trick is getting other people to accept it, others will be less likely to accept her claim the closer the result is. (I think the result would have to be better than the four points Obama beat Romney by — 51.1% to 47.2% — and as of today, Clinton’s margin is 2.8% in RCP’s four-way average .) Of course, Bush claimed a mandate in 2004, too — true story: I managed to Google-bomb “Bush mandate” to Mandate magazine, back in the day when Google-bombing wasn’t hard — and proceeded to try to gut Social Security, whereupon the Democrats promptly gutted him and went on to win the 2006 mid-terms. But why make it easy?
So, that’s the Martian perspective on the race. Surprisingly or not, the personal characteristics of puny Earthling candidates are not a factor! Nor are cultural or class markers!
Elections on Mars
Here is how Election Day works on Mars. Again because of planetary and cultural characteristics, Martians reserve tricky and complex electronic devices for important things, like distributed Martian parallel chess, or space operas. They are also convivial, and they hate to be manipulated by large and opaque forces (that time the Jovians invaded). Obviously, I can’t provide links for most of this — the Uniform Resource Locator is a global standard, not an interplanetary one — but in short form:
1. On Mars, Election Day is a national holiday. That’s because Martians, unlike American Earthlings, think that everybody should have an equal opportunity to vote. Voting is equally easy for almost every Martian, whether they work or not.
2. The Martians use hand-marked paper ballots, hand-counted in public. This is remarkably similar to international standards on Earth (which the United States does not use):
Last March, the country’s highest court found that secret, computerized vote counting was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the country was Germany, and the Constitution violated by e-voting systems was the one that the U.S. wrote and insisted Germans ratify as part of their terms of surrender following WWII.
Paul Lehto, a U.S. election attorney and Constitutional rights expert, summarized the German court’s unambiguous, landmark finding : “No ‘specialized technical knowledge’ can be required of citizens to vote or to monitor vote counts.” There is a “constitutional requirement of a publicly observed count.” “[T]he government substitution of its own check or what we’d probably call an ‘audit’ is no substitute at all for public observation.” “A paper trail simply does not suffice to meet the above standards. “As a result of these principles,…’all independent observers’ conclude that ‘electronic voting machines are totally banned in Germany’ because no conceivable computerized voting system can cast and count votes that meet the twin requirements of…being both ‘observable’ and also not requiring specialized technical knowledge.
Hand-counting paper ballots is no good at all, argue critics, unless you really want to know who the actual winner of the election was…
After the verdict in the case — filed by a computer expert and his political scientist son — Lehto wondered how it could be that open, observable democracy is seemingly an inviolable right for “conquered Nazis,” but not, apparently, for citizens of the United States…
3. The Martians throw a big party at the precinct after the paper ballots have all been hand-counted. That’s partly because Martians are convivial, but also because the Martians think that democracy is important and ought to be celebrated. (Again, because the Martian population is small, they wish to begin the conciliation process between winner and loser immediately, lest fratricidal violence result, and there’s no better way to do that than over food.)
4. The Martians regulate all forms of political advertising for size (small) and frequency (not often), whether for candidates or policies. That’s because the Martians wish to minimize manipulatio by encouraging face-to-face forms of persuasion and deliberation in public venues wherever possible.
5. The Martians ban published polling data thirty days before the election. That’s because Martians believe that they each should vote for their own reasons, and that elections (unlike markets) are not (manipulative) beauty contests.
Conclusions
Crazy Martians! What are they thinking?
NOTES
[1] Sadly, the time for an all-out assault on Republican “obstructionism” was 2009, when all the stars had aligned: The Republicans had no credibility, and the Democrats had the House, the Senate, the most powerful orator of our time (so it was said), in the White House, and a mandate for “hope and change.” Of course, Obama (assuming good faith) squandered this opportunity, starting with his inaugural speech, if not before.
APPENDIX
And then there’s Evan McMullin, doing well in Utah . I haven’t seen any actual evidence that he’s Mitt Romney’s straw in case of some kinda electoral college debacle…. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 | [
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FMD2403 | 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 9 Parents Deported Under Trump Just Reunited with Their Children? Claim summaries: A powerful photograph was shared in a February 2021 tweet that appeared to announce heartwarming new information about reunited families.
contextual information: On Feb. 3, 2021, a tweet by @ialhusseini appeared to share heartwarming news about nine parents who were deported during former U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. The tweet claimed the adults had landed back in the U.S. the same day the tweet was posted and had been reunited with their children: tweet However, the photograph used in this tweet was miscaptioned. It's true that nine parents who were deported from the U.S. were later reunited with their children, but that occurrence took place a year before the tweet shown above was posted. Pictured in the Feb. 3, 2021, tweet were David Xol and his son, Byron. The Associated Press had reported their story in a Jan. 23, 2020, article headlined "9 parents separated from families return to children in US," along with the photograph shown in the tweet. The picture was credited to Ringo HW Chiu/AP, and its original caption read: "David Xol-Cholom, of Guatemala, hugs his son Byron at Los Angeles international airport as they reunite after being separated by the Trump administration." reported Both Xol and his son were featured in that AP story: LOS ANGELES (AP) As his long-lost son walked toward him in an airport terminal, a sobbing David Xol stretched out his arms, fell to one knee, and embraced the boy for about three minutes, crying into his shoulder. He had not held the child since May 2018, when border agents pulled then-7-year-old Byron away inside a detention facility. They were separated under President Donald Trumps zero-tolerance policy the father deported to Guatemala, the son placed in a series of government facilities before ending up with a host family in Texas. Xol was one of nine parents who won the exceedingly rare chance to return to the U.S. after being deported under family separation. They arrived Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport to be reunited with children they hadnt seen in a year and a half or longer under the order of a federal judge who found the U.S. government had unlawfully prevented them from seeking asylum. A video was also included with the AP story showing the moment that Xol and his son embraced for the first time in more than a year and a half: https://youtu.be/r_QFc8bIIww The tweet from @ialhusseini received thousands of retweets and likes, with one viewing replying, "Grateful for the Biden Administration for this beautiful pix." Others thanked both U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden. However, these families were reunited a year before Biden was sworn in as president. After taking office on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden did move forward on plans to reunite children who were deported and separated from their parents under the Trump administration. On Feb. 2, 2021, The Associated Press reported that the wheels for those unifications were in motion: reported Alejandro Mayorkas, who was sworn in as Homeland Security secretary after his nomination was confirmed by the Senate, will lead a task force on family separation, focused largely on reuniting parents and children who remain apart. It is unclear exactly how many, but about 5,500 children have been identified in court documents as having been separated during Trump's presidency, including about 600 whose parents have yet to be found by a court-appointed committee. "We're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration," Biden said. The review will address the possibility of legal status in the United States for separated families and providing mental health services. The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to reunite families, has asked the administration for legal status in the United States for all of the thousands of families that have been separated, as well as financial compensation for those families and attorneys at government expense. In sum, a tweet from Feb. 3, 2021, reported a news story as if it had just taken place. However, although the story was true, it was a report from more than a year earlier. Twitter users shared the tweet and its accompanying picture as if it were new and current, and for this reason we have rated this story as being "Miscaptioned." Featured photograph caption (top): "A Honduran asylum seeker, recently released from federal detention with fellow migrants, holds the hand of her six-year-old daughter at a bus depot on June 11, 2019, in McAllen, Texas." | 0 | [
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FMD2404 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: SEOUL, South Korea — She is facing impeachment and prosecution over allegations of corruption and . One of her advisers is being likened to Rasputin by a shrill South Korean news media. Increasingly large crowds of protesters have taken to the streets, demanding her resignation. President Park has been paralyzed by a bizarre scandal and an escalating public backlash that could make her the first South Korean leader to be removed from office since her father, the military dictator Park was assassinated in 1979. But even as her approval rating slips into the low single digits, Ms. Park has been defiant, meaning that South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades is likely to drag on for months, leaving her conservative government distracted and in disarray while it grapples with a slowing economy and rising household debt. Moreover, with reports that the cold conflict over North Korea’s nuclear missile program may be heating up as Donald J. Trump prepares to take office in Washington, the standoff in Seoul could leave the United States with a seriously hobbled ally. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seoul for what is believed to be the largest protest against a South Korean president. The protest capped a dramatic week in which a scandal involving a shadowy adviser to Ms. Park moved inexorably toward an impeachment vote in the National Assembly and government prosecutors accused her of criminal conspiracy, the first time a sitting president has been identified as a criminal suspect. Two top aides, meanwhile, have talked of resigning, saying they are unable to serve amid the storm of the scandal. Ms. Park has remained cloistered in the presidential Blue House, denying the charges against her through a spokesman and refusing to allow prosecutors to question her. “The president has no intention of stepping down, the people are fighting on the streets, and the government is paralyzed,†said Woo the floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party. “We have no option but to impeach her. †An impeachment vote, expected early next month, requires a majority to pass. If the opposition parties remain united, they will need fewer than 30 votes from Ms. Park’s governing Saenuri Party to impeach her. The vote would have to be ratified by the Constitutional Court. One prominent defection came last week when Kim a former party chairman and Ms. Park’s presidential campaign manager, vowed to impeach her, saying she had “betrayed the people and our party. †The alleged conspiracy revolves around a secret presidential adviser and confidante, Choi who was indicted on Nov. 20 on charges of exploiting her influence with Ms. Park to gain access to confidential government documents and to force businesses to donate $69 million to two foundations she controlled. Prosecutors said Ms. Park was an accomplice in the scheme, directing her aides to help Ms. Choi shake down major corporations like Samsung and Hyundai. But it is Ms. Park’s relationship with Ms. Choi, who has been described as a “shaman fortuneteller†by opposition politicians, that has enthralled South Koreans. Ms. Choi’s father, Choi the founder of the Church of Eternal Life and a messiah, had been a mentor to Ms. Park. According to a report by the Korean intelligence agency, he approached her after her mother was assassinated in 1974, telling her that her dead mother had spoken to him in his dreams. The report said Mr. Choi had cultivated his influence with Ms. Park, the dictator’s daughter, to solicit bribes and accumulate a family fortune. According to the Nov. 20 indictment, his daughter continued the family business. Ms. Choi’s former driver told the Segye Ilbo newspaper last week that he had delivered a suitcase of cash from the Choi family to bankroll Ms. Park’s run for Parliament in the late 1990s. During her presidential campaign in 2012 and even after her inauguration, Ms. Choi edited Ms. Park’s speeches, Ms. Park has acknowledged. After Ms. Park took office in 2013, Ms. Choi used her connections to force a Seoul university to accept her daughter and give her good grades even though she hardly attended any classes, Education Ministry officials said. In 2014, Ms. Park instructed an aide to ask Hyundai Motor Company to sign a contract with a parts supplier owned by a friend of Ms. Choi’s, prosecutors said in their indictment of Ms. Choi. Ms. Choi later collected $44, 000 in kickbacks from her friend. In February, again acting on Ms. Park’s orders, the aide asked Hyundai to hire Ms. Choi’s advertising agency. Ms. Choi’s company earned $780, 000 from the account. Ms. Park was accused of leaking secret government documents to Ms. Choi, who did not have security clearance and had no experience in government or policy making. She shared with Ms. Choi classified information on things like appointments to top government jobs and where the government planned to build a sports complex. Two of Ms. Park’s former aides were also indicted. As early as 2013, officials tried to raise alarms about Ms. Park’s relationship with Ms. Choi, only to be demoted, fired or even imprisoned. A police detective who worked in the president’s office filed a report in 2014 accusing relatives and associates of Ms. Choi of meddling in state affairs. The detective was reassigned, and was then charged with leaking government documents, convicted and sent to prison. Ms. Park has publicly apologized twice for the scandal in televised speeches, saying she let her guard down with a trusted friend. But she has not said she knew of any extortion, and her office last week called the prosecutors’ findings groundless. “We don’t think the prosecutors’ investigation has been fair or politically neutral,†said her spokesman, Jung . Party loyalists have banded together to thwart the impeachment effort. Lee the party’s chairman, warned against breaking ranks: “Even if you jump off because the ship is tilting, the only thing that awaits you is a sea of death. †He also compared party members wanting to impeach Ms. Park to Judas. Still, the prosecutors’ revelations alienated even some of Ms. Park’s staunchest conservative allies, many of whom saw her as a replica of her father, who was revered for leading the country out of poverty. Critics say her administration has been a poor copy, mimicking some of her father’s authoritarian tendencies and lacking his effectiveness and policy drive. She has shunned briefings from her top aides and has held only one news conference a year. Her perceived aloofness came under fire after the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, in which more than 300 people died. She emerged from her residence seven hours after she was first informed of the accident. At the same time, she adopted a policy against North Korea and agreed to base American defensive missiles in South Korea, angering China. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests over the last decade and launched more than 20 ballistic missiles this year, with the professed goal of developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. Although they are disillusioned with Ms. Park, many South Korean conservatives also fear that her travails have increased the chances of a progressive candidate winning the next presidential election and reversing or softening South Korea’s policy on the North. At this point, Ms. Park’s fate may hang on timing as much as the weight of the evidence. If an impeachment bill passes, her presidential powers will be suspended while the Constitutional Court has six months to rule on its validity. Ms. Park’s term ends in February 2018. Analysts say she is buying time by stonewalling the investigation, hoping for the uproar to subside or for the National Assembly or the Constitutional Court to vote against impeaching her. Running out the clock on impeachment will not necessarily spare her from prosecution, however. Already identified by prosecutors as a criminal suspect, she could be arrested the day she leaves office and loses her presidential immunity. That does not appear to be a privilege she will give up voluntarily. “She will sit tight, even if the entire 50 million people of South Korea turn out to deny her presidency and demand her resignation,†former Prime Minister Kim Ms. Park’s relative, told the newsmagazine Sisa Journal this month. “Once she gets bullheaded, no one can budge her. †| 1 | [
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FMD2405 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: LONDON — Talks between the luxury house Louis Vuitton and workers at its ateliers across France were extended on Thursday, a day after scores of the company’s employees staged a walkout for the first time in 15 years to demand wage increases. Shortly before a deadline that had been imposed by Louis Vuitton, both sides agreed to prolong discussions, the company announced. While the employees are back at work for now, the image of striking leather workers on Wednesday might have had especially negative connotations for the luxury brand. For luxury businesses — where profits are often and the bespoke craftsmanship at its ateliers is front and center in marketing messages — a nasty shadow could be cast over those seen to be exploiting workers who cater to the whims of the elite. Louis Vuitton, known for its monogrammed leather goods and the skills of its French master craftsmen and women, is the jewel in the crown of its parent company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the largest luxury group in the world by sales. The hourlong walkout on Wednesday, which was first reported by Agence started with employees gathering in front of their various production facilities across France at 7:30 a. m. Union representatives from Force Ouvrière and the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail told Agence that the workers were staging the protest after a wage increase offer from Louis Vuitton management failed to meet expectations. The company had offered a gross raise of 30 euros a month, or about $31. 95, for every employee, union representatives said — far lower than the €55 workers requested. Managers had also offered raises of an additional €10 to €20 a month for 80 percent of workers. As the luxury industry has grappled with an increasingly volatile trading climate because of geopolitical instability, fluctuating foreign exchange rates and the demands of consumers, LVMH — for the most part — appeared to be weathering the storm. In 2016, it posted record results, with total sales of €37 billion. Sales from its fashion and leather goods division — which does not break out results by brand — rose 8. 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016, to €3. 78 billion. The label also registered 9 percent organic growth, beating analysts’ estimates of about 5 percent. The latest set of strong results appears to have been one motivating factor for the workers’ strike, the first in over 15 years, according to a Force Ouvrière representative, Damelincourt. “Calling for a walkout at Vuitton is tough, people are afraid of being seen badly,†Mr. Damelincourt said. “But today, a good part of the employees have mobilized to show their dissatisfaction. †“Louis Vuitton has once again registered an exceptional year of results in 2016, and we are proud to have contributed to this result,†he added. “We now want a remuneration worthy of our commitment. †Mr. Damelincourt said that the turnout for the strike was 30 percent of all employees from the workshops in Issoudun and in Condé, more than 50 percent from the facilities in Asnières, and 25 percent to 50 percent of employees in workshops in the Ardèche area and in the Drôme. But LVMH had a different story. Louis Vuitton has 18 leather workshops, including 12 in France four of the French sites were involved in the walkout action on Wednesday, a company spokesman said. Louis Vuitton employs a total of 3, 100 atelier workers in France, hired 370 new employees last year and continues to be a highly place for creative workers to seek employment, the spokesman said. “In addition to their 13 months of payment every year, employees had in March 2017, for the last business year, the equivalent in of between four and five months in compensation,†the spokesman said, adding that this type of bonus was relatively rare in France. About two weeks before the start of the French presidential election, where employment laws are a major topic of debate, the impact of labor conflicts continues to be a problem in several business sectors. The French air traffic control walkout last month caused a 1, 500 flight cancellations, according to estimates by the commercial aviation group Airlines for Europe. In 2016, the country was paralyzed by strikes of pilots, train drivers, taxi drivers and garbage collectors. The unrest, alongside other factors such as a fear of terrorist attacks, has played a part in a decline in tourism to France, currently the most visited country in the world. | 1 | [
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FMD2406 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: “The Newshour” anchors to dubsmash Arnab Goswami’s voice to combat sinking TRPs Posted on Tweet
Faced with a sharp slump in viewership after the departure of their former editor-in-chief and star anchor Arnab Goswami, the makeshift anchors of Times Now’s prime-time debate, “The Newshour” have decided to dubsmash Goswami’s voice in a desperate bid to restore their TRPs. (Image via aisfm.edu.in)
Goswami’s loud, hard-hitting voice, one of the main reasons behind The Newshour’s catapult to dominance, will now be played in The Newshour studios, while the makeshift anchors move their lips to his statements. According to senior Times Now journalist Navika Kumar, their usual stand-in Newshour anchor Anand Narasimhan has been spending sleepless nights, hard at work, trying to move his lips to Arnab’s audio flawlessly. “It’ll be a while before Rahul Shivshankar joins us and does a more believable and buy-able impression of Arnab, but until then, we’ve got to do this much at least,” Navika told The UnReal Times .
Narasimhan has admitted to finding this task the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do in life. “To open your throat and try to scream the loudest, yet without screaming, to keep interrupting people correctly before they finish a couple of words, to keep uttering that you would bring in some panelist in to the debate and yet not bring him, to keep announcing ever 5 minutes that you would open the phone lines and yet not open them..Whew! This is as Herculean as it can get. I expect to be featured on Ripley’s Believe it or not, if at all I’m able to achieve this dubsmashing feat,” the anchor described, before going ahead to practice moving his lips to “THE NATION WANTS TO KNOW!”
Navika also added that the crew has a backup plan in place, should the dubsmashing go awry. “In the worst case, if no one is able to lip sync properly, we will try to get Dr. Manmohan Singh to do the job. He doesn’t have to dubsmash, he might as well speak and we can have Arnab’s voice as the voiceover,” the senior journalist added. The channel, however, soon had a reason to cheer, as Bollywood actor Anupam Kher volunteered to act as Arnab for free. “Dubsmashing Arnab is the least I can do for my country and our soldiers at the border. It is a role that I would be proud and privileged to accept, all for the sake of the jawans,” Kher exclaimed.
The move has, however, come in for sharp criticism from the channel’s bete noire s. “Dubsmash => Dumb smash. Enough said :)” tweeted Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha. The last word though, went to AAP spokesperson The Ashutosh. “Why the Times Now sud depend on lip sinking the Arnab’s voice !!! Will the Modi answer !!!” (sic) the former IBN7 editor tweeted. Tweet About Ashwin Kumar
1 of the proud columnists of URT, former co-editor of URT Tamil, amateur musician, Real Harris Jayaraj devotee, UnReal T. Rajendar fanatic, passionate about stopping female foeticide. View all posts by Ashwin Kumar → Related Posts | 0 | [
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FMD2407 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump knows the art of the deal like no one else! He d had enough of do-nothing Paul Ryan so he went around him and made a better deal with Democrats that actually helps the hurricane victims. The three month deal was much better than the commitment of 18 months that Speaker Ryan had proposed: President Trump shocked and angered Republicans on Wednesday by agreeing with Democrats on a bill to suspend the debt ceiling for three months, but by Thursday, Republican lawmakers and aides were acknowledging that Trump s plan was better for Republicans than the plan put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.Many Republicans weren t all that happy with either proposal. Ryan was proposing an 18-month suspension of the debt ceiling that would have let the government keep borrowing as much as it needed, and said the long time frame was needed to provide for market stability.But Democrats said they could only agree to a three-month suspension since they wanted leverage more immediately for other issues they want to pursue in the coming weeks. Trump s decision to take the Democratic plan was seen by some as a betrayal of Republicans, and a sign Trump was abandoning the GOP on a key legislative package.After the dust settled, however, Republican lawmakers and aides made it clear they saw the three-month plan as a slight improvement over Ryan s plan.The reason was simple.Neither plan involved a commitment to new spending cuts as a condition for allowing more government borrowing, something many conservatives wanted to see. With that key piece lacking, many Republicans preferred a shorter term agreement for the same reason Democrats did: it will let them try much sooner to leverage the next debt ceiling fight for their own policy prescription, in this case, spending cuts.A source with the conservative House Freedom Caucus said that group has not met to discuss the plan that Trump settled on Wednesday. But this source said many members of the group seem to agree that both deals were bad because neither included a commitment to spending cuts. Lots of members think the three-month deal is bad, but so is an 18-month deal, this source said. But the source added that the shorter time frame will at least let them try again soon, and in that way, is better for Republicans. [HFC] members don t want to sit on their hands, the source said.HFC members, in particular, see the debt ceiling deadline as a chance to threaten not to vote for an increase in the borrowing limit until spending cuts are included. When the battle heats up again, the HFC is expected to push for a cap on federal spending based on a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product.The HFC is a relatively small group of conservative lawmakers known for clashing with House GOP leaders. The Republican Study Committee, in contrast, is more mainstream and is comprised of most House GOP lawmakers for the purpose of advancing conservative policies.But even the RSC indicated Wednesday that Trump s deal is better for Republicans than what Ryan was pushing. For example, RSC member Tom Cole, R-Okla., said Wednesday that he preferred Trump s plan over Ryan s. I think a short-term deal is much easier to vote for than an 18-month or two-year extension with no offsets, he said on MSNBC, describing the choices that were put before the GOP. Cole cast the deal Trump reached as a slight delay that will let Republicans try again soon for spending cuts. I think a much worse deal would have been to extend the debt ceiling with no spending cuts, he added. So we live to fight another day. For entire story: Washington Examiner | 0 | [
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FMD2408 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Senate Republicans have reached a tentative budget deal that could allow tax reform legislation to eliminate as much as $1.5 trillion in revenues over 10 years through tax cuts, raising the odds that their planned tax overhaul would expand the federal deficit. Two members of the Senate Budget Committee, Republicans Pat Toomey and Bob Corker, announced the formal agreement late on Tuesday, but their joint news release did not provide dollar figures for revenue reduction or tax cuts. The prospective tax cuts are part of closed-door talks among 12 Senate Budget Committee Republicans who are drafting a fiscal 2018 budget measure needed to help the 100-member Senate pass a tax overhaul with as few as 51 Republicans votes and prevent Democrats from blocking the legislation. The U.S. economy is in a steady expansion and stock markets are rising. But the tax cuts being weighed by congressional Republicans, with encouragement from President Donald Trump, are on a scale normally reserved for times of economic hardship and intended to drive annual economic growth above 3 percent. Trump campaigned last year on a promise of comprehensive tax reform. But Republicans have made little tangible progress toward that ambitious goal so far. Toomey told reporters he is confident that Republicans will agree to a budget resolution that foresees a deficit in the first decade. He said, however, that talks have not settled definitively on $1.5 trillion. “I’d like to see a bigger number,†said Toomey, who argues that tax cuts would increase economic growth. In their joint news release, Toomey and Corker said they agreed on a budget resolution that would use a standard analysis of the impact of the tax cuts on the deficit. Some Republicans like Toomey have pushed for a “dynamic†model, which tends to assume an increased economic stimulus effect from tax cuts, resulting in smaller projected increases to the deficit. Senator John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, said he expected the agreement to provide maximum flexibility to craft a tax overhaul capable of driving economic growth and ultimately raising worker wages. But looming in the background is Washington’s steady flow of red ink that adds every year to the $20 trillion national debt, a target of outrage not long ago for Republican “fiscal hawks.†In recent weeks, some fiscal hawks have expressed a willingness to consider deficit financing for tax reform but many at levels well below $500 billion. Toomey’s comments suggest Senate Republicans may be looking to deficit spending as a way to cut taxes on businesses and individuals while avoiding hard decisions that would be needed to raise taxes elsewhere or eliminate popular tax breaks. If adopted by Congress in a budget resolution, the $1.5 trillion figure would set a ceiling on how much revenue tax reform could eliminate over 10 years. Analysts and Democrats have warned that higher deficits resulting from tax cuts would eventually overwhelm economic growth at a time when U.S. interest rates are set to rise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, whose panel would use the budget figure in crafting a tax reform bill, told reporters he was not sure that revenue losses of $1.5 trillion were needed for tax reform. Senator Ron Wyden, the Senate Finance Committee’s top Democrat, dismissed the development as a distraction from the more important question of how Republican tax reform would ultimately benefit the wealthy. “It looks to me like yet another trial balloon,†Wyden said. Republicans have been unable to agree on how to pay for tax cuts and other proposed tax changes, aside from arguing that some lost revenue would be clawed back from the buoyant economic growth they believe tax reform will deliver. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to do tax cuts that pay for themselves,†said Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, another budget committee Republican. “But I think most people would concede that cutting taxes does stimulate the economy.†| 1 | [
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FMD2409 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday her government was doing its best to protect everyone in the strife-torn state of Rakhine, as the estimated number of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh leapt by 18,000 in one day, to 164,000. Suu Kyi did not refer specifically to the exodus of the minority Rohingya, which was sparked by insurgent attacks on Aug. 25 and an army counter-offensive, but said her administration was trying its best to take care of all citizens. Western critics have accused Suu Kyi of not speaking out for the Rohingya, some 1.1 million people who have long complained of persecution and are seen by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Some have called for the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 as a champion of democracy to be revoked. We have to take care of our citizens, we have to take care of everybody who is in our country, whether or not they are our citizens, Suu Kyi said in comments to Reuters Television s Indian partner, Asian News International. Of course, our resources are not as complete and adequate as we would like them to be but, still, we try our best and we want to make sure that everyone is entitled to the protection of the law, she said during a visit by Indian Prime Narendra Modi to Yangon. Suu Kyi on Tuesday blamed terrorists for a huge iceberg of misinformation on the strife in the northwestern state of Rakhine but made no mention of the Rohingya who have fled. She has come under increasing pressure from countries with Muslim populations, and this week U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned there was a risk of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar that could destabilise the region. In Washington, the U.S. State Department on Thursday voiced its concern following serious allegations of human rights abuses including mass burnings of Rohingya villages and violence conducted by security forces and also armed civilians . We urge all in Burma including in the Rakhine state to avoid actions that exacerbate tensions there, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters. The U.S. ambassador has met Myanmar officials to discuss allegations of violence conducted by both the security forces and civilians and access for humanitarian groups, she said. Myanmar has said it is negotiating with China and Russia to ensure they block any Security Council censure over the crisis. Suu Kyi said the situation in Rakhine has been difficult for many decades and so it was a little unreasonable to expect her administration, which has been in power for 18 months, to have resolved it already. Myanmar says its forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against terrorists responsible for a string of attacks on the police and army since last October. Officials blame Rohingya militants for killing non-Muslims and burning their homes. We need to wipe out the threat of the terrorism in those regions, Ko Ko Hlaing, a presidential adviser of the previous government said on Thursday at a forum arranged by military-owned media to discuss the crisis. He said rehabilitation and development are important and the citizenship issue must be settled, but the first priority needed to be the detoxification of dangerous ideology of extremism . Suu Kyi s spokesman, Zaw Htay, on Thursday posted what he said were photos of Bengalis setting fire to their houses . The pictures of several sword-wielding women wearing headscarfs and men in Islamic prayer caps, or Kufi , setting a house on fire, which were published in one of the country s leading newspapers, were also shared widely by the military. These photos showing that Bengalis are torching their houses emerge at a time when international media have made groundless accusations of setting fire to Bengali houses by the government security forces and the killings of Bengalis, said the Eleven Media daily But the photographs sparked controversy on social media with many people who identified themselves as Myanmar Muslims saying they appeared staged. Rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say the Myanmar army has been trying to force them out of Rakhine state with a campaign of arson and killings. Boatloads of exhausted Rohingya continued to arrive in the Cox s Bazar region of neighbouring Bangladesh on Thursday. The latest estimate by U.N. workers operating there put arrivals in just 13 days at 164,000, up from 146,000 from the day before. U.N. officials in Bangladesh now believe the total number of refugees from Myanmar since Aug. 25 could reach 300,000, said Dipayan Bhattacharyya, who is Bangladesh spokesman for the World Food Programme (WFP). [nL4N1LN4N3] The surge of refugees | 1 | [
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FMD2410 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Sam Brownback and the current GOP-led Kansas legislature have all but destroyed Kansas. It s so bad that a coalition of former Kansas governors, along with current political leaders, is working to raise money to oppose Brownback s disastrous policies before they wipe Kansas off the map entirely. They re called the Save Kansas Coalition, and they re not all Democrats. Not by far.The main problem is that the state cut taxes to try and turn Kansas into the bastion of business and tourism that Texas and Florida supposedly are, but that failed miserably and now the state is worse than broke. To fight to get Kansas back on track, former Democratic governors Kathleen Sebelius and John Carlin are joined by former Republican governors Mike Hayden and Bill Graves, and all four are working to educate Kansas public about what s actually happening versus what Brownback wants people to think is happening.They can t even fund their schools halfway properly because their budget is such a mess.The Save Kansas Coalition wants balanced taxes, high-quality public education, and access to healthcare, along with judicial impartiality, safer highways, and job growth. Brownback s policies are not conducive to any of this. He s a hardcore, balanced-budget, cutting-taxes-will-stimulate-the-economy-so-we-can-balance-the-budget Republican who doesn t get it.In fact, his policies have driven some business out of the state. One such business owner, Jeff Blackwood, is working to relocate his business onto the Missouri side of Kansas City, saying: I can t, in good conscience, continue to give our tax money to a government that actively works against needs of its citizens We take care of people here and that is exactly the opposite of what is occurring. The funding problems have led to the closure of a mental health hospital and a state rehab office for the disabled, not to mention what s happening with the school system there. Brownback s spokesperson said that his policies have led to five straight years of business growth, and yet, the state is floundering horrifically.Brownback and the Republicans in the state legislature don t seem to realize that cutting taxes means taxes get cut, which causes budget shortfalls, which snowballs into a bankrupt state if it s not quickly addressed. Back in November, Kansas was looking at having a whopping $5.6 million in cash reserves. In other words, peanuts, because the projected tax revenue just wasn t there.The Save Kansas Coalition wants people to be aware of how serious their votes are. Brownback and company didn t get into office by accident the people of Kansas voted for these policies. If they vote to re-elect these ignorant pusnoodles, they ll be voting for more of the same problems since Brownback can t admit that he screwed everything up, and as such, will continue to beat this particular dead horse no matter what.Featured image by Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD2411 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Peru s opposition-controlled Congress ousted center-right President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski s cabinet in a vote of no-confidence early on Friday, pitching the copper-producing Andean country into its worst political crisis in years. In a gamble that will likely force him to scrap his plans to travel abroad later in the day, Kuczynski had dared Congress on Wednesday to revoke its confidence in his cabinet if it insisted on forcing out his second education minister. Under Peru s constitution, if Congress does not deliver a president a vote of confidence for his cabinets twice, the president can summon new legislative elections. But the rightwing populist opposition party Popular Force, led by Kuczynski s defeated electoral rival, Keiko Fujimori, answered Prime Minister Fernando Zavala s request on Thursday to back his cabinet with a resounding no. Peru s single-chamber Congress, where Popular Force has an absolute majority, voted 77-22 to dismiss Zavala s cabinet. Kuczynski now has 72 hours to swear in a new cabinet. While he cannot name Zavala as prime minister again, Kuczynski can reappoint other ministers in his cabinet. Going forward, Kuczynski might have a freer hand to govern in the remaining four years of his term if the opposition steers clear of a fresh confrontation out of fear of losing its majority. But several opposition lawmakers said they would welcome taking the battle to the ballot box. If they close Congress, we re not afraid, said Hector Becerril, a hard-line Popular Force lawmaker. We re willing to seek the people s support again. And it won t be 13 seats we win, or 73. There ll be 100 of us! The vote came on the eve of Kuczynski s 8-day trip abroad, which includes plans for dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and a meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican. Kuczynski, a 78-year-old former Wall Street banker who has vowed to modernize Peru and revive economic growth, took office a year ago with one of the weakest mandates of any president, having beat Fujimori by a razor-thin margin while his party only secured a small portion of seats in Congress. In a plenary debate that stretched on for more than seven hours, opposition lawmakers portrayed Kuczynski as an out-of-touch lobbyist who lacks authority and poses a danger to Peru. Congress has forced Kuczynski s former education and finance ministers to resign amid allegations of ethical breaches, while a third minister quit to avoid being censured. Popular Force announced this week that it planned to propose censuring Education Minister Marilu Martens over her handling of a teachers 2-month strike, which her supporters alleged was fueled by an alliance between Popular Force and extremists. We can t deliver the head of a minister as a trophy, Zavala told lawmakers after walking to Congress with the rest of the cabinet in a show of union. It s clear to us that the country can t make progress like this. | 1 | [
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FMD2412 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The applicant’s nom de plume was not exactly subtle, if you know Polish. The middle initial and surname of the author, Anna O. Szust, mean “fraudster. †Her publications were fake and her degrees were fake. The book chapters she listed among her publications could not be found, but perhaps that should not have been a surprise because the book publishers were fake, too. Yet, when Dr. Fraud applied to 360 randomly selected academic journals asking to be an editor, 48 accepted her and four made her editor in chief. She got two offers to start a new journal and be its editor. One journal sent her an email saying, “It’s our pleasure to add your name as our editor in chief for the journal with no responsibilities. †Little did they know that they had fallen for a sting, plotted and carried out by a group of researchers who wanted to draw attention to and systematically document the seamy side of publishing. While those types of journals began with earnest aspirations to make scientific papers available to everyone, their proliferation has had unintended consequences. Traditional journals typically are supported by subscribers who pay a fee while authors pay nothing to be published. Nonsubscribers can only read papers if they pay the journal for each one they want to see. journals reverse that model. The authors pay and the published papers are free to anyone who cares to read them. Publishing in an journal can be expensive — the highly regarded Public Library of Science (PLOS) journals charge from $1, 495 to $2, 900 to publish a paper, with the fee dependent on which of its journals accepts the paper. Not everyone anticipated what would happen next, or to what extent it would happen. The business model spawned a shadowy world of what have been called predatory journals. They may have similar names to legitimate journals, but exist by publishing just about anything sent to them for a fee that can range from under $100 to thousands of dollars. The fee often is between $100 and $400, said Jeffrey Beall, scholarly communications librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver, as the journals compete for paying customers. Of course, it is easier for predatory journals to have low fees because their expenses are minimal. The researchers decided not to list any of the fake journals that they uncovered in the sting, saying that some have names so close to those of legitimate journals that it would be confusing. There are now thousands of fake journals, about as many as legitimate ones, according to one of the creators of Dr. Fraud, Katarzyna Pisanski, a researcher in the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex in England, and her colleagues. It was that alternate world that Dr. Fraud tapped into. The legitimate journals rejected her application out of hand, but many fake ones did not hesitate to take her on. The investigators, writing about their sting operation in Nature, said they had seen young colleagues fall for the blandishments of predatory journals, not realizing that the emails they received were from publications that only wanted their money. Dr. Pisanski and her colleagues wanted to help researchers understand how fake journals operated. “The emails can be very flattering,†Dr. Pisanski said, telling the recipients they are “eminent researchers†and “inviting†them to contribute. When researchers respond and send in papers, “they are published at lightning speed, often without peer review,†she said. But not everyone who publishes in these journals is an innocent dupe. Mr. Beall, who until recently published a list of predatory journals, said he believes many researchers know exactly what they are doing when they publish there. “I believe there are countless researchers and academics, currently employed, who have secured jobs, promotions, and tenure using publications in journals as part of their credentials and experience for the jobs and promotions they got,†Mr. Beall said. And it can require real diligence on the part of employers to ferret out those questionable publications, Mr. Beall said. “Examining someone’s publications now requires close scrutiny,†Mr. Beall said. “Merely eyeballing a C. V. is insufficient now. †David Knutson, the manager of communications at PLOS, said that young researchers may feel relentless pressure to publish, at all costs. “These authors are shopping around their papers,†he said. “There is so much pressure to publish. †As for Dr. Fraud, she got some lucrative offers. One journal suggested she organize a conference, whose papers would then be published she would get 40 percent of the proceeds. Another invited her to start a new journal and offered her 30 percent of the profits. Dr. Pisanski and her colleagues told the journals that accepted Dr. Fraud that she wanted to withdraw her application to be an editor. But it was not easy to withdraw. Dr. Fraud remains listed as a member of the editorial boards of at least 11 of those journals. She is also listed as a member of committees. At least one journal she did not apply to also listed her as an editor. And, Dr. Pisanski and her colleagues wrote, Dr. Fraud is even listed as an advisory board member of the Journals Open Access Indexing Committee. Its mission? To “increase the visibility and ease of use of scholarly journals. †| 1 | [
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FMD2413 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: With the general election campaign just hours old, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump began focusing their attention this weekend on America’s Rust Belt -- hoping their separate plans to restore prosperity to the all-important region will sway enough voters there to help them win in November.
“We’re going to create jobs in Pennsylvania and across America, especially in places that have been left behind,†Clinton said at a rally Saturday at a factory in Johnstown, part of Pennsylvania’s western, industrial region, home to a large conservative voting bloc that Trump needs.
“I believe with all of my heart that the economy should work for everyone, not just the top 1 percent. … We’re going to support steel workers,†continued Clinton, who also touted her campaign promise to, in her first 100 days in the White House, make the largest investment in jobs since World War II.
Clinton won the Democratic labor and blue-collar vote in her failed 2008 presidential primary bid. But those voters have been more difficult for her to reach in this election cycle.
Primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders’ populist message repeatedly tried to portray Clinton as less receptive to middle class needs. The Vermont senator in fact scored a major suprise win over Clinton in the Michigan primay.
Meanwhile, Trump, the Republican nominee, and running mate Mike Pence continued to argue that electing Clinton would continue the Obama administration's failed economic policies -- marked by stagnant wages and bad international trade deals that are sending manufacturing jobs oversea.
“The second-quarter numbers came out -- 1.2 percent growth in the American economy,†Pence, Indiana's governor, said Friday night at a rally in Lima, Ohio. “We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result … People are restless for change.â€
Most political analysts predict that the general election will again be decided by four so-called battleground states, among them Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Clinton and Trump are deadlocked in those states, according to two recent Quinnipiac University polls, though an NBC survey released July 13 shows Trump trailing by 9 percentage points.
“It will be interesting to see if Clinton can hold off Trump in the Rust Belt by going back to the blue-collar vote,†Caleb Burns, a Republican strategist and partner in the Washington law firm Wiley Rein, said earlier this week. “If she can, it will be extremely difficult for Trump to find a path to victory.â€
To be sure, Trump already has a narrow path toward getting the requisite 270 electoral votes to take the White House.
Beyond winning the 13 states that GOP nominees have taken in the past six presidential races, Trump must also win some combination of battleground states -- including Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
No Republican has won Pennsylvania since 1988, and no Republican nominee has won the White House without winning Ohio.
“And this election will be no different,†Fox News contributor and senior Bush administration policy adviser Karl Rove recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages. “If Mr. Trump’s appeal to blue-collar, white swing voters is real, he could paint Pennsylvania red. If so, he is likely to win the White House with 273 electoral votes.â€
However, a loss in Pennsylvania would mean Trump would have to find wins in such Midwestern industrial states as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, all Democratic strongholds.
Clinton and Kaine continued their “Stronger Together†tour Saturday with a late-afternoon rally in Pittsburgh and an evening event in Youngstown, Ohio. Their tour concludes Sunday in Columbus.
At a rally in Colorado on Friday, the day after Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination in Philadelphia, Trump went after Clinton and Kaine on economic issues.
“We have to go over some numbers,†he said at a rally in Denver, a liberal stronghold. “Hillary was talking last night about how wonderful everything was. She didn’t talk about all of the unbelievable long-term unemployment, the fact house ownership is the lowest in 51 years.â€
He also argued that Kaine is “not popular†in his home state of Virginia, considering that unemployment nearly doubled in his one term as governor and that his first move after getting elected to the post in 2005 was to increase taxes by $4 billion.
