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FMD3900 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: License DMCA
There is an epic clash of two cultures -- one with a guiding ethic of harmony between people and nature, the other driven by an ethos that encourages the exploitation of both. Yet, for months, our clueless media gave this match-up little coverage.
For the face-off is between Energy Transfer Partners, one of the world's largest pipeline corporations, and the Standing Rock Lakota Sioux Tribe. It's not merely big news, but the panoramic story of America itself. It's a real reality show -- a cultural, political and moral drama featuring raw greed, grassroots courage, class war, ancient rites, human rights, defenders of the common good, the most nefarious Texas oilman since J. R. Ewing, a historic gathering of Native tribes and a Bull-Connor-style sheriff -- all on location near a North Dakota town named Cannon Ball!
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a massive 1,172-mile-long pipeline being constructed by EPT. It will cut through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. This pipeline, owned by oilman Kelcy Warren, crosses 200 rivers and countless farms, and it cuts through the ancestral lands and burial grounds of the Tribe.
DAPL risks economic and environmental disaster. The corporation plans to bury its oil pipeline under the Missouri, beneath the Lakota people's main source of water for drinking, bathing, irrigation, fishing, and recreation. As a Lakota phrase says -- water is life -- and one rupture could be ruinous.
In April, the Standing Rock Sioux made their stand. Some 35 tribal leaders established Sacred Stone Camp, just off their reservation and near where ETP's engineers intend to tunnel under the river. After the tribe's social media network spread word of the rebellion, a spontaneous migration of Native people -- not coordinated by anyone -- began arriving at the camp to stand in solidarity against ETP. - Advertisement -
They came in cars, campers, and caravans -- some even paddled down the Missouri in traditional canoes. By August, representatives of 280 Native American tribes had joined, making this the largest, most diverse, cross-tribal action in U.S. history. Sacred Stone Camp pulsated with a sense of rediscovered power, ancestral duty, and indigenous culture. Not only were spirits high, but the extraordinary unity of so many diverse Native cultures -- boldly gathering in a show of strength and shouting "NO" to yet another arrogant act of gross injustice -- seemed to herald a reawakening.
As the protest gained strength -- and was joined by thousands of progressives and covered by independent media -- ETP and its political minions responded predictably: with panic, whining, lies, and brute force.
North Dakota's governor, Jack Dalrymple falsely wailed that "unlawful acts associated with the protest near Cannon Ball have led to serious public safety concerns and property damage." He declared a state of emergency, set up road blocks to seal off the reservation, brought in riot-clad troopers, removed state water and health services from the protest area, and used his state PR machine to demonize the activists as a violent threat to surrounding towns of white people.
ETP's legal beagles have attempted to silence protesters by filing hokey lawsuits against several tribal leaders and activists that may be aimed at bankrupting defendants with legal fees; seeking a federal injunction against anyone interfering with pipeline construction; and threatening to prosecute Native Americans for -- Oh, the irony! -- trespassing on land that was theirs before it was stolen from them.
On Labor Day weekend, a DAPL crew suddenly started construction on the under-river tunnel, reportedly damaging tribal burial sites. When unarmed protesters put their bodies in front of the machinery, a line of private "pipeline guards" showed up and blasted at least 30 protesters with pepper spray and sicced a pack of attack dogs on them. At least six people were bitten, including a child and a pregnant woman. - Advertisement -
At least four reporters have been charged with everything from criminal trespass to conspiracy for trying to cover what the mainstream media won't touch. Charges are still pending for some of these journalists.
Standing Rock tribe's chair, Dave Archambault has made clear that the Native people are committed to the higher values of "our lands, people, water, and sacred sites." As they have been for millennia, the tribe's actions today must be based on the common good of their grandchildren and their grandchildren-generations into the future. The Standing Rock Sioux are in this fight for the long haul: "Our fight isn't over until there is permanent protection of our people and resources from the pipeline. We won't stop until they [EPT] stop." To find out more and join the fight, go to www.SacredStoneCamp.org . | 0 | [
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FMD3901 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The European Union plays down talk by Britain s Brexit minister that last week s interim accord is not binding and will launch new talks on Friday that are David Davis-proof , a senior EU official said. The comment on Tuesday followed Brexit Secretary Davis s weekend remark that outline divorce terms were more a statement of intent than legally binding. The EU official told reporters that EU leaders meeting on Friday will ram home in guidelines to their negotiator that Britain must honor its agreements so far if it wants to discuss the future free trade treaty it wants. Davis himself pledged to convert last Friday s deal into legal text as soon as possible after he spoke to the European Parliament s Brexit point man. Guy Verhofstadt branded Davis s earlier comment unhelpful and said that what the EU executive calls a gentleman s agreement must be made legal. British and EU officials said that would mean agreeing the formal withdrawal treaty within the coming year so that it can be ratified by their parliaments before Brexit in March 2019. Davis s EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, said he aimed in the new year to present a draft of a withdrawal treaty that would reflect the accords struck with Prime Minister Theresa May last week on settling financial obligations, the rights of expatriate citizens and ensuring no hard EU border with Northern Ireland. Adding to the debate over how far London is bound by May s deal, Barnier insisted there should be no backtracking if London is to have the trade negotiations it so much wants. That is spelled out in legal language in the negotiating guidelines which leaders are expected to approve on Friday after May has left the summit: Negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible, the draft guidelines read. That, the senior EU official said, made clear there could be no going back, as Davis had implied might be possible: The guidelines are David Davis-proof, the official said. Guidelines were sent by summit chair Donald Tusk to the 27 other national leaders on Friday. They were little changed when their aides met on Monday to prepare the meeting, principally to spell out more clearly the timing of the next steps in the process and to emphasize continuing obligations on London. An intention to start negotiating a transition period from Brexit to a future trade pact early in 2018 now includes a plan to be able to launch talks in January. The new draft makes clearer that talks on what happens after transition will start only after further guidelines are agreed in March. Tusk, in his formal letter on Tuesday inviting leaders to the summit, warned there was no time to lose and highlighted a gnawing concern in Brussels that keeping divergent interests among the 27 in check may be much harder when it comes to a free trade treaty than it has been in settling Britain s divorce. This will be a furious race against time, where again our unity will be key, Tusk wrote. And the experience so far has shown that unity is a sine qua non of an orderly Brexit. EU officials expect relatively straightforward talks on the transition period, given British desire for a quick deal and EU insistence that it be as simple as possible; essentially Britain will retain all its obligations as an EU member, as well as many of its rights except, crucially, any say over EU decisions. Starting trade talks will require, first, more information from May on what future deal she wants. Davis spoke at the weekend of a free trade pact similar to but better than one the EU concluded last year with Canada Canada Plus Plus Plus . But it will also require hard bargaining among the 27, who have very different relationships and interests with Britain. | 1 | [
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FMD3902 | 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 Biden Support the Green New Deal? Claim summaries: Presidential hopeful Joe Biden's position on climate change became a hot topic on the first night of the presidential debates in the fall of 2020.
contextual information: Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but misinformation continues to spread. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. During the first 2020 U.S. presidential debate held in Cleveland on Sept. 29, Democratic nominee Joe Biden stated that he does not support the Green New Deal, a resolution introduced in Congress by members of his own party proposing strategies for addressing climate change. Instead, he backs the Biden Plan for doing so, which is detailed on his campaign website. Biden's disavowal came in response to an attempt by his opponent, U.S. President Donald Trump, to link him to the Green New Deal, claiming it would cost $100 trillion if implemented. Biden's responses (which begin one hour and 20 minutes into the video clip) were as follows: "That is not my plan. The Green New Deal is not my plan. The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward. We're not going to build plants that are, in fact, great polluting plants. No, I don't support the Green New Deal. I support the Biden Plan that I put forward. The Biden Plan is different from what [Trump] calls the radical Green New Deal." These statements sparked criticism from Republicans like Omar Navarro, who ran three unsuccessful bids for California's 43rd Congressional District in 2016, 2018, and again in 2020. On Sept. 30, Navarro shared a screenshot from Biden's website that described the Green New Deal as a crucial framework for meeting climate challenges. The language in the tweeted screenshot was indeed found on Biden's website as of Sept. 30, but it was taken out of context and does not reflect the differences between the Biden Plan and the Green New Deal, which we will discuss below. The Green New Deal resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 7, 2019, in response to Trump's 2017 announcement that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change. The 14-page proposal outlines a number of policies aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions produced by American companies, creating high-wage jobs for Americans, and establishing an overall framework for environmental justice and resilience against climate change-related disasters. It is important to note that the Green New Deal is nonbinding, and if it were to pass, nothing outlined within its pages would become law. Biden made climate change a cornerstone of his 2020 presidential bid, criticizing Trump's handling of environmental affairs. It is true that the Biden Plan includes elements of the Green New Deal and is similar in that both plans agree that the U.S. needs to act urgently to meet the scope of the climate change challenge, and that the environment and the economy are completely interconnected. The Biden Plan addresses many of the issues outlined in the Green New Deal, with the addition of specific actions that a Biden administration would take if he were elected in November 2020. We examined both proposals to understand the nuances between them, where they differ, and where they align. Generally speaking, both policies establish a similar framework but differ in the specifics of how policymakers should enforce and achieve defined goals. For example, both plans highlight the importance of clean, safe drinking water and community-driven projects that promote social and environmental justice in areas disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. The greatest difference between the Biden Plan and the Green New Deal lies in their stances on the Paris Agreement, an international agreement established in 2015 with the central aim of coordinating and strengthening the global response to climate change and keeping the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Whereas the Biden Plan promises a recommitment to the Paris Agreement, the Green New Deal does not mention it at all. When it comes to clean energy, the Green New Deal and the Biden Plan are similar in that they aim to achieve 100% clean energy and net-zero emissions, but the former sets forth a 10-year mobilization deadline, whereas the Biden Plan sets a goal of no later than 2050. Both plans establish priorities for investment in clean energy innovation and research; however, the Biden Plan is much vaguer. The Green New Deal goes into greater detail, specifying that those investments should include infrastructure and industry, sustainable farming and land-use practices, zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, manufacturing public transit, removing greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry, and the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies. Other key areas of overlap between the two plans include creating resilience across the nation and committing to international policy and trade that employ strong labor and environmental protections. According to his website, the Biden Plan will be funded by rolling back Trump tax incentives and will require a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over the next decade, leveraging additional private sector and state and local investments to total more than $5 trillion. This estimated cost is significantly lower than the $100 trillion bill that Trump claimed the U.S. would incur during the debate. However, serious disagreement exists over how much the implementation of the Green New Deal might actually cost. After its 2019 introduction by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Republican leaders and some media publications cited research by the right-wing think tank American Action Forum that speculated the Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion, or an estimated $600,000 per household, in its first 10 years. But a number of financial experts have countered that research, suggesting that it is more likely the Green New Deal would cost significantly less, with some estimates being half as much. In fact, a September 2020 study published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science suggested a total overall cost of just over $16 trillion over 15 years. Though both the Biden Plan and the Green New Deal provide similar general frameworks for moving towards a cleaner economy and combating the effects of climate change at a national level, subtle differences exist between the two. Although Biden stated outright that he does not support the Green New Deal, it is apparent from his own policy statements that he supports elements of it that have been incorporated into his own plan. | 2 | [
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FMD3903 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with about 20 chief executives on Tuesday as he works to gain support for a $1 trillion infrastructure program, tax reform and other administration priorities, said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. Trump will meet with the heads of General Motors Co (GM.N), International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), a government official briefed on the matter said. Trump has pledged to unlock $1 trillion in private and public infrastructure investments to fix bridges, improve the electrical grid and broadband internet, modernize airports and potentially rebuild hospitals for veterans. Nearly three months after his inauguration, Trump will again seek the advice and funds of the private sector for his “national rebuilding†program. Trump also wants to streamline the income tax system, cut federal regulations, reduce corporate income tax and add new taxes to prod companies to keep or move production to the United States. He has held numerous sessions with CEOs since taking office. The chief executives are part of Trump’s “Strategy and Policy Forum†that was created in December and last met with the president on Feb. 3. The business leaders from a variety of sectors will also meet in small groups with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, Spicer said. Participants in Ross’ meeting include Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon and Indra Nooyi, chief executive officer of PepsiCo Inc PEP.N. Pruitt’s meeting will include GM CEO Mary Barra and Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners LLC and a Republican former SEC commissioner. Chao’s meeting will include Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who heads the world’s largest investment management firm, in a letter to shareholders Monday backed calls for private investment to rebuild U.S. infrastructure. The Trump administration plans to unveil as soon as May the $1 trillion infrastructure plan over 10 years. “Fixing crumbling roads and bridges is not enough. We need to be focused on reshaping our world, not just repairing it,†Fink wrote. Last week, Trump pitched infrastructure projects to about 50 New York area CEOs. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn told executives that privatizing air traffic control, which the administration proposed in its budget outline in March, could be a big boost. Other chief executives taking part Tuesday include consultant EY, Boston Consulting Group, the Cleveland Clinic and Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investment fund. | 1 | [
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FMD3904 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Savers were encouraged last year when the Federal Reserve began raising rates. But interest paid on the federally insured accounts remains lackluster. Consumers willing to jump through some hoops, however, can get much better returns on their savings. In its annual review of checking accounts, the financial website Bankrate found that the average yield at banks and credit unions was 1. 65 percent, while nearly a dozen yielded 2 percent or more. By contrast, the average money market account yields just 0. 11 percent. Bankrate’s analysis looked at a sample of 56 banks and credit unions in to late February. But only about half of the accounts are available to consumers nationally, and all come with lots of strings attached. Most, for instance, require direct deposit and at least 10 debit transactions a month to earn the highest rate. Other requirements may include agreeing to receive monthly statements electronically and paying bills online. And a few banks say they offer the accounts nationally but still require an visit to a branch to open the account. “This is not something that’s going to work for everybody,†said Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst. For consumers who have direct deposit and use debit cards a lot, however, opening one of the accounts could be worthwhile since interest rates on savings accounts and certificates of deposit remain pedestrian. “All the more reason to be proactive,†he said, “ to make sure you’re getting the best return on your money. †One example of a nationally available account is offered by Main Street Bank in Bingham Farms, Mich. The account offers 2. 25 percent on balances up to $25, 000 (the rate on balances over the cap is 0. 25 percent). In addition to a direct deposit or one automatic payment, the requirements include 12 debit transactions a month. Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts. com, a website that tracks deposit rates, said many of his readers are older people looking to maximize returns on accounts, and some have multiple checking accounts. (He calls them reward checking accounts because they typically offer a “reward†like reimbursement of A. T. M. fees in addition to the higher rate.) One reader, he said, has at least 10 of these accounts. While managing them and making sure all the various requirements are met is a challenge for consumers, he said, “They’re serious in terms of maximizing their savings in a safe way. †To get the most from the accounts, it’s best to think of them as a savings account, rather than a checking account, Mr. McBride said. The required debits should probably be for smaller amounts, he said, so the higher rate is applied to the largest balance possible. (A few banks require that the debit transactions hit a minimum purchase level, so be sure to check the details.) Here are some questions and answers about checking accounts: ■What if I don’t make the required number of debit transactions? You won’t get the highest rate on your deposit for that month but will instead get a much lower, default interest rate. The average default rate is 0. 06 percent. The default rate isn’t permanent, however you can regain it by meeting the required debits the next month. And, Mr. Tumin said, the accounts typically have no monthly fee, so while you won’t earn the higher rate if you fail to meet the account’s criteria, you won’t be penalized with an additional charge. ■Is there a limit on the balance that earns the higher rate? Usually, yes — and that can limit the money you earn on your funds. Consumers must weigh the rate along with the balance cap to determine which account would generate the most interest for them, Mr. McBride said. The caps range from a low of $500 to a high of $25, 000, with an average of about $16, 000, Bankrate found. Earning 2 percent on the average would earn more than $300 for the account holder. But of the 15 accounts, just one had a balance cap higher than $15, 000. Northpointe Bank in Grand Rapids, Mich. for instance, offers a yield of 5 percent, but it caps the balance eligible for the rate at $5, 000. Funds over the limit earn just 0. 1 percent. Mr. Tumin suggested that consumers with a relatively small amount of money to deposit choose the account with the highest rate, while those with a larger pot select an account with the highest cap. ■What if I already have my paycheck deposited into another account? Some employers allow you to have your direct paycheck deposit split among multiple accounts, Mr. McBride said. So you could have a portion deposited into a main checking account, which you use to pay monthly bills, and have the rest deposited into the account to meet the criteria for the higher interest rate. In addition, some accounts allow deposits that use an automated clearing house electronic network for clearing financial transactions — A. C. H. transactions — to meet the criteria, Mr. Tumin said. So you could set up a recurring automatic transfer from an online savings account — say, one offered by the Ally Bank or Capital One 360 — to meet that requirement. | 1 | [
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FMD3905 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Wednesday, the GOP in an effort to deflect from the fact that they have failed multiple times to come up with an acceptable alternative to Obamacare began rage-tweeting Democrats demanding that they supply them with a workable plan. This, of course, is despite Republicans decision to shut Democrats entirely out of the process while they came up with their terrible replacement for the Affordable care Act. We ve got to fix what s broken, the GOP tweeted with a two second video of Hillary Clinton saying those words. Where s your plan, @HillaryClinton? We ve got to fix what s broken. Where's your plan, @HillaryClinton? pic.twitter.com/CmRB4mCsZd GOP (@GOP) July 5, 2017The simple answer, of course, is that Republicans could have Googled to find her plan. Clinton s plan is still live on her website. While it s far from complete, being a summary on a campaign website, it is a pretty good start. She has also spoken in detail about various things she would do to improve our healthcare system.Americans, who have been kept in the dark about the GOP s various failed plans, joined together to roast the living f*ck out of the Stupid Party.Uh, the ball s in your court, GOP. What s YOUR plan? Danny Wallace (@dannywallace) July 5, 2017Is this a crowdsourcing? Because as satire, it s bat$&?* awful. will broussard (@Jag_Me_Out) July 5, 2017She doesn t NEED a plan you asshats. She s a private citizen. The plans need to come from the party if NO who has no clue how to govern. LadyLiberal ? (@LadyLiberals) July 5, 2017Wait, did @HillaryClinton win? I mean, we know she bested you by 3 million votes, but why are you asking her? Ben Weston (@psiphyr) July 5, 2017You fuckers have the presidency, senate, and house and still can t get it done. So let s talk about your ineptitude before we go there. eric af (@ewfeez) July 5, 2017Look, you guys really seem to be having a hard time with this. You won the election. Your turn to govern. You have to fix this, not dems. Isaac Lampner (@Lamp1952) July 5, 2017Why are you asking a private citizen something you were elected to do? Ask me and other citizens too!! Fighting Failure (@remorganus) July 5, 2017Found it for you: https://t.co/EVVONW3e5F Just in Time to Eat (@JustinSaysThis) July 5, 2017Wow. Just wow. Bowling Green Victim (@TeamGulley) July 5, 2017Y all are so sad with this angle. Dems had a plan, y all rejected it. They d still sit down with you and work together if you were sensible. Alp Ozcelik (@alplicable) July 5, 2017Are fing kidding me? If you wanted a plan you should have supported HRC instead of the ?? Jellokitty (@jellokitty5) July 5, 2017Are you asking because you re out of ideas? Or just because yours are so bad? Finc (@fincinc) July 5, 2017Checkout her web page. Pretty sure her plan is still up. In fact, pick a subject & she has a plan for it. Not just It ll be great! Sharon Jones (@SharonJ44257163) July 5, 2017LOL! Is this a cry for help? pic.twitter.com/whRD3rXXEw Pia Wilson ? ? (@pwilson720) July 5, 2017GOP admits to being out of ideas Crenshaw (@okie210) July 5, 2017pic.twitter.com/xaYdQtil5k XweAponX (@XweAponX) July 5, 2017You did not just tweet this, did you? Democracy???? (@ChrisSobolowski) July 5, 2017I missed the memo. Is Hillary president? Kiran Kaur (@kirangkaur) July 5, 2017uhhhh this is embarrassing for you guys but it s actually been on her website the whole time no roses no frogs ? (@sidleypkhermit) July 5, 2017Look on her goddamned campaign website, you monsters. ITS ALL THERE. I m Sorry Aunt Lydia (@TinaMcGugan) July 5, 2017Where s your plan? I d ask my GOP senator, but his office doesn t answer phones and he holds no town hall meetings. JB (@jennberg) July 5, 2017@GOP isn t smart enough to get out of the rain, Tweets this bs out while Trumps cedes leadership to anyone. Vote these losers out pic.twitter.com/YdmZO3Xap4 Molly (@Plantflowes) July 5, 2017The GOP also demanded that Bernie Sanders who has presented a detailed plan for single payer healthcare and Bill Clinton as well as other Demeocrats (all of whom with the exception of DINO Joe Manchin have shared detailed ideas with Americans) provide them with the answers they are too stupid to find themselves.Featured image via Getty Images/screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD3906 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Barack Obama said on Thursday that some 20 million Americans had become insured as a result of the Affordable Care Act, his signature healthcare law also known as “Obamacare.†During a trip to Wisconsin to tout the program, Obama said he hoped Republicans would work with him during his final months in office to improve the law, which they have tried unsuccessfully to repeal. “Today I can announce that thanks to the law, 20 million more Americans now know the security of health insurance,†Obama told a crowd in Milwaukee after being introduced by a local man who said the law saved his life. The man, Brent Brown, said he was a Republican who had not voted for the Democratic president. The law was passed in 2010 and Republicans have sought to repeal it ever since. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the estimates Obama referenced included coverage from the expansion of the Medicaid program, health insurance marketplaces, and provisions that allowed young people to stay on their parents’ private insurance plans longer. The 20 million figure was an update to a September 2015 government estimate that 17.6 million Americans had been insured as a result of the Affordable Care Act. | 1 | [
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FMD3907 | 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 has the sixth largest economy on planet Earth.
contextual information: UPDATE: Since publication, California's economy has moved up to the fifth largest in the world, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce and reported in May 2018 in the Sacramento Bee. Its 2017 GDP was $2.747 trillion, surpassing the United Kingdom's $2.625 trillion GDP. State Senate leader Kevin de León spotlighted California's economic and social achievements during his speech this week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The Democrat from Los Angeles touted the state's newly established $15 per hour minimum wage, efforts to keep college affordable, and California's hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. "We've made unprecedented progress in every area," de León told a cheering crowd. "And when we elect Hillary Clinton as our next president, I know that our progress will be America's progress." The state senator then repeated a talking point California leaders love to make on national and international stages about the size of the state's economy: "These are the progressive policies that have made California the sixth largest economy on planet Earth," de León said. We won't wade into the debate over whether progressive or other policies have positioned the state's economy on such a high perch. But we will examine the provocative claim of California being the sixth largest economy on planet Earth by itself. State Senate leader Kevin de León makes this claim at the 1:45 minute mark in this video. Our research shows that state leaders have made this hypothetical comparison for years, examining California's gross domestic product against nations across the globe. With nearly 40 million people, the state has a larger population than many countries. It also boasts a diverse set of industries, from technology to tourism and entertainment. In June, Gov. Jerry Brown's administration released figures showing California, with a GDP of more than $2.4 trillion in 2015, had jumped two spots in these unique world rankings, ahead of France and Brazil, and into sixth place behind the United Kingdom. First on the list is the United States, followed by China, Japan, and Germany. California's place on the list has fluctuated over time; it had been 10th as recently as 2012 due to the effects of the financial and housing slumps. The rankings use International Monetary Fund data. California is the only state on the list of nations. Experts have said California's rise in the rankings reflects its strong economic growth compared with the rest of the world. They have cited Silicon Valley's continued tech boom as a critical factor. "It speaks to California doing relatively well in a sluggish global economy," Jeff Michael, director of the University of the Pacific's Center for Business and Policy Research, told the Sacramento Bee in June. A more complex picture emerges from de León's statement, made in a short 4-minute speech, which did not include much context. When adjusting for the state's high cost of living, California's GDP ranking drops to 11th in the world, according to the California Legislative Analyst's Office. A tweet on June 14, 2016, from California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office noted this. Carson Bruno, who studies California policy at the conservative Hoover Institution, says there's a lot missing from the sixth largest economy claim. "In California, housing costs more; electricity and gas cost more; and even most goods and services cost more than the national average," he wrote in a post on RealClearMarkets.com. "In many respects, California's cost of living is much more like a Western European nation than it is like the rest of the U.S." The widely reported global rankings ignore this reality. De León's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Our rating: State Senate leader Kevin de León recently claimed at the Democratic National Convention that California has the sixth largest economy on planet Earth. This hypothetical comparison rests on California's $2.4 trillion GDP, which moved slightly above that of France and Brazil in 2015 to sixth in the world. The ranking, and de León's statement, however, ignore California's sky-high cost of living and Silicon Valley's role in the state's economic growth. The state's GDP drops several places when adjusted for cost of living. De León's statement, while accurate, could have used this additional information or clarification. We rate his claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE: The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Share the Facts Widget Embed. | 1 | [
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FMD3908 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Obama decides to nominate Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court even though the Senate announced they would wait until a new administration to confirm a nominee. This is an attempt to box in the Republicans in the Senate. This nominee is left on some things and right on others like criminal justice but has been supported in the past as a judge who will articulate a broad progressive vision for the law . This should be interesting: To be clear, Garland s record does not suggest that he would join the Court s right flank if confirmed to the Supreme Court. He would likely vote much more often than not with the Supreme Court s liberals. Here s the skinny on left leaning Garland:Garland is unquestionably qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. A 19 year veteran of the DC Circuit a court that is widely viewed as the second-most powerful in the nation Garland graduated with high honors from Harvard Law School. He clerked for Justice William Brennan, and spent a few years as a partner in the multinational law firm Arnold and Porter. He also held senior positions in the Justice Department, including a leadership role in the department s criminal division and a stint as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.At age 63, Garland is also the oldest person nominated to the Supreme Court since President Nixon named Justice Lewis Powell in 1971. Thus, if confirmed, Garland is unlikely to match or even approach Justice Scalia s nearly 30 years on the Supreme Court. Garland s relatively advanced age may help explain why Hatch floated the DC Circuit chief judge as his ideal Obama nominee. Another factor that almost certainly played a role is Garland s reputation for moderation. In 2003, for example, Garland joined an opinion holding that the federal judiciary lacks the authority to assert habeas corpus jurisdiction at the behest of an alien held at a military base leased from another nation, a military base outside the sovereignty of the United States an opinion that effectively prohibited Guantanamo Bay detainees from seeking relief in civilian courts. A little over a year later, the Supreme Court reversed this decision in Rasul v. Bush. Although, in fairness, it should be noted that legal experts disagree about whether the decision Garland joined was mandated by existing precedents. The former prosecutor also has a relatively conservative record on criminal justice. A 2010 examination of his decisions by SCOTUS Blog s Tom Goldstein determined that Judge Garland rarely votes in favor of criminal defendants appeals of their convictions. Goldstein identified only eight such published rulings, in addition to seven where he voted to reverse the defendant s sentence in whole or in part, or to permit the defendant to raise a argument relating to sentencing on remand, during the 13 years Garland had then spent on the DC Circuit. To be clear, Garland s record does not suggest that he would join the Court s right flank if confirmed to the Supreme Court. He would likely vote much more often than not with the Supreme Court s liberals.Read more: Think Progress | 0 | [
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FMD3909 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Liberal cities across the globe are getting all symbolic in the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the U. S. out of the Paris climate accord — by shining green lights on buildings. [Trump announced Thursday that he will pull the U. S. out of the 2015 Paris accord, causing dismay among liberal politicians and media outlets across the globe. Some mayors and governors have said they intend to carry on with the agreement in their cities. But now, some of those liberal enclaves are expressing their support for the accord by turning their buildings green as a sign of their environmentalism. In New York City, Boston and Washington D. C. buildings turned green at the behest of the cities’ liberal politicians. City Hall shines green tonight because New York City will honor the goals of the #ParisAgreement. pic. twitter. — Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 2, 2017, City Hall is green tonight. Boston stands with the environment. We must protect our future. #ParisAccord pic. twitter. — Mayor Marty Walsh (@marty_walsh) June 2, 2017, Exiting the #ParisAgreement may make us see red feel blue, but the Wilson Building’s lit up green tonight to prove the fight endures pic. twitter. — Council of DC (@councilofdc) June 2, 2017, Abroad, Paris, Montreal and Mexico City also got in on the fun. Regardless of #Trump’s decision, cities will apply #ParisAgreement. #Climate pic. twitter. — Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) June 1, 2017, Les Changements climatiques existent! Montréal supporte #AccorddeParis Montréal supports #ParisAccord @c40cities pic. twitter. — DenisCoderre (@DenisCoderre) June 2, 2017, 🇲🇽Mexico City lighted city hall monuments green to express his commitment to the #ParisAgreement 🇲🇽 #Cities4Climate pic. twitter. — C40 Cities (@c40cities) June 2, 2017, The push by liberal cities across the globe may not be surprising. Despite Trump’s openness to negotiating the accord, local and world leaders reacted angrily to the announcement. The governments of Italy, France, and Germany on Thursday rejected the offer, saying in a joint statement that the agreement “cannot be renegotiated, since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies. †Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY | 1 | [
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FMD3910 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A school librarian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, rejected a shipment of books that were donated by first lady Melania Trump, according to CBS Boston.#HBFamilyReading: "Dear Mrs. Trump": @reflectlibrary says, Thanks but no thanks to the First Lady + Dr. Seuss https://t.co/98SUPkjUN6 pic.twitter.com/3t6U6vvwPI The Horn Book (@HornBook) September 26, 2017CBS Boston on Wednesday reported that Liz Phipps Soeiro of Cambridgeport Elementary School turned down the works Trump intended to send.The White House chose one school in all 50 states to receive a package of 10 books authored by children s literary author Dr. Seuss.The initiative was meant to promote education and childhood literacy as part of National Read A Book Day.Soeiro on Tuesday penned an editorial for the Horn Book s Family Reading blog explaining why her school did not need the donation. My students have access to a school library with over nine thousand volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in literary science, she wrote. Multiple studies show that schools with professionally staffed libraries improve student performance, Soeiro added.Trump s package reportedly included such Seuss classics as Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Soeiro criticized Seuss for being the only author represented in Trump s donation, citing controversy over some of his illustrations. You may not be aware of this, but Dr. Seuss is a bit of a clich , a tired and worn ambassador for children s literature, she told Trump. Another fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes. According to the School Library Journal when social justice warrior, Lizz Phipps Soeiro isn t influencing the minds of young children with her progressive drivel, she s working to influence the minds of the parents: Once a week, she invites a speaker for casual meetings with parents at the library. Guests have included the mayor, school committee members, and local artists. Following President Trump s executive order banning travel from six Muslim nations, she invited a representative from the Council on American Islamic Relations and an attorney from the Muslim Justice League to speak to an audience including some 25 Muslim families about their rights. The lawyer met with individual families afterward. The library s collection reflects Phipps Soeiro s commitment to social justice. Titles such as Margarita Engle s Drum Dream Girl and Debbie Levy and Elizabeth Baddeley s I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark spark discussions about government and fairness. During a field trip to city hall, students sat in council chambers and asked questions of city leaders.(So in other words, a donation of books from the wife of our Republican President just didn t fit into the public school library that employs a narrow-minded liberal librarian.)The Cambridge School system on Wednesday released a statement noting the opinions Soeiro expressed do not represent the district. In this instance, the employee was not authorized to accept or reject donated books on behalf of the school or school district, it said. We have counseled the employee on all relevant policies, including the policy against public resources being used for political purposes. CircaSo there you have it the librarian is being counseled and NOT fired!If this story happened two years ago, and we inserted Michelle Obama s name into the story instead of Melania Trump s, does anyone think this would be a major news story with the school librarian s face plastered all over every major news network?Liz Phipps Soeiro can be found on Twitter at: @Cport_SpecialHere is the nasty letter that was written by Liz Phipps Soeiro in reply to Melania Trump s sweet gesture:Dear Mrs. Trump,Thank you for the ten Dr. Seuss titles that you sent my school library in recognition of this year s National Read a Book Day. (Sent second-day air, no less! That must have been expensive.) I m proud that you recognized my school as something special. It truly is. Our beautiful and diverse student body is made up of children from all over the world; from different socioeconomic statuses; with a spectrum of gender expressions and identities; with a range of abilities; and of varied racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. According to the White House website, you selected one school per state by working with the Department of Education to identify schools with programs that have achieved high standards of excellence, recognized by State and National awards and Blue Ribbon Awards Each of those carefully vetted schools received ten books: Seuss-isms!; Because a Little Bug Went KaChoo; What Pet Should I Get?; The Cat in the Hat; I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!; One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; The Foot Book; Wacky Wednesday; Green Eggs and Ham; and Oh, the Places You ll Go!. My students were interested in reading your enclosed letter and impressed with the beautiful bookplates with your name and the indelible White House stamp, however, we will not be keeping the titles for our collection. I d like to respectfully offer my explanation. * * * * * My school and my library are indeed award-winning. I work in a district that has plenty of resources, which contributes directly to excellence. Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an amazing city with robust social programming, a responsive city government, free all-day kindergarten, and well-paid teachers (relatively speaking many of us can t afford to live in the city in which we teach). My students have access to a school library with over nine thousand volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in library science. Multiple studies show that schools with professionally staffed libraries improve student performance. The American Association of School Librarians has a great infographic on these findings. Many schools around the state and country can t compete. Yearly per-pupil spending in Cambridge is well over $20,000; our city s values are such that given a HUGE range in the socioeconomic status of our residents, we believe that each and every child deserves the best free education possible and are working hard to make that a reality (most classrooms maintain a 60/40 split between free/reduced lunch and paid lunch). This offers our Title I school and the district a lot of privilege and room for programming and pedagogy to foster high standards of excellence. Even so, we still struggle to close the achievement gap, retain teachers of color, and dismantle the systemic white supremacy in our institution. But hell, we test well! And in the end, it appears that data and not children are what matters. Meanwhile, school libraries around the country are being shuttered. Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit are suffering through expansion, privatization, and school choice with no interest in outcomes of children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. Are those kids any less deserving of books simply because of circumstances beyond their control? Why not go out of your way to gift books to underfunded and underprivileged communities that continue to be marginalized and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos? Why not reflect on those high standards of excellence beyond only what the numbers suggest? Secretary DeVos would do well to scaffold and lift schools instead of punishing them with closures and slashed budgets.So, my school doesn t have a NEED for these books. And then there s the matter of the books themselves. You may not be aware of this, but Dr. Seuss is a bit of a clich , a tired and worn ambassador for children s literature. As First Lady of the United States, you have an incredible platform with world-class resources at your fingertips. Just down the street you have access to a phenomenal children s librarian: Dr. Carla Hayden, the current Librarian of Congress. I have no doubt Dr. Hayden would have given you some stellar recommendations.Another fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes. Open one of his books (If I Ran a Zoo or And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example), and you ll see the racist mockery in his art. Grace Hwang Lynch s School Library Journal article, Is the Cat in the Hat Racist? Read Across America Shifts Away from Dr. Seuss and Toward Diverse Books, reports on Katie Ishizuka s work analyzing the minstrel characteristics and trope nature of Seuss s characters. Scholar Philip Nel s new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books, further explores and shines a spotlight on the systemic racism and oppression in education and literature. I am honored that you recognized my students and our school. I can think of no better gift for children than books; it was a wonderful gesture, if one that could have been better thought out. Books can be a powerful way to learn about and experience the world around us; they help build empathy and understanding. In return, I m attaching a list of ten books (it s the librarian in me) that I hope will offer you a window into the lives of the many children affected by the policies of your husband s administration. You and your husband have a direct impact on these children s lives. Please make time to learn about and value them. I hope you share these books with your family and with kids around the country. And I encourage you to reach out to your local librarian for more recommendations. Warmly, Liz Phipps Soeiro School Librarian Cambridge, MALiz Phipps Soeiro is an elementary school librarian in the Cambridge, MA, Public Schools. She is an advocate for inclusive libraries and active in her community to create spaces that are welcoming to all students. She tweets @Cport_Special @ReflectLibrary and blogs at reflectivelibrary.blogspot.com | 0 | [
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FMD3911 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: by Yves Smith
No matter how bad things are at CalPERS, the giant pension fund seems determined to make them worse.