Trump plans to visit Columbus and Cleveland on Monday. | 1 | [
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FMD2414 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A U.S. House panel on Wednesday approved a sweeping proposal by voice vote to allow automakers to deploy up to 100,000 self-driving vehicles without meeting existing auto safety standards and bar states from imposing driverless car rules. Representative Robert Latta, a Republican who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee overseeing consumer protection, said he would continue to consider changes before the full committee votes on the measure, expected next week. The full U.S. House of Representatives will not take up the bill until it reconvenes in September after the summer recess. The measure, which would be the first significant federal legislation aimed at speeding self-driving cars to market, would require automakers to submit safety assessment reports to U.S. regulators, but would not require pre-market approval of advanced vehicle technologies. Automakers would have to show self-driving cars “function as intended and contain fail safe features†to get exemptions from safety standards but the Transportation Department could not “condition deployment or testing of highly automated vehicles on review of safety assessment certifications,†the draft measure unveiled late Monday said. The issue has taken new urgency because road deaths in the United States rose 7.7 percent in 2015 over the previous year to 35,200, the highest annual jump since 1966. Traffic deaths climbed nearly 8 percent in the first nine months of 2016, government data showed. Current federal motor vehicle safety rules prevent the sale of self-driving vehicles without human controls. Automakers must meet nearly 75 auto safety standards, many of which were written with the assumption that a licensed driver will be in control of the vehicle. General Motors Co (GM.N), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Ford Motor Co (F.N), Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and others have been lobbying Congress to pre-empt rules under consideration in California and other states that could limit self-driving vehicle deployment. States could still set rules on registration, licensing, liability, insurance and safety inspections, but could not set self-driving car performance standards, under the proposal. California state assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez questioned “why Washington would want us here in the states to not look at the safety standards – it should be up to every state.†Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, said the bill creates a “strong but flexible regulatory framework†that seeks to avoid “a patchwork†of different state rules. Auto dealers want the final bill to clarify that the measure would not preempt state dealer franchise laws that generally bar automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. Democrats praised the bipartisan proposal but said they want more changes before the full committee takes it up, including potentially adding other auto safety measures. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group, said it is “pleased that the legislation is moving forward, and expect to see areas fine-tuned in the legislation.†Consumers Union, a public advocacy group, said the bill needs more changes and must “ensure that automakers demonstrate automated vehicles’ safety and don’t put consumers at greater risk in a crash.†The group opposes “restricting states’ safety authority without strong federal safety standards in place.†The administration of former President Barack Obama last year unveiled voluntary guidelines on self-driving cars that asked automakers to submit a 15-question safety assessment. President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, said she plans to update those in the coming months. Separately, Republican Senator John Thune, who is working with Democrats, said Wednesday he hopes to release a draft self-driving car reform bill before the end of July. | 1 | [
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FMD2415 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: in: General Health , Sleuth Journal , Special Interests Taking calcium supplements — even at low doses — linked to brain lesions in the first study of its kind. Most calcium supplements are just plain bad news. The idea of taking calcium in pill or tablet form to “keep the bones strong” just doesn’t make that much sense given, first, that we are designed to get our calcium from food. Second, our bone is a living tissue, which requires vitamin C, amino acids, magnesium, silica, vitamins D and K, etc., not to mention regular physical activity, just as much as it does calcium. Taking calcium to the exclusion of these other critical factors doesn’t make sense; nor does it make sense to look at osteoporosis as a deficiency of calcium supplements! As we have reported on extensively in the past, not only is consuming limestone, bone, and the shells of oysters and eggs not a good idea because the calcium can deposit in our soft tissues leading to heart attacks and strokes , but even the goal of maintaining bones as dense as a 25-year old late into life (known as the T-score) is fraught with danger, including a far higher breast cancer risk for those with the highest bone density . Instead of pathologizing aging, and focusing on making the bone denser by any means necessary, the focus should be on bone quality and agility and bodily self-awareness late into life, which helps the elderly prevent the falls that lead to fracture in the first place. In other words, simply having a gait or vision disorder can be at least as an important factor in fracture risk as bone mineral density. The problem with poor quality, inorganic, calcium supplements, however, does not stop with their contribution to cardiovascular disease risk. A combination of factors including low magnesium, vitamin K2 and the presence of fluoride in the water and diet can lead to pineal gland calcification , as well as the calcification of other brain structures, which recently has been hypothesized to be a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease . (click image to enlarge) A truly provocative study on this topic published last year in the British Journal of Nutrition somehow slipped through the cracks, because not only did we miss it but we do not recall it being reported elsewhere. Titled, “ Elevated brain lesion volumes in older adults who use calcium supplements: a cross-sectional clinical observational study ,” the study looked at the possibility that since calcium supplements have now been linked in multiple studies with vascular pathologies associated with cardiovascular diseas they may also be associated with the occurrence of brain lesions (known on MRI scans as hyperintensities) in older adults. These brain lesions, visible as brighter spots in MRI scans, are known to be caused by lack of blood flow (ischemia) and subsequent neurological damage. According to the study, “Brain lesions,also known as hyperintensities, are areas of damage observed on brain MRI ( See Above ). These lesions are common in older adults and increase the risk of devastating health outcomes, including depression, cognitive decline, dementia, stroke, physical disability, hip fracture and death. Postmortem studies have determined that these lesions form primarily due to ischemia, especially larger lesions (.3mm) and lesions found in depressed individuals.” The observational study enrolled 227 older adults (60 years above) and assessed food and supplemental calcium intakes. Participants with supplemental calcium use above zero were categorized as supplement users. Lesion volumes were assessed with MRI scans. Key findings were: Greater lesion volumes were found among calcium supplement users than non-users The influence of calcium supplements was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of high blood pressure (hypertension), “a well-established risk factor for lesions.” The study found that the amount of calcium used was not associated with lesion volume and that “even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes.” Even after controlling for food calcium intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension, the association between calcium supplement and lesion volumes held strong. The study details were summarized as follows: “In the present cross-sectional clinical observational study, the association between Ca-containing dietary supplement use and lesion volumes was investigated in a sample of 227 older adults (60 years and above). Food and supplemental Ca intakes were assessed with the Block 1998 FFQ; participants with supplemental Ca intake above zero were categorised as supplement users. Lesion volumes were determined from cranial MRI (1.5 tesla) scans using a semi-automated technique; volumes were log-transformed because they were non-normal. ANCOVA models revealed that supplement users had greater lesion volumes than non-users, even after controlling for food Ca intake, age, sex, race, years of education, energy intake, depression and hypertension (Ca supplement use: β = 0.34, SE 0.10, F(1,217)= 10.98, P= 0.0011). The influence of supplemental Ca use on lesion volume was of a magnitude similar to that of the influence of hypertension, a well-established risk factor for lesions. Among the supplement users, the amount of supplemental Ca was not associated with lesion volume (β = – 0.000035, SE 0.00 015, F(1,139)= 0.06, P= 0.81). The present study demonstrates that the use of Ca-containing dietary supplements, even low-dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes. Evaluation of randomised controlled trials is warranted to determine whether this relationship is a causal one.” What is the mechanism beneath this association? The researchers discussed the already established link between calcium supplementation and increased ischemic stroke risk, indicating that calcium supplementation may contribute to calcium deposits in the vasculature (i.e. arterial calcification), mainly in the fatty deposits (atheromas) that contribute to blocking the opening (lumen) of the blood vessels. They state that this process can lead to lack of blood flow and subsequent oxygen deprivation (ischemia), ultimately leading to the development of brain lesions. Another mechanism by which excess calcium may have a direct neurotoxic effect on the brain is the influx of excess calcium into brain cells, which lead to cell death. This possibility is greatly increased if the blood-brain barrier is compromised. The researchers also highlighted the importance of the finding that calcium supplementation may have as significant a deleterious effect on brain lesions as high blood pressure (hypertension): “If this finding is confirmed in longitudinal studies, it could have important health implications – because it is obviously much easier to cease Ca supplement use than to medically manage hypertension.” In other words, hypertension is often caused by toxic antihypertensive drugs that may actually increase the risk of cardiac mortality . Why not remove one of the modifiable causes: calcium supplementation, which would strike to one of the root causes of the problem and resolve it. The researchers concluded their study as follows: “The use of Ca [calcium] -containing dietary supplements by older adults was found to be associated with greater brain lesion volumes, even after controlling for the usual amount of dietary Ca intake. Interestingly, neither the amount of supplemental Ca nor the duration of supplemental Ca use was associated with lesion volume. These findings indicate that adverse biochemical effects of supplemental Ca use may exist in older adults, regardless of the dose.” So, what do we do instead of taking calcium supplements? First, consider why you think you need calcium supplements. Is it because of the dairy industry promoting for decades the concept that we need calcium (from milk)? Or, is it because your doctor is throwing around terms like osteopenia and osteoporosis carelessly, without explaining to you that the present day bone mineral density (BMD) reference ranges assume that aging is a disease and even if you are 60 or 100 for that matter you are still supposed to have the BMD of a 25-year old young woman; an absurd and dangerous idea. Please read the expose, “ Osteoporosis Myth: The Dangers of High Bone Mineral Density ,” in order to understand how millions of healthy women were made to believe that aging is a disease, with worse health outcomes as a result of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Now, when it comes to calcium, focus on food sources. The site NutritionData.com lists about 1,000 of the highest calcium-containing foods, categorized by food group: Foods highest in Calcium . Also, remember that the accelerated bone loss that occurs later in life in women, is triggered by hormonal changes associated with the exhaustion of the ovarian reserve. Nature, however, provides ‘back up’ support for the ovaries in the form of pomegranate . Other hormone-modulating foods include the fermented soy food miso , prunes , and even vitamin C , which has recently been found to regenerate steroid hormones . For a far more extensive research resource on bone health, you can view our page dedicated to the topic here: Bone Health . © November 2, 2016 GreenMedInfo LLC . This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter . Submit your review | 0 | [
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FMD2416 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Our State Department brought in over 1 million 1 LEGAL immigrants entered the US in the last 20 years as a result of the Refugee Admissions program that was brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Its primary purpose was to increase diversity in America. Has everyone had enough diversity yet?Clockwise, Hanad Mustafe Musse, 19, Guled Omar, 20, Zacharia Yusuf Adurahman, 19, and Adnan Abdihamid Farah, 19. They are four of six Minnesota Muslims that have been charged with traveling or attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.Using college loans. Out. of control. Obama s jihad immigration policies now have us funding our own demise. Where is the oversight? Where is the outrage?Described as good students, hard workers, all had plenty of connections to community. Some of the young men got a head start on racking up college credits in high school. Some juggled college and jobs that helped them chip in for family budgets. Some worshiped NBA stars and caught college-night games at Target Center. Hmmmm, what went wrong?Sherburne County Sheriff s Office, via Associated Press Hanad Mustafe Musse, 19.Two Twin Cities men charged with conspiracy to fight alongside terrorists now face financial fraud charges for allegedly using their college loans to purchase airline tickets to fly to the Middle East.In a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday by the U.S. attorney s office in Minnesota, Hamza Ahmed and Hanad Mustafe Musse were charged with using more than $1,000 of financial aid provided to them.Ahmed, 20, of Savage, and Musse, 19, of Minneapolis, are among seven young Somali-Americans from Minnesota who face charges of planning to leave the United States and fight alongside Islamic extremist groups. Six of them were charged in April.During the past two years, more than 20 Somali-Americans from Minnesota have left to fight alongside terrorists with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, according to the FBI.The new indictment says that Ahmed and Musse bought airline tickets on Nov. 8, 2014, from New York s John F. Kennedy Airport to Europe, using more than $1,000 in federal college financial aid. Ahmed used his aid money to purchase a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, authorities say. Musse used similar funds to buy a ticket to travel to Greece. From those two destinations, authorities say the pair then planned on heading to Syria. Ahmed had actually boarded his flight when he was ordered off the plane by officers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.In a related matter, Abdirahman Daud, 21, another alleged conspirator, made his first appearance in federal court in Minneapolis on Tuesday morning before U.S. Chief District Judge Michael Davis. Daud was arrested by the FBI in San Diego in late April, along with alleged conspirator Mohamed Farah, after they drove from Minneapolis to California. They were accompanied on the trip by a confidential informant who was working for the FBI.Daud and Farah allegedly planned to acquire false documents in San Diego in order to cross into Mexico. From there, they planned on flying to the Middle East with the intent of entering Syria to fight, authorities say.Daud, who is charged with providing material support to terrorists, is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing Friday afternoon in front of Davis. Farah is charged with conspiracy and is expected to be returned to the Twin Cities later this week. Farah s brother, Adnan, was arrested last month in connection with the case and is charged with providing support to terrorists. He is being held in the Sherburne County jail.Via: Pamela Gellar | 0 | [
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FMD2417 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Email
“We don’t force our faith on anybody else,” Chuck Wingate, executive director of Bethesda Mission, told PennLive.com . “But we find the whole idea that the government’s going to come in a[nd] tell us what we can and cannot do in our own facility to be out of bounds, especially in matters of faith.”
Wingate, who says his Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ministry serves 100,000 people a month, was referring to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulation forbidding recipients of USDA food from requiring “a beneficiary to attend or participate in any explicitly religious activities that are offered by the organization.” A USDA press release stated that the rule was established pursuant to an executive order issued by President Barack Obama and would “provide new religious liberty protections for beneficiaries of federally funded social service programs.”
Bethesda, which has been helping the poor and homeless in the Keystone State capital for nearly 102 years, formerly received about 1,000 pounds of USDA food per month via the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank. But given the choice between taking Uncle Sam’s freebies and continuing to offer thanks to God before serving meals, the mission’s leaders decided on the latter.
“We can no longer take the food on principal [sic] because prayer is an integral part of everything we do at Bethesda Mission,” Scott Dunwoody, the shelter’s vice president of business development, told Harrisburg’s WHTM-TV .
“The USDA revised regulations regarding this food distribution to say that no religious services or religious activities could occur during the distribution of the food,” Wingate told CNSNews.com . “Well, we pray before meals, so if there’s a meal being served — and we serve 3,000 meals a week — if there’s a meal being served with USDA food somewhere in it, then we would be prohibited from praying. We just said ‘nope’ that’s too onerous for us and we’re not going to continue to accept the food if that’s a condition of receiving it.”
Many religious charities are now faced with the same dilemma as Bethesda. So far, few seem willing to cut the umbilical cord to Washington — or perhaps they long ago made the necessary compromises to get USDA comestibles. Jennifer Powell of the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank told PennLive that “only a handful” of the bank’s 900 program partners have chosen either to stop taking the USDA food or to change their practices — by, say, conducting prayers outside the room in which the food is served — to fall in line with the new rule.
Eric Saunders, executive director of Harrisburg-area New Hope Ministries, told PennLive his ministry didn’t need to change its practices because they have never required people to participate in prayer or a religious service in order to obtain food. “When the new rule came out,” reported the website, “Saunders said he simply reminded staff to make sure any religious activities were done at a different time or place from when people were being served.”
Bethesda doesn’t require participation in religious activities, either, but anyone there for a meal is going to be in the presence of an audible prayer. This, apparently, does not comport with the Obama administration’s definition of religious freedom, whereby passively causing someone to hear a prayer before giving him free food is unacceptable but forcing a Christian charity or business to pay for contraceptive coverage for its employees is worth defending all the way to the Supreme Court.
Saunders said of Bethesda, “I have a lot of respect for them and the principled stand they took.”
Bethesda will probably not be hurt much by declining the USDA’s food. Although 1,000 pounds a month sounds like quite a bit of food, it really only amounted to about 0.5 percent of the food distributed by the shelter, according to Wingate. He claimed the announcement has already led to an increase in donations to the ministry. In addition, Powell said the food bank has plenty of other food the mission could use.
All of these problems could have been avoided, of course, if the federal government had not strayed from its enumerated powers under the Constitution. Nowhere in that document is the government delegated the authority to distribute food, no matter how noble its intentions may be in doing so. As James Madison, the father of the Constitution, so eloquently put it, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
Charities, especially Christian ones, ought also to be mindful of the fact that the “free” food they get from Washington and other levels of government is paid for by the expropriation of the citizenry; “Thou shalt not steal” contains no exceptions for either government or charities. Furthermore, they should recognize that by accepting the government’s largess, they are also accepting its control, even to the point of denying their faith. It may be more cumbersome and less reliable to subsist on voluntary contributions, but it is the only sure way to maintain a charity’s religious character over the long run. Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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FMD2418 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thirteen people, including civilians, were killed during a confrontation between Colombia s ELN rebels and dissidents from the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla group in a remote area known for drug trafficking, the country s ombudsman said on Tuesday. The incident took place on Nov. 27 in the southwestern Narino region, a place where crime gangs and rebel groups are known to grow, process and smuggle coca, the base ingredient in cocaine. A hard-won peace accord was agreed with the now-disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group last year, ending some five decades of war. But an array of FARC dissidents, National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, right-wing ex-paramilitaries and crime gangs are still active in Colombia, competing for control of lucrative illegal mines and drug trafficking routes. In Narino, fighters from the ELN attacked members of the Rural Resistance, ombudsmen Carlos Alfonso Negret said in a report. The Rural Resistance are FARC dissidents who refused to demobilize following the peace deal. The ombudsman s office visited the area and was able to determine that there was an exchange of fire between the group that calls itself Rural Resistance and the ELN, Negret told journalists. There was crossfire that killed 13 people. Neither the report nor Negret specified how many of the dead were civilians. More than 11,000 fighters and collaborators from the FARC handed over their weapons this year as part of the peace accord. The group has kept its initials in its reincarnation as a political party. But Negret says some 800 former guerrillas did not demobilize, while other security sources and thinktanks put the number of dissident ex-FARC at between 700 and 1,300. The ELN and the government began their first ever bilateral ceasefire in October, part of peace talks taking place in Ecuador. The ceasefire is set to run through Jan. 9 and may be extended. The incident was a violation of the ceasefire, Negret said. It is the second act of violence which has overshadowed the ceasefire, after the ELN admitted to killing an indigenous leader in restive Choco province. | 1 | [
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FMD2419 | 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: Congress Removes Child Tax Credit, Mortgage Deduction, and EITC from Tax Code Claim summaries: Has Congress eliminated the child tax credit, earned income tax credit (EITC) and mortgage deductions due to the influence of Koch Industries?
contextual information: Claim: Congress has eliminated the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit (EITC), and mortgage deductions from the tax code under pressure from lobby groups and the Koch brothers. Example: [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Are u kidding!? Congress Eliminates Child Tax Credit, Mortgage Deduction & E.I.T.C Origins: On 11 November 2014, the National Report published an article claiming a "heavy burst of lobbying" by groups including the Koch brothers' Koch Industries preceded a vote whereby Congress rescinded several common tax breaks long afforded to millions of Americans. article According to the article, the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction were all forms of "entitlement payouts" that had been eliminated beginning with the 2014 fiscal year to allow "job creators" to flourish: The deeply unpopular congress, whose approval rating hovers around a historic low of 10%, has voted to remove the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit and the mortgage interest deduction from the tax code starting with the 2014 fiscal year. The move is almost assured to solidify the perception of the 113rd Congress of the United States as deeply disconnected from the struggles and desires of the populace it is supposed to serve. The move, long championed by entitlement reform advocates like congressman Paul Ryan R-Wisconsin and Ted Cruz R-Texas, will cut entitlement payouts by a staggering 177 billion dollars. 54.33 billion dollars in savings will be realized from discontinuing the earned income tax credit, which generally pays those making less than 12 thousand dollars yearly large cash tax rebates far in excess of the actual tax they paid. 69.7 billion will be saved from the mortgage interest tax deduction, which critics say primarily favors top income earners. The elimination of the child tax credit, which critics say serves no fair purpose, will result in an additional 54 billion dollar savings. The article was nothing but a chain-yanking spoof, however: The National Report is a well-known fake news outlet notorious for publishing click-baiting, completely false stories such as "15 Year Old Who 'SWATTED' Gamer Convicted of Domestic Terrorism," "Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy, Experts Say," and "Vince Gilligan Announces Breaking Bad Season 6." 15 Year Old Who 'SWATTED' Gamer Convicted of Domestic Terrorism Solar Panels Drain the Sun's Energy, Experts Say Vince Gilligan Announces Breaking Bad Season 6 The article also quoted economist "Paul Horner" on Congress' purported tax credit repeal. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Paul Horner is a National Report writer whose name is used as a recurring character in various stories published by the site. Last updated: 13 November 2014 < | 0 | [
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FMD2420 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: BREAKING: Black-clad gunmen stormed the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper known for lampooning Islamic radicals early Wednesday, killing 12 and injuring as many as 15 before escaping, French officials said.
As many as three Kalashnikov-toting shooters were being sought after the attack at Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper known for challenging Muslim terrorists with a 2011 caricature of Prophet Mohammed on its cover and which recently tweeted a cartoon of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Two policemen and several journalists - including the cartoonist behind the newspaper's provocative images, were among the dead.
“We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!†the killers shouted, according to witnesses who spoke to Sky News. The gunmen spoke French without any accent, according to Le Monde
The gunmen fled in a stolen car, and may have quickly ditched it and disappeared into the French capital's subway system, according to reports. A pedestrian has been injured by the terrorist’s vehicle, and there has been a second shootout, according to Le Figaro.
French President Francois Hollande branded the attack an act of terrorism and claimed that several other potential terror attacks had been thwarted "in recent weeks." Hollande added that the newspaper had been threatened in the past and was already under police protection and surveillance.
“This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it,†Hollande told reporters.
Elsewhere in France, newspaper offices, shopping centers, museums and stations were placed under police protection.
Officials said the men walked into the ground floor of the newspaper's offices and began shooting before making their way up to the first floor. As they fled the scene, they shot at arriving policemen.
“It was a real butchery,†Rocco Contento, a spokesman for the Unité police union, told The Guardian.
Benoit Bringer, a journalist from the agency Premieres Lignes Tele, whose offices are next door, told the Telegraph he took refuge on the building's roof.
"Three policemen arrived by push bike, but they left naturally as the attackers were armed," he said.
The newspaper's offices are in the trendy 11th arrondissement of Paris, which includes posh restaurants and retail shops.
Charlie Hebdo's offices were firebombed in 2011 after a spoof issue featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on its cover. Nearly a year later, the magazine published crude Muhammad caricatures, drawing denunciations around the Muslim world. One of the dead in Wednesday's attack was satirical cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, the newspaper's editorial director and the artist behind the caricatures that offended jihadists. He was the subject of a fatwah, and there is a Facebook page called "Execute Stephane Charbonnier."
British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the attack and vowed solidarity with France.
"The murders in Paris are sickening," Cameron said. "We stand with the French people in the fight against terror and defending the freedom of the press."
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 1 | [
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FMD2421 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Yesterday, actor Ben Affleck came out with a statement of shock over allegations that mega-Democrat donor and kingpin Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted multiple women in the industry. A disgusting audio tape was released yesterday by the New Yorker that was secretly done by then 19-yr. old Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez that showed how Weinstein used his position of power to make women perform sexual favors or take part in his sexual fantasies, or pay the (obvious and unspoken) consequences.Affleck, who is close to Harvey Weinstein and has spent a considerable amount of time around him, made the following statement on social media yesterday:tabloids He was quickly shot down by actress Rose McGowan who claimed he knew all about Harvey Weinstein s antics, despite his statement of fake outrage and disgust. YOU LIE she tweeted in response to Affleck s comments.You want to play let's play #ROSEARMY pic.twitter.com/uqd26Z78gc rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 10, 2017Rose then went on to call all of the Hollywood A-list Golden Boys, LIARS and warned them, We have just begun. But that wasn t the end of it for Affleck who seemed to be feigning shock over Weinstein s actions when according to at least a few young Hollywood actresses, he s got some explaining to do about his own actions.Hilarie Burton claims she was groped by Ben Affleck during his appearance on TRL in 2003.Daily Mail The former host of the show made the allegations on Tuesday night, just hours after Affleck made a statement condemning Harvey Weinstein s alleged abusive actions in his sexual assault and harassment scandal.In it, he said he was saddened and angry over the sickening claims.Affleck s statement was quickly slammed by a number of people including Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan who called Affleck a liar.When a fan tweeted that Affleck might as well have kept quiet, another Twitter user wrote: He also grabbed Hilarie Burton s breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though. The One Tree Hill Star then surprised the Twitter thread by interjecting with: I didn t forget. The incident reportedly happened when he appeared on the show in 2003. Burton was 21.A video clip from the show shows Affleck telling Burton a story mid-interview which appears to be about moves men use to pick up women.He leans his arm around the young host who is wearing a yellow bandeau dress. No groping is seen on camera but Burton noticeably jumps and looks shocked on the footage as Affleck smiles and returns to his seat.Here is how the exchange went down after a Twitter user suggested Affleck would have been better off keeping his mouth shut over the Weinstein allegations.Ben Affleck should ve just kept quiet. Clearly he wasn t thinking about his daughters when he left them to gallivant with their nanny. I am I, Naima (@naimaism) October 10, 2017Shanice Brim, a female producer of the TLR show replied with a stunning admission that, He also grabbed Hilarie Burton s breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though. He also grabbed Hilarie Burton's breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though. Shanice Brim (@ShaniceBrim) October 10, 2017Actress Hilarie Burton quickly replied, I didn t forget. I didn't forget. Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) October 10, 2017Shanice Brim told Burton how sorry she was that Affleck sexually assaulted her, saying, It s infuriating that people never bring up all the gross, predatory things he s done. I m so sorry that happened to you. It s infuriating that people never bring up all the gross, predatory things he s done. Shanice Brim (@ShaniceBrim) October 11, 2017Seriously, thank you for that. I was a kid. Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) October 11, 2017She then tweeted a clip from an interview she did taking fans behind the scenes at TRL. In it, she relives and laughs off the incident. He wraps his arm around me and comes over and tweaks my left boob, she says. I m just like, what are you doing Some girls like a good tweakage here and there I like a high five. Further footage shows Affleck asking the host, how old are you 19? . He would have been around 31 at the time of the recording.Watch:https://t.co/wh2MpJVQzlGirls. I'm so impressed with you brave ones. I had to laugh back then so I wouldn't cry. Sending love. Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) October 11, 2017Here is the same video in a different format. | 0 | [
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FMD2422 | 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 Reddit User Find Treasure in His Grandparents' Barn? Claim summaries: Avoid the misleading online ads. Here's the real story from 2013.
contextual information: In late 2021, online advertisements appeared on websites, claiming: "He Found Treasure Inside His Grandparents' Barn." Our research led us to a Reddit user named EvilEnglish, who posted in 2013 that he really did find what could be described as a "treasure" left behind in his grandparents' safe in Tennessee. However, the truth of the story had been twisted over the years by the ads and slideshow articles. First, the two pictures in the ad had nothing to do with the Reddit user, his grandparents, or the location of the "treasure" in the safe. The photograph of the supposed Reddit user is of Chris Seiter, a writer for exgirlfriendrecovery.com, and the picture of the old house also appeared to be unrelated. We found multiple photographs in the 60-page slideshow article that resulted from clicking the ad, which had nothing to do with what actually happened, despite being credited to him. Furthermore, the discovery was made in EvilEnglish's grandparents' farmhouse, not a "barn." Despite being credited to the Reddit user, these two pictures seemed to have no connection to the real story about the treasure found in EvilEnglish's grandparents' home or safe. In the original story posted in 2013, EvilEnglish, who did not provide his real name, mentioned that his father died in 2009, which led to his inheriting his grandparents' farmhouse in middle Tennessee, a property they had owned from the late 1970s until 1997. As he wrote on Reddit, it was under a damp and loose carpet in the closet under the staircase that he found and eventually opened a "secret safe": "My dad passed away a few years ago, and he inherited an old farmhouse in middle Tennessee from my grandparents. The house was a home for my grandparents for about 20 years. They bought this house in the late '70s/early '80s to escape the oppressive summer heat of the South. My grandfather was an avid sportsman and enjoyed collecting various firearms. My grandmother was a collector of coins and other antiques and curiosities. My grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998, but I think the last time they traveled to the Tennessee house was around 1997. After my grandfather passed away, neither my grandmother nor father returned to the house. My father passed in 2009, and we've been working to close out his estate and traveled to the farmhouse to prepare it for sale. There was a lot of work to do here, as it is an old house. I was working in a closet below the staircase and saw that the rug was pretty disgusting. I started pulling up the rug and noticed a block of concrete. This was very out of place since all of the downstairs flooring is hardwood. I pushed the carpet back further and saw a round cap with a circular indentation on it. I pulled off the cap and... a secret safe! I gave the handle a tug, but it wouldn't budge. If you twist the handle, it will still spin. I called several locksmiths in TN, but it is impossible to get someone to come out on a Sunday up there. I should also mention that early last year, my brother-in-law and I were moving some of the furniture. He went to move one of the coffee tables, and when he picked it up, the tabletop came off the base. Underneath the tabletop of the coffee table was a hidden, standalone safe. It was pretty heavy, but we were able to load it into the truck. He took it to work and was able to cut it open. Inside were several pistols (.22s, a .357, and a few others), as well as about 300 single one-dollar bills. We found out that they were "Barr Notes" and supposedly rare because that particular Secretary of the Treasury died just 29 days into office. Most of the locksmiths in the area seem to only want to come out during the week. I'm trying to arrange for an off day this upcoming Friday to return to Tennessee! On April 30, 2013, EvilEnglish posted to Reddit that the safe had been unlocked, revealing "treasure" from his grandparents' past. Inside, he found "dozens of rare coins, pocket watches and wristwatches, jewelry, and stacks of soggy money," according to KSL.com. The money may have been wet after a pipe leak that occurred in the years before the safe was found. The original Imgur album of photos, as well as multiple YouTube videos, are no longer available. Readers looking for pictures of the grandparents' "secret safe" can find them within the same news article from KSL.com or from a HuffPost article from May 1, 2013. In the album, the pictures showed the "Major Safe. Co." logo on the floor being examined by the professional who found a way to open it. All of the "treasure" found in the safe was displayed on the kitchen counter. In an old Reddit comment, EvilEnglish wrote: "Funny that as a boy, in that very house, my grandma read me 'Treasure Island,' and I always dreamed of finding something like this!" Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with numerous pages. This practice is known as advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money from the ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it costs to show the initial ad that attracted viewers. | 1 | [
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FMD2423 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does a Picture Show a Divorcing Couple Dividing Up Beanie Babies? Claim summaries: The strangely moving photograph was shared on social media in April 2022.
contextual information: In April 2022, internet users shared an unusual old photograph with a caption that read, "A divorcing couple divide up their Beanie Baby collection in the courtroom, 1990s" (or words to that effect). The picture was authentic and unedited, and such descriptions were entirely accurate. For example, one April 17 Facebook post included the picture along with the caption, "A divorcing couple dividing Beanie Babies in court, 1999." That is exactly what the strangely moving picture shows. It was captured by Reuters photographer Aaron Mayes on November 5, 1999, at the Clark County Family Court in Las Vegas, Nevada. The original Reuters caption reads as follows: "Attorney Frank Totti looks over papers while his client Frances Mountain sorts out Beanie Babies with her ex-husband Harold Mountain in Judge Gerald Hardcastle's Family Courtroom in Las Vegas, November 5." The couple, who were divorced four months prior, were ordered to divide up the collection valued at $2,500 to $5,000 but were unable to do so by themselves. The collection was spread on the court floor and divided one by one under the supervision of Family Court Judge Hardcastle. According to Clark County court records, the couple jointly filed for divorce in August 1998, which Judge Gerald Hardcastle granted in May 1999. A November 5, 1999, entry on the case docket notes, "Return Hearing (9:00 AM)...DIVISION OF BEANIE BABIES." The Las Vegas Sun reported at the time that Hardcastle was intent on making an example of the couple due to their failure to resolve the distribution of the toys. This morning, a frustrated Clark County Family Court judge ordered the couple to divide up their collection of Beanie Babies one by one under his supervision in the courtroom. Maple the Bear was the first to go. "This isn't about toys. It's about control," Family Court Judge Gerald Hardcastle told the couple. "Because you folks can't solve it, it takes the services of a District Court judge, a bailiff, and a court reporter." Frances and Harold Mountain divorced four months ago. According to the divorce decree, the parties were supposed to divide up their Beanie Baby collection, estimated to be worth between $2,500 and $5,000. However, the man and woman failed to split up their toys by themselves. The collection was still in Frances' possession Thursday when Hardcastle heard Harold's motion to get his share of the toys. "I'd just had enough," said Hardcastle, who has been a Family Court judge for seven years. "We spend a lot of time dealing with some simply unreasonable issues. They are time-consuming, expensive issues. A lot of our calendar is made up of just this kind of nonsense. So I told them to bring the Beanie Babies in, spread them out on the floor, and I'll have them pick one each until they're all gone." Hardcastle also invited reporters. | 1 | [
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FMD2424 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Oregon’s governor blasted the federal government’s response to the occupation of a wildlife refuge by a group of armed men saying the situation was “absolutely intolerable†and costing the state about $100,000 a week. Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she had been asked by federal officials to limit her public comments about the protest which began on Jan. 2 at the remote Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and that she had no wish to escalate the situation. “But I will say this ... The situation is absolutely intolerable and it must be must be resolved immediately. The very fabric of this community is being ripped apart,†Brown said on Wednesday at a news conference. “The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and under-served by federal officials’ response thus far.†The takeover at Malheur was the latest flare-up in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over the U.S. government’s control of millions acres of land in the West. The occupiers have declared their move is in support of two local ranchers who were returned to prison this month for setting fires that spread to federal land. The ranchers’ lawyer has said the occupiers do not speak for the family. Law enforcement officials have so far kept their distance from the buildings at the refuge, 30 miles (48 km) south of the small town of Burns in rural southeast Oregon’s Harney County, in the hope of avoiding a violent confrontation. One of the occupiers was arrested last week after he drove a government vehicle to a local supermarket. Brown called the situation a “spectacle of lawlessness†which must end and said she had conveyed her very grave concerns to the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House. “Federal authorities must move quickly to end the occupation and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable,†the governor said. “And until Harney County is free of it, I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law.†The chair of the local Native American tribe has also called on the federal government to remove the occupiers. Brown said the standoff was costing Oregon about $100,000 per week, mostly in additional law enforcement costs, and that she has asked her finance officials to “scour the budget†so they could subsidize the expense to Harney County. “We will be asking federal officials to reimburse the state for these costs,†she said. | 1 | [
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FMD2425 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: GROWING APPROVAL FOR ECONOMY AND PRESIDENT OBAMA - Emily Swanson: "Americans' views of President Barack Obama have improved slightly in the past two months, and opinions are more positive about the direction of the country and the health of the economy, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds... Forty-seven percent of those surveyed approve of how Obama is doing his job, compared with 41 percent in December, and 51 percent approve of his handling of unemployment, compared with 44 percent before. Nearly half say the economy is good now, while 41 percent thought that in December. In December 2013, only one-third called the economy good. Approval of the way Obama is handling the economy improved slightly, 41 percent to 45 percent, over the past two months…But people still feel that their own recovery is lagging, the poll shows, with only 35 percent saying their own family has completely or mostly recovered from economic downturn. Just 27 percent see the job market where they live as being most of the way to recovery, far less than the number that thinks big businesses (55 percent) and the stock market (53 percent) have bounced all the way back. In spite of growing optimism about politics and the economy, 8 in 10 people questioned have little confidence that Obama and Republicans in Congress can work together to solve the country's problems." [AP]
How high is the ceiling on Obama's approval? - David Lauter: "President Obama's standing with the public likely will continue its recent upward trend following the latest positive economic news, but new data on the country's polarized politics suggests he'll soon bump up against a low ceiling. The labor market data released by the federal government on Friday showed the best three months of job growth since the mid-1990s, an increase in the percentage of Americans who are working and the first signs of wage growth. That's the kind of good news that usually sends presidential approval ratings upward. But political polarization exerts a powerful pull in the other direction: Much like President George W. Bush before him, Obama faces near unanimous disapproval from opposing partisans that is deeply dug in and unlikely to change….In the past half century, the only years that showed more polarization than Obama's sixth year were his -- and Bush's -- fourth and fifth years. All of that suggests that Obama's overall approval rating probably will not rise much above 50% for any sustained period." [LA Times]
Four signs of an improving U.S. jobs situation - Drew DeSilver, summarizing Bureau of Labor Statistics: "[1] More people are getting back into the labor market, even if they don’t immediately find jobs. [2] More people who want work are actually looking for it. [3] More people are quitting their jobs. [4] The unemployed are spending less time out of work." [Pew]
ANOTHER NH POLL SHOWS NO GOP CANDIDATE OVER 20 PERCENT - Michael Bender & Lisa Lerer: "Jeb Bush has taken a slight lead over other potential Republican presidential candidates in a new Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm New Hampshire poll...Bush now leads with just 16 percent. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is second with 13 percent, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is at 12 percent, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, coming off a controversy-filled overseas trip, is at 10 percent...The poll also shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dominating her potential Democratic rivals. Clinton, who won the state’s presidential primary in 2008, is the first choice of 56 percent of Democratic primary voters. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has said she isn't running, is second at 15 percent, while Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont both have 8 percent." [Bloomberg]
WHAT TO MAKE OF EARLY POLLS, WALKER 'SURGE'? - Jonathan Bernstein: "Let’s talk early-stage presidential primary polls. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has had something of a surge over the last week. What should we make of it? Is there any information to be squeezed out of these polls?...the latest polls tell us almost nothing about voters. Most people aren’t paying attention yet, which is why a bit of positive publicity for a candidate can shift polling quite a bit. Voters aren’t reporting firm decisions; they’re just responding to what’s been in the news lately. If these early polls are important, it is only because of the way the people who pay close attention to Republican Party politics react to them. That’s the real thing to watch, going forward." [Bloomberg]
CQ RESEARCHER: BROAD OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL POLLING - Chuck McCutcheon: "Smart phones, social media and the Internet have made it easier than ever for people to make their views known, but the new technology can make it harder for political pollsters to gather and measure public opinions with precision or consistency. They face public suspicions of partisanship, reluctance to provide candid answers and — as cellphone use grows — difficulty reaching respondents by the traditional method of random calls to household landlines…Polling has become entangled in the nation’s prevailing polarized political climate, with both politicians and the public questioning the validity of polls." The CQR report provides a broad overview of recent issues and controversies facing the polling world. It is available by subscription or single issue purchase only. [CQ Researcher]
HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL! - You can receive this daily update every weekday morning via email! Just click here, enter your email address, and click "sign up." That's all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime). | 1 | [
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FMD2426 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Italy s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement told French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday that it does not represent a threat to the European Union, and sought to shrug off the label populist . Leader Luigi Di Maio, whose party tops polls ahead of a national election due early next year, wrote an open letter to Macron after the French leader reportedly expressed concern about anti-system forces in Italy. I am sure that when we get to know each other better, you will realize that our movement is not only not a threat, but is cultivating the best solutions for many of Europe s problems, Di Maio said in the letter published on the 5-Star movement s blog. Italian media reported this week that Macron had told former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi he was worried about the rise of 5-Star and the Northern League, which is close to France s National Front. Allied to Britain s United Kingdom Independence Party in the European Parliament, 5-Star is trying to distance itself from anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic parties in the rest of the bloc. Di Maio, a sober 31 year-old who has taken over leadership of the movement founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, said 5-Star shared with Macron the desire to rebuild Europe. They lazily call us populist without knowing what this means, when in reality we are ... close to the people, who want pay-back and a role in changing our country, he said. Di Maio made no mention of a referendum on Italy s use of the euro which 5-Star originally pledged when it burst onto the political scene in 2013, but has since backed away from. Regarding EU budget rules, Di Maio said that 5-Star s point of view was very close to that of France, which he said had let its budget deficit rise to accommodate spending on welfare and other investments. In January, 5-Star s European parliamentarians tried and failed to split from UKIP, which successfully campaigned for Britain to leave the EU. 5-Star eventually gave up a leading role in the group. | 1 | [
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FMD2427 | 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 account of Neerja Bhanot and the 1986 Pan Am hijacking accurate? Claim summaries: In 1986, Pan Am flight 73 was attacked in Karachi airport by hijackers linked to the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organization.
contextual information: Sometimes, Snopes readers stumble on old stories that require us to revisit key moments of history. One such story was of the courageous actions of Neerja Bhanot, an Indian flight attendant on Pan Am flight 73, which was hijacked in 1986 by Palestinian militants on its way to the United States while on a stopover in Karachi, Pakistan. Neerja Bhano Many of our readers shared social media posts, and queries, asking us to detail some of the main events of the hijacking, including Bhanots death from a gunshot wound. posts One reader asked us to confirm the following: When radical Islamic terrorists hijacked her A/C in Karachi, Pakistan she informed the pilots (who used their escape hatch to runaway) and kept both the passengers/remaining crew calm. When the terrorists demanded to know who the Americans were on the flight so they could execute them she gathered all the passports and hid the ones belonging to Americans under seat cushions. The terrorists confused and unable to determine the national origins of the passengers didn't execute anyone. When Pakistani police raided the plane she was able to nearly singlehandedly evacuate all the passengers as the firefight ensued. She being one of the last people on board did a last check and found three children still hiding. As she led the children to safety the surviving terrorists spotted the children and opened fire on them. Neerja jumped in the way of the bullets and was mortally wounded. She was able to evac the children to safety before dying from her wounds. Neerja was awarded the Ashok Chakra Award by India, the highest peacetime gallantry award possible. She was the youngest and first civilian to ever be awarded this honor. Through testimonies from the flight crew and passengers during the sentencing of one of the hijackers, and interviews done by the BBC, we were able to gather key facts from that fateful day. In 2004, Zayad al Safarini, a Jordanian hijacker who was part of the attack, was sentenced by a U.S. district judge to 160 years in prison. At the hearing for his sentencing, a number of passengers, flight attendants, and Bhanots brother, came forward to recount the events of the hijacking. The full transcript of their testimonies can be read here. testimonies BBC sentenced here The Palestinian militants who hijacked the aircraft were affiliated with the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), which was opposed to U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East, and was described as a secular international terrorist organization. When the hijackers boarded the plane, they began trying to identify any Americans on board. A 2016 BBC report included interviews with the surviving flight attendants, described the scene: described BBC report Sunshine, Madhvi Bahuguna and another flight attendant began collecting passports, quietly avoiding collecting any that were American. They then went through the bags of passports they had collected, secretly sifting out any remaining American ones and tucking them under their seats or concealing them in their clothing. Mike Thexton, a passenger on the plane, describes the act in his book What Happened to The Hippy Man? as "extremely brave, selfless and clever". "I may be biased but I feel that day proved that the flight attendants on board were some of the best in the industry." Descriptions from passengers and family members from the sentencing of Safarini detailed the moment that flight attendants were told to gather passports, and the ways in which they tried to protect the Americans among them. Aneesh Bhanot, Neerjas brother, who was not on the plane as these events took place, described this effort as one carried out by all the flight attendants together: Descriptions Neerja was an Indian citizen. All the other flight attendants were also Indian citizens. Mr. Safarini and his gang were targeting Americans, as was very obvious from the passenger calls which you heard later on. Neerja and all the other attendants knew this. That is why when they asked them to get the passports of all the passengers, they hid the American passports on the airplane. He also cited the testimony of another passenger that was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer in September 1986. A clipping of that paper is available below (in which Bhanot is referred to as Neerja Mishra): Michael John Thexton, a British passenger, recounted the following: recounted Then came the call for passports, and I should have ignored it. But I felt that I had to obey orders. So I took out my passport and I handed it in, still thinking that the Americans would be in front of us, not reckoning the ingenuity and the extraordinary bravery of the stewardess who was making the collection in discarding American passports that had a white face. I suppose the British were [the] third choice for the terrorists. And after the Americans and the Israelis, mine was the only one of a small handful of British passports with a white face in that pile. I think maybe six or seven, something of that sort. So the call came over the public address for passenger Michael John to come forward, then Michael John Thexton, and I knew that they wanted to shoot me. Darrell Pieper, an American passenger, credited flight attendant Sunshine Vesuwala for protecting his identity. In his testimony, he said, Sunshine hid my passport when she realized the hijackers are looking for Americans. I'm grateful to her for her quick thinking and action, which again saved my life. credited Gregg Maisel, the attorney representing the U.S. government, said, the flight attendants, risking their own lives, deliberately refused to accept United States passports from some passengers and hid several United States passports under seat cushions. said Given that Bhanot played a big role in protecting the American passengers by hiding their passports, but was not the only flight attendant doing this, we rate this part of the claim as true. In this instance, even as Bhanot showed remarkable bravery in getting passengers to safety, she was not alone in this effort. According to Maisel, passengers escaped after Bhanot and others were able to open up some exits: escaped As the bullets and grenades flew, Neerja Bhanot, as well as other flight attendants and passengers, heroically managed to force open two exits in the economy section. The opening of the rear exit triggered inflation of the emergency slide, but the opening of the exit over the wing did not trigger the inflation of a second emergency slide. People clamored to reach both exits fearful that the hijackers would resume the assault.[...]This diagram illustrates the efforts of surviving hostages to escape the aircraft using the emergency slide and climbing onto the wing of the plane. While the slide was a safer escape route, the sheer number of people attempting to leave the plane through this exit at night resulted in additional injuries to some who were unable to exit quickly enough to avoid being crushed by others behind them.[...]At the direction of several flight attendants, other passengers reentered the plane climbing over the wounded and the dead and used the rear exit where the slide was inflated to the safer escape route. Aneesh Bhanot also recounted an article written by a Pakistani passenger: recounted There's another passenger from Pakistan, a gentleman called Hussein, who had written an article in a newspaper called the Star of Pakistan. And he wrote again that says as the lights went out at 10:00 p.m. we was herded with the passengers and the shooting started. From nowhere, his savior, Neerja, and I'm sure other flight attendants also did the same thing, had the presence and the nerve to steer through the pandemonium to lead the passengers where to go. Neerja, by sheer zest, it seems, single-handedly opened the chute. Her favorite words to him and other passengers were, get out, run. In this instance, since Bhanot appeared to have taken the lead in helping passengers escape and was also aided by other crew and passengers, we rate this part of the claim as a mixture, given that she did not do this alone. Bhanots death was described through different accounts, based on information gathered in the aftermath of the attack. Some reports said she was protecting three children, while flight attendants described her being shot during the escape. Jennifer Levy, another attorney representing the U.S. government, described Bhanots final moments: described When the lights went out just before the final assault, Ms. Bhanot ran for the emergency door and activated the inflatable chute. Instead of escaping as one of the first off the aircraft, she remained on board to help others out of the plane. She was shot in the final assault. Although she was taken off the plane alive by her fellow flight attendants, she died shortly afterwards of massive bleeding. Viraf Daroga, Pan Ams director in Pakistan, described how Bhanot was brought down from the aircraft through the emergency chute: described Those who were injured were picked up as they came down the chute, put in ambulances that came rushing to the aircraft, and were driven off to various hospitals. Neerja, the senior purser, was brought down by her colleagues and was taken to the hospital. She died in the hospital in the arms of one of my staff. Aneesh Bhanots testimony described how Bhanot was indeed protecting three children when she was shot and killed: described Neerja could have been the first one to escape from the aircraft as she opened the emergency door, yet she chose not to do that. Instead, she got the passengers out and gave her own life, as we are told, while shielding three small children from gunfire. Her actions probably saved hundreds of lives. The Pan Am Historical Foundation also described her death by saying As the hijackers opened fire on passengers and crew, Neerja Bhanot lost her life shielding three children from bullets. described Since reports differ on what happened during Bhanots final moments, and some details remain uncertain, we rate the overall truth of this claim as "Mixture." But there is no doubting that her actions, as well as the actions of other flight attendants and crew, saved many lives. She was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra award, which is India's highest civilian decoration for bravery. Ashok Chakra award | 2 | [
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FMD2428 | 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 Nike 'Make America Great Again' Hat Real? Claim summaries: An image purportedly showing the Nike 'swoosh' symbol on the tag of a 'Make America Great Again' hat is a hoax.
contextual information: In early September 2018, an image purportedly showing the Nike "swoosh" symbol on the tag of a "Make America Great Again" hat started spreading online. The image was posted amid a controversy over former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's involvement in a new advertising campaign for Nike, a sports apparel company. Kaepernick made headlines in 2016 by kneeling during pregame renditions of the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality. The "take a knee" protests, which caught on with other NFL players and spread to athletes in other sports, were viewed by some (including President Trump) as unpatriotic and disrespectful to veterans. So when Kaepernick appeared in Nike's 30th anniversary "Just Do It" ad campaign, some disgruntled consumers took to social media to share photographs and videos of themselves destroying various pieces of Nike apparel to demonstrate their displeasure. It appears that this image of a Nike-branded "Make America Great Again" cap was posted in an attempt to "troll" pro-Trump conservatives who were upset over Kaepernick's endorsement deal ("Make America Great Again," or "MAGA," is a well-known Trump slogan). When the image was shared by Twitter user @Nicoxw1, for example, it included a message facetiously noting that "133,291,000 Americans will have a stroke today." The image is a hoax, merely a manipulated version of an older viral image showing a "Made in China" tag on a "Make America Great Again" hat. It should be noted that while some third-party companies do produce "Make America Great Again" hats in China, the website DonaldJTrump.com, from which customers can purchase official MAGA merchandise, states that all their products are proudly made in the U.S.A. | 0 | [
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FMD2429 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: America s gotta keep 5-Star Mooch, her lovely daughters and of course, her tax-payer funded mommy in the lifestyle they ve become accustomed to President Obama sought to increase the amount of money available for the federal government to spend on former presidents in advance of his White House exit.In his budget requests for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, Obama proposed hikes in the appropriations for expenditures of former presidents, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service published Wednesday.The report, which discusses the pensions and other federal benefits offered to former commanders-in-chief by way of the Former Presidents Act, specifies that Obama s 2017 budget proposes a nearly 18 percent hike in appropriations for expenditures of former presidents. He successfully requested an increase in such appropriations for fiscal year 2016. The President s FY2017 budget request seeks $3,865,000 in appropriations for expenditures for former Presidents, an increase of $588,000 (17.9%) from the FY2016 appropriation level. The increase in requested appropriations for FY2017 anticipates President Barack Obama s transition from incumbent to former President, the report reads. For FY2016, President Obama requested and received appropriations of $3,277,000 for expenditures for former Presidents an increase of $25,000 from FY2015 appropriated levels. The Former Presidents Act, enacted in 1958, provides living former presidents with a pension, office staff and support, funds for travel, Secret Service protection, and mailing privileges. It also provides benefits for presidential spouses. Currently, former presidents are awarded a pension equal to the salary of cabinet secretaries, which totaled $203,700 for the 2015 calendar year and was boosted by $2,000 for the current calendar year.Via: FOX News | 0 | [
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FMD2430 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Share This
The FBI’s recent announcement, that the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and private server has been reopened, made Huma Abedin a household name if it wasn’t already. However, many missed the chilling video released by Anonymous, exposing Abedin just days before the FBI’s announcement. It’s one that the mainstream media didn’t want you to see, but every American needs to watch it.
After the laptop of Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, ended up in the hands of the FBI, Hillary’s misdeeds came under scrutiny once again. With another scandal and more controversy hitting the Clinton campaign, many have begun talking not only about Hillary Clinton but her closest aide as well. However, emails, laptops, and perverted husband Anthony Weiner are the least of our worries when it comes to Huma Abedin.
In a mission to inform Americans, an informative but bone-chilling video has been released by Anonymous, exposing the real Huma Abedin. Although Mad World News previously reported on her ties to radical Islam, the recently released video that’s now begun to circulate on social media lays out her connections in an easy to follow visual that every American needs to see.
“Who Is Huma?” the video asks, and the answer is chilling. The narrator of the video names four main players in exposing the truth behind Abedin and her disturbing ties to groups and people who fund terrorism. Those players are obviously Abedin herself and Hillary Clinton , but also Abdullah Omar Nasseef and Saudi Arabia, where Huma was raised from the age of two until she was 18.
According to the video and verified by a lengthy piece in Vanity Fair , Huma worked for the Abedin family business, The Institute of Minority Muslim Affairs, which is a pro-Sharia Law newsletter “owned by the Muslim World League, Saudi Arabia’s global organization that promotes violent Wahhabi Islam,” BizPac Review reports. This family business was created by Abedin’s father and Nasseef, one of the four main players identified in the clip, who is also one of the founders of the Muslim World League.
With Huma being Hillary’s closest aide, Huma’s close ties to terrorism extend to Hillary Clinton, which is a frightening thought considering she could be our next president. What’s worse, if Hillary is elected president, she would have Huma Abedin become Secretary of State, according to leaked emails between Hillary Clinton and her former chief of staff Cheryl Mills.
While everyone is concentrating on what may or may not be in the emails discovered on the laptop of Abedin’s perverse husband, this is the information everyone should see before voting. This woman, with undeniable ties to terrorists and 9/11 funders, has been Hillary’s shadow and right-hand for decades, and that won’t change if Hillary becomes president. In fact, it could only get worse. If you want to know the true measure of someone’s character, look who they surround themselves with. The old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together,” rings true, and these are two birds that should be in a cage, not our White House. | 0 | [
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FMD2431 | 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: Kroger Free Coupon/Gift Card Scam Claim summaries: Kroger is not giving away free grocery coupons or gift cards to Facebook users who like and share a post.
contextual information: For years Facebook users have been seeing posts advertising giveaways for the Kroger grocery store chain such as "Get $55 in Free Groceries" coupon offers. However, such posts are just versions of the common "free coupon" or "free gift card" scams that frequently plague social media. On more than one occasion the Kroger Company has taken to Facebook to warn customers that these coupon offers are not an authorized promotion and to advise them not to visit sites promoting them: Facebook These fake coupon and gift card offers are typically scams that promise rewards to anyone who follows a simple three-step process: Share the message on Facebook, leave a comment, and like the message. These three steps ensure the scam message circulates to thousands of people on Facebook. @SocialNewsDaily That offer is a scam -- we are not affiliated w/ that website. Our Digital Coupons can be found at https://t.co/rvO3m1IXTf. @SocialNewsDaily https://t.co/rvO3m1IXTf Kroger Support (@KrogerSupport) October 15, 2014 October 15, 2014 Previous versions of the scam, for example, featured a similar message that invaded Facebook promising a $250 gift card. The message redirected to a web page that was not affiliated with Kroger despite the fact that it was adorned with the company's logo: This page instructed shoppers to follow "three simple steps" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps were completed, however, users were not greeted with a coupon code. Instead, they were asked to fill out a brief survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users were also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their "free" gift cards. Kroger has repeatedly warned their customers not to fall victims to this form of scam: These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook, and if you frequently use that social network there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau lists key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: 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. Patterson, Emily. "Customer Survey Scam Lures Victims with Gift Card."
Better Business Bureau. 4 July 2014. | 0 | [
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FMD2432 | 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: Under President Bush in eight years, we added $4.9 trillion to the debt. Under President Obama, we've added $5.3 trillion to the debt in the 3.5 years he's been in office.
contextual information: A few days before she hit the stage in front of a national audience at the Republican National Convention, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte addressed a far smaller crowd in Merrimack, N.H.Despite the difference in venue, the New Hampshire Republican offered a similar message.During the town hall meeting, Ayotte, a Nashua native and freshman senator, took aim at President Obama and the growing debt under his administration. While she didnt specifically blame the president for the debt, she used the speech to blast Obama for increased spending and stifling business.Under President Bush in eight years, we added $4.9 trillion to the debt, Ayotte told the crowd Thursday, August 23, 2012, at Merrimack High School. Under President Obama, we've added $5.3 trillion ... in the 3 1/2 years he's been in office.The numbers have been used before. Lastweek, PolitiFact gave aMostly Trueratingto a similar claim by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that the debt has jumped $5 trillion during Obamas time in office.But, does that mean Ayottes numbers are on target? Lets take a look.The numbers arent hard to track.The U.S. Department of the Treasury tracks the national debt figures on its website,TreasuryDirect.gov.On the site, the treasury department divides the national debt into two main categories, debt held by the government and debt held by the public. But, in her statement, Ayotte is referring to the combined total, or total national debt, according to spokesman Jeff Grappone.According to the federal count, the total debt currently sits around $16 trillion. But, as of August, 23, when Ayotte made the statement, it was closer to $15.98 trillion. That figure is about $5.35 trillion higher than the $10.63 trillion debt Obama inherited when he came into office January 19, 2009.When Bush first came into office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion, and by the end of his eight years, it grew to $10.63 trillion -- an increase of exactly $4.9 trillion. So, Ayottes numbers look right on target.Still, as is so often the case, the numbers dont tell the whole story, according to analysts.At PolitiFact, we consider not just the factual accuracy of a statement, but also whether credit and blame is fairly attributed.Federal spending records show that both Democrats and Republican share the blame for the increased spending. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during Obamas first two years, but Republicans have held the House of Representatives since January 2011.Further, as noted in the prior PolitiFact piece, much of the debt results from policies set under past presidents and lawmakers. So, the blame falls on both parties.Its true. They both contributed, said Ron Haskins, co-director of the Brookings Institutions Budgeting for National Priorities Project. I'm not too worked up about attributing 27 percent to this and 36 percent to that. But, the fact is that both presidents (Obama and George W. Bush) were irresponsible. Were seeing the impact of that now.Our ruling:Ayottes got her numbers right. According to the treasury departments count, the debt has grown $5.3 trillion since Obama took office in 2009, compared to $4.9 trillion in Bushs eight years.Still, analysts say these figures dont paint a full picture of the root causes of the debt.In her statement, Ayotte doesnt attribute direct credit or blame, but she did use the speech to blast Obama and his policies.We rate her claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD2433 | 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: Canadian Richard Brunt Writes Letter About the Mid-Term Elections in America Claim summaries: Canadian Richard Brunt penned an open letter about America's midterm elections.
contextual information: Claim: Canadian Richard Brunt penned an open letter about America's midterm elections. On 7 November 2014, shortly after midterm elections in the U.S., the Detroit Free Press published Canadian Richard Brunt's open letter to American voters, a missive that quickly went viral on the Internet: published A Canadian perspective on the #GOPtakeover. pic.twitter.com/NmBaPjnqju #GOPtakeover pic.twitter.com/NmBaPjnqju Rick Strandlof (@RickStrandlof) November 9, 2014 November 9, 2014 Brunt wrote in his letter, titled "You Americans have no idea just how good you have it with Obama," that his fellow Canadians were confused about the results of the midterm elections. For Brunt, the Republican gains in those elections did not make sense to him when things were seemingly going so well in the U.S.: Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country's adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money. America is leading the world once again and respected internationally in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden. So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason. When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way? Richard Brunt Victoria, British Columbia The letter was soon shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter by both Republicans and Democrats, although their reasons for sharing the message were very different: Hey Richard Brunt, of Victoria, British Columbia... if you want our Obama, you can have our Obama. Frank Miani (@FJM2425) November 11, 2014 November 11, 2014 Richard Brunt from British Columbia, telling it like it is... pic.twitter.com/OKm0Rkfu5x pic.twitter.com/OKm0Rkfu5x Baumer Kid (@bostonsboy87) November 11, 2014 November 11, 2014 Richard Brunt's letter represented one man's opinion, but it wasn't the first such expression of admiration from fans of President Obama up north. In a 2009 article titled "Canada's Love Affair with Barack Obama," for example, author Charlie Gillis wrote: Charlie Gillis We love him, with an asterisk. The broad-band smile, the Lincolnesque bearing, the sense of the man as an avatar of multiculturalism it all makes Barack Obama the perfect U.S. president in the eyes of Canadians. Heaven knows we've been waiting. When the motorcade rolls down Wellington Street, or pulls up to Rideau Hall, you can expect dewy-eyed kids to line barricades with paper flags, no matter how foul the Ottawa weather. Eighty-two per cent of us say we approve of Obama, the polls indicate, and the number requires a moment to digest. Never mind American politicians. Who's the last American we can say that about? Last updated: 11 November 2014 | 0 | [
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FMD2434 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: San Francisco does not have enough places to live. Sonja Trauss, a local activist, thinks the city should tackle this problem by building more housing. This may not sound like a controversial idea. But this is San Francisco. Ms. Trauss is a anarchist and the head of the SF Bay Area Renters’ Federation, an upstart political group that is pushing for more development. Its platform is simple: Members want San Francisco and its suburbs to build more of every kind of housing. More subsidized affordable housing, more rentals, more condominiums. Ms. Trauss supports all of it so long as it is built tall, and soon. “You have to support building, even when it’s a type of building you hate,†she said. “Is it ugly? Get over yourself. Is it housing? Get over yourself. Is it luxury housing? Get over yourself. We really need everything right now. †Her group consists of a mailing list and a few dozen members — most of them young professionals who work in the technology industry — who speak out at government meetings and protest against the protesters who fight new development. While only two years old, Ms. Trauss’s Renters’ Federation has blazed onto the political scene with youth and bombast and by employing guerrilla tactics that others are too polite to try. In January, for instance, she hired a lawyer to go around suing suburbs for not building enough. The organization also inflamed Sierra Club volunteers in San Francisco by trying to elect its own candidate to the environmental group’s executive committee. That effort failed, and last week her candidate, Donald Dewsnup, was arrested and charged with voter fraud — a move that Ms. Trauss claims is political retaliation. “There’s no other explanation for why the district attorney of a major city would investigate and charge one person for registering at an inaccurate address,†she said. In an interview, Mr. Dewsnup said he was homeless and simply used an address near the place where he was sleeping at the time. Across the country, a reversal in urban flight has ignited debates over gentrification, wealth, generational change and the definition of the modern city. It’s a familiar battle in suburbs, where homeowners are an American archetype. In San Francisco, though, things get weird. Here the tech boom is clashing with tough development laws and resentment from established residents who want to choke off growth to prevent further change. Ms. Trauss is the result: a new generation of activist whose bent is the opposite of the San Francisco stereotypes — the lefties, the aging hippies and tolerance all around. Ms. Trauss’s cause, more or less, is to make life easier for real estate developers by rolling back zoning regulations and environmental rules. Her opponents are a generally older group of progressives who worry that an influx of corporate techies is turning a city that nurtured the Beat Generation into a gilded resort for the rich. Those groups oppose almost every new development except those reserved for subsidized affordable housing. But for many young professionals who are too rich to qualify for affordable housing, but not rich enough to afford $ rents, this is the problem. Adding to the strangeness is that the typical San Francisco progressive and the typical member of Ms. Trauss’s group are likely to have identical positions on every liberal touchstone, like marriage and climate change, and yet they have become bitter enemies on one very big issue: housing. “We have liberal Democrats, and very liberal Democrats, and yet we are as polarized as the rest of the country,†said Tim Colen, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition. Ms. Trauss is smart and energetic and unpolished. She called her group the Bay Area Renters’ Federation because “federation†reminds her of “Star Trek†and because her roommate thought it would be funny if her group’s acronym spelled “BARF. †Jennifer Fieber, policy director at the San Francisco Tenants Union, likened the group to the Tea Party, because it lacks nuance (“Just build! â€) and can be rude. BARF’s public message board does in fact veer into strident libertarianism and juvenile ribbings, like pictures that equate its opponents to Adolf Hitler. This might make it tempting to dismiss Ms. Trauss as just another colorful activist in a place where activism is a local sport. But the anger she has tapped into is real, reflecting a generational break that pits cranky homeowners and the San Francisco political establishment against a cast of newcomers who are demanding the region make room for them, too. To befriend a certain kind of techie on social media is to be bombarded with angry Facebook posts and retweeted news articles about how San Francisco doesn’t build enough housing or how it is also the suburbs’ fault and isn’t Seattle great? Every few weeks, when a company like Zillow puts out a new price report, both sides hold up the numbers as an example of how San Francisco has failed the middle class. Zillow puts the city’s median home price at $1. 1 million, neck and neck with Manhattan. The region’s rent, at $3, 500 a month for an average apartment, is the highest in the nation. Today Ms. Trauss’s group is one of several organizations (GrowSF and East Bay Forward are others) that represent a kind of “Yimby†party, built on the frustrations of young professionals who feel priced out of the Bay Area. BARF has won the backing of technology millionaires — Jeremy Stoppelman, and chief executive of Yelp, is the group’s largest individual donor — and the encouragement of local politicians. “BARF is an important voice in this housing debate, and that is the voice of young people who are asking the question: ‘What is my future in this city? ’†said Scott Wiener, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “And you can agree or disagree with them, but they have activated a new generation of activists. †The group’s platform may be politically contentious, but economically speaking, it is anything but controversial. The Bay Area was expensive even before the tech boom. And the supply of new projects, while increasing, remains decades behind population growth. This extends from Silicon Valley suburbs like Palo Alto, whose ratio of jobs to housing units is triple the median level in the Bay Area, to San Francisco, which despite an increase in new housing has lagged behind job growth, according to the Association of Bay Area Governments. Much of San Francisco’s progressive establishment feels the city is building too much housing. Some go so far as to argue that the appetite for real estate here is so high that rules don’t really apply. To get prices down, “You’d have to, like, build another city on top of the city,†said David Campos, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He thinks the city should focus the vast majority of future development on affordable housing limited to people making well below the city’s median income. This thinking is at odds with a February report on housing prices from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, which said underdevelopment was the primary cause of the high prices that afflicted cities throughout the coastal part of the state, especially in the Bay Area. “Many housing programs — vouchers, rent control and inclusionary housing — attempt to make housing more affordable without increasing the overall supply,†the report said. “This approach does very little to address the underlying cause of California’s high housing costs: a housing shortage. †Ms. Trauss, 34, is a born activist from Philadelphia whose father is a lawyer who defends homeowners against foreclosure. She moved to the Bay Area in 2011, shortly after getting her master’s degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis, and taught math at local community colleges. She intended to live in San Francisco, but settled across the bay in Oakland. Like nearly everyone who moves to the Bay Area, Ms. Trauss spent an inordinate amount of time complaining about rent. In 2014, after reading a history of Bay Area housing politics written by Cutler, a reporter at the TechCrunch news site who has gone on to help found a called Roam, Ms. Trauss started writing letters to the San Francisco Planning Commission in support of any new project with more than 30 units. She graduated from writing letters to attending planning meetings, and, after registering the SFBARF website, started recruiting members by finding voices on sites like Reddit and the comments sections of local news articles. “People say testifying doesn’t do anything — but guess what definitely doesn’t do anything: giving a dumb speech to your friend at the bar,†she said. Today BARF is her job, allowing her the financial wherewithal to become one of those strangely persistent people who speak regularly at City Hall. To an outside observer, this can feel like watching an obscure and sport. This is a town with an app for everything and where people get fussy when an Uber driver takes more than five minutes to arrive. City Hall, with its architecture and wait times, can feel like an anachronism. Ms. Trauss may be a millennial, but she loves it. “Even in this modern era of, whatever, the Internet and people like interacting in a place that’s no place at all, City Hall is still a center,†she said. One recent afternoon, she spent an hour on the hard wooden benches in the chamber of the Board of Supervisors. She was there to make a public comment in favor of a proposal to streamline the permitting process for some projects. Three days later she was back, this time to support a “density bonus†— a proposal to let developers build taller buildings in exchange for including more affordable housing as well. When she arrived, Mr. Campos, from the Board of Supervisors, was blasting the proposal from the City Hall steps, surrounded by 70 or so supporters. Ms. Trauss and another member of her group stood opposite and held up signs that said “Stop Affordable Housing. †This was meant to be ironic. Their point was that Mr. Campos was opposing legislation that would create more housing — but also more affordable housing. Nobody seemed to get it, so Ms. Trauss went inside City Hall to add her name to a list of people making public comments before the planning commission. Her chance to speak would be hours away, so she trekked around City Hall, past bronze busts and wedding parties, in search of a quiet place to take a lunch break. She was joined by a man whose legal name is Starchild. Starchild is the sort of Francisco character you end up making friends with if you spend enough time at City Hall. He works nights as an “erotic service provider. †Asked if this meant he was a prostitute, he said, “‘Prostitute’ is O. K. as long as it’s said in a respectful way. †Starchild spends his days campaigning for libertarian causes and running doomed campaigns for office. The two ate on a marble ledge and discussed police brutality, pretrial detention and whether it was possible for an anarchist to be in favor of soda taxes. A short while later, Ms. Trauss headed back to a waiting room, where she took a selfie for the @SFyimby Twitter account and began a wait for a few more minutes at the microphone. “This is my life,†she whispered. “It’s ridiculous. †Many longtime San Franciscans view groups like BARF as yet another example of how the technology industry is robbing San Francisco of its San . Far from the hippies of the 1960s, many of today’s migrants lean libertarian — drawn by dreams or to work for the likes of Google or Apple, two of the world’s most valuable companies. They tend to share a belief, either idealistically or naïvely, depending on who is judging, that corporations can be a force for social good and change. But BARF members are so about housing that they can be hard to label politically. They view San Francisco progressives as, in fact, fundamentally conservative. That is because, to the group members at least, progressive positions on housing seem less about building the city and more about keeping people like them out. On a drizzly Sunday in December, Ms. Trauss hosted the SF YIMBYParty Congress, a gathering of groups held at a Market Street space full of touches like mismatched furniture, a foosball table and lots of white men. Toward the beginning, a debate broke out about whether they should call themselves moderates to distinguish themselves from progressives. Ms. Trauss joked that she liked moderate because you can shorten it to mod, and mod sounds cool. Mr. Wiener, the supervisor, disagreed, noting that in San Francisco, a moderate Democrat “might have a Bernie Sanders sticker on their car. †One man, who seemed exasperated by the discussion and the idea of using his Sunday to talk about politics, said, with more colorful language, that he did not give a hoot about progressives versus moderates — he just wanted some darn housing. The tech boom takes much of the blame for soaring housing prices. But the movement has less to do with tech as an industry, and everything to do with newcomers as a class. Brian Hanlon, a federation member who regularly attends Board of Supervisors meetings with Ms. Trauss, has a day job doing administrative work for the United States Forest Service. Two years ago, when he started worrying that his claim to an $ room in a apartment might be in jeopardy, he reacted in classic San Francisco fashion. He started marching in protests next to people beating drums and signs that said things like “Tech = Death. †But he quickly broke ranks. Many of his fellow protesters also opposed building new apartments — putting him at odds with them. “They want to be on the side of tenants, but they don’t have any real plan for how do we become a welcoming metropolitan area for new people who don’t have money,†Mr. Hanlon said. “Their plans are only to allow current incumbent renters to stay in their place, presumably until they die and some rich person comes along. †The progressive movement has played a guiding role in creating the quirky and picturesque San Francisco that many people love today. Progressives battled plans to crisscross the city with freeways and opposed urban renewal programs that destroyed black neighborhoods. They have fought for, and won, protections and funding for affordable housing, along with various amenities that many newcomers take for granted. The question is how to handle a demographic reversal in which cities across the country have regained population following years of “white flight†to the suburbs. After losing population for two decades through the 1970s, San Francisco resumed growth in the ’80s and has only accelerated from there. “There’s that book, ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas? ’†said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR, an urban policy research organization. “What’s the matter with San Francisco? Why is it that in a city that’s renters we have adopted a housing policy that is horrible for renters?†The challenge for groups like BARF is that, politically speaking, they have a lot of persuading to do. The talk might sound great to a recent Stanford graduate, but San Francisco is in a moment when corporate buses are regarded as instruments of a tech invasion bent on turning people who can’t code into a underclass. The idea that everything would be better if only the city threw up more tall buildings is a hard sell. Of the 11 propositions on San Francisco’s ballot in November, seven were either directly or indirectly related to high home prices and the influence of the technology industry. Michael Hankinson, a Harvard Ph. D. candidate who is studying and housing prices, surveyed voters for his dissertation and found renters skeptical that new development would do anything other than raise prices. For instance, a recent proposal to temporarily stop development in the city’s Mission District, a gentrifying neighborhood popular with technology workers, failed citywide. But Mr. Hankinson found that a majority of renters favored it because they did not think that new development would do anything for them — and feared that it might, somehow, get them evicted. “BARF has to convince renters that neighborhood change will benefit them in the long run,†he said. Today, when eviction is a hot party topic, most renters are unwilling to take that gamble. So Ms. Trauss is taking her campaign to the courts. In December she sued the city of Lafayette, Calif. an East Bay bedroom community, after it took a parcel that had been set aside for apartments and office buildings and rezoned it for homes instead. She wrote the petition herself, saying the move violated the California Housing Accountability Act, a 1980s law and “ †statute that limits cities’ ability to downsize housing developments. Recently, she hired a lawyer to litigate the case. Asked about Ms. Trauss’s lawsuit, Steven Falk, Lafayette’s city manager, said the city actually faced another lawsuit over the same development. The second group is suing, he said, because they think it is too big. | 1 | [
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FMD2435 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Drudge Report has aggressively portrayed Ted Cruz’s sweep of all the delegates from Colorado’s Republican convention as a corrupt power grab.
The site named for Matt Drudge, who broke the story of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and still runs it, links to nine stories this morning with salacious headlines about the convention. Among them: “Savage: Cruz should disavow rigged Colorado election … Buchanan: Apparatchiks thieve delegates for Ted … 1 MILLION REPUBLICANS SIDELINED … Border Patrol Agents: Colorado Voters Disenfranchised.†Keep in mind that this is three days after the Colorado convention.
Our analytics partners at Zignal Labs say the Drudge attacks are breaking through on social media in a significant way. This word cloud, which tracks all Cruz mentions since Saturday, shows the extent to which Drudge has shaped the conversation about Cruz’s win in Colorado. Note the prominence of the words “cheating†and “drudgeâ€:
This kind of squabbling will only get louder as the delegate wrestling and wrangling intensifies. And it has clearly gotten under Cruz’s skin.
In a radio interview yesterday, the Texas senator ripped into Drudge as an arm of Donald Trump’s campaign. “In about the past month, the Drudge Report has basically become the attack site for the Trump campaign,†he told conservative host Mike Slater. “So every day they have the latest Trump attack. They’re directed at me. … Most days they have a six-month-old article that is some attack on me, and it’s whatever the Trump campaign is pushing that day will be the banner headline on Drudge.â€
“By the way, they no longer cover news,†Cruz added of Drudge. “When we win a state, suddenly the state doesn’t matter. You know Colorado — there was no red siren on Drudge when we won all 34 delegates in Colorado.â€
Drudge responded by posting a link to a January Fox News interview in which Cruz praised the conservative site for breaking the mainstream media’s “stranglehold."
It’s never good to pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel, as they say. Or whatever the 2016 version of that line is.
If it was just Trump complaining about the “crooked†system, it would seem like sour grapes from a guy who got out-hustled. But The Donald’s allies in the right-wing media, including Drudge and Breitbart, are trying to make Cruz’s wins seem illegitimate in the eyes of the conservative base. If Cruz wins the nomination at a contested convention in Cleveland, he will need these grass-roots activists to rally around him. If regular Drudge readers believe he did not win fair and square, they will be less inclined to do so.
Interestingly, the increasing scrutiny from Drudge comes as the Democratic National Committee begins to train more of its fire at Cruz. After focusing almost single-mindedly on Trump for months, the DNC held a press call yesterday to blast the Texan ahead of campaign stops in California. Ironically, they pushed a similar message as Drudge: “Cruz’s campaign is proving to be just as divisive for the Republican Party as his tenure in the Senate has been for our country,†said the DNC communications director. “That’s why there just isn’t a whole lot of excitement for Cruz being the Republican nominee.â€
– Donald Trump says he identifies with Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.†He praised the novel and its protagonist in a broader interview with USA Today that posted yesterday. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to ... everything,†the GOP front-runner told the paper. Columnist Kirsten Powers writes that she pointed out that “The Fountainhead†is “in a way about the tyranny of groupthink.†Trump reportedly sat up and told her, “That’s what is happening here.â€
For those who haven't read the book since high school, Roark is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because he is angry about changes that others made to his blueprints. He’s then put on trial for arson, but a jury acquits him after he delivers an eloquent speech about the need to always stay true to one’s self. Gary Cooper delivered the courtroom monologue in the 1949 film adaptation:
Bottom line, Roark is a self-centered individualist who steadfastly refuses to submit to the will of others. “He is presented as the author's version of an ideal man — one who embodies the virtues of Rand's objectivist philosophy,†the CliffNotes character analysis explains. “Roark is an example of free will — the theory that an individual has the power, by virtue of the choices he makes, to control the outcome of his own life. A man's thinking and values are not controlled by God or the fates or society or any external factor — but solely by his own choice.â€
Is The Donald threatening to blow up the Republican Party if he’s spurned in Cleveland? He almost certainly has not thought through the implications of publicly identifying with Roark and embracing objectivism. But it’s nonetheless another revealing window into his psyche.
It’s also a reflection of how Trump does not play by the same rules that normal politicians must. In 2012, Paul Ryan tried hard to distance himself from Rand, whose work he had often praised. “I adored her novels when I was young, and in many ways they gave me an interest in economics,†he told the New York Times Magazine in 2014. “But as a devout, practicing Catholic, I completely reject the philosophy of objectivism.â€
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
-- Forty percent of former NFL players show signs of traumatic brain injuries, according to a groundbreaking study that will be presented at next week’s American Academy of Neurology. This is one of the largest studies performed on living NFL players, and it offers “the most conclusive evidence yet†of a definitive link between brain injury and playing football. Travis M. Andrews explains that the study is based on sensitive MRI scans called diffusion tensor imaging.
MORE ON THE REPUBLICAN RACE:
-- Phyllis Schlafly is facing backlash after endorsing Trump last month, including an attempt to oust her as the head of the Eagle Forum, the conservative group she founded 44 years ago to stop the Equal Rights Amendment. From David Weigel: "Ed Martin, who Schlafly elevated to president of Eagle Forum in 2015, told [the Post] that Schlafly had not been ousted yet, but that it was clearly the plan of Eagle's board. In an interview with WorldNetDaily, which publishes her work, the 91-year-old Schafly speculated that her Trump endorsement and opposition to the idea of a National Convention of States had roiled her opponents."
-- John Kasich, speaking today in Manhattan, will call his candidacy the GOP's only way out of a “path to darkness.†“Without naming Cruz or Trump, Kasich plans to indict them both,†writes Weigel, who reviewed the planned remarks.
-- Ben Carson continues to be the worst surrogate of the cycle. He admitted yesterday that his support for Trump is “purely pragmatic" and said he'd probably oppose him “if the stakes weren’t so high.†(BuzzFeed)
-- Trump told USA Today he could envision putting Marco Rubio in his cabinet. “Yes. I like Marco Rubio. Yeah. I could,†he said. “There are people I have in mind in terms of vice president. I just haven’t told anybody names. ... I do like Marco. I do like Kasich. … I like [Scott] Walker actually in a lot of ways. I hit him very hard. ... But I’ve always liked him. There are people I like, but I don’t think they like me because I have hit them hard.â€
-- MORE DELEGATE SETBACKS FOR TRUMP, in addition to the ones outlined in yesterday's 202. Per Ed O'Keefe, Trump also got outgunned last weekend in:
MORE ON THE DEMOCRATIC RACE:
-- THREE NEW YORK POLLS: With one week until the primary, Trump and Clinton are dominating:
So much for home-field advantage: That Monmouth survey finds only 29 percent of voters consider Clinton -- who has lived in the state for 16 years and served as senator for eight years -- to be a “real New Yorker,†while 28 said the same for Sanders, who left the state after high school.
-- Tensions continued to escalate in the battle for New York:
Clinton devoted a Long Island campaign event entirely to gun control, all but blaming Sanders for crime in New York City. From Philip Rucker and Abby Phillip: “Clinton convened a round table-style discussion … where she, along with the local congressman, Rep. Steve Israel (D), and gun-safety advocates hammered Sanders.... 'Here’s what I want you to know: Most of the guns that are used in crimes and violence and killings in New York come from out of state. The state that has the highest per-capita number of those guns that end up committing crime in New York come from Vermont,’ Clinton said, eliciting gasps.… ‘So this is not, ‘Oh, no, I live in a rural state. We don’t have any of these problems.'"
The Post's Fact Checker gives Clinton Three Pinocchios for this line of attack: "Clinton has carefully crafted the talking point to find the particular government data that support her point, which gives a wildly different view than how trafficking flows are tracked," Michelle Ye Hee Lee writes. "We do not find the per capita measure as a fair assessment of gun flows from Vermont into New York. The difference between this point using per capita calculation and the raw number (1 percent of crime guns with source states identified in 2014 came from Vermont) is so stark that it creates a significantly misleading impression to the public."
Sanders called for a national ban on fracking. The Vermont senator released a new ad to highlight his opposition, narrated by actress Susan Sarandon. "Do Washington politicians side with polluters over families?" asks Sarandon. "They sure do, because Big Oil pumps millions into their campaigns. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate for president who opposes fracking everywhere."
-- Joe Biden said Sanders calling Clinton "unqualified" was not sexist but something said in the heat of a campaign. During an interview with Mic.com, the vice president was asked about Sanders’ comment and if he thought Hillary is held to a higher standard because she is a woman. “No, I don’t think she’s held to a higher standard,†he replied.
“This country’s ready for a woman,†Biden elaborated. “There’s no problem. We’re going to be able to elect a woman in this country.â€
When the female interviewer asked Biden if he’d like to see a woman elected, a male aide to the VP interrupted from off camera and tried to end the interview. “That’s it,†he said. “I would like to see a woman elected,†Biden said. “I don’t mind,†he told the staffers standing off camera. “The president and I are not going to endorse because we both when we ran said, ‘let the party decide.’ But gosh almighty, they’re both qualified,†he added. “Hillary is overwhelmingly qualified to be president.â€
-- “Past cases suggest Hillary won’t be indicted," by Politico's Josh Gerstein: A review of dozens of recent federal investigations "suggests that it’s highly unlikely, but not impossible. The examination … found some parallels to Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails, but, in nearly all instances that were prosecuted, aggravating circumstances [existed] that don’t appear to be present in Clinton’s case. The relatively few cases that drew prosecution almost always involved a deliberate intent to violate classification rules as well as some add-on element … a Boeing engineer who brought home 2000 classified documents and whose travel to Israel raised suspicions; a [NSA] official who removed boxes of classified documents and also lied on a job application form. And former prosecutors, investigators and defense attorneys generally agree that prosecution for classified information breaches is the exception rather than the rule.… 'They always involve some ‘plus’ factor,’ one former federal prosecutor said.â€
-- Bill de Blasio intimated in an interview with Katie Couric that his kids are supporting Sanders, even though he’s backing Clinton. “My kids will speak for themselves,†he told the Yahoo anchor, “but I’ll say this much, they’re the kind of young person that is going to fight for change, no matter what. And absolutely will support the Democratic nominee, whoever it is.†(Watch the full interview here.)
-- “Denmark, a social welfare utopia, takes a nasty turn on refugees,†by Griff Witte: "Lise Ramslog was out for a stroll in Denmark when she stumbled upon hundreds of exhausted asylum seekers. 70-year-old Ramslog instantly decided to help, transporting several refugees to Sweden. Many would consider Ramslog a good Samaritan. But the Danish government has a different term for her: convicted human smuggler. Denmark is celebrated as a social-welfare utopia. Ranking high in its pantheon of heroes are those who protected Jews during the Holocaust, or who helped oppressed during the Cold War. But when it comes to those fleeing 21st-century conflicts, Denmark has gone into overdrive to broadcast hostility … While Germany continues to welcome asylum seekers, and others held doors open for as long as they could, Denmark has taken a hard line almost from the beginning. Now ordinary Danes are getting caught up in the crackdown, punished for quintessentially good deeds. 'I’m proud of what I did and will never regret ... it,' said Ramslog, her eyes welling with tears. 'But I don’t want to be known as a criminal.'"
-- Meet Trump’s “Beltway establishment guy†-- campaign lawyer and former FEC chairman Donald F. McGahn II. By Ben Terris: "The night Trump notched his first presidential win, he took the stage and lit into special interests that he declared corrupted Washington. Over his shoulder, a ruddy-faced man licked his teeth. He appeared out of place and seemed to know it. McGahn is one of [the country’s] top election lawyers, a job so highly specialized that its practitioners are almost unavoidably ‘Washington insiders’ by definition.... For a while, McGahn's colleagues either didn't know the firm was representing Trump or didn't mind. That changed late last month when McGahn organized a meeting between the candidate and more than a dozen lawmakers at the firm [Jones Day].… Many current employees just about lost their minds.â€
Lesson learned: if you tweet to Ernest Moniz about his hair, he might tweet back:
There was a cash bar at Cruz's event in Orange County:
Looks like Shailene Woodley is for Sanders:
The scaffolding keeps coming down around the Capitol dome:
More than 400 arrests were made yesterday at the Capitol in connection with Democracy Spring demonstrations. (Martin Weil)
Former senator Carl Levin now has a ship named after him:
Cindy McCain hung out with Heidi Heitkamp and Cory Booker over the weekend:
The old Washington Post building is almost gone:
-- CBS, “Meet the ‘Trump Bros,’†by Jacqueline Alemany: "Eighteen-year-old Jack Rowe sat in the front row of a Trump rally sandwiched between friends. Rowe had some thoughts on Trump's rhetorical treatment of women, which had been dominating headlines. 'Misogyny was an issue about maybe 60, 80 years ago,' said Rowe. 'You know, ISIS is chopping off heads … We’ve got bigger fish to fry.' Young men like Rowe are a common sight at Trump rallies: Mostly white, they travel in packs. They are dudes, jocks, preps … On the campaign trail, they’re known simply as 'Trump Bros.' David Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, said Trump's appeal to young men speaks to anxiety over creeping 'political correctness.' 'It's an F-U to society, who is telling us we are a bad guy because we like hooking up with girls on spring break,' he added. And they see Trump sticking up for that. Manas, a young entrepreneur … whose Twitter bio reads 'Bros do Bro Things' and who made a point of checking himself out in his iPhone camera in selfie mode before speaking with a reporter, piped in enthusiastically. 'I love women!' he said. Trump took the stage, and they screamed."
-- New York Times, “Trump and New York Tabloids Resume Their Elaborate Dance,†by Michael M. Grynbaum: “As newspaper assignments go, this was a delicate one. Fly to Florida. Walk into Trump’s hospital room. Witness the birth of his second daughter. Linda Stasi, a gossip columnist for The Daily News, did as she was told. ‘I called Donald, and he said, ‘You can’t come to the hospital!’’ she recalled 22 years later. ‘I said, I know, but I’m coming anyway.’ ‘O.K.,’ Trump replied. ‘Then come.’ As the presidential spotlight swings to New York … Trump is reuniting with the press corps he knows best, a boisterous tabloid culture that spawned and nurtured [his] outsize Trump personality. It is also the ink-stained caldron in which Trump, over decades, honed the method of media management, cajoling, combating, at times dissembling, that he has unleashed … in this year’s national campaign. Some Americans have been caught off guard by [Trump’s style] but New York’s media veterans detect the old playbook at work. ‘We’ve had that advantage throughout the whole campaign,’ said Daily News editor Jim Rich.â€
On the campaign trail: Everyone but Clinton is in New York. Here's the rundown:
At the White House: President Obama speaks at the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument. In the evening, Vice President Biden speaks at the World FoodProgram USA McGovern-Dole Leadership Award at the Organization of American States.
On Capitol Hill: The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to resume work on the FAA bill. The House meets at 2 p.m. for legislative business. Four suspension votes are expected at 6:30 p.m.
NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:
-- A damp and cloudy morning followed by sunshine through the rest of the week. “Scattered showers with a few heavier downpours are possible this morning, bringing our early starting temperatures in the 60s back down into the 50s," the Capital Weather Gang forecasts. "Rainfall should be from a tenth to a quarter inch with locally heavier totals. Clouds are slow to depart and hence temperatures slower to warm back up vs. yesterday. We’ll aim for partly sunny skies by mid to late afternoon with afternoon highs in the low-middle 60s.â€
-- Police are seeking the killer of a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed to death yesterday at the Deanwood Metro stop in Northeast. No word yet on motive. (Clarence Williams and Peter Hermann)
-- Maryland lawmakers eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, marking a major shift to dependency-based treatment and education as alternatives to incarceration. (Ovetta Wiggins, Josh Hicks and Fenit Nirappil)
-- In the final hour of Maryland’s session, legislators passed a “Noah’s law.†The safe-driving bill was named after a slain Montgomery County police officer and expands the use of ignition locks for convicted drunk drivers. (Ovetta Wiggins and Josh Hicks)
-- Terry McAuliffe has now vetoed more legislation than any Virginia governor since 1998, nixing bills from the Republican legislature on hot button issues like gay rights and women's access to health care. (Jenna Portnoy)
-- The latest of those vetoes: McAuliffe blocked a bill that would require the use of the electric chair if Virginia could not obtain lethal injection drugs. The governor instead offered a “secrecy measure†that shields the identity of pharmacies who supplied the drugs. (Laura Vozzella and Mark Berman)
-- A 35-year old Woodbridge woman was accused of stabbing a three-month-old baby with a kitchen knife. (Martin Weil)
-- Police arrested a Metrobus rider in Silver Spring after he began assaulting other passengers and attempted to kick open the bus door. (Faiz Siddiqui)
Excited about baseball season? Watch this kid bust a move on first base:
A rare black rhino was euthanized in Zimbabwe after a poacher attack:
Watch a baby wallaby peek out from his mom's pouch for the first time:
Finally, check out SNL's Clinton impersonators through the years: | 1 | [
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FMD2436 | 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: Federal spending is the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years (and) revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years.
contextual information: With the rise of the fiscally conservative Tea Party and the recent release of a draft report by the presidentially appointed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the nation's fiscal challenges have surged to the top of the urgent agenda items in Washington. We will examine two comments on federal spending made during the Sunday talk shows on November 14, 2010—one by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the other by Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky. We will address Conrad's comments here. In an interview on ABC's This Week With Christiane Amanpour, Conrad—who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the presidentially appointed panel—stated, "If you look at our spending, it's the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years; revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, so we're going to have to work both sides of the equation." Let's examine Conrad's numbers. As we did with Paul's comments, we referred to a historical table from the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending, and the deficit as a percentage of GDP—essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole. In 2009, the last full year available, federal spending accounted for 24.7 percent of GDP. That's higher than it has been in any year since 1949—60 years prior. You have to go back to 1946 to find a higher percentage—24.8 percent—and that was a year in which the nation was winding down high rates of spending for World War II. (From 1943 to 1945, during the height of the war, federal spending ranged from 41 percent to 43 percent of GDP.) Clearly, recessions impact how high this percentage can get. The only other years since 1946 in which federal spending exceeded 23 percent of GDP were 1982 and 1983, with 23.1 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. That was during and immediately after the 1981-82 recession—the last one that rivaled today's in severity. Economic downturns tend to affect this statistic because they slow GDP growth and increase the demand for government services. Even without special stimulus measures, spending rises for mandatory items such as food stamps. Either way, Conrad is correct about spending. What about tax revenue as a percentage of GDP? In 2009, tax receipts accounted for 14.8 percent of GDP. According to the table, tax receipts as a share of GDP were always higher all the way back to 1950, when they accounted for 14.4 percent of GDP. That would be 59 years—not quite 60, but very, very close. The recession also factors into the tax revenue statistic. Both the 2008 stimulus package under President George W. Bush and the 2009 stimulus under President Barack Obama included tax breaks as a major component. Because the statistics show a number so close to 60 years—and because Conrad was speaking during a television interview rather than a prepared speech or written statement—we will give him some leeway and rate the statement True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2437 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Facebook shareholders have demanded a report on fake news and the apparent threat it poses to democracy and free speech, according to a proxy filing made on Friday. [The proposal argues that Facebook was in part responsible for the fake news epidemic that leftists claim is gripping the United States, as it provides “a financial mechanism supporting fabricated content†online. Suggested areas for the report to cover include how Facebook evaluates claims made in posts and how their strategy affects free speech. One part of the proposal highlighted some of the reasons why they believed the report was needed: Facebook is highly vulnerable, as fake news promoters are spamming their way to visibility for fake news through strategically gaming Facebook’s algorithms and publishing platform … In light of the societal crisis generated by the explosion of fake news and related hate speech, failure to effectively manage this issue creates public policy risk. Facebook’s board of directors has recommended a vote against the proposal, along with shutting down another that would compel Facebook to disclose the pay gap between male and female employees. This may come as a surprise to some, as Facebook has recently been cracking down on accounts deemed to be spreading spam or fake news. On Friday, Facebook announced it was purging a “substantial number†of accounts, created largely in South Asian countries that were spamming users. On the more political side of fake news, 30, 000 accounts linked to France were targeted ahead of their upcoming Presidential election as part of an effort to “reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts. †Facebook has also enlisted the help of partisan “ †organizations Snopes and Politifact, introducing warning labels on stories deemed to be fake news. Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can like his page on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @ToryBastard_ or on Gab @JH. | 1 | [
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FMD2438 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Bobby Jindal s worst nightmare has come true: poor people are going to get the healthcare they deserve, and it s all thanks to a Democrat.Louisiana s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards has delivered on his promise to expand Medicaid. As of June 1, the state s Department of Health and Hospitals will begin to enroll over 375,000 eligible citizens into Louisiana s expanded program. The state hopes to enroll half the individuals by July 1.Ruth Kennedy, who heads the DHH s Medicaid enrollment program, says the department will be implementing an all hands on deck approach, in an effort to get as many people into the program as possible: I am confident, and I am ready, and this is not my first rodeo. The governor, you ll remember, said at a press conference that people would have cards in their hands on July 1. That s a big difference from starting enrollment on July 1. Well, we won t have 375,000 cards in people s hands, but I m absolutely certain we ll be more than halfway there. Look at that, government that works efficiently to ensure everybody has access to healthcare. What a concept. And to make the operation run more smoothly, Louisiana will set up over 204 application sites all across the state with workers from the University Medical Center in New Orleans. In an effort to reduce headache, the DHH will use the income data it has already gathered, rather than having to collect new information, and food stamp numbers can also be used on an annual basis to reaffirm eligibility when the time comes. This practice is a big deal according to Kennedy because it won t all for an eligibility purge from bureaucratic mistakes.So what happens when a Democrat governor, a Medicaid advocate, nurses and employees with the state s universities and department get together? Over 375,000 people get the healthcare they not only need but deserve.Featured image via Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2439 | 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: I have never supported cap and trade.
contextual information: Sen. Marco Rubio defended his past support of a cap-and-trade bill in the Florida House by stating it was an attempt to protect the state from future federal regulations. Fox News moderator Bret Baier asked Rubio about the issue at a Republican presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 28, 2016. Baier noted that Rubio had wanted Florida to get ahead of other states and establish a cap-and-trade system while he was House speaker in 2008, and he asked why Rubio had changed his mind. Rubio denied backing a popular plan supported by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, claiming he was looking to insulate Florida from restrictions a future president might impose. "I have never supported cap and trade, and I never thought it was a good idea, and I was clear about that at the time," Rubio said. He has been very outspoken during this campaign about his opposition to cap and trade, which allows businesses to trade pollution credits if they do not meet emission caps. But is his retelling of what happened in 2008 accurate?
We literally went to the tape to find out, because the key evidence in this claim is a snippet from a March 13, 2008, appearance Rubio made on WFSU's Florida Face to Face. Rubio was discussing HB 7135, an energy and climate change bill championed by Crist that included the Florida Climate Protection Act. That part of the law allowed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to formulate a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse emissions from electric utilities. "Florida should position itself for what I believe is inevitable, and that is a federal cap-and-trade program. Florida should do everything it can to be an early complier so it can access early compliance funds and so that it can help influence what that cap-and-trade looks like at the federal level," Rubio said on the show, which aired during the legislative session. "And so I'm in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap-and-trade or a carbon-tax program and bring it back to the Legislature for ratification sometime in the next two years."
Crist used a portion of this clip during his 2010 Senate primary campaign against Rubio in an attempt to show that Rubio favored a cap-and-trade program. WFSU, which operates The Florida Channel covering state government, demanded Crist stop using footage of the show because of a law barring the use of its footage in political campaigns. This limited portion of the show has been resurrected online during the presidential primary, leading some conservative sites to question Rubio's stance on the issue. But wait, as they say, there's more. Rubio's campaign had complained that the clip was out of context, and it appears it really was. They have pointed to a longer edit of the footage that shows Rubio going on to say: "I'm in favor of them designing it. I'm not in favor of them designing it and implementing it. I'm in favor of them designing it and then bringing it back to the Legislature. The way we're going to clean up our environment, the way we're going to lower carbon emissions, is not through government mandates." That certainly changes the context of his statement.