This Thursday, November 3, the California State Personnel Board is set to approve changes to the job description of CalPERS’ Chief Actuary that are depicted as minor but are anything but. We get to the CalPERS job description shortly, but as Purdue’s mathematics department describes the terrain :
An actuary is a business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs.
The proposed changes both amount to a violation of the California Constitution by attempting to end the required role of the board in policy-making, and separately so far reducing the minimum qualifications for the job that they will be lower than that for the most junior actuaries now employed at CalPERS. Needless to say, that makes a mockery of the claim that CalPERS needs to dumb down the job description so severely to fill the post. CalPERS could promote someone from inside by relaxing the requirements less or not at all.
One has to assume that the motivation for allowing a person who would be deemed to be grossly unqualified under current rules to be hired in the Chief Actuary is that the new CEO, Marcie Frost, has someone specific she’d like to bring in. The fact that Frost herself does not have a college degree and certainly does not have the mathematical chops to evaluate an actuary’s professional competence certainly looks like she is giving personal loyalty far too much weight in a role where analytical rigor and professionalism are of paramount importance.
This move troublingly resembles CalPERS’ decision to hire a similarly unqualified party, Robert Klausner, in another important role, that of fiduciary counsel. Recall that Klausner was not a member of the California bar, yet in public board sessions, was giving advice on California law matters such as its Public Records Act. As we pointed out, his advice was contrary to statute. To make matters worse, Klausner had a long track record of being involved in pay-to-play scandals and of telling clients what they wanted to hear, regardless of whether he could come up with a sound legal basis for validating their actions. As California attorney Karl Olson wrote of Klausner:
This isn’t a case of the fox guarding the henhouse; this may be a case of CalPERS going across the country to hire a fox who specialized in building henhouses with no gates.
But what could possibly be foxy about the historically dull green-eyeshade role of Chief Actuary?
Recall that the biggest controversy that CalPERS is facing now, and one that is not going away any time soon, is its underfunding problem and its refusal to cut its return assumptions. CalPERS’ just-retired former Chief Actuary, Alan Milligan, repeatedly stated that he thought the pension fund needed to lower its return target, and repeated that view in his final appearances before the board in August and September. Given the recent salvo of articles excoriating CalPERS for its refusal to reduce its return targets save on a very attenuated basis that many regard as unrealistic, CalPERS must be relieved that journalists were too inattentive to pick up on the fact that the agency was disregarding the advice of its own designated risk expert. No doubt the agency is keen to get an actuary in place that won’t take positions that could make its hard-to-defend posture even more untenable.
Now let us address the particulars of CalPERS’ chicanery with its Chief Actuary job search.
The Chief Actuary is such an important role that until the board decided to quit doing its job and rubber stamp pretty much everything staff wanted to do, it was one of four direct reports to the board. Reducing the number of direct reports to one has substantially reduced the board’s power. If it was unhappy with the activities of staff, it could threaten to fire one of the direct reports other than the CEO, which gave it more surgical ways to intervene. Now it has only the nuclear option of defenestrating the CEO.
The Chief Actuary, indeed all the actuary positions at CalPERS, is a job classification that is specific to CalPERS. From a letter from an Baldwin, Chief Personnel Management Division, to the Personnel Board from the document at the end of the post:
The Chief Actuary is appointed to this single-incumbent, statutory position and serves as a key member of the CalPERS Executive Management team, the incumbent provides guidance on all actuarial issues facing CalPERS, including actuarial investigations and valuations, rate structure, health benefits and reserve funds. The Chief Actuary promotes the sound and secure operation of CalPERS enterprises through the oversight of all functions within the ACTO [Actuarial Office], and is responsible for the evaluation, development, and implementation of actuarial policies and procedures.
The revisions to the proposed role violate the California constitution by eliminating any reporting relationship between the board and the Chief Actuary. On page 4 of the document below:
First, it’s disturbing to see the lengths to which the State Personnel Board is willing to collude with CalPERS in disguising the fact that this job classification applies ONLY to CalPERS. By eliminating any reference to CalPERS, unexperienced investigators would mistakenly assumed that the greatly-watered down job requirements apply to all state agencies that have actuarial groups and thus have a senior actuary in charge, such as CalSTRS and the State Department of Insurance. The very fact of this cover-up alone is a sign that CalPERS knows it is up to no good and is desperate to cover its tracks.
Second, look at the first sentence of the first paragraph as it is proposed to read (emphasis ours):
Under the policy direction and administrative direction of the organization’s executive and/or director leve l, to manage the actuarial and employer services functions of the organization; to provide expert actuarial advice and consultation to the organization’s executive and/or director level; and to do other related work.
This is an express violation of the California Constitution. Article XVI, section 17(e) states :
The retirement board of a public pension or retirement system, consistent with the exclusive fiduciary responsibilities vested in it, shall have the sole and exclusive power to provide for actuarial services in order to assure the competency of the assets of the public pension or retirement system.
Notice the use of “exclusive and “sole and exclusive.” At a bare minimum, the board needs to retain policy oversight, but even that is being stripped away in the new job description. The board will have absolutely nada to do with the actuarial function. Also bear in mind that the changes in the proposed language, at least as far as I can tell from looking at recent board meetings, were never reviewed or approved by the board. This is a naked power grab by staff relying on long-standing complacency of CalPERS’ board.
Even more stunning is how this senior role is being downgraded. Note that all positions in the current set of the existing CalPERS pension actuary job series, from “Associate Pension Actuary” through and including “Supervising Pension Actuary” require that the employee have an Associateship in the Society of Actuaries . T he Society of Actuaries website states :
Requirements include examinations, an e-Learning course, validation of educational experiences outside the SOA Education system (VEE), and a professionalism seminar.
Notice that the new job description allows for minimum qualifications to instead be satisfied by “Membership in the American Academy of Actuaries”. What, pray tell, is the “American Academy of Actuaries”?
It is not a professional organization. One can be member without satisfying any professional credentialing requirements. For instance, one can become a member via being a member of the “Conference of Consulting Actuaries” which in turn allows for “Membership for NonSOA/CAS Credentialed Actuaries”
All actuaries not credentialed by the Society of Actuaries or the Casualty Actuarial Society are required to sign off on a form acknowledging professional awareness of the Qualification Standards and professionalism for actuaries prior to processing his/her application (required by the International Actuarial Association).
In other words, without even looking hard, there is a route to become a member of the American Academy of Actuaries by saying you’ve heard about actuarial professional ethics. You don’t even have to say you believe in them, just that you know they exist! Although there is a continuing education requirement for the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, if you click through, you can see it is required “ to retain the status of FCA or ACA ” meaning Fellow or Associate, not a mere “Member”.
Needless to say, it would be plenty demotivating to CalPERS’ existing staff of actuaries to have a new boss parachuted in above them who hadn’t gone through the sort of minimum professional accreditation they were required to meet. And it begs the question as to why CalPERS’ staff is so desperate to consider candidates that have not been subjected to a basic requirement of passing the Society of Actuaries’ exams. Would you ever consider using an attorney, even for informal advice, who had never passed a bar exam? Yet CalPERS and the California Department of Human Resources are about to put in place a job description that would let someone that unqualified in actuarial space take the helm at CalPERS.
With the vote on this dangerous change set to take place on Thursday, this plot is too far advanced for the usual Naked Capitalism reader route of writing upset missives to CalPERS board members, particularly the elected members who have reason to fear the wrath of voters, to have any effect. I hope you’ll forward this post to news organizations and ask them to look into this pronto, since this story is time sensitive.
Here are some candidates, but feel free to write others (please add helpful ideas in comments, particularly how to contact any talk radio or TV hosts who might take up this story):
Adam Ashton ([email protected]) who posts the Sacramento Bee’s State Worker blog
James Rufus Koren (I assume [email protected] given their official convention). He’s been doing regular coverage of CalPERS returns.
Jack Dolan ([email protected]) at the Los Angeles Times. I have mixed feelings about putting Dolan onto this, since his last story on CalPERS was seriously distorted (his report grossly exaggerated the cost of cost of allowing “badges” as in mainly prison guards and state highway officers, to retire early and tried pinning CalPERS underfunding on that, when it is due to not continuing to fund the system when it appeared to be overfunded in the dot-com era, and the losses it took in the financial crisis from which it has not fully recovered). However, with CalPERS in the cross-hairs of critics, it needs to work even harder at being above reproach instead of making itself vulnerable to fully-deserved attacks. And this latest development would certainly fit with the dim view he has of the system. However, he may only do longer-form stories and something faster-turnanround may not suit his schedule.
John Gittelson at Bloomberg ([email protected]). He’s an LA-based asset management reporter at Bloomberg; he’s pinged me in the past about past CalPERS stories, always an encouraging sign. | 0 | [
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FMD3912 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Jeff Sessions may be known as a pro-business conservative but as U.S. attorney general he is unlikely to shy away from indicting big companies and individuals for serious white-collar crimes, legal experts said, citing his record as a lawmaker. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Sessions, a four-term senator from Alabama and former federal prosecutor, to lead the Justice Department. Sessions, 69, an early supporter of Trump, is expected to accept the cabinet post if confirmed. A spokesman for Sessions did not respond to a request for comment. Because of the dearth of big banks and companies in his home state, there is little in Sessions’ track record as a federal prosecutor and state attorney general from the 1970s to the 1990s to suggest how he might approach complex cases of corporate malfeasance. But a review of his record in the Senate indicates he will likely push for corporate indictments, instead of settling for fines, and may focus on putting more executives in prison, lawyers who specialize in white-collar crime said. For example, during a 2010 confirmation hearing for James Cole, Sessions questioned the former U.S. deputy attorney general about the “dangerous†philosophy of not charging companies criminally because of concerns that doing so could lead to bankruptcy and hurt employees and shareholders. “Normally, I was taught if they violated a law, you charge them. If they didn’t violate the law, you don’t charge them,†Sessions said during the hearing. Matthew Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, said Sessions’ remarks suggested that he may be more willing than the current administration to require a guilty plea from corporations with less concern for collateral consequences. He said Sessions would also likely support the Justice Department’s renewed efforts to prosecute executives, outlined in a policy memo last year by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. While an unabashed businessman, Trump was highly critical of Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, accusing his Democratic rival of being beholden to the interests of big investment banks. That message resonated with many working class voters who suffered in the financial crisis of 2008 and are still angry that no top-level Wall Street figures have been prosecuted for acts that almost brought down the global financial system. “Until we see evidence to the contrary, it appears that the new Justice Department will be one that will seek to hold every individual accountable to the fullest extent. So the stakes may be higher,†Schwartz said. Jackson Sharman, a white-collar defense lawyer in Alabama, said that he believed Sessions would want to be as tough on white-collar as on street criminals. He pointed to Sessions’ recent opposition to a crime bill that would have shown sentencing leniency for non-violent offenders. Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and Columbia Law School professor, who has testified before Sessions’ Senate Judiciary Committee, agreed that the Alabama senator will be “a strong supporter†of corporate enforcement. In the past, Sessions has come out in favor of tough Justice Department tactics against companies accused of fraud. In 2007, corporate counsels pushed for a law that would have stopped the Justice Department from pressuring companies to waive attorney-client privilege during fraud investigations. But during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sessions argued against any such rule, noting that prosecutors regularly pressure street criminals to waive constitutional rights using the threat of tougher penalties if they do not co-operate. Sessions said the Justice Department should be able to use similar leverage against corporations. Corporate crime “is not easy to prosecute or investigate. They have the best lawyers that you can find, and they utilize all the legitimate tools that they have,†Sessions said. “And you have to be strong... a prosecutor cannot be a weak-kneed person going up against a major corporation in a fraud case.†| 1 | [
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FMD3913 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Elect Trump is the new title for New York businessman, millionaire and Republican candidate Donald J. Trump, who yesterday on November 8th, 2016 successfully won the US presidential election.
Via HumansAreFree
Trump managed to defeat favorite Hillary Clinton by a relatively narrow margin. The victory came as a shock to many Americans, regardless of where they reside on the political spectrum.
For many in the alternative media, the victory of President Elect Trump comes with a great sense of relief that career criminal Hillary Clinton was not elected (or installed) as so many had expected. Clinton had already showed a propensity to collude, cheat and lie during the Democratic Primaries where she triumphed with dirty tactics over Bernie Sanders.
For many others, turned off by Trump’s racism, sexism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and generally flippant comments, the Trump victory is devastating and will challenge them psychologically and emotionally to accept the reality for the results. Hillary Clinton: What Went Wrong?
The result is especially surprising given the degree to which Hillary Clinton had ingratiated herself with the upper echelons of the NWO (New World Order). From an outside perspective, it seemed Clinton had left no stone unturned in brown-nosing and sucking up to the most powerful people and organizations in the world, including the Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) and many many more.
Additionally, given her propensity for criminality and her powerful backers such as George Soros, coupled with the serious problems electronic voting machines possess in being able to be hacked and the vote flipped, many are left wondering how Hillary lost . What went wrong? At this stage in the game of post-election analysis, we can point to a few things. Hillary’s criminal past clearly caught up with her. It is unprecedented in the history of US presidential elections for a leading candidate to be under an on-again, off-again criminal investigation.
Clinton simply has so many scandals in her recent and distant past that it’s like trying to stop a ship with 30 holes from sinking; you can’t plug them all. She was also running up against the problem that the Democrats had been in power for 8 years, when recent history shows that power seems to change hands in around that time frame.
Clinton represented the establishment, and as the popularity of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump has shown, people are tired of the same. They intuitively know the system is rigged and corrupt, even if they can’t exactly put their fingers on it. Obama, Mr. “Hope and Change”, got in with a slick campaign of promising something different (upon which he didn’t deliver).
Trump represented anti-establishment, and whether he truly embodies that or not is an entirely different matter, because it’s all about perception. Does a Trump Victory Show that NWO Powerbrokers Are Less in Control than It Seems?
The win of President Elect Trump is truly shocking and monumental event. Many people (including myself) were predicting that it was a foregone conclusion that Clinton would win. For instance, founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange stated before the election that “Trump would not permitted to win”. The MSM (Mainstream Media) were clearly favoring Clinton at almost every turn.
Whatever you think of Trump, we can at least say the will of the majority of American voters was respected, which is a relief, given how much corruption exists in our society today. The question now is this: is a Trump victory the result the NWO powerbrokers wanted all along, for reasons we are yet to see? Or is it a genuine uprising against these forces?
What Does a Trump Presidency Mean for Liberty and Freedom?
For me, Trump can be summarized in one word: unpredictable . President Elect Trump truly embodies unpredictability more than any other high-level politician around. One moment he is railing against the 9/11 official story, then he is declaring his love for Israel, then he is bringing up the vaccine-autism connection, then he is suggesting Snowden be killed.
Next he is suggesting GMO corn makes you stupid, then he suggesting Muslims be banned from the US, then he is calling global warming a hoax, then he is suggesting the Government be given the power to shut down the internet.
Then, after all of that, he makes friendly overtures to Russia while demonizing the hell out of Iran. What does he stand for? Peace or war? Freedom or tyranny? At this stage no one knows, probably not even Trump himself.
He has contradicted himself numerous times throughout his campaign, and merely once suggesting a good idea (i.e. looking at who controls the issuance of money instead of letting the international bankers via the Federal Reserve control it) doesn’t mean it will become his policy.
Unpredictability is one of Trump’s great qualities, but also one of his most dangerous. A lot will depend on with whom he surrounds himself once becoming President Trump, and what kind of advice they give him.
His VP Mike Pence is a standard conservative Republican who will be no doubt far more to the liking of the NWO conspirators, but Trump is also taking advice from retired DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) chief Michael Flynn, the man who came out and highlighted how the US created ISIS in a declassified DIA document. For now, America and the world have around two-and-a-half months to get over the incredible shock of yesterday’s result and psychologically prepare itself for a Trump presidency.
Meanwhile, it would be foolish for us to expect that one man can fix all of America’s problems. It will be the job of the independent and alternative media to hold Trump to his promises and his word, and to continue to share ideas of how we can truly create a better, freer and more just society. This necessarily involves questioning the very structures and systems of society, and will never magically improve with just the passing of the baton from one politician to another. | 0 | [
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FMD3914 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: in: General Health Every once in a great while, a perfect child is born. One who never cries, sleeps all night, and gladly eats whatever food you choose to put in front of them. But unfortunately for most of us with children, developing lifestyle habits, such as a healthy appreciation for nutritious fruits and vegetables, usually requires years of continual work. New information recently released by researchers at Michigan State University’s College of Nursing helps to shed some light on the problem of establishing healthy dietary preferences in young children, and more importantly, may help both parents and medical professionals find more effective ways to approach it successfully [ 1 ] . Does Your Diet Really Affect Your Child’s? In order to better understand the connection between mother’s dietary habits, and those of their children, researchers questioned almost 400 low-income women from all over the state with pre-school-aged children then currently enrolled in educational head start programs. They found that the children whose mothers ate fewer than four servings of fruits and vegetables per week were less likely to consume the recommended number of servings themselves. Perhaps more interesting, was their discovery that children who were viewed as “picky eaters” by their mothers were also likely to consume an inadequate number of servings per week, regardless of the mother’s own dietary habits. This has led the researchers behind the study to speculate on improved methods for encouraging better eating habits in children. Many nutritional specialists have become increasingly focused on making healthy foods appear fun and therefore more appealing to kids. And while a certain amount of progress has been made following this approach, it is far from a stand-alone solution. Tips for Being a Better Influence for Your Child’s Diet In today’s busy world, it’s easy to fall into a routine of serving your family convenience foods — especially when dealing with young children and toddlers, whose taste buds can be very difficult to please. Still, the importance of developing smart dietary habits early in life cannot be overstated. Without a balanced and varied diet, growing bodies don’t get the vitamins and minerals they need to thrive. By focusing directly on the food choices of mothers, experts may be able better influence the diets of their children. This is likely due to a combination of positive modeling and increased access to more nutritious foods. There’s more to it than just working a few extra vegetables into dinner. (Although cooking meals at home instead of eating out every night is a smart first step for some.) Make sure that fresh snack options are also readily available for those in-between bouts of hunger. Not only is this better for your family’s health, replacing pr-epacked commercial snack products with seasonal organic fruits and vegetables or raw nuts and seeds is a great way to save money in the checkout line. Parent’s of so-called “picky eaters” should also keep in mind that some children may need to be exposed to a given food as many as 15 times before they are able to decide whether or not they like it. So don’t give up just yet on convincing your little one that broccoli is good. In the long run, it’ll be worth the effort. References: Jill Vondrasek, Jason Cody. Mothers’ diets have biggest influence on children eating healthy . Michigan State University. 2010 December 14. Submit your review | 0 | [
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FMD3915 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: O Connor found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the lawsuit because they have presented concrete evidence to support their fears that they will be subject to enforcement under the Rule. WASHINGTON A federal judge in Texas on Saturday issued a nationwide injunction halting enforcement of Obama administration protections for transgender and abortion-related healthcare services just one day before they were due to go into effect. The lawsuit brought by Texas, a handful of other states, and some religiously affiliated nonprofit medical groups challenges a regulation implementing the sex nondiscrimination requirement found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation forbids discriminating on the basis of gender identity and termination of pregnancy under Obamacare, as US District Court Judge Reed O Connor wrote in his opinion halting enforcement of those provisions in the rule.Specifically, the ACA provision Section 1557 prohibits discrimination in federally-funded health benefits, including based on sex. Over the course of 2015 and this year, HHS proposed and finalized a regulation interpreting the definition of sex in that provisions to include gender identity defined as internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female as well as sex stereotyping and termination of pregnancy. Explaining the lawsuit, O Connor wrote, Plaintiffs claim the Rule s interpretation of sex discrimination pressures doctors to deliver healthcare in a manner that violates their religious freedom and thwarts their independent medical judgment and will require burdensome changes to their health insurance plans on January 1, 2017. The states and nonprofits in the healthcare lawsuit allege that the regulation violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) which sets the rules for federal government rule-making and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). O Connor found that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the lawsuit because they have presented concrete evidence to support their fears that they will be subject to enforcement under the Rule. The White House defended the administration s policies on Saturday night.Read more: Buzzfeed | 0 | [
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FMD3916 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,†House Freedom Caucus Member Representative Ron DeSantis ( ) stated that there’s “definitely a path†to an Obamacare bill, and that if they can deliver lower premiums and more choice, “I absolutely think we can pass something, relatively soon. †DeSantis said, “I think there’s definitely a path, Bill. I mean, if you remember this March 23rd date, where this kind of blew up, that was not any deadline. That was a deadline. And what happened was, the bill really wasn’t ready for primetime. You hadn’t developed a consensus. You set a date to vote on it without having the consensus. And so, what’s happened since then, is members are talking to each other, and really the administration, I think has done a good job. Vice President Pence has been exercising a lot of leadership to try to figure out how do we actually fulfill the promises we made to the American people, and for me the core thing that we have to do is deliver lower premiums and more choice on private insurance, because that is the reason why people dislike Obamacare because their premiums have gone up and their deductibles have gone up. So, that’s really what we have to do, and I think if we can get there, I absolutely think we can pass something, relatively soon. †DeSantis added that he thinks the House is getting closer to an Obamacare bill. Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 | [
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FMD3917 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Lady Gaga and Julianne Moore are speaking out after the horrific terror attack that left at least 58 people dead and 515 injured in Las Vegas on Sunday night.The Hollywood stars both took to Twitter on Monday, demanding that politicians get to work on enacting stricter gun control laws in the wake of the tragedy, which is now the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.I mourn this senseless loss of life. What will it take, #Congress, for you to act? @Everytown @MomsDemand #endgunviolence https://t.co/6HpuWk9ZLe Julianne Moore (@_juliannemoore) October 2, 2017 Cheap sound bites don t protect innocent lives, read a tweet on Moore s account, as she pointed out this is the eighth mass shooting just this year.It s okay to use guns in violent movies that make money for actresses like the hypocrite, Julianne Moore (see photo below), it s just not okay with her for everyday Americans to use guns to hunt or in self-defense.Lady Gaga took a more direct approach in getting her message out, tweeting at the President and Speaker of the House while stating that blood in on the hands of the men and women of Congress.Prayers are important but @SpeakerRyan @realDonaldTrump blood is on the hands of those who have power to legislate. #GunControl act quickly. https://t.co/bXZQ7enuEp xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) October 2, 2017Shortly after Lady Gaga blamed President Trump and Congress for the deaths of at least 58 and over 500 injured concertgoers in Las Vegas, she tweeted that she was trying to connect us all through inner peace. Wow! How most Americans don t need that kind of sick inner peace. My intention is to connect us all through inner peace. I believe we can calm inflammation in the world by calming each other. #meditation pic.twitter.com/6cUbvdsW09 xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) October 2, 2017Gun control Gaga is no stranger to using guns on stage as props, in fact, she s used them quite regularly, but who s counting in Hollywood? After all, it s not about what celebrities do with guns, it s what the little people (the ones who watch their movies and purchase their music) do with guns that matters to them Nice gun Gaga Gaga is clearly crazy for guns on stage Nice Rolling Stones cover Gaga where d you get the guns?In addition to offering up their condolences and prayers, President Trump and Speaker Ryan also ordered that all flags be flown at half-mast to pay tribute to the victims.That was not enough however for Gaga, who when first commenting on the attack wrote: This is terrorism plain and simple.Terror bares no race, gender or religion. Democrats & Republicans please unite now #guncontrol. Daily Mail | 0 | [
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FMD3918 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republican presidential hopeful and Texas senator Ted Cruz has earned the nickname Lyin Ted for a reason, and he s in no rush to clean up his tarnished image anytime soon.Proving that he s completely worthy of being known as the least-liked GOPer, Cruz mingled with voters at The Pie Pan restaurant in Evansville this weekend and lied to their faces. For over an hour, Cruz met and took photos with voters, clearly trying to prove that he wasn t Lucifer, as former House Speaker John Boehner recently suggested.During this meet-and-greet, one of the issues Cruz spoke about was Obamacare. Cruz said: The top two legislative agenda items I ve got are repealing Obamacare and passing a simple flat tax, abolishing the IRS. Everything was going smoothly for Cruz until toward the end of his visit, when an older couple introduced Cruz to Scott, a disabled man in a wheelchair. Although some of the conversation is muffled, it is clear that the man is concerned about the Affordable Care Act being repealed, stating that people like him would not be able to get health insurance at all. This concern is completely valid even current House Speaker Paul Ryan has said that putting people with pre-existing conditions into high-risk pools would make healthcare unaffordable for many Americans. Cruz began to respond and say, There s no doubt that we need to provide care before the man interrupted: But it was never done before. It was never done. Nobody did it. Cruz, heartless as ever, replied with a straight-up lie: I can tell you millions have lost their health care at the same time. The millions that Cruz is referring to are those who had policies that didn t meet Obamacare standards. Factcheck.org has actually straightened this false GOP talking point right out it turns out that those people didn t lose their insurance at all they were offered replacements that did fall in line with the ACA instead. But of course, Cruz isn t going to bother with the truth.You can watch Cruz lie to a disabled man s face below:The feed unfortunately cut out, but not before the man confronting Cruz could point to Scott and say, Well, but it made a difference to some. Those some people who the man is referring to are the 16.9 million Americans that now have affordable health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Repealing Obamacare is a huge disservice to Americans, and it s a shame that Cruz s attitude toward those concerns is I don t give a f*ck. Featured image is a screenshot | 0 | [
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FMD3919 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Are These Photographs of a Border Crosser Hidden in a Dashboard? Claim summaries: People have come up with all sorts of inventive ways of concealing themselves in order to slip across national borders undetected.
contextual information: Although the "Addams Family"-like scenario described in the text accompanying the photographs below was probably just someone's humorous embellishment, we couldn't dismiss the pictures themselves as a joke. Plenty of inventive (and desperate) people have devised imaginative schemes for sneaking themselves and others across national borders. A 2003 news story dealt with illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan being smuggled from mainland China to Hong Kong inside suitcases, and this particular case wasn't so far-fetched as to be completely unbelievable: a 135-lb. woman hidden behind the dashboard of a car. A U.S. Customs Primary Inspector at a border crossing asked the driver of this Suburban for vehicle registration. Suddenly, a hand emerged from the glove compartment, producing the requested document, which the driver showed to the inspector. Since the driver did not appear to be a member of the Addams Family, the inspector became suspicious, leading to a full search. Just think, if alien smugglers can conceal a 135-lb. body behind the dashboard, imagine what they could do with drugs.