Rubio's campaign did not respond to PolitiFact's questions about his potential support of cap and trade, but they have addressed this issue before. In 2007, Rubio wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald that said Crist should be applauded for his efforts, but the government mandates he proposed would not only fail to achieve their desired result, they would carry actual negative consequences. Rubio did cite proposals from his book, 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future, to increase ethanol production, develop biofuels, and provide tax incentives for better fuel efficiency. However, he concluded that instead of adopting measures that would have little if any impact on our environment and make life in Florida more expensive, we need a strategy that encourages environmental conservation, fuel efficiency, and energy diversity while continuing to stimulate our economy.
Rubio also stated in a March 2007 speech that Florida was ripe to change energy policy because it was both environmentally sound and potentially lucrative. "This nation, and ultimately the world, is headed towards emission caps and energy diversification," he said. "Those changes will require technological advances that make those measures cost-effective. The demand for such advances will create an industry to meet it. Florida should become the Silicon Valley of that industry." Rubio did seem to change his tune a bit by 2009 when he was criticized for his full-throated opposition to cap and trade after presiding over the passage of HB 7135. Environmentalists and scientists noted that Rubio had shepherded the entire process as House speaker. "The legislation was passed to move forward on cap-and-trade policy, and certainly Marco Rubio didn't stand in the way of that legislation passing, and my understanding was that he was supportive of the process," John Reilly, a leading climate change expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hired by Rubio to advise lawmakers, told the Miami Herald. "He certainly seemed to accept the science of climate change."
Rubio argued then that he wanted to take executive authority away from Crist, although the DEP countered that they would have always needed legislative approval. Cap-and-trade planning fell by the wayside as Crist waged a losing Senate primary battle against Rubio. "It has worked out as it was designed to work out, which was to stop a cap-and-trade system in Florida," Rubio said in 2009. Some critics at the time doubted that was Rubio's true plan, as it was a big gamble that the Legislature would shut down any proposed DEP cap-and-trade proposal. However, a 2015 article in the National Journal stated that while the bill passed (and it passed the House and Senate unanimously), Rubio did add wording that prevented the plan from being implemented. The final bill indeed only allowed DEP to develop a potential plan and required legislative approval to become practice. The National Journal quoted former House minority leader and state Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who said, "I fully credit him with the gutting of the bill."
Our ruling: Rubio said, "I have never supported cap and trade." As House speaker in Florida, Rubio did preside over the unanimous passage of an energy bill that allowed the state to develop a cap-and-trade plan for electric utility emissions. However, it appears his comments on the bill have been taken out of context, and there may have been some legislative craftiness at play. Rubio stated he wanted Florida to create a plan of its own before federal regulations were imposed on the state. He also voiced opposition to government mandates and inserted a roadblock to letting any plan actually be implemented, details that are often left out when Rubio is accused of supporting the measure. He is now much more vocal in his opposition to cap and trade, but it seems he has always favored a largely hands-off approach from the government. We rate Rubio's statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2440 | 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: This Cash App Email Scam About a Fake Deposit Could Cost You Thousands on Your Credit Card Claim summaries: Here's what you and your family members need to know about this very specific and deceptive type of scam.
contextual information: Consumers should be on the lookout for email and text message scams involving Cash App and other mobile payment services like PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle that claim there is "trouble" with sending a large deposit. In this article, we will explain how falling for this deceptive email scam can eventually lead to charges of hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your credit card. The first step of this scam was an email that pretended to be from Cash App. The message claimed that a $500 Cash App deposit was owed to the recipient. However, the email did not come from an address ending with @cash.app, @square.com, or @squareup.com. (A page on the Cash App website states that its correspondence will only come from email addresses with these domain names.) The scam email read, "We're having some trouble delivering your $500.00 to your Cash App account. Please complete your contact info to ensure it is properly delivered to you. We will contact you using this information." Upon clicking the "Confirm here" button, we were quickly led through several automatic website redirects. The route began with an astorage.googleapis.com link, then went through aworldnewssh.info and umiddleway.com. The redirects ended with mediansquare.com. Next, on mediansquare.com, we were presented with a survey scam. The website claimed that all we needed to do was take a 30-second survey to claim a $90 prize. (For whatever reason, the original promise of a $500 Cash App deposit had changed to a $90 reward.) After clicking through the survey in less than 30 seconds, the website presented pictures of several products, none of which were from recognizable brands. The page claimed that we could pick one of the items for free and that all we would need to do is pay for shipping and handling. We selected the robot vacuum named RoBoKleen Vacuum, a product the website claimed was normally worth $299.99. On ezrobotvacuum.com (a website that apparently has no homepage), we were presented with a form that asked for our mailing address and a credit card number. According to the checkout page, the grand total for shipping and handling would be $5.99. Not mentioned anywhere on the checkout page was the fact that there was a hidden subscription fee that would charge paying customers $71.97 every month until they found a way to cancel. These fees were only described in the fine print on a separate page for terms and conditions. Nowhere on the checkout page did we find any mention of the subscription fees, nor did we see a box to check that would indicate a customer agreed to abide by the terms and conditions. According to the terms and conditions, the purchase of the robot vacuum was "a welcoming gift for joining the best consumer gadgets club on the web," which would provide a "$125 gift card to the best consumer gadgets club on the web." (Some websites often refer to these sorts of purported clubs as a "VIP membership" or "savings" offer.) On top of the $71.97 monthly charge, the terms and conditions also stated that it would bill customers an additional $39.99 for a "Fitness program that is bundled with EZRobot Vacuum." This second monthly charge would begin "after the 45-day trial period is over," the page said. The contact page on the website showed the email address [email protected]. We reached out to the company and will update this article if we receive a response. Other than the robot vacuum, mediansquare.com claimed to offer eight more products that could be obtained for "free." These, too, had hidden subscription fees that were not described anywhere on the product or checkout pages. Also, yet again, there was no box for customers to check that would have indicated that they agreed to the terms and conditions. Several of the products were hosted on captivatinggadgetessentials.com, another website that apparently had no homepage. Those items included AutoShield DashCam, TurboVac Portable Vacuum, TechProPlus Smart Watch, RoadRunner Radar Detector, and MixMate Blender. According to the terms and conditions, customers who purchased these products would eventually be charged a monthly fee of $89.85 and receive a monthly "$199 gift card" for the "Exclusive Gadget Warehouse Direct store." On top of the $89.95 monthly fee, customers would also be charged $82.45 every month for usage of an "Elite Force Fit App," the terms said. The phone number for captivatinggadgetessentials.com was listed as 866-979-9572. We called and were automatically put on a long, silent hold. No human being ever joined the call. Also, the email address [email protected] was not active. "Address not found," the automatic reply read. The remaining three products that could be selected from on mediansquare.com were Keto Ascend ACV Gummies (or Adapt Slim Keto Gummies), SureShot Innovations Light Bulb Camera, and Multi Drill King. The only product that did not mention subscription fees in the terms and conditions was the Multi Drill King. However, that product might still come with the same fees reflected on the pages for other products. If any readers went through the process of being scammed by any of the above scams or any similar ones, we recommend reaching out to any phone numbers or email addresses associated with the offers. If calling and emailing do not quickly produce any help or answers, we advise contacting your credit card company to try to get a refund and to block any future recurring charges from the seller. Also, generally, if any readers believe they have been the victim of fraud, we recommend filing a report with the FTC. Always remember with online scams that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. "How to Avoid Scams and Keep Your Money Safe with Cash App." Cash.App, https://cash.app/help. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2441 | 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: In Japan, they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify...It's horrible, the way we're treated.
contextual information: President Donald Trump often speaks of how other countries treat American products unfairly. At a private fundraising event in Missouri, Trump singled out a particular practice in Japan known as the bowling ball test. "Do you know what that is?" Trump asked, according to a recording obtained by the Washington Post. "That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and drop it on the hood of the car. If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what? The roof dented a little bit, and they said, 'Nope, this car doesn't qualify.' It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible." The Washington Post noted that it was unclear what he was talking about, so they wanted to look into it. They asked the White House press office what Trump had in mind but received no comment. In her regular press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that Trump was just joking. However, they found something that loosely fits what he described. There are no bowling balls and no 20-foot drop, but Japan's National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victim Aid conducts what is called a pedestrian head protection performance test. It's designed to measure the force someone's head would absorb if a car hit them. This involves firing a carefully calibrated hemisphere-shaped device (more like half of a bowling ball) at the hood and windshield. The device records the force. Here's a graphic from the agency's website: note that the largest head impactor is 4.5 kilograms, or about 10 pounds. So, the details about a bowling ball, including its weight and the height of the drop, are all incorrect. Moreover, Trump also misrepresented the purpose and nature of the test. When he said, "If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify," that would indicate a test of the strength of the hood. In contrast, the test focuses on a person's head and the force it must absorb in an accident. "It's the complete opposite," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategy, a private firm that studies vehicle and consumer product safety. In fact, the more a hood dents or flexes, the better it is for the head of the unfortunate pedestrian. "It's akin to any other type of crash," Kane explained. "You look at cars today, and the impact damage to cars is much greater. There's a lot of crush, but that's to absorb the energy and keep it away from people." A biomedical engineering dissertation from Wayne State University made the same point: to lower head injury criteria, two main principles are necessary: provision of sufficient deformation space and provision of low stiffness in the impacted vehicle body parts. However, Trump did get one element correct. American cars sold in Japan, at least all models made this decade, must meet the Japanese safety standard. So, Trump was right that this is a hurdle for American car makers. It's worth noting that Europe has a similar standard. In the early 2000s, the problem of cars hitting pedestrians was worse in Europe and Japan than in the United States. In Japan, for example, 27 percent of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians hit by cars, while in the United States, it was 13 percent. "The head impact test is a standardized test and has been in place for many years," said Pankaj Mallick, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. "Our car companies are very much aware of this, but at this time, there are no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements to conduct this test for the qualification of a car hood." Kane noted that the United States stands out for having lower safety standards than Europe and Japan. "If U.S. car makers wanted to make safer cars, they could sell them in both markets," he said. "If they don't, that's a business decision." Trump claimed that in Japan, they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and drop it on the hood of the car. If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. American cars must meet a Japanese standard. However, Trump misrepresented the highly controlled process, which does not involve a bowling ball dropped from 20 feet. Where Trump really goes astray is in the purpose of the test; he has it backward. It's not about determining if the hood is strong. The more a hood gives way, the better it is for the head of a pedestrian. Trump's understanding of the test is so far off the mark that we rate this claim as false. | 0 | [
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FMD2442 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Leave a reply
Greg Hunter – Recently, I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Jim Sinclair and Bill Holter at JSMineset.com. They wanted to get my take on the state of journalism, or the propaganda mainstream media. They also wanted to get a read on what many of my guests have been saying over the past several months about what is coming for the economy.
I also got to turn the tables about half way through the interview (38:33) and ask questions of two of the smartest guys in the world on finance, markets and precious metals.
Interviewing Jim Sinclair and Bill Holter on anything to do with the economy is like interviewing Batman and Superman of the investment world. They have very dire views of what is going to happen in America and the world on November 9 th , the day after the Presidential election. They think we are finally going to get the “Houston we have a problem” moment and are warning that everyone should stock up and prepare for a very rough ride. Please keep in mind, this interview was conducted a few days before the FBI reopened its case on the Clinton email scandal.
Jim Sinclair and Bill Holter offer interviews like this to their JSMineset.com subscribers only. They were kind enough to allow me to post this interview for all to listen to on the USAWatchdog.com site and YouTube channel.
Join Greg Hunter as he is interviewed by Jim Sinclair and Bill Holter of JSMineset.com. SF Source USA Watchdog Nov. 2016 Share this: | 0 | [
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FMD2443 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Your Facebook Page Could Land You In a FEMA Camp
Against my better judgment, I often put my articles on Facebook. Lately, Facebook has been taking down my posts, particularily on topics related to World War III. One of my readers counted 14 sites saw my articles disappear. It is too late for me, but for most of you, you should consider not participating on Facebook. It is one more intelligence gathering tool designed to separate the sheep, from the independent thinkers!
No matter how annoying Facebook’s censors may be, there are real dangers associated with posting and reading on Facebook.
Facebook’s Friends Are Not Nice People
Facebook is aligned with both the CIA and the NSA. I have several credible sources tell me that all data posted on Facebook goes into series of cataloged files which culminates with each person being assigned a “Threat Matrix Score”. The mere existence of a Threat Matrix Score should send chills up and the collective spines of every American.
When, not if, martial law comes to America, this Threat Matrix Score, of which Facebook data is used to help compile an “enemies of the state” list, your future longevity could be seriously imperiled. It is too late for people like Steve Quayle, Doug and Joe Hagmann, John B. Wells and myself to avoid being placed on this list. However, it is not too late for the average American to limit their exposure by NOT posting and participating on Facebook. Facebook participation should come with a black box warning:
“WARNING: The views expressed on Facebook can and will be used against you. Participation in Facebook could prove detrimental to the length of your life. All political dissident views are immediately reported to the CIA and the NSA. Risk of repeated exposure on Facebook could result in you and your family being hauled out of their homes at 3AM, separated from your family and sent to a re-education camp”.
Before you dismiss this hypothetical black box warning as too much “tongue in cheek”, please consider that the NSA is presently extracting large amounts of Facebook data and I do not think they are compiling a Christmas card list. Facebook’s Welcome Is Wearing Off
Many of us in print and broadcast media are rethinking our association with Facebook. Several of our journalistic brothers and sisters have been censored and/or otherwise treated unprofessionally by this entity. Facebook has become replete with trolls who patrol the cyber corridors of this monolithic entity chastising and censoring whoever exposes the liberal, anti-human, depopulation agenda of the New World Order. Whether it is gun control, criticism of NWO puppet Obama or anything that the alleged grandson of David Rockefeller, Mark Zuckerberg, and his people disagree with, they will kick your Facebook account to the curb for daring to express a legitimate political opinion.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg, The Self-Perceived Purveyor of Integrity and Morality
Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, The Facebook Effect “ You have one identity, and the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity .”
Who appointed Mr. Zuckerberg to be the moral police and the judge of integrity? It sounds like Zuckerberg can take his place with Soros, Gates, Turner, et al., and the rest of the global elite who think they have the right to treat humanity as their own personal property and view the masses as a disposable commodity. Julian Assange Assessment of Facebook
Whistle blower, Julian Assange, once stated that “Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence. Facebook, Google , Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence to use.”
Never before in American cyber-history do we see such an arrogant and agenda serving entity operating their propaganda so far in the open as we do with Facebook. This propaganda end of the New World Order is being blatantly exposed.
Facebook’s arrogance was on full display when highly respected journalist, Jon Rappoport was banned from sharing his articles on Facebook. In this instance of blatant censorship, Jon’s banned article was merely a review of certain aspects of American presidents ranging from Nixon to Obama. Like so many of us that understand history and can see the tyrannical path that Obama is taking us down, Rappoport identified Obama’s unconstitutional missteps. And for daring to tell the truth, Facebook banned Rappoport for the mere expression of a legitimate political opinion.
Readers may also recall when members of Infowars.com and the popular talk show host, Michael Rivero were banned in December of 2012, until the public outcry for Facebook to reinstate their respective accounts backed Facebook into a corner from which they acquiesced and reinstated the previously banned media figures. Rules For Thee but Not For Me
Facebook does not apply their holier than thou attitude to their own corporate behavior. As Zuckerberg talks about rectifying Americans lack of integrity through timely Facebook exposure, Facebook fails to pay its own fair share of taxes as a result of tax loopholes and deductions. Facebook paid no income tax for the fiscal year 2012 , despite reaping $1.1 billion in U.S. corporate profits. While Americans have just been subjected to higher taxes, billion-dollar corporations like Facebook, General Electric, Boeing and Wells Fargo have all been able to avoid paying any corporate income taxes, reports the Citizens for Tax Justice . | 0 | [
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FMD2444 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on November 5, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog
By George Eliason, an American journalist living in Ukraine.
Whether you are for Hillary Clinton or against her, the problem with Hillary Clinton isn’t her lack of experience. Almost the entire political establishment is behind her. Throughout all the bumps and scandal in this whole election cycle, Republicans and former presidents are coming out of the woodwork supporting her. According to the LA Times she may well be one of the most experienced candidates in US history, while even accounting for severe conflicts of interest inside the Clinton Foundation. Neither friend or foe doubt Hillary Clinton’s experience after 30 years in politics.
The problem is even Hillary Clinton’s friends say she has a history of acting without thinking, of making bad decisions. According to Neera Tanden : “Almost no one knows better than me that her instincts can be terrible.”
Does Hillary Clinton show bad instincts and terrible decision-making skills, and if she does, how will this affect the USA?
According to journalist Robert Parry “the people that will be taking senior positions and especially in foreign policy believe “This consensus is driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East… Taken together, the studies and reports call for more aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe.”One of the lead organizations revving up these military adventures and also counting on a big boost in military spending under President Clinton-45 is the Atlantic Council, a think tank associated with NATO that has been pushing for a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.”
The Atlantic Council is the think tank for the CEEC which is associated with NATO. The CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition) has only one goal. At the beginning of the presidential campaign they put out a small list of questions for the candidates to decide who they would support for the president.
The first question was essentially “Are you willing to go to war with Russia?” Hillary Clinton has answered that question and received their unqualified support throughout the campaign. Who is the CEEC?
The Central and Eastern European Coalition represent the various Central and Eastern European countries to the US government. What makes them special in an election is that they control a 20 million person strong bloc vote in key states across the country and sway elections by themselves. The price of a Clinton win is war with Russia.
If that seems a little too much to be believable, reconsider the Iraq war. All it took was for the Iraqi diaspora to develop strong ties with like-minded people from “The Project for the New American Century” that wanted regime change in Iraq. Many of the people associated with the PNAC crossed over into the Bush administration . They pushed the invasion together.
“ Walt Vanderbush’s essay, “The Iraqi Diaspora and the US Invasion of Iraq” (chapter 9), traces the collaboration between leaders of the Iraqi diaspora and neoconservative Americans, many of them linked to the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), to convince the US government to wage war and bring about “regime change” in Iraq… The INC claimed credit for placing 108 articles in the news media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Times (of London), during a nine-month period before the war.”
It wasn’t terror, Osama, or even oil that the Iraq war was fought for. It was a guy named Ahmed Chalabi who was the only victor of the Iraq war.
American-emigre groups use their strategically settled populations in key battleground states, deep pockets, and unbridled political ambition to gain control over their home “old” countries. Even more insidious is the influence they exert over the United States to destroy old enemies.
Do we want senior cabinet and policy positions filled by people that think starting WWIII is a good goal? Let’s take a look at the make-up and politics of some of these.
Starting at the top let’s look at the Ukrainian emigres which lead the CEEC and the Atlantic Council. One thing anyone represented by the UCCA (Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America) or the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) has in common is Axis-political heritage and beliefs. The OUN is the political grouping of Ukrainian nationalists and it would vote for Adolf Hitler if he was running in a heartbeat.
Unless real Nazi political views (not neo-nazi) found a way to survive all these years with this group of people, the statement is just insulting. Anyone reading should be insulted because that level of offensiveness in a politically charged environment is wrong.
Nazism or Axis-Nazism are political beliefs and principles that structure your government the same as Republican or Democratic control would. The only difference is the “ism.” The “ism” means everything you do in your life revolves around your politic so it’s not just political or social guides or guidelines. It’s your lifestyle and everything wraps around it. Anything or anyone that goes against it is an enemy of the state, and it is personal.
From their own words in the Ukrainian Weekly, real, active political Nazi’s are alive, kickin’ and ready for a Clinton win! It is the sheer number of groups self-identifying as practicing real Nazi beliefs in the US gaining policy and cabinet positions under a Clinton win that is incredible.
The Ukrainian World Congress with its affiliates in over 40 countries and others work tirelessly in trying to keep Ukraine and the Ukrainian spirit front and center.
“We have had a minister of finance, Natalka Jaresko, in the Cabinet. We now have Ulana Suprun as acting minister of health. We have many from the diaspora assisting with strategizing, reforming and supporting the overall cause. We have a highly successful program in Patriot Defence. We are out to change the way business is done.
Unity to act when required has been the diaspora’s mantra – this cannot be disputed.
As time moves on, we see that things take a natural course. We see that two wings of the OUN – (OUNb)Banderivtsi and (OUNm)Melnykivtsi – are working actively on the international level, working in partnership and currently are in strong negotiations about becoming a single entity again.”
With all you’ve heard about Stepan Bandera’s OUN since the Maidan coup in Ukraine, I’ll bet you didn’t know they call New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia home.
The UCCA and the UWC still celebrate their Nazi SS because they are still Axis-nazis. The OUN were the vile Holocaust murderers during and after WWII and their politics live on in their children today. This is no different from the children of other Waffen-SS leaders or if Hitler had surviving children that stood up and ran other countries based in Hitler’s policy. These American kids are sent to Ukraine to learn how to copy and act like Stepan Bandera before they come back to America and get involved in policy making.
“ OUNb leader Ivan Kobasa also took responsibility of making sure the Ukrainian-Americans received the proper secondary education at Ukrainian nationalist schools(MAUP) in Ukraine. From the mid-2000’s enrollment in this educational system has skyrocketed. Today almost all members of the current Ukrainian government are graduates of this ideological system that was taught to them by moderates like David Duke who is also a graduate of the MAUP system.”
While American media criticizes David Duke’s support for Donald Trump, they say nothing about Hillary’s strongest supporters hiring David Duke as a professor to teach their children college level history. Is Hillary Clinton too far right for David Duke? After all, he has no plans to conquer Russia.
When you look at her campaign coffers and the most active political activists supporting Hillary Clinton, many are groups whose politics are not republican or democrat, but old-world nationalist. They are spread across America and still idolize their Waffen SS heroes, literally. They have statues and holidays and children’s groups across America in cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago celebrating some of the vilest mass murderers in history. And they teach their children to idolize them and grow up using them as role models. They also bring up their children in the same political mold of ultra-nationalism.
Now they want an America that will do the same. Over the last 30 years, the old world nationalists have moved into media and policy positions to make this happen. If that wasn’t enough they control a 20 million person bloc vote in key states and swing states in important cities across America.
I am not using the word nazi as an insult, this isn’t neo-nazi or even a nazi revival. These groups have been the most extreme political activists in the USA over the last 50 years and are a continuation of what their parents were in the 1930’s. In their own words, they never assimilated into American culture. They assimilated the culture to them. In the words of the CIA, they are political animals. Today, their wagons are circled around a Hillary Clinton presidency.
The OUN were the guards at the Holocaust prison camps, Waffen SS, and volunteer brigades that were famous for torture and murder. In Ukraine, they killed over 3 million people and conducted the first act of Holocaust at Babi Yar.
The funny part if there was one is that with every fiber of your being, you want to argue against these facts. The OUN on the other hand featured at least one of my articles on their rise in American politics even though I called them devils. The fact they find me credible shouldn’t get lost on you.
When these good friends of Hillary Clinton from the CEEC start getting tapped for advisory posts, and cabinet positions through the Atlantic Council or Project for a new American Century, will they automatically become Democrats or Republicans?
Does America want a war with Russia so the losers of WWII can settle old scores?
For the first time, under a Clinton presidency, America will have unbridled Axis-nazis/old world nationalists/ nazis in most of the cabinet and policy positions. They are getting the positions because they are delivering donations, bloc votes, political propaganda, and hard activism in battleground states.
The results for the Clinton campaign in emigre dominated states is the same as it was when they first got together. Clinton is up by 11 points in important emigre bloc voting districts.
…In last month’s heavily publicized Pennsylvania Senate race. Ukrainian and Baltic groups, protesting the administration’s attempts to prevent the break-up of the USSR, supported the Democratic candidate, Harris Wofford. This position contributed to the defeat of Dick Thornburgh, a former attorney general in the Bush administration….”The Ukrainian Weekly, December 8, 1991, No. 49, Vol. LIX
In a Ukraine Weekly interview with candidate Bill Clinton-“For the last 40 years, many Ukrainians have been supporters of the Republican Party. However, Mr. Bush severely damaged his relations with Ukrainians with his “Chicken Kiev” speech, and by his unwillingness to see Ukraine’s point of view in disputes with Russia. How will your party seek to secure the goodwill of voters concerned by this issue?” …
Clinton’s answer…“The Bush administration has had a spotty record abroad…including the president’s insulting warning against “suicidal nationalism” made before proindependence forces in Kiev in the summer of 1991 — and a failed economic record at home. We hope Ukrainian Americans will join our effort to put people first.” – Interview with Candidate Bill Clinton-Ukrainian Weekly Issue 43, 1992
In what has become the ultimate pay to play scheme, the Clinton’s gave over Ukraine to OUNb nationalists to run as they saw fit. This was payment for political support and bloc votes that won the 1992 elections for Bill Clinton. American citizens were given a country to run and represent in any manner they chose to do it.
According to Ukrainian nationalist scholar Taras Kuzio , the Axis- nazi political beliefs started to be taught to children in Ukraine after the OUNb took the reins. This was the preparation for what would become a nationalist coup in 2014 Ukraine.
This pattern follows the Clinton-NATO expansion and every CEE (Central and Eastern European) country freed by the Clintons followed suit. In Croatia, Croatian-Americans have more parliamentary seats and representation than any group from Croatia.
Other than American-emigre groups gaining rule and representing the “home country” in the US, there is only one other universal factor each of them revived. Axis- nazi politics and political views became normal in their home countries. In Croatia, they even revived the Waffen SS Battalions.
The people at the CEEC are behind the Atlantic Council and PNAC will be making the domestic and foreign policy decisions in a Clinton administration. While I would not call Hillary Clinton a Nazi, the people she surrounds herself with actively are. There is very little doubt that Victoria Nuland, a Ukrainian-American brought up in these beliefs will be Secretary of State under a Clinton Administration.
To get an understanding of what that means, the same people that are deciding Ukrainian domestic and foreign policy will be sending their people to those cabinet positions.
The one thing for sure is even publications that support her candidacy wonder about Hillary Clinton’s lack of judgment and surrounding herself with nationalist war-hawks that want war with Russia.
According to the WEEK “At first, Obama went over the top of public opinion to avenge American honor against ISIS. Slowly, America’s mission has crept to include some form of regime change with the ouster of Assad. Now Clinton is selling the American people on greater military interventions so that the U.S. can challenge Putin. Clinton seems unable to distinguish between what is of vital interest to the Russians and peripheral interest to America. She combines this with her bias toward always taking action — of any sort, for good or ill. The combination is dangerous.”
The article ends in the hope that Clinton is once again lying. Both current president Obama and Hillary Clinton are trying to sell America on the idea that there are moderates fighting a civil war in Syria. We are arming and training them. Are there moderates in Syria worth supporting? Do we have any business there to begin with? The article goes as far as stating the US is determined to overthrow every country that is friendly to Russia.
Right now Clinton wants to establish a no-fly-zone to protect her moderates. Who are they? US Special Forces on the ground are adamant that Clinton wants to give US military support to ISIS even if it means starting an open war with Russia.
“ Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘Fuck this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’” “I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added.
Since 2014, Ukraine has fully supported al Nusra and at the beginning of the civil war pulled 200 ISIS fighters to the Ukrainian front lines. These fighters are jihadis from Crimea. They have also set up an ISIS training camp near Mariupol. Like all other volunteers, they don’t receive government support and rob to make a living.
Before this, the Kosovo example looms large. Does inviting indicted mass murderers and people preparing for illegal organ trade (crimes against humanity) trials to your national party convention as special guests qualify as good judgment? Does it showcase Hillary Clinton’s good instincts to be president?
Welcome to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton’s special guest from Kosovo took time-out from preparing for his crimes against humanity case to give support and wish her well.
“Invited as a guest to the 2016 Democratic National Convention is none other than Kadri Veseli, the Speaker of the Kosovo Assembly. Veseli is a former Kosovar Albanian leader of the KLA and its spy organization SHIK. He’s being indicted along with the current president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci for small things like organ trafficking and crimes against humanity .’
The main witness against Clinton friends, Veseli and Thaci, is a man that was ordered to cut the heart out of another man that was begging for mercy. In a 1998 interview with the BBC , US special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard had this to say about Veseli and Thaci; “I know a terrorist when I see one and these men are terrorists.”
Clinton’s relationship with the Albanian and Kosovo killers stretches back to the first Clinton election in 1992. During the campaign season the Clinton duo found out quickly how powerful the emigre national vote was in America. In one fell swoop, the Albanians and the KLA after them went from what the USA definitely recognized as Islamic terrorists to victims we were going to war for.
The Clinton humanitarian bombing in the Balkans drove victims into the waiting clutches of the KLA, and the spread of Islamic terrorism worldwide.
In what became her first executive decision, first lady, Hillary Clinton brow-beat the unwilling president Clinton into bombing the Balkans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe. Today, as a result of this, ISIS is setting up training camps in what is widely referred to as Clinton country.
“On the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, the local police detained three militants of so-called “Islamic State” (a terrorist organization banned in Russia), is going to organize a series of terrorist attacks in Serbia.” Terrorists LIH (IGIL/ISIS) break through the Balkans to Western Europe March 2016
Clinton’s jihadi bloc vote in America remains central to her winning this election along with the rest of the CEEC. Does America want people advising the president that openly support genocide like the Kosovars, Albanians, or Ukrainians?
Hillary Clinton is not an Islamist. Hillary Clinton is not a Nazi. But the question remains. Why is she surrounded by and listening to people that are? Is that her best judgment? | 0 | [
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FMD2445 | 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 Congress Pass the 22nd Amendment in Order to 'Make Sure FDR Did Not Get Re-Elected'? Claim summaries: Critics seized upon remarks made by Democrat U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during an appearance on MSNBC in March 2019.
contextual information: Some critics of Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded with a measure of ridicule and criticism in the Spring of 2019, after remarks she made about the introduction of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which imposed a two-term limit on the U.S. presidency. The Washington Examiner, for example, wrote: wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez D-N.Y., might want to brush up on some history after asserting, incorrectly, that Republicans in Congress amended the Constitution to kick President Franklin Delano Roosevelt out of office. "They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get reelected," Ocasio-Cortez said [March 29] during a night hall event with MSNBC with Chris Hayes. According to AOC, Congress amended the Constitution to prevent FDR from being re-elected: Ocasio-Cortez was referring to the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution which passed in 1947. The text of the amendment states, No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. FDR died in 1945, meaning he was dead for a full two years before presidential term limits were implemented. That article was re-published on the website of Fox News, along with the headline "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alsely claims Republicans amended Constitution to kick FDR out of office." re-published The New York Post joined in the criticism, writing: writing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be getting As in social media but shes getting an F in basic history. The Bronx-Queens Democrat flunked 20th century world events last week when she claimed during a town-hall meting [sic] that the Constitution was changed to keep President Franklin D. Roosevelt from being re-elected. In fact, he died two years before the amendment to which she was referring was passed and six years before it was ratified by the requisite number of states. A video clip of Ocasio-Cortez's remarks was prominently shared on Twitter by Tom Elliott, who added: "According to AOC, Congress amended the Constitution to prevent FDR from being re-elected: 'They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt dd not get reelected.' (Reminder, FDR died in office in 1945; the 22nd Amendment came in 1947)." According to AOC, Congress amended the Constitution to prevent FDR from being re-elected: "They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt dd not get reelected." (Reminder, FDR died in office in 1945; the 22nd Amendment came in 1947) pic.twitter.com/DImHj0caVy pic.twitter.com/DImHj0caVy Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 31, 2019 March 31, 2019 Critics of Ocasio-Cortez pounced on her remarks as evidence of a purported lack of historical knowledge on her part. However, the Congresswoman's subsequent comments on the subject, along with clarification provided by her spokesperson, indicated the intended meaning of her remarks was that the catalyst behind the development of the two-term limit (which was ultimately enshrined in the 22nd amendment) had been Roosevelt's repeated re-elections during the 1930s and 1940s, and not that the introduction of the 22nd amendment (as opposed to Roosevelt's death) prevented what would have been his fourth re-election. The Congresswoman's remarks came during a web-only question-and-answer session recorded during her appearance on MSNBC's "All In" with Chris Hayes on 29 March, whose focus was the "Green New Deal," a plan put forward by Ocasio-Cortez ;and fellow Democrat Senator Ed Markey to tackle climate change and create jobs centered around renewable energy. plan Mark Paul, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, asked Ocasio-Cortez what lessons she had learned from the "New Deal," the series of economic projects FDR introduced in the 1930s with the intention of helping the U.S. economy to recover from the Great Depression, and the program to which the "Green New Deal" is an allusion. One of the points Ocasio-Cortez made in response to that question was to highlight the importance of Democratic success in facilitating the passage of legislation that introduced New Deal programs. Here's a (lightly edited) transcript of that segment, which can be viewed below: Paul:...What are the lessons from the New Deal that we can bring in today? Ocasio-Cortez: There's [sic] a lot. One is, you know when we talk, when we start picking apart the problem of political will --you know, "Technologically possible, is it politically feasible?" -- one of the big parts of political will is fear, especially fear within our own party. "If we do this, if we are a little too bold, we will lose our majorities, we will lose everything." And it is a difficult question because the House has been gerrymandered in ways that are extremely difficult. But I think there's [sic] a couple of lessons. One is that, when we look into our history, when our [Democratic] party was boldest -- the time of the New Deal, the Great Society, the Civil Rights Act and so on -- we had and carried supermajorities in the House, in the Senate, we carried the presidency. They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get re-elected. And there were so many extraordinary things that were happening in that time that were uniting working people, and so that, I think, is one of the encouraging lessons ... The point Ocasio-Cortez was making in that section of the interview was to highlight the role that electoral success for Democrats -- not least of which was FDR's repeated presidential victories during the 1930s and 1940s -- played in facilitating the introduction of major reforms such as the New Deal programs. FDR was first elected in 1932, then re-elected three times, in 1936, 1940, and 1944. To illustrate the extent of FDR's power and popularity at that time, the Congresswoman said: "They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get re-elected." The manner in which she phrased that statement ("They had to ... to make sure") indicated, on its face, that Ocasio-Cortez was saying that the introduction of the two-term limit in the 22nd Amendment was required in order to prevent FDR from being re-elected a fourth time. It is therefore understandable that some commentators seized upon her remarks and made the rather obvious point that the 22nd Amendment was not required to prevent FDR's fourth re-election, because FDR died in 1945, six years before the amendment was ratified and came into effect. (FDR died two years before the U.S. Congress passed the amendment, but it was not implemented until it was ratified by the requisite number of states six years after his death, contrary to the Washington Examiner's inaccurate statement that he had died "two years before presidential term limits were implemented.") However, that was not the intended meaning of Ocasio-Cortez's remarks, according to a spokesperson for the Congresswoman. The spokesperson told us it was "pretty clear" that her intention was simply to point out that FDR's repeated re-elections, and the sustained implementation of his policy agenda, had been the catalyst for Republican efforts to introduce a term limit on the U.S. presidency, a plan that began while FDR was still alive. That this was Ocasio-Cortez's intended meaning is also supported by the fact that the Congresswoman approvingly tweeted out a Newsweek article that presented the "full story" behind her remarks, which reported that: tweeted article The dates appeared to leave the argument cut-and-dried, with both Fox News and the Washington Examiner running the story and calling Ocasio-Cortezs claims false. However, some eagle-eyed social media commenters pointed out that the original architects of the 22nd Amendment were inspired by Roosevelts monopoly on the White House and began campaigning long before his death ... The National Constitution Center also had Ocasio-Cortezs back. On its website, the nonpartisan organization explained: Talk about a presidential term-limits amendment started in 1944, when Republican candidate Thomas Dewey said a potential 16-year term for Roosevelt was a threat to democracy." It is unquestionably true that efforts to introduce a two-term limit on the U.S. presidency began before FDR's death and were intensified by his unprecedented third and fourth elections in 1940 and 1944. FDR's decision to break precedent and seek a third term in 1940 was in itself a significant part of Republican candidate Wendell Willkie's platform that year. In a speech accepting his party's nomination in August 1940, Willkie said: "I should like to debate the question of the assumption by this President, in seeking a third term, of a greater public confidence than was accorded to our presidential giants, Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson." speech In a newspaper advertisement published days before the election, Republicans put "The Third Term" at the top of a list of major issues, writing: "Violating all principles of freedom, and a sacred American tradition of 150 years standing, the President forced his own nomination for a third term at the Chicago convention ... and gave as an excuse I was drafted.' Are we Americans that gullible? ... Let us say together, 'There is no indispensible man. There shall be no third term.'" advertisement (In order to avoid the controversy of actively seeking to break the two-term tradition, FDR coyly declined to openly declare himself a candidate in 1940, and instead his supporters arranged for him to be "drafted" as a nominee by delegates at the 1940 Democratic National Convention.) In a statement issued the day before the election, Willkie called specifically for a constitutional amendment to limit the presidency to eight years, saying that "When elected, in order to prevent any subsequent demonstrations of such ambitious views, in my first message to Congress I shall recommend that they submit a constitutional amendment limiting the time any one president may serve to eight years or less." statement Before FDR's third re-election in 1944, his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, also called for a term limit of the kind ultimately encapsulated in the 22nd Amendment. In a speech delivered in Buffalo, New York, just days before the election, Dewey said a fourth term for FDR would be "the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed," adding, "I believe that two terms must be established as the limit by constitutional amendment." speech FDR won his fourth presidential election that year, but he died just five months later, in April 1945, leaving Vice President Harry Truman to serve out nearly all of what would have been his fourth term. After the House of Representatives and Senate switched from Democratic to Republican control in the 1946 mid-term elections, the path was cleared for the 22nd amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1947. It eventually entered the U.S. Constitution in February 1951, when Nevada and Utah became the 35th and 36th U.S. states to ratify it, providing the required approval by three-quarters of the states. (The U.S. comprised only 48 states in 1951, with Alaska and Hawaii joining the Union in 1959.) ratify The 22nd amendment states, in part: states No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. What Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said on MSNBC on 29 March was that, "They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt did not get re-elected." It is understandable that some of her critics viewed this as her saying that the introduction of the 22nd Amendment was required to prevent FDR's fourth re-election, an assertion which would make no sense because FDR died in 1945, six years before the amendment entered into force. However, according to clarification provided to Snopes by her spokesperson, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's intended meaning was simply to point out that the catalyst for efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution and impose a two-term limit had been FDR's repeated re-elections during the 1930s and 1940s. As we have shown, that is certainly true, and calls for such a constitutional amendment began to intensify even before FDR's second re-election in 1940, almost five years before his death. Gage, John. "AOC Flubs History of FDR& and Change to Constitution."
The Washington Examiner. 31 March 2019. Moore, Mark and Nikki Schwab. "Ocasio-Cortez Falsely Says GOP Changed Constitution to Block FDR from Re-Election."
The New York Post. 1 April 2019. Daly, Matthew. "Democrats Seek Green New Deal to Address Climate Change."
Associated Press. 7 February 2019. Paton, Callum. "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Attacked on Twitter for Constitutional Mistake -- But Here's the Full Story."
Newsweek. 1 April 2019. Willkie, Wendell. "Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination in Elwood, Indiana."
The American Presidency Project, University of California at Santa Barbara. 17 August 1940. The Columbus Telegram. "Americanism Must Live! [Republican Election Advertisement]."
1 November 1940. Associated Press. "Willkie Urges 2-Term Limit for Presidency."
The [Wilimington] News Journal. 4 November 1940. United Press International. "Dewey Declares Fourth Term Freedom Threat."
The Salt Lake Tribune. 1 November 1944. Williams, Tom. "Anti-3rd Term Amendment Ratified as Nevada Casts Required 36th State Vote."
The Terre Haute Star. 27 February 1951. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. "U.S. Constitution, 22nd Amendment."
Accessed 2 April 2019. | 2 | [
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FMD2446 | 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: Bill Cosby's Write-In Candidate Platform Claim summaries: Comedian Bill Cosby's platform as a write-in candidate in the 2008 Presidential election?
contextual information: Claim: E-mail reproduces comedian Bill Cosby's platform as a write-in candidate in an upcoming presidential election. INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE. HERE IS MY PLATFORM: (1.) Press 1 for English is immediately banned. English is the official language; speak it or wait at the border until you can. (2.) We will immediately adopt a two-year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the 'Walmart' policy: 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.' (3.) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on them. (4.) All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border (six-month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens. (5.) Social Security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put anything in, you ain't getting anything out. The president nor any other politician will be able to touch it. (6.) Welfare checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40-hour school week and upon the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade. (7.) Professional Athletes - Steroids: The FIRST time you test positive, you're banned for life. (8.) Crime: We will adopt the Turkish method; the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There will be no more life sentences. If convicted, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for your victim: gun, knife, strangulation, etc. (9.) One export will be allowed: Wheat. The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil. (10.) All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can decide whether it's a worthy cause. (11.) The Pledge of Allegiance will be recited every day at school and every day in Congress. (12.) The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc. Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes, but a vote for me will get you better than what you have and better than what you're going to get. Thanks for listening, and remember to write in my name on the ballot in November. God Bless America!!!!!!!!!!! Bill Cosby!!!!!!!! Origins: This piece, setting out a hypothetical reactionary "platform" for a potential write-in U.S. presidential candidate, was originally circulated prior to the 2008 elections and commonly attributed to entertainer Bill Cosby. Although the identity of the original author remains unknown, this piece is most assuredly not the work of the popular comedian. When Dr. Cosby speaks out politically, it is generally to urge blacks to take responsibility for making the most of educational opportunities and to eschew choices that limit their potential for success. Immigration, imports, foreign aid, steroid use in sports, and insufficient recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem are not his political bêtes noires. (This "platform" has also been attributed to comic George Carlin, and it is equally out of tune with that late comedian's commonly expressed political views.) Bill Cosby speaks out Just before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Bill Cosby himself disclaimed involvement with this "write-in candidate" e-mail on his website: BILL COSBY IS NOT A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT. I am not a write-in candidate for President. The statement purportedly from me stating that I am a candidate is a hoax. The platform attributed to me (and at various times to Robin Williams, Andy Rooney, and George Carlin) does not represent my views and, in many respects, is abhorrent to me. Apparently, those bloggers and websites that continue to spread this hoax do not care to do even minimal fact-checking. This piece has continued to circulate well beyond the 2008 elections and has since been updated to suggest that it is a platform for a potential candidate in the upcoming 2012 elections, a change that prompted the posting of yet another disclaimer on Dr. Cosby's site in September 2009: disclaimer Whatever I say is on Twitter, Facebook, or BillCosby.com. A viral email is appearing on the internet purporting to be a Bill Cosby statement that he is running for President of the United States in 2012 and outlining his platform. This is a hoax, completely false and with no factual basis. Bill Cosby says, "False Bill Cosby statements are not funny nor fun and sometimes mean-spirited." Last updated: 25 September 2010. | 0 | [
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FMD2447 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider reviving litigation seeking to hold Arab Bank Plc financially liable for militant attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories that accused the Jordan-based bank of being the “paymaster†to militant groups. The justices agreed to hear an appeal by roughly 6,000 plaintiffs, who included relatives of non-U.S. citizens killed in such attacks and survivors of the incidents, of a lower court ruling throwing out the litigation. The plaintiffs accused Arab Bank under a U.S. law called the Alien Tort Statute of deliberately financing terrorism, including suicide bombings and other attacks. They are hoping to overturn a 2015 New York federal appeals court ruling that the bank could not be sued under the statute because it is a corporation. The Alien Tort Statute, a law dating back to 1789, lets non-U.S. citizens seek damages in U.S. courts for human rights violations abroad. The lead plaintiff in the case is Joseph Jesner, whose British citizen son was killed at age 19 in a 2002 suicide bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv. The plaintiffs filed several lawsuits under the law in Brooklyn federal court, claiming Arab Bank used its New York branch to transfer money and “serve as a ‘paymaster’ for international terrorists.†The transfers helped Hamas and other groups fund attacks and reward families of the perpetrators between 1995 and 2005, the suits alleged. The bank said in court papers that the U.S. government has called it a constructive partner in the fight against terrorism financing. The bank said only four transactions out of 500,000 involved “designated terrorists†by the U.S. government, and they were the result of machine or human error. The bank also cited a separate 2010 case, Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum, in which the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute. After reviewing that case, the Supreme Court in 2013 narrowed the law’s reach, saying claims must sufficiently “touch and concern†the United States to overcome the presumption that the Alien Tort Statute does not cover foreign conduct. But the high court declined to explicitly decide whether the 2nd Circuit ruling on corporate liability was correct. Based on the Kiobel ruling, the 2nd Circuit threw out the litigation against Arab Bank. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, urging it to decide once and for all whether or not corporations are shielded over foreign conduct. | 1 | [
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FMD2448 | 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, Former NFL QB John Elway Is Not 'Broke' Claim summaries: The misinformation stemmed from an online advertisement that was being paid for by unknown persons.
contextual information: In January 2022, an online advertisement displayed a picture of former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway alongside the words, "Iconic NFL Players Who Went Broke." The ad was misleading clickbait, leading to a slideshow article on MoneyWise.com that again featured the same photograph of Elway. The headline read, "These Iconic NFL Players Lost It All." It wasn't until the last page of the lengthy article that Elway was mentioned; however, it said nothing about him running out of money or going "broke." Instead, it referenced that, in 2010, Elway fell victim to a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by a hedge fund manager named Sean Michael Mueller. The Associated Press reported that "he and a business partner gave Mueller $15 million," and that Mueller was later sentenced to 40 years in prison. The last page of the MoneyWise.com article also mentioned an ABC News article from 2016, which reported that Elway missed out on a potentially huge investment opportunity in 1998. Had he signed a deal with the Broncos to buy an ownership stake in the team, his investment might have been worth around $388 million by 2015, potentially yielding a "646 percent return on the 1998 investment, adjusted for inflation." As of early 2022, the former NFL great was employed as the president of football operations for the Broncos and had previously held the title of the team's general manager. There was no evidence that Elway was broke, nor did the lengthy MoneyWise.com article mention any such thing. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with numerous pages. This practice is known as advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to earn more money from ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that attracted viewers. | 0 | [
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FMD2449 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In what will surely send Donald Trump into a new Twitter tirade, a new poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows the majority Americans longing to have President Obama back, and overwhelmingly not liking Trump.According to the poll: Less than 2 weeks into Donald Trump s tenure as President, 40% of voters already want to impeach him. That s up from 35% of voters who wanted to impeach him a week ago. Only 48% of voters say that they would be opposed to Trump s impeachment.Beyond a significant percentage of voters already thinking that Trump should be removed from office, it hasn t taken long for voters to miss the good old days of Barack Obama 52% say they d rather Obama was President, to only 43% who are glad Trump is. President Obama was loved by the United States, and for as many haters as there were, there were far more that loved and appreciated his true leadership and love of country over himself. The same can t be said of Trump.Check out this tweet that garnered over 1.6 million likes:It's been the honor of my life to serve you. You made me a better leader and a better man. President Obama (@POTUS44) January 20, 2017And then this one:I won't stop; I'll be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by your voices of truth and justice, good humor, and love. President Obama (@POTUS44) January 20, 2017The man isn t only loved, he s beloved.Trump, on the other hand, throws out mean revenge tweets like their going out of style. And most of the responses to his tweets are condemning his actions. To be blunt the man is not liked much at all. Sure, he has he band of merry minions who would likely drink paint if Trump told them to, but he lost the popular vote by 3 million vote to Hillary Clinton. And the only reason he is president is due to an archaic Electoral College that was devised to give power to slave owners who counted their slaves as 3/5 of a person, and help those in rural communities have a voice. It s no longer needed and the nation doesn t want Trump nor his backhanded style of egomaniacal leadership.It seems, if given the opportunity, the United States would have President Obama back in a heartbeat. If only that were possible.Featured Photo by Alex Wong, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD2450 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Even the Democrat ministers can t help themselves from shutting down anyone that would dare to come into their city with an (R) after their name. And people ask why Republicans don t do more outreach in minority communities. These people are clearly not throwing out the welcome mat for the man who will likely be our next President of the United States. Wouldn t it have been refreshing to see this minister embrace Donald Trump s message of jobs for citizens and of hope for broken communities that have been ignored by Democrat ruled cities for decades? The minister of a Methodist church made national headlines after she scolded Donald Trump for injecting politics into a campaign stop.The Rev. Faith Green Timmons came on stage and stopped Trump in the middle of his remarks at Bethel United Methodist Church.Watch:She told him to stay focused on the water crisis and not Hillary Clinton. I invited you here to thank us for what we ve done in Flint, not give a political speech, the reverend told Mr. Trump.Trump graciously complied with her demand.But something doesn t pass the smell test. Check out this screen screen shot from Rev. Timmons Facebook page: We have our chance to show Donald Trump that this nation is filled with intelligent, wise black citizens of integrity many of whom live right in Flint, Michigan, she wrote. What he will see is how we are braving a man-made catastrophe. HE WILL NOT USE US, WE will EDUCATE HIM!!! Well, I guess the Rev. Timmons showed Mr. Trump ambushing him in a House of Worship. I will give her credit for hushing up a protester who kept interrupting his remarks.Mr. Trump showed great restraint and class as he complied with her request. And he deserves credit for at least trying to start a dialogue. Via: Todd Starnes | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2451 | 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 giveaway scam involving a Michael Kors handbag includes undisclosed subscription charges. Claim summaries: Consumers should beware of offers that seem too good to be true, since they might include monthly charges that are only mentioned in the fine print.
contextual information: A genuine Michael Kors handbag for $7.95? Good luck with that. In early July 2023, we investigated the hidden catch behind a new scam originating from TikTok ads. The ads claimed that the luxury design company Michael Kors was giving away handbags for a small fee of $7.95. Users would supposedly need to answer three or four questions in a short survey to receive one of the handbags. However, this was not a giveaway managed by Michael Kors, nor was it a legitimate promotion in any way, shape, or form. The TikTok ads misleadingly stated, "Michael Kors sends out handbags. Answer 4 questions and get a handbag." Users who clicked on the ads were directed to a page on 20mccsd.tech, a website that displayed registration information for a domain registrar in Russia, which may have been the country from which the scam originated. The 20mccsd.tech website was designed to deceive users into believing they were on the official website for Nordstrom, nordstrom.com. The scammers ensured that anyone trying to visit the website with a copied link, rather than through a TikTok ad, would encounter a strange facade that cloaked the fake Nordstrom website. For users who did click on the ads, they saw the Nordstrom logo and the following text: "Congratulations! You have been selected to participate in the Nordstrom campaign. You could win a Michael Kors handbag!" After answering three questions, users were redirected to exclusiveluckyshop.com. This website then claimed users would be eligible to enter a supposed giveaway for a Michael Kors Voyager Medium Crossgrain Leather Tote Bag, which normally retails for $298, according to Michael Kors' official website. The scam shifted from promising handbags for $7.95 in the TikTok ads to stating that users would be paying the small fee simply to enter a suspicious giveaway. At the very bottom of exclusiveluckyshop.com, in a small font size, we found the terms and conditions. The terms included the catch behind the entire scam: any users who paid the fee of $7.95 would later be billed $67.32 per month until they found a way to cancel. This monthly charge was purportedly meant to fund a $125 gift card for customers to use in what was referred to as a "best consumer gadget club." In other words, this was a hidden subscription scam, a topic we had previously reported on with another scam. The terms also displayed the phone number (866) 877-1602. In a call we placed to this number, an automated voice message thanked us for calling "customer support." Just as we had seen in past years with other scams involving CBD and keto weight loss gummies, no specific company name was announced, as would be the case when placing calls to legitimate businesses. If any readers fell victim to this scam, we recommend calling your credit card company or the phone number for whatever payment method you used to make the purchase. Always bear in mind that if an online offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2452 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home / Badge Abuse / Police Family Fakes Robbery, Vandalizes Own Home to Blame it On Black Lives Matter Police Family Fakes Robbery, Vandalizes Own Home to Blame it On Black Lives Matter Matt Agorist October 31, 2016 Leave a comment
Millbury, MA — If you want to scam your insurance company while painting a group in a negative light who wants your husband and his peers to be held accountable for beating and killing unarmed black people, you can simply fake a robbery on your police officer’s home and blame it on Black Lives Matter. But, you have to do it better than Maria Daly, who was busted last week for that very act.
According to CBS Boston, police say on October 17 Maria Daly reported a burglary at the family home, saying jewelry and money had been stolen. She also reportedly said her house was tagged with graffiti that appeared to reference the Black Lives Matter movement.
After investigators looked at the supposed crime scene, however, they quickly determined the entire account was false.
“Something wasn’t quite right,” said Millbury Police Chief Donald Desorcy. “I think that was pretty obvious and as a result of that investigation, the officers did their due diligence and followed through with the investigation that we had.”
“Basically we came to the conclusion that it was all fabricated,” said Desorcy. “There was no intruder, there was no burglary.”
After Daly robbed and vandalized her own home, she reported it to police and then went on social media to decry the ‘hatred’ against her husband from Black Lives Matter.
“We woke up to not only our house being robbed while we were sleeping , but to see this hatred for no reason,” she said.
Naturally, chief Desorcy quickly exonerated Daly’s police officer husband, noting that he had no role in the deception. Whatever you say chief.
“She must have tagged the place herself,” one neighbor said. “I don’t know why you’d do that if you’re gonna stage a robbery, I mean really come on, you’re a cop’s wife. You should know better.”
Maria Daly faces charges of filing a false police report and misleading a police investigation, according to CBS Boston.
People vandalizing their own property to blame Black Lives Matter is not an isolated incident.
A man who accused Black Lives Matter activists of vandalizing and spray-painting his car was recently arrested because police believe that he vandalized the car himself to stage a hoax and to scam his insurance company. Scott Lattin, a self-described supporter of police, reported in September of 2015, that his truck was torn apart and tagged with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” Lattin alleged that his vehicle was targeted because he had a number of pro-police stickers and symbols displayed.
Lattin’s story received national press, and he even appeared on a number of news programs where he showed the damage that was done to his truck. However, shortly after the hype, Whitney police arrested Lattin on a misdemeanor charge of making a false police report.
“We had initial video when the officers took the report and then when we saw your story on Channel 4. When we looked at those two videos, there were some differences in those and that led us to take the investigation into a different direction,” Whitney Police Chief Chris Bentley said, adding that the case was “very disturbing.”
Lattin was apparently so excited about going on TV he further vandalized his own truck, more so than what was initially reported. When police noticed the extra damage on the TV report, they knew he was lying. Share | 0 | [
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FMD2453 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Yemen s Houthi forces have detained a U.S. citizen in the capital Sanaa for reasons that were not immediately clear, two colleagues of the man said on Monday. The Iran-aligned Houthis control much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, and are battling a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to restore the internationally recognized government. Nadia Burch told Reuters that her husband, Danny Lavon Burch, was seized on Saturday after taking his children to school. He had been working in Yemen since the late 1980s, currently with the oil company Safer, said Burch, a Yemeni. He has no problems or disputes with anyone, which is why he didn t leave as others did, she said. I ask for the release of my husband and his safe return to me. A U.S. State Department official said they were aware and concerned about the report. The Houthi movement did not respond to a request for comment and the Safer oil company was also not immediately available for comment. Two of Mr. Burch s colleagues in Sanaa said Houthi forces were responsible, without elaborating. But Nadia Burch said the kidnappers had not contacted her and she was unsure of their identity. More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen s civil war. It began in March 2015 when the Houthis advanced on the interim headquarters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the southern port city of Aden, forcing him to flee the country and seek Saudi help. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2454 | 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 Spend Taxpayer Dollars on 'Cruel and Unnecessary' Tests on Beagles? Claim summaries: Allocated government funds for the experiments reportedly totaled more than $1.8 million.
contextual information: Throughout the latter half of 2021, the taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project (WCW) released announcements that it had exposed several government-funded, cruel and unusual research projects that tested potential vaccines and drug therapeutics on beagles, which collectively cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In all cases, WCW pointed blame at Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whom the group posited as having given the final approval to fund the projects. Snopes readers asked our team to focus our investigation on three of the studies in question, which included research conducted at the University of Georgia Research Foundation (UGR), the nonprofit research institute SRI International, and by scientists in Tunisia. The allegations began in July 2021, when the Republican-led animal rights advocacy group published a report that claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, approved funding from taxpayer dollars to conduct painful experiments on beagles. WCW claimed in its July 30 report that Fauci, in an attempt to advance a human vaccine for a parasitic disease called lymphatic filariasis, spent $424,000 to commission a study in which healthy beagles were given an experimental drug and then intentionally infested with flies that carry a disease-causing parasite that affects humans. The findings of the WCW investigation were subsequently reported in publications like Fox News and conservative-leaning outlets such as RT, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, and The Patriot Project. In October 2021, Republican U.S. House Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina tweeted a letter she sent to Dr. Anthony Fauci, referencing documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request from WCW. WCW claimed that from October 2018 to February 2019, Fauci ordered cruel and unusual drug toxicity tests on dogs that cost taxpayers $1.68 million. In a third report, WCW claimed that NIAID funded more than $375,000 to conduct a study that again used beagles as test subjects in experiments involving sand flies that the organization described as "torture." Snopes contacted WCW and obtained copies of documents reportedly obtained via separate Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by the organization. Claims of Fauci funding the torture of dogs circulated and recirculated in Fall 2021 and are largely based on two studies funded by the NIAID that did, indeed, involve using beagles as test subjects. We break those claims down below, but first, a closer look at the organization behind the reports. Founded in 2013, WCW is a watchdog group that self-describes as representing more than 2 million liberty lovers and animal lovers who oppose using taxpayer dollars to support experiments on animals. It is not a traditional animal advocacy group but instead devotes its efforts to denouncing what it characterizes as wasted government funds spent on testing. In 2016, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reported that the Washington, D.C.-based organization is the brainchild of former Republican strategist Anthony Bellotti. His opposition to animal research began in 1995, when, in the summer between high school and college, he worked in a hospital laboratory that was conducting heart studies on pigs and witnessed experiments he saw as cruel. After he became a political consultant, he hit upon the idea of framing such research as a waste of taxpayer money, wrote AAAS. Following the UGR investigation into the lymphatic filariasis studies, a spokesperson for WCW told Snopes that in August 2021, the watchdog group also requested documents related to toxicity testing on beagles commissioned by NIAID. Snopes read through the file to verify the claims made in the WCW report specific to NIH contract number HHSN272201400006I, which was described in a government database as preclinical development services for AIDS therapeutics with SRI International, a California-based nonprofit scientific research institute. According to the government fiduciary site USA Spending, a $1.1 million grant was awarded to the organization by DHHS on behalf of the NIAID. The study was listed to begin on July 15, 2020, and wrap up by December 24, 2021, and included testing on small animals for therapeutics to treat HIV as well as Hepatitis B and C viruses. The request returned 1,438 pages of documents describing wasteful and unnecessary drug toxicity tests on beagle puppies, a WCW spokesperson told Snopes. The documents are hosted on our site at the link below. The records outlined several studies involving both rats and beagles. The documents outline both the proposed study design as well as the actual results of the study, the latter of which resulted in 40 beagles between the ages of 8 and 9 months being administered oral and subcutaneous (under the skin) doses of an unnamed HIV therapeutic between September 2018 and October 2019. It is true that all dogs were euthanized following the study and their organs were analyzed for potential toxicity from the drugs. It is also true that the dogs' vocal cords were cut out. In a statement emailed to MedPage Today, NIAID told the publication that the contract for "preclinical pharmacology and toxicology services" was conducted "as required in animal models by the FDA, in compliance with Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) guidelines and in a facility accredited by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) or its equivalent." "Vocal cordectomies, conducted humanely under anesthesia, may be used in research facilities where numerous dogs are present," the statement said. "This is to reduce noise, which is not only stressful to the animals but can also reach decibel levels that exceed OSHA allowable limits for people and can lead to hearing loss." The housing and care of the beagles at the time of the study was in accordance with the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, while welfare requirements were met in accordance with regulations established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Animal Welfare Act. Every effort will be made to minimize, if not eliminate, pain and suffering in all animals in this study. Moribund animals and animals experiencing undue pain and suffering will be euthanized at the discretion of the Study Director, attending veterinarian, or other qualified person. The Study Director will make every effort to protect the scientific validity of the study, read the document. While at least some of the funding was provided by NIAID, it is still unclear whether Fauci personally signed off on approving the research. Claims of Fauci ordering the funding of therapeutic testing on beagles originated with a 38-page FOIA request submitted by WCW and shared publicly in July. Those are hosted in this Dropbox folder and have been archived on our site: Snopes read through the document, and our analysis confirmed that obligated funds were issued to the UGR by the NIH in the amount of $424,555 to determine the efficacy of a potential vaccine for lymphatic filariasis on beagle test subjects. A contract shared online by the U.S. government defined the research as: "PRE-CLINICAL MODELS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES; TASK C12 LYMPHATIC FILARIASIS VACCINE (LFGUARD) EFFICACY TRIAL IN DOGS." Research conducted on behalf of NIAID is funded in large part through annual funds allocated by Congress and the president, though direct projects may be signed off on by various leaders within NIH. However, there is no evidence that the grant was personally approved by Fauci, and there is no mention of him in the FOIA documentation. All that we can definitively say is that at least some of the money came from NIH. Neither the NIH nor UGR responded to Snopes requests to verify the documents published by WCW, but a spokesperson for WCW sent our team a letter, written by NIAID Government Information Specialist Lauren Bartok in response to the FOIA request under case number 55876. The letter referenced the experimental documents obtained by WCW, confirming that the experiments took place. As with the first study, personal and proprietary information had been removed from the document, including the name of the vaccine and experiment objectives. The files did note that the contractor (UGR) was to acquire healthy, adult beagle dogs to administer different formulations [presumably of vaccine] to dogs via the intramuscular route. Each set of experiments will use 14 dogs, which total 28 dogs at the completion of the study (7 dogs in each group), read the statement of work. Studies began in mid-November 2020, at which point the pathogen-free adult beagle dogs were scheduled to receive a total of three doses on days 0, 28, and 56. Throughout the study, researchers were instructed to monitor the dogs' health twice daily and collect blood and urine samples. A first dose of the vaccine was administered on November 12, with a second round given on December 17 without incident, with one important exception. That exception was four dogs in the so-named blue group reported as having vocalized in pain upon administration. After a physical examination five days later, the four dogs were observed as being bright, alert, and responsive. A third and final round was administered on January 14, 2021, also without incident but with one important exception. Half of the animals in the blue group again vocalized in pain upon administration. A week later, they were once again deemed bright, alert, and responsive. Emails sent between the researchers were included in the FOIA documents and confirmed that only the blue group showed a consistent pain response. The research is scheduled to be completed by January 15, 2022, and all animals will be euthanized after day 196, read the FOIA document. The UGR contract noted the vaccine was for lymphatic filariasis, a mosquito-borne parasitic infection caused by microscopic, thread-like worms. When inside their human hosts, these filarial worms live in the human lymph system and can cause elephantiasis and, in men, a condition called hydrocele that causes the swelling of the scrotum, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Lymphatic filariasis affects an estimated 120 million people worldwide, with another 1.2 billion at risk of infection, wrote researchers in 2014. Currently, there is no vaccine available for human cases, though treatment typically consists of chemotherapy and multiple drug therapies. But as the White Coat Project reported, vaccines for the disease have been tested in mice and were shown to be 90% effective and macaques (70% effective). In fact, at least 27 related animal experiments have been conducted since the 1940s on filarial worms. While WCW deemed the experiments "cruel and unnecessary" and claimed that some of the dogs were "bitten to death," the NIH contends that all research involving animals is overseen by the agency's Office of Laboratory Welfare to ensure it is conducted ethically. All animals used in NIH-funded research are protected by laws, regulations, and policies that ensure the smallest number of subjects and the greatest commitment to their welfare, notes the agency on its website. Furthermore, no evidence was put forward showing that the dogs were subject to biting, let alone "bitten to death." If any such information was included in the FOIA document, it has since been redacted. In an interview with Newsweek, Greg Trevor, associate vice president for marketing and communications at UGR, confirmed that the research was for a potential vaccine that was developed at another institution. In an emailed statement, Trevor reportedly told the publication that under federal rules, a vaccine must be tested in two animal species before it can be cleared for human clinical trials. NIAID decided to fund this research and that it needed to be conducted on a dog model, of which beagles are the standard. "Because this disease currently has no cure, unfortunately, the animals that are part of this trial must be euthanized. We do not take lightly the decision to use such animals in some of our research," Trevor reportedly told the publication. The third study took place in Tunisia and analyzed whether a species of sand fly (Phlebotomus perniciosus) was noticeably attracted to beagles who were infected with Leishmania infantum, the parasite that causes the skin disease leishmaniasis. Sand flies are the main vector of L. infantum, and dogs are the main host and reservoir of the disease. Though the research took place, NIAID did not fund the study, and the journal that published the study, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, issued a correction after reporting that the federal agency did support the study. The manuscript mistakenly cited support from NIAID, when in fact NIAID did not support this specific research shown in the images of the beagles being circulated, NIAID told Politifact. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases confirmed to MedPage Today that the mistake was made and posted a correction online, adding that NIAID did not provide any funding for this research and any such claim was made in error. Research conducted on behalf of NIAID is funded in large part through congressional and executive actions deciding how to allocate taxpayer dollars. These annual allocations are then signed off on by the sitting president. NIAID funding for the fiscal year 2021 was awarded $5.4 billion by then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020. The following year, President Joe Biden requested an increase of $178.9 million, or 2.9% compared with the fiscal year 2021 enacted level, for a total of $6.2 billion to be awarded in the fiscal year 2022. It is true that research conducted at UGR and SRI International was at least in part funded by NIAID with taxpayer dollars, though it is unclear whether such allocations were personally approved by Fauci. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD2455 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: At least eight people drowned on Monday when a boat carrying dozens of mostly Tunisian migrants collided with a navy vessel off the country s southeast coast, its defense ministry said. According to testimony from survivors, there were between 70 and 80 people on board, International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said. He said at least 20 people were missing and some 40, almost all Tunisians, had been rescued. The ministry said eight bodies had been recovered after the collision with the Tunisian navy boat, which occurred 54km (33 miles) off the coast. Italian news agency ANSA said the migrant vessel had sunk. Libya has long been the busiest country of departure for a steady flow of migrants trying to reach the European Union from North Africa. But activity on that route has declined since July as Libya s coast guard and an armed group in the smuggling hub of Sabratha tightened controls. Meanwhile departures from Tunisia have picked up, many in wooden boats that have started landing on secluded Sicilian beaches, often in broad daylight. A rescue mission after Monday s collision was being coordinated by the Maltese coast guard, an Italian coast guard spokesman said. Two Italian coast guard ships, a finance police boat and a navy ship had been sent to assist, he said. A Maltese plane was en route to the scene, a Maltese army spokesman said. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2456 | 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 Story of Neerja Bhanot and the '86 Pan Am Hijacking True? Claim summaries: In 1986, Pan Am flight 73 was attacked in Karachi airport by hijackers linked to the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organization.
contextual information: Sometimes, Snopes readers stumble on old stories that require us to revisit key moments of history. One such story was of the courageous actions of Neerja Bhanot, an Indian flight attendant on Pan Am flight 73, which was hijacked in 1986 by Palestinian militants on its way to the United States while on a stopover in Karachi, Pakistan. Neerja Bhano Many of our readers shared social media posts, and queries, asking us to detail some of the main events of the hijacking, including Bhanots death from a gunshot wound. posts One reader asked us to confirm the following: When radical Islamic terrorists hijacked her A/C in Karachi, Pakistan she informed the pilots (who used their escape hatch to runaway) and kept both the passengers/remaining crew calm. When the terrorists demanded to know who the Americans were on the flight so they could execute them she gathered all the passports and hid the ones belonging to Americans under seat cushions. The terrorists confused and unable to determine the national origins of the passengers didn't execute anyone. When Pakistani police raided the plane she was able to nearly singlehandedly evacuate all the passengers as the firefight ensued. She being one of the last people on board did a last check and found three children still hiding. As she led the children to safety the surviving terrorists spotted the children and opened fire on them. Neerja jumped in the way of the bullets and was mortally wounded. She was able to evac the children to safety before dying from her wounds. Neerja was awarded the Ashok Chakra Award by India, the highest peacetime gallantry award possible. She was the youngest and first civilian to ever be awarded this honor. Through testimonies from the flight crew and passengers during the sentencing of one of the hijackers, and interviews done by the BBC, we were able to gather key facts from that fateful day. In 2004, Zayad al Safarini, a Jordanian hijacker who was part of the attack, was sentenced by a U.S. district judge to 160 years in prison. At the hearing for his sentencing, a number of passengers, flight attendants, and Bhanots brother, came forward to recount the events of the hijacking. The full transcript of their testimonies can be read here. testimonies BBC sentenced here The Palestinian militants who hijacked the aircraft were affiliated with the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO), which was opposed to U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East, and was described as a secular international terrorist organization. When the hijackers boarded the plane, they began trying to identify any Americans on board. A 2016 BBC report included interviews with the surviving flight attendants, described the scene: described BBC report Sunshine, Madhvi Bahuguna and another flight attendant began collecting passports, quietly avoiding collecting any that were American. They then went through the bags of passports they had collected, secretly sifting out any remaining American ones and tucking them under their seats or concealing them in their clothing. Mike Thexton, a passenger on the plane, describes the act in his book What Happened to The Hippy Man? as "extremely brave, selfless and clever". "I may be biased but I feel that day proved that the flight attendants on board were some of the best in the industry." Descriptions from passengers and family members from the sentencing of Safarini detailed the moment that flight attendants were told to gather passports, and the ways in which they tried to protect the Americans among them. Aneesh Bhanot, Neerjas brother, who was not on the plane as these events took place, described this effort as one carried out by all the flight attendants together: Descriptions Neerja was an Indian citizen. All the other flight attendants were also Indian citizens. Mr. Safarini and his gang were targeting Americans, as was very obvious from the passenger calls which you heard later on. Neerja and all the other attendants knew this. That is why when they asked them to get the passports of all the passengers, they hid the American passports on the airplane. He also cited the testimony of another passenger that was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer in September 1986. A clipping of that paper is available below (in which Bhanot is referred to as Neerja Mishra): Michael John Thexton, a British passenger, recounted the following: recounted Then came the call for passports, and I should have ignored it. But I felt that I had to obey orders. So I took out my passport and I handed it in, still thinking that the Americans would be in front of us, not reckoning the ingenuity and the extraordinary bravery of the stewardess who was making the collection in discarding American passports that had a white face. I suppose the British were [the] third choice for the terrorists. And after the Americans and the Israelis, mine was the only one of a small handful of British passports with a white face in that pile. I think maybe six or seven, something of that sort. So the call came over the public address for passenger Michael John to come forward, then Michael John Thexton, and I knew that they wanted to shoot me. Darrell Pieper, an American passenger, credited flight attendant Sunshine Vesuwala for protecting his identity. In his testimony, he said, Sunshine hid my passport when she realized the hijackers are looking for Americans. I'm grateful to her for her quick thinking and action, which again saved my life. credited Gregg Maisel, the attorney representing the U.S. government, said, the flight attendants, risking their own lives, deliberately refused to accept United States passports from some passengers and hid several United States passports under seat cushions. said Given that Bhanot played a big role in protecting the American passengers by hiding their passports, but was not the only flight attendant doing this, we rate this part of the claim as true. In this instance, even as Bhanot showed remarkable bravery in getting passengers to safety, she was not alone in this effort. According to Maisel, passengers escaped after Bhanot and others were able to open up some exits: escaped As the bullets and grenades flew, Neerja Bhanot, as well as other flight attendants and passengers, heroically managed to force open two exits in the economy section. The opening of the rear exit triggered inflation of the emergency slide, but the opening of the exit over the wing did not trigger the inflation of a second emergency slide. People clamored to reach both exits fearful that the hijackers would resume the assault.[...]This diagram illustrates the efforts of surviving hostages to escape the aircraft using the emergency slide and climbing onto the wing of the plane. While the slide was a safer escape route, the sheer number of people attempting to leave the plane through this exit at night resulted in additional injuries to some who were unable to exit quickly enough to avoid being crushed by others behind them.[...]At the direction of several flight attendants, other passengers reentered the plane climbing over the wounded and the dead and used the rear exit where the slide was inflated to the safer escape route. Aneesh Bhanot also recounted an article written by a Pakistani passenger: recounted There's another passenger from Pakistan, a gentleman called Hussein, who had written an article in a newspaper called the Star of Pakistan. And he wrote again that says as the lights went out at 10:00 p.m. we was herded with the passengers and the shooting started. From nowhere, his savior, Neerja, and I'm sure other flight attendants also did the same thing, had the presence and the nerve to steer through the pandemonium to lead the passengers where to go. Neerja, by sheer zest, it seems, single-handedly opened the chute. Her favorite words to him and other passengers were, get out, run. In this instance, since Bhanot appeared to have taken the lead in helping passengers escape and was also aided by other crew and passengers, we rate this part of the claim as a mixture, given that she did not do this alone. Bhanots death was described through different accounts, based on information gathered in the aftermath of the attack. Some reports said she was protecting three children, while flight attendants described her being shot during the escape. Jennifer Levy, another attorney representing the U.S. government, described Bhanots final moments: described When the lights went out just before the final assault, Ms. Bhanot ran for the emergency door and activated the inflatable chute. Instead of escaping as one of the first off the aircraft, she remained on board to help others out of the plane. She was shot in the final assault. Although she was taken off the plane alive by her fellow flight attendants, she died shortly afterwards of massive bleeding. Viraf Daroga, Pan Ams director in Pakistan, described how Bhanot was brought down from the aircraft through the emergency chute: described Those who were injured were picked up as they came down the chute, put in ambulances that came rushing to the aircraft, and were driven off to various hospitals. Neerja, the senior purser, was brought down by her colleagues and was taken to the hospital. She died in the hospital in the arms of one of my staff. Aneesh Bhanots testimony described how Bhanot was indeed protecting three children when she was shot and killed: described Neerja could have been the first one to escape from the aircraft as she opened the emergency door, yet she chose not to do that. Instead, she got the passengers out and gave her own life, as we are told, while shielding three small children from gunfire. Her actions probably saved hundreds of lives. The Pan Am Historical Foundation also described her death by saying As the hijackers opened fire on passengers and crew, Neerja Bhanot lost her life shielding three children from bullets. described Since reports differ on what happened during Bhanots final moments, and some details remain uncertain, we rate the overall truth of this claim as "Mixture." But there is no doubting that her actions, as well as the actions of other flight attendants and crew, saved many lives. She was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra award, which is India's highest civilian decoration for bravery. Ashok Chakra award | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD2457 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State, suspicion of the United States runs deep. Iraqi fighters say they have all seen the videos purportedly showing U.S. helicopters airdropping weapons to the militants, and many claim they have friends and relatives who have witnessed similar instances of collusion.
Ordinary people also have seen the videos, heard the stories and reached the same conclusion — one that might seem absurd to Americans but is widely believed among Iraqis — that the United States is supporting the Islamic State for a variety of pernicious reasons that have to do with asserting U.S. control over Iraq, the wider Middle East and, perhaps, its oil.
“It is not in doubt,†said Mustafa Saadi, who says his friend saw U.S. helicopters delivering bottled water to Islamic State positions. He is a commander in one of the Shiite militias that last month helped push the militants out of the oil refinery near Baiji in northern Iraq alongside the Iraqi army.
The Islamic State is “almost finished,†he said. “They are weak. If only America would stop supporting them, we could defeat them in days.â€
[Inside the surreal world of the Islamic State’s propaganda machine]
U.S. military officials say the charges are too far-fetched to merit a response. “It’s beyond ridiculous,†said Col. Steve Warren, the military’s Baghdad-based spokesman. “There’s clearly no one in the West who buys it, but unfortunately, this is something that a segment of the Iraqi population believes.â€
The perception among Iraqis that the United States is somehow in cahoots with the militants it claims to be fighting appears, however, to be widespread across the country’s Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide, and it speaks to more than just the troubling legacy of mistrust that has clouded the United States’ relationship with Iraq since the 2003 invasion and the subsequent withdrawal eight years later.
At a time when attacks by the Islamic State in Paris and elsewhere have intensified calls for tougher action on the ground, such is the level of suspicion with which the United States is viewed in Iraq that it is unclear whether the Obama administration would be able to significantly escalate its involvement even if it wanted to.
“What influence can we have if they think we are supporting the terrorists?†asked Kirk Sowell, an analyst based in neighboring Jordan who publishes the newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics.
In one example of how little leverage the United States now has, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi pushed back swiftly against an announcement Tuesday by Defense Secretary ÂAshton B. Carter that an expeditionary force of U.S. troops will be dispatched to Iraq to conduct raids, free hostages and capture Islamic State leaders.
[Is it too late to solve the mess in the Middle East?]
Iraq’s semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, where support for the United States remains strong, has said it would welcome more troops. But Abadi indicated they would not be needed.
“There is no need for foreign ground combat troops,†he said in a statement. “Any such support and special operations anywhere in Iraq can only be deployed subject to the approval of the Iraqi Government and in coordination with the Iraqi forces and with full respect to Iraqi sovereignty.â€
The allegations of U.S. collusion with the Islamic State are aired regularly in parliament by Shiite politicians and promoted in postings on social media. They are persistent enough to suggest a deliberate campaign on the part of Iran’s allies in Iraq to erode American influence, U.S. officials say.
In one typical recent video that appeared on the Facebook page of a Shiite militia, a lawmaker with the country’s biggest militia group, the Badr Organization, waves apparently new U.S military MREs (meals ready to eat) — one of them chicken and dumplings — allegedly found at a recently captured Islamic State base in Baiji, offering proof, he said, of U.S. support.
“The Iranians and the Iranian-backed Shiite militias are really pushing this line of propaganda, that the United States is supporting ISIL,†Warren said. “It’s part of the Iranian propaganda machine.â€
The perception plays into a widening rift within Iraq’s ruling Shiite elite over whether to pivot more toward Iran or the United States. Those pushing the allegations “want to create a narrative that Iran is our ally and the United States is our enemy, and this undermines Abadi, who is America’s ally,†Sowell said.
[Police call him an ISIS recruiter. He says he’s just an outspoken preacher.]
Iraqi government officials say they don’t believe the charges and point out that Abadi regularly pushes back against them. But Abadi’s own position has weakened in recent months. He is battling for his political survival against a variety of Shiite militia leaders whose power has been bolstered by the increasingly dominant role played on the battlefield by the militias, collectively known as Hashd al-Shaabi, or popular mobilization units.
Iraqi officials complain that their task is hampered by what is universally perceived as the lackluster U.S. response to the threat posed by the Islamic State.
“We don’t believe the Americans support Daesh,†said Naseer Nouri, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “But it is true that most people are saying they do, and they are right to believe that the Americans should be doing much more than they are. It’s because America is so slow that most people believe they are supporting Daesh.â€
U.S. warplanes routinely fail to respond to requests for air support because of U.S. rules of engagement that preclude strikes if there is a risk civilians may be hit, he said. According to Warren, that standard frequently is not met. The United States has conducted more than 3,768 strikes in Iraq as of Nov.ÂÂ 19, according to the U.S. military, and the tempo of strikes has increased lately, U.S. officials say.
But it also appears that the fighters are unaware when they do receive U.S. air support. The U.S. military reported near-daily strikes in support of the offensive to recapture Baiji last month and continues to respond regularly to requests for strikes in the vicinity, Warren said.
[In the fight against the Islamic State, Iraq’s leader begins to look shaky]
The fighters there insist there have been no strikes by the Americans at all. “We’d be better off without them,†said 1st Lt. Murtada Fadl, who is serving with the Iraqi elite forces in Baiji. He said that the only air support had come from the Iraqi air force and that he wishes the government would ask the Russians to replace the Americans.
In a part of the world where outcomes are often confused with intentions and regional complexities enable conspiracy theories to thrive, the notion that the United States is colluding with the Islamic State holds a certain logic, according to Mustafa Alani, director of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. Most Arabs are too in awe of American might to believe that the United States is deliberately adopting a minimalist approach, he said.
“The reason is that the Americans aren’t doing the job people expect them to do,†he said. “Mosul was lost and the Americans did nothing. Syria was lost and the Americans did nothing. Paris is attacked and the Americans aren’t doing much. So people believe this is a deliberate policy. They can’t believe the American leadership fails to understand the developments in the region, and so the only other explanation is that this is part of a conspiracy.â€
On the streets of Baghdad, most Iraqis see no other explanation.
“The image of the U.S. was damaged in the region, so they created Daesh in order to fight them and restore their image,†said Mohammed Abdul Khaleq, a journalist for a local TV station who was drinking coffee in a cafe favored by writers, most of whom said they agreed.
A rare dissenting voice was offered by Hassan Abdul-Wahab, 23, selling luggage in a nearby shop. “It is true that most people believe that,†he said. “But it’s not based on reason. It’s based on racism — because Iraqis don’t like Americans in the first place.â€
Did these tweets encourage a Chicago teen to try joining the Islamic State?
Why the Islamic State leaves tech companies torn between free speech and security
With fight against the Islamic State in Iraq stalled, U.S. looks to Syria for gains | 1 | [
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FMD2458 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday China would see “very bad consequences†for its economy and bilateral U.S. relations if it backs away from its stated goals to open its markets and rebalance its economy toward consumer-led growth. Lew, in an interview with Reuters in Seoul, said he would “keep the pressure†on Chinese officials during talks in Beijing next week to stick to their reform commitments and execute pledges to reduce excess industrial capacity that is distorting world markets. China faces diminished economic prospects in the medium and long term if it fails to continue its reforms, Lew said. “Frankly, if China takes a time-out or a step back on the reform agenda, that will have very bad consequences for China’s economy and it will flow over and not be good in terms of our bilateral economic relations,†Lew said. The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings on June 6-7 in Beijing come at a time of increasing trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The U.S. Commerce Department has recently imposed steep anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on a wide-range of Chinese steel products, while U.S. business groups have complained about new Chinese regulations they say favor local firms. Meanwhile, the Chinese yuan is plumbing five-year lows against the dollar, raising concerns about the potential for another devaluation as the Federal Reserve prepares to resume interest rate increases after pausing for the past few months. Lew said China had largely been keeping its G20 commitments to avoid competitive currency devaluations, adding that its action in recent months to spend reserves to support the yuan, also known as the renminbi or RMB, have been consistent with those commitments. “China’s intervention in the last year has not been to devalue but it’s been largely to support the RMB,†Lew said. “I think the test of whether China’s moved decisively in an orderly way to a more market-oriented exchange rate is whether they’re willing to tolerate movement in both directions.†Likewise, Lew said South Korea also needed to resist temptations to intervene in currency markets when there is upward pressure on the won. He said Seoul had refrained from active interventions for the past six to nine months. “We have made it clear that we’ve recognized that. But we’ve also said that that has to be a durable policy. It has to be a policy that can withstand pressure when markets are going in both directions,†he said. He said South Korea’s interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade bloc, assuming the deal is ratified, would provide an incentive to improve its exchange rate policy. A currency side-agreement to the TPP would require transparency in interventions and commitments to avoid interventions to gain trade advantages. The U.S.-China economic and foreign policy talks in Beijing will also provide a forum to air U.S. business groups’ concerns about regulations in China that they say favor domestic firms. For example, foreign insurers have raised concerns about new cyber security regulations that require “secure and controllable†information technology. “Whether it’s an anti-monopoly law, or a national security law, if it’s being either designed or implemented in a way that’s designed to create undue burdens on foreign competition, that’s problematic,†Lew said. Lew said it was important for the next U.S. president to continue the Strategic and Economic Dialogue because otherwise such disputes may not be discussed on a bilateral basis. At a separate meeting on Friday with South Korean Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho, Lew said that coordinated global action was needed to increase pressure on North Korea to drop its pursuit of nuclear weapons. A senior Treasury official said that this would require additional actions by China to adhere to new sanctions aimed at cutting off North Korea from the international financial system until it changes its behavior. | 1 | [
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FMD2459 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was the Oval Office Trashed During the Capitol Riot? Claim summaries: Damage done to areas of the Capitol during a pro-Trump siege was quite real.
contextual information: On Jan. 7, 2021, a day after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., a picture began circulating on social media that supposedly showed damage done to the Oval Office. This is not a genuine photograph of a desecrated Oval Office, and the picture predates the riot. It should also be noted that the Oval Office is located in the White House, not the Capitol. While the Capitol was vandalized during the riot, no damage was done to the White House. The image in question has been circulating online since at least November 2020, when it was shared on social media along with messages mocking U.S. President Donald Trump in the wake of his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. This image was created by Nick den Boer, an animator, director, and digital artist who posts on social media under the handle @smearballz. This image, along with three others depicting a tarnished Oval Office, was originally posted on Twitter on Nov. 8, 2020, the day after Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, along with the caption: "Aftermath." Another set of similar images depicting a trashed Oval Office was posted to @Smearballs' Instagram page in November 2019. Den Boer explained that the images are all 3D models of the Oval Office. While this is a digital creation that does not depict any actual damage done to the Oval Office, the Capitol was truly vandalized during a mob riot that resulted in the deaths of five people. NBC News reported that hundreds of President Donald Trump's supporters swarmed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, leaving the halls of Congress with broken windows, vandalized walls, and ransacked offices. Among the wreckage were pieces of broken furniture, battered doors, and heaps of trash littering the hallway floors. A thick film of dust and tear gas residue remained throughout the building that contains the Senate and the House of Representatives. Stolen and damaged items were reported in elected officials' offices, including the wood and gold placard above House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office. Updated [8 January 2021]: Article updated to credit the original artist. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2460 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Getting more Americans to enroll for health insurance under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law known as Obamacare is a top priority of his administration until President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, the White House said on Thursday. “We would be focused on ... maximizing the opportunity that currently is available for millions of Americans to go to healthcare.gov during the open enrollment period and sign up for healthcare,†White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a news briefing. Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, tweeted on Thursday that Nov. 9 was HealthCare.gov’s best day with 100,000 sign-ups since it began selling the 2017 Obamacare plans on Nov. 1. The government’s goal is for more than 13.8 million sign-ups initially. Trump has said that he plans to repeal Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. Insurers have said that 2017 Obamacare plans will remain in place and that any changes would affect 2018 plans. Earnest said that people should not worry about what could happen to the healthcare exchanges under the Trump administration. “These are benefits that are available to them today. We certainly would encourage people to sign up and capitalize on the good opportunity that’s there,†he said. Obama met with Trump on Thursday for the first time in a one-on-one, 90-minute meeting in the White House Oval Office. Trump also released a review of his goals to overhaul healthcare on his website, reiterating that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s pledge to repeal Obamacare may not be easy. He does not have the votes in Congress for an outright repeal and will have to cut away at its financing first, health policy experts say. | 1 | [
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FMD2461 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Embattled Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore led his Democratic opponent by six percentage points in a CBS News poll released on Sunday, with most Alabama Republicans saying the allegations of sexual misconduct against him are false. Moore was leading Democrat Doug Jones 49 to 43 percent among voters likely to cast ballots in the Dec. 12 special election, CBS said. The contest was even among registered voters, it said. Republican lawmakers in Washington, including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, have distanced themselves from Moore and called for him to step down from the race after he was accused by several women of sexual assault and misconduct when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s. Reuters has not been able to independently verify the allegations. But McConnell said on Sunday that if Moore is elected, the Senate will swear him in and then the Senate ethics committee would decide whether to investigate the allegations. “We’ll swear in whoever’s elected and see where we are at that point,†McConnell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.†“We can’t stop him from being seated,†said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who was also interviewed on CBS. “If there was an (ethics) investigation and all six members of the committee said they believe he was a child molester, that would be a problem.†According to the CBS poll, 71 percent of Alabama Republicans say the allegations against Moore are false, and believe that Democrats and the media are behind the accusations. Another poll a day earlier had Jones barely ahead. The Washington Post-Schar School poll said Jones’ support among likely voters stood at 50 percent, versus Moore’s 47 percent. President Donald Trump originally backed Moore’s opponent in the Republican primary, Senator Luther Strange. But Trump has since defended Moore, noting Moore has denied allegations of sexual misconduct. The president says he does not want Moore’s Democratic opponent to win. Trump is slated to travel to a rally in Pensacola, Florida on Friday — a city just across the state line from Alabama — just days ahead of the Alabama election. The timing and location gives Trump an opportunity to express support for Moore. Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate and are eager to maintain their advantage to advance Trump’s legislative agenda on taxes, healthcare and other priorities. | 1 | [
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FMD2462 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Are Lukoil Gas Stations 'Russian Owned'? Claim summaries: Americans outraged by Russia's invasion of Ukraine called for a boycott of Lukoil gas stations in the U.S.