The "passenger" seen here might be quite cramped and uncomfortable, and the automobile difficult to maneuver after the modifications, but the ruse wouldn't have to be maintained for long—the car could be loaded just out of sight of border agents, driven the short distance to the crossing, and unloaded not far across the other side. Sure enough, these photographs proved to be real, taken by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) agents and included in a short article titled "Illegal Aliens Caught in Desperate Attempts to Cross U.S. Border" in the September 2001 issue of U.S. Customs Today (a publication of the United States Customs Service), which noted: Every year, federal officers from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Customs Service discover increasing cases of "human contraband" secreted in unusual places and wrapped in innovative disguises. The woman peering out from the automobile dashboard of a vehicle tried a "spaced-out" ploy—she was discovered before the car could get across the U.S.-Mexico border, cramped but none the worse for wear. Similarly, another would-be border crosser identified in that article was caught attempting to enter the U.S. concealed inside a seat occupied by another passenger. | 1 | [
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FMD3920 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Italy s parliament will be dissolved between Christmas and the New Year, a parliamentary source said on Wednesday, opening the way for national elections in early March that look unlikely to produce a clear winner. The source said the most likely date for the vote was March 4 but added that March 11 remained a possibility, with a final decision due shortly. A national election must be held by May, but most political parties are keen to hold elections as soon as possible, with the last major piece of legislation, the 2018 budget, scheduled to be approved before the end of the year. A vote on March 4? That would be excellent. The sooner we go to the polls the better, said Matteo Salvini, head of the far-right Northern League party. Italy s 10-year bond yield rose to a two-week high on the election reports, with investors concerned about political uncertainty in the euro zone s third biggest economy. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi s center-right alliance is seen winning the most seats at the forthcoming ballot, opinion polls say. But he looks unlikely to secure enough votes to hold an absolute majority. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement is predicted to emerge as the largest single party in the next parliament, but it has repeatedly ruled out joining any coalition. Berlusconi said at a book presentation on Wednesday that Italy should return to the polls if the vote produces no clear majority, with current Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni carrying on for at least three months during a new election campaign. The often fractious alliance between Berlusconi and Salvini creaked on Wednesday when Salvini threatened to break off talks after Berlusconi s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party declined to back a League proposal to toughen sanctions for violent crime. The two parties have no common platform and have not settled on a commonly agreed candidate for prime minister. Support for the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD), headed by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, has fallen steadily in recent months, with the group heavily penalized by deep schisms and personality clashes. The parliamentary source, who was in contact with President Sergio Mattarella, said the head of state would almost certainly dissolve both houses after Gentiloni had held a traditional end-of-year news conference, set for Dec. 28. Gentiloni will remain as a caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed, helping to guarantee political stability in the interim. Italy s economy is finally pulling clear of years of recession and is expected to post growth of 1.5 percent this year and next still lagging most of its euro zone peers. Employers association Confindustria warned on Wednesday that the recovery could be jeopardized by political uncertainty. The next elections will be very important, placing the country at a crossroads, with one path leading to a continuation of reforms and the other leading nowhere, it said in a report, warning parties against pursuing demagogic measures . Political leaders have already made a rash of promises that economists warn could damage the country s fragile finances, including pledges of generous handouts for pensioners and large tax cuts. | 1 | [
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FMD3921 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Missouri lawmakers pushed through bills on Wednesday eliminating the need for permits to carry concealed weapons and requiring voters to show a photo identification before casting a ballot, overriding Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s vetoes of the bills. Both votes by the Republican-controlled state House and Senate reached the two-thirds majority required to enact legislation over the governor’s veto. The weapons bill abolished a state law requiring a permit, training and background checks for people who want to carry a concealed weapon in the state. The House voted 112-41 to override Nixon’s veto and the Senate voted 24-6. Supporters of the bill said it will make the state safer by allowing more residents to carry firearms in self-defense, while still banning certain criminals and mentally incompetent people from having a gun. In vetoing the bill in July, Nixon said the measure struck an extreme blow to sensible safeguards against gun violence. Earlier on Wednesday, the state Senate voted 24-7 and the House 115-41 to override Nixon’s veto of a bill requiring voters to produce a government-issued ID instead of less official identification such as a utility bill or bank check. The bill would not take effect until 2017, after this year’s presidential election, and only if voters in November pass a state constitutional amendment in support of the new law. That is necessary because the Missouri Supreme Court ruled 10 years ago that such a statute violated the existing state constitution. Courts in recent months have blocked voter ID laws passed in several states by Republican-led legislatures after civil rights groups argued the measures were discriminatory against poor and minority voters. In Missouri, voters without a photo ID can still vote if they sign an affidavit swearing that they lack any type of identification. However, election officials can take their picture, and steps must be taken to get a photo ID for later use, with the state covering the cost. Supporters of the bill said it will help prevent voter fraud. “Why not have more certainty in the election process?†Republican Representative Justin Alferman, the bill’s main sponsor, said in a statement before the vote. Opponents had argued that the ID requirement places an undue burden on young, minority and low-income voters who tend to support Democratic candidates. “Putting additional and unwanted barriers between citizens and their ability to vote is wrong and detrimental to our system of government as a whole,†Nixon said in explaining his veto. | 1 | [
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FMD3922 | 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: Foiled Child Abduction in Tupelo Rumor Claim summaries: Mexican woman attempts to abduct tot from store in Tupelo, MS?
contextual information: Claim: E-mail claims a Mexican woman attempted to abduct a tot from a store in Tupelo, Mississippi. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Ok this is freaky but it really happened at the mall in Tupelo. Everyone please beware this Holiday Season. A couple of weeks ago a lady with two kids was shopping at JCPennys in the mall here at Tupelo. One of her sons was pretty small and he was in a stroller buckled in and the other one was older and he was walking beside her. A mexican woman came by and told the lady how cute her little baby was...well the lady told her "Thank You" and went on her way. A couple of minutes later the mexican woman approched the lady again telling her how cute her little baby boy was. The lady again replied with thank you. As the lady turned her back to look at a piece of clothing the oldest son started screaming. The lady turned around to find that the mexican lady had unbuckled the baby and grabbed him out of the stroller and took off with him. The lady ran after them and caught the mexican woman as the was getting out the door with her son. The only way that she caught her was the mexican woman had long hair and she pulled it and knocked her down. The lady held her in her custody until the authorities arrived. The lady was shocked when the authorities asked her if she wanted to press charges. The lady replied back with heck yeah this is my son your talking about. Come to find out the mexican lady was here illegally. They are coming here to steal our kids and carry them across the border to sell to the black market... scary I know....but I had to pass on. Now you do the same.. Thanks and have a Great Day This really happened to a relative of a girl that goes to church with me. They have the lady in custody that tried to take the baby. She was hispanic and finally admitted that she was taking the baby across the border to sell it. This was last Wednesday night, Nov. 15 at the JC Penneys at Barnes Crossing. They did not catch anyone that was accompanying the lady andwe don't know if she gave up any names. So there could still be predators out there. Warn everyone you know with small children. Very scary... Last night as our family was out eating out at a local resturant , one of my aunts shared with us a very disturbing event that happened this past Wednesday night at JC Penny. A lady was shopping with her 2 small children one a baby in a stroller and the other a toddler that was just old enough to talk. The lady had her children both right next to her as she was looking at clothes and the toddler said "Mama that lady just got my sister". This mother started chasing this Hispanic lady and finally caught her by reaching out and grabbing her hair from behind. She then started screaming this woman has my baby. Security came and took care of the horrible situation and told the Mom - we can almost bet you the lady had a car waiting outside with a driver and ready to take off and sell your baby on the black market in Mexico. This mother's grateful thought was Thank Goodness my toddler could talk and tell me - because she never thought this could happen since her children were right next to her within arms reach. I am sure with the Holiday Season approaching us all, the distractions as we shop will be more - but I hope this will help us all to stay a little more alert while out and about doing our shopping. And better Yet lets all each day Ask for the Lord to Guide and protect us and our families! Origins: In November 2006, these accounts describing a foiled child abduction at a store in Tupelo, Mississippi, began arriving in our e-mail. Akin to other Internet-circulated tales about attempted childnappings at large stores (such as the venerable canard about kids being pulled in store washrooms to be drugged and have their hair dyed by those attempting to make off with them, or the 2006 hoax about a failed child grab at a Blockbuster in North Texas), this one also proved to be a fiction. dyed Blockbuster According to Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and Tupelo Police Chief Harold Chaffin, the story about a Mexican woman who initially admired a shopper's baby, then grabbed it from the stroller and ran off with it was pure invention. There hadn't been any such incident no brave mom who seized the would-be abductor by her long hair and held her until police arrived, no baby-stealing illegal immigrant now behind bars awaiting trial, no ring of kidnappers frequenting Tupelo-area stores in search of product for a Mexican black market in American infants. The Mall at Barnes Crossing, a venue where the alleged foiled abduction was said to have taken place, did succeed in tracing the e-mails to their source. Mall manager Jeff Snyder indicated no legal action was contemplated against the rumor's originator, but he noted that this could well be the last time the Mall would be inclined to be so lenient regarding damage done to its reputation. The false story spread from inbox to inbox because it invoked not just the specter of the child-abducting stranger (a frightening enough figure all on its own) but melded into it a bogeyman of the moment, the illegal immigrant from south of the border. While illegal immigration into the U.S. from Mexico has long been a problem, prior to 2006 it was less of a concern to those not living in border states. In 2006, however, the illegal immigration issue was pushed to the center of the political arena, with some of that pushing taking the form of unsubstantiated rumors positioning all those who come into the U.S. on the sly as violent criminals. The fictive Mexican woman of this tale is presented as a kidnapper of small children, and not even one propelled by misguided maternal desire into taking youngsters so she could become their mother, but one motivated purely by avarice, in it for the cash that selling the purloined tots would bring. She is wholly and irredeemably evil and therefore held up as an example of the sort of person a "look the other way" attitude towards illegal immigration has allowed into the country. Her theft is not merely that of social services, it is of defenseless children; the cost of having her here is not merely a small increase in taxes paid by the typical family, but the risk that the next tot she or her compatriots snatch will be yours. Barbara "bogeyman the barricades" Mikkelson Last updated: 15 December 2006 Sources: Gray, Lloyd. "Today's Falsehoods Spread Faster, Wider." Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. 10 December 2006 (p. B4). | 0 | [
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FMD3923 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Venezuela is currently in an economic collapse . Food shortages have driven the now 83% of Venezuelans that live in cities to grow their own produce as a means of survival. Socialist President Nicolás Maduro’s calls for “food sovereignty,” meaning that he wants urban people to start small farms and raise chickens in their homes in order to feed themselves, but his policies have only caused economic depravity, resulting in starvation and homelessness throughout the country. To add insult to injury, many believe these urban “ victory gardens ” will fail due to the lack of gardening skills urban dwellers possess.
Learn about the 7 Laws of Gardening Too Little Too Late? Venezuelans think Maduro’s strategy is a sorry excuse for a solution to solve the country’s dire food shortages and crippling inflation. Critics of Venezuelan economic policies have taken to social media to accuse government officials of downplaying the impoverished situation across the country.
#ThisIsVenezuela Urban farming in #Venezuela . Thanks to @NicolasMaduro . Image via @OvarioV pic.twitter.com/d2n6quZOt9
— Michael Welling (@WellingMichael) July 16, 2016
An increasingly common sight in Caracas, a picture posted to Twitter shows a man and dog sifting through trash for food with the caption “Urban Farming in Venezuela. Thanks to @Nicolas Maduro.” Many people think that Maduro is not fixing the problem but ignoring it altogether.
Another tweet shows a picture of a woman shopping inside a Venezuelan grocery store with the caption “#ThisIsVenezuela”, and the shelves are nearly empty.
#ThisIsVenezuela #TalkingDoesntWork #MoreAction #Venezuela #NadieSeRindeCarajo #Democracia #SacaLaBasura #MaduroPaFuera pic.twitter.com/vb9FP1oRz6
— Mariana Gordon (@MarianaGordon_) November 2, 2016
Others are enthusiastic about the plan. “If all communities began to cultivate, it would help to combat the high cost of living and food shortages,” said Luisana Galvis, 69, in a Reuters report . “If we sell and cultivate in our own home, nobody can take that away from us, and nobody is going to sell it to us. And so, we reduce the cost of living.”
In 3 months time, only 273 tons of food have been grown, and this falls far short of the 3,500 ton annual goal of Venezuelans to feed their country. Some seeds that the Venezuelans are most likely growing are those that are easy to cultivate .
‘An Impending Humanitarian Crisis’ This past week, lawmakers in Venezuela declared a “food emergency” after reports of widespread shortages in milk, meat, bread and produce.
Maduro blames an “economic war”, but many Venezuelans are condemning Maduro’s socialist economic policies for causing the inflation and subsequent market instability.
Phil Gunson , a member of the International Crisis Group based in Caracas, warns of an impending humanitarian crisis.
“At least one in 10 people is eating two meals a day or less. There isn’t starvation. We are not talking about famine,” says Gunson. “But we are talking about malnutrition, particularly in the case of children.”
With crime on the streets of Caracas at an all-time high, some are happy to be starting an indoor garden for the sake of staying away from thieves and violent crime. For Iraima Pacheco de Leandro, 54, a government opponent who was once kidnapped and held for ransom, farming is a great way to circumvent the chaos, but it may not be a long-term solution for Venezuela’s economic crisis. Her terrace is filled with vegetables as a measure of self-suffiiciency, but she still thinks that “agriculture should not be a solution,” and the real problem lies in government policy and the inflated markets they created.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published November 4th, 2016 How Would You Survive Hyperinflation in Venezuela? Stockpiling of Food Banned in Venezuela Venezuela: A Prepper’s Nightmare Come to Life Bartering to Eat: How People on the Streets of Venezuela are This Is What a Real-Life Economic Collapse Looks Like | 0 | [
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FMD3924 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives ramped up their efforts to force the release of President Donald Trump’s tax returns, calling it a critical issue of transparency and national security. House Democrats said they would use a parliamentary procedure to file a petition aimed at forcing a vote on legislation requiring U.S. presidents to disclose multiple years of federal income tax filings. Representatives for the White House and House Speaker Paul Ryan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump, a Republican and New York real estate developer who touted his business acumen in the 2016 presidential campaign, defied decades of precedent by candidates when he refused to release his tax returns, saying they were under audit. The Internal Revenue Service says audits pose no obstacle to releasing tax returns. Democrats, for their so-called discharge petition to move forward, would need to obtain signatures of support from the majority of the 435 lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House. Such a move could be a long-shot given that just two Republicans, Representatives Mark Sanford and Justin Amash, have signed on to sponsor the proposed bill that would then see a vote. The petition is the latest effort by Democrats on the issue as just two glimpses of Trump’s taxes have surfaced in media reports on his 1995 and 2005 filings. Democrats say Trump’s taxes are a national security issue given congressional investigations into possible ties between Russia and his campaign. They also cite concerns over potential conflicts of interest with his privately held global businesses. “How do we know when he makes policy decisions or, you know, trade deals ... with foreign countries that he is looking out for the American people and not lining his own pockets?†Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell said to reporters. | 1 | [
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FMD3925 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Kanye West, one of Donald Trump’s biggest celebrity supporters, appeared to have deleted his tweets about his meeting last year with the then U.S. president-elect in which the two discussed multicultural issues. The influential rapper’s handful of Twitter entries from their Dec. 13 meeting at Trump Tower in New York, where West said he had wanted to discuss “bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculums and violence in Chicago,†were missing from his account on Monday. After the meeting, West had also tweeted that he felt it “important to have a direct line of communication with our future president if we truly want change.†West, 39, emerged as one of Trump’s most high-profile supporters during the 2016 election campaign. He made headlines in November when he was booed at a concert for declaring his support for Trump, although he said he had not voted in the presidential election. It was not clear why the Trump tweets had been deleted but the “Jesus Walks†singer has been the target of outrage and sarcasm from fans on social media following the December meeting. West’s representatives did not return requests for comment. Celebrity website TMZ, quoting an unidentified source, said West had deleted the tweets because he was unhappy about Trump’s actions since taking office. These include a ban on travelers to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations and Trump saying he will “send in the Feds†to “fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on†in Chicago due to high crime rates. West was raised in Chicago. | 1 | [
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FMD3926 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Legislators from Kenya s ruling party and opposition exchanged blows on Thursday, after polls closed in a controversial repeat presidential election. Live national television showed MPs tumbling into a hedge at Nairobi s Panafric Hotel when the two sides clashed after attempting to hold near-simultaneous news conferences at the same venue. One lawmaker shouted profanities on camera, prompting nervous giggles from anchors. The fistfight reflected larger tensions within the country, that saw polling stations in some counties unable to open after opposition leader Raila Odinga called for a boycott of the Oct. 26 poll, saying it would not be free and fair. Odinga s withdrawal left President Uhuru Kenyatta as the only serious contender for the presidency, although six other candidates were also on the ballot. Kenyatta won a presidential poll on Aug. 8 that was later nullified by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds. They (the government MPs) came here, instead of addressing their own issues, they started attacked Raila, Anthony Oluoch, opposition MP for Mathare constituency, told Reuters at the Panafric Hotel after the brawl. I was not engaging in physical violence, I was attacked by more than 10 or 15 people. Opposition MPs said a joke against Odinga from Senator Kipchumba Murkomen from the ruling Jubilee party sparked the brawl, but the senator blamed the other side for the violence. We met the ODM (opposition) MPs in the gallery, they asked me to buy them drinks, I bought them drinks. These people are just violent, he said. | 1 | [
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FMD3927 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, facing a storm of criticism over newly disclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, recused himself on Thursday from any investigation into charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. His announcement, delivered at a terse news conference, came after a day of developments in a murky affair that has shadowed President Trump, jeopardized his closest aides and intensified pressure for a full inquiry into Moscow’s attempts to influence the election as well as the policies of the new administration. Many top Democrats demanded Mr. Sessions’s resignation, and a growing number of Republicans declared that he should not take part in any investigation into the case, given his own still largely unexplained role in it. But Mr. Trump stoutly defended Mr. Sessions, one of his few early champions on Capitol Hill. “He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional,†he said in a statement, which accused Democrats of engaging in “a total witch hunt. †Mr. Sessions insisted there was nothing nefarious about his two meetings with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, even though he did not disclose them to the Senate during his confirmation hearing and they occurred during the heat of the race between Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Sessions was advising on national security. In his account on Thursday of the more substantive meeting, which took place in his Senate office on Sept. 8, Mr. Sessions described Mr. Kislyak as one of a parade of envoys who seek out lawmakers like him to glean information about American policies and promote the agendas of their governments. “Somehow, the subject of Ukraine came up,†Mr. Sessions said, recalling that the meeting grew testy after the ambassador defended Russia’s conduct toward its neighbor and heaped blame on everybody else. “I thought he was pretty much of an ambassador,†Mr. Sessions said, noting that he declined a lunch invitation from Mr. Kislyak. Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself was one of his first public acts as attorney general. He said he made the decision after consulting with Justice Department officials, and he denied misleading Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, when he said in his confirmation hearing that he had not met with Russian officials about the Trump campaign. “In retrospect,†Mr. Sessions told reporters, “I should have slowed down and said, ‘But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times, and that would be the ambassador.’ †The latest disclosures — and the Trump administration’s contradictory accounts of them — have deepened the questions about Russia’s role in the election and its aftermath. The affair has fueled calls for congressional and independent investigations, and toppled another close Trump aide, Michael T. Flynn, who resigned as national security adviser last month after admitting he had misled the administration over his contacts with Mr. Kislyak. On Thursday, the White House confirmed that Mr. Flynn had his own previously undisclosed meeting with the ambassador in December to “establish a line of communication†between the incoming administration and the Russian government. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower. The extent and frequency of the contacts remain unclear. But news of the meeting added to the emerging picture of how the relationship between Mr. Trump’s team and Moscow evolved to include some of Mr. Trump’s most trusted advisers. Two other Trump campaign advisers also reportedly spoke with Mr. Kislyak last year at an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention. Carter Page, a businessman and early Trump foreign policy adviser, told MSNBC on Thursday, “I’m not going to deny that I talked to him,†but said in an earlier statement that he would not comment about the event, which was off the record. Additionally, J. D. Gordon, a retired naval officer who advised Mr. Trump on national security, told USA Today that he had had an “informal conversation†with Mr. Kislyak, and played down its importance. Mr. Sessions’s decision to recuse himself exposed a rift between the White House and the Justice Department, not only over whether he should do so — Mr. Trump said he did not think Mr. Sessions needed to — but over the president’s public statements. A Justice Department official confessed puzzlement about why the White House regularly asserted that no one from the Trump campaign had any contact with the Russian government. With Mr. Sessions’s recusal, any Justice Department investigation would be overseen by the deputy attorney general. Dana J. Boente is currently serving in an acting capacity from his role as the chief federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia. A Senate hearing is scheduled for Tuesday for the nomination of Rod J. Rosenstein as deputy attorney general he would oversee the issue if he is confirmed, and his hearing is now likely to be dominated by questions about the Russia issue. It is not clear if the Justice Department is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, although the F. B. I. is known to have examined possible contacts between Russia and Trump advisers. The House Intelligence Committee has also opened an inquiry into whether Russia tried to influence the election. Mr. Trump said that he “wasn’t aware†that Mr. Sessions had spoken to the ambassador, but that he believed that the attorney general had testified truthfully during his confirmation hearing. “I think he probably did,†Mr. Trump told reporters, while touring the Gerald R. Ford, the newest American aircraft carrier, in Newport News, Va. Asked whether Mr. Sessions should recuse himself from the investigations, the president said, “I don’t think so. †Within Mr. Trump’s inner circle, Mr. Flynn appears to have been the primary interlocutor with the Russian envoy. The two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said. But Mr. Sessions served as the chairman of Mr. Trump’s national security committee — a post Democrats said would have made him a much figure for officials from many foreign countries. There is nothing unusual about meetings between presidential campaigns and foreign diplomats. Mr. Kislyak was one of several envoys at the Republican National Convention, where his first meeting with Mr. Sessions, according to the attorney general, was a brief encounter after a panel organized by the Heritage Foundation. Ambassadors also attended the Democratic convention, though it was not clear whether Mr. Kislyak was among them. “Active embassies here consider it as their assignment to stretch out feelers to presidential hopefuls,†said Peter Wittig, the German ambassador, who met most of the Republican candidates, though not Mr. Trump. “I don’t consider it as something unusual or problematic. †The trouble in Mr. Sessions’s case is that his meeting came as the nation’s intelligence agencies were concluding that Russia had tried to destabilize the election and help Mr. Trump. Mr. Sessions’s initial lack of disclosure of the meetings with Mr. Kislyak fed suspicions that it was more than diplomacy. The disclosure, first reported by The Washington Post, contradicted forceful and repeated denials from the White House that anyone from the Trump campaign had discussions with the Russians. “I have nothing to do with Russia,†Mr. Trump said at a news conference on Feb. 20. “To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does. †Asked at the news conference on Thursday whether he and the ambassador had discussed Mr. Trump or the election, Mr. Sessions said, “I don’t recall. †Ambassadors are “pretty gossipy,†he said, and “this was in campaign season, but I don’t recall any specific political discussions. †Mr. Sessions noted that he was joined by two retired Army colonels on his staff, as well as perhaps a younger staff member. He said they opened with small talk about Mr. Sessions’s visit to Russia with a church group in 1991. “He said he was not a believer himself, but he was glad to have church people come there,†Mr. Sessions recalled. That meeting came during the waning months of the campaign. But the meeting two months later of Mr. Kushner, Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak came at an arguably more crucial time, with Mr. Trump as the and the Obama White House preparing to impose sanctions on Russia and publicly make its case that Moscow had interfered with the election. What is becoming clear is that the incoming Trump administration was simultaneously striking a conciliatory pose toward Moscow in a series of meetings and calls involving Mr. Kislyak. “They generally discussed the relationship, and it made sense to establish a line of communication,†said Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman. “Jared has had meetings with many other foreign countries and representatives — as many as two dozen other foreign countries’ leaders and representatives. †The Trump Tower meeting lasted 20 minutes, and Mr. Kushner has not met since with Mr. Kislyak, Ms. Hicks said. At Mr. Sessions’s confirmation hearing, Mr. Franken asked him about a CNN report that after the election, intelligence briefers had told President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump that Russian operatives claimed to have compromising information about Mr. Trump. Mr. Franken also noted that the report indicated that surrogates for Mr. Trump and intermediaries for the Russian government continued to exchange information during the campaign. He asked Mr. Sessions what he would do if that report proved true. Mr. Sessions replied that he was “not aware of any of those activities. †He added, “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it. †On Thursday, Mr. Sessions said he did not view Mr. Kislyak’s visit as tied to his campaign role, but he acknowledged, “I can’t speak for what the Russian ambassador may have had in his mind. †| 1 | [
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FMD3928 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. academic Richard Thaler, who helped popularize the idea of nudging people towards doing what was best for them, won the 2017 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for his work on how human nature affects supposedly rational markets. Influential in the field of behavioral economics, his research showed how traits such as lack of self-control and fear of losing what you already have prompt decisions that may not have the best outcome in the longer term. I think the most important impact (of my research) is the recognition that economic agents are human and economic models have to incorporate that, Thaler, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said in a call broadcast at the Nobel news conference. Asked at a separate news conference in Chicago if it was difficult to get traditional, data-oriented economists to embrace his ideas, Thaler said it was "impossible...economists don't do a lot of embracing actually." Awarding the 9 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said: Richard Thaler s contributions have built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision-making. His empirical findings and theoretical insights have been instrumental in creating the new and rapidly expanding field of behavioral economics, which has had a profound impact on many areas of economic research and policy. Thaler brought to prominence the idea of nudge economics, where individuals are subtly guided toward beneficial behaviors without heavy-handed compulsion, the theme of a 2008 book he co-wrote which caught the eye of policymakers around the world. In research focused on self control | 1 | [
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FMD3929 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Last night President Donald Trump caved into the Pentagon, the political left, the Neoconservative pro-war lobby and mainstream media pressure to act after the release of YouTube videos produced by the US and UK-funded NGO the White Helmets of an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian Airforce in the al Qaeda stronghold of Idlib in Syria. Following the US missile strike, Al Qaeda leaders in Syria have hailed the move by Trump, expressing their gratitude for the US President s knee-jerk military action.Al Qaeda and ISIS supporters Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have also expressed thanks to Trump for helping to degrade the Syrian military who have been fighting and winning against al Qaeda in Syria, ISIS and a host of other Gulf-sponsored terrorist groups operating in Syria.Salafist Jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham welcoming the strikes. Thanks America. pic.twitter.com/4PQzv1PVjw Ali (@Ali_Kourani) April 7, 2017Trump s strike on Syria also helped ISIS who have been losing to the Syrian Army recently in the area of Homs and Palmyra.The Guardian confirms: Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.Years of previous attempts at changing Assad s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically. There was an angry response in Russia, where the Kremlin warned that the strikes would cause significant damage to US-Russia ties .NOTE: Tillerson has now gone so far as to blame Russia for allowing Syria to mount this attack They would act as the guarantor that these weapons would no longer be present in Syria. Clearly Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on that commitment from 2013. Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement. SEE ALSO: Reviving the Chemical Weapons Lie: New US-UK Calls for Regime Change, Military Attack Against SyriaDespite the fact that no evidence, other than YouTube videos, that the Syrian government launched a chemical airstrikes in Idlib, the US government and the mainstream media are ignoring multiple evidential reports of Rebels (terrorists) holding and using chemical weapons in Syria.What was these Saudi dangerous chemicals doing in Qaeda depos in E Aleppo last year?! Let's ask CNN or BBC!! pic.twitter.com/g6WTWTgpl4 Fares Shehabi (@ShehabiFares) April 6, 2017Three years ago the same chemical rebels bombed the Akrama school in Homs! 45 kids were killed. No Nato barking at the UN! Hypocrisy! pic.twitter.com/UXZHbReoTc Fares Shehabi (@ShehabiFares) April 5, 2017STAY TUNED FOR UPDATESREAD MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD3930 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The top U.S. Senate Republican and the White House budget director said on Sunday they hoped for action on a Republican tax reform package by the end of the year, while keeping their options open on how to pay for sweeping tax cuts. President Donald Trump’s plan promises up to $6 trillion in tax cuts but would increase the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Democrats have criticized the package as a giveaway to the rich and corporations that would balloon the deficit. Republicans, who control both the Senate and House of Representatives, have yet to produce a bill as their self-imposed deadline to overhaul the U.S. tax code by the end of 2017 approaches. The party’s lawmakers differ widely on what cuts to make and how to pay for them. Trump participated in a conference call with House Republican lawmakers on Sunday where tax reform was discussed, a White House official said. The president was also expected to travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to participate in Senate Republicans’ weekly policy lunch, with the tax package high on the agenda. The White House is not counting on Congress enacting enough spending reductions to offset the impact on revenue from tax cuts, said Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney. “We hit off $54 billion worth of discretionary cuts in our budget back in March. Only about 4 or 5 billion (dollars) have survived so far on the Hill,†Mulvaney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.†“We’re not going to be able to cut our way to balance.†Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said estimated growth for the overall economy in the Republican plan would offset the tax cuts. Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union†whether he had abandoned his longtime insistence that tax cuts be revenue-neutral, McConnell said: “No, actually we’re not because that’s a rather conservative estimate of how much growth you’ll get out of this pro-growth tax reform.†Trump’s tax reform proposal cleared a critical hurdle on Thursday, when the Senate approved a budget measure that will allow Republicans to pursue a tax-cut package without support from Democrats. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who attended a Senate Finance Committee meeting at the White House last week, said Trump was at a fork in the road on the tax reform bill. Brown said the president could work with Democrats on helping the middle class and keeping jobs in the country, or throw in with the billionaires. “The people closest to the president whispering in his ear all want to do tax cuts for | 1 | [
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FMD3931 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Email
Antecedently, does it matter, period? America transcends its historical development, revealing a cumulative trend which pronounces even presidential elections a solemn farce, as a fascistic societal formation, to all indications, beckons. It is on a collision course with its own destiny, inner tendencies, ideology, and class distribution. Exceptionalism represents a tightly-coiled nation, out of maneuverability, fated to consume itself (and possibly the world) in domestic self-hatred, foreign aggression, and international confrontation as a permanent stance.
What happened along the way? Its unique attachment to capitalism from at least the late eighteenth century ensured a one-dimensional political-structural course which selectively eliminated, ruled out, or weakened non-capitalistic elements—a purist formation, then, feeding on itself, creating and maintaining boundaries to social change that ensured against alternative values and pathways to the future.
Whatever arises from such a context is then turned inward and made adaptable to the needs of a capitalist state and society. The Revolutionary War was one of independence, not transformation, so that America, no longer a colonial appendage of Britain, could exercise its own form of mercantilism, internal colonialism, subjection of indigenous resistance. Likewise, the Civil War cleared the historical slate of premodern capitalism, of which plantation slavery, was the linchpin, to the breakdown of all restrictions, ushering in a laissez-faire capitalism which offered no obstacles to a monopoly-capital consolidative framework.
In bold, by 1900, America now a certified imperial power, the Open Door policy pursued for three decades already ensuring the drive for universalized market penetration, and a prominent role in world affairs, witnessed the removal of slavery into a social vacuum to be replaced by the exploitation of industrial labor, an agricultural economy controlled by financial, transportation, and marketing interests, and, of course, racism per se as the unmistakable heritage of previous servitude.
What a start toward greatness (!), a background for the antidemocratic modernization up to today and into the future. Theodore Roosevelt would give us the interpenetration of business and government and the battleship navy, Woodrow Wilson, the federal reserve system, regularization of monopoly, and an internationalism inseparable from anticommunism, as witness the Siberian Intervention into the Bolshevik Revolution. By this point, the die is cast, so that throughout the ‘twenties we see, via trade association activity, the privatization of the economy systemically nailed down, the NAM and Chamber of Commerce illustrative of the shaping of the business system.
The New Deal, under FDR, may be viewed, alternatively, as a break in the historical process of capitalist development, or, on close inspection, a muted effort to graft a welfare state onto business foundations—as the most American society and social structure could tolerate. But in any case, once more, at a pivotal moment, unable and unwilling to undergo a fundamental transformation. For America, World War II was, by necessity, anti-fascist on the battlefield and with international alliances, yet imperialism and anticommunism had by Bretton Woods defined the postwar vision of America’s world direction, FDR’s death confirming trends he might have otherwise altered or mitigated. From that point, 1945-6, no internal obstacles remained or were present to arrest the present course: a unilateral posture of global dominance. Anticommunism abroad had its corresponding red-baiting at home, leading to a long-term ideological shrinkage and encrustation of tolerated societal boundaries.
Kennedy was America’s guiding spirit for the liberalization of fascism—intervention, regime change, nuclear preparedness, made acceptable and plausible through policies and rhetoric of the US as a humanitarian beacon to the world’s oppressed (meanwhile enlarging global market shares, financial hegemony, and armed conflict), so that with Johnson and Vietnam America revealed its true identity, which has not changed. In this light, the present campaign and election, filled as it is with copious warnings to the world of America’s greatness (coded for military supremacy), extends the past into the future, lacking only the sophistication, ideological and political, of former times able to cement the image of capitalism and democracy.
America now is nakedly belligerent, on the war path while drastically streamlining its own political economy, as, e.g., through outsourcing, industrial division of labor, and extreme emphasis on the financialization of capitalism itself, combining internal-external processes to hold its position in a world political economy and power system where unilateral prestige and military prowess no long hold, reducing America to one among equals, an intolerable state to a nation habituated to international success. The strain is showing. Clinton and Trump are both playing to an American public coddled by decades of patriotism, antiradicalism, and, treatment of the environment is here instructive, nihilism, whether through the depredation of nature or ignorance with respect to climate change.