contextual information: During Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, American social media users enthusiastically shared posts that called for a boycott of Lukoil gas stations on the East Coast, on the basis that they were Russian owned. As one very widely shared tweet summarized: social media users enthusiastically shared posts called boycott Russian summarized "#BoycottRussia. Lukoil gas is Russian owned." wrote "Fill your tank elsewhere. Lukoil is a Russian multinational corporation headquartered in Moscow. Their CEO, Vagit Alekperov, is a Russian oligarch worth an estimated $19.6 billion. Lukoil gas stations are all over PA, NJ and NY." These posts undoubtedly contained a significant element of truth. Lukoil is indeed a large Russian-headquartered multinational petroleum and natural gas producer, with a U.S. subsidiary that oversees a network of gas stations, primarily in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Moreover, the company's billionaire president, Vagit Alekperov, has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. has ties However, Lukoil typically does not operate those U.S. gas stations itself. Rather, it operates on a franchise basis, meaning any successful boycott of Lukoil-branded gas stations would likely have a negligible effect on the parent company or its billionaire president, but could prove financially devastating for dozens of U.S. franchise owners and their hundreds of local employees. In brief, Lukoil itself might be "Russian owned," but its U.S. gas stations are U.S.-operated and locally staffed. As such, we're issuing a rating of "Mixture." Lukoil emerged from the dissolving Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and entered the American market a decade later. According to the company's website, Lukoil acquired the American company Getty Oil in 2000, taking over and rebranding its existing network of gas stations. the company's website The first Lukoil-branded gas station was opened in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in September, 2003. Notably, the grand opening was attended by Putin himself who was in the U.S. at that time for talks with then-President George W. Bush. In the photograph below, Putin can be seen outside the Manhattan Lukoil, with Alekperov to his right, and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to his left: attended by Putin himself Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov (L) listen as U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) (R) gestures as he speaks about U.S.-Russian relations during the opening of Lukoil's gasoline station September 26, 2003 in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Lukoil, a Russian oil company, acquired Getty Petroleum Marketing Inc. and its 1,300 stations in November 2000. (Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images) At the time, Lukoil was reported to have taken over Getty's existing network of 1,300 gas stations, but by 2022, the number of Lukoil-branded gas stations in the United States had declined to around 230 most, if not all, located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Importantly, most if not all of those gas stations are operated as franchises. Franchising is a popular business model in the United States, with the best-known examples being fast food restaurants such as McDonald's and convenience stores like 7-Eleven. popular business model in the United States Roughly speaking, the franchisee (local entrepreneur) pays the franchisor (main company) some fees: typically an up-front franchise fee, and regular royalties usually a percentage cut of their income from sales. In return, the franchisor gives the franchisee the right to operate a business using their well-known brand, for a defined period of time, usually several years. The company might also provide advice or assistance with logistics, advertising, marketing, and so on. The local entrepreneur is also contractually obliged to operate the business in accordance with certain prescribed methods, customer service models, and so on. Lukoil or more specifically, Lukoil North America, a Delaware-registered LLC with an address in Moorestown, New Jersey offers three-year leases to franchisees in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. In fact, as of March 2, the company's website listed for lease 13 different gas station sites in those states: Lukoil North America, a Delaware-registered LLC 13 different gas station sites offer to lease" document The aforementioned Bidder is submitting the below rental offer to lease the LUKOIL branded service station listed above, and is prepared to enter into an Agreement with LNA for the lease of the same, subject to the conditions specified below. The lease term is generally three (3) years, however a longer term can be approved, at LNA's discretion, provided a sufficient site improvement or supply commitment is made to justify a longer term. Google post "LUKOIL gas stations in the United States are independently owned and operated by local business owners who are members of the communities they serve, and 100% of the gasoline and diesel fuel sold is sourced from American oil refiners." Snopes asked Lukoil for details on the exact number of Lukoil-branded gas stations in the United States, and the number of those operated on a franchise basis, if not all. We also asked for precise details about the company's revenue from franchise fees, royalties and/or rent paid by U.S. franchisees, but we did not receive a response in time for publication. However, Lukoil's 2021 financial results, which were published on March 2, gave an indication of the relatively small role of U.S. gas station revenue in the company's overall income, most of which stems from oil and gas exploration and production inside Russia. Lukoil's 2021 financial results In 2021, according to Lukoil, the company had total sales of 9.4 trillion rubles ($88 billion), and its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were 1.4 trillion rubles ($13 billion). Of that $13 billion, just 8.3% ($1 billion) was made up of "refining, marketing and distribution" outside Russia. Although a more detailed breakdown is not available, it is reasonable to suppose that income related specifically to U.S. gas stations made up an even smaller fraction of that $1 billion, given that Lukoil refines, markets, and distributes petroleum in several other countries throughout the world. It's also not clear whether, in the event of an effective widespread boycott of U.S. Lukoil-branded gas stations, franchisees would still be obliged to continue paying fees and rent to Lukoil North America even if they had no income from gas or convenience store sales. Therefore, a successful boycott could require financial devastation if not ruination among many dozens of local entrepreneurs in the United States, as well as sudden unemployment for their hundreds of workers, in order to achieve what would be only a very small financial impact on the Russian parent company, or its bosses in Moscow. On March 3, Lukoil's board of directors issued a statement in which they expressed their "deepest concerns about the tragic events in Ukraine," and called for an immediate end to the conflict and a "lasting ceasefire." issued a statement Maass, Peter. The Triumph of the Quiet Tycoon. The New York Times, 1 Aug. 2004. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/magazine/the-triumph-of-the-quiet-tycoon.html. PRESS RELEASE MARCH 02, 2022 LUKOIL RELEASES FINANCIAL RESULTS UNDER IFRS FOR 2021 PJSC LUKOIL Today Released Its Audited Consol. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AnFU75r0Wkh4J%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.lukoil.com%2Fapi%2Fpresscenter%2Fexportpressrelease%3Fid%3D577486+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us. Accessed 3 Mar. 2022. Updated [March 4, 2022]: Added reference to the Lukoil board of directors March 3 statement about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | 2 | [
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FMD2463 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: By now, everyone has seen the monstrosity that is the GOP Senate s so-called healthcare bill. At its core, it really is just a huge tax cut for the rich at the expense of the healthcare of poor, elderly, sick, and disabled Americans. We have all watched how disabled members of ADAPT, a decades-old disability rights organization that is largely responsible for the modern day Americans With Disabilities Act, were dragged bodily from their wheelchairs and other medical devices from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell s (R-KY) office, all for exercising their First Amendment rights to protest the inhumane stripping of their life-saving care.We ve been talking about the political price of all of this for years. The GOP is in power, and they are determined to do what they have been wanting to do for the last seven years, which is take the healthcare President Barack Obama gave the nation away. They want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. However, what we haven t been talking about is the real effects of all of this on real people.Mike Phillips appeared on MSNBC s The Last Word with Lawrence O Donnell, with Ari Melber sitting in for Lawrence, on Friday night. Mike had a pre-typed statement; you see, he cannot move or speak, but he can move his fingers long enough to communicate via a computer. It takes a very long time, though, and thus his statement was pre-written. His mother, Karen, takes care of him full time. He also has a personal caregiver. Many of these services are provided through Medicaid, which the cruel GOP massive tax cut for rich people healthcare bill cuts.If this bill becomes law, Mike and those like him and others living with all kinds of disabilities will be relegated to substandard nursing homes or institutions. Mike s mother explained that there is no facility in Florida, where they live, that is equipped to deal with Mike s needs. Therefore, not only would Mike be ripped from his home and loved ones, he d have to be shipped away to some institution for people with severe disabilities in another state, where his family would either have to relocate, or he d be surrounded by strangers, completely helpless and unable to speak out if he is being neglected or mistreated.One might ask the same question, Karen, Mike s mother asks in the video you are about to watch how could this country treat its citizens this way? How could they harm and drag people from wheelchairs for standing up for their rights? How can they take healthcare from the most vulnerable among us?I ll tell you how. It s because Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell exist and they are in charge, that s how. Paul Ryan admitted that he has been dreaming of ripping Medicaid to shreds since he was at college keggers, despite the fact that he used Social Security to get through college after his father died. He might have a pathological hatred of social programs now, but he wouldn t be where he is today without them. Mitch McConnell had polio as a child and grew up dirt poor. While he didn t get government care, he still recovered due to the kindness of strangers at a facility built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In other words, without help, McConnell would be poor, disabled, and likely in some kind of facility. However, thanks to this outside help. he somehow made it, and has spent his entire career outrunning his past as a poor kid with a disability. He s still running, as his number one mission in life is to deny the type of kind, compassionate care he received in his hour of need to those in similar situations today. These two men don t care who they hurt along the way they just want to prove that who they are now has nothing to do with how they grew up.In other words, the two most powerful men in America are also the most dangerous to the most vulnerable Americans. They are out to prove that folks who didn t or couldn t pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or those who they believe are not properly contributing don t deserve to live and eat like the rest of us.Think the GOP isn t heartless? Watch the video below for your proof. Thank you, Mike and Karen, for sharing your story. Without further ado, here you are:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 | [
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FMD2464 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Over two dozen people were injured in clashes on Friday between Honduran security forces and protesters demanding a vote recount for last month s contentious and still unresolved presidential election, according to the Red Cross. Supporters of the center-left Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, led by TV star Salvador Nasralla, set fire to tires across the country, blocking major thoroughfares in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the second city of San Pedro Sula. Police and soldiers responded with tear gas to rock-throwing protesters who set fire to a vehicle for carrying soldiers in Tegucigalpa. Near San Pedro Sula, protesters blocked a road leading to the key Puerto Cortes port, before being moved on by security forces. The Honduran branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that 27 people had been injured in the clashes. At least five of those injured in the northern city of Villanueva, near San Pedro Sula, had been shot, it said. Honduras has been roiled by political instability in the wake of the Nov. 26 vote, which remains unresolved. Nasralla trails conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the official count, which has been questioned by the two main opposition parties and a wide swathe of the diplomatic corps. Honduras electoral tribunal said on Sunday that a partial recount of votes showed broadly the same result as previously, maintaining Hernandez s lead. It has until Dec. 26 to declare a winner. Last week, Honduras two main opposition parties presented formal requests to annul the results of the election. | 1 | [
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FMD2465 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The White House plans to ask the U.S. Congress for a third round of disaster aid in mid-November as the costs continue to pour in for helping rebuild after hurricanes, but Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has told lawmakers he wants to see spending cuts elsewhere. Mulvaney said the federal government is assessing how much it will cost to help Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands rebuild after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria caused massive damages in August and September. Mulvaney expects the damages to add up to “several tens of billions of dollars,†he said in a letter to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell dated Tuesday. “As we move toward the longer-term issue of rebuilding the impacted areas of our nation, we believe that it is appropriate that the Congress consider reducing spending elsewhere in order to offset what will, again, be a significant amount of unbudgeted spending,†Mulvaney said in the letter. President Donald Trump is slated to receive a briefing on hurricane recovery efforts later on Wednesday in Dallas, where he is attending fundraising events. The Office of Management and Budget has drawn up a preliminary list of more than $5.5 billion in unspent funds that could be cut, Mulvaney said in a separate letter to lawmakers on Senate and House appropriations committees. The list includes $4.3 billion from an Energy Department loan program for advanced technology vehicle manufacturing and almost $730 million in funds no longer needed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for projects related to Hurricane Sandy recovery, Mulvaney said. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2466 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: US is now trying to set up the colour revolutions matrix ahead of Russia's 2018 Presidential elections. They probe our weaknesses and then they start to buy bloggers and buy [social media] communities.
Take Greenpeace for example. They work everywhere else but not in the US. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2467 | 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 the CDC claimed that anyone entering a hospital is identified as a COVID-19 case? Claim summaries: Some rumors about hospital practices during the 2020 pandemic proved almost too wild to be true.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As hospitals continued to be overwhelmed in 2020 by a surge in COVID-19 cases across the United States, false information surrounding the management of the disease and patients continued to circulate. overwhelmed One post in particular, shared on our Facebook group, Snopes Tips, claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement alleging that "anyone who walks into the hospital is counted as a Covid case, no matter why they come to the hospital, as the government pays the hospital extra money. post There are two parts to this claim: Firstly, that hospitals are inflating their COVID-19 numbers, and secondly, that the government is allocating more funds based on coronavirus cases. Snopes covered the second part of the claim back in April. We learned that it was possible that Medicare was paying hospital fees for some COVID-19 cases, but Medicare stated that it does not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and placed on ventilators. covered The CDC highlighted in a statement how the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), the Paycheck Protection Program, and Health Care Enhancement Act provided $175 billion in relief funds to hospitals and healthcare providers on the front lines of the coronavirus response: highlighted In the first round of the High Impact Allocation, $12 billion was distributed to nearly 400 hospitals who provided inpatient care for 100 or more COVID-19 patients through April 10, 2020. $2 billion of these payments was distributed to these hospitals based on their Medicare disproportionate share and uncompensated care payments. In the second round of funding, $10 billion will be distributed to hospitals having over 161 COVID-19 admissions between January 1 and June 10, 2020. For the first part of the claim, we looked through CDC statements and reports about people admitted to hospitals around the country and were unable to find a case where the CDC said that the hospital was inflating its COVID-19 case numbers in order to get more money. We reached out to the CDC, and the agency referred us to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), but did not confirm whether it had ever made such a statement about hospitals counting everyone who enters as a COVID-19 case. U.S. President Donald Trump promoted another version of this conspiracy theory at a rally in October, where he said hospitals were inflating the numbers of COVID-19 deaths, and was roundly debunked by news outlets and rejected in a statement by the American College of Emergency Physicians. promoted debunked statement To imply that emergency physicians would inflate the number of deaths from this pandemic to gain financially is offensive, especially as many are actually under unprecedented financial strain as they continue to bear the brunt of COVID-19. These baseless claims not only do a disservice to our health care heroes but promulgate the dangerous wave of misinformation which continues to hinder our nations efforts to get the pandemic under control and allow our nation to return to normalcy. The dire situation in hospitals paints a very different picture, far-removed from claims that they are profiting financially from the pandemic. A New York Times report from Nov. 27, 2020, highlighted how surging coronavirus numbers were resulting in a crisis-level shortage of beds and staff around the country. In some cases, hospitals were facing shortages in protective equipment, forcing healthcare workers to buy their own. As of Dec. 3, 2020, hospitalizations from the virus topped 100,000 an all-time high since the pandemic began. New York Times Dec. 3, 2020 An April Washington Post report described how hospitals were also suffering from financial losses on account of their deferring or cancelling non-urgent surgeries to free up bed space for the pandemic, cutting off income, and forcing them to lay off workers. At the time, relief packages for hospitals were widely described as insufficient. Washington Post financial losses insufficient Hospital-reported data on COVID-19 patients have addressed a range of issues around the country. A July 2020 ProPublica report detailed how the Trump administration had told hospitals to stop reporting data to the CDC and instead report it to HHS. The move resulted in widespread confusion. While the number of infected patients was soaring nationally, for a period of time it was unclear how many were being treated in hospitals for COVID-19. A few states like Idaho and South Carolina experienced temporary information blackouts, and the COVID Tracking Project reported issues with its figures. July 2020 A Nov. 29, 2020, investigation by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) magazine found the federal system for tracking COVID-19 patients was continuing to carry questionable data. HHS collected hospital patient data in two ways through HHS Protect, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Their two sources of data on the usage of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds for COVID patients conflicted sharply in at least six states. HHS data also diverged sharply from state-supplied data, and showed that over the last two months, COVID-19 in-patient tally in 14 states was consistently lower than HHS Protects. investigation consistently In at least 27 states, the tally was alternating between being lower and higher than HHS. And recently, in 16 states, the tallies grew closer. The over-arching conclusion for this analysis was that hospitals are going to be over-stressed in the upcoming months, with inaccurate information systems in place. We have reached out to the HHS to learn more, and will update this post with more information. Additionally, if the language of the claim is taken at face value, CDC guidance for hospitals references providing necessary in-person clinical services for conditions other than COVID-19 in the safest way possible, minimizing disease transmission to patients [...]. This leads to the conclusion that the CDC itself is not stating that hospitals are classifying everyone who walks in as a COVID-19 case. guidance While it is true that the government did provide relief funds in various forms for COVID-19 cases to hospitals in need of aid, little evidence exists that numbers were being inflated by hospitals for this reason. We thus rate this claim as false. | 0 | [
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FMD2468 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Is it any wonder veterans are getting behind Donald J. Trump in huge numbers? Isn t it about time we took care of our veterans the way they deserve to be taken care of? The VA under the Obama administration has never been more dysfunctional and corrupt. Hillary is nothing more than Obama in a pants suit. Our veterans deserver better than 4 more years of the most disrespectful Commander In Chief our nation has ever known. This corrupt VA has to be completely overhauled. Every American should demand nothing less!Hundreds of veterans have died while waiting to get care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, all while the department spent millions of taxpayer dollars on high-end art.According to an investigation by COX Media Washington, D.C. and American Transparency, the VA has spent $20 million on high-end art over the last 10 years, $16 million of that spent during President Obama s tenure.The investigation found one particularly egregious example: $670,000 combined spent on two sculptures at a VA center for the blind.Other examples include $21,000 spent on an artificial Christmas tree, $610,000 spent over five years for a new facility in Puerto Rico and more than a million dollars combined on three art projects in Palo Alto, Calif. Instead of hiring doctors to help triage backlogged veterans, the VA s bonus-happy bureaucracy spent millions of dollars on art, Andrew Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, writes in Forbes. Washington Examiner | 0 | [
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FMD2469 | 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 'New York Times' writes this long story about Donald Trumps tax returns but didn't point out there was no wrongdoing until paragraph 18.
contextual information: Making the rounds on the Sunday shows, Rudy Giuliani defended Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the wake of aNew York Timesstory detailing how Trump reported a$916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returnsand potentially avoided having to pay income tax for 18 years. This is perfectly legal, and theTimesmakes that point about 26 paragraphs into the opinion. Giuliani said on CNNsState of the Union. OnMeet the Press, Giuliani made the same point. TheNew York Timeswrites this long story, and then somewhere around paragraph 18, they point out there was no wrongdoing. So did theNew York Timesbury the news that what Trump did was legal? No. Heres the first sentence of the story. Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him tolegallyavoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained byThe New York Timesshow. Image taken from the New York Times website. Well keep this short and sweet. Giulianis claim is not accurate. It rates False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/18b969c4-f93b-4b71-b4a7-04001126c5f4 | 0 | [
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FMD2470 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: University of Michigan is located in Ann Arbor, MI, and is home to over 43,000 students. Students at U of M and residents of Ann Arbor can purchase legal marijuana on just about every corner. But purchasing legal cigarettes just became a problem for anyone under the age of 21, despite a state law that allows anyone 18 years of age or older to purchase legal tobacco products in the state of Michigan. Why, and how can a city council make these kinds of emotional decisions that supersede state law? Because liberals always know what s best for you There is no room for discussion. Decisions made by progressive government officials don t have to be based on logic, or in this case, on state law; they just have to have enough emotion behind them to sway their comrades on the city council. This story is a perfect example of why Americans need to know who is running for city council in their hometowns and major cities when election time comes around The Ann Arbor City Council last week voted for an ordinance that will ban the sale of tobacco products to people under 21, making it the first city in Michigan to raise the legal purchasing age from 18.Kai Petainen, an Ann Arbor resident who attended the city council meeting, said he recently went to a funeral of a 23-year-old who died from a drug overdose. That friend used tobacco as a gateway drug, he said. It s a funeral of a person who died at only 23 and it was from an overdose. That person began using tobacco at a young age, and eventually they were using other drugs as well, he said. Tobacco use can lead to other drugs and it can and does destroy lives. Tobacco shops in Ann Arbor have said the ordinance will drive customers out of the city.The Council voted 9-2 on Aug. 4 for an ordinance sponsored by Council Member Julie Grand, a Democrat representing the city s 3rd Ward.Ann Arbor officials were explicit about their lack of concern with whether the ordinance conflicts with state law, and that they hope the rest of the state follows the city s lead. The tobacco lobby has inflicted enough misery on this country and I m happy to do anything we can to play a leadership role on this effort in Michigan, Kirk Westphal, a Democratic council member from the 2nd Ward said, according to The Ann Arbor News. It s particularly important to me, said Council Member Chip Smith, a Democrat from the 5th Ward. But really what compels me to support this is the fact that Ann Arbor is a leader in things, and this is exactly the type of thing we should be leading on, and I m very happy to support this. In addition to the apparent conflict with a state law preempting local regulations, critics of the ordinance are concerned that its effect would be to send people under 21 to neighboring cities like Ypsilanti or Canton to buy tobacco products.Jack Eaton, a Democrat from the 4th Ward, and Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Ward, voted against the ordinance. According to The Ann Arbor News, they cited Michigan s Tobacco Products Tax Act of 1993 as the cause for their concern.The act says municipalities shall not impose any new requirement or prohibition pertaining to the sale or licensure of tobacco products for distribution purposes. MICapConThis new ordinance that will prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone under the age of 21 years, goes hand-in-hand with the University of Michigan s NO SMOKING ANYWHERE ON CAMPUS law that went into effect on July 1, 2011.Watch the idiocy of this intrusive campus law explained here:Meanwhile, Michigan State University just made it ILLEGAL to SMOKE TOBACCO IN YOUR OWN PRIVATE VEHICLE as long as you are on campus property!Beginning on Aug. 15, a new tobacco-free policy at Michigan State University will make drivers subject to a $150 fine for choosing to smoke or chew tobacco while traveling on public roads that cross the school s East Lansing campus.The ordinance was passed by the board of trustees on June 17, 2015. Its effective date was set for more than a year later on Aug. 15, 2016. A new policy is an effective, cost-efficient way to protect the health of the campus community and encourage tobacco users to reduce or eliminate consumption, thus increasing life, longevity and vitality, the MSU tobacco-free website states. Most tobacco users want to quit, and tobacco-free environments encourage users to quit and help them maintain a tobacco and nicotine free status. Students and MSU employees could face additional sanctions. Students who continually violate the ordinance could face sanction through the student judicial system, and employees could face repercussions via Human Resources (just as students and employees could for violating any MSU ordinance), Cody said.The ban also extends to the use of e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco on campus, including inside a private vehicle. | 0 | [
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FMD2471 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Three people were arrested early on Sunday after an attempted arson attack at a synagogue in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, prosecutors said. There were no reports of injuries and the fire did not reach the synagogue or an adjacent meeting house where Jewish youths had gathered when the attack took place late on Saturday, Swedish media reported. Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in a statement he was outraged by the attack. There is no place for anti-Semitism in Swedish society, he said in the statement, which also referred to a demonstration in the city of Malmo on Friday, at which Lofven said participants had incited violence against Jews. Swedish newspapers reported that around 200 people had attended Friday s demonstration at which some participants chanted anti-Jewish slogans, two days after the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israel s capital. The World Jewish Congress, which represents Jewish communities in 100 countries, also condemned the attack on the Swedish synagogue. The Swedish Security Service said it was helping the police in the investigation and was also trying to prevent new attacks. | 1 | [
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FMD2472 | 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: Groom's wedding attire Claim summaries: Did a man lists his ex-wife's wedding dress on eBay with a hilarious offer of sale?
contextual information: Claim: A man listed a wedding gown on eBay via a hilarious offer of sale that included photos of him posing in the dress. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] For Sale: One Slightly Used Size 12 Wedding Gown. Only worn twice: Once at the wedding and once for these pictures. Make: Victoria Style: 611 Size: 12 Divorce forces sale I found my ex-wife's wedding dress in the attic when I moved. She took the $4000 engagement ring but left the dress. I was actually going to have a dress burning party when the divorce became final, but my sister talked me out of it. She said, "Thats such a gorgeous dress. Some lucky girl would be glad to have it. You should sell it on EBay. At least get something back for it." So, this is what Im doing. Im selling it hoping to get enough money for maybe a couple of Mariners tickets and some beer. This dress cost me $1200 that my drunken sot of an ex-father-in-law swore up and down he would pay for but didnt so I got stuck with the bill. Luckily I only got stuck with his daughter for 5 years. Thank the Lord we didn't have kids. If they would have turned out like her or her family I would have slit my wrists. Anyway, its a really nice dress as you can see in the pictures. Personally, I think it looks like a $1200 shower curtain, but what do I know about this. We tried taking pictures of this lovely white garment but it didnt look right on the hanger as you can see, so my sister says, "You need a model." Well, quite frankly my sister isnt exactly small, (like a size 12 is?) so she wouldnt pose for the picture. Seeing as I have sworn off women for the time being and I aint friends with any, it left me holding the bag. I took the liberty of blacking out my face - not to protect the ex-wife but to protect me from my bar buddies and co-workers finding out about it. I would never live it down. Actually I didnt think my head would fit in the neck hole, but then I figured she got her Texas cheerleader hair through there I could get my head in it. Though, after looking at the pictures, I thought it made me look fat. How do you women wear this crap? I only had to walk 3 feet and I tripped twice. Dont worry ladies - I am wearing clothes on underneath it. I gotta say it did make me feel very pretty. So if it can make me feel pretty, it can make you feel pretty, especially on the most important day of your life, right? Anyway, I was told to say it has a train and a veil and all kinds of shiny beady things. I think it's funny that one picture makes it look like the chest plate off an Imperial Storm Trooper. Did I mention that all I want is a ball game and beer? Cheap at twice the price. Ladies, you wont regret this. You may regret the dude you marry but not the dress. Just a little side note - As I was putting this ad in EBay, it asked me for a color. Is a wedding dress any other freaking color than white or ivory??!! If it is it wouldn't be a wedding dress, now would it?? I suppose black would work... On Apr-26-04 at 10:38:31 PDT, seller added the following information: Well, the auction is a little over half over and I am just amazed. This thing has taken more hits than that pothead that lives in the next building. Man, oh man, if hits were bucks Id be getting a suite at Safeco. I also have received TONS of email. I dont have the time to reply to all of them but I just want to let everyone know that I appreciate the well wishes. Of the email I received: Five or so were invitations to ball games in other states. Two of those were for little league games. Do they have those cushy executive boxes with the free chicken wings at those? One email was from Scotland. Its a good thing he wrote it because I wouldnt be able to understand a word he said. Never did get through Braveheart. Most were thanking me for the laugh. Youre entirely welcome. Five years of misery was well worth the hearty guffaw that was my pleasure to give you. Oh, yeah. I also got three marriage proposals. Yes, you read it right - three marriage proposals. I feel like one of those mass murderers on death row. I never understood how the hell they got more chicks than I did. Now I know. They sold crap on eBay. On Apr-26-04 at 23:45:56 PDT, seller added the following information: Holy Moly! The hit counter is starting to look like the odometer in my truck! Not the new shiny black full-size 4-wheel-drive American pick-up that I had to part with, but the somewhat older, multicolored, lumpy, tiny, 2-wheel-drive foreign pick-up that belches smoke. A little something about that vehicle, though: its absolutely amazing! When I get inside it to go to the store, I am all depressed. But when I arrive at the store, Im so freaking loopy from inhaling the fumes, I forget why I went there in the first place. Im saving buckets of money. Of course, I will probably have to spend it all on the tuberculosis I will acquire, but hey, you cant have everything. I felt compelled to update this ad once more due to all of your emails. The first thing I have to say is thank you all for your support in my time of need. It was a truly harrowing experience. Some of you men know exactly what I mean. Seeing as this has turned into my little public forum, I just want to address a few of the emails that kind of left me scratching my head. I now have five marriage proposals. You would think my speaking of the ones I already got yesterday would have put a damper on it, but you women sure are persistent. One woman actually said she doesnt want to marry me, but wouldnt mind being my ex-wife. Hmmm. Let me think about that. Nope. No thanks, already got one. (Pssst. Didnt I mention I had one? Who wants an ex-wife that cant read? Now, I know what you guys are thinking - "If she cant read, then the divorce would be smooth sailing." Well, that would be all well and good but I didnt say her ATTORNEY couldnt read. You following me on this?) Other emails are serious buyers asking about the dress. "How long is the train?" and "Does the gown come with the headdress and veil?" Yes, headdress and veil are included, but the do-rag stays with me. And if the train was long enough for my exs caboose, its long enough for yours. You will have to supply your own baggage, though. I gave mine to Goodwill. There was this one woman who wrote, "You should have covered your tattoos. People will be able to recognize you, like on Americas Most Wanted." HELLO!!! Im a guy selling a dress. Im not wanted for war crimes. Some of your emails made me laugh. Like the bitter woman that wished she had her exs testicles to sell on eBay. Im not too sure theres a market for that, though. Then there was the guy that gave his wifes wedding dress to the Salvation Army by mistake, thinking it was a Christmas tree. Guess he didnt have any Christmas balls that year. This has also been a learning experience for me. I got a lot of messages correcting me about the color of wedding dresses. For Russian Orthodox, they are blue. For Chinese they are red. Mexico has multi-colored ones. All I know is, for my next wedding I will be wearing a hairy, flesh-toned ensemble because I will be buck naked with a toe tag lying on a slab in the morgue because I would have killed myself. A lot of folks were asking me if I wear womens dresses a lot. I can honestly say that this is the first time I have ever donned female attire. Its also the first time Ive been inside something feminine that didnt nag me to take out the garbage. It seems a few people have taken offense to my inferring a size 12 is big. One male even pointed out that Marilyn Monroe was a size 14. Now, I would agree with you that size 12/14 is small if I lived elsewhere. But I live right here in the good old 48 Contiguous, where binging and purging is a way of life. American women do not want to be double digits in size. Just ask any woman what size they want to be. Invariably they will say five or seven. Wealthy will be the person that opens a store for Lane Bryant-sized women but sews size 7 tags on all the clothes. On the flip side of that, I have taken offense to some of the people that told me Im ugly and a loser. All I have to say is youd be ugly too if you had a huge white blotch on your face. And as far as being a loser, I think you have it all wrong. I am such the winner. It isnt every day an average guy can make 50,000 people laugh. Thanks to each and every one of you from the heart of my bottom. Origins: The online auction powerhouse eBay has been the setting of many strange come-ons, some seriously meant and some far less so. In addition to a throng of earnest sellers and determined bargain hunters that frequent this popular online bazaar, it is also populated by its share of crazies intent upon sneaking their hoax listings into the marketplace. Consequently, one can't always tell fish from fowl at first glance. Over the years, our readers have queried us about various eBay auctions because they harbored suspicions about particular listings, either due to the nature of the goods being tendered or because something about the pitch struck them as not quite right (e.g.; an offer of a tea kettle, which displayed additional wares of the seller). Yet few of the auctions so doubted have been asked about as often as the April 2004 proffering of a size 12 Victoria wedding gown, an item that isn't in and of itself all that unusual. But it wasn't the dress that set people to wondering; it was the seller's comments, which appeared to afford a hilarious look into one man's private hell. The seller wasn't so much advertising a dress as he was proclaiming from a public soapbox how awful his wife had been. The auction listing was just as much about getting even as it was about unloading an item he had no particular use for. tea kettle Or was it? Had a gal with "Texas cheerleader hair" really so turned a man against marriage that he swore that "for my next wedding I will be wearing a hairy, flesh-toned ensemble because I will be buck naked with a toe tag lying on a slab in the morgue because I would have killed myself"? Herein rested the listing's appeal: The story was entertaining, but was it real? The solicitation was on the up and up, at least in regard to the nature of the merchandise being vended there was such a dress, and the offer of sale was genuine. However, some (if not all) of the gown's backstory was the stuff of fairy tales. The original eBay listing posted by 42-year-old Larry Star wasn't provoking much interest among those shopping for a wedding dress, so he rewrote it to make it amusing resulting in the posting that has served to make him famous. The tale of marital woe posted by this Brooklyn native both contained invented details and omitted key bits of information. Though he has a sister, she didn't talk him out of the dress burning party he had his heart set upon by suggesting he list the gown on eBay and so get something out of it. He also had an ex-wife prior to the one whose dress he supposedly was selling. (Star and his first missus were married in 1994, separated in 1996, and were divorced in 1998.) And contrary to his statement, "Thank the Lord we didn't have kids. If they would have turned out like her or her family I would have slit my wrists," he and his second wife did indeed have a son together during their short-lived marriage. The unhappy couple wed in 2000, separated in 2001 after a domestic kafuffle (which reportedly resulted in Star's being charged with domestic violence assault in the fourth degree and interfering with the reporting of domestic violence), and divorced in 2003. Though "five years of misery" might well have been worth the hearty guffaw he says was his pleasure to give the online community, those years weren't spent "stuck" with the "drunken sot's" daughter; his time cohabitating with Wife #2 amounted to just a bit more than a year. It's not known if the gown in question even belonged to his ex-wife, as she hasn't surfaced to speak publicly about the matter. Also, according to the Houston Chronicle, when asked if the dress had really been hers, Mr. Star sidestepped the question, instead replying, "I got the wedding dress, I wanted to get rid of it. I was going to burn it and had the idea of selling it on eBay. I needed to sell it on eBay with all the other dresses on there, and I needed to make it stand out." And stand out it did. The auction of the fabled wedding gown ended 28 April 2004 with a buyer using the online handle of "absolutsth" placing the winning bid of $3,850. Yet all is not coming up roses for the intrepid seller who one would assume to be realizing a profit of $2,650 on the gown he says cost originally $1,200, as the sale has fallen through. According to Star, the buyer has backed out, claiming "I left my computer on and somebody made the bid for me." The folks at eBay have told Star he can either accept the second-highest bid or re-list the dress and hold the sale again. As of 7 May 2004, he had not decided whether he would accept the next highest legitimate bid (if there even was a legitimate bid). By the time the auction ended, Star's listing on eBay had been viewed more than 5.8 million times. Some of those visitors, possibly caught up in the frenzy of it all, placed bids they did not intend to honor. (Officials at eBay had to weed out many phonies at one point the bidding reached $99 million.) How many of the remaining bids were legitimate is not known. And, even if all those bids were meant seriously at the time they were placed, some of those prospective buyers may now be having second thoughts, particularly those who offered more than $1,000 for a used, stained dress that was only worth $1,200 when it first came off the hanger. The ultimate fate of the frock may take it in a far different direction than down the aisle on the back of a budget-conscious bride. Its listing (which has now been viewed 11 million times) has brought recognition to its owner and has possibly opened the way to a new career for this software test designer and part-time musician. Thanks to the dress, Larry Star has twice been a guest on both MSNBC's Countdown and NBC's Today Show, each time wearing the unsold gown. Also thanks to the dress, he has made his debut as a stand-up comedian at the Punchline Comedy Club in Atlanta. He has said he would like to pursue a comedy writing career, and all this attention might well work to get that going. Though there are many stand-up comedians on the circuit, we know of none that perform their schtick outfitted in wedding regalia. Could this gown do for Star what a sledgehammer and a watermelon did for Gallagher? Barbara "smash hit" Mikkelson Additional Information: Weddingdressguy.com (Larry Star) Last updated: 3 July 2007 Sources: Brodeur, Nicole. "Fact Is, There's Some Fiction to Man's Pitch to Sell His Ex-wife's Wedding Dress on eBay." The Seattle Times. 29 April 2004 (p. B1). Curry, Ann, Matt Lauer and Katie, Couric. "Today." NBC. 30 April 2004. Eldredge, Richard. "Wedding Dress Guy Jilted by eBay Bidder." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 7 May 2004 (p. E2). Kelso, John. "Best of eBay: A Wedding Dress Tale." Cox News Service. 2 May 2004. Olbermann, Keith. "Countdown." MSNBC. 30 April 2004. Olbermann, Keith. "Countdown." MSNBC. 28 April 2004. Parks, Louis. "On eBay, Wedding Dress for Success." The Houston Chronicle. 30 April 2004 (Houston; p. 1). Weiss, Tara. "A Star is Born, Selling Wedding Dress on eBay." Hartford Courant. 30 April 2004 (p. D2). Associated Press. "Man Who Sold Ex's Wedding Dress on eBay Earns Instant Fame." 30 April 2004. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "15 Minutes Still Ticking for Wedding Dress Guy." 4 May 2004 (p. E2). | 1 | [
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FMD2473 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The jockeying for power in the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump and on Capitol Hill is exposing frayed nerves and lingering anger — but also the seeds of new leadership in both parties. He may not yet have nominated a single cabinet member, or sent emissaries to the federal agencies, or held a news conference as but Mr. Trump does have a presidential inaugural committee lined up. And it includes some serious money. The Trump transition named its inaugural committee leadership team on Tuesday evening, headed by Thomas Barrack Jr. a private equity titan. Other members include the financier Lewis M. Eisenberg the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (one of the largest political donors on earth) Gail Icahn, the wife of the investor Carl Icahn Woody Johnson, owner of the N. F. L. ’s New York Jets the hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci the Texas businessmen Ray Washburne and Roy Bailey and the luxury casino tycoon Steve Wynn. The congratulatory visits keep on coming. Marla Maples, Mr. Trump’s second wife, was spotted entering Trump Tower around 4 p. m. on Tuesday. She was in the building for nearly 25 minutes and waved to journalists and pedestrians as she left. Mr. Trump and Ms. Maples divorced in 1999 and remain on good terms. And speaking of reconciliations, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas stopped by as well. Senator John McCain issued a blunt warning on Tuesday to Trump and his emerging foreign policy team: Don’t try another “reset†with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. During the campaign, Mr. Trump described Mr. Putin as a strong leader and suggested that the United States and Russia might join forces in fighting the Islamic State. Mr. Putin congratulated Mr. Trump on his election in a phone call on Monday and discussed working together to combat terrorism and resolve the crisis in Syria, according to the Kremlin’s account. That was too much for Mr. McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who cautioned the incoming administration not to be taken in by “a former K. G. B. agent. †“The Obama administration’s last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East,†Mr. McCain, the newly Arizona Republican, said in a statement. “At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people,†he added. “This is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side of those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again. †Rebekah Mercer, the scion of a powerful family of conservative donors and a member of Mr. Trump’s executive transition committee, has had little success in her mission to solicit names and résumés for potential administration posts, according to a person familiar with her outreach efforts. Ms. Mercer, 42, the daughter of the New York investor Robert Mercer, has told Republican operatives and members of previous administrations that she was having trouble finding takers for posts at the under secretary level and below. She also made it clear that the transition team was more than a month behind schedule and on a tight timeline, the person said. The Mercer family has invested tens of millions of dollars in conservative causes and is considered especially close to Stephen K. Bannon, the chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign who was named as his senior presidential adviser. Mr. Mercer reportedly invested $10 million in Breitbart, the news site previously run by Mr. Bannon. Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, also previously oversaw a “super PAC†financed by the Mercer family. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the outgoing minority leader, took to the Senate floor Thursday with a slew of stories about bullied children, racist attacks, and acts, unholstered to bash Mr. Trump, his new hobby. “His election sparked a wave of hate crime across America. This is a simple statement of fact,†Mr. Reid said before imploring Democrats to stand as a force against Mr. Trump. Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio was named the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm for House candidates, succeeding Representative Greg Walden of Oregon. In a statement, Speaker Paul D. Ryan called Mr. Stivers “a talented leader. †Eliot A. Cohen, who wrote one of the “Never Trump†pieces this year that called Mr. Trump’s view of American power and influence in the world “wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle,†said in an interview on Tuesday that a Trump transition aide had asked him for recommendations for the national security team. But when Mr. Cohen, a former national security official in George W. Bush’s administration, suggested the caveat that many foreign policy hands would enlist only if there were credible people leading national security agencies and departments, he said he received a vituperative email in response. The tone of the email surprised him, he said, expressing a level of vengefulness at odds with an administration that is trying to fill important national security positions with qualified people. “They think of these jobs as lollipops,†Mr. Cohen said. “I think we’re on the verge of a crisis here. †With John Bolton, the former United Nations ambassador, emerging as a finalist for a senior national security post, even secretary of state, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on Tuesday that he would do “whatever I can†to block him. Such opposition is improving the stock of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, to lead the State Department, but Mr. Paul is not so sure about him either, citing Mr. Giuliani’s “worrisome ties to foreign governments†on CNN. The floating of Mr. Bolton as one of Mr. Trump’s contenders for secretary of state has baffled members of both parties, because his hawkish foreign policy worldview is so at odds with Mr. Trump’s campaign pitch for less military engagement in the world. That is one area in which Mr. Paul, one of Mr. Trump’s rivals in the race for the Republican nomination, said he agreed with the . “I can’t imagine supporting anyone who hasn’t learned the lesson of the last 20 years,†Mr. Paul said of Mr. Bolton, who was ambassador to the United Nations for George W. Bush during the escalation of the war in Iraq. Mr. Paul called Mr. Bolton “unrepentant. †Matthew Freedman, the chief executive at Global Impact, a consulting firm, was removed from his post overseeing the National Security Council transition after questions emerged about his lobbying ties. According to a former federal government official, Mr. Freedman had been using his Global Impact email to conduct official transition business. The official said that transition members were advised to use only their ptt. gov email, and that use of a business email was counter to transition policy. Mr. Freedman has worked as a security consultant for decades, after a brief career with the federal government working for the National Security Council and the Agency for International Development. He started as a foreign government lobbyist in the 1980s, when he joined a company then led by Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, taking up prominent international clients, such as government officials from Nigeria and Argentina, and the dictator Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines. Reached by phone, Mr. Freedman declined to comment Tuesday. Vice Mike Pence and Rick Dearborn, a Trump campaign staff member who is close to Mr. Trump’s Jared Kushner, are going over the transition staffing list to make a “very concerted effort to clear house of any lobbyists,†said one transition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. This means others beyond Mr. Freedman will likely be purged as well. Carl Icahn, a business magnate who is close to the tipped his hand on Twitter: Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs financier and hedge fund founder, seems to have an inside track to be Treasury secretary and Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor and turnaround artist, could be Commerce secretary. Mr. Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s national campaign finance chairman, does seem to have big plans. Spotted entering Trump Tower on Tuesday, he told reporters, “We’re working on the economic plan with the transition, making sure we get the biggest tax bill passed, the biggest tax changes since Reagan, so a lot of exciting things in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. †Mr. Trump has called for deep tax cuts for people at all income levels, consolidation of tax brackets, higher standard tax deductions, the elimination of the death tax and lower corporate tax rates. He has also called for ending “special interest loopholes†and he has said he wants to end the “carried interest†provision that benefits private equity groups. The estimated cost to the treasury of those plans is more than $5 trillion over 10 years. To put that in perspective, George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 — the largest in history — were a wee $1. 35 trillion over a decade. Ben Carson spent months trying to persuade voters to elect him president, but, according to his spokesman, he does not think he is qualified to run a federal agency in the Trump administration. According to the spokesman, Armstrong Williams, who is also Mr. Carson’s business manager, Mr. Trump offered the retired neurosurgeon a “buffet†of job options as a reward for being a loyal ally after dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination. “The said, ‘Ben, tell me whatever you want to run, it will be yours,’†Mr. Williams recounted. But Mr. Carson has no experience running large enterprises, Mr. Williams said, and did not think it would be a wise move to start in the new administration. Mr. Carson had been discussed as a candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Education, or to be surgeon general. “He’d be like a fish out of water,†Mr. Williams said. Amid rising calls for change in Democratic leadership, House Democrats decided in a meeting on Tuesday to postpone their leadership elections until Nov. 30. After last week’s bruising loss, there have been rumblings among some Democrats that perhaps a new leader should replace Representative Nancy Pelosi of California in the role she has held since 2003. Some members have urged Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio to run, and he is considering it, his office said Monday. Mr. Ryan, a former football player from the Youngstown area, is in stark contrast with Ms. Pelosi, an affluent scion of a Baltimore political family long ensconced in San Francisco, one of the country’s most liberal bastions. | 1 | [
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FMD2474 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.N. migration agency called on social media giants on Friday to make it harder for people smugglers to use their platforms to lure West African migrants to Libya where they can face detention, torture, slavery or death. The smugglers often use Facebook to reach would-be migrants with false promises of jobs in Europe, International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Leonard Doyle said. When migrants are tortured, video is also sometimes sent back to their families over WhatsApp, as a means of extortion, he said. We really ... ask social media companies to step up and behave in a responsible way when people are being lured to deaths, to their torture, Doyle told a Geneva news briefing. There were no immediate replies from Facebook or WhatsApp to requests by Reuters for comment. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014 and 3,091 have died en route this year alone, many after passing through Libya. This year, the number of migrants entering Europe is 165,000, about 100,000 fewer than all of last year, but the influx has presented a political problem for European countries. IOM has been in discussions with social media providers about its concerns, Doyle said, adding: And so far to very little effect. What they say is please tell us the pages and we will shut them down . It is not our job to police Facebook s pages. Facebook should police its own pages, he said. Africa represents a big and expanding market for social media but many people are unemployed and vulnerable, he said. Facebook is pushing out, seeking market share across West Africa and pushing out so-called free basics, which allows ... a dumb phone to get access to Facebook. So you are one click from the smuggler, one click from the lies, he said. Social media companies are giving a turbo-charged communications channel to criminals, to smugglers, to traffickers, to exploiters , he added. Images broadcast by CNN last month appeared to show migrants being auctioned off as slaves by Libyan traffickers. This sparked anger in Europe and Africa and highlighted the risks migrants face. Doyle called for social media companies to invest in civic-minded media outreach and noted that on Google, pop-up windows appear if a user is looking at pornography images, to warn of danger or criminality. The IOM has helped 13,000 migrants to return voluntarily to Nigeria, Guinea and other countries from Libya this year. It provides them with transport and pocket money and documents their often harrowing testimonies. Doyle said it was currently repatriating 4,000 migrants to Niger. Switzerland said on Friday it was willing to take in up to 80 refugees in Libya in need of protection, among 5,000 whom the UN refugee agency says are in a precarious position. | 1 | [
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FMD2475 | 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: Public Broadcasting Cuts (2005) Claim summaries: Would legislation currently under consideration substantially cut federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
contextual information: Claim: Legislation currently under consideration would cut $100 million in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Status: Was true; proposal has been defeated. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005] You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.) Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS: https://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/ A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch. The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year—$100 million—and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships. Already, 300,000 people have signed the petition. Can you help us reach 400,000 signatures today? https://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/ Origins: Although a long-outdated piece decrying supposed upcoming cuts in funding for the NEA, NPR, PBS, and Sesame Street has been circulating for years (it addressed legislation already voted upon way back in 1995), recent congressional efforts have brought the issue to public attention again. In June 2005, the House Appropriations Committee voted to sharply reduce federal financial support for public broadcasting. If this budgetary plan were approved, it would eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), money which currently makes up 15% of the funding for public broadcasting. As the Washington Post reported: A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur," and "Postcards From Buster." In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which passes federal funds to public broadcasters, starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million. In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue. The House measure also cuts support for a variety of smaller projects, such as a $39.6 million public TV satellite distribution network and a $39.4 million program that helps public stations update their analog TV signals to digital format. Although this legislation, if approved, would not (as claimed in older petitions) affect funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), it would obviously have a significant impact on public broadcasting outlets, which would have to turn to other sources to try to make up the lost revenue. On 23 June 2005, the House of Representatives decided, by a 284-140 vote, to rescind the House Appropriations Committee's proposed $100 million cut in federal funds from the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Other areas of public broadcasting, however, may still face budget reductions if proposed funding cuts are not overturned: But Elmo and Big Bird remain at risk. The House did not restore all of the public broadcasting funding cuts proposed for 2006. Although yesterday's amendment would bump CPB's general budget back to $400 million, the 2005 funding level, an additional $102.4 million that had been cut from separate public broadcasting programs was not restored. That money underwrites the production of such PBS children's programs as "Sesame Street," "Arthur," and "Postcards From Buster." The money that would be cut also pays for satellite technology, basic equipment purchases, and a federal mandate program to convert public TV stations from analog transmission to digital signal technology. Last updated: 24 June 2005 Sources: Farhi, Paul. "Public Broadcasting Targeted by House." The Washington Post. 10 June 2005 (p. A1). Gold, Matea and Jube Shiver. "Public Broadcasting Funds May Be Halved." Los Angeles Times. 17 June 2005 (p. A28). Murray, Shailagh and Paul Farhi. "House Vote Spares Public Broadcasting Funds." The Washington Post. 24 June 2005 (p. A6). Taylor, Andrew. "House Rescinds Proposed Cut in Federal Support of Public Broadcasting." Associated Press. 23 June 2005. | 1 | [
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FMD2476 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In late September, a group of tech leaders started a effort to raise $100, 000 for Hillary Clinton. In flush Silicon Valley, that is spare change. But by the time the election was over, the campaign had pulled in only $76, 324. For all its visceral dislike of Donald J. Trump, the tech community did not worry too much about him being elected or, once in office, carrying through with his program. Lulled by favorable polls, distracted by its own destiny, Silicon Valley was above all else complacent. No longer. After President Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order restricting immigration, has gone political. Companies are being pushed by their employees, by their customers and sometimes by their ideals. They are trying to go far enough without going too far. Nearly 130 companies, most of them in the technology field, filed an amicus brief late Sunday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which declined to reinstate the travel ban after a lower court blocked it. The brief, which was signed by an unusually broad coalition of large and small tech companies that included Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, Uber and Intel, said Mr. Trump’s order “violates the immigration laws and the Constitution. †“Silicon Valley is stepping up,†said Sam Altman, who runs the valley’s most prominent incubator, Y Combinator. “The companies are working on three fronts: They are vociferously objecting to the Trump policies they think are bad, they are trying to engage with him to influence his behavior, and they are developing new technology to work against policies and political discourse they don’t support. †It is an improvised and complicated strategy. The companies are among the richest and most popular of American brands, which means they have a good deal of leverage. Yet they are also uniquely vulnerable — not only to presidential postings on Twitter and executive orders, but to the sentiments of their customers and employees, some of whom have more radical ideas in mind. Many of the companies initially placed their bets on engagement after an upbeat meeting with the in December. That modest approach, which even the most executive can endorse, showed its limits last week. After widespread customer defections, Travis Kalanick, the chief executive of Uber, was forced to step down from one of the administration’s advisory councils. “People voted with their feet, and Travis listened,†said Dave McClure, who runs the 500 Startups incubator and started the Nerdz 4 Hillary group that tried to raise the $100, 000. “We need to hold the other tech leaders accountable in the same way. †Resistance, Mr. McClure said, begins at home. “You don’t have a voice with the president if you didn’t vote for him,†he said. “But employees and customers have a voice with the tech companies. Silicon Valley should be demonstrating at the front doors of Google, Facebook and Twitter to make sure they share our values. †Several factors are propelling Silicon Valley to the front lines of opposition to Mr. Trump. Some have been widely noted: The companies are often founded by and run by immigrants, which made the executive order on immigration offensive and a threat to their way of doing business. Tech companies frequently stress the importance of talent from other countries to their businesses. Less remarked on has been the political homogeneity of tech workers. “It’s not like you have 60 percent of the employees on one side and 40 percent on the other,†said Ken Shotts, a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “They all have the same leanings. †Mr. Trump does have some support in Silicon Valley, most notably the venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Yet another factor pushing the companies is the perennially tight job market in technology. Executives cannot afford to alienate a large bloc of workers. Beyond this, there is the mythology of Silicon Valley, which holds that the work being done there is building a better future. Google’s former slogan “Don’t be evil†is the most forceful expression of this. “If you go around making a lot of statements about your exalted role in society, at some point your employees might just make you follow through,†Mr. Shotts said. Since the executive order was issued, the companies have struggled to keep on the same page with their employees. Microsoft, for instance, initially made relatively muted comments that mostly celebrated immigration. hours later, it was much blunter, calling the order “misguided and a fundamental step backwards,†and saying it would create “much collateral damage to the country’s reputation and values. †At an meeting at the beginning of the week with the chief executive, Satya Nadella, who was born in India, Microsoft employees expressed their concern. The company did not file a formal declaration supporting Washington State’s effort to block the order the way Amazon and Expedia did, but its public comments assisted the effort, Bob Ferguson, the state attorney general, said. The immigration battle is in Microsoft’s . of its employees were affected by the order, the company said. Some in Silicon Valley have more expansive hopes for the tech companies there. “In 2016, we saw how technology could be used to polarize ourselves to extreme levels,†said Mr. Altman of Y Combinator. “The most important thing we could do is figure out how to use technology to depolarize the nation. †Mr. McClure of 500 Startups said it was ridiculous “for the chief executives of the valley to suggest things like hate speech and bullying speech aren’t solvable problems. Google has been solving the problem of spam for the last 10 years. No reason they can’t fix the monetization of fake news. †Perhaps the companies just need a little push. On Sunday night, the Super Bowl was in overtime and a dreary winter rain was falling in San Francisco. That was not enough to deter more than 100 tech workers from showing up for a meeting of a new group, Tech Solidarity, that hopes to tackle some of these issues from the bottom up. Maciej Ceglowski, the organizer, canvassed the crowd. How many of you are immigrants? How many work for big tech companies? How many work for big tech companies that attended the Trump tech summit in December? In each case, numerous hands went up. Under the rules of the meeting, participants were not identified. It was a very geeky event. Much of it was a for three legal aid groups that have been working to assist travelers caught in the ban. The speaker for the Council of Relations was asked what she needed. She replied that she was having trouble with her customer relationship management software. “I’ve actually been pretty obsessed with C. R. M.s lately,†said a woman in the audience, volunteering to help. Mr. Ceglowski is a software engineer who runs the Pinboard. He was visiting the United States in 1981 with his mother when martial law was declared in their native Poland. He is now an American citizen. in tech circles as a caustic critic of the large tech companies and their attitude to issues like privacy, he took on the activist mantle shortly after Mr. Trump was elected. Since then, Tech Solidarity has held rallies in Portland, Ore. New York Seattle Boston and other cities. He talked about Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, the author of “Lean In,†which asks women, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?†Mr. Ceglowski noted that Ms. Sandberg found time to go see Mr. Trump, but not to go to the women’s march on Washington. The crowd laughed. Ms. Sandberg has said that she had a personal obligation that kept her from the march. When Facebook employees did their own protest last week, he pointed out, it was done in secret so no one knew about it. “We have to protest in public,†he said. The event raised $30, 000 for the legal aid groups. “It looked like of the room were newcomers,†Mr. Ceglowski said after the event was over. Unlike the great Silicon Valley companies, which seemed to blossom overnight, he said he knew progress here would be slow. But he was hopeful that some of the attendees were previously apolitical folk who had taken their first steps to engagement. “I want pressure from below to counterbalance the pressure management is already feeling from above,†he said. “We have to make sure we’re pushing at least as hard as Trump is. †| 1 | [
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FMD2477 | 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: Avoid These $750 Cash App Scams on Facebook and Instagram Claim summaries: We found dozens of the scams within seconds, all with a simple search.