Clinton and Trump, and the political parties and party system that stand behind them, epitomize the logical outcome, viz., moral bankruptcy, of advanced capitalism in America, in which war, militarism, and defense budgets and production all become necessary to avoid economic stagnation or poor growth, while the ideological reproduction of exceptionalism through its various historical stages ensures a blindness to the human costs of impending war. The election is rendered meaningless because continuity has been preserved with an antiradical heritage now transposed into a setting so whipped up with neurotic frustration at having lost undisputed world supremacy and at home increasing wealth and income differentiation that a paralysis of will is setting in, making the militarization of policy (and, via massive surveillance, regimentation or stringent conformity in the political realm) not only thinkable but operable. | 0 | [
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FMD3932 | 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: Notable concepts worth discarding. Claim summaries:
contextual information: FACT CHECK: Was Nick Hanauer's 2012 TED Talk about income inequality banned because it was "too politically controversial" to release? Claim: A 2012 TED Talk video featuring wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer speaking on the subject of income inequality was banned because it was deemed "too politically controversial." Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2015] There are several articles that claim "TED Banned This Billionaire For Exposing Capitalism's Biggest Lie" or similar wording. This refers to the speech of Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist. The sensational language of this claim makes me suspicious, as does the unlikelihood of the assertion. Is it true? What is the source of the rumor? Origins: On 1 March 2012, Seattle-based venture capitalist and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer participated in the global conference series of "TED Talks." The video of his six-minute talk, widely circulated since its release, captured him addressing a range of issues pertaining to income inequality and capitalism from the perspective of a very wealthy individual. Not long after Hanauer's March 2012 talk was filmed, rumors began circulating that TED had deliberately suppressed the clip due to its potentially offensive nature (to rich people). On 16 May 2012, National Journal published an article contending that TED's organizers had quashed the groundbreaking talk because its content was simply too controversial to release, an odd assertion considering the 2011 emergence of a well-known protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. TED organizers invited multimillionaire Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, the first non-family investor in Amazon.com, to give a speech on March 1 at their TED University conference. Inequality was the topic, specifically Hanauer's contention that the middle class, and not wealthy innovators like himself, are America's true "job creators." "We've had it backward for the last 30 years," he said. "Rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs. Rather, they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich." You can't find that speech online. TED officials initially told Hanauer they were eager to distribute it. "I want to put this talk out into the world!" one of them wrote to him in an e-mail in late April. But early this month, they changed course, telling Hanauer that his remarks were too "political" and too controversial for posting. In the years since 2012, Hanauer's TED clip has paradoxically been viewed millions of times while remaining the focus of articles describing it as "banned," "too controversial," or the speech TED "doesn't want you to see." While it's difficult to determine the accuracy of statements about its online availability in March 2012, the clip clearly became widely available and was frequently viewed on sharing sites such as YouTube shortly thereafter, and it has remained popular ever since. But in 2015, many social media users continued to assert Hanauer's talk was banned: Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer Rich People Don't Create Jobs (VIDEO) #news https://t.co/wmlAmaIZ48 #news https://t.co/wmlAmaIZ48 Hannah Kennison (@HannahKennison1) July 6, 2015 July 6, 2015 Nick Hanauer on His Banned TED Talk & Why the Middle Class are the Job Creators https://t.co/KKQOqIK5PQ https://t.co/KKQOqIK5PQ Jonathan Goodman (@GoodmanJonathan) July 20, 2015 July 20, 2015 if you are interested in #economics, then it is worth listening Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer 'Rich people don't... https://t.co/00E6rlPF1g #economics https://t.co/00E6rlPF1g Mudassar Bashir (@mb62020) June 15, 2015 June 15, 2015 Nick Hanauer too politically controversial: rich people don't create jobs, consumers do - via Reese Jones https://t.co/9xzs0vn1kz https://t.co/9xzs0vn1kz VritTV (@Verite_TV) June 11, 2015 June 11, 2015 In late May 2012, a contributor to TED's forums specifically asked why Hanauer's talk had been "banned," prompting a lengthy discussion during which individuals affiliated with TED linked to a statement issued by TED curator Chris Anderson explaining why Hanauer's talk had not been promoted. The service by which Anderson published the explanation (Posterous) shuttered in April 2013, taking Anderson's remarks with it. However, a cached version revealed the date (17 May 2012), title ("TED and inequality: The real story"), and content of Anderson's rebuttal. Anderson opened by stating that "TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us." He described an ensuing "firestorm of outrage" on sites including Reddit and Huffington Post, wherein TED was "accused of being cowards ... in the pay of our corporate partners ... [and] the despicable puppets of the Republican party." Anderson's account of the decision not to release Hanauer's talk differed dramatically from the circulating rumors: Here's what actually happened. At TED this year, an attendee pitched a 3-minute audience talk on inequality. The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. But it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. (The talk explicitly attacked what he called an article of faith for Republicans. He criticized Democrats too, but only for not also attacking this idea more often.) And it included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance, such as the apparent ruling out of entrepreneurial initiative as a root cause of job creation. The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings—some enthusiastic, others critical. At TED, we post one talk a day on our home page. We're drawing from a pool of 250+ that we record at our own conferences each year and up to 10,000 recorded at the various TEDx events around the world, not to mention our other conference partners. Our policy is to post only talks that are truly special. And we try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media. We discussed internally and ultimately told the speaker we did not plan to post. He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted, he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined, and this time I wrote to him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed. So he forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter, and the National Journal duly bit on the story. And it was picked up by various other outlets. As Anderson noted, income inequality was the subject of at least one TED Talk video in 2011. Much of the rumor regarding Nick Hanauer's purportedly banned TED Talk segment hinged upon the differing assertions made by TED and Nick Hanauer at the time of the controversy in 2012. However, Anderson's claims (that TED curators are tasked with promoting only the most impactful clips) weren't implausible or suggestive of a cover-up. It would be difficult to determine whether Hanauer or anyone working on his behalf threatened a public relations offensive, but TED maintained that quality and not content was behind the decision not to feature the video (which clearly was not "banned" from public view but was simply not promoted by TED). Since the time of the initial debate over whether or why the TED talk was "banned," the clip has been distributed both by TED and other outlets and widely viewed by a large online audience. In August 2014, Hanauer returned for a TED Talk titled "Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming." While it's true that TED opted not to promote Hanauer's initial appearance (during which he discussed income inequality), his segment was not banned, and the organization cited his lack of substantive content alongside his primary reliance on partisan ideas as the reason it was not curated alongside other featured TED Talks. At no point during the immediate controversy did TED appear to deny the existence of the video, remove it from the Internet, interfere with its distribution, or otherwise thwart the ideas advocated by Hanauer from spreading. The group simply chose initially not to promote the clip (as they do for a large number of TED Talks) in favor of other content selected by their curators. Last updated: 27 July 2015 Originally published: 27 July 2015 | 1 | [
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FMD3933 | 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 Archaeologists Dig Up an 800-Year-Old Alien Cellphone? Claim summaries: A picture of an ancient cellphone supposedly unearthed by archaeologists was just a photograph of a modern replica.
contextual information: On 23 December 2015, the conspiracy theory web siteMysterious Universepublished a photo purportedly showing an ancient clay tablet resembling a cellphone which was dug up by archaeologists "earlier this year" in Austria: published While Mysterious Universefailed to provide the details you'd expect from a possibly world-changing dig,such as the names of the archaeologists, secondary photos of the tablet, comments from the team, the object's dimensions, etc., the web site did manage to add some wild speculation about the object: A controversial theory proposed by author Zecharia Sitchin is that aliens known as the Anunnaki came from Nibiru (the rumored Planet X beyond Neptune) and created the Sumerian civilization. The tablet looks surprisingly like a modern phone, with the 12 keys, a display and a talk button. Could these extraterrestrials have tried to introduce the Sumerians to a phone-like communications device, only to find they werent ready for it and dialed them back to a stylus and clay tablets? While the theory that the this cellphone was created by the alien race Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru in order to introduce the Sumerian civilization to modern technology is interesting, this "alien cellphone" was actually created by a German sculptor and is only a few years old. Karin and Karl Weingrtnerof the Art Replik Studio created the clay tablet in January 2012. While the photo was originally shared with a description similar to the one published byMysterious Universe (Art Replik never mentioned aliens) there are several indications that this post was simply a joke, such as thetitle of the object ("BablyoNokia"), comments on the photogrAPH("Yes, exactly!" in response to "is that my old phone?"), and the fact that the image was watermarked art-replik.com. created shared The "alien phone" was created in jest and was likely used as a marketing tool: The above-displayed "ancient cellphone" was not discovered by a group of archaeologists in Austria and it was not left behind by aliens. It was created by a German sculptor who specializes in making replicas of ancient art. | 0 | [
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FMD3934 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill late last week. Congressional Democrats said on Saturday they had agreed with Republicans on a deal allowing new sanctions targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea in a bill that would limit any potential effort by Trump to try to lift sanctions against Moscow. “We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved and it certainly isn’t right now,†White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos†program. A White House official said the administration’s view of the legislation evolved after changes were made, including the addition of sanctions on North Korea. The official said the administration “supports the direction the bill is headed, but won’t weigh in conclusively until there is a final piece of legislation and no more changes are being made.†Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s new communications director, said Trump had not yet decided whether he would sign the bill. “My guess is ... that he’s going to make that decision shortly,†Scaramucci told CNN’s “State of the Union.†Trump has faced resistance from Republican and Democratic lawmakers for his pledge to pursue warmer relations with Moscow. His administration has been bogged down by investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia. With the bill, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any interference in the U.S. democratic process last year. The House is expected to vote on the sanctions bill on Tuesday. The legislation would require the president to submit to Congress a report on proposed actions that would “significantly alter†U.S. policy toward Russia, including easing sanctions or returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama ordered vacated in December. Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to uphold or reject Trump’s proposed changes. If Trump were to veto the bill, he would run the risk of an embarrassing political setback if Congress were to override his veto. In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have met with lawmakers to argue against parts of the Senate version of the bill, including the requirement that Trump obtain Congress’ permission before easing sanctions. The sanctions bill, known as the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act, was passed by the Senate a month ago but held up in the House of Representatives after Republicans proposed including sanctions on North Korea. Lawmakers, including Republican Senator John Thune and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Sunday the bill had broad bipartisan support. “I think (it) will pass probably overwhelmingly again in the Senate and with a veto-proof majority,†Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, told “Fox News Sunday.†In Brussels, the European Union has sounded an alarm about the U.S. moves to step up sanctions on Russia, urging Washington to coordinate with its Group of 7 partners. The European Commission, the EU executive, will consider its next steps at a meeting on Wednesday in Brussels if Trump signs the bill into law, and is willing to consider retaliation, according to an EU official. After warning against unilateral U.S. sanctions at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is concerned Congress’ legislation could hit European companies upgrading pipelines in Russia that feed into Ukraine’s gas transit system. The measures could also target European companies doing legitimate business with Russia in rail transport, financial, shipping and mining, the EU official said. Any significant EU retaliation would need the support, however, of the EU’s 28 governments and would face resistance from members of the bloc, such as Britain and Hungary, that are reluctant to upset the Trump administration. | 1 | [
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FMD3935 | 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: Message Under the Stamp Claim summaries: A message hidden under the stamp of a letter from a POW camp tells the real story?
contextual information: The family of a POW is reassured by letters sent by their son until they steam off the stamp and read what is written there. During World War II, Beth Lynn's oldest son, Robert, joined the navy. Even before the outbreak of the war, the boy had dreamed of being a sailor. He was a very dutiful son, and he wrote to his mother regularly, at least once a week, sometimes more often. After his ship went into combat in the Pacific, Robert continued to write regularly. Sometimes he had to be very careful about what he said to avoid betraying any military secrets that might then fall into the hands of the enemy. Letters often arrived with lines cut out of them by navy censors. These letters could be delayed for days, even weeks, due to the uncertainties of mail delivery from a combat zone. But eventually, they would show up in a bunch, much to the relief of Mrs. Lynn. So she was not too concerned when a couple of weeks went by without receiving the customary letters from her son. However, when the weeks stretched into months, Mrs. Lynn became deeply concerned. Finally, she contacted the Department of the Navy. After a long runaround and a great deal of red tape, Mrs. Lynn learned that her son's ship had been sunk off one of the Pacific islands, which she couldn't be told "for security reasons." The navy was not sure whether her son had been killed or captured by the Japanese. It was known that many Japanese ships had been in the vicinity when the ship went down, and it was assumed that at least some of the crewmen had been captured. Mrs. Lynn was devastated. But she took some small comfort in the possibility that Robert had not been killed but had been captured and taken to Japan and would be returned after the war. She clung to this fragile hope for many months. Then one day, her prayers seemed to have been answered. She received a telephone call from the navy. A letter from Robert had arrived from Japan. Naturally, the government had intercepted all correspondence from the enemy and read it before passing it on. But this letter was perfectly harmless and would doubtless relieve her mind greatly. They would send it on to her. Mrs. Lynn waited anxiously for the letter to arrive from Washington. It came three days later. It was written on thin, light blue paper. The letter didn't contain much hard information. Robert merely reported that his ship had been sunk and he had been captured and taken to Japan. He was now in a Japanese prison camp. He said that though he missed his family greatly and wanted more than anything else to be home, his captors were treating him quite well. Mrs. Lynn was almost hysterical with relief. She read the letter over and over again. Then she looked at the envelope. It had a Japanese stamp. A Japanese wartime stamp would be quite rare in the United States, she reasoned. And her nephew collected stamps. He would be thrilled to add this to his collection. So Mrs. Lynn steamed the stamp off the envelope. And there, in tiny printing where the stamp had been, was this message: They've cut off my hands. A family in Kewanee (a town of 17,000, 20 miles away) had a son in the military, in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. They received a letter from him, in which he asked them to be sure to save the stamp; he wanted to add it to his collection after the war. This puzzled the family; the boy had never collected stamps. They soaked off the stamp. Under the stamp, he had written, "They have cut out my tongue." The blood-chilling tale of the "message under the stamp" dates to 1866 when it was set during the American Civil War. In those early days, the maimed serviceman was a Confederate lad held in a northern prison camp. Under the stamp on the letter home to his momma was found the first grisly message: "My God! They've cut out my tongue." Though the oldest sighting on record, it's by no means the only one. In common with a number of atrocity rumors, old tales of horror and vilification are revamped to fit new circumstances as different enemies and conflicts arise. Witness the following British telling from 1918, gathered near the end of World War I: A clergyman was seated in a local restaurant. Opposite him at the table, a stranger recited the rumor with all the drama and dogma of a religious fanatic. "This friend of mine's boy," the stranger first confided, "is in a Boche prison camp. He sends a letter home and tells how things are all right with him and all that. It seems he likes everything, even the stamp on the letter. That stamp, he tells his ma, is a rare one, and she ought to soak it off for little Alf's stamp collection." "Now," the stranger revealed, "they ain't got no little Alf in the whole family. But my friend does what their boy says. They steam off the stamp." The stranger's eyes glistened. His lips became thin and taut as he said, "Underneath the stamp, they find a message that the boy couldn't put in the letter." The man seemed completely overcome by the emotional impact of his own story. His voice became shrill, and each word was emphasized as though he wanted everyone within earshot to keep it in their minds forever. "It says," he went on, "they've torn out my tongue!" Though stunned by the story, the clergyman had the sense to realize the tale was an obvious fake. He knew prisoners' letters bore no stamps. Had the apocryphal boy sent such a message, there wouldn't have been a stamp under which to hide such a communication. Around the same time the "Little Alf" tale was being used in England to focus hatred upon the Germans, the same story was circulating in Germany about the Russians. In that version, a boy from Munich locked up in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp conveyed a gruesome message to his mother by hiding it under the stamp. His revelation read, "They have cut off my feet so I cannot escape." Atrocity rumors fall into disuse during times of peace but spring up like mushrooms after a rain once the clouds of war again roll in. In 1942, during WWII, this same basic story again hit the trail in Britain. Sometimes the letter was received by a father. Sometimes it had come to a wife. And the messages sometimes read, "They are starving us" or "They have cut off my ears" or "They have pierced my eyes" or "They have cut off my hands." In the United States, it was told about an American serviceman who had been captured by the Germans or the Japanese. What we have here is a typical atrocity rumor, a handy device used to vilify the guys on the other side of the battle line and thus make the idea of killing them in combat all that more palatable. By portraying the enemy as unredeemably cruel and heartless, the other guys are rendered into cartoon figures who it is okay to hate. Maybe you might not be capable of bayoneting a 28-year-old man with two small children at home, a wife he loves, and a mortgage he sweats to meet the payments on every month, but turn him into a slavering killer who chops the hands off helpless prisoners, dashes the heads of newborn babies against walls, rapes nuns, and crucifies priests, and killing him almost becomes a sacred duty. Such is the purpose of these blood-boiling tales. They help convince the army in the field to fight like the Devil, and they help convince the civilian population back home that being in this war is the right thing to do. Atrocity rumors are never new; they are merely retooled as circumstances change. In the ramp-up days towards the Gulf War, we were told Iraqi soldiers had rampaged through a Kuwaiti hospital, grabbing premature babies up out of incubators and tossing them to the floor to meet their deaths on the cold, hard tiles. Never mind that this apocryphal hospital was never pinpointed nor the grieving families of these infants located, the story spread like wildfire, inflaming passions against the Iraqis and stiffening resolve to fight them tooth and nail if it came down to that. "I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators ... and left the children to die on the cold floor." This was the story told by "Nayirah," the fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl who shocked a public hearing of Congress's Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990. Nayirah's testimony came at a time when Americans were wondering how to respond to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2. Her story was cited frequently in the congressional debate over war authority, which was approved by only five votes in the Senate. President Bush mentioned it often as a reason for taking firm action. It was a major factor in building public backing for war. As many are now aware, the incubator story was the centerpiece of a massive public relations campaign conducted by Hill and Knowlton [a PR firm] on behalf of a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait, for a fee of $11.5 million. After the war, the group revealed that it was financed almost entirely by the Kuwaiti government. A few babies did die during that conflict, but as a result of needed supplies not reaching hospitals, not because enemy soldiers threw them to the floor and left them to die there. Only someone with a very long memory would recall that similar "soldiers kill babies" rumors had been kited during numerous conflicts in the past. For example, in the 1600s, the English were likewise inflamed by lurid tales of Irish atrocities. They were told how the Irish dashed babies' heads against walls, stripped and raped wives in front of their husbands, and buried alive brave townspeople in mass graves. Each of these shockers, you see, is a common atrocity rumor and will be trotted out when a population needs to be inspired to fight. Women, children, and clerics are often cast in the victim's role in this form of rabble-rousing. Which should not be all that surprising; the object is, after all, vilification, and that is best accomplished by pitting the most helpless and appealing of innocents against the most vicious and vile of oppressors. In World War I, one of the most widespread rumors of this type concerned Belgian children maimed by German soldiers. Officials of the Catholic Society were said to have seen with their own eyes members of the German soldiery chop the arms off countless babies even as the tots clung to their mothers' skirts. A horrific extension of the rumor had German soldiers afterwards feasting on these severed limbs. Sometimes the tale was presented unvarnished (as above) as a one- or two-line bit of fact, and sometimes it was spun out into a horrendous tale: And in many cases, the story was enlarged upon, as for instance the harrowing anecdote of a prominent woman who was visiting a home for Belgian refugees in Paris and came upon a little girl, no more than ten years old. The room the child was in was rather warm, but still, the girl kept her hands in a pitifully worn little muff. "Mamma," she said, "please blow my nose for me." The prominent woman who was standing by is then supposed to have said, half laughingly but somewhat sternly, "A big girl like you can't use her handkerchief?" The sad-faced little girl made no reply. But slowly the mother turned her head toward the visitor and in a dull, matter-of-fact tone said, "She has not any hands now, ma'am." The woman visitor shuddered. "Can it be that the Germans...?" Tears welled from the eyes of the wretched Belgian mother. Like all the other atrocity rumors, there were no handless Belgian tots. All efforts to locate even one such child failed miserably. Yet as a rumor, it was unparalleled in the way it spread and the frissons of horror it sent clawing up the spines of all who heard it. Atrocity rumors are as old as the hills, and you should be on the lookout for them during times of international strife and lines being drawn in the sand. Yes, it's true man's inhumanity to his fellow man is boundless and that verifiable atrocities have been committed during numerous conflicts, but even so, it seldom pays to believe all the vilification tales passed wildly around during the build-up days towards a war. Whipped into a hate-filled frenzy in reaction to these tales, even the most peaceable of nations can be impelled by its outraged populace to throw itself into what it otherwise would have stayed far distanced from. War is serious business. The decision to engage in it or not cannot be taken lightly and should never be dictated by deliberate rumormongering. Though protection of the weak is a noble and worthy ideal, no one should be in favor of seeing the blood of his loved ones spilled in protection of the fictional. | 1 | [
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FMD3936 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed ongoing trade disagreements between their two countries on Friday on the sidelines of a gathering of U.S. governors. President Donald Trump plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico with talks to begin in mid-August. Trump feels the two allies and neighbors are taking advantage of lax American trade policies. Pence and Trudeau met on the fringes of the National Governors Association meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. “On behalf of President Trump, the vice president recognized the importance of the beneficial U.S. trade and investment relationship with Canada, while expressing the need to work together to address lingering trade disagreements,†a White House statement said. It added the two leaders also expressed “their shared commitment to update and modernize NAFTA through constructive renegotiation.†| 1 | [
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FMD3937 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for a renewed fight for a more-inclusive United States despite disappointment over an election loss that laid bare national divisions. In her first public remarks since conceding to Republican Donald Trump last week, Clinton said that many Americans were asking whether his victory meant the United States was still the country they thought it was. “The divisions laid bare by this election run deep, but please listen to me when I say this. America is worth it, our children are worth it,†she said at a Children Defense Fund event honoring scholarship winners. “Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.†Although Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman called the nonprofit advocacy group’s event “a love-in for Hillary Rodham Clinton,†the former first lady said it had not been easy for her to attend. “There have been times this past week when all I wanted to do was just to curl up with a good book or our dogs, and never leave the house again,†said Clinton, whose ties to the Children Defense Fund date back to her work there as a young law student. Clinton, a former secretary of state, won the popular vote but lost the crucial electoral college tally to Trump, a New York real estate magnate who has taken a hard line on immigration and has opposed accepting Syrian refugees. “I know many of you are deeply disappointed by the results of the election. I am too, more than I can ever express,†Clinton said. “But as I said last week, our campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love, and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive and big hearted.†She said that help for children backed by Republicans and Democrats was a hopeful sign of both parties working together. The federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, for example, now covers 8 million children and its creation had relied on bipartisan support, Clinton said. “For the sake of our children, and our families and our country, I ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level,†Clinton said. She added, “I am as sure of this as anything I have ever known. America is still the greatest country in the world, it is still the place where anyone can beat the odds.†| 1 | [
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FMD3938 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: By wmw_admin on October 31, 2016 Zero Hedge — via Russia Insider Oct 28, 2016
In our previous article The Secret Truth about Russia Exposed, we elaborated on how Russia is a convenient enemy for politicians and specifically the Democratic party, to create an enemy that really , well – doesn’t exist to distract and confuse voters. But like with any ‘enemy’ if you bomb a village, you may have some pissed off villagers. As we explain in our best selling book Splitting Pennies – the world doesn’t work the way you see on TV – in fact, it works more closely as seen on Zero Hedge.
Although Russia simply is just a country in the wrong place at the wrong time (which, throughout Russian history, seems to be a theme for them) – there really is a reason the Elite hate Russia. It’s not because they’re Xenophobic, although there’s that too – it’s because of several key factors that make Russia a unique power in the world, compared to similar countries. Russia is an independent country. It’s not possible to manipulate Russia via external remote control, like it is most countries. The Elite don’t like that! Russia kicked out Soros “Open Society” :
Russia has banned a pro-democracy charity founded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros, saying the organization posed a threat to both state security and the Russian constitution. In a statement released Monday morning, Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office said two branches of Soros’ charity network — the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the Open Society Institute (OSI) — would be placed on a “stop list” of foreign non-governmental organizations whose activities have been deemed “undesirable” by the Russian state. Russia is not easy to cripple via clandestine means, whether it be CIA, MI6, or outright military conflict. Some other BRICs however, that’s not the case. Say what you will about Russia’s military – it’s on par and in many cases, advanced, compared to the US military. And that’s not AN opinion, that’s in the opinion of top US military commanders:
Late in September, we brought you “ US Readies Battle Plans For Baltic War With Russia ” in which we described a series of thought experiments undertaken by The Pentagon in an effort to determine what the likely outcome would be should something go horribly “wrong” on the way to landing the US in a shooting war with Russia in the Balkans.
The results of those thought experiments were not encouraging. As a reminder, here’s how Foreign Policy summed up the exercises: Russian culture, and language, is too complex for the average “Elite” who pretends to be internationally well versed because they had a few semesters of French. For example, when the diplomat Clinton was Secretary of State, she presented a reset button translating the opposite meaning… ooops .
“I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: ‘We want to reset our relationship, and so we will do it together.’…
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” she asked Lavrov, laughing. “You got it wrong,” said Lavrov, as both diplomats laughed.
“It should be “perezagruzka” [the Russian word for reset],” said Lavrov.”This says ‘peregruzka,’ which means ‘overcharged.’”
Yes, it’s almost a certainty that if Clinton by some horrible fate is President there will be Nuclear war. Wars have been started over much more subtle mistakes. One would think, that Clinton would have had an advisor CHECK THIS before presenting it in a public ceremony, in front of reporters? How much more blatantly unprofessional can one be? If politicians worked in the private sector, they wouldn’t last a day! How do these people advance so far in politics? Plain and simple, the Elite do not control Russia. While there are backchannels of Russian oligarchs that work directly with Western Rothschild interests, for example, they simply don’t have the same level of control as they do European countries, like Germany for instance. Or another good example is China, there’s this fanatical talk that China can dump US Treasuries blah blah blah the fact is that China is completely dependent on USA and US Dollars, and will be for the rest of our lives. Maybe in 1000 years in the Dong Dynasty still to come they will rule the world but it’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Russia is one of the most highly misunderstood cultures in the West. Which is strange, because Russia is more like America than any European country: Both Russia and America share huge landmasses with large undeveloped territory Both Russia and America are predominantly white christian majorities (although in last decades, America tries to be more of a melting pot whereas Russia favors ethnic cleansing) Both Russia and America fought against Hitler and the Nazis during World War 2, the defining event of the last 60 years
There have been numerous interesting situations where Russia helped America and America helped Russia on a number of levels, to learn more about it checkout the following books:
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution . Armand Hammer: The Untold Story
Most interestingly, during the Nixon administration Kissinger was prodding Nixon to partner with Russia that would, in Kissinger’s view would create an unstoppable alliance, that no one could compete with such a superpower axis. But, it didn’t happen, as there were ‘neo-cons’ who were against it, mostly Polish Catholics who have some deep genetic fear of any culture using the Cyrillic alphabet.
Nixon instead chose China (what a mistake!) and created Forex. But the point being that, through a small slip of fate, “China” may have been in this alternative Kissinger reality the ‘Great Evil Enemy’ hacking our elections, as we drive across the Alaskan-Siberian highway without any speed limit, oil would be ten cents a gallon, and we wouldn’t need to war with the Middle East. | 0 | [
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FMD3939 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday he may be in Cuba in the next week or two to hold a dialogue on human rights. “I may be down there in the next week or two to have a human rights dialogue, specifically,†Kerry said in response to a question during annual budget testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. | 1 | [
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FMD3940 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thanks to a bunch of parents who cannot handle the truth, a Virginia school district was forced to nix an educational video about racism and inequality from its curriculum after receiving complaints that its message was racially divisive.Using the metaphor of a race track, the video expertly addresses racial disparity in America throughout history in which individual runners encounter various obstacles depending on their race. Created by the African American Policy Forum, the short video has been used hundreds of thousands of times all over America without any issues up until now.Unfortunately, a few parents in Glen Allen felt it was a white guilt video and although officials of Henrico County Public Schools originally stood by the film s much-needed message, those ignorant parents got their way. Two days after saying the video was one component of a thoughtful discussion in which all viewpoints were encouraged, officials had banned the video, labeling it racially divisive. They even issued an apology for trying to bring cultural awareness to students!School Board Chair Micky Ogburn said: The Henrico School Board and administration consider this to be a matter of grave concern. We are making every effort to respond to our community. It is our goal to prevent the recurrence of this type of event. School leaders have been instructed not to use the video in our schools. In addition, steps are being taken to prevent the use of racially divisive materials in the future. We do apologize to those who were offended and for the unintended impact on our community. Luke Harris, co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, felt the video was completely appropriate. He said: The video is designed for the general public. We produced something you could show in elementary and secondary schools or in college studies courses. We found that the video has a huge impact on the people that we re showing it to. Most of us know very little about the social history of the United States and its contemporary impact. It was designed as a tool to throw light on American history. It s already a shame that black history is only celebrated one month the shortest month out of the entire year, and this proves that even educational videos about the real-life struggles of African Americans don t stand a chance against white privilege. This was a great cartoon that made the obstacles of racism (many of which still exist to this day) easy to understand. Out of the four hundred years of slavery and oppression that black people have had to endure, you would think that the least we could do is watch a four-minute cartoon about it. Feature image via screenshot | 0 | [
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FMD3941 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has formally named Republican Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, a former Navy SEAL commander, as his pick for interior secretary, the Trump transition team said in a statement on Thursday. The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration; all the posts but those of national security adviser, the White House chief of staff, White House director of the National Economic Council and White House strategist require Senate confirmation: Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid and has been a close ally since. Son of a country store owner, the Alabama senator and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. U.S. Representative Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government’s sweeping collection of Americans’ communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Ross, 79, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross helped shape the Trump campaign’s views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which went into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization, for causing massive U.S. factory job losses. Mattis is a retired Marine general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname “Mad Dog.†He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: “It’s fun to shoot some people.†DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. Perry, 66, adds to the list of oil drilling advocates skeptical about climate change who have been picked for senior positions in Trump’s Cabinet. The selections have worried environmentalists but cheered an oil and gas industry eager for expansion. Perry, who also briefly ran in the 2016 presidential race, would have to be confirmed by the Senate to head the Energy Department, which is responsible for U.S. energy policy and oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons program. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: SCOTT PRUITT An ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to stem climate change, Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt, 48, has enraged environmental activists. But he fits with the president-elect’s promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling. Pruitt became the top state prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since. U.S. Representative Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion. The final leadership role of Kelly’s 45-year career was head of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 66-year-old retired Marine general differed with Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. Zinke, 55, a first-term Republican representative and a member of the House subcommittee on natural resources, has voted for legislation that would weaken environmental safeguards on public lands. He has taken stances favoring coal, a fossil fuel that suffered during the Obama administration. The League of Conservation Voters, which ranks lawmakers on their environmental record, gave Zinke an extremely low lifetime score of 3 percent. Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc [APOLOT.UL], which runs the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast-food chains, has been a vociferous critic of government regulation of the workplace and the National Labor Relations Board. Puzder, 66, has argued that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close, and praises the benefits of automation, so his appointment is likely to antagonize organized labor. Cohn, 56, president and chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had widely been considered heir apparent to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the Wall Street firm. Trump hammered Goldman and Blankfein during the presidential campaign, releasing a television ad that called Blankfein part of a “global power structure†that had robbed America’s working class. Retired Lieutenant General Flynn, 57, was an early Trump supporter and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his Army career in 1981 and was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy. Tillerson, 64, has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil Corp, where he rose to serve as its chairman and CEO in 2006. A civil engineer by training, the Texan joined the world’s largest energy company in 1975 and led several of its operations in the United States as well as in Yemen, Thailand and Russia. As Exxon’s chief executive, he maintained close ties with Moscow and opposed U.S. sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Crimea. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former chief executive of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, and was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. Chao, 63, was labor secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. She is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. Mnuchin, 53, is a successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California’s largest bank. Housing advocacy groups criticized the bank for its foreclosure practices, accusing it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Haley, 44, has been the Republican governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. Recently re-elected to serve as Republican National Committee chairman, Priebus will give up his party post to join Trump in the White House, where the low-key Washington operative could help forge ties with Congress to advance Trump’s agenda. The 44-year-old was a steadfast supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign even as the party fractured amid the choice. CHIEF WHITE HOUSE STRATEGIST, SENIOR COUNSELOR: STEVE BANNON The former head of the conservative website Breitbart News came aboard as Trump’s campaign chairman in August. A rabble-rousing conservative media figure, he helped shift Breitbart into a forum for the alt-right, a loose confederation of those who reject mainstream politics and includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. His hiring signals Trump’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. As White House chief of staff, Bannon, 63, will serve as Trump’s gatekeeper and agenda-setter. | 1 | [
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FMD3942 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Sarah Sanders does it again! The snarky DC reporters always try and get her but she ends up on top every time! This time was no exception;Daily Caller reports:The GOP tax reform bill is the most talked-about thing in the country right now. When NBC asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders about its effects Thursday, Sanders pointed to the huge bonuses many at NBC will be receiving because of the bill.Multiple corporations announced a mix of thousand-dollar bonuses, pay increases and heavy sums of charitable giving in response to the tax cuts.One of those corporations was Comcast-NBCUniversal.Sarah Sanders made use of the fact that journalists are getting a pay raise under this tax cut, in part because there was so much misinformation about the tax cut in media. CNN s Brian Stelter tweeted the report with this comment last night:Sanders responded to Stelter s comment with this reminder:The left has been tripped up numerous times in the past few days. Chuck Schumer claimed that AT&T employees would suffer because of the tax bill but they came out with a great bonus for employees right after the bill passed in the Senate:Democrats have played the drama queen role calling the tax bill Armageddon . They will be proven wrong on this even though they pulled out all the stops to try and make tax reform sound bad. MAGA! | 0 | [
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FMD3943 | 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 Austin, Texas, the average homeowner is paying about $1,300 to $1,400 just for recapture, meaning funds spent in non-Austin school districts.
contextual information: For years, Austin taxpayers have indirectly helped fund schools elsewhere in accordance with the state's more than 20-year-old system for equalizing aid among school districts, some of which have vast differences in taxable property wealth. Kirk Watson, the Democratic state senator from Travis County, attached an eye-catching figure to those costs during a November 2016 Texas Tribune panel discussion about hot issues in the 2017 legislative session. In Austin, Texas, Watson said, the average homeowner is paying about $1,300 to $1,400 just for recapture, referring to funds shifted to less property-rich districts elsewhere. And so that's going to the state to fund state obligations. We have to look at how we are managing our school finance system so that we can do right by the people in this state and have a fair and equitable system. We asked Watson's office how he arrived at his figure for how much average Austin homeowners are paying to schools elsewhere. By email, Kate Alexander said Watson relied on September 2016 testimony by the Austin school district's chief financial officer. According to Nicole Conley's prepared remarks for a Sept. 28, 2016, appearance at a joint hearing of the Texas House committees on appropriations and public education, Conley described the Austin school district as the state's largest single payer of recapture. "Our payment alone comprises 13 percent of all state collections," Conley's testimony states. During the next five years, between fiscal years 2016 and 2020, Austin ISD is projected to pay almost $2.6 billion in recapture payments to the state. By 2019, more than half of every tax dollar collected in Austin will go to the state. Later in her testimony, Conley said, "So to put it in perspective, we could lower our tax rate by 35 cents if we weren't sending $406 million to the state under the recapture system. For the average homeowner in Austin, that would amount to about $1,400 in lower taxes. That's fairly substantial; that's pretty significant tax relief. That would certainly make Austin more affordable for some of our taxpayers." In response to our inquiry, district spokesman Jacob Barrett told us Conley reached her savings figure for the average homeowner starting from the district's 2016-17 budget, indicating it expects to pay $406 million in recapture to the state in accordance with the school funding system. That payment amounts to 38 percent of the district's $1.061 billion in budgeted property taxes, Barrett noted. Barrett explained that the district calculated the average homeowner's share of the budgeted recapture payment starting from its average taxable value of a home in the district of $328,844 (as of June 2016), on which such an owner expected to pay $3,548 in school maintenance and operations property taxes at the M&O tax rate of $1.079 per $100 valuation. Finally, Barrett said, multiplying the 38 percent by that $3,548 yields the portion of taxes on an average-value residence that goes to recapture, which amounts to $1,355. Barrett also emailed us a December 2012 district document showing that, by amount, the Austin district's 2015 recapture payment was followed by what was paid by the Highland Park (Dallas), Eanes, Cotulla, and Karnes City districts, respectively. Additionally, the document states that the Austin district's annual recapture payment is projected to exceed $630 million in 2019, when more than half of every school property tax dollar collected locally will be recaptured by the state. Next, we asked non-district experts—Joe Wisnoski, a former Texas Education Agency official; Tom Canby of the Texas Association of School Business Officials; and Christy Rome, who advocates for districts required to make recapture payments—to evaluate how the Austin district determined that the average Austin homeowner will pay $1,355 in school property taxes toward the district's 2016-17 recapture total. "Solid," each expert said. By email, Wisnoski cautioned, though, "The average doesn't really describe much about the distribution of payment amounts, so you don't really know how many taxpayers are clustered close to that amount, and how many are really far away (high or low) compared to the average." Finally, we looked into how much a district resident with a median-value home might be paying toward its recapture total. For that, we ran the median value of homes in the Austin district as of Aug. 8, 2016—$261,487—through the district's equation. The result: The median-value homeowner is expected to pay $2,821 in M&O school taxes, of which $1,078 would be their share of the district's recapture payment. Barrett, the district spokesman, didn't question our math. He noted, though, that Watson referred to the average homeowner. "It's fair," Barrett said by email, "to use the variable that we do." | 1 | [
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FMD3944 | 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 Trump Say He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Beautiful and Sexually Attractive? Claim summaries: "Somebody who a lot of people dont give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton."
contextual information: Donald Trump's public career has encompassed multiple controversial pronouncements by him about women, perhaps most notoriously his comment about his own daughter, Ivanka, that "if [she] werent my daughter, perhaps Id be dating her. comment A similar remark has been attributed to Trump about one of his daughter's childhood friends, Paris Hilton, the celebrity great-grandaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. According to a popular meme, Donald Trump once admitted that when Paris Hilton was a mere 12-year-old, he found her to be beautiful and sexually attractive: This claim stemmed from one of several pre-presidential appearances Donald Trump made on Howard Stern's radio talk show. During that 2003 segment (which was also captured on video), Trump engaged in discussion about women he found attractive, and he brought up Paris Hilton, whom he said he'd known since she was 12 years old: video While Trump was discussing women he did or did not find attractive, he brought up Paris Hilton, a friend of his daughter Ivankas. Now, somebody who a lot of people dont give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton, he said. Ive known Paris Hilton from the time shes 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, Who the hell is that? Did you wanna bang her? Stern asked. Well, at 12, I wasnt interested, Trump said, Ive never been into that ... I've always stuck around that 25 category ... but she was beautiful. He then went on to call Hilton dumb like a fox and admitted that he had watched her sex tape. However, contrary to the wording of the meme, Trump only said he found 12-year-old Paris Hilton to be "beautiful"; he didn't say that "he felt 'boom' when she walked in the room," proclaim that she was "sexually attractive," state that he "lusted" after her, or otherwise suggest he found the thought of a physical relationship with a child that age appealing. In fact, he specifically stated that he "wasn't interested" in a 12-year-old, instead preferring women around the age of 25 or so. However discomfiting it may be to hear mature men bring up a 12-year-old in a conversation about female attractiveness, this instance doesn't live up to its memetic billing. Satlin, Alana Horowitz. "Trump Admits He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Attractive."