contextual information: On Jan. 27, 2022, a reader sent in a tip about a Facebook ad (and likely on Instagram as well) that promised $750 in Cash App rewards for free. The Facebook page was named Kjguyrt. It had been created only a few days before: Facebook ad Kjguyrt The page claimed to be a dry cleaning company. This was not true. One user who realized it was a scam commented: "Take your stupid f*cking advertising and stick it up your ass." commented After a few seconds of some simple searching on Facebook, we were able to uncover a seemingly endless number of more posts, groups, and events that promoted a similar $750 Cash App scam. Most of them appeared to lead to brief surveys in Google Docs or on sites.google.com pages before ultimately asking users for personal identifiable information (PII). Such scams have a chance of eventually leading to phishing, identity theft, or other harmful outcomes. No one was genuinely giving away $750 on Cash App for free on Facebook or Instagram. This one from a page named Flash Reward had been around since at least May 2021: This one Many of the scams led to surveys before ultimately asking for personal information. Meanwhile, some of the pages we found put the scam in the name: $750 Cash App. This one led to scams on WhatsApp: $750 Cash App Facebook and WhatsApp are both owned by Meta. One of the Facebook groups we discovered was named Cash App/PAYPAL BLESSINGS. It had more than 13,000 members. In the rules for the group, it said: "This group is for BLESSINGS only no scams." However, we only found scams. Cash App/PAYPAL BLESSINGS One of the posts from a Facebook user named Stash Account, which had nothing to do with the real finance app, posted in the group: "If you haven't gotten Help Drop Tag Names & Check Balance, I am Legit Limited Time." One of the posts "I am legit" is never a good sign. The Stash Account person responded to hundreds of people with the scam in a comment that looked like this: "Let's claim your reward here." No thanks. This other Facebook group was named CashApp $750 and placed its scam links in the "About" section of the page: CashApp $750 It's unclear why these Facebook groups were allowed to exist seeing as they were so easy to find. On top of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups all being involved in the $750 Cash App scams, also including Instagram posts, we found well over 600 Facebook events that had been created for the ruse. There were likely many more. However, our Google Chrome browser window couldn't handle loading any further listings, as it was already so much information for the tab to handle at once. well over 600 Facebook events Here's a sample of what a few of the Facebook events looked like. We looked into the Facebook events to see if they differed from the way the scam operated on pages and in groups. From what we saw, it looked like they, too, initially led to surveys that eventually ended up asking for PII. We previously reported on similar scams that offered $750 in Cash App that impersonated talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Some of those accounts appeared to still be active as of late January. reported It's unclear why these $750 Cash App scams were allowed to thrive on Facebook and Instagram when they were so easy to hunt down. We recommend that readers stay far away from any social media posts or ads that promise free money. For further reading, we recently infiltrated a cryptocurrency scam on Facebook. It wasn't difficult to find our way into the scam. However, what was unexpected was the fact that Facebook took no action on the scam despite the fact that we contacted the company's media relations team by email. It, too, was still active at the end of January. infiltrated a cryptocurrency scam | 0 | [
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FMD2478 | 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: Faces in the Cloud Claim summaries: Do photos of the World Trade Center fire reveal the face of Satan?
contextual information: The images above come from, respectively, CNN's television coverage and a photo snapped by freelance photographer Mark D. Phillips (who subsequently sold his picture to Associated Press) as New York's World Trade Center towers burned after the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. Neither image was manipulated. Mark D. Phillips Finding demonic images in photographs and other visual representations especially those depicting scenes of death and disaster is an age-old human behavior employed to ascribe catastrophes to evil forces beyond our control, or (as in the following example) to fix blame on a target of choice (rather than the real perpetrators): [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Don't these photos of Satan at the world Trade Center catastrophe tell us that the current seat of Satan's power is the World Trade Center? Don't these photos depict Satan being awakened from his hiding place in the World Trade Center? For it is the international bankers who operate from Fed, the CFR and the World Trade Center who create first, second and third world debt. Usury according to the Bible is Satan's method for enslaving the world under his priesthood, the accountants and bankers of the world (IMF, World Bank Group, WTO). All of this will usher in 666 which is an economic mark of commerce according to the Book of Revelation (Ch 13,17). This mark will also be a religious affiliation of worship which will damn the soul eternally of all who partake we are told. And then there are those who take the additional step of deliberately creating such images: Pareidol is the technical term for our penchant for finding specific images amidst randomness. Just as people see all sorts of images in clouds, so viewers can find anything from an ordinary ball of smoke to the face of Satan himself in these kinds of pictures. But do we really need to find the visage of the devil here to know that evil was behind the events pictured? Pareidol ADDITIONAL INFORMATION A Face in the Smoke? (KUSA-TV Denver) A Face in the Smoke? (KUSA-TV Denver) | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2479 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The FBI and U.S. Justice Department are investigating possible U.S. ties to alleged corruption involving the former president of Ukraine, including the work of firms headed by political operatives Paul Manafort and Tony Podesta, CNN reported on Friday, citing multiple U.S. law enforcement officials. The broad-based investigation was looking into whether U.S. companies and the financial system were used to enable corruption by the party of former pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, CNN said. A person who answered a telephone number for Manafort said Manafort was not available for comment. The person, who said he was an associate of Manafort and who gave his name only as David, referred queries to a lawyer in Washington, who did not immediately respond to a phone call and an email. In response to a report in the New York Times on Monday, Manafort denied any impropriety in a statement. “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia,†he said. The New York Times reported that he had received cash payments worth more than $12 million over five years that were itemized on secret ledgers belonging to Yanukovich’s Party of Regions. Manafort, who resigned as chairman of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign on Friday, had not been the focus of the probe, CNN said, citing the officials. The probe was looking at the work of other firms linked to the former Ukrainian government, including the Podesta Group, a lobbying and public relations company headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta is chairman of the campaign to elect Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Manafort’s attorney Richard Hibey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment, CNN reported. The Podesta Group has hired an independent legal firm to investigate whether it had been misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a not-for-profit group linked to the ousted Ukrainian government, a spokeswoman for the group said in a statement. The Justice Department, asked to comment on the report, said it remained “committed to helping recover stolen assets on behalf of the people of Ukraine.†Investigators in Ukraine have said Yanukovych and his party engaged in widespread corruption. He fled to Russia following a popular uprising in 2014. | 1 | [
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FMD2480 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Dr. Jim Willie: ‘The Western central bank franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, and totally corrupt’… Bloomberg: ‘If debt continues to increase at twice the rate of GDP, financial engineering can only smooth things over for so long.’ by IWB · October 27, 2016 Tweet Schaeuble says monetary policy has reached its limits There is a growing international consensus that monetary policy has reached the limits of its possibilities, German Finance Wolfgang Schaeuble told a group of government officials in Berlin on Tuesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-schaeuble-liquidity-idUSKCN12P2EN China Gets Desperate About Debt
With its debts surging and growth sluggish, China has hit on a new strategy to revitalize its ailing economy. It’s the same as the old strategy. Only this time, it won’t work.
Earlier this month, China’s State Council released guidelines for a new swap program, in which companies can exchange troubled debt with banks in return for equity. The government hopes this will give the firms a chance to restructure on favorable terms, and avoid the prospect of “zombie companies” propped up indefinitely by state-owned lenders.
Optimists point to a similar program that China executed, with some success, a little more than a decade ago. But they’re overlooking the primary reason that the previous swap seemed to work — which doesn’t portend success this time around.
In the late 1990s, responding to a similar bout of excessive borrowing, China’s government created state-owned asset-management companies to help banks clean up their balance sheets. Firms such as China Cinda Asset Management Co. and China Huarong Asset Management Co. grew out of this program. These “bad banks” purchased a wide variety of assets and held them for extended periods with minimal return, thus helping the banks to continue lending.
The extent to which this solved any problems, as opposed to papering them over, is debatable. But even the limited success of that program won’t be repeated this time around.
…
In this light, China doesn’t need a new debt-for-equity swap program. It needs to cut credit growth. If debt continues to increase at twice the rate of GDP, financial engineering can only smooth things over for so long. The government also needs to recapitalize the banking system. That will be expensive: By most estimates, it will cost upward of $500 billion . But if banks simply shuffle bad debt between themselves, as is happening so far, there will be no net change to the health of the system.
Unfortunately for China, there’s no cheap or easy way out of this problem. Someday, the debt always comes due.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-26/china-gets-desperate-about-debt
Europe could be on eve of banking Armageddon which will dwarf Credit Crunch, says expert
GERMANY, Italy, Switzerland, Britain and France are facing the catastrophic consequences of ‘over leveraging’ as Europe’s biggest banks prepare to release their latest results over the next two days.
And analysts say the potential for a cataclysmic failure could spread like a wild-fire hitting the continent and beyond as the true extent of deep troubles in the international banking sector are revealed.
The IMF and German governments have refused to step in to prop-up struggling banks but risk analysts are warning Deutsche Bank, RBS, Lloyds, Unicredit, Intesa SanPaolo, and BMPS could all need a state bail out.
And it’s going to be a wake up call for the whole of Europe say experts who fear the reports are not going to be good for anyone.
With alarming simliarities to the 2008 global financial crash, the latest results could spell disaster not only for the wealthy bankers paid to operate the system but for ordinary savers.
New York based David Hendler of Viola Risk Advisors says the next two days could have serious ramifications for the entire globe.
He said: “Like autumn leaves falling from the mighty oaks, the incredible yellows, oranges, and reds, will turn and rot into the ugly browns and black detritus, leading to smelly and then crumbled leaves.
Dr. Jim Willie Writes:
The Western central bank franchise system is totally broken, totally insolvent, and totally corrupt. It invites the Gold Standard return. The entire financial system is built upon a debt-based monetary system. The debt saturation process has run its full course. The central bank heads have been covering the sovereign debt for the last five years, having rendered their balance sheets as ruined. Debt is at obscene levels, like $19.7 trillion for the USGovt. No debt limits are in place anymore, a signal that most likely it has already defaulted. A hidden game is underway, with control lost to the creditors, even as they attempt to salvage their debt holdings. The major central banks continue to manage badly the great game, where money is fake phony and a farce. A titanic battle is underway, where the Eastern nations are discarding their USTreasury Bonds, and doing so in tremendous volume while they set up the many platforms and pieces to the Gold Standard. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD2481 | 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: George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents Claim summaries: Is George Zimmerman suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son?
contextual information: Claim: George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son. Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2013] Facebook is sharing that George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for failure to control him. I find this very difficult to believe. I think this is bogus. Origins: On 15 July 2013, the National Report published an article ("George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents") about acquitted defendant George Zimmerman's filing a civil lawsuit against the parents of the teenager he shot, Trayvon Martin. The article states that George Zimmerman filed a civil suit today just before 5 PM EST at the Seminole County, Florida, Courthouse. The suit alleges that the parents of Trayvon Martin failed to control their minor-age son on the evening of February 26, 2012, when Martin repeatedly assaulted Zimmerman, placing him in imminent fear for his life and resulting in Martin's death. The civil action specifies that Zimmerman acted in self-defense, leading to the case being ruled a justifiable homicide by a jury trial that ended on Saturday with a verdict of not guilty. Desperate state prosecutors charged the victim with second-degree murder, despite having no evidence of a crime, hoping to prevent further violence and avoid Florida being engulfed in riots months before the start of the state's tourist season. The complaint further specifies that Zimmerman shares "zero liability" in Martin's death, as he acted without malice and solely in self-defense. The amount of damages Zimmerman is seeking is unspecified. By the following day, links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article. However, the article was merely a piece of satire from the National Report, a website that publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." Last updated: 16 July 2013. | 0 | [
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FMD2482 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Outsourcing firms, which supply major U. S. companies with thousands of foreign workers, are being by the Trump White House. [During a White House briefing on the issue of the visa, where some 650, 000 foreign workers are in the U. S. at any given moment, specifically mentioned three outsourcing firms that are working to replace Americans with foreign labor: Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Cognizant. “Just to illustrate a little bit more how the lottery works — so some companies oftentimes are called outsourcing firms,†the White House briefing statement reads. “You may know their names well, but like the top recipients of the visa are companies like Tata, Infosys, Cognizant — they will apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle, if you will, and then they’ll get the lion’s share of visas†the statement continues. “Which is very different than I think how most people think of the program — they imagine it for more — being for — again, they would think of it as being for skilled domestic work, rather than contract work. †“And those three companies are companies that have an average wage for H1B visas between $60, 000 and $65, 000,†the statement read. “By contrast, the median Silicon Valley software engineer’s wage is probably around $150, 000. †The White House briefing went on to call out the abuses associated with the visa program, where companies like MassMutual Insurance hires Cognizant to fire hundreds of their American employees to hire cheaper, foreign workers to do their jobs. “And you’ve seen some of these examples where you have career employees at a company who have been working there for 10, 20 years, and then they get laid off and they hire a contracting firm using H1B workers at much less pay,†the statement said. “And again, this is an issue that labor unions have called attention to for a long time. †The White House also mentioned that reforms of the visa and other foreign guest worker visa programs must be accomplished through rulemaking, executive orders, and Congress. Attorney John Miano, who the exposé Sold Out with Michelle Malkin, told Breitbart Texas that the move by the Trump Administration is a step in the right direction, but said it was not the to reform. “It’s a step in the right direction that they’re calling attention to problems in the program. You can’t criticize them for doing that,†Miano said. This year alone, Infosys, Tata Consulting Service, and Cognizant asked for a combined total of almost 44, 000 visas, something Miano says is a misuse of what the program was intended for. “One of the things is that we have this whole business of importing labor to fill jobs,†Miano told Breitbart Texas. “If this was supposed to be for jobs that Americans can’t fill, then this whole system of contract labor should not exist in . A lot of companies are doing this. It’s becoming labor brokerage. †While the Trump Administration issued an executive order demanding a legal review by the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department into abuses by visa program, as Breitbart News reported, Miano says more must be done. “In reality, you have to tackle them by going through the regulations. They’re hundreds of pages long. It takes an army of lawyers,†Miano said. “The big problems in this program, the President doesn’t have the power to fix, a lot of this has to be done by Congress. †John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2483 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Top eurocrats fear that should Marine Le Pen win the French presidency, the European Union will not survive. [“From the [European] Commission’s point of view, success for Marine Le Pen is a disaster and an existential threat to the European project,†a top official from the bloc’s unelected executive told Politico. “We can survive a Brexit, but not a Frexit. †Ms. Le Pen has stopped short of openly endorsing French withdrawal from the EU but has pledged a “France First†economic policy should she win office, levying taxes on companies which move jobs out of the country and reintroducing the French franc alongside the euro currency — policies which would fall foul of EU law. The economic patriotism which I advocate is impossible within the European Union ! https: . — Marine in English (@Marine2017_EN) March 6, 2017, Following mass casualty terror attacks in Paris, Nice, and elsewhere in France, Ms. Le Pen also pledged to take France out of the EU’s Schengen area, which former Interpol chief Robert Nobel has described as “an international zone for terroristsâ€. Politico’s sources inside the European Commission, however, have insisted that “There is no legal way to leave the euro or Schengen and still remain in the European Union. †By preventing us from having national borders, the European Union condemns us to undergo #mass immigration #Marine2017 https: . — Marine in English (@Marine2017_EN) March 10, 2017, Another top staffer confessed the prospect of a Le Pen presidency “worries us — without any doubt … After the UK [referendum] and the U. S. election, it would almost be a natural consequence. †Conscious of its unpopularity, the EU as an institution has played only an role in events like the Brexit referendum, but has intervened far more directly in the French elections. Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, has said it would be “a mistake†to avoid confronting politicians like Ms. Le Pen directly, as “France leaving Europe … would both kill Europe and make France choke severelyâ€. â€I am convinced this is not an example to followâ€: my remarks on #Brexit to @bbckamal https: . #Davos #wef17 pic. twitter. — Pierre Moscovici (@pierremoscovici) January 19, 2017, “The Commission would vote [Emmanuel] Macron without any doubt,†a top Commission official confessed to Politico, referring to Ms. Le Pen’s main rival for the presidency. Macron, a independent in the cast of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, served as economy minister in François Hollande’s socialist government. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD2484 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Was the Dakota Territory divided into two states in order to gain additional Republican senators? Claim summaries: It depends on who you ask.
contextual information: Amid discussions of statehood for Washington, D.C., in late April 2021, a meme spread on social media positing that the Dakota territory was split into the states now known as North and South Dakota in the late 1800s for the purpose of giving the Republican Party more political power, namely more senators and electors. One example is a meme from U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.: The meme read, "Congress split the Dakota territory in half in 1889 to admit two new states with 4 Republican senators. So spare us the fake outrage over DC statehood." The text was taken from a tweet posted by journalist Ari Berman on April 22. tweet The meme generally responds to congressional Republicans who have stated that allowing D.C., a heavily Democratic region, to become a state will shift the balance of political power in Congress. Noting the racial demographics of D.C. versus other states, some Democrats have accused Republicans of stonewalling D.C. statehood because of racism. stated racial demographics accused It also characterizes current Republican opposition to D.C. statehood as hypocritical, noting that the national Republican party has benefited historically from addition of new states with Republican populations. Writing for The Atlantic in 2019, Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote: The Atlantic The number of states in the union has been fixed at 50 for so long, few Americans realize that throughout most of our history, the addition of new states from time to time was a normal part of political life. New states were supposed to join the union when they reached a certain population, but in the late 19th century, population mattered a great deal less than partisanship. While McConnell is right to suspect that admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now would shift the balance in Congress toward the Democrats, the Republican Party has historically taken far more effective advantage of the addition of new states. In 1889 and 1890, Congress added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyomingthe largest admission of states since the original 13. This addition of 12 new senators and 18 new electors to the Electoral College was a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority. The strategy paid dividends deep into the future; indeed, the admission of so many rural states back then helps to explain GOP control of the Senate today, 130 years later. Like most things viewed through the lens of history, the reasons North and South Dakota exist as two separate states are complicated by changing context. Business interests, local efforts, and national political wrangling all played a role, but without a doubt, adding North and South Dakota to the growing union of states had the effect of benefiting the national Republican party politically, and they didn't hide that motivation. But comparing the statehood process for North and South Dakota to current advocation for Washington, D.C. statehood is comparing apples to oranges, said Michael Card, associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota. That period in American history was drastically different to the current circumstances in many ways namely, at that time, a large number of states were in the process of being added into the Union. One of the major factors in deciding statehood was population counts of non-indigenous American settlers. That figure was set at 60,000 in 1787. set at 60,000 Another contextual difference was that the nature of the political parties have evolved over time, meaning the Republicans and Democrats of today are not representative of the parties with those names from the late 19th century in many ways. Many of the non-indigenous settlers in the southern part of what was then Dakota territory were Union veterans of the Civil War and their families, who were Republicans. Many likely moved far away from the battlefields in the American South in an effort to get away from traumatic memories, Card noted. Scandinavian and Canadian immigrants tended to settle in the north. As USA Today pointed out, "the Republican Party was much more concerned with protecting African Americans and their voting rights from its founding through the early 20th century. In the mid-20th century, both parties' stances on racial equity began to switch." That switch came after Democratic legislators passed voting and civil rights legislation i the 1960s. pointed out Another important point of context the population counts in North and South Dakota justified statehood and that Democrats, who were at that time were in control of national government and aware of the territory's Republican leanings, had slowed the statehood process, in hopes of gaining a political toehold in the region. slowed the statehood But they couldn't stall forever. According to historian Elwyn B. Robinson in the book "History of North Dakota," there were 190,983 inhabitants in North Dakota in 1890, while there were 348,600 in South Dakota. And in the end, it was Democrats in Congress and Democratic U.S. President Grover Cleveland who relented, signing legislation granting statehood to North and South Dakota, along with Montana and Washington. In "History of North Dakota," Robinson noted that local advocacy also came into play when it came to the creation of the two states. At the local level, there was an internal push for statehood from a small group of influential men who were unhappy with the outside control that came with Dakota being a territory, and who wanted political equality of status. History of North Dakota Statehood was a quiet revolution, accomplished by less than two hundred men. The first leaders were Yankton politicians, but all came from southern Dakota and all were Republicans. With few exceptions, they were conservative, middle-class business and professional menbankers, lawyers, ministers, railroad employees, and newspaper editors. They were of the older American stock and came from New England, New York, or the states of the Old Northwest. They were Republicans because Dakota was a one-party regiona result of the long years of territorial status when the Republican party had control of the United States government. The idea of splitting the northern region off from the southern one started with this group, but not because of political power in Washington, D.C., Robinson wrote: "From the beginning the Yankton leaders, a small oligarchy with much influence, planned for the division of the territory at the forty-sixth parallel. Division seemed natural. The railroads ran east and west, so that southern and northern Dakota had little contact with each other." When Robinson described the decision to ultimately split the territory into two when admitting it into the Union though, he noted that it was pushed hard by the Republican Indiana senator who would become the 23rd U.S. president, Benjamin Harrison: Finally, the program of division, with southern Dakota becoming a state and northern Dakota a territory, was dropped in favor of a bill to admit two states. Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana pushed it hard and the large population of Dakota (in 1890, North Dakota alone had 190,983 inhabitants and South Dakota 348,600) made further denial seem unjust and irresponsible. In the presidential campaign of 1888 the Republican platform called for admission of two states. Ordway and the Dakota Democrats finally dropped their single-state bill. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Omnibus Bill of February 22, 1889, authorizing the framing of constitutions in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington. When the bill finally passed the House of Representatives, some of the members threw books and papers into the air in celebration and there was a general handshaking of congratulation. A step toward equality of status had been taken. Updated rating to "Mixture" and added additional context. | 2 | [
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FMD2485 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: in: Natural Medicine , Sleuth Journal , Special Interests
Color is everywhere and has many functions. In nature, animals and plants use color for camouflage and to facilitate mating. Humans decorate and dress with color for expression. Color preference has a psychological affect on mood and affects people on a subconscious level. Color and Wellness Encouraging mental wellness through the use of color is a very old practice that exists in many cultures. Practitioners of Feng Shui, acupuncture and other adjustments for better living introduce various colors in the form of gemstones , colored fabric, candles, and prisms. If you’ve ever chosen clothing of a specific color based on your mood (perhaps you chose black clothing when you felt down, or bright yellow when you were feeling energetic) then you’ve practiced colorology, also known as chromotherapy. Chromotherapy is actually an alternative medicine that uses color and light to balance a person’s energy where it is lacking — mental, emotional, physical or spiritual. Color for Stress Management Different colors produce different psychological, emotional, and physical effects. Some colors are calming and can help you relax and release your worries; some colors are stimulating. Surrounding yourself with the right colors can be an excellent stress management tool . If you are suffering from stress , consider changing the colors in your environment. The Effects of Different Colors The color chart below outlines the different effects of different colors. Wearing the colors or decorating with them is a great way to harness their specific benefits. Red Red is not the color to use for stress management. It is an exciting and stimulating color, usually associated with passion and vigor. Use this color when you need to lift yourself out of an emotional slump. Pink Pink is soft and tranquil. Its peacefulness promotes a better balance of energy. Orange Like red, orange is not calming but, rather, stimulating and intense. It can help invigorate you when you are feeling down. Yellow Yellow is sunny and cheerful but softer than red or orange. It’s a great color to lift your spirits and combat stress. Green Green is restful and quiet. It’s a soothing color that invites harmonious feelings that diffuse anxiety. Blue Blue is tranquil and peaceful. It has a tremendous stress management quality that encourages calmness. Personally, I’ve found that dark blue has the most calming effect. If you’re stressed, or anticipating stress, try wearing dark blue. Violet Violet represents strength, peace and wisdom. It can encourage feelings of inner peace when worn. Decorating with violet can give your space a peaceful feeling that relieves stress. White White is symbolic of clarity and freshness. However, it needs to be a clean, bright white. Dingy or dull white can cause your emotions to be dull. Black Black exudes power and elegance that is strong but can be overpowering at times. Conversely, it can also represent submission. It’s a color that can impact your world either way; be mindful when decorating with or wearing black. How do you use color to influence your mood? Do you find color therapy beneficial for stress management? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us. Submit your review | 0 | [
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FMD2486 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives forged ahead on Tuesday with legislation to reshape the federal tax code, while a top credit-ratings agency said the bill would balloon the budget deficit and give only a temporary boost to the economy. As the House tax committee weighed amendments to a bill that Democrats have blasted as a give-away to corporations and the rich, the Washington tax reform debate was fast shifting to the Senate, where Republicans hold only a slim majority. Senate Republicans are expected to unveil their own tax bill at the end of the week, and early indications suggest it could differ significantly from the House legislation. The House is aiming to vote on its bill next week, a senior Republican said. Tax reform has been a priority for President Donald Trump, who says it will stimulate economic growth. But Republicans have yet to score a major legislative accomplishment since Trump took office in January, even though the party controls both chambers of Congress as well as the White House. Trump made another pitch for Democratic support on Capitol Hill, where his top aides met with about a dozen Senate Democrats and Trump himself phoned in from his Asia trip. “He said, ‘Look … I want to do it in a bipartisan way,’†Senator Joe Donnelly told reporters. Fitch Ratings predicted that a Republican tax plan would win passage in both chambers, but did not see it offering long-term benefits. “Such reform would deliver a modest and temporary spur to growth. ... However, it will lead to wider fiscal deficits and add significantly to U.S. government debt,†Fitch said, revising up its medium-term U.S. government debt forecast. The U.S. national debt now exceeds $20 trillion. Republicans once firmly opposed adding to the debt, but their emphasis has changed. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) said the House bill would add nearly $1.5 trillion to the national debt from 2018 through 2027. Trump and congressional Republicans say the proposed tax cuts would boost economic growth enough to generate new revenues that would offset the tax cuts. Few economists agree. The House bill slashes tax rates for large corporations, small businesses and wealthy Americans, while sharply reducing or eliminating tax breaks that benefit many middle-class Americans such as deductions for state and local taxes, college tuition and home mortgage interest. JCT estimates that the House bill could raise taxes on as many as 38 million people who earn between $20,000 and $40,000 per year, beginning in 2023. House Republicans, who have an overwhelming majority, drafted their bill in secret, ignoring Democrats. But the House bill is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate, where Republicans have a 52-48 seat majority and they need to pay heed to moderates within their own ranks as well as Democrats, lobbyists and analysts said. Two conservative Republican senators, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, have already voiced concern that the House tax bill could raise taxes on some middle-class Americans. The Senate bill could delay the proposed corporate tax cut by one year, may not allow any deductions for local property taxes, and may not collapse the current seven individual brackets to the four proposed by the House, according to the Washington Post. Republican leaders have pushed for the House to vote on the tax bill before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 23. “My donors are basically saying, get it done or don’t ever call me again,†Republican Representative Chris Collins said. U.S. tax legislation must begin in the House. “We’ll bring it to the floor next week,†House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told Fox News. In party-line votes on Tuesday, Brady’s tax committee voted down eight Democratic amendments that would have preserved or expanded tax breaks for the middle class, nullified the tax legislation if it increased the deficit in future years and maintained taxes on foreign profits of U.S. corporations. Brady offered a sweeping amendment on Monday that tweaked at least half a dozen provisions of the 425-page bill. One related to carried interest income, a share of an investment fund’s profits paid out to the fund’s general partners and which represents a large portion of many fund managers’ incomes. Carried interest currently is taxed at the capital gains rate, which is substantially lower than the personal income tax rate for higher earners. Brady’s amendment would lengthen to more than three years from one the time period assets must be held in order to be eligible for the capital gains tax rate. The amendment would also reduce the amount of carried-interest income eligible for the lower rate. | 1 | [
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FMD2487 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: SYDNEY, Australia — Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia and his conservative Liberal National coalition could lose more than 10 seats in Parliament, according to early election returns on Saturday, which might leave it unable to form a majority government. Neither Mr. Turnbull nor the opposition Labor leader, Bill Shorten, had conceded defeat late Saturday, with about 70 percent of the votes counted in the elections to select Australia’s House of Representatives. The party or coalition that wins a majority of the seats in the House forms a government. A sharp reduction in the 90 seats Mr. Turnbull’s government held before the election could damage his leadership prospects. Mr. Turnbull’s decision to call an early election and run a long campaign now seems to have been a poor gamble. Australia’s election campaigns typically run about four weeks. This one was about two months. According to official projections late Saturday from the Australian Electoral Commission, the governing coalition, which includes the Liberal and National Parties, was on track to win at least 68 seats, and the Australian Labor Party at least 70. Australia’s third major party, the Greens, had won one seat, and independent candidates had won four seats. The contests for as many as seven seats were still undecided when counting was suspended for the day. Analysts said absentee votes submitted by mail and votes cast early at polling places could affect the outcome. About 30 percent of Australia’s 15. 6 million voters cast their ballots in these ways. Mr. Turnbull spoke just after midnight to a rowdy gathering of Liberal Party members at Sydney’s Wentworth Hotel. “Tonight, my friends,†he said, “I can report that based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government. †But the final result, in terms of seats, may not be known until Tuesday, Mr. Turnbull said. Speaking to Labor Party supporters gathered at the Moonee Valley Racing Club in Melbourne, Mr. Shorten said: “We will not know the outcome of this election tonight. Indeed, we may not know it for some days to come. But there is one thing for sure: The Labor Party is back. †“And Mr. Turnbull’s economic program, such as it was, has been rejected by the people of Australia,†he added. “Whatever happens next week, Mr. Turnbull will never be able to claim that the people of Australia have adopted his ideological agenda. †The federal treasurer, Scott Morrison, a Liberal Party member, speaking on ABC television, rejected criticism of Mr. Turnbull’s leadership. He said he expected the coalition to form a government once all votes were counted. Mr. Turnbull unseated Tony Abbott, who was in his first term as prime minister, just 10 months ago, but now he is facing an erosion of support. Political analysts said that if the Liberal National coalition failed to win 76 seats in the House, it would be forced to form an alliance with some of the minor parties or independents, only two of whom are likely to side with the conservative coalition. Mr. Turnbull is also likely to face a more fractious Senate. Vote counting for the Senate races had not been completed. Analysts said minor parties would win more seats there, making it harder for the government to pass its legislation. The governing coalition held 33 seats in the Senate before Saturday’s election and needed six more to hold a majority. Australia’s Senate, which checks the power of the House of Representatives by having the final say over all legislation, is made up of 12 senators from each state, plus two each from the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, the location of the capital, Canberra. Typically, minor parties find it easier to win those seats, and so they are able to wield a disproportionate degree of power in relation to their level of support. In May, Mr. Turnbull called for a election, in which all Senate seats are thrown open for a vote instead of the usual half. This followed changes in March to Senate rules that Mr. Turnbull hoped would result in a less fractious upper house by making it harder for dissenting senators to retain their seats. Early results showed that One Nation, an party based in the state of Queensland and led by Pauline Hanson, was likely to win at least one Senate seat. | 1 | [
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FMD2488 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Each opposition organisation, civic activists and independent media outlets in Belarus prepare kill lists, which contain information (first and last names, names of the relatives, passwords, photos, etc.) about high-ranking state officials, policemen and employees of other law-enforcement agencies, entrepreneurs, etc. For instance, civic activists can take photos of Belarusian policemen in plain clothes at public events such as the celebration of the 101st anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic. These lists are likely aggregated into one database, controlled by Western security bodes.
In case of a peaceful power change in Belarus the persons in the kill lists will be subject to lustration. Law-enforcement agencies like the Ministry of Interior, the KGB and the Investigation Committee will be dissolved. The restoration of the law-enforcement apparatus will take place on the orders of Western donors. In case the power change in Belarus is not peaceful, then those on the kill lists and their relatives will be declared the enemies of the people and executed whereas their kids will be labeled the dregs of society. | 0 | [
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FMD2489 | 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: In 2012, Wall Street gave Scott Brown more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million.
contextual information: As the race between Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Republican challenger Scott Brown heats up, the attacks are growing more intense. In a recent radio ad, Shaheen accused Brown of being too friendly with Wall Street when serving as a senator from neighboring Massachusetts from 2010 to 2012. Heres the 60-second ads narration: Wonder why Scott Brown lost re-election in Massachusetts? Well, he was working for Wall Street, not the people. Scott Brown blocked a major financial reform bill until he could water it down and save Wall Street $19 billion. Scott Brown really delivered for Wall Street, said the Boston Globe. Even after the bill passed, news reports show Brown was secretly serving the interests of Wall Street, working behind the scenes to help the big banks, not consumers. Wall Street thanked Scott Brown by giving him more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million. Now, Scott Brown wants New Hampshire to send him to Washington. Wall Streets once again spending millions to help. Scott Brown says he really cares about New Hampshire. Come on, dont be fooled. No matter where he lives, Scott Brown will always put Wall Street first. And thats good for Scott Brown, but not New Hampshire. Thats a lot to chew on. PolitiFact New Hampshire already checked a claim by a pro-Shaheen group that Browns actions had saved big banks $19 billion in taxes, rating itMostly False. But what about the ads claim that Wall Street gave him more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million? We decided to take a closer look. The Shaheen campaign pointed us to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics, whoseopensecrets.orgwebsite tracks a wide variety of campaign-finance data. Its a trusted source that weve used many times in the past. The Shaheen campaigns $5.3 million figure refers to how much Brown received in the 2012 campaign cycle -- when he lost his seat to Democrat Elizabeth Warren -- from donors categorized as being part of the finance, insurance and real estate sector. Theirdollar figure is correct-- as is Browns No. 1 ranking among all Senate candidates for donations from that sector -- but Shaheens ad stretches a bit when it calls this Wall Street. Most finance firms have a reasonable claim on being part of Wall Street, but a lot of the insurance and real-estate sectors fall outside that category. Also, not everyone working at these firms is a financial mogul, but their individual donations still count towards the total. So we decided to drill down a little deeper. We found a few sub-categories of finance/insurance/real estate that are a closer fit to Wall Street. They include: Securities and investment: Brown ranked first among Senate candidates in the 2012 campaign cycle with$2,682,872. Private equity and investment firms: Brown ranked first with$556,092in donations. Hedge funds: Brown ranked first with$306,800in donations. Venture capital: Brown ranked first with$262,081in donations. This provides support for the notion that Brown ranked No. 1 in these types of donations. But he ranked a little lower in two other categories: Finance and credit companies: Brown ranked ninth with$54,450in donations. Commercial banks: Brown ranked third with$297,539in donations. Meanwhile, Browns total haul from these six categories was about $4.2 million, or about one-fifth lower than what the ad said. This is not the first time that Shaheens campaign has used somewhat loose language in describing Browns donors. When a previous Shaheen ad claimed that Big Oil gave Scott Brown $454,260, we rated that claimHalf True, noting that only about 11.5 percent of Browns haul came from companies and individuals affiliated with the biggest multinational companies -- what most viewers would consider Big Oil. When we contacted Browns staff, spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said, Scott Browns fundraising is no different than Jeanne Shaheens in that they both accept contributions from the financial services industry. The only difference is that Jeanne Shaheen is hypocritically attacking him for it. However, in the 2012 election cycle -- when Brown was receiving $5.3 million from the finance/insurance/real estate sector -- Shaheen accepted just $64,139 from the same sector, ranking 65th among all Senate candidates. In the current cycle, she has accepted $565,935 from the finance/insurance/real estate sector, ranking her 21st among Senate candidates. Our ruling Shaheens ad said that in 2012, Wall Street gave Scott Brown more campaign contributions than any other candidate -- $5.3 million. If you put together six categories that might reasonably be considered Wall Street, Brown received about $4.2 million in all, and he finished first among Senate candidates in four of those six categories. However, the total amount is short of the $5.3 million claimed in the ad. The statement is generally accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD2490 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Israel expressed muted concern on Sunday to a major arms deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia announced a day earlier during the visit to the region by U.S. President Donald Trump. The central achievement of Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia was nearly $110 billion in deals sealed on Saturday in which Riyadh will buy U.S. arms to help it counter Iran, with options running as high as $350 billion over 10 years. Although Israel also sees Iran as a threat to its security, it has a military advantage over the Arab states and has always been concerned about arms sales to them that could possibly narrow the margin separating them. “This is a matter that really should trouble us,†said Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz prior to the weekly cabinet meeting, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no mention of the deal in his customary public remarks. A senior U.S. official traveling with Trump said Washington understands what he described as Israel’s “completely legitimate†concerns and pledged to help the Jewish state maintain its military advantage. “We’re taking a whole bunch of measures, some apparent some not so apparent, to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge. That will in no way be compromised,†the official told Reuters. “You’ll hear a really strong statement from the president on his commitment to Israel and to Israel’s defense,†the official added. Netanyahu has expressed the wish to improve ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as part of an initiative that would draw the Palestinians into an eventual peace deal and function as a broad front against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Steinitz said he hoped to hear details of the deal. Trump and his entourage touch down in Israel on Monday. “We have also to make sure that those hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia will not, by any means, erode Israel’s qualitative edge, because Saudi Arabia is still a hostile country without any diplomatic relations and nobody knows what the future will be,†Steinitz said. In the 1980s, Israel expressed its concern at a U.S. sale to Saudi Arabia of then-advanced F-15 fighter jets that were stationed at a Red Sea airfield. But the desert kingdom has never threatened to use them against Israel. | 1 | [
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FMD2491 | 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: California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas.
contextual information: Stoking their long-running feud, California Gov. Jerry Brown recently jabbed at former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, saying that the Golden State is growing a lot faster than Texas. Brown made this claim during an impassioned defense of climate change science at the American Geophysical Union conference on Dec. 14, 2016, in San Francisco. "We've proved in California that the economy grows. And it grows in part because of the climate rules that we've adopted," Brown said. Perry, a climate change skeptic, was recently selected as U.S. energy secretary by President-elect Trump. While he was governor of Texas, he repeatedly visited California in an attempt to lure jobs to the Lone Star State, promising less regulation and lower costs. In his speech, Brown stated that Perry's critiques about California's job-killing red tape do not hold up. "Now remember our new secretary of energy, he was coming to California to say: Come to Texas because we have all the jobs in Texas. Well, Rick: I got some news for you, California is growing a lot faster than Texas, and we have more sun than you have oil!" Gov. Jerry Brown makes his claim about California growing a lot faster than Texas at about the 13:00 minute mark in the video above. With Brown's reference to Perry, we interpreted his claim to mean faster economic growth with a focus on jobs. We decided to zero in on job growth rates in California and Texas while also weighing GDP and unemployment trends in the states. We'll leave the fun comparison of sunshine to oil for Brown and Perry to wrestle with another day. Our research acknowledges that there is no definitive measure for what constitutes a "lot faster" growth. Still, we will do our best to assess the governor's claim. Brown's spokeswoman pointed us to several news articles detailing California's recent economic improvements. Looking solely at 2015 job growth rates, Brown's claim appears to hold up. In that year, California added 483,000 jobs, posting a job growth rate of 3 percent, based on data we analyzed from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That pace was twice as fast as Texas's 1.5 percent job growth rate. California's rapid employment gains have slowed somewhat to about 2 percent this year through November. While that may not qualify as a "lot faster," it is still greater than Texas's roughly 1.6 percent job growth rate so far this year. The business website Kiplinger.com forecast that California would rank 10th in the nation among states for the fastest job growth in 2016, noting that Texas was not on its Top 10 list. Not long ago, however, Texas outpaced California. In 2014, Texas recorded a 3.7 percent job growth rate, ahead of California's 2.9 percent pace. Looking to the future, California's job gains may slow. The closely watched UCLA Anderson Forecast predicts jobs will grow by only 1.5 percent in the state during 2017 and just 0.8 percent in 2018. Because Brown used the phrase "is growing," we will judge him based on the most recent figures, not future forecasts. Overall economy While the pace of job growth is important, it is not the only measurement of a state's economic health. Brown's claim could also be interpreted as California's overall economy, not just jobs, growing much faster than Texas's economy. In August, PolitiFact Texas took a deep look at the economies of both California and Texas to evaluate a June claim by Julián Castro, the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, that "Today, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas." It rated the claim True, citing greater jobs, per capita income, and GDP growth rates in California, while noting that Texas had a lower jobless rate. Building on that fact check, we examined the most recent economic figures for both states to see if the assessment still holds. We found that California's GDP grew faster than Texas's in the first two quarters of this year, at rates of 2 percent and most recently 2.2 percent, compared with Texas's 1.3 percent and its most recent quarter, a negative 0.8 percent, according to a news release in December by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was a different story in 2015 when Texas's GDP expanded by 4.8 percent (a figure that was recently revised upward) compared with California's 3.8 percent GDP expansion. Comparing unemployment rates, Texas, at 4.6 percent in November, has consistently fared better than California, where the rate was 5.3 percent in November and has hovered well above 5 percent this year. California had one more economic bright spot in 2015: per capita personal income grew at twice the rate of Texas, 5.4 percent to 2.6 percent, according to federal data. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed California is growing a lot faster than Texas. We interpreted this to mean economic growth with a focus on the pace of job creation. California's 3 percent job growth rate in 2015, which doubled Texas's pace, definitely supports Brown's colorful claim. However, California's rate has slowed to about 2 percent so far this year, which is closer to Texas's 1.6 percent job growth rate. Other economic metrics show California performing better than Texas in several categories, though not all: California's GDP expanded faster than Texas's GDP in the first two quarters of this year, although Texas had a faster GDP growth rate in 2015. Additionally, per capita income grew twice as fast in California as in Texas in 2015, further supporting Brown's statement. Texas, however, has consistently maintained a lower jobless rate than California in recent years. Brown, like the state's economy in recent years, is on the right track. Although California has expanded jobs and its economy faster than Texas in many instances, there are a few cases where that growth has been strong but not necessarily a "lot faster." We rate Brown's statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD2492 | 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: Fired for Being Gay Claim summaries: Map shows states in which employees can be 'fired for being gay.'
contextual information: Claim: The map shows states in which employees can be "fired for being gay." PARTLY Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2013] I saw a map of states where you can be fired for being gay. Is this true? Origins: The map displayed above identifies twenty-nine states (shown in red) where, according to the accompanying title, "you can be fired for being gay." This map is "true" in the broad sense that it identifies states that do not currently have statewide laws prohibiting all employers from engaging in discrimination based on sexual orientation, but it is not the case that those states are completely devoid of protections against that form of discrimination. Anti-discrimination laws typically address not just discrimination in the termination of employees but also in other job-related aspects, such as hiring, promotion, job assignment, and compensation. In general, employees who work on an at-will basis may (with some narrow exceptions) be terminated without cause and without their employers incurring legal liability. However, members of certain protected classes may not be discriminated against in employment for reasons related to the characteristics that define those classes (e.g., sex, race, religion, national origin, age). Since the U.S. has not yet enacted national regulations establishing sexual orientation as a protected class, most employees who have such protection are afforded it based on state laws. While the twenty-nine states shown in red above may currently lack statewide laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, it is not true that all employers in all of those states may freely fire employees "for being gay." Some of those red states have laws that protect public (i.e., government) employees from sexual orientation discrimination (but not those who work in the private sector), some of those states have laws passed at county or city levels that protect employees in those local areas from such discrimination, and some of those states protect public employees from employment discrimination through means other than laws (e.g., executive orders, administrative orders, personnel regulations). Maps like the ones displayed below present more detailed representations (at both the statewide and local levels) of the status of laws banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in the United States: Last updated: 10 April 2013 | 1 | [
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FMD2493 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: We the citizens and voters have to stop being enablers of systemic corruption.