HuffPost. 1 October 2016. | 2 | [
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FMD3945 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Pope Francis told executives of leading internet companies on Friday to use their great profits to defend children from sexual exploitation and other dangers lurking online. The pontiff, speaking at a conference in Rome, said the Catholic Church needed to accept responsibility before God, victims and public opinion for its own sex abuse scandals, but wanted to share the lessons it had learned. Speaking to participants including representatives from Facebook and Microsoft, he said social media businesses had to do more than set up filters and algorithms to block harmful content. The 80-year-old pope spoke out against the spread of extreme pornography, the dangers of so-called sexting between young people and between adults and children, and cyber bullying, calling it a true form of moral and physical attack . He said heinous, illicit activities such as the commissioning and live viewing of rape and violence against minors via the so-called Dark Web had to be stopped. The Church-organized conference | 1 | [
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FMD3946 | 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: Katie Kirkpatrick Claim summaries: Photographs show Katie Kirkpatrick, a young cancer victim who passed away five days after her wedding?
contextual information: The girl in the picture is Katie Kirkpatrick, she is 21. Next to her, her fianc, Nick, 23. The picture was taken shortly before their wedding ceremony, held on January 11, 2005 in the US. Katie has terminal cancer and spend hours a day receiving medication. In the picture, Nick is waiting for her on one of the many sessions of Chemo to end. In spite of all the pain, organ failures, and morphine shots, Katie is going along with her wedding and took care of every detail. The dress had to be adjusted a few times due to her constant weight loss. An unusual accessory at the wedding was the oxygen tube that Katie used throughout the ceremony and reception as well. The other couple in the picture are Nick's parents. Excited to see there son marrying his high school sweetheart. Katie, in her wheelchair with the oxygen tube, listening a song from her husband and friends At the reception, Katie had to take a few rest breaks. The pain wouldn't allow her to stand up for long periods. Katie died five days after her wedding day. Watching a women so ill and weak getting married and with a smile on her face makes us think..... Happiness is reachable, no matter how long it last. We should stop making our lives complicated. Origins: On Valentine's Day 2002, Katie Kirkpatrick, then a freshman at Rochester College (a small Christian college in Rochester Hills, Michigan) was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Undaunted, Katie strove to keep up with her studies, but she suffered another setback in 2003 when she was diagnosed with "an inoperable lung tumor wrapped around her pulmonary artery." Nonetheless, in 2004 the resilient Katie took part in champion cyclist Lance Armstrong's "Ride for the Roses" cancer fundraiser: fundraiser Dr. Craig Bowman of the Bible faculty spearheaded a campus and area-wide effort that raised $28,000 which made one of Katie's dreams come true: riding with six-time Tour de France winner and fellow cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in his Ride for the Roses cancer fundraiser. Says Katie of Armstrong, "I like his attitude and his perseverance. I admire him for the way he dealt with his cancer, and his attitude: 'You know what, this isn't going to beat me!'" On 15 January 2005, 21-year-old Katie the girl "with a contagious smile and unrelenting optimism" who had been battling cancer for three years married Lapeer County sheriff's deputy Nick Godwin, her high school sweetheart and the love of her life, at Church of Christ in Hazel Park, Michigan. Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin passed away at the McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, on 20 January 2005, just five days after her wedding. Her husband, Nick, said of the wedding and Katie's passing: "It was wonderful. It was a dream come true. She was the most beautiful angel ever just caring and selfless, and such an inspiration to everyone. She was always smiling no matter what happened, no matter what news she got. She was as close to perfect as they come." She did not let sickness stop her from living, take away the hope or faith that made her believe she had a future. She had a lovely wedding and she had love and she gave love and love doesn't die. And that is how Katie beat cancer. Additional photographs of Katie and her wedding can be viewed on the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) web site. NPPA Katie's Spa in Lapeer, Michigan (a business which specializes in services to cancer patients), is named in Katie's memory, as is Katie's Wings, a non-profit organization established to help bring assistance to people affected by cancer. Katie's Wings Sadly, the event that likely prompted circulation of this item in March 2009 was the death of Katie's father, David B. Kirkpatrick, who passed away that month after his own battle with cancer. Last updated: 2 April 2009 Morrison, Kara G. "Wedding Blessed Bride's Final Days." The Detroit News. 23 January 2005. Reiz, Rose Mary. "Spa Is Legacy of Lapeer East Grad." The Flint Journal. 9 September 2007. Tunnicliff, Greg and Bryn Mickle . "David 'KP' Kirkpatrick Was Dedicated to Family and Students." The Flint Journal. 20 March 2009. | 1 | [
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FMD3947 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Two leading House Democrats introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to curb corporate tax inversion deals by preventing companies from lowering the effective tax rates of U.S. business operations after moving their headquarters overseas. A bill, authored by the top Democrats on the House Ways and Means and Budget Committees, would limit the ability of newly inverted companies to engage in a tax strategy called “earnings stripping,†which the lawmakers said often follows an inversion deal. Corporate inversions, an issue for anti-establishment voters in this year’s presidential and congressional election campaigns, typically occur when a U.S. company buys a foreign firm and then relocates its headquarters to the foreign company’s home country, if only on paper, in a bid to reduce overall taxes. The Obama administration has taken policy steps to discourage such deals. But only Congress can eliminate the option through tax reform, a prospect unlikely until after the Nov. 8 election. “We cannot continue to allow companies to shift their tax obligations onto American workers and families simply by changing their mailing address,†said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Van Hollen introduced the “Stop Corporate Earnings Stripping Act of 2016†with Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. The lawmakers said newly inverted companies have stripped their U.S. operations of taxable earnings by loading them with debt that produces tax-deductible interest payments. The payments are made to the new foreign parent or another foreign affiliate as interest income that often pays a reduced or zero tax rate. The new legislation would reduce or eliminate financial thresholds that allow companies to pursue the earnings-stripping strategy after inversion. | 1 | [
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FMD3948 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Soros Spends $2 Million to Defeat Arpaio Scott Bland, Politico, November 4, 2016
George Soros has contributed $2 million to a group working to defeat Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, the latest target of Soros’ big spending in local law enforcement campaigns over the past year.
The Soros-funded PAC, Maricopa Strong, will file campaign finance documents Friday showing Soros’ multi-million dollar investment against Arpaio, along with $500,000 from Texas energy billionaires Laura and John Arnold and $250,000 from Laurene Powell Jobs (the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs). The group had previously reported a $300,000 donation from Soros, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors.
Soros has spent millions in 2015 and 2016 funding campaigns to defeat local prosecutors around the country and elect new ones who back criminal justice reform measures. Soros-backed groups are currently spending big in three big-city district attorney races: Houston’s Harris County, where Soros has contributed over $1 million, according to local campaign finance filings; Gilpin and Jefferson counties outside Denver, where Soros has given about $1.5 million to unseat an incumbent; and Phoenix’s Maricopa County, where a Soros-funded PAC has also spent over $1 million against the Republican district attorney, Bill Montgomery.
But Soros’ spending against Arpaio, a high-profile liberal bogeyman, is his single biggest investment in a local race this year, as well as the billionaire’s first effort against a sheriff. It folds in immigration reform, another policy passion of Soros’, alongside criminal justice reform.
{snip}
Maricopa Strong has spent $2.9 million in the sheriff’s race, with the donations from Soros and others funding a flurry of mailers and TV ads boosting Democratic candidate Paul Penzone and hammering Arpaio. Soros has typically been the sole funder of his local outside-spending campaigns around the country, though Jobs and the Arnolds joined him in funding Maricopa Strong.
{snip}
Arpaio’s campaign has attacked Soros’ efforts, calling him a “far-left globalist,” saying he is trying to buy a local race, and alleging that his group has broken disclosure rules, per the Arizona Republic.
{snip}
Arpaio has aired about $2.8 million of his own TV ads, according to a media-tracking source, and has leaned on his national name recognition to raise millions more for his campaign, while Penzone’s campaign has been less well-funded. But several polls this fall have shown Penzone leading Arpaio in his second attempt to unseat the sheriff.
{snip} | 0 | [
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FMD3949 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home › ECONOMIC › WALL STREET JOURNAL BEGINS LAYOFFS, CUTS SECTIONS WALL STREET JOURNAL BEGINS LAYOFFS, CUTS SECTIONS 0 SHARES
[11/3/16] News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal will launch a new format for the newspaper with fewer sections on Nov. 14, and has begun laying off employees as part of an effort to cut costs, according to two memos reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the Journal laid off staff of its Greater New York section, according to a memo sent on Wednesday from the International Association of Publishers’ Employees to members of the union at the paper. The layoffs include 19 IAPE-represented employees.
The layoffs came just weeks after Dow Jones & Co, the News Corp unit NWS 0.21% that oversees the newspaper, announced a three-year plan to cut costs in response to a decline in print advertising.
As part of the cost cutting, the Journal offered all of its news employees the option to take a buyout. The deadline to express interest in a buyout was Monday, and 48-IAPE represented employees took the buyout, out of a total 450 who were offered it, according to IAPE.
A spokeswoman for Dow Jones declined to comment on how many employees requested buyouts or how many layoffs were expected. Post navigation | 0 | [
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FMD3950 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Kremlin-funded Russian broadcaster RT was due to launch its French language news channel on Monday night amid heavy suspicion by the government and President Emmanuel Macron who has dubbed it an organ of propaganda . Macron has led official criticism of RT, formerly known as Russia Today , and openly accused it of sowing disinformation about him via its website and social media during the presidential election earlier this year which he won. RT has denied the allegations and RT France s chief executive Xenia Fedorova, speaking at the channel s new offices in a western Paris suburb, again brushed off criticism, saying that RT stood for news not covered by mainstream media . The channel was being cold-shouldered by Macron and the channel had still not been granted accreditation to cover news conferences inside the French presidential Elysee palace, Fedorova said on Monday a few hours before the channel was due to start broadcasting. There was just one example of when we actually managed to visit. That was actually during the Trump visit to Paris, she added, referring to the visit by the U.S. president last in July. A spokesman for the French government said last week that the current administration was concerned by encroachment on freedom of expression but highlighted that RT was owned by a foreign power. Fedorova brushed off the remarks, citing other well-known international news channels that receive public funding such as BBC World, France 24 or Al Jazeera. RT stands for news that are not covered by the mainstream media, she said. We will keep the platform (open) to perspectives and opinions that are either not covered or silenced. RT France has planned a budget of 20 million euros ($24 million) for its launch and aims to recruit a total of 150 people by the end next year. By comparison, BFM TV, France s number one news channel, started with 15 million euros and now has an annual budget of about 60 million euros. RT s first international channel was launched in December 2005. The network broadcasts in English, Arabic and Spanish and its programs are viewed by 70 million people in 38 countries, it says. The landscape for news channels is already crowded in France, with four round-the-clock local news channels. Unlike its rivals, RT will not reach all French households via the digital terrestrial television technology. Rather, it can be viewed only online or by subscribers of Iliad s broadband services. Bouygues Telecom is also due to distribute RT France from the end of next February. The two biggest French telecom operators, Orange and Altice s SFR Group, are still in discussions with RT France, the firms said, underscoring the low audience level that RT is likely to have in its first few days. Russia s international news outlets have come under the spotlight since 2016 after being accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied interfering in the election. In October, Twitter accused RT and Russian news agency Sputnik of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and banned them from buying ads on its network. ($1 = 0.8472 euros) | 1 | [
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FMD3951 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Monday, Oct. 24, 2016, the United States (U.S.) Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress, Maria Pallante, resigned suddenly. Pallante’s letter of resignation, leaked to “The Hollywood Reporter,” came after the newly appointed Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, announced that Pallante had been moved to another position, senior advisor for digital strategy. At this same time, Hayden confirmed that Karyn Temple Claggett will act as Register of Copyrights. The Register of Copyright has not been dismissed in 119 years.
Pallante, the former U.S. Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress, claims that she resigned suddenly because she was locked out of her computer on Monday after being demoted. The Register provides expert advice to Congress on matters concerning intellectual property. In the past, Pallante has been critical of some of the big Silicon Valley companies, such as Google, who have pushed for more lenient laws related to copyrights to music and video. This connection between Hayden’s past as an advocate for antitrust laws and the demotion of Pallante leads some to question the value of intellectual property in Washington.
There are two recommendations Pallante has made to Congress that may have set her in direct opposition to Google. The first of these came in January 2016, when Pallante warned Congress that a new method of licensing music called “100 percent licensing” would be devastating for songwriters who wish to retain control over their product. The licensing scheme was proposed by Renata Hesse, a former Google antitrust attorney who has become Acting Attorney General for antitrust cases at the Department of Justice. Essentially, the rule would allow anyone with partial ownership of a song, whether it is 2 percent or 99 percent, to sell the rights to that song to a user, such as Pandora. The U.S. Copyright Office heeded Pallante’s warning and stood against the implementation of the rule.
A second piece of advice Pallente offered, that could have frustrated Google, relates to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) desire to update CableCARD. CableCARD is a Personal Computer (PC) card device that allows consumers to watch shows digitally on their PCs, with a newer system. The industry offered an app-based solution but apparently FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opposed this plan in favor of a plan proposed by an organization called Public Knowledge who is reportedly funded by Google. The problem, as Pallante explains, was this:
Rather than being passive conduits. . . it seems that a broad array of the third-party devices and services would be enabled by the Proposed Rule and would essentially be given access to a valuable bundle of copyright works, and could repackage and retransmit those works for profit.
When an U.S. Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress suddenly resigns after being locked out of her computer, questions will be asked. Librarian of Congress Hayden was only appointed to her position in mid-September by President Obama and she is wasting no time in making changes. The exact reason for moving Pallante to a new position has not been disclosed. Hayden did say on Monday in her announcement that Karyn, the new Register, “is a skilled intellectual property lawyer and manager, and I am confident she will provide excellent leadership for the Copyright Office in the interim.”
By Joel Wickwire
(Edited by Leigh Haugh)
Sources:
Billboard –100 Percent Licensing: U.S. Copyright Office Argues New Proposal Threatens Song Owners’ Rights
Fortune –U.S. Copyright Office Is in Turmoil Amid a Firing and Lobbying Controversy
IP Pro –Library of Congress Appoints Register of Copyrights
The Hollywood Reporter –Maria Pallante’s Departure From the Copyright Office: What It Meant and Why It Matters
The Register –Murder in the Library of Congress
The Register –FCC Death Vote Looms for the Golden Age of American TV
Top Article and Featured Image Courtesy of Daniel Wickwire – Permission to Use Granted by Photographer
In-Line Image Courtesy of Peter Brantley’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License Congress , Library of Congress , Maria Pallante | 0 | [
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FMD3952 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Consortium News Exclusive: The mainstream media is so hostile to challenges to its groupthinks that famed journalist Seymour Hersh had to take his take-down of President Trump s April 6 attack on Syria to Germany, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern By Ray McGovernLegendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration s version of events surrounding the April 4 chemical weapons attack on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out.In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports that his national security sources offered a distinctly different account, revealing President Trump rashly deciding to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase on April 6 despite the absence of intelligence supporting his conclusion that the Syrian military was guilty.Hersh draws on the kind of inside sources from whom he has earned longstanding trust to dispute that there ever was a chemical weapons attack and to assert that Trump was told that no evidence existed against the Syrian government but ordered his generals to retaliate anyway.Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Marine General, now Defense Secretary James Mad-Dog Mattis ordered the attacks apparently knowing that the reason given was what one of Hersh s sources called a fairy tale. They then left it to Trump s national security adviser Army General H. R. McMaster to further the deceit with the help of a compliant mainstream media, which broke from its current tradition of distrusting whatever Trump says in favor of its older tradition of favoring regime change in Syria and trusting pretty much whatever the rebels claim.According to Hersh s sources, the normal deconfliction process was followed before the April 4 strike. In such procedures, U.S. and Russian officers supply one another with advance details of airstrikes, such as target coordinates, to avoid accidental confrontations among the warplanes crisscrossing Syria.Russia and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the flight path to and from Khan Sheikhoun in English, Hersh reported. The target was a two-story cinderblock building in which senior leaders high-value targets of the two jihadist groups controlling the town were about to hold a meeting. Because of the perceived importance of the mission, the Russians took the unusual step of giving the Syrian air force a GPS-guided bomb to do the job, but the explosives were conventional, not chemical, Hersh reported.The meeting place was on the floor above the basement of the building, where a source whom Hersh described as a senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community, told Hersh: The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons, and ammunition and also chlorine-based decontaminates for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial. A Bomb Damage AssessmentHersh describes what happened when the building was struck on the morning of April 4: A Bomb Damage Assessment by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of fertilizers, disinfectants, and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. Due to the fog of war, which is made denser by the fact that jihadists associated with Al Qaeda control the area, many of the details of the incident were unclear on that day and remain so still. No independent on-the-ground investigation has taken place.But there were other reasons to doubt Syrian guilt, including the implausibility of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad choosing that time while his forces were making dramatic strides in finally defeating the jihadists and immediately after the Trump administration had indicated it had reversed President Obama s regime change policy in Syria to launch a sarin attack, which was sure to outrage the world and likely draw U.S. retaliation.However, logic was brushed aside after local activists, including some closely tied to the jihadists, quickly uploaded all manner of images onto social media, showing dead and dying children and other victims said to be suffering from sarin nerve gas. Inconsistencies were brushed aside such as the eyewitness who insisted, We could smell it from 500 meters away when sarin is odorless.Potent ImagesStill, whether credible or not, these social-media images had a potent propaganda effect. Hersh writes that within hours of watching the gruesome photos on TV and before he had received any U.S. intelligence corroboration Trump told his national security aides to plan retaliation against Syria. According to Hersh, it was an evidence-free decision, except for what Trump had seen on the TV shows.Hersh quotes one U.S. officer who, upon learning of the White House decision to retaliate against Syria, remarked: We KNOW that there was no chemical attack the Russians are furious claiming we have the real intel and know the truth Continue this story at Consortium NewsREAD MORE WHITE HELMETS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire WHITE HELMETS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD3953 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran Claim summaries: Letter from a disabled veteran criticizes George Bush and Dick Cheney over the Iraq War.
contextual information: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, both physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care. I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters, and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured, and done in Iraq have led to suicide, and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the approximately 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief. I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation, and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice, but in our eyes, you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder, and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole. | 1 | [
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FMD3954 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn t had a scandal and he hasn t done something to embarrass himself, Jarrett said in an interview broadcast on CNN Sunday.The aide, also a close friend of Obama and his wife, Michelle, credited the first couple with being good people and getting good results. That s because that s who he is that s who they are and I think that s what really resonates with the American people, Jarrett said.Critics of the Obama administration said Jarrett was trying to rewrite history. NYPThe great stimulus heist: Obama seems to think nobody will remember he grabbed almost a trillion dollars for stimulus spending, created virtually zero private-sector jobs with it, allowed a great deal of the money to vanish into thin air, and spent the rest of his presidency complaining that he needed hundreds of billions more to repair roads and bridges.Vast sums of taxpayer money were wasted on foolish projects that came close to the Keynesian economic satire of hiring some people to dig holes, and others to fill them in. Obama added insult to injury by appointing Vice President Joe Biden as the sheriff who would supposedly find all that missing stimulus loot.Operation Fast and Furious: Obama partisans seem to think any given example of abuse or ineptitude by their man stopped being a scandal the moment it seemed clear he wouldn t be impeached over it. Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration s insane program to use American gun dealers and straw purchasers to arm Mexican drug lords, is a scandal with a huge body count, prominently including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata, plus hundreds of Mexican citizens. Agent Terry s family certainly thinks it qualifies as a scandal.Sheriff Paul Babeu implicates Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department as accomplices in the crimes involving weapons used in the Fast and Furious scandal:It is difficult to imagine any Republican administration surviving anything remotely close to Fast and Furious. The media would have dogged a Republican president without respite, especially when it became clear his Attorney General was putting political spin ahead of accountability and the safety of the American people.Remember, AG Eric Holder escaped perjury charges by claiming he didn t know what his own subordinates were doing a pioneering, but sadly not unique, example of an Obama official using his or her incompetence as a defense.Eric Holder held in contempt of Congress: This was a result of Operation Fast and Furious, but it merits distinction as a separate scandal in its own right. Holder was the first sitting member of a president s cabinet in the history of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress.ObamaCare: Everything about ObamaCare is a scandal, from the President s incessant lies about keeping your old plan if you liked it, to Rep. Nancy Pelosi s we need to pass it to find out what s in it dereliction of Congressional duty.ObamaCare is a scam, pure and simple sold on false pretenses by people who knew it wasn t going to work the way they promised. It doesn t feel right to dismiss it as a failed scheme when so much of the failure was intentional. The bill was so sloppily crafted that Democrats were basically signing blank sheets of paper when they rushed it through Congress in a foul-smelling cloud of back-room deals. ObamaCare s designers precipitated a constitutional crisis by forgetting they left in a provision to cut subsidies for states that didn t set up health-care exchanges a provision that would have killed the entire program stone-dead two years ago, if it had been enforced as written.The Supreme Court rewrote ObamaCare on the fly twice to keep it alive, which is a scandal in and of itself. President Obama delayed and rewrote the law so often it was impossible to keep track of the changes, cutting Congress out of the loop completely. (Actually, someone did keep careful track of them, and the tally was up to 70 distinct changes by January 2016.)That made some of Obama s rewritten mandates and deadlines blatantly illegal but then, the Affordable Care Act isn t really a law in the sense American government understood the term. In practice it became something entirely new, an enabling act that gave the executive unlimited power to do whatever it thought necessary to keep the system running. If subverting the American system of government isn t a scandal, what is?Spying on journalists: Establishment media came about as close to falling out of love with Barack Obama as ever when his administration was caught spying on journalists.The IRS scandal: The selective targeting of conservative groups by a politicized Internal Revenue Service was a scandal grenade Democrats and their media pals somehow managed to smother, even though the story began with the IRS admitting wrongdoing.Founder of non-partisan True The Vote group Catherine Engelbrecht gives gut-wrenching testimony to Congress about being being preyed upon by the IRS and other government agencies.https://youtu.be/db21AQu30XwDemocrats suffocated the scandal by acting like circus clowns during congressional hearings, but at no point were the actual facts of the case truly obscured: yes, pro-life and Tea Party groups were deliberately targeted for extra scrutiny, their tax exemption applications outrageously delayed until after the 2012 election without actually being refused. If anything remotely comparable had been done to, say, environmentalist and minority activist groups by the IRS under a Republican administration, the results would have been apocalyptic.The House voted to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress and to instruct the Justice Department to probe her for criminal charges.Benghazi: This is the clearest example of Obama and his supporters thinking all of his pre-2012 scandals ceased to exist the moment he won re-election. Benghazi has been investigated extensively, and argued about passionately, since the night of September 11, 2012. Nothing can change the absolute fact that the Obama administration s story for the first few weeks after the attack was false, and they knew it was false. They spun a phony story to buy themselves a little time during a presidential election campaign, and it worked.Watch Hillary lie and blame the cause of the Benghazi attack on our US Consulate on an awful youtube video : Iran nuclear deal and ransom payment: Everything about Obama s dealings with Iran has been scandalous, beginning with his silence while the Green Revolution was brutally put down by the mullahs in 2009. The Iran nuclear deal was pushed with lies and media manipulation. The infamous pallet of cash that wasn t a ransom has become symbolic of Obama s mendacity and penchant for breaking the rules, when he thinks following them is too much trouble.Watch Obama try to explain his way out of makingBowe Bergdahl: Bergdahl s ultimate fate rests in the hands of a military court (unless Obama pardons him) but no verdict can erase the scandalous way this administration conducted the prisoner swap that freed him from the Taliban and its allies. Many lies were told, the law was flouted, a deal of questionable wisdom was struck with his captors, and outraged Americans demanded recognition for the soldiers who died searching for Bergdahl after he abandoned his post.Polluting the Colorado river: The Environmental Protection Agency managed to turn the Colorado River orange under this greenest of green Presidents. Of course there was a cover-up. Would you expect anything less from this transparent administration? | 0 | [
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FMD3955 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: JERUSALEM — The two headlines told very different stories about Secretary of State John Kerry’s lengthy address about Middle East peace. In the view of the Jerusalem Post: “Kerry exits locked into failed assumptions. †For the Haaretz: “A very Zionist, speech. †As it turns out, the phenomenon is not unique to the United States. In Israel, the reaction to the events of recent days, including Mr. Kerry’s speech castigating the government’s policies and a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements, made it clear that Israelis are just as polarized as Americans. To borrow an analogy, there is a blue, or more Israel that thought Mr. Kerry offered painful but necessary truths in the spirit of friendship that indicted the failed leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And there is a red, or more conservative, Israel that thought the secretary of state was delusional and insulting, divorced from the harsh reality of the only real democracy in the Middle East struggling to preserve itself in a hostile neighborhood. Just as in the United States, many Israelis cling to their own facts, retreat to their own media outlets, advance their own narratives, and basically just talk with people who think like they do. The result is a politics that is almost as internally divided as the relationship with Palestinians is externally. “Either you’re in my group or the other group, my team or the other team,†said Abraham Diskin, an emeritus associate professor at Hebrew University and longtime student of Israeli society. “It’s a universal phenomenon. Always the other team is to be blamed. †The divide seems to have grown in recent years. At Shabbat dinners in more leftist homes, where many disapprove of the occupation of the West Bank and the construction of settlements, the talk sometimes turns to when it will all prove too much, when it might be time to finally leave Israel for the United States, Canada or Europe. In more rightist homes, frustration grows at Palestinian violence, at European haughtiness and now at what is seen as an American betrayal, all fueled by a suspicion that lies at the core of these acts. A people split over issues so fundamental to their nation is one that has also turned away from a solution once pursued so adamantly. While a majority of Israelis still support the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a solution, there is despair among many that it will ever happen — and plenty of disenchantment among others who now conclude that it should not. The idea of two states side by side was at the heart of the Oslo peace accords signed in the 1990s, and it was the core of the various agreements that President Obama and his two most recent predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, tried to broker. It was the centerpiece of deals offered by prime ministers like Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, only to be rejected by Palestinian leaders, who had their own internal divisions to worry about. But now the idea has soured, like hummus left in the sun too long. Mr. Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, both still formally support the concept, but each defines it differently and neither seems to consider it realistic anytime soon. The election of Donald J. Trump means there will no longer be a strong advocate for this approach in the White House. A survey last summer by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Palestinian Center for Polling and Survey Research pointed to the broader schism in Israeli society. Fully 88 percent of those on the left supported a hypothetical agreement. But such a deal drew the support of just 10 percent on the right. It was backed by 59 percent in the political center. That disparity helps explain why Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly failed to forge a coalition government with the opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, chairman of the Zionist Union. Israel had multiple governments through the 1980s, but the prospect today seems remote. Instead, when Mr. Netanyahu needs to shore up his coalition, he tacks to the right, as he did this year by bringing in Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister. But it is easy to go overboard in this analysis, and to the extent there are different camps with different narratives, they are not necessarily equal or equivalent. Asher Cohen, a professor at University who has specialized in Israeli culture, noted that there was a large political center in Israel, its size increasing at the expense of the shrinking left. And some of Mr. Kerry’s points, especially making East Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state, rankle Israelis across ideological lines, he said. “Even if Kerry’s remarks were close to their own views, centrists and leftists did not appreciate the of the speech and the asymmetry in the blame assigned to Israel and to the Palestinians,†Mr. Cohen said. Still, Israel is undergoing significant demographic changes that are fraying the idea of a common Israeli identity. Jerusalem feels increasingly religious and traditional, quiet during Shabbat when stores and businesses close each week, while Tel Aviv is a bustling, sophisticated center of nightclubs, art galleries and . Different sectors in Israeli society have their own neighborhoods, their own community centers, even their own newspapers. There are also separate school systems, one for each of the major sectors. “Israel is increasingly polarized into different groups that have little to do with one another, despite its tight geography,†said Robert Danin, a former State Department official who worked on Middle East issues. President Reuven Rivlin highlighted the changing Israeli society in a speech last year. Many Israelis, he said, still think of their country as consisting of a large secular Zionist majority with three minority groups: Arabs, Jews and a national religious community more akin to Modern Orthodox in American terms. But today, he noted, “the reality has totally changed. †He noted that about 38 percent of classes in Israel were secular Jews while about a quarter were Arabs, close to a quarter were and about 15 percent were national religious. “The demographic processes that are restructuring or redesigning the shape of Israeli society have, in fact, created a new Israeli order — a reality in which there is no longer a clear majority, nor clear minority groups,†Mr. Rivlin said, just “tribes,†as he called them. A study by the Pew Research Center this year showed that Israeli Jews live within their own separate worlds. Most secular Israeli Jews thought democratic principles should take precedence over Jewish law on questions like marriage, while most Jews thought the other way around. Roughly a third of those surveyed thought settlements hurt Israeli security, another third thought they helped and the rest said they made no difference. Amid this division is an uncertain future. Mr. Rivlin has urged bridging the gaps and bringing Israelis together. That did not happen in 2016. So when Mr. Rivlin offered his annual New Year’s message on Thursday, his optimism was tempered. He hoped 2017 would be known as the “year of mutual respect. †| 1 | [
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FMD3956 | 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: 71% of WIs roads are in poor or mediocre condition and 14% of WIs bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
contextual information: In early November 2015, potholes prompted some crossing of party lines when the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee approved Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan to borrow $350 million over the next two years for road projects. Democrats offered key support. Even before that, Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) was arguing that more spending was needed. On Oct. 1, 2015, she tweeted: "71% of WI's roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 14% of WI's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. #JustFixIt." In Wisconsin's budget battles over infrastructure, few deny the need for road maintenance. Digging into the numbers, Shilling's team directed us to a report from the U.S. Department of Transportation that cited the same statistics as the tweet—that 71 percent of roads in Wisconsin are in poor or mediocre condition and 14 percent of bridges are classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The report is quoted accurately. However, the two statistics were drawn from different sources of data. The data on road conditions came from the 2013 Report Card for America's Infrastructure. The report, the most recent available, is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, a trade and advocacy organization. By the group's tally, Wisconsin is one of just six states with at least 70 percent of roads rated in poor or mediocre condition, meaning our roads are in worse shape than the national average. But experts caution that the report card can overstate the need for road repairs. First, the report uses a small source of data for each state and then extrapolates that data to the entire state roadway system. Ashwat Anandanarayanan, director of transportation policy for the environmental group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, said the civil engineers' reports also conflate new roadway construction and maintenance, resulting in what appears to be a greater need. "Lots of roads need to be fixed," he said. "Not a lot need to be expanded." So then, what is a better measuring stick? The Wisconsin Department of Transportation collects its own data on road conditions that is used in the Highway Performance Monitoring System by the Federal Highway Administration, which is considered the gold standard of transportation information. According to these figures, the percentage of Wisconsin roads in poor or mediocre condition is much lower—38 percent of the state highway system falls into those categories. That doesn't mean the state will fare better in a national comparison by that measure. In fact, the state lags behind the U.S. average in most indicators of roadway quality. As for bridges, Shilling said 14 percent of Wisconsin's bridges were in disrepair or functionally obsolete. This statistic, which is accurate, came from WisDOT data submitted to the Federal Highway Administration. While Shilling cites the number as evidence of the state being behind, Wisconsin does pretty well in a national comparison. Only three states—Arizona, Minnesota, and Nevada—reported a smaller percentage of bridges in disrepair. Our rating: Shilling said 71% of WI's roads are in poor or mediocre condition and 14% of WI's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The report she cited from the federal Department of Transportation backed up her figures, but the numbers used for her road statistic aren't the most accurate available. By another measure, the percentage of roads in poor or mediocre condition is far smaller. There was no dispute on the bridge number; on that front, the state actually fares better than most others. We rate the claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD3957 | 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: If Texas were a country our economy would rank # 10...in the WORLD.
contextual information: CORRECTION, 2:50 p.m., Sept. 15, 2016:After this fact check posted, readers pointed out we'd presented Texas and California GDP figures in billions of dollars when relevant figures actually reflected productivity in the trillions of dollars. We made appropriate changes. Our rating of the claim didn't change. In a tweet adorned with images of a rocket, a wind turbine, a steer, a factory and a microscope, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared: If Texas were a country, it would have the 10th highest GDP in the world. If so, thats gained ground.When we looked into a 2012 claimcomparing productivity in Texas versus the nations of the world, Texas ranked 14th internationally. So, we decided to put Abbotts statement to the Texas Truth-O-Meter. The fine print in Abbotts tweet states that it's based on information from Glenn Hegar, the Texas state comptroller, and from the International Monetary Fund and Bureau of Economic Analysis. When we asked, Lauren Willis of the comptrollers office emailed usits chartindicating that in 2015, Texas had a gross domestic product of $1.59 trillion -- placing it 10th among countries behind the U.S. ($17.95 trillion) and eight countries including Brazil ($1.77 trillion). The chart shows Texas ahead of No. 11 Canada ($1.55 trillion) as well as Korea, Russia, Australia, Spain, Mexico and four other countries. GDP, the most-used measure of national economic output, isdefinedas the market value of goods and services produced by labor and property in country. SOURCE:Email, Lauren Willis, director of communications, Office of Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Sept. 6, 2016 For our part, we found 2015GDP figures posted in April 2016by the International Monetary Fund matching the GDP figures in the comptrollers chart. Willis also pointed out aWorld Bank breakoutof GDPs by nation for 2015; the presented figures didnt perfectly align with the comptrollers chart, we found, though the ranking of the top 10 countries did. Willis also sent a web link to the bureaus U.S. and state-by-state GDP figures for 2015 and previous years. From the BEA, we downloaded figures indicating that in 2015, Texas had the GDP of $1.59 trillion that Abbott relied on. Then again, more populous California had a GDP of $2.46 trillion, which would have placed the Golden State No. 6 in the world if it were a nation, nudging Texas to No. 11.We recently found toothat California in 2015 had greater per-capita productivity than Texas. SOURCE:Website,Regional Economic Accounts, Gross Domestic Product, Interactive TablesBureau of Economic Analysis, last updated June 14, 2016 (GDP figures downloaded Sept. 6, 2016) Our ruling Abbott said that if Texas were a country, its economy would rank 10th in the world. Thats so, figures show, if you leave out a bigger state, California. Considering California, in fairness, Texas would rank 11th in the world. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/cdc4ac03-aab9-4c82-b255-b39c9f4656db | 1 | [
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FMD3958 | 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: Catholic Services in Jeopardy During Government Shutdown Claim summaries: Are Catholic priests barred from conducting religious services on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown?
contextual information: Claim: Catholic priests may not conduct religious services on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown. Contract priests are prohibited from conducting religious functions on U.S. military bases during the federal government shutdown. Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] Did President Obama really order that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown? Origins: One of the many issues affecting both the public and government workers during the federal government shutdown of October 2013 is the Antideficiency Act, a piece of legislation originally passed in 1870 that prohibits the federal government from incurring any monetary obligations for which Congress has not appropriated funds. Under the terms of that legislation, federal employees may not perform their job duties during a government shutdown (except for certain legally exempted activities, such as "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property") even if they volunteer to do so on an unpaid basis. Federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action (such as suspension or job termination), fines, and imprisonment. The application of the Antideficiency Act is open to a fair amount of interpretation, however. For example, does it violate the terms of the Antideficiency Act for federal workers to check their cell phones or e-mail for work-related messages during the government shutdown, even if they don't act on those messages? Executive branch departments have had to review and decide what government activities they believe may or may not be allowed during the shutdown without running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. Due to a confluence of circumstances, one group affected by the Antideficiency Act is some Catholic priests. Due to a chronic shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains in the U.S. armed forces, the Department of Defense has had to hire about 234 priests from outside the military (variously known as contract priests, GS priests, or non-active duty priests) to perform Catholic services and other religious functions on U.S. military bases. Although active duty military personnel (including chaplains) are exempt from the Antideficiency Act, government contract workers are not, so contract priests may not perform religious services or otherwise minister to Catholics on U.S. military bases during the government shutdown, even on a volunteer basis. Therefore, a subset of Catholic military personnel who are stationed at bases that have no active duty Catholic chaplains and are instead being staffed by contract priests will have to go elsewhere for religious services during the shutdown. If they wish to attend Mass or take part in a baptism, for example, they will have to go to local churches or other off-base locations for those functions. (U.S. military personnel stationed in some parts of the world may not be able to find local English-speaking priests, or any priests at all, however.) It isn't true that "President Obama ordered that military priests be arrested for saying the Mass during the government shutdown." As explained above, the issue with contract priests in the military was created by the intersection of the Antideficiency Act and a shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains, two factors that have neither been instigated by nor are under the control of President Obama. Although imprisonment is technically one of the potential punishments spelled out in the law for federal workers who violate the Antideficiency Act, President Obama has not ordered that penalty to be applied to contract priests or any other federal employees, and that penalty is unlikely to be applied to anyone except for the most egregious violations. Update: On 5 October 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure (by a 400 to 1 vote) in favor of allowing military chaplains to minister on Sunday without violating the Antideficiency Act. The Senate has not yet taken up the bill. Last updated: 5 October 2013. | 1 | [
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FMD3959 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: FoxNews.com October 27, 2016
With less than two weeks to go, the race for the White House has narrowed as Hillary Clinton now has a three-point advantage over Donald Trump.
That’s within the margin of error of the national Fox News Poll of likely voters.
Clinton is ahead of Trump by 44-41 percent. Another one-in-ten back a third-party candidate and four percent are undecided. Last week she was up by six points (45-39 percent) and before that by seven (45-38 percent).
The poll, released Wednesday, finds Clinton leads 49-44 percent in the head-to-head matchup. That 5-point advantage is at the edge of the error margin. She was up 7 a week ago (49-42 percent). This article was posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 6:33 am Share this article | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD3960 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republican President-elect Donald Trump defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes in the state of Michigan, according to certified unofficial county-by-county results released on Wednesday by the Michigan secretary of state. Trump received 2,279,543 votes compared with Clinton’s 2,268,839, according to figures posted on the secretary of state’s website. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received 172,136 votes and Green candidate Jill Stein won 51,463. Nine other candidates shared a total of nearly 30,000 additional votes in the presidential campaign in Michigan, the figures showed. The results will remain unofficial until they are reviewed and approved by the Board of State Canvassers on Nov. 28. Some media organizations did not call a winner of the presidential race in Michigan on election night because of the closeness of the race. Michigan is the last state where the winner was not yet clear. The final unofficial tally gave Trump a slightly narrower victory than previous counts. A count as of Nov. 15 reported by CNN, for example, showed Trump winning 2,279,805 votes and Clinton winning 2,268,193, a margin of 11,612 votes. If Trump is declared the winner in Michigan, he will have accumulated 306 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232. Clinton is leading in the popular vote by more than 2 million, according to the Cook Political Report. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3961 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Britain proposed a new post-Brexit security treaty with the European Union on Monday, seeking to maintain and intensify cooperation to thwart ever-growing and increasingly cross-border threats . In its sixth policy paper setting out Britain s vision for ties with the EU after it quits the bloc in March 2019, the government said it wanted to keep the benefits of EU security cooperation, arguing it was in both parties interests to do so. The proposal comes days after a blast on a packed commuter underground train injured 30 people in west London, Britain s fifth major attack this year. We already have a deep level of collaboration with the EU on security matters and it is in both our interests to find ways to maintain it, Brexit minister David Davis said in a statement. A new security treaty with the EU would be underpinned by our shared principles, and should make sure our partnership has the agility to respond to the ever-changing threats we face. The paper said an entirely new form of agreement on security was necessary because there was no satisfactory precedent for security cooperation between the EU and non-EU states, and that relying on existing models would diminish British and EU defenses. Britain has published a series of future partnership policy papers to try to nudge talks with the EU forward, after they have stalled over the divorce settlement, especially over the so-called Brexit bill. Security cooperation is seen by government officials as one of their strongest arguments to gain leverage in the complicated talks to unravel more than 40 years of union. Seeking to ram that point home, Monday s paper simultaneously stressed Britain s importance to EU security, and the need for continued cooperation to respond to future threats as they evolve. Interior minister Amber Rudd said Britain was one of the leading EU contributors to a range of measures, such as data and evidence sharing, extradition measures and to the EU s police agency Europol. Recent events in the UK and across Europe have shown the criminal and terrorist threats we face are varied and increasingly international. The long-standing collaboration we have with our European partners allows us to jointly address these threats and keep our citizens safe, she said. As we prepare to leave the EU it is therefore vital that we agree a new way to ensure continued security, law enforcement and criminal justice cooperation, Rudd said. The document did not rule out Britain seeking membership of police agency Europol and other bodies, or using the European Arrest Warrant which provides fast-track extradition. Its focus, however, was finding a way to keep the operational capabilities provided by those instruments. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3962 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said on Tuesday he was waiting for a plan from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that follows President Donald Trump’s South Asia strategy before he makes a decision on how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan. “When he brings that to me, I will determine how many more we need to send in,†Mattis told reporters during a visit to Baghdad. “It may or may not the number that is bandied about.†U.S. officials have said Trump has given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to add to the roughly 8,400 already in Afghanistan. In a speech on Monday, Trump offered few specifics but promised a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground against U.S-backed government forces in Afghanistan. “We are not nation-building. We are killing terrorists,†he said in a prime-time televised address at a military base outside Washington. Trump also singled out Pakistan for harboring militants. Mattis said lessons learned from fighting Islamic State in Iraq would be used in Afghanistan. When asked how Trump’s strategy would differ from those of previous administrations, he said the approach would be broader but provided no specifics. “There is a broader approach to this and it all comes down to the execution and we will have to stand and deliver on this. ... I understand the question, you’ll just have to watch it unfold to really get the answer to it,†Mattis said. U.S. officials have told Reuters in the past that possible Trump administration responses included expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally. Experts say that for years U.S. efforts to curb Pakistan’s support for militant groups have failed and that further strengthening U.S. ties to India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, undermine chances of a breakthrough with Islamabad. “(Trump) demanded strategic shifts in Pakistan without credible carrots or sticks while utterly ignoring the rest of the major regional players like China, Iran and Russia that back Pakistan’s approach,†said Sameer Lalwani, a senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3963 | 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: Wisconsin state and local government workers pay $500, $600 or in some cases, $1,000 per year in union dues.
contextual information: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has tried to sprinkle sugar on what many government workers see as the bitter pill hes proposing in his controversialbudget-repair bill.Lets see if what he is sprinkling is as sweet as he says it is.For many state and local government workers, losing collective bargaining power is the bitter pill. The bill also would require most public employees to pay more for pensions and health insurance.The hit would be $5,400 per year for a state employee who earns the average wage -- $50,000 -- and chooses the least-expensive family plan for health insurance, Walkers administrationsays.The sugar, at least the way the Republican governor presents it, is in another provision of the bill. It would prohibit union dues from being withheld from public employees paychecks. That means state and local government workers would have to pay their unions directly.According to Walker, if workers opt out of the union, they could save a fair amount of money.On Feb. 20, 2011, on the Fox News Sunday program, Walkersaidfor those workers who don't want to be a part of the union, if you don't want that deduction each month out of the paycheck, they should be able to get that $500, $600 or in some cases, $1,000 back that they can apply for their health care and their pension contribution.Walker made asimilarstatementthree days earlier on Fox televisions On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. And Washington Post columnist George Willwrotethat Walker told him that many employees could save $500 or $600 per year in union dues and that teachers could save up to $1,000.Lets find out if the governors figures are correct.Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie sent us adocumentthat he said came from the state payroll department. Payroll would know the amount of union dues for state workers, since it withholds them from state workers paychecks.The document indicates that annual union dues are as low as $208 for certain legal employees and $300 for apprenticesheet metal workers; dues are as high as $3,180 forplasterersand $3,465 forplumbers.The exact range, however, could be different because dues for some employees are a percentage of their pay, and the document does not spell out those amounts. Moreover, the document does not specify how many employees pay the various dues amounts that are listed, and it does not provide any averages. We asked Werwie for more information, but he had not responded by publication time.So, we contacted some of the major public employee unions to ask what their members pay annually in dues. Our list is not comprehensive, but it does cover tens of thousands of state and local government workers.General employeesMost of the 23,000 state workers who are members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal EmployeesCouncil24pay $420 per year in union dues, though some pay $492, said Bob Allen, spokesman forAFSCME-Wisconsin.They tend to be front-line workers such as correctional officers, administrative support staff, probation and parole officers and custodians, he said.Members of Local 1914 -- one of the units of Council 24 -- pay $470 per year, according to theduespageon that locals website. Those300membersare state employees in Eau Claire, Chippewa, Rusk, Clark and Taylor counties, and hold non-academic jobs at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.Members ofAFT-Wisconsinwho earn over $34,000 per year pay about $510 per year in dues, said president Bryan Kennedy. AFT says it represents 17,000 public workers in 500 different classifications.Health care workersAnnual dues for the 15,000 members of theProfessional Patient CareUnitof Service Employees Union International range from about $192 for home care workers to $864 or more for senior nurses, said president Dian Palmer.TeachersMilwaukee Public Schools teachers paid $995 in dues in 2010, while educational assistants who worked more than 20 hours per week paid $469, according to thefiguresfrom the website of theMilwaukee Teachers Education Association.That unionsaysit represents more than 8,200 employees, including 6,000 teachers.Green Bay public school teachers pay $834 in dues, said Lori Blakeslee, spokeswoman for the Green Bay Education Association.The typical Wisconsin teacher who belongs to the states largest teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, pays $450 per year for the state and national portions of their dues, said WEAC spokeswoman Christina Brey. But the additional amount in local dues paid varies and Brey said she did not know what the range is. Both Milwaukee and Green Bay belong to WEAC.Lets return to the statement.In pushing his budget-repair bill, Walker said state and local government workers could stop paying union dues and take home $500 to $1,000 more per year in pay. He didnt say most or many, but his statement suggests that a significant number of public employees pay dues in that range. And we found thousands of public employees who do.We rate Walkers claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3964 | 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: Extending current tax rates would average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires.
contextual information: Tax cuts passed under the Bush administration have been in place for close to ten years, but they will expire at the end of 2010 if Congress doesn't take action. Add in a weak economy, large government deficits, and an upcoming election, and you've got one of the most pressing policy issues of the year. President Barack Obama's administration wants to see the tax cuts made permanent for individuals who make less than $200,000 a year and couples who make less than $250,000 a year. Tax rates would increase for people who earn more than that. Austan Goolsbee defended that position on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Goolsbee is one of Obama's top economic officials and was recently selected to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, which counsels the president on economic policy. "Obama has been quite clear," Goolsbee said, "that borrowing $700 billion to extend tax cuts that average more than $100,000 a year to millionaires and even billionaires is the least effective bang for the buck we have." We were interested in that $100,000 number—extending the expiring tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year for millionaires and even billionaires. The White House pointed us to data from the Ways and Means Committee, the committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with writing tax legislation. Democrats on the committee asked the Joint Committee on Taxation for an analysis of extending the expiring tax cuts. The Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, is a nonpartisan committee with a professional staff of economists, attorneys, and accountants who conduct research. The JCT crunched the numbers to generate several tables estimating tax revenues if the tax cuts expire and how many taxpayers would be affected. The JCT found that for those with an income of $1 million or more, extending the Bush tax cuts would mean $32.7 billion that the government would not collect in 2011. That amount would apply to 315,000 tax filers. Divide the foregone tax revenues by the number of filers, and you get $103,809, or just over $100,000, as Goolsbee stated. We also checked with the Tax Policy Center, an independent, nonpartisan think tank that generates economic projections similar to those of the JCT. The Tax Policy Center found that the average tax increase for millionaires and above would be $128,832. That's a bit higher than the JCT estimate, but for a complex economic analysis, it's fairly close. The center's numbers also support Goolsbee's statement that extending the tax cuts would average more than $100,000 a year for millionaires and even billionaires. To get the perspective of someone who opposes letting the current tax rates expire, we turned to the conservative Heritage Foundation. J.D. Foster said he didn't argue with the numbers but with Goolsbee's focus on millionaires. Many of those who make more than $200,000 or $250,000 are not millionaires, and those individuals will see a tax increase as well. "If they only intend to raise taxes on millionaires, then they need to change their proposal," Foster said. "I understand it's a convenient rhetorical ploy, but it's factually incorrect." This is a fair point: Goolsbee talked about a $700 billion cost, which is a general estimate for what extending the tax cuts for ten years would cost for all higher earners, not just millionaires. We went back to the analysis and found calculations for what the Bush tax cuts are worth for other high incomes. The JCT found that for those who make between $500,000 and $1 million, the lower rates were worth an average of $17,467 per tax filer, and for those who make between $200,000 and $500,000, the lower rates were worth $7,152 per tax filer. The Tax Policy Center's numbers were similar. So Goolsbee is correct that the expiring tax cuts are worth, on average, more than $100,000 for millionaires and billionaires. However, the proposal the president supports would let tax cuts expire for some people who make high salaries but aren't millionaires, which Goolsbee didn't mention. Therefore, we deduct a tick from the Truth-O-Meter and rate his statement as Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3965 | 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: Military Pay Freeze Claim summaries: President Obama plans to freeze the pay of active duty military personnel?
contextual information: Claim: President Obama plans to implement a pay freeze for active duty military personnel in 2011. Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2010] On Facebook, there is the following message "reposted" by a friend, and who knows how far it has circulated: "Dear Mr. President, I hear you would like to freeze pay rates for active duty starting next year. Would you also consider cutting your own pay to save more money for our country? While you're at it, let's cut congressmen's pay too. If the people who risk their lives don't get an increase in pay, why would we continue raising pay for those who take no risks and reap the benefits? Repost if you agree!" Origins: At the time this item was circulating via Facebook postings in November 2010, it was not true that President Obama had announced an intention to freeze the pay of active duty military personnel starting in 2011. (In fact, President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal, submitted in February 2010, called for a 1.4% military pay increase for the following year.) The November 2010 circulation of this item was prompted by a draft report prepared by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR), a bipartisan body created by President Obama "to address our nation's fiscal challenges." Among the 58 recommendations included in that draft report, released in November 2010, was a recommendation for a three-year freeze on basic non-combat military pay and allowances. Regular Military Compensation (excluding combat pay) for military personnel, which includes basic pay, basic allowances for housing and subsistence, and federal income tax advantages that accompany the allowances, is expected to grow by $9.2 billion from 2011 to 2015. A three-year freeze at 2011 levels for these compensation categories would save the federal government $7.6 billion in compensation and tax expenditures, as well as another $1.6 billion in reduced retirement accrual, totaling $9.2 billion in discretionary savings by 2015. However, as noted above, the NCFRR's report was merely a draft, and a military pay freeze was just one of several dozen potential items offered to achieve the goal of saving $200 billion in federal expenditures through 2015. Any such proposal, even if considered, would still have to overcome several hurdles before being enacted, including approval by 14 of the 18 commissioners who comprise the NCFRR and subsequent approval by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In December 2010, Congress approved President Obama's recommended 1.4% pay increase for military personnel, while President Obama announced that he would freeze for two years the salaries of all other federal government workers. As for presidential compensation (which is currently set at $400,000 per year, with a $50,000 expense allowance), the salary of the President of the United States is established by Congress, so a president cannot technically "cut his own pay" (although he might opt to decline some or all of his salary or donate it to charity). Members of Congress could vote to decrease their salaries (which are currently set at $174,000 per year), although they have already voted to decline their cost-of-living pay increases in 2009 and again in 2010. Last updated: 13 January 2011 Pincus, Walter. "House Approves Defense Bill with Lower Pay Raise for Military." The Washington Post. 18 December 2010. Vinch, Chuck. "Panel Calls for 3-Year Freeze on Military Pay." Army Times. 11 November 2010. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD3966 | 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: Alex Singleton on Barack Obama Claim summaries: Opinion piece by London 'Daily Telegraph' editor criticizes President Obama's handling of foreign policy?
contextual information: Claim: Opinion piece by London Daily Telegraph editor criticizes President Obama's handling of foreign policy. INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2011] THIS FROM THE " LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH" EDITOR This is a very sobering article. Our handling of relationships with the Britons over the oil spill won't help either. From The London Daily Telegraph Editor On Foreign Relations Quote: "Let me be clear: I'm not normally in favor of boycotts, and I love the American people. I holiday in their country regularly, and hate the tedious snobby sneers against the United States . But the American people chose to elect an idiot who seems hell bent on insulting their allies, and something must be done to stop Obama's reckless foreign policy, before he does the dirty on his allies on every issue." One of the most poorly kept secrets in Washington is President Obama's animosity toward Great Britain, presumably because of what he regards as its sins while ruling Kenya (1895-1963). One of Barack Hussein Obama's first acts as president was to return to Britain a bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office since 9/11. He followed this up by denying Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on his first state visit, the usual joint press conference with flags. The president was "too tired" to grant the leader of America's closest ally a proper welcome, his aides told British journalists. Mr. Obama followed this up with cheesy gifts for Mr. Brown and the Queen. Columnist Ian Martin described his behavior as "rudeness personified." There was more rudeness in store for Mr. Brown at the opening session of the United Nations in September. "The prime minister was forced to dash through the kitchens of the UN in New York to secure five minutes of face time with President Obama after five requests for a sit down meeting were rejected by the White House," said London Telegraph columnist David Hughes. Mr. Obama's "churlishness is unforgivable," Mr. Hughes said. The administration went beyond snubs and slights last week when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed the demand of Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, a Hugo Chavez ally, for mediation of Argentina 's specious claim to the Falkland Islands, a British dependency since 1833. The people who live in the Falklands, who speak English, want nothing to do with Argentina . When, in 1982, an earlier Argentine dictatorship tried to seize the Falklands by force, the British with strong support from President Ronald Reagan expelled them. "It is truly shocking that Barack Obama has decided to disregard our shared history," wrote Telegraph columnist Toby Young. "Does Britain 's friendship really mean so little to him?" One could ask, does the friendship of anyone in the entire world mean anything to him? "I recently asked several senior administration officials, separately, to name a foreign leader with whom Barack Obama has forged a strong personal relationship during his first year in office," wrote Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, on Monday. " A lot of hemming and hawing ensued." One official named French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but his contempt for Mr. Obama is an open secret. Another named German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But, said Mr. Diehl, "Merkel too has been conspicuously cool toward Obama." Mr. Obama certainly doesn't care about the Poles and Czechs, whom he has betrayed on missile defense. Honduras and Israel also can attest that he's been an unreliable ally and an unfaithful friend. Ironically, our relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have never been worse. Russia has offered nothing in exchange for Mr. Obama's abandonment of missile defense. Russia and China won't support serious sanctions on Iran. Syria's support for terrorism has not diminished despite efforts to normalize diplomatic relations. The reclusive military dictatorship that runs Burma has responded to our efforts at "engagement" by deepening its ties to North Korea . And the Chinese make little effort to disguise their contempt for him. For the first time in a long time, the President of the United States is actually distrusted by its allies and not in the least feared by itsadversaries. Nor is Mr. Obama now respected by the majority of Americans. Understandably focused on the dismal economy and Mr. Obama's relentless efforts to nationalize and socialize health care, Americans apparentlyhave yet to notice his dismal performance and lack of respect in the world community. They soon will. London Daily Telegraph editor Alex Singleton Origins: This item about Barack Obama is actually a combination of two opinion pieces, neither of them written by the London Daily Telegraph's political editor, Alex Singleton, or published in that newspaper. Both segments were penned by Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret who was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration and is now a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade. The first section (up through the quote "Does Britain'sfriendship really mean so little to him?") comes from Kelly's 15 March 2010 column ("Administration animosity against allies not limited to Israel") and the second portion (from the quote "I recently asked several senior administration officials" onwards) was taken from Kelly's 14 March 2010 column ("Feckless foreign follies"). animosity Feckless Somewhere along the way, in writing about Kelly's columns, someone included an excerpt from an 11 March 2010 opinion piece ("Barack Obama has made me want to boycott America") by London Daily Telegraph contributing editor Alex Singleton. This excerpt (quoted below) was subsequently placed at the head of the piece and resulted in all of Kelly's writing being credited to Alex Singleton rather than just the single opening quotation: included boycott Let me be clear: I'm not normally in favour of boycotts, and I love the American people. I holiday in their country regularly, and hate the tedious snobby sneers against the United States. But the American people chose to elect an idiot who seems bent on insulting their allies, and something must be done to stop Obama's reckless foreign policy, before he does the dirty on his allies on every issue. Last updated: 4 April 2011 Kelly Jack. "Feckless Foreign Follies." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 14 March 2010 (p. A21). Singleton, Alex. "Barack Obama Has Made Me Want to Boycott America." London Daily Telegraph. 11 March 2010. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD3967 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is There a 'BTS Meal' at McDonald's? Claim summaries: The Korean pop boy band BTS bagged seven Guinness World Records in 2020.
contextual information: In mid-April 2021, the fast-food empire McDonald's announced a meal collaboration with the Korean pop boy band BTS. The announcement rocked Twitter, inciting tweets from the millions-strong fanbase of the musical group. The collaboration was revealed on TikTok and Twitter by the fast-food company and BIGHIT MUSIC, the record label of BTS. In an email to Snopes, McDonald's stated that the signature meal is set to include a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, medium World Famous Fries, a medium Coke, and, for the first time ever in the U.S., sweet chili and cajun dipping sauces inspired by popular recipes from McDonald's South Korea. "BTS truly lights up the world stage, uniting people across the globe through their music," said Morgan Flatley, Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald's USA. "We're excited to bring customers even closer to their beloved band in a way only McDonald's can—through our delicious food—when we introduce the BTS signature order on our menu next month." McDonald's mentioned that the BTS collaboration builds on its partnerships with rapper Travis Scott and reggaeton musician J Balvin last year under the celebrity signature orders program launched in U.S. restaurants in 2020. However, this time around, BTS will be the first member of the program to eventually launch in 50 countries across six continents. The band has great memories with McDonald's. "We're excited about this collaboration and can't wait to share the BTS Meal with the world," said BIGHIT MUSIC. Also known as the Bangtan Boys, the seven-member boy band was formed in 2010 and debuted in 2013. BTS fans are so die-hard that they've given themselves the nickname "The Army," which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth. McDonald's told Snopes that customers will have the option of ordering BTS meals in participating restaurants or through contactless mobile orders, the app, drive-through, or via McDelivery. The BTS meal will be available at select U.S. restaurants beginning May 26 and will be rolled out to others across the globe through June 25. On May 26, the band's signature order was made available at participating U.S. restaurants nationwide. "Seeing the passion and anticipation from our fans worldwide since we announced the BTS Meal has been incredible," said Morgan Flatley, McDonald's chief marketing and digital customer experience officer, regarding the launch. "And the best part is, we are just getting started. We are preparing to give customers even more ways to experience this collaboration in the coming weeks—through a merch drop and exclusive digital content that will provide a behind-the-scenes look at BTS." UPDATE [May 26, 2021]: This article was updated to announce the launch and include newly released images. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3968 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thanksgiving by Glen Ford
“The core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.” No More American Thanksgivings by Glen Ford
This article originally appeared in the November 27, 2003 , issue of The Black Commentator, which Glen Ford co-founded and edited.
Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders” as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year – a pure glorification of racist barbarity.
We at are thankful that the day grows nearer when the almost four centuries-old abomination will be deprived of its reason for being: white supremacy. Then we may all eat and drink in peace and gratitude for the blessings of humanity’s deliverance from the rule of evil men.
Thanksgiving is much more than a lie – if it were that simple, an historical correction of the record of events in 1600s Massachusetts would suffice to purge the “flaw” in the national mythology. But Thanksgiving is not just a twisted fable, and the mythology it nurtures is itself inherently evil. The real-life events – subsequently revised – were perfectly understood at the time as the first, definitive triumphs of the genocidal European project in New England. The near-erasure of Native Americans in Massachusetts and, soon thereafter, from most of the remainder of the northern English colonial seaboard was the true mission of the Pilgrim enterprise – Act One of the American Dream. African Slavery commenced contemporaneously – an overlapping and ultimately inseparable Act Two.
The last Act in the American drama must be the “root and branch” eradication of all vestiges of Act One and Two – America’s seminal crimes and formative projects. Thanksgiving as presently celebrated – that is, as a national political event – is an affront to civilization.
Celebrating the unspeakable
White America embraced Thanksgiving because a majority of that population glories in the fruits, if not the unpleasant details, of genocide and slavery and feels, on the whole, good about their heritage: a cornucopia of privilege and national power. Children are taught to identify with the good fortune of the Pilgrims. It does not much matter that the Native American and African holocausts that flowed from the feast at Plymouth are hidden from the children’s version of the story – kids learn soon enough that Indians were made scarce and Africans became enslaved. But they will also never forget the core message of the holiday: that the Pilgrims were good people, who could not have purposely set such evil in motion. Just as the first Thanksgivings marked the consolidation of the English toehold in what became the United States, the core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.
The Thanksgiving story is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human. Most importantly, the Pilgrims are depicted as victims – of harsh weather and their own naïve yet wholesome visions of a new beginning. In light of this carefully nurtured fable, whatever happened to the Indians, from Plymouth to California and beyond, in the aftermath of the 1621 dinner must be considered a mistake, the result of misunderstandings – at worst, a series of lamentable tragedies. The story provides the essential first frame of the American saga. It is unalloyed racist propaganda, a tale that endures because it served the purposes of a succession of the Pilgrims’ political heirs, in much the same way that Nazi-enhanced mythology of a glorious Aryan/German past advanced another murderous, expansionist mission.
Thanksgiving is quite dangerous – as were the Pilgrims.
Rejoicing in a cemetery
The English settlers, their ostensibly religious venture backed by a trading company, were glad to discover that they had landed in a virtual cemetery in 1620. Corn still sprouted in the abandoned fields of the Wampanoags , but only a remnant of the local population remained around the fabled Rock. In a letter to England, Massachusetts Bay colony founder John Winthrop wrote, "But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection."
Ever diligent to claim their own advantages as God’s will, the Pilgrims thanked their deity for having “pursued” the Indians to mass death. However, it was not divine intervention that wiped out most of the natives around the village of Patuxet but, most likely, smallpox-embedded blankets planted during an English visit or slave raid. Six years before the Pilgrim landing, a ship sailed into Patuxet’s harbor, captained by none other than the famous seaman and mercenary soldier John Smith , former leader of the first successful English colony in the New World, at Jamestown, Virginia. Epidemic and slavery followed in his wake, as Debra Glidden described in IMDiversity.com :
In 1614 the Plymouth Company of England, a joint stock company, hired Captain John Smith to explore land in its behalf. Along what is now the coast of Massachusetts in the territory of the Wampanoag, Smith visited the town of Patuxet according to "The Colonial Horizon," a 1969 book edited by William Goetzinan. Smith renamed the town Plymouth in honor of his employers, but the Wampanoag who inhabited the town continued to call it Patuxet.
The following year Captain Hunt, an English slave trader, arrived at Patuxet. It was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them into slavery for 220 shillings apiece. That practice was described in a 1622 account of happenings entitled "A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affairs in Virginia," written by Edward Waterhouse. True to the explorer tradition, Hunt kidnapped a number of Wampanoags to sell into slavery.
Another common practice among European explorers was to give "smallpox blankets" to the Indians. Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans did not have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox would effectively wipe out entire villages with very little effort required by the Europeans. William Fenton describes how Europeans decimated Native American villages in his 1957 work "American Indian and White relations to 1830." From 1615 to 1619 smallpox ran rampant among the Wampanoags and their neighbors to the north. The Wampanoag lost 70 percent of their population to the epidemic and the Massachusetts lost 90 percent.
Most of the Wampanoag had died from the smallpox epidemic so when the Pilgrims arrived they found well-cleared fields which they claimed for their own. A Puritan colonist, quoted by Harvard University's Perry Miller, praised the plague that had wiped out the Indians for it was "the wonderful preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his providence for his people's abode in the Western world."
Historians have since speculated endlessly on why the woods in the region resembled a park to the disembarking Pilgrims in 1620. The reason should have been obvious: hundreds, if not thousands, of people had lived there just five years before.
In less than three generations the settlers would turn all of New England into a charnel house for Native Americans, and fire the economic engines of slavery throughout English-speaking America. Plymouth Rock is the place where the nightmare truly began.
The uninvited?
It is not at all clear what happened at the first – and only – “integrated” Thanksgiving feast. Only two written accounts of the three-day event exist, and one of them, by Governor William Bradford, was written 20 years after the fact. Was Chief Massasoit invited to bring 90 Indians with him to dine with 52 colonists, most of them women and children? This seems unlikely. A good harvest had provided the settlers with plenty of food, according to their accounts, so the whites didn’t really need the Wampanoag’s offering of five deer. What we do know is that there had been lots of tension between the two groups that fall. John Two-Hawks, who runs the Native Circle web site, gives a sketch of the facts:
“Thanksgiving' did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact, in October of 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial 'Thanksgiving' meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of 'pilgrims' led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian chief, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out!”
It is much more likely that Chief Massasoit either crashed the party, or brought enough men to ensure that he was not kidnapped or harmed by the Pilgrims. Dr. Tingba Apidta, in his “ Black Folks’ Guide to Understanding Thanksgiving ,” surmises that the settlers “brandished their weaponry” early and got drunk soon thereafter. He notes that “each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people's ‘notorious sin,’ which included their ‘drunkenness and uncleanliness’ and rampant ‘sodomy.’”
Soon after the feast the brutish Miles Standish “got his bloody prize,” Dr. Apidta writes:
“He went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, ‘as a symbol of white power.’ Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name ‘Wotowquenange,’ which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.”
What is certain is that the first feast was not called a “Thanksgiving” at the time; no further integrated dining occasions were scheduled; and the first, official all-Pilgrim “Thanksgiving” had to wait until 1637, when the whites of New England celebrated the massacre of the Wampanoag’s southern neighbors, the Pequots.
The real Thanksgiving Day Massacre
The Pequots today own the Foxwood Casino and Hotel , in Ledyard, Connecticut, with gross gaming revenues of over $9 billion in 2000. This is truly a (very belated) miracle, since the real first Pilgrim Thanksgiving was intended as the Pequot’s epitaph. Sixteen years after the problematical Plymouth feast, the English tried mightily to erase the Pequots from the face of the Earth, and thanked God for the blessing.