The overwhelming consensus of the punditry across the political spectrum is that “Nothing Good Can Come of This Election”–and that’s a very good thing. The handwringing goes like this: The country is deeply divided by schisms that cannot be bridged, every institution from the two parties to the mainstream media to the Department of Justice has been tarnished by cover-ups, collusion or worse; whomever wins the election will enter the presidency without a mandate, and so on.
Why is “nothing good can come of this” good? Because ridding the nation of its political corruption will require hitting bottom.
Just as an alcoholic or drug addict is incapable of making any truly positive changes until he/she hits absolute bottom, so it is with our tolerance of a corrupt political system that is poisoning the nation, one injection of corrupt cash, collusion and pay-to-play at a time.
If our rotten-to-the-core politics as usual is indeed flying off the cliff to complete destruction, that is an unalloyed good.
Just as alcoholics continue down their self-destructive path with the aid of enablers, so too has the corrupt political order expanded with the aid of the Mainstream Media, insiders in the Department of Justice, K Street lobbyists and a veritable army of well-paid lackeys, pundits, academics, apparatchiks and assorted toadies in the organs of governance and in the big-money private sector and philanthro-capitalist dynasties of pay-to-play foundations.
The only way anything will truly change in the political order is if every Establishment insider politico loses every election, from the presidency to dogcatcher. Nothing will change until the mere existence of a private foundation like the Clinton Foundation triggers a landslide loss for the politico with ties to such corruption.
Nothing will change until the collusion of the mainstream media (supplying the insider candidate with debate questions, etc.) alone causes the colluding candidate to lose by a landslide.
Nothing will change until candidates who refuse to accept any donation larger than $100 from anyone or any entity beat the Goldman Sachs/Saudi prince-funded insider candidates by a landslide.
Nothing will change until candidates who fund costly negative TV advertising campaigns with millions in pay-to-play “contributions” from Goldman Sachs et al. lose by a landslide.
You get the point: we the citizens and voters have to stop being enablers of systemic corruption. We have to stop being bamboozled by insiders with promises of “hope and change” and the usual negative TV blitzes funded by corrupt big money.
It’s easy to blame lax campaign laws or the corrupted candidates and their insider toadies, but ultimately we’re responsible for enabling corruption, collusion, pay-for-play and a political and financial Elite that’s above the law.
From the point of view of the corrupted, colluding insiders, MSM flunkies, Department of Justice lackeys and well-paid parrot-pundits, nothing good can come from this election because half the voters may actually cast off the shackles of the nation’s corrupt and corrupting political and financial Elites.
This mass rejection of the politics as usual of corrupt and corrupting political and financial Elites is the highest possible good –a public good that eludes the hand-wringing corrupt insiders, pundits and toadies who have sucked up fortunes from the trough of putrid systemic corruption.
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Contributed by Charles Hugh Smith of Of Two Minds . | 0 | [
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FMD2494 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Archives Michael On Television 22 Reasons Why Starting World War 3 In The Middle East Is A Really Bad Idea By Michael Snyder, on August 27th, 2013
While most of the country is obsessing over Miley Cyrus , the Obama administration is preparing a military attack against Syria which has the potential of starting World War 3. In fact, it is being reported that cruise missile strikes could begin “ as early as Thursday “. The Obama administration is pledging that the strikes will be “limited”, but what happens when the Syrians fight back? What happens if they sink a U.S. naval vessel or they have agents start hitting targets inside the United States? Then we would have a full-blown war on our hands. And what happens if the Syrians decide to retaliate by hitting Israel? If Syrian missiles start raining down on Tel Aviv, Israel will be extremely tempted to absolutely flatten Damascus, and they are more than capable of doing precisely that. And of course Hezbollah and Iran are not likely to just sit idly by as their close ally Syria is battered into oblivion. We are looking at a scenario where the entire Middle East could be set aflame, and that might only be just the beginning. Russia and China are sternly warning the U.S. government not to get involved in Syria, and by starting a war with Syria we will do an extraordinary amount of damage to our relationships with those two global superpowers. Could this be the beginning of a chain of events that could eventually lead to a massive global conflict with Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other? Of course it will not happen immediately, but I fear that what is happening now is setting the stage for some really bad things. The following are 22 reasons why starting World War 3 in the Middle East is a really bad idea…
#1 The American people are overwhelmingly against going to war with Syria…
Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.
About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.
#2 At this point, a war in Syria is even more unpopular with the American people than Congress is .
#3 The Obama administration has not gotten approval to go to war with Syria from Congress as the U.S. Constitution requires .
#4 The United States does not have the approval of the United Nations to attack Syria and it is not going to be getting it.
#5 Syria has said that it will use “ all means available ” to defend itself if the United States attacks. Would that include terror attacks in the United States itself?
#6 Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made the following statement on Tuesday …
“We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves”
#7 Russia has just sent their most advanced anti-ship missiles to Syria. What do you think would happen if images of sinking U.S. naval vessels were to come flashing across our television screens?
#8 When the United States attacks Syria, there is a very good chance that Syria will attack Israel. Just check out what one Syrian official said recently …
A member of the Syrian Ba’ath national council Halef al-Muftah, until recently the Syrian propaganda minister’s aide, said on Monday that Damascus views Israel as “behind the aggression and therefore it will come under fire” should Syria be attacked by the United States.
In an interview for the American radio station Sawa in Arabic, President Bashar Assad’s fellow party member said: “We have strategic weapons and we can retaliate. Essentially, the strategic weapons are aimed at Israel.”
Al-Muftah stressed that the US’s threats will not influence the Syrain regime and added that “If the US or Israel err through aggression and exploit the chemical issue, the region will go up in endless flames, affecting not only the area’s security, but the world’s.”
#9 If Syria attacks Israel, the consequences could be absolutely catastrophic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promising that any attack will be responded to “ forcefully “…
“We are not a party to this civil war in Syria but if we identify any attempt to attack us we will respond and we will respond forcefully”
#10 Hezbollah will likely do whatever it can to fight for the survival of the Assad regime. That could include striking targets inside both the United States and Israel.
#11 Iran’s closest ally is Syria. Will Iran sit idly by as their closest ally is removed from the chessboard?
#12 Starting a war with Syria will cause significant damage to our relationship with Russia. On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the West is acting like a “ monkey with a hand grenade “.
#13 Starting a war with Syria will cause significant damage to our relationship with China. And what will happen if the Chinese decide to start dumping the massive amount of U.S. debt that it is holding? Interest rates would absolutely skyrocket and we would rapidly be facing a nightmare scenario .
#14 Dr. Jerome Corsi and Walid Shoebat have compiled some startling evidence that it was actually the Syrian rebels that the U.S. is supporting that were responsible for the chemical weapons attack that is being used as justification to go to war with Syria…
With the assistance of former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, WND has assembled evidence from various Middle Eastern sources that cast doubt on Obama administration claims the Assad government is responsible for last week’s attack.
You can examine the evidence for yourself right here .
#15 As Pat Buchanan recently noted, it would have made absolutely no sense for the Assad regime to use chemical weapons on defenseless women and children. The only people who would benefit from such an attack would be the rebels…
The basic question that needs to be asked about this horrific attack on civilians, which appears to be gas related, is: Cui bono?
To whose benefit would the use of nerve gas on Syrian women and children redound? Certainly not Assad’s, as we can see from the furor and threats against him that the use of gas has produced.
The sole beneficiary of this apparent use of poison gas against civilians in rebel-held territory appears to be the rebels, who have long sought to have us come in and fight their war.
#16 If the Saudis really want to topple the Assad regime , they should do it themselves. They should not expect the United States to do their dirty work for them.
#17 A former commander of U.S. Central Command has said that a U.S. attack on Syria would result in “ a full-throated, very, very serious war “.
#18 A war in the Middle East will be bad for the financial markets. The Dow was down about 170 points today and concern about war with Syria was the primary reason.
#19 A war in the Middle East will cause the price of oil to go up. On Tuesday, the price of U.S. oil rose to about $109 a barrel.
#20 There is no way in the world that the U.S. government should be backing the Syrian rebels. As I discussed a few days ago , the rebels have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda , they have beheaded numerous Christians and they have massacred entire Christian villages . If the U.S. government helps these lunatics take power in Syria it will be a complete and utter disaster.
#21 A lot of innocent civilians inside Syria will end up getting killed. Already, a lot of Syrians are expressing concern about what “foreign intervention” will mean for them and their families…
“I’ve always been a supporter of foreign intervention, but now that it seems like a reality, I’ve been worrying that my family could be hurt or killed,” said one woman, Zaina, who opposes Assad. “I’m afraid of a military strike now.”
“The big fear is that they’ll make the same mistakes they made in Libya and Iraq,” said Ziyad, a man in his 50s. “They’ll hit civilian targets, and then they’ll cry that it was by mistake, but we’ll get killed in the thousands.”
#22 If the U.S. government insists on going to war with Syria without the approval of the American people, the U.S. Congress or the United Nations, we are going to lose a lot of friends and a lot of credibility around the globe. It truly is a sad day when Russia looks like “the good guys” and we look like “the bad guys”.
What good could possibly come out of getting involved in Syria? As I wrote about the other day , the “rebels” that Obama is backing are rabidly anti-Christian, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western. If they take control of Syria, that nation will be far more unstable and far more of a hotbed for terrorism than it is now.
And the downside of getting involved in Syria is absolutely enormous. Syria, Iran and Hezbollah all have agents inside this country, and if they decide to start blowing stuff up that will wake up the American people to the horror of war really quick. And by attacking Syria, the United States could cause a major regional war to erupt in the Middle East which could eventually lead to World War 3.
I don’t know about you, but I think that starting World War 3 in the Middle East is a really bad idea.
Let us hope that cooler heads prevail before things spin totally out of control. It Is Illegal To Feed The Homeless In Cities All Over The United States » Boo-urns
There is no need for a *world* war. Just let them all kill each other; the sooner the world is free from the idiocy that abounds throughout the entire middle east — including Israel — the better off the rest of us will be. 2Gary2
Does anyone out there see this ending well?
Michael Rodster
The US and it’s Allies don’t care what happens in the Middle East. In fact it’s my view that they would prefer absolute chaos and a full blown out war.
As the mantra in 1992 Elections…”It’s all about the economy stupid”. And the same applies here as well. This is all desperation as the US knows what’s coming economically. If they can ramp up their Military Industrial Complex it could help boost the economy. That is the primary business the US is in. It’s all about war and spying.
I do hate constantly repeating the man but it’s needed here as well. This all played out during the Great Depression except this time all the fiat based currency nations are in the same boat as the US and this time they have nukes
“Trade wars, Currency wars, World wars”– Gerald Celente Adrian
On the contrary, a few may benefit…the CEOS and huge shareholders of Halliburton, Ratheon, etc…but the economy would be hurt by threats to oil, decreased stability in the ME, and so on. They don’t care about the economy, if they did they would have implemented stark programs to bring millions back to work. Instead, it’s been business as usual with downsizing, QE 2,3, 4, and shipping jobs overseas. davidmpark
No. It won’t. Bad Kitty Cat
Not at all… and I also wonder how many US allies are going to join in! I truely believe there is a strong desire for war! old fart
As usual they will join in for the first few months then slowly fade away leaving the US stuck with the whole mess. it has happened every time this time we are having a revisit to the crusades,, That mess lasted for 200 years and was never settled it just quieted down for a mutual draw. Hambone
Short of the second coming, I see no happy endings to this play. cateye
No good ending. Cataclysm perhaps. I got a bad feeling about this whole thing….like the US is being led like a lamb to slaughter. Colby Williams
We should just back off of the whole Syrian thing, its not worth it. JustanOguy
No. tom
No I don’t Michael. Thank you for keeping us informed on many fronts. I share your work everyday in e-mails and on FB. I hope that people are listening to what you are saying MeMadMax
Ochooma’s ego will kill us all… lupa
There would be plenty of sand for the building trade! or Rebuilding trade! RICHARD
I think we are on the verge of a economic collapse and a world war. With everything going on in just this country i will be surprise if we make in till the end of Oct. I have said this before. The train is just about to go over the cliff. lavista4u
Yes. true…I believe its a distraction. September is Illuminati New year and they do some crap during the Month of September like 911…
What is coming to Americans next month could be 100 times worse than what they would do to Syrians.
Americans needs to be more prepared and ready than Syrians it seems …It could be a distraction to cause chaos in America.
They know no one wants war in America and even lame stream is publishing that story and 99% of comments on main stream news sites like CNN is against war….
I believe America is their next target not Syria even though they are making it look like its Syria and Iran….
Even if this does not turn out this way…Americans need to be prepared for all scenarios….as they are center of all problems created by the cabal. good luck….Make friends and join forces….Unity is Strength…. patricia666
my mother in-law got Dodge Dart Sedan by working parttime from a home pc. see this website www.KEP2.com old fart
How much was she charging per lay? Sueychop
When the stuff hits the fan every American should make sure to shoot at least two Russians before they get shot themselves. That way we win. seth datta
How can this not be a part of/prelude to the End Times? And yet ignorance and apathy are the order of the day for most folk. Tim
@Richard, I couldn’t agree more. I think this October we will have our eyes opened. This train is in full speed. I have been stocking up for the last 2 years on food, ammo and sanitation. The biggest problem I have run into is income and cost of ammo. The ammo price has come down and some sites are catching up (midland and foxtrotgear seem to be the best prices). The ammo shortage hurt the last year, but my income seems like it has dwindled over the last 2 years. Josh
It has been a rough couple of months. I always check ammoseek and it seems like bulk ammo and foxtrotgear have the best bulk prices. Don’t forget sanitation, food and medical. Keep your powder dry. MeMadMax
If possible, keep a full tank of gas at all times. It seems like things are going faster than what we know. Gay Veteran
as Gerald Celente says about the economy: when all else fails they take you to war Beanodle
Oil at above $150.00 per barrel will decimate many economies. Especially it the suppliers demand Gold or a currency other than U.S. dollars for it.
If Obama starts a foreign war without Congressional approval can he be impeached? Would his impeachment placate Russia and China? Celery Muncher
Impeachment didn’t faze Bill Clinton and it certainly won’t faze King Barry the rodeo clown. These people will simply laugh at the impeachment proceedings and there are not enough congressmen with guts to remove the putz from office even if he was impeached. Obama will go on his merry way doing what he pleases because everyone is so scared of being branded a racist that their balls are frozen in their pants…. Gay Veteran
There is bipartisan agreement on empire abroad and the national security/surveillance state at home obama_drama
Bingo dood! Arkaden
“If the President takes us to war without Congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment. The Constitution is clear. And so am I.” -Joe Biden, 2007
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” -Barack Obama, 2007
THIS time must be different. Hambone
It’s sad, but those lying, two-faced hypocrites will never be held accountable for their words and actions by a great many of the lemmings in this country. We are truly getting the government we deserve. myrna652
my mom in law just got Hyundai Sonata Sedan by working at home online… see this page www.JAM20.com Adrian
DOUBLESPEAK! CorrectionSir
Actually, the president can authorize military action, short of declaring war, if it is in support of allies, treaties or through the request of the UN. That’s the way things have been changed and rejiggered. Gay Veteran
and NONE of those apply in Syria Ralfine
Attacking a sovereign country is an act of war. And an attacked country has the right to defend itself, i.e. by sinking the attacking fleet. squashpants
He said that in 2007? Afghanistan started in 2001, and Iraq in 2003. What war was Biden referring to? MeMadMax
Prolly georgian conflict. GodHelpUs
Over amount of years U.S. prospered with the highest public debt. Without wars on it’s territory and so on.. Economy collapse is inevitable. To hold it over, U.S. needs to seed unstability and war in other countries. To keep ourselves stable country, to keep dollar high value (but without gold – dollar is just a paper). We intentonally made that “Arabic spring”, changed management of all those countries. Who didn’t agree – was murdered (like Kaddafi), who did like Egypt – was changed by our man. Now we expect another wave of economical collapse. We NEED to seed fear and distable east. And it’s not Obama! He’s just a puppet.. We made hugest and well trained army with the top weapons on other countries money 😀 But It won’t last forever… churchill
o aye pal for sure its diffrent obama changed his bacon for weetabix he goes for a 5 mile run now before thinking about war and fat soldiers not being able to run from their turbo tanks it takes an american soldier at least 2 hours to put his make up on first Elelei Guhring
Notice how neonics found in many pesticides most manufactured by Bayer/Monsanto and which have killed up to 70% of bee populations around the world are not an imminent threat to the nation, even though this action is considered Terrorism under US law: any action that endangers the food supply IS terrorism. davidmpark
We accepted our orders for NBC gas masks today. 2 adult sizes; 3 children sizes. Got them online for $6.99 ea/free shipping.
Also got some extra med kits, potassium iodine, and more food.
We will get hit. The US will get struck again and no country will cry for us. Could we take on the international community? Only if we use WMD’s on them, too. China, Russia, and Iran will retaliate.
Congress needs to move to stop Obama as this is enough to prove he and his entourage are incapable of ensuring the welfare of the United States. Impeachment needs to be done, arrests need to be made, trials must commence… and sentences if judge and congressional jury find guilty anyone for crimes against this people.
We must support such actions by Congress, or we will pay the price; not them. ?huh
Where did you get the masK? Were filters outdated? That is cheap! davidmpark
They’re IDF leftovers bought on Amazon. I also bought the new canisters – assuming the included cans are expired. ?huh
I looked and the Amazon review show the items are old and may not be useful and attack. Some are as old as 40 years. davidmpark
If you are worried about gas attacks, you can make a filter for an air conditioning unit.
First, get all of the supplies you can: a lot of baking soda and wood charcoal (not briquettes), piece of wood, a scale (any kind), a large pot, 2 pillow cases, a plastic or metal box, and duct tape.
Pour the baking soda into a pot and weigh it. After recording the weight, place on heat source and cook it for a few minutes. Remove and re-weigh, then repeat. When the scale no longer shows change in weight, pour the powder into a pillowcase and make more if necessary to fill to pillowcase about half way or more. This process converts the sodium bicarbonate into sodium carbonate (soda ash, or activated carbon).
Now pour the charcoal onto the pot and use a piece of wood to crush the charcoal into smaller pieces, about the size of wheat grains. Pour into pillow case and make more if necessary to fill to pillowcase about half way or more. Some dust will fall out – let it.
Now, drill or cut two holes big enough to snuggly fit the air intake hose of your A/C unit into the plastic or metal box on the shorter sides. Place the bag of soda ash on one side, the bag of charcoal on the other side. Seal with duct tape generously. Now attach the air intake hoses of your A/C unit on the unit with the air entering the charcoal first, and the soda ash second. Duct tape generously on both ends.
We built this last year when the ash and smoke from local wildfires were choking the air around us. We were supremely comfortable with filtered air. Will it work for chemical weapons? The soda ash is the same ingredient used in gas masks, but I really don’t know. Works great for smoke and ash, and chili cook-off’s, but I have no real data that it will work for WMD’s. Can some experts chime in? Truther
Two easy reasons to understand: Racial Guilt and Desire for Something for Nothing. There you go. saintmatty
A very good chance that we will get hit. Major city and who knows where else. Get some food and water together. Might be inside for a few days as chaos occurs in the streets. davidmpark
One of those times a carbine would be handy… Keywee
“Why did such a good nation decide to #$%& itself over this bad? We’re so much better than this!” I think that as a nation you became complacent, distracted with trivial “entertainment”. The world banking system got it’s claws back into you after all that hard work by the founding fathers to escape it. Hopefully once enough of your own people are affected by the actions of your government you will rediscover your revolutionary roots. Gay Veteran
“…Congress needs to move to stop Obama….” you assume they disagree with him davidmpark
I’m hoping they’ll do their job for once. Gay Veteran
we will all be disappointed, because there is NO difference between the 2 parties Ralfine
All people have the government they deserve. Syrin
Here’s how this could play out. We invade Syria. It’s a leaping point to go to war with Iran who has already threatened war with Israel if we invade. Obama will sign the UN Small Arms Treaty, and Russian troops have already been training on US soil for over a year to disarm Americans. I believe they will stage some false flag event in FEMA region 3 which has been urgently stockpiling by “no later than October 1″ according to all their requests for supplies. (do a search, they are stockpiling a A ton in FEMA region 3) Martial law will be declared enforced by our militarized polive, some Iranian patsy will be blamed, and they will jump from Syria to Iran. Obama had a behind the scenes meeting with the highest level financial people in the US last week. The last time this happened, they took out gold. I think they will use the war and false flag events to perform a simultaneous engineered collapse of the economy because they know we cannot recover from our debt burden hoping the no information GARY voters will blame the evil Syrians for our economic problems. Just like Nazzzi Germany, we become a dictatorship overnight. davidmpark
Okay, I looked it up about the stockpiling for region 3. That makes good sense to concentrate around there for the sake of the powers in DC. They’d want to make sure they don’t have any disruptions in their cocktail parties and lasciviousness.
They stockpiled around the furherbunker during the battle for Berlin. Makes sense to do that sort of thing when they make unpopular and more blatant illegal actions against their own people. K
Excellent comment. The idea behind Russian troops was, it would be easier to get them to fire on civilians. I wonder if the puppet masters every gave any thought to the fact, that would cut both ways. K
E4B spotted in Turkey yesterday. I have never heard of them deploying them outside the Country before. The Check is in the Mail
Over the top but I understand the concern. It is not like the fools in DC have earned any trust. old fart
How can that be after all Zero won the Nobel Peace Prize. xander cross
I blame white men who are profiting of the weapons dealing. Of course, all of you will ignore that fact. Smh Jason Mckenzie
1st Oct came and went, ya rumour-monger.. K
Ever since they passed that war on terror resolution in 2001. It seems no President feels they need clearance from anyone. Can this end well? Only if a backdoor agreement has been made with Russia and China. A certain number of missiles fired at certain agreed on targets. In exchange they stick to just stern words. If such an agreement does not exist. Then the first salvo, could easily cause everyone in the area, to bring out their new toys. And that will not end well. A D
OIL is naturally occurring – GOD created the earth & everything in it. There is enough OIL in the USA, but the eco-nazi’s and other idiots will not allow them to drill. Just like AIR now carbon is a threat, so many idiots believe all of the LIES trumped up by elites. davidmpark
“OIL is naturally occurring…” Yeah, the Abiotic Oil process. We won’t ever run out of oil. Ralfine
Any idea why it’s called organic chemistry? Trainwreck Coming Fast
That will change. It is ALL going to change once the fur begins to fly domestically and abroad. Things that will be different:
–Even the liberal fools will be begging to drill. But they will not understand that decades of no new refineries means terrifying shortages caused by them.
–No more discretionary spending on music, entertainment, parties, etc. Sure, it will occur, but a tenth of what is evident now. The boards, extra houses, luxuries, will no longer be part of life. Maybe not so bad.
–Roving bands of gangs and criminals will be put down by law abiding citizens with guns. People will no longer accept crime. Bring back the death penalty and frontier justice. It is coming. The “I was disadvantages” growing up will only get a bullet in the head. The nation will no longer be able to afford and tolerate the rape of society.
–Healthcare will be a disaster. Obama and the Left will blame it on the GOP but that will only work for the hardcore remnant of his supporters. The rest of the nation will marvel at its stupidity for not pushing back sooner. But they will realize the system has been so destroyed that it will take years to bring back what we had.
–WHERE TO STOP? It is so obvious. Gay Veteran
at what cost? yeah you can have all the oil you want here at $500 a barrel Ralfine
And, to get one barrrel you have to spend 5 barrels in energy. Keywee
Yay! Someone else who actually gets it! A D
AIR, WATER, OIL you name it, the eco-nuts and elitist will do whatever it takes NOT to let a good crisis go to waste.. quoted from OHBOMA thugs. ResilientNews
one of my local tv stations had a poll on their website if the u.s. should strike Syria and the results were 100% NO. Bill
Best poll of many asking the same question shows 25% in favor. Still doesn’t show the idiot in chief is listening to we the “real”people!!! Lennie Pike
The thugs who control the U.S. are allied with those who control China! Birds of a feather (elite Godless fascists) have joined forces for totalitarian worldwide rule!!!)
Our industry and gold has been intentionally transferred to China.
Expect to see Chinese militery in the U.S. – not Russian – if Russia allows it. clemster
The Russians will never look like the “good guys”. Tatiana Covington
It could be that a coup d’etat will be required.
I hope not. GodHelpUs
Over amount of years U.S. prospered with the highest public debt. Without wars on it’s territory and so on.. Economy collapse is inevitable. To hold it over, U.S. needs to seed unstability and war in other countries. To keep ourselves stable country, to keep dollar high value (but without gold – dollar is just a paper). We intentonally made that “Arabic spring”, changed management of all those countries. Who didn’t agree – was murdered (like Kaddafi), who did like Egypt – was changed by our man. Now we expect another wave of economical collapse. We NEED to seed fear and distable east. And it’s not Obama! He’s just a puppet.. We made hugest and well trained army with the top weapons on other countries money 😀 But It won’t last forever… Bill
It’s ironic that we have a war brewing as the debt limit comes to a head —–again. Big drop in the 10 yr as $ leave the stock market for the “safety” of bonds. Any guess where the 10 yr will be in 90 days? Tobias Smith | 0 | [
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FMD2495 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Irish government would insist on a role in the running of Northern Ireland if power-sharing devolved government is not restored in the British province, but it hopes that will not happen, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Wednesday. The British government moved on Wednesday to directly set Northern Ireland s budget after the province s main political parties failed to reach agreement on restoring a power-sharing government that collapsed in January. We will have to fall back on the full detail of the (1998) Good Friday agreement, in terms of the structures that are required in the absence of devolved government, Coveney told Irish state broadcaster RTE. The prospect of direct rule in Northern Ireland and the Irish government s insistence on having a role in that an appropriate role consistent with the Good Friday Agreement is not where we want to be, he said. | 1 | [
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FMD2496 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In a series of tweets, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed U. S. President Donald Trump while praising Pope Francis for his alleged “denunciation of #MuslimBan†and of the Rohingya genocide going on in Myanmar. [Zarif appears to have attempted to drive a wedge between Trump and the Pope, tweeting that the world “needs leaders who urge dialogue compassion, not walls exclusion. †Welcome @Pontifex denunciation of #MuslimBan #RohingyaGenocide. World needs leaders who urge dialogue compassion, not walls exclusion. — Javad Zarif (@JZarif) February 10, 2017, The Iranian minister was referring to a recent general audience in which Pope Francis made some extemporaneous remarks urging prayer for the persecuted Rohingya people, who are Muslims. The Pope actually never mentioned President Trump’s temporary travel ban on 7 nations that are hotbeds of Islamic terrorism, including Iran. In his remarks Wednesday, Francis asked his hearers to pray in a special way for “our Rohingya brothers and sisters. †“Driven out of Myanmar, they go from one place to another because they are unwanted,†he said. “They are good people, peaceful people. They are not Christians, but they are good, they are our brothers and sisters. And they have been suffering for years,†Francis said. “They have been tortured, killed, simply because they follow their traditions and their Muslim faith. Let us pray for them. I invite you to pray for them to our Father in Heaven, all together, for our Rohingya brothers and sisters. †Earlier in his address, the Pope repeated a favorite of his regarding the need to “create bridges rather than walls,†though the Vatican has insisted that this figurative expression refers to an attitude of openness to dialogue with others, and does not refer to specific walls or persons. Charles Maung Bo, the first Catholic cardinal from Myanmar (the former Burma) has called the persecution of the Rohingyas “an appalling scar on the conscience of my country. †According to Cardinal Bo, the Rohingyas are “among the most marginalized, dehumanized and persecuted people in the world. They are treated worse than animals. Stripped of their citizenship, rejected by neighboring countries, they are rendered stateless. †Among his recent tweets, Zarif also confirmed his support for U. S. protesters against President Trump, saying that many Iranians had also demonstrated in defiance of “threats insults†from the U. S. government. On Revolution Day, Iranians turn out in huge numbers to defy threats insults by US govt praise American people for rejecting #MuslimBan. pic. twitter. — Javad Zarif (@JZarif) February 10, 2017, Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 | [
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FMD2497 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The hedge fund investment firm founded by Anthony Scaramucci said it will sell a majority of itself to RON Transatlantic EG and an arm of Chinese aviation and tourism conglomerate HNA Group, four days after Scaramucci took a position in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. SkyBridge Capital announced the deal on Tuesday. Terms of the sale, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017, were not disclosed. For HNA Group, which announced about $20 billion of deals in 2016 alone, the stake purchase through its financial arm HNA Capital represents the latest move into financial asset management. Last week, HNA said it would spend $460 million to purchase New Zealand asset finance firm UDC. “Our investment in SkyBridge is an important step in HNA Capital’s strategy to build a global asset management business,†Guang Yang, CEO for HNA Capital U.S., said in a statement. The deal comes as HNA Group is rapidly expanding in the United States, where authorities have stepped up scrutiny of Chinese state-backed deals. HNA Group, best known as the owner of Hainan Airlines Co, announced in October that it will fork out $6.5 billion to purchase a 26 percent stake in hotel chain Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HNA’s Avolon Holdings also agreed that month to buy CIT Group’s aircraft leasing assets worth $10 billion. The $12 billion SkyBridge’s investment management team, lead by Ray Nolte, will continue to run the company, offering clients access to hedge funds such as Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, Michael Vranos’ Ellington Management Group and Steven Tananbaum’s GoldenTree Asset Management LP. Scaramucci, who founded SkyBridge in 2005 and joined forces with Nolte five years later when he bought Citigroup Alternative Investments Hedge Fund Management Group, will no longer be affiliated with the firm or its well-known industry conference, the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference. Known on Wall Street as the “Moochâ€, Scaramucci announced on Friday that he would be joining the White House staff as an adviser and public liaison to government agencies and businesses. Word spread among bankers in mid-December that he had put the company up for sale as he was setting his sights on a position in Washington. HNA Capital (U.S.), a unit of HNA Capital, and RON Transatlantic already owned a minority stake in SkyBridge. Between the two, the new majority owners are involved in beer brewing, tourism, logistics and financial services. “Now, together with the world-class resources and networks of HNA and Transatlantic, we feel the ‘sky’ is the limit for how far we can take SkyBridge,†George Hornig, Chief Executive of RON Transatlantic Financial Holdings, said in the statement. The SkyBridge Alternatives Conference, called SALT, grew into one of the industry’s biggest hedge fund conferences as Scaramucci got former U.S. presidents, generals and money managers, along with thousands of others to join him for days of lectures and sunning by the pool in Las Vegas. The conference will be spun off as a standalone entity, the company said. | 1 | [
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FMD2498 | 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 President Trump Reverse an Insecticide Ban After Receiving $1 Million from Dow Chemicals? Claim summaries: The Trump administration reversed a previous decision to ban the use of a common insecticide, and it did receive money from that chemical's manufacturer.
contextual information: The insecticide chlorpyrifos, sold under the brand names Lorsban, Dursban, and others, has been the subject of regulatory battles for decades. It was first introduced as a pesticide in 1965 and remains the most commonly applied pesticide in the United States. In 1996, the Clinton administration signed into law the Food Quality Protection Act, which mandated regular scientific reviews and safety evaluations of existing pesticides based on children's health safety benchmarks. One of the actions resulting from this review was a 2000 ban on chlorpyrifos for nearly all residential and indoor uses. This action followed the most extensive scientific review of the potential hazards from a pesticide ever conducted. The action, the result of an agreement with the manufacturers, will significantly minimize potential health risks from exposure to Dursban, also called chlorpyrifos, for all Americans, especially children. Following this ruling, the EPA additionally ruled that chlorpyrifos would remain classified as safe for use in other agricultural and industrial settings. This latter ruling resulted in a September 2007 petition to the EPA filed by the Pesticide Action Network of North America and the Natural Resources Defense Council, both of which jointly requested that the agency ban the pesticide or issue final rulings on their acceptable levels (legally termed tolerances) in food. In September 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals mandated that the EPA respond to this petition by either banning the chemical completely or issuing final rulings on tolerances of the chemical's residue on food products by October 31, 2015. Following this court order, the EPA conducted a lengthy review and delivered a proposal on November 6, 2015, which suggested, as requested by the petition, that all currently published tolerances regarding chlorpyrifos residue on food should be revoked. The EPA proposed to revoke all tolerances for residues of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, including tolerances for residues of chlorpyrifos on specific food commodities, on all food commodities treated in food handling and food service establishments in accordance with prescribed conditions, and on specific commodities when used under regional registrations. The agency proposed to revoke all of these tolerances because it cannot, at this time, determine that aggregate exposure to residues of chlorpyrifos, including all anticipated dietary exposures and all other non-occupational exposures for which there is reliable information, is safe. In March 2017, before the EPA's proposal was implemented, Scott Pruitt, the new EPA administrator under President Donald Trump, reversed course and argued that the previous administration's scientific rationale was dubious, denying the petition. In October 2015, under the previous administration, the EPA proposed to revoke all food residue tolerances for chlorpyrifos, an active ingredient in insecticides. This proposal was issued in response to a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Pesticide Action Network North America. The October 2015 proposal largely relied on certain epidemiological study outcomes, whose application is novel and uncertain, to reach its conclusions. The decision to deny the petition faced renewed scrutiny because the CEO of Dow Chemical, Andrew Liveris, had been appointed by Trump to a White House manufacturing working group, and his company subsequently donated $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration fund. Liveris was also scrutinized over reports that he met with Pruitt prior to his announcement reversing the ban. On November 19, 2017, using text from a viral Chelsea Handler tweet, the progressive Facebook page "Really American" launched a petition with a call to action. We explore each component of this memetic claim: Chlorpyrifos was invented by the Nazis as a nerve agent. False. Chlorpyrifos is a specific chemical that belongs to a broader class of chemicals called organophosphates. While the Nazis were at the forefront of developing this broader class as both weapons and insecticides, they cannot be credited with inventing chlorpyrifos specifically. In the 1930s, a German researcher named Gerhard Schrader at the German chemical producer IG Farben (infamous for producing the gas most commonly employed at Nazi death camps) discovered that organophosphates interact with cholinesterase, an enzyme that aids in the production of an important neurotransmitter in animals. Originally, this effect was explored as a way to produce an insecticide, but one of Schrader's formulations, named Preparation 9/91, ended up being extremely toxic to humans. Schrader himself required hospitalization as a result of his own interaction with it. This discovery was reported to Nazi authorities, who mandated that all German researchers report any scientific development that could have military applications to the regime. Schrader's discovery led to the development and production of some of the world's most infamous organophosphate nerve gases, including Tabun and Sarin. Other countries, including Britain and the United States, also began research into organophosphates during WWII as weapons. After the war ended, research resumed into organophosphate use as an insecticide. Chlorpyrifos, a specific formulation of an organophosphate, is included as one of many chemicals assigned to the Dow Chemical Company in a 1963 patent, which lists United States-based researcher Raymond Rigterink as the inventor. The only connection that chlorpyrifos has to the Nazi regime is its foundational work on the biological effects of organophosphates that researchers performed prior to and during WWII. Many nations built on this work after the war. Chlorpyrifos causes brain damage. Unproven, but likely. That organophosphates can be toxic to humans is nothing new. The idea in developing such a chemical for use as an insecticide is to engineer an organophosphate that is below the threshold for affecting the human nervous system (via its effect on cholinesterase, something scientifically referred to as AChE inhibition) but is still toxic to insects. From a scientific standpoint, the main controversy surrounds the potential residual effects that chlorpyrifos may have on the neurological development of fetuses and young children, which some studies have documented even at levels well below what is currently considered acceptable. In their 2016 decision to ban all tolerances for the chemical on food, the Environmental Protection Agency stated: In summary, the EPA's assessment is that the [Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, CCCEH] study, with supporting results from the other two U.S. cohort studies and the seven additional epidemiological studies reviewed in 2015, provides sufficient evidence that there are neurodevelopmental effects occurring at chlorpyrifos exposure levels below that required for AChE inhibition. The primary study cited by the EPA was conducted by the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. This study compared fetal exposure to chlorpyrifos (based on sampling of blood in the mother's umbilical cord) to differences in brain development. We investigated associations between [chlorpyrifos, CPF] exposure and brain morphology using magnetic resonance imaging in 40 children, aged 5.9 to 11.2 years, selected from a nonclinical, representative community-based cohort. Twenty high-exposure children (upper tertile of CPF concentrations in umbilical cord blood) were compared with 20 low-exposure children on cortical surface features. In a press release about this study, CCCEH said: Even low to moderate levels of exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos during pregnancy may lead to long-term, potentially irreversible changes in the brain structure of the child. Changes were visible across the surface of the brain, with abnormal enlargement of some areas and thinning in others. The disturbances in brain structure are consistent with the IQ deficits previously reported in the children with high exposure levels of CPF, suggesting a link between prenatal exposure to CPF and deficits in IQ and working memory at age 7. Notably, the brain abnormalities appeared to occur at exposure levels below the current EPA threshold for toxicity, which is based on exposures high enough to inhibit the action of the key neurological enzyme cholinesterase. The present findings suggest that the mechanism underlying structural changes in the brain may involve other pathways. There have been several large-scale studies that show a similar association between exposure to chlorpyrifos and other organophosphates and neurological problems, and there have been several studies proposing hypotheses about why such an association exists, but there lacks a rigorous consensus on the latter point. The Pruitt EPA, in essence, has used this uncertainty to defer a decision on its neurological effects to a later review date. Following a review of comments on both the November 2015 proposal and the November 2016 notice of data availability, the EPA concluded that, despite several years of study, the science addressing neurodevelopmental effects remains unresolved and that further evaluation of the science during the remaining time for completion of registration review is warranted to achieve greater certainty as to whether the potential exists for adverse neurodevelopmental effects to occur from current human exposures to chlorpyrifos. The EPA has therefore concluded that it will not complete the human health portion of the registration review or any associated tolerance revocation of chlorpyrifos without first attempting to come to a clearer scientific resolution on those issues. As noted, Congress has provided that the EPA must complete registration review by October 1, 2022. Because the Ninth Circuit's August 12, 2016 order has made clear, however, that further extensions to the March 31, 2017 deadline for responding to the petition would not be granted, the EPA is today also denying all remaining petition claims. Pruitt highlighted specific methodological problems and uncertainties scientists raised during their 2016 review but importantly neglected to mention that at the time of the panel's meeting, they still concluded that the ban was necessary, even if the mechanistic aspects of chlorpyrifos danger are not yet settled. Jim Jones, the former head of the EPA chemical safety unit, contended in an interview with the New York Times that the science behind the neurological risks of chlorpyrifos is not questioned. They are ignoring the science that is pretty solid, Mr. Jones said, adding that he believed the ruling would put farm workers and exposed children at unnecessary risk. Speaking of the EPA's reversal, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement suggesting that Pruitt's decision was not based on science, arguing an ethical responsibility to use science for the good of humanity. Science should be used to prevent harm and to protect lives. The decision to put the agenda of a corporation over the lives and well-being of Americans is an egregious failure of our government to use strong, independent science to protect public health and safety. Chlorpyrifos was supposed to be banned in 2017, but Trump is now allowing it. In a broad sense, the "blame" for this chlorpyrifos ban reversal belongs only indirectly to Trump himself. He did, however, appoint anti-regulation crusader Scott Pruitt as administrator of the EPA, who subsequently decided to exercise his executive authority to reject the chlorpyrifos petition and reverse the previous EPA's ban, which is a power afforded to Pruitt through the United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Under section 408(d)(4) of the FFDCA, the EPA is authorized to respond to a section 408(d) petition to revoke tolerance either by issuing a final rule revoking the tolerances, issuing a proposed rule, or issuing an order denying the petition. If Pruitt had not exercised this authority, the EPA had a court-mandated deadline to make a ruling on the matter by March 31, 2017. Prior to this deadline, Pruitt issued his own ruling rejecting the work done by previous advisory boards. Had a different administrator been in charge, that call may have been very different. As a result of Trump and Pruitt's actions, chlorpyrifos will continue to be allowed to be sprayed on food items, but it should be noted that this represents no change in current policy; it merely blocks what would likely have been the implementation of a change that would have otherwise taken effect in March 2017. Dow Chemicals gave President Trump $1 million for his inauguration. Dow Chemicals donated one million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee, a donation described by political news site TheHill.com as among Trump's largest. Dow also donated $250,000 to the 2005 George W. Bush inaugural committee (whose administration also sought to limit regulation on chlorpyrifos), but not to either the 2009 or 2013 Obama inaugural funds. Responding to an April 2017 report alleging that Dow attempted to kill efforts to study the negative effects of chlorpyrifos, Dow contended that the gift was legal and not part of an influence campaign. | 2 | [
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FMD2499 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump on Monday accused the news media of ignoring attacks by Islamist militants in Europe. Trump, who has made defeating Islamic State a core goal of his presidency, did not specify which attacks were going unreported, which news media organizations were ignoring them, or offer any details to support his claims. “All over Europe, it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,†he told a group of about 300 U.S. troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. “And, in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that,†he added, without saying what those reasons were. The White House later released a list of 78 attacks around the world from September 2014 to December 2016. “Networks are not devoting to each of them the same level of coverage they once did,†a White House official said. “This cannot be allowed to become the ‘new normal.’â€It was Trump’s latest salvo against the news media, a favorite target for derision that he says broadly underestimated his chances during the presidential campaign. He has kept up the attacks since his Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump at one point cited attacks in the French cities of Paris and Nice, which were widely covered. More than 230 people have died in France alone in the past two years at the hands of attackers allied to Islamic State. Al Tompkins at The Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school, dismissed Trump’s criticism. “To suggest that journalists have some reason not to report ISIS attacks is just outlandish,†Tompkins said, using an acronym for Islamic State. | 1 | [
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