Having subdued, intimidated or made mercenaries of most of the tribes of Massachusetts, the English turned their growing force southward, toward the rich Connecticut valley, the Pequot’s sphere of influence. At the point where the Mystic River meets the sea, the combined force of English and allied Indians bypassed the Pequot fort to attack and set ablaze a town full of women, children and old people.
William Bradford, the former Governor of Plymouth and one of the chroniclers of the 1621 feast, was also on hand for the great massacre of 1637:
"Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."
The rest of the white folks thought so, too. “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots," read Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic Thanksgiving Day was born.
Most historians believe about 700 Pequots were slaughtered at Mystic. Many prisoners were executed, and surviving women and children sold into slavery in the West Indies. Pequot prisoners that escaped execution were parceled out to Indian tribes allied with the English. The Pequot were thought to have been extinguished as a people. According to IndyMedia , “The Pequot tribe numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had brought their numbers down to 1,500 by 1637. The Pequot ‘War’ killed all but a handful of remaining members of the tribe.”
But there were still too many Indians around to suit the whites of New England, who bided their time while their own numbers increased to critical, murderous mass.
Guest’s head on a pole
By the 1670s the colonists, with 8,000 men under arms, felt strong enough to demand that the Pilgrims’ former dinner guests the Wampanoags disarm and submit to the authority of the Crown. After a series of settler provocations in 1675, the Wampanoag struck back, under the leadership of Chief Metacomet, son of Massasoit, called King Philip by the English. Metacomet/Philip, whose wife and son were captured and sold into West Indian slavery, wiped out 13 settlements and killed 600 adult white men before the tide of battle turned. A 1996 issue of the Revolutionary Worker provides an excellent narrative.
In their victory, the settlers launched an all-out genocide against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government offered 20 shillings bounty for every Indian scalp, and 40 shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave any Indian woman or child under 14 they could capture. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful" Indians of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts – and were sold onto slave ships.
It is not known how many Indians were sold into slavery, but in this campaign, 500 enslaved Indians were shipped from Plymouth alone. Of the 12,000 Indians in the surrounding tribes, probably about half died from battle, massacre and starvation.
After King Philip's War, there were almost no Indians left free in the northern British colonies. A colonist wrote from Manhattan's New York colony: "There is now but few Indians upon the island and those few no ways hurtful. It is to be admired how strangely they have decreased by the hand of God, since the English first settled in these parts." In Massachusetts, the colonists declared a "day of public thanksgiving" in 1676, saying, "there now scarce remains a name or family of them [the Indians] but are either slain, captivated or fled."
Fifty-five years after the original Thanksgiving Day, the Puritans had destroyed the generous Wampanoag and all other neighboring tribes. The Wampanoag chief King Philip was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole in Plymouth, where the skull still hung on display 24 years later.
This is not thought to be a fit Thanksgiving tale for the children of today, but it’s the real story, well-known to the settler children of New England at the time – the white kids who saw the Wampanoag head on the pole year after year and knew for certain that God loved them best of all, and that every atrocity they might ever commit against a heathen, non-white was blessed.
There’s a good term for the process thus set in motion: nation-building.
Roots of the slave trade
The British North American colonists’ practice of enslaving Indians for labor or direct sale to the West Indies preceded the appearance of the first chained Africans at the dock in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The Jamestown colonists’ human transaction with the Dutch vessel was an unscheduled occurrence. However, once the African slave trade became commercially established, the fates of Indians and Africans in the colonies became inextricably entwined. New England, born of up-close-and-personal, burn-them-in-the-fires-of-hell genocide, led the political and commercial development of the English colonies. The region also led the nascent nation’s descent into a slavery-based society and economy.
Ironically, an apologist for Virginian slavery made one of the best, early cases for the indictment of New England as the engine of the American slave trade. Unreconstructed secessionist Lewis Dabney’s 1867 book “ A Defense of Virginia ” traced the slave trade’s origins all the way back to Plymouth Rock:
The planting of the commercial States of North America began with the colony of Puritan Independents at Plymouth, in 1620, which was subsequently enlarged into the State of Massachusetts. The other trading colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as New Hampshire (which never had an extensive shipping interest), were offshoots of Massachusetts. They partook of the same characteristics and pursuits; and hence, the example of the parent colony is taken here as a fair representation of them.
The first ship from America, which embarked in the African slave trade, was the Desire , Captain Pierce, of Salem; and this was among the first vessels ever built in the colony. The promptitude with which the "Puritan Fathers" embarked in this business may be comprehended, when it is stated that the Desire sailed upon her voyage in June, 1637. [Note: the year they massacred the Pequots.] The first feeble and dubious foothold was gained by the white man at Plymouth less than seventeen years before; and as is well known, many years were expended by the struggle of the handful of settlers for existence. So that it may be correctly said, that the commerce of New England was born of the slave trade; as its subsequent prosperity was largely founded upon it. The Desire , proceeding to the Bahamas, with a cargo of "dry fish and strong liquors, the only commodities for those parts," obtained the negroes from two British men-of-war, which had captured them from a Spanish slaver.
Thus, the trade of which the good ship Desire , of Salem, was the harbinger, grew into grand proportions; and for nearly two centuries poured a flood of wealth into New England, as well as no inconsiderable number of slaves. Meanwhile, the other maritime colonies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and Connecticut, followed the example of their elder sister emulously; and their commercial history is but a repetition of that of Massachusetts. The towns of Providence, Newport, and New Haven became famous slave trading ports. The magnificent harbor of the second, especially, was the favorite starting-place of the slave ships; and its commerce rivaled, or even exceeded, that of the present commercial metropolis, New York. All the four original States, of course, became slaveholding.
The Revolution that exploded in 1770s New England was undertaken by men thoroughly imbued with the worldview of the Indian-killer and slave-holder. How could they not be? The “country” they claimed as their own was fathered by genocide and mothered by slavery – its true distinction among the commercial nations of the world. And these men were not ashamed, but proud, with vast ambition to spread their exceptional characteristics West and South and wherever their so-far successful project in nation-building might take them – and by the same bloody, savage methods that had served them so well in the past.
At the moment of deepest national crisis following the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invoked the national fable that is far more central to the white American personality than Lincoln’s battlefield “Address.” Lincoln seized upon the 1621 feast as the historic “Thanksgiving” – bypassing the official and authentic 1637 precedent – and assigned the dateless, murky event the fourth Thursday in November.
Lincoln surveyed a broken nation, and attempted nation-rebuilding, based on the purest white myth. The same year that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he renewed the national commitment to a white manifest destiny that began at Plymouth Rock. Lincoln sought to rekindle a shared national mission that former Confederates and Unionists and white immigrants from Europe could collectively embrace. It was and remains a barbaric and racist national unifier, by definition. Only the most fantastic lies can sanitize the history of the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts.
”Like a rock”
The Thanksgiving holiday fable is at once a window on the way that many, if not most, white Americans view the world and their place in it, and a pollutant that leaches barbarism into the modern era. The fable attempts to glorify the indefensible, to enshrine an era and mission that represent the nation’s lowest moral denominators . Thanksgiving as framed in the mythology is, consequently, a drag on that which is potentially civilizing in the national character, a crippling, atavistic deformity. Defenders of the holiday will claim that the politically-corrected children’s version promotes brotherhood, but that is an impossibility – a bald excuse to prolong the worship of colonial “forefathers” and to erase the crimes they committed. Those bastards burned the Pequot women and children, and ushered in the multinational business of slavery. These are facts. The myth is an insidious diversion – and worse.
Humanity cannot tolerate a 21st Century superpower, much of whose population perceives the world through the eyes of 17th Century land and flesh bandits. Yet that is the trick that fate has played on the globe. We described the roots of the planetary dilemma in our March 13 commentary, “ Racism & War, Perfect Together. ”
The English arrived with criminal intent - and brought wives and children to form new societies predicated on successful plunder. To justify the murderous enterprise, Indians who had initially cooperated with the squatters were transmogrified into "savages" deserving displacement and death. The relentlessly refreshed lie of Indian savagery became a truth in the minds of white Americans, a fact to be acted upon by every succeeding generation of whites. The settlers became a singular people confronting the great "frontier" - a euphemism for centuries of genocidal campaigns against a darker, "savage" people marked for extinction.
The necessity of genocide was the operative, working assumption of the expanding American nation. "Manifest Destiny" was born at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, later to fall (to paraphrase Malcolm) like a rock on Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, etc. Little children were taught that the American project was inherently good, Godly, and that those who got in the way were "evil-doers" or just plain subhuman, to be gloriously eliminated. The lie is central to white American identity, embraced by waves of European settlers who never saw a red person.
Only a century ago, American soldiers caused the deaths of possibly a million Filipinos whom they had been sent to “liberate” from Spanish rule. They didn’t even know who they were killing, and so rationalized their behavior by substituting the usual American victims. Colonel Funston , of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, explained what got him motivated in the Philippines:
"Our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.' This shooting human beings is a 'hot game,' and beats rabbit hunting all to pieces." Another wrote that "the boys go for the enemy as if they were chasing jack-rabbits .... I, for one, hope that Uncle Sam will apply the chastening rod, good, hard, and plenty, and lay it on until they come into the reservation and promise to be good 'Injuns.'"
Last week in northern Iraq another American colonel, Joe Anderson of the 101st Airborne (Assault) Division, revealed that he is incapable of perceiving Arabs as human beings. Colonel Anderson, who doubles as a commander and host of a radio call-in program and a TV show designed to win the hearts and minds of the people of Mosul, had learned that someone was out to assassinate him. In the wild mood swing common to racists, Anderson decided that Iraqis are all alike – and of a different breed. He said as much to the Los Angeles Times .
"They don't understand being nice," said Anderson, who helps oversee the military zone that includes Mosul and environs. He doesn't hide his irritation after months dedicated to restoring the city: "We spent so long here working with kid gloves, but the average Iraqi guy will tell you, 'The only thing people respect here is violence…. They only understand being shot at, being killed. That's the culture.' … Nice guys do finish last here."
Col. Anderson personifies the unfitness of Americans to play a major role in the world, much less rule it. "We poured a lot of our heart and soul into trying to help the people,” he bitched, as if Americans were God’s gift to the planet. "But it can be frustrating when you hear stupid people still saying, 'You're occupiers. You want our oil. You're turning our country over to Israel.'” He cannot fathom that other people – non-whites – aspire to run their own affairs, and will kill and die to achieve that basic right.
What does this have to do with the Mayflower? Everything. Although possibly against their wishes, the Pilgrims hosted the Wampanoag for three no doubt anxious days. The same men killed and enslaved Wampanoags immediately before and after the feast. They, their newly arrived English comrades and their children roasted hundreds of neighboring Indians alive just 16 years later, and two generations afterwards cleared nearly the whole of New England of its indigenous “savages,” while enthusiastically enriching themselves through the invention of transoceanic, sophisticated means of enslaving millions. The Mayflower’s cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans.
Thanksgiving encourages these cognitive cripples in their madness, just as it is designed to do. | 0 | [
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FMD3969 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Carol Adl in News // 0 Comments
Hundreds of police in riot gear with heavy military equipment have evicted Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from their encampment on private land in the US state of North Dakota. Police have protesters more or less surrounded. #noDAPL pic.twitter.com/G4xGQuXpZM
— Jason Patinkin (@JasonPatinkin) October 27, 2016
The police reportedly arrested at least 141 Native Americans and other demonstrators who are seeking to halt construction of a controversial oil pipeline.
Press TV reports
At least 141 protesters were arrested on Thursday evening and Friday morning as officers attempt to clear a camp on private property in the path of the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Officers in riot helmets used pepper spray and shot beanbag rounds on some of the estimated 330 protesters as helicopters flew overhead.
Demonstrators also allegedly set a car and some tires on fire, giving the scene a war zone-like appearance.
The protesters have been demonstrating for several months, and dozens have been arrested. Police expect additional protests, and possibly more arrests, in the coming days.
Native American protesters had occupied the property that crosses the pipeline’s path since Monday in an effort to stop Energy Transfer Partners’ construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The pipeline has infuriated the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and environmental activists who say it threatens the region’s water supply and sacred tribal sites. The tribe’s reservation is close to the pipeline’s route.
North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple said police were successful in clearing the camp. “Private property is not the place to carry out a peaceful protest,” he said.
Demonstrators, however, say they aren’t trespassing on private property, citing an 1851 treaty with the US government that says the land belongs to Native American tribes.
The Native American-led protest has grown into a larger movement in the United States, drawing in other tribes, environmentalists and advocates for Native Americans.
The federal government has twice asked the pipeline operator to voluntarily pause construction near the tribe’s reservation while the authorities reconsider the project’s route. But courts have refused to compel a halt.
The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe criticized law enforcement’s “militarized” response to the activists. “Militarized law enforcement agencies moved in on water protectors with tanks and riot gear today. We continue to pray for peace,” Dave Archambault II said in a statement Thursday evening. | 0 | [
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FMD3970 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A U.S. appeals court on Thursday granted a request from the Trump administration to put litigation on hold in which states and industry groups are challenging an Obama administration pollution control rule for mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit canceled oral arguments that were due to take place on May 18. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it wants to review the rule. The rule, known as the MATS rule, has been in place for years and utilities have already complied by upgrading or shutting older coal-fired power plants. Current EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the former attorney general for Oklahoma, was one of 15 state prosecutors to sue the previous administration to block the MATS rule, as well as its Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rule. | 1 | [
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FMD3971 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Guatemala s federal auditor on Tuesday said it will investigate a salary bonus the Defense Ministry gives to President Jimmy Morales that raises his earnings by more than a third, making him one of the best paid leaders in Latin America. The federal comptroller, which audits all government spending, said in a statement it had asked for information on the previously unknown 50,000 quetzals ($7,300) Bonus for Extraordinary Responsibility that is not officially part of the president s salary package. Defense Minister William Mansilla on Tuesday confirmed that Morales had since December 2016 received the payment, which lifts the president s salary to $27,400 a month. The president didn t ask for it. Instead, it was a group decision by the army, Mansilla said in a press conference. A technical board of auditors determined the bonus. The revelation of the unusual salary perk comes at an awkward time for the beleaguered Morales, who managed to retain his immunity from prosecution on Monday. Congress voted overwhelmingly to protect him after the attorney general submitted a request to investigate Morales over suspected financing irregularities during his 2015 election campaign. [nL2N1LS1EV] Last month, Guatemala s attorney general and the U.N.-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) jointly sought to investigate Morales, a former comedian, over the illegal financing allegation. Two days later, Morales declared the head of the U.N. body persona non grata. Under the leadership of Ivan Velasquez, a veteran Colombian prosecutor, CICIG has caused problems for Morales, first investigating his son and brother then aiming at him. The Defense Ministry on Tuesday posted on its website documents, dated Jan. 1, 2016, that detailed the payment to the president and various other military officials. The considerations (for the bonus) were due to his position and the risks and dangers that (Morales) undertakes, Mansilla said in explaining the army s reasoning for the payment. Former Presidents Alfonso Portillo and Alvaro Colom told Reuters they had not received such a bonus. The president s office did not respond to requests for comment. The salary bonus means that Morales earns 70 percent more than Chilean leader Michelle Bachelet and 130 percent more than Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, two of the region s best paid top officials. The bonus is also 90 times the $300 minimum wage in Guatemala, where 60 percent of the population lives in poverty. | 1 | [
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FMD3972 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: by Yves Smith
Yves here. I strongly suspect that Naked Capitalism readers will find a lot not to love about this proposal, but I’ll let you have at it in the comments section. I’ll start with two. The first is setting up this program as bonds, when they are most like a trust account. And why should the amount of the grant be set at birth? A lot of children suffer severe setbacks after birth, like the death of a parent or debilitating injury.
Second is that this proposal does nothing to address the expressed problem. The issue is that even though children from lower-income backgrounds might get into college, they can’t mix much/at all socially with the better off students because they don’t have the spending money to allow them to do that. But these “bonds” provide for spending money only for perceived-to-be-legitimate purposes, like the education itself. Even though going on ski trips with the other kids might be key to economic advancement, it would be politically unacceptable for a government program to pay for that sort of thing.
By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
Imagine that a black child from a family of modest resources gets the opportunity to attend an elite college preparatory school. Motivated by a love of learning and strong desire to achieve, he excels in school and goes on to attend highly regarded universities, earning advanced degrees. Surely that child is well positioned to ascend the ladder of economic prosperity in America, right?
Not so fast.
The goal of broadening financial wealth to all Americans, regardless of race, gets plenty of applause across the political spectrum. But so far this goal has remained devilishly elusive. To understand why you have to know how people come by wealth in the first place. It’s popular to say that we build wealth through discipline — by hitting the books, working hard and saving money. The reality is a little different.
Past Injustice Shapes Present Reality
Darrick Hamilton knows this from personal experience. Despite his family’s modest means — not poor but hardly affluent — he attended the Brooklyn Friends School, an elite private institution where teachers emphasized social justice. Hamilton started college at Oberlin excited to seek out his path to the American Dream. But he soon found out that the path was smoother for some than for others.
All around him, white kids from affluent families were getting checks in the mail from their parents — money that could be spent on tuition, extracurricular activities, and the kind of socializing that builds professional networks. Black students of more modest means, on the other hand, were often at a disadvantage even when their parents were able to help financially. If they received money from home, things besides books demanded financial attention. The same was true if they had a job. Even when black students worked hard and saved diligently, the money was often spoken for before it was time to pay the tuition bill for the semester.
The reason has to do with the cumulative effects of centuries of gross economic disadvantages that black families have endured, from slavery to Jim Crow and beyond. The legacy of those severe headwinds is that even when an individual family is able to reach the middle class, there is still likely to be a constellation of poorer extended family members in need of various kinds of financial assistance. When they call, you help, if you can. Economists call this “wealth leakage.”
Hamilton noticed this phenomenon play out among black students at school and in the professional realm. Rather than enjoying resources from parents and grandparents, they often had to provide money for cousins, nieces, uncles, and siblings. After obtaining his Ph.D. in economics at UNC-Chapel Hill, Hamilton, who now teaches economics and urban policy at The New School in New York, focused on how poverty in the family increases the racial wealth gap for middle class black individuals.
The source of wealth building in America, he realized, is less what you save than your capacity to invest in an asset through money given by parents and grandparents. These transfers are critical to the acquisition of assets, like a home or a small business — the kinds of things that require huge down payments.
“If you’re not fortunate enough to get that down payment or have that resource at a key juncture of your life,” observes Hamilton, “you will not have that pathway towards building economic security that somebody else has. You could be a jerk. You could be a good person. It has little to do with the particular individual.”
This logic flies in the face of the long-cherished belief that education and hard work are the great equalizers in American society. Many still insist that much present day inequality is caused by bad individual decisions and not by structural problems associated with discrimination. But the vast inequality between black and white citizens suggests that there’s more going on than poor choices. In 2013, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the median household wealth was $134,230 for whites compared to a paltry $11,030 for black Americans.
The reason, says Hamilton, is pretty clear: “In a capitalist system, if you lack capital, it just locks in inequality.”
Fortunately, he thinks the problem can be alleviated if we are willing to aim the attack at the source. Hamilton and his colleague William A. Darity, Jr. of Duke University are stratification economists, pioneers in an emerging subfield of social science who focus on the structural dimensions of a person’s economic position. They propose a solution to wealth inequality that may appeal across the political spectrum: Why not give every American baby seed capital so they can grow up to take part in the capitalist system? This could be done, they argue, through “Baby Bonds” that would be set up for every child born.
How Baby Bonds Work
Baby Bonds, in Hamilton’s formulation, would be funded directly out of Treasury and held in an account by the federal government, similar to Social Security. The amount a child receives would depend on the wealth position into which she is born. If she’s the offspring of Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, she might get $500, but upwards of $50,000 if she is born at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. The average amount for a child would be around $20,000. Accounts would be guaranteed a nominal one and a half rate of return, and the payout would not take place until the child becomes an adult. At that time, you get to spend the money — but not just on anything. The funds would have to be used for a “clearly defined asset enhancing activity,” like financing a debt-free education, purchasing a business, or buying a home. (The program would need to be coupled with financial reform and regulation to mitigate predatory effects, including extraordinary tuition increases aimed at exploiting better-resourced young adult baby bond recipients).
A commission would be set up to identify exactly what kinds of activities might qualify.
“These conditions are set up to protect the resource,” says Hamilton. “In my own situation, if I had received an infusion of cash as a young adult, there would have been a lot of family needs to take care of before I could begin thinking about self-investment like purchasing a home. Specifying what the money can be spent on may not guarantee an outcome, because people still choose the investment they engage in, but it at least ensures that the investment is an asset-enhancing endeavor which can help build wealth over the long run.”
Unlike some past proposals for child savings accounts, Baby Bonds are designed so that it doesn’t matter if your parents can contribute or not. Hamilton says this is done so that however good or bad or affluent or poor your parents may be, as a citizen you get some seed capital so that you can take part in the American economic mobility system.
But wouldn’t such a program be too costly?
Not at all, says Hamilton. He notes that there are about 4 million children born every year, so if the average account is at $20,000, the whole program might cost $80 billion. If you add another $10 billion, the very highest estimate for administering the program, it comes to $90 billion maximum. That might sound like a lot, but not when you consider what the federal government already spends trying to promote asset ownership through the tax code. He cites a report on all such policies (like the mortgage interest reduction and reductions in capital gains) by CFED , a Washington-based non-profit focused on expanding economic opportunities for low-to-moderate income Americans. All told, these programs cost over $500 billion dollars . (The mortgage interest deduction alone is estimated to cost more than $405 billion for tax years 2014 through 2018 ).
Next to these figures, Baby Bonds looks like a bargain. They also have the advantage of distributing the capital where it’s needed most. Federal programs already in place tend to funnel money towards the more affluent, says Hamilton, noting that the bottom 60 percent of earners get about 5 percent of that $500 billion, while the top 10 percent get well over half. He thinks that Baby Bonds could be fully funded simply by capping the existing mortgage interest reductions.
So how would a race-blind program help to close gaps in wealth and income between black and white Americans?
Hamilton points out that about 85 percent of black households fall below the national median of the wealth distribution, so the means test for the Baby Bonds program as well as its target needs to be keenly focused on wealth.
Baby Bonds address wealth in two ways: First, because of the way black people are clustered at the poorer end of the wealth distribution, more will qualify for the program. Secondly, because the program is focused on asset-enhancing activities, they will benefit when they become adults and are able to use the funds to build the kinds of assets that have so often been out of reach historically.
A Potential Political Winner?
Inequality has been a hot topic this political season, but much of the discussion has focused on student debt. Hamilton acknowledges that this is important, but it’s not enough to close the racial wealth gap.
“It will help avoid wealth leakage for millions of people and black individuals that end up going to college,” he says. “It’s certainly the case that black students are disproportionately impacted by student debt. But this only helps those who actually end up going to college. It’s limited in its approach.”
Something more is needed. He notes that in other countries, programs similar to Baby Bonds have already been implemented, such as a child trust program set up in 2005 that gave every British citizen born on or after September 1, 2002 an investment account to build savings that would help fund their transition to adult life.
The U.K. program differed from Baby Bonds in several key ways: it was smaller in scale, parents could add to the account, and the trust was unconditional, meaning that the money could be used for anything rather than a specific set of potentially wealth-building activities. Unfortunately, the program sank under a wave of austerity in 2011 following the global recession, so it’s unclear exactly how well it worked because the children who received the accounts are not yet old enough to have used them.
Could Baby Bonds work in America? Hamilton observes that in the past, both conservatives and liberals have endorsed programs designed to give American children a stake in the future. KidSave, a program conceived by then-Senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, with then-Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as co-sponsor, would have allotted each child a small deposit at birth (around $1000), with additional $500 deposits every year for five years. The money would then be invested in a limited number of mutual funds, but it couldn’t be withdrawn until retirement, when a substantial nest egg would have theoretically grown. Various versions of the plan attracted support from conservatives like Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and the Heritage Foundation.
The premise behind Baby Bonds is slightly different; it’s based on the recognition that the problem in building wealth is not savings.
“Most Americans don’t save, period,” says Hamilton. “It’s really getting access to that asset that’s going to appreciate. Homes give Americans most of their wealth, or, if not homes, some other asset. So this is moving us a bit from that narrative of how to leverage poor people to do better things by giving them incentives to saying, well, why don’t we empower them with an account so that they actually can make decisions that can lead to their mobility.”
Hamilton observes that Baby Bonds simply arm everybody with the opportunity to benefit from the markets— an idea the most die-hard free market champion might appreciate. “If conservatives really believe in the fairness of the markets,” he says, “then let’s give everybody opportunity to participate. We’re talking about babies, so this is before we start coming up with narratives about the deserving poor or the undeserving poor. We’re saying, at birth, we’re going to give everybody a chance to engage in economic mobility in America.” 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 | [
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FMD3973 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: MARINGOUIN, La. — The rental car sped past acres of farmland and across a muddy bayou to an old plantation rippling with sugar cane. Stepping out was John J. DeGioia, the president of Georgetown University, who was on the most unusual journey of his tenure. Nearly two centuries ago, scores of slaves were shipped here in a sale that helped save Georgetown from financial ruin. Last month, Mr. DeGioia stood in the cane fields where they once labored, visited the cemetery where they buried their dead and met for hours with their descendants. Mr. DeGioia oversees one of the nation’s elite universities, managing more than 17, 500 students campuses in Washington and Doha, Qatar and an endowment of about $1. 5 billion. But on this scorching summer day, his mission was to help Georgetown begin the uneasy process of reckoning with its past. “I think all of us need to get it right this time,†Mr. DeGioia said as he stood beside Maxine Crump, whose was sold in 1838 along with 271 other enslaved . College presidents are increasingly grappling with the legacy of slavery as student protests and scholarly research illuminate how many universities participated in and profited from the domestic slave trade. In March, Harvard’s president described the institution as “directly complicit in America’s system of racial bondage†and days later commemorated four slaves who had worked in the households of two of its early leaders. In April, representatives from a consortium of nearly 20 colleges — including the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary and Roanoke College — met to discuss their efforts to study and memorialize the enslaved blacks whose forced labor on campus had been mostly forgotten. The new initiatives have been greeted with both cheers and consternation. Some applaud efforts to bring a largely untold history to light. Others argue that the focus on the past exacerbates racial tensions on campuses and distracts from more pressing matters. “People said it’s not enough or it’s too late or there should have been a different take,†said Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard, describing the range of reactions to her proposals, which she said were generally well received. She has convened a committee of historians to identify university sites linked to this history and will host a national conference on universities and slavery next year. “What’s difficult about it is that we want this discussion to be one that ultimately unifies and doesn’t divide,†Dr. Faust said of the conundrum facing many of her peers. At Georgetown, founded by Jesuit priests in 1789, Mr. DeGioia contends that his university will not overcome its past without addressing and making amends for its role in slavery, which he often describes as the nation’s “original evil. †Over the past several weeks, he has traveled to Spokane, Wash. New Orleans Baton Rouge, La. and the rural Louisiana community of Maringouin to meet with dozens of descendants of the slaves who were sold. He has also addressed alumni on the subject, convening a panel to discuss the efforts of his working group on slavery. The group spent months studying the university’s history and weighing whether Georgetown should apologize for profiting from slavery, create a memorial to the slaves and offer scholarships to their descendants, among other options. Historians believe this is the first time that the president of an elite university has met with the descendants of slaves who had labored on a college campus or were sold to benefit one. The working group’s report is expected to be released this summer. Several faculty members and administrators described the reaction to Mr. DeGioia’s efforts as overwhelmingly positive, pointing out that he is also creating the university’s first department of studies and a center for researching racial injustice. “I think he’s a very moral man and I think he sees a moral obligation in this,†Maurice Jackson, a historian at the university and a member of the working group on slavery, said of Mr. DeGioia, who is a practicing Catholic. “He wanted us to get together, to effect change and to use the past to make the present better. †But some alumni have voiced concern that by focusing on the wrongs of the 19th century, Mr. DeGioia is unnecessarily besmirching the reputation of a venerable institution. His decision to support student protesters and the members of his working group who called for renaming two buildings on campus raised eyebrows among some graduates. Even some members of his executive board, which supports Mr. DeGioia’s efforts to address Georgetown’s history, raised questions at first. The buildings had carried the names of the two Georgetown presidents who organized the slave sale in 1838. “People have had questions: Where are we going with this? Are we going to be changing the names of every building?†said Paul Tagliabue, the former commissioner of the National Football League and the vice chairman of the university’s board. Mr. Tagliabue, who described Mr. DeGioia as a leader who prides himself on building consensus, said the college president answered the questions. “Everyone gets it,†he said, referring to fellow board members. Mr. DeGioia, who at age 59 is Georgetown’s president, said he knew there were lingering doubts among some alumni. “‘Why is there a need to resurface the pain and the agony of this part of our history? ’†he said, recalling their concerns. “‘Haven’t we moved beyond this? ’†But he said that the nation’s racial divisions, highlighted by the string of killings of black men by the police and persistent racial disparities, suggested that Americans have yet to come to terms with their roots in legalized discrimination and slavery. “I don’t think we can say we’ve sufficiently moved beyond it,†said Mr. DeGioia, who became the university’s first lay president in 2001. Georgetown relied on enslaved labor for decades. The Jesuit priests, who owned the slaves and ran the college, used their plantations in Maryland to help finance operations. And the institution’s portion of the slave sale’s profits — about $500, 000 in today’s dollars — helped pay off Georgetown’s debts. In August, Mr. DeGioia announced the creation of his working group and called for a campuswide discussion about slavery after reopening a building named after one of the early presidents involved in the slave sale. After student protests in November, a Georgetown alumnus, Richard J. Cellini, established the Georgetown Memory Project and hired a team of genealogists to identify and locate the descendants of the people who had been sold. Last month, dozens of those descendants gathered to meet with Mr. DeGioia. Some brought older relatives and photographs of grandparents and . Ms. Crump and her siblings invited him to their family home here, where he fielded questions over cold lemonade and spicy jambalaya. “It means so much to me to have this door opened to my past,†Ms. Crump said. Most people welcomed him warmly, but there were also flashes of anger, Mr. DeGioia said, and some skepticism. Sandra Green Thomas, who met with Mr. DeGioia in New Orleans, noted that he was short on specifics about how — or whether — he would make tangible amends to descendants by offering them scholarships or financing other educational opportunities. “Is this a way to pat us on the head and send us on our way?†she wondered. “Or is this a way to do something really meaningful?†Mr. DeGioia said he was just beginning the process of engaging with families and addressing their concerns. He told the descendants that he hoped Georgetown could help reknit families torn apart by the sale, providing them with access to records about the Jesuit slaves in the university archives and possibly hosting a gathering of descendants on campus. Jessica Tilson wanted something more. She asked Mr. DeGioia to issue a declaration of posthumous manumission, granting the slaves their freedom. Then she handed him several jars of soil. She has been haunted in recent weeks by the knowledge that her died without returning to their birthplace in Maryland. So she dug up soil from the old plantation here — symbols of her enslaved forbears — and asked him to help her ancestors get back home. Before he boarded his flight back to Washington, Mr. DeGioia shipped the jars to Georgetown. | 1 | [
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FMD3974 | 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've cut the budget of the (lieutenant governors) office by more than half.
contextual information: In the crowded Republican primary to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera says he has evidence that he takes care of taxpayers wallets. I've cut the budget of the office by more than half, reduced the staff, he said in aninterviewon the April 30Money, Power, Politicsshow on Fox 13 in Tampa. I'm the only lieutenant governor to not take a security detail. He hasdeclined his security detail, breaking from his predecessors. Lopez-Cantera has also cut the budget and reduced staff positions. But he is leaving out some context. The only official role of the lieutenant governor is to replace the governor if he leaves offices or dies. What he or she does in the meantime varies with the governor and his or her vision. Lopez-Cantera is not as active or in the public eye as much as some of his predecessors, rarely posting official events on his public calendar and not tasked with any special assignments from Gov. Rick Scott. Scotts first lieutenant governor,Jennifer Carroll,resigned in March 2013 after she was questioned by law enforcement about her ties to a charity group that was the subject of probes. (She was not charged with wrongdoing.) She chaired a task force about Floridas Stand Your Ground law afterTrayvon Martins deathand chaired the Space Florida Board. Scott tapped Lopez-Cantera, a former state legislator and Miami-Dade property appraiser, to replace her almost a year later in February 2014. Lets see how the budget changed. Reducing budget and staff The lieutenant governors budget has ranged from about $245,000 to $540,000 in recent years. Lopez-Canteras office does not have its own budget like other state agencies. Scott proposes a budget that includes the lieutenant governor. It is then up to the Legislature to pass a budget, which Scott then signs into law. The amount of money below includes the $125,000 annual salary for the lieutenant governor. Year Allotment Expenditure 2009-10 $439,646 $433,006 2010-11 $540,440 $537,664 2011-12 $504,169 $587,389 2012-13 $509,806 $471,091 2013-14 $245,016 $156,435 2014-15 $485,160 $415,522 2015-16 $240,693 $242,875 2016-17 Not announced yet NA So for a few years the lieutenant governors budget was about $500,000. The it was chopped in half to $245,016 for the 2013-14 budget year that started July 1, 2013, a few months after Carroll resigned. Its no surprise that the allocation dropped since the office was vacant. Since Lopez-Cantera took office in February 2014, it is also not surprising the allotment nearly doubled to $485,160 for the 2014-15 budget year. The next year, the budget allotment dropped to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693 a 50 percent decrease. Most of the budget is staff salaries. Employee Count (excluding LG) As of January 1, 2010* 3 As of January 1, 2011** 5 As of January 1, 2012** 5 As of January 1, 2013** 5 As of February, 2014*** 4 As of January 1, 2015*** 2 As of January 1, 2016*** 1 * Kottkamp ** Carroll *** Lopez-Cantera Lopez-Cantera cut the staff, but its worth noting that the size of the staff was small for starters. It's also worth keeping in mind that Lopez-Cantera has access to the full weight of the governor's office for his needs, including the press office, legislative aides and budget analysts. Under Carroll, there were five employees in the lieutenant governors office each year, which included a chief of staff and assistants. When Lopez-Cantera started in February 2014, there were four staffers. Then the number dropped to two, and now he just has one employee whose title is a special assistant. The governors office said no one was laid off. We asked if that meant that Lopez-Cantera cut empty positions or shifted jobs to the governors office or elsewhere. The governors office didnt answer that question. Our ruling Lopez-Cantera said, I've cut the budget of the office by more than half. He omits some context about how his office budget works. Scott recommends a budget, which is then approved by the Legislature. Lopez-Cantera's own resources may be limited, but he downplays the access he has to Scott's vast governing operation for assistance. Months after Lopez-Cantera started, the budget rose by roughly double to bring it more in line to where it was when a lieutenant governor in the office. But after that increase, the budget allotment dropped the next year to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693 a 50 percent decrease. The budget largely pays for Lopez-Canteras salary as well as a special assistant. We rate this claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3975 | 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: We have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world.
contextual information: New Jersey has long held the title of the most densely populated state in the country. However, the Garden State has an even more prestigious ranking, according to a recent advertisement placed by Choose New Jersey in the Wall Street Journal. The July 30 ad states in part: "New Jersey has a rich tradition of bringing the world some very big thinking. In fact, we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making ours one of the most highly skilled and educated workforces available." That's quite a claim for any state to make, so for this fact check, we are focusing only on the statistic about scientists and engineers. It seems Choose New Jersey's calculations add up.
Let's look at how Choose New Jersey, a nonprofit group that markets the state to attract businesses and jobs, arrived at their statistic. Choose New Jersey is part of the Partnership for Action, the Business Action Center, and the state Economic Development Authority. Melissa Hensley, chief marketing officer for the group, said they compared geographic and employment data from four organizations: the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the CIA's World Fact Book 2012, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the National Science Board.
All of it came down to an apples-to-apples comparison to the extent possible between a state and a country, Hensley said. The Census Bureau's Population Reference Bureau listed New Jersey as having 260,655 scientists and engineers in 2010. That number, divided by New Jersey's total land area of 8,722.58 square miles, equals 29.88 scientists and engineers—the highest number among all states and a list of 37 countries. "I read somewhere that New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the U.S., so I guess you could extrapolate from that that there are more scientists per square mile than anywhere else," Brian Bell, a spokesman for the California Institute of Technology, said in an email. "Although Massachusetts might give N.J. a run for its money. California has lots of smart people, but we have huge deserts and lots of empty space too." Bell's guess is accurate. Massachusetts has the second highest number of scientists and engineers, at 23.47 per square mile, followed by Maryland, at 20.97. California is 10th on the list.
A similar calculation was used for other countries by measuring the number of researchers—a broader term that includes scientists and engineers—per 1,000 employed people. Breaking that figure down and comparing it against country size, we determined that Israel tops the international list, with 5.10 scientists and engineers per square mile (Choose New Jersey's calculations were adjusted to consider countries in square miles instead of kilometers). Rounding out the top three are Japan, at 4.46, and Belgium, at 3.16. If both lists are put together, New Jersey and 11 other U.S. states lead the world in the number of engineers and scientists per square mile before Israel joins the rankings.
The numbers reflect what we regularly hear from businesses considering locating or expanding in New Jersey—that if a company is looking to benefit from a high concentration of very skilled talent, New Jersey is a prime location, Hensley said in response to our findings.
Our ruling: Choose New Jersey stated in an advertisement that we have more scientists and engineers per square mile than anywhere in the world, making the state's workforce one of the most skilled and highly educated. Choose New Jersey used a variety of data to reach its conclusion, from the U.S. Census Bureau to the CIA World Fact Book and more. PolitiFact New Jersey vetted the calculations and found that the Garden State does top the world in the number of scientists and engineers per square mile: 29.8. We rate this statement True. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | 1 | [
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FMD3976 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Sales at some of the country’s biggest restaurant chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Buffalo Wild Wings, to name a few — are slumping. The culprit? People like John Reynolds, if you listen to restaurant executives. A salesman for a convenience store distributor, Mr. Reynolds used to spend several evenings a week eating in New York restaurants with friends and relatives after making the rounds of customers in the city. But in the last year, he has taken to making turkey burgers or a pot of chili at home. “It’s just a financial thing for me — eating out is expensive,†Mr. Reynolds, 31, said. “And eating at home more has actually had an additional benefit — it’s healthier. †Such words strike terror into the heart of the restaurant industry, which has blamed a crash in food prices that has made groceries cheaper for its woes. Egg prices, for instance, hit a low this summer, and beef prices are lower than they have been in more than three years. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s the biggest gap we’ve seen in the last 10 years,†Mike Andres, the departing president of McDonald’s American business, told reporters in July. “This is clearly impacting the whole industry. †The gap between grocery and restaurant prices adds to a variety of other factors putting pressure on the restaurant business, especially the segment. Americans now have a greater interest in healthy foods. They also have more and better choices of prepared food in grocery stores, and many options for meal kit and grocery delivery services, all of which make eating at home easier. It is unclear whether these changes add up to a temporary change or the start of a major reversal in where people eat. For the last couple of decades, the general direction of food spending in the United States has been toward restaurants, and in 2014, dining out eclipsed home cooking for the first time, according to the United States Agriculture Department. “The reasons people are eating more away from home aren’t going away,†said Howard Elitzak, an agricultural economist at the U. S. D. A. “Women continue to enter the work force. People continue to work longer hours. Families have higher disposable income. Everyone wants convenience — these are very trends. †Yet the Agriculture Department statistics, and individual restaurant sales figures, strongly suggest that Americans are revisiting the kitchen table. In January, for instance, people spent more in supermarkets than in restaurants, an aberration that was repeated in June. (The department’s data from the Census Bureau is somewhat imprecise. For example, the supermarket numbers don’t include food bought at Walmart, America’s largest grocery chain.) The National Restaurant Association estimates that restaurant sales will increase 5 percent this year, to $783 billion. But B. Hudson Riehle, a senior vice president of the trade group, noted that the growth rate of those sales has slowed since 2007, partly because of the recession that started around that time. “It is still over all an environment where consumers continue to use restaurants, but for the industry, it’s a more moderate growth rate than in the past,†Mr. Riehle said. To help compensate for sagging profits, many restaurants have been raising prices, even as the cost of food has declined. For instance, Zoe’s Kitchen, a chain of more than 150 stores, said its sales in restaurants open at least one year had grown 4 percent. But more than 3 percent of that gain came from price increases. Slightly less than 1 percent of its sales growth came from what the industry calls “traffic†— or more customers. Diners have noticed. “I definitely feel like prices at restaurants have increased,†said Kathryn Shannon, who works at a financial services company in New York. Ms. Shannon, 28, began cooking at home with deliveries from Blue Apron, a meal kit service, but now she just goes to the grocery store. If she does go out for dinner, it is to a restaurant where she can get something she wouldn’t make at home. “I’m not going to buy a really nice cut of steak because I’ll probably screw it up,†Ms. Shannon said. “But I can make basic Chinese food that’s just as good as what I get on the corner and at a quarter of the price. †Some restaurants, where people like Ms. Shannon might go for a steak, don’t appear to be having the same problem as their far bigger cousins. Sabato Sagaria, the chief restaurant officer at the Union Square Hospitality Group, said he had noticed more tourists dining this summer in the company’s restaurants, which include Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke in Manhattan. He expected that mix to change in the fall, when the regulars return. Nonetheless, he said, competition for customers has never been greater. “Restaurants are competing with delivery services, meal kit companies, prepared foods in the grocery store, salad bars,†he said. Jack Bishop, chief creative officer at America’s Test Kitchen, a media company that publishes Cook’s Illustrated and produces TV shows and events, said he had also noticed a difference among generations. Younger people, in his experience, seem to be more suspicious of food prepared by big corporations. And the rise of diet trends like Paleo, vegetarian and also is spurring more home cooking, he said, because adherents have difficulty finding something they can eat on many menus. “There’s also just an overall shift in the American diet to a healthier place,†he said. “After all, most of the worst trends in that diet over the last 20 years coincided with people eating less at home. †One big question, of course, is whether America’s new cooks will stay in the kitchen once food prices at the grocery store rise again. Inara Kalnins, a retired retail executive, said she had no plans to return to restaurants. She began cooking for herself about a year ago, after finding a deal for Blue Apron meal kits on Groupon, the online commerce site. Before that, her stove was used to heat up leftovers from restaurants or a roast chicken from the grocery store. Now she’s in her kitchen three times a week, preparing meals from Blue Apron that she often shares with friends and neighbors. “I’m chopping and zesting and eating foods I’ve never tried before,†she said, “with ingredients I would have never thought of buying, like Meyer lemons and watermelon radishes. †When she vacationed with a friend on a remote island off the Maine coast this summer, the mail boat delivered Blue Apron meal kits. “I’ve ordered so many times that I’m able to gift meal kits to friends,†Ms. Kalnins said. “I’ve given one to a friend whose wife passed away, and to my brother, who was used to eating out of a can. †| 1 | [
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FMD3977 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Sudan will extend a unilateral ceasefire with rebels until the end of December, state news agency SUNA reported on Sunday, just days after the United States lifted 20-year-old sanctions tied to progress on resolving ongoing conflicts. Fighting between the army and rebels in Kordofan and Blue Nile regions broke out in 2011, when South Sudan declared independence. Conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against Sudan s Arab-led government. Making progress on resolving these conflicts was one of several demands made by the United States for it to lift a trade embargo, unfreeze assets and remove financial restrictions that have isolated the country for years. The ceasefire was set to expire at the end of October. | 1 | [
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FMD3978 | 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 'How To Hit a Woman So No One Knows' Googled 163M Times in 2020? Claim summaries: A researcher looking into the trend said the purported findings shocked her.
contextual information: In late April 2021, social media posts, like the one displayed below, Google users allegedly asked the search engine "how to a hit a woman so now one knows" more often during the first phase of lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 than during the same time frame the previous year. COVID-19 The claim originated from media sources including Blavity (a Los Angeles-based platform serving Black millennials), UNILAD (a British media outlet), and MSNBC (an American cable network owned by NBC Universal). Blavity UNILAD We obtained an archived version of an April 26 opinion column by the latter outlet, a piece of commentary that cited peer-reviewed research analyzing Google searches from the beginning of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020 to the end of August that year. The MSNBC article said: archived version [Millions] of men appear to be doing some very specific research about how to assault the women around them. Published in The Journal of General Psychology, the study was led by Katerina Standish, the deputy director and senior lecturer at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. 'How to hit a woman so no one knows' was typed into Google 163 million times, a 31 percent increase compared to 2019. In other words, Google users purportedly searched "how to hit a woman so no one knows" 163 million times between March and August 2020, and that number was 31 percent higher than the amount of same searches during those months the previous year. However, that was not true. One day after the MSNBC column published, onlookers identified flaws in the research's methodology, and its author confirmed the findings were inaccurate. As a result, the news outlet removed the above-transcribed section from its article citing the research. (That updated version of the story remained live online as of this writing.) updated version We looked at Google search data ourselves. By searching the phrase "how to hit a woman so no one knows," the platform produces billions of returns or websites or posts that contain those keywords. That is not the same as the number of times users searched the question (we explain how to find that quantity below), and it appeared to grow significantly after the MSNBC article and other media coverage. appeared By using the separate Google Trends search engine -- a tool that compiles data for Google search queries worldwide -- we learned that relatively no one used the website to look for information on "how to hit a woman so no one knows," including during the time window referenced in the study (March to August 2020). Next, to fully explore the issue, we reached out to Standish (the author of the study called, "COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase") to learn about her research process and its shortcomings. COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase She responded to us via email, saying she indeed mistook the amount of search returns for the number of times Google users entered the phrase looking for answers. After the revelation, she said she alerted The Journal of General Psychology of the error and requested an assessment of the entire study. "The results are meaningless ... all I have done is demonstrate a rise in web pages over the year. Not at all what I thought I was doing," Standish said. "[The] goal of the study was to look for people who were hurting to elevate what they are going through and to help." Additionally, Standish apologized for the research's flaws on Twitter: "The first time I googled these terms my heart skipped...I was shocked," she continued in a tweet thread. "I sincerely apologise and will make amends." In sum, we rate this claim "false" millions of people, presumably men, did not turn to Google for help to seemingly conceal physical abuse against their female partners during the early months of the pandemic. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse from an intimate partner, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or text LOVEIS to 22522 for anonymous, confidential help. Natio nal Domestic Violence Hotline This report was updated with comments from the researcher to Snopes. | 0 | [
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FMD3979 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: (CNN) She's staring down the worst polling numbers of her campaign, struggling to overcome the scandal surrounding her private emails and grappling with persistent chatter that Vice President Joe Biden might challenge her.
But Hillary Clinton has one key advantage going into primary season: A firm perception that she's the only Democrat who can keep the White House.
"Except for Hillary who is there?" said Brent Budowsky, a Democratic insider who worked for party luminaries including former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. "There is really no one else at this moment who has a chance of winning. That is a problem that Democrats face -- that is the problem progressives face.
He added: "If for some reason she dropped out, there would be chaos."
As progressives swoon for Bernie Sanders and Biden allies float trial balloons and even rumors of an Al Gore comeback swirl, Budowsky's sentiment points to the reality at the heart of Clinton's 2016 efforts. While grassroots Democrats might not love the former secretary of state, who often seems to the right of the party's increasingly liberal base, they appear ready to make a pragmatic choice that she is their best -- or only -- hope on Election Day.
Though her lead has narrowed in some instances, Clinton is still on top of most polls of Democratic primary voters. And she beats potential Republican nominees in most match-up surveys.
Such is the power and aura of the Clinton family that few Democrats will go on the record as criticizing the former first lady and many say they respect her and will ultimately support her if she is the nominee.
But from multiple conversations with Democratic activists, it's clear that suspicion lingers over her true beliefs and instincts. Some fear, for instance, that she would prove to be more to the right of her current political position once in the White House.
All the love in a party that tends to fall hard for its favored candidates is going to Sanders. And after all, there is a precedent -- 2008 -- for Clinton's primacy as her party's apparently unassailable front runner being undermined by a grass roots revolt.
New polls are adding to the jitters.
A survey this week for the first time put Sanders in the lead in a key nominating state -- New Hampshire -- and Clinton's negative ratings continue to rise over the email controversy that has haunted her candidacy and looks set on to drag on for months, giving a torrent of material for the GOP to brand her secretive and shady.
Clinton's presidential campaign is hardly setting the party on fire either. She's failed so far to recapture the barnstorming persona which prolonged her battle against Barack Obama for the party nomination seven years ago.
And Clinton often seems a ponderous campaigner -- the undeniable connection she has with individuals does not translate easily to the campaign trail and she frequently suffers by comparison with the political magnetism of her husband -- former president Bill Clinton.
As she tries to prove that despite her wealth and life in the political bubble she's in touch with everyday Americans, Clinton's choice of campaign events also makes it hard to inspire.
For instance, on Friday in Iowa, Clinton held a wonkish event on cutting college debt -- part of an emerging attempt to lay a policy foundation under her presidential bid. Asked later about her repeated focus on mental health -- one of the core of issues on which she likes to focus in depth -- she was unapologetic.
"I think a president should try to help people have better lives," Clinton said, defending a strategy of narrowing in on issues that preoccupy everyday voters rather than big venue campaign events like the ones with which Sanders is packing out sports arenas.
The former secretary of state has also sometimes seemed an uneasy fit with progressives in a party that has undeniably moved left since 2008. She's dodged taking a stand on issues that fire up the party base in united opposition like the Keystone XL pipeline and Obama's push for a pan-Pacific trade deal -- a pact she supported as secretary of state.
Some Democrats are increasingly worried following Clinton's handover to the Justice Department of the private server she used as secretary of state, which is at the center of a controversy over classified intelligence.
There is so far no evidence that Clinton is the target of an investigation or could face criminal charges and her campaign says she never sent email with information that was classified at the time. But the latent fear of the unknown may be one reason why Clinton communications chief Jennifer Palmieri sent an email to the Democratic frontrunner's supporters this week assuring them the so-called scandal was mere campaign "nonsense" trumped up by Republicans.
Some senior Democrats believe it's too early to push the panic button for Clinton.
"It's in the DNA of Democrats to worry and to freak out and a lot of folks out there are worrying and freaking out," said Mo Elleithee, who worked on Clinton's 2008 campaign and now leads the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. "Give it a couple of months. If the dynamics don't start to improve, then you start to worry but at this point there is no reason to worry."
There's another reason why the Clinton campaign is unlikely be to raising the alarm over nervousness in party ranks.
Despite Sanders' rise -- he's basking in adulation and drawing huge crowds for a campaign based on blasting Wall Street, demanding campaign finance reform, free college, a battle against climate change and universal healthcare -- many party insiders doubt America is ready to elect a 75-year-old self declared socialist as president.
And while Biden is beloved in the party, stirs deep sympathy following the death of his son Beau from a brain tumor, and enjoys the stature of office, there are still questions about his electability.
That's not stopping supporters of the vice president -- who wrapped up his last presidential campaign in 2008 after barely registering in the Iowa causes -- from laying the groundwork for a possible run.
A draft Biden movement has kicked into high gear, drawing more donations and support, at a time when reports say Biden is considering whether there is a path to run in 2016.
The group took in roughly $200,000 in the first quarter and has amassed almost 200,000 signatures.
But, those figures pale next Clinton's $45 million haul and the 18 million votes she got in 2008. That current landscape is part of Biden's calculus as he mulls challenging Clinton.
For the last week he has been vacationing in South Carolina and reaching out to supporters to gauge interest.
"If he does decide to enter the race, he will add more gravitas to the Democratic field," said Jon Cooper, the national finance chairman or Draft Biden 2016. "He has a strong capable hand and is ready to lead on day one without any learning curve."
That decades long resume, however, could also be an Achilles heel as polls show that voters are pining for outsiders and fresh faces.
Aside from Biden, the Democratic bench is scarcely populated by alternative power players. Two other Democrats in the race, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, might pose tricky moments for Clinton in Democratic debates. But they're the longest of long shot challengers.
Meanwhile, the next generation of Democratic presidential possibles -- like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand -- have yet to emerge, partly because of the prohibitive presence of Clinton as the heir apparent.
Any late entrants to the race at this stage would run headlong in to the Clinton machine.
The campaign has quietly been building the kind of comprehensive grassroots voter identification structure in early states to swell her delegate count that she lacked in 2008.
And she's consolidated her support among Democratic Party elites -- a barometer of political strength that history suggests is just as important as polling in early states in the summer before nominating votes are cast.
On Friday, Clinton trumpeted the latest significant endorsement, welcoming the support of former Sen. Tom Harkin, a liberal Iowa political icon.
"I have had the privilege of knowing Hillary Clinton for a long time. She and I share many of the same deeply-held beliefs," Harkin said, in a statement that may help insulate Clinton from claims she is aloof from the economic woes of many Americans.
As often happens with Clinton, however, over a long political career marked by fierce fights with Republicans and questions about her trustworthiness, good news shares equal billing with unflattering headlines.
It's that trend that has some Democrats worried, and looking with some trepidation towards Clinton's prospects in an eventual general election.
In July, a Quinnipiac University poll of three swing states—Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia—showed Clinton lagging behind possible GOP opponents, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. As she has battled bad headlines about her personal e-mail account, her negative ratings have spiked in those states and her trust numbers have also taken a hit.
A CNN/ORC poll of Democratic voters in Iowa released this week shows that Clinton still beats Sanders overall, yet voters see the Vermont Senator as more trustworthy. And since July, Sanders has attracted cumulative crowds of 100,000 people with his soak-the-rich rhetoric.
"Hillary Clinton has been doing well in Iowa but her people there are rattled by the Bernie Sanders crowds which by Iowa standards are quite large," said David Yepsen, who has covered Iowa politics for decades. "The polls look good for her now but we are six months away and I've seen things change rapidly. The drip, drip, drip, drip, is causing some concern." | 1 | [
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FMD3980 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Wouldn t it be great if we had someone in government who would take the import of thousands of Muslims from countries who hate us seriously?Swiss army chief Andr Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is being called into question. Even though Switzerland has not been involved in an armed conflict since a standoff between Catholics and Protestants in 1847, the Swiss are very serious not only about their right to own weapons but also to carry them around in public. Because of this general acceptance and even pride in gun ownership, nobody bats an eye at the sight of a civilian riding a bus, bike or motorcycle to the shooting range, with a rifle slung across the shoulder.As Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports, speaking on the record for the first time since the November Paris terror attacks, Blattmann told the paper that despite a rise in security incidents over the past two years Switzerland s means of defence were being reduced.The situation is growing increasingly risky, Blattman begins. The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions. Social unrest can not be ruled out , the vocabulary in public discourse will dangerously aggressive. The mixture is increasingly unappetizing Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, has long been once again called into question. He recalls the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advises Switzerland, to arm themselves.Via: Zero Hedge | 0 | [
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FMD3981 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is a bumbling fool. A racist bumbling fool who s more afraid of alienating his racist base than anything. So when a national tragedy like Charlottesville occurs, his responses are insensitive at best, clumsy beyond belief, un-presidential, and oftentimes, just flat-out disgusting and wrong. When we most need a real president, we don t have one at least, not one that sits in the White House right now.But President Obama, despite having served his two terms and now living a civilian life, still manages to have the exact right thing to say. Sure, he no longer gets in front of the cameras and country and says it, but he does say it to his massive social media audiences, and he s oftentimes more popular than Trump. Like with his response to Charlottesville. Twitter told the BBC that the following tweet, from one President Barack Obama, is now the most liked tweet in history: No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017He s quoting Nelson Mandela, and these words ring truer now than ever given the resurgence of white supremacy in the U.S. And the picture? That s from a 2011 visit to a daycare center in Bethesda, Maryland.Obama s got nearly 3 million likes and over 1 million retweets far more than anything the tissue paper-skinned Trump has ever gotten. For someone who touts himself as the best there ever was at everything everywhere in the whole entire universe, this has to hurt. Trump s ego can t handle someone like Obama who he needs to be weak to be this strong, this popular, and this well-liked.Obama has class. Obama has wits. Obama has intelligence, and he s still got the ear of much of the country. The above tweet is the first in a series of three, and here are the other two: People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017 For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Nelson Mandela Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017Featured image via Chip Somodevilla and Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD3982 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: But Is Threatening Trump On Social Media Considered A Serious Crime? Will he be locked up? (Read below to find answer to this question)Matt Harrigan at PacketsledMatt Harrigan is the CEO of PacketSled and Critical Assets and a board member for OWASP is calling for an assassination. Call the police, FBI, and the Secret Service! RIGHTVia Reddit The Donald:Harrigan wants Trump dead.Here are screen shots of his messages on social media:Harrigan later posted an apology on Facebook:My recent facebook comment was intended to be a joke, in the context of a larger conversation, and only privately shared as such. Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not engage in this form of rhetoric with any level of seriousness and the comment most certainly does not represent my real personal views in any regard. I apologize if anything that I said was either taken seriously, was offensive, or caused any legitimate concern. Best Regards, Matt Harrigan GPTwo weeks before the 2008 election, a California man left a vicious message about Barack Obama on a Yahoo finance message board. Re: Obama fk the niggar, he will have a 50 cal in the head soon. He followed it up with another ugly post, which began simply: Shoot the nig. There was more to come. On Election Day, the same poster sent disturbing emails about shooting someone that, as one court put it, would appear to confirm the malevolent nature of the previous statements as well as the poster s own malignant nature. One of the message board participants reported the initial postings, and the Secret Service investigated. With Yahoo s help, it traced the messages to the home computer of Walter Bagdasarian, now 49, a resident of La Mesa, Calif. When agents searched his house, they found that he had weapons in his home, including a .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle the caliber of bullet the post said would soon be in Obama s head.In July of 2009, Bagdasarian was convicted of violating 18 USC s 879(a)(3), a federal law that makes it a felony to threaten a major presidential candidate with death or bodily harm. Last week, a federal appeals court in California reversed his conviction which had gotten him sentenced to 60 days in a halfway house ruling that his posts did not fall under the law, and that his speech was protected by the first amendment.United States v. Bagdasarian was the latest attempt by the federal courts to police the blurry line between criminal threats and protected speech a line that has become more important than ever as the Internet has given rage-filled people unprecedented opportunities to spew hate.Regardless of how offensive it can often get, the courts are rightly reluctant to let political speech be criminalized. To be convicted under 879(a)(3), it is not enough that someone has made menacing statements. They have to have intended to threaten injury or death, and people viewing the words objectively have to regard them as threatening. In addition to these requirements under 879(a)(3), there is a separate first amendment test: the speaker s words must be a true threat which in this case the court defined as a statement which, in the entire context and under all the circumstances, a reasonable person would foresee would be interpreted by those to whom the statement is communicated as a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily harm upon that person. The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled, by a 2-1 vote, that Bagdasarian s posts did not meet these tests. The majority was deeply unhappy with Bagdasarian an especially unpleasant fellow, the court said and his words. But the judges in the majority also insisted that the posts were not illegal. There was not enough evidence, they said, to find that Bagdasarian actually intended to put Obama at risk, or that a reasonable observer would think that he did. What s more, the posts were not true threats. The court contrasted Bagdasarian s words with those from another case, in which an enraged discharged employee posted threats like I will kill you and I will personally send you back to the hell from where you came. For entire story: TimeI m no fan of Barack Obama, but I would never want to see someone threaten his life or the life of his family on social media, and believe strongly anyone who does should be punished accordingly. | 0 | [
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FMD3983 | 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 all Democrats in opposition to a 2.8 percent rise in Social Security COLA? Claim summaries: Social Security cost of living allowances are established by formula and don't require Congressional approval.
contextual information: In mid-October 2018, Facebook users shared an inaccurate meme asking, "Were any of you aware that ALL the Democrats voted AGAINST the 2.8% Social Security cost of living increase?" No Democrats, or any other legislators for that matter, voted for or against the 2.8 percent cost of living allowance (COLA) increase that Social Security recipients will see beginning in 2019. Since 1975, COLA increases have kicked in automatically and are based on changes in the consumer price index, a figure calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here's how the Social Security Administration has summarized the history of COLA increases: Most people are aware that there are annual increases in Social Security benefits to offset the corrosive effects of inflation on fixed incomes. These increases, now known as Cost of Living Allowances (COLAs), are such an accepted feature of the program that it is difficult to imagine a time when there were no COLAs. But in fact, when Ida May Fuller received her first $22.54 benefit payment in January of 1940, this would be the same amount she would receive each month for the next 10 years. For Ida May Fuller and the millions of other Social Security beneficiaries like her, the amount of that first benefit check was the amount they could expect to receive for life. It was not until the 1950 Amendments that Congress first legislated an increase in benefits. Current beneficiaries had their payments recomputed, and Ida May Fuller, for example, saw her monthly check increase from $22.54 to $41.30. These recomputations were effective for September 1950 and appeared for the first time in the October 1950 checks. A second increase was legislated for September 1952. Together, these two increases almost doubled the value of Social Security benefits for existing beneficiaries. From that point on, benefits were increased only when Congress enacted special legislation for that purpose. In 1972, the law was changed to provide, beginning in 1975, for automatic annual cost-of-living allowances (i.e., COLAs) based on the annual increase in consumer prices. No longer do beneficiaries have to await a special act of Congress to receive a benefit increase, and no longer does inflation drain value from Social Security benefits. The latest increase will affect 62 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients starting in January 2019. It's the largest increase since 2012, when beneficiaries saw a 3.6 percent boost. | 0 | [
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FMD3984 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Just Another Day In the Life of the Clinton Crime Family
In the past 24 hours, some very stunning pieces of information have leaked out regarding the Clinton Crime Family. I am shocked about how pervasive the criminality is in what has been only a 24 hour news cycle. Assange’s Lawyers Are Dead
There are two lawyers who represented WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who died and their deaths were in very close proximity, only a mere month apart.
Assange attorney, John Jones, suicide was committed by the top lawyer when he jumped in front of a train in West Hamstead, in which the police did not even consider the possibility of foul play. The authorities, courtesy of the Clinton Foundation, found nothing suspicious about the manner of Jones’ death.
Michael Ratner made a career out of defending government whistle-blowers and detainees, something that one could argue was right inside of Assange’s wheelhouse. Ratner’s death was shrouded in mystery. It is important to note that Ratner had actually sued three sitting US Presidents and tried to get George W. Bush impeached for lying America into the Iraq war. Certainly, when someone like Ratner who had begun to represent Assange, was a terrible threat to the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation and had to be dealt with. Chief Investigator for Bill Clinton’s Impeachment Trial Lives In Fear of His Life
Aaron Klein, yes the same Aaron Klein who released emails, before they were purged, which demonstrated that Clinton was sending out, through her personal server the travel plans of Ambassador Stevens prior to his death at Benghazi, recently interview Dave Shippers the Chief Investigator of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. Shippers professed that he still lives in fear of his life.
“Today, I am still terrified of Hillary. Absolutely I am terrified. Because if she gets into office. In fact, I’ve told my wife, I said, ‘If Hillary gets elected, look for the FBI or somebody to come and pick me up the next day.’
“And I think I’m the only one left. [Former Congressman] Henry Hyde is dead. [Independent Counsel Kenneth] Star didn’t really hurt her. Yeah. I was scared when I was out there… I’ve been terrified ever since. Because things happen. Things happen.”
Klein allowed his interview to drift into the area of Vince Foster’s alleged suicide which Shippers was convinced that his event was a murder designed to cover up Hillary Clinton’s criminal behavior. Shippers also mentioned the impeachment investigation, centering around Clinton lying about his affair with Monica Lewinski, uncovered evidence of at least three murders connected to Hillary Clinton. However, as Shippers stated, the investigation was limited to to the Lewinski angle. This is really ashame because of the fact that Hillary Clinton could have been stopped in the 1990’s and this nation would not, today, be fighting for its life under the threat of an extinction level event such as the specter of a Clinton Presidency. Anthony Weiner Fears for His Life At the Hands of Hillary Clinton
The perverted Congressman, who could not stop sexting grossly inappropriate images of himself to underage girls, may have unwittingly put another very large nail in the political coffin of Hillary Rodham Clinton. According to sources , we now know that the FBI accidentally discovered that Weiner had several emails that were suspiciously marked “life insurance” and the FBI found that these email were directly related to the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Disturbingly, these same sources indicated that the sources were turned over to the FBI over a month ago while the FBI was still running interference for the Clinton Crime Family. It is very concerning that Comey never mentioned these damning emails.
The NYPD had the same information and they planned to leak the information despite intense pressure not to do so. This information not only shows that Anthony Weiner was in extreme fear of his life, from the Clintons, that he actually created his Julian Assange’s style of a dead man’s switch in the event of his death. I would add, that Huma may want to avoid subway trains and airplanes for awhile for her own safety. I predict that Weiner will become a star witness in either the immediate take down of Hillary, or her impeachment trial should George Soros be able to steal the election for her. Conclusion For the good of the country, Hillary needs to step down immediately. She has made our justice system and nation, as a whole, a complete laughing stock. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who would vote for Hillary Clinton, needs to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself what kind of person are you. How can you face your kids and claim to be a moral authority in their lives and vote for this evil monster? This is just another day in the life of the Clinton Crime Family. | 0 | [
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FMD3985 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Says the military accounts for about 10 percent of Florida's economy.
contextual information: Gov.-elect Rick Scott kicked off a five-day, 10-city tour of the state's major industries on Dec. 6, 2010, by meeting with defense contractors and Florida-based military leaders.Scott started the tour in the Panhandle, meeting with about 20 defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications and InDyne Corp., at the University of Florida Research and Engineering Education Facility in Shalimar, before meeting with military leaders at Eglin Air Force Base.We want to make sure we're always thought of as a very military-friendly state,Scott said to reporters at a brief press conference. We're going to focus on what our strengths are. We're clearly a logical place for the military to expand and for the defense industry to expand. We've got a lot of talent in the state, we like the defense industry and the military, so we're going to figure out where we have the most value.Scott tried to underscore the importance of the military to Florida by noting that the military accounts for about 10 percent of Florida's economy, according to theSt. Petersburg Times.Florida is home to 20 major military installations and three unified combatant commands. The Gulf of Mexico is a key training ground for both the Air Force and the Navy, and the state also has two U.S. Coast Guard air stations and another dozen other Coast Guard stations.But does all of that translate to a 10 percent share of the state's gross domestic product,which was $737 billion in 2009?The answer comes from an arm of Enterprise Florida called theFlorida Defense Alliance, a public/private partnership created in 1998 to help position Florida to keep its military infrastructure in place and expand in other areas when opportunities arise. The group commissioned a study in 2008 to examine the economic impact of Florida's stationed military and auxiliary defense industry work.The study was conducted by Rick Harper, an economist from the University of West Florida, who has studied the economic impact of the film and entertainment industry in Florida and who represented Northwest Florida on former Gov. Jeb Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2006. Using 2005 data, Harper concluded that defense-related spending is responsible for $52 billion, or 7.5 percent, of Florida's gross state product that year.The military spent $27 billion across Florida counties in fiscal year 2005, Harper concluded -- $10.4 billion was for goods and services, $12.4 billion for pensions and transfer payments, and $4.3 billion for salaries and wages. The rest of the economic impact is measured in indirect and induced spending, which would include parts of the private defense industry as well as parts of the Florida economy that help service the military, the defense industry and their employees.Harper said that defense and military spending accounted for 732,300 direct and indirect jobs in the state and generated state and local tax revenues of nearly $1 billion.Counties with larger installations enjoy larger impacts, Harper found. Military and defense spending in Duval County had a $12.1 billion impact, a $5.3 billion impact in Hillsborough County and a $6.6 billion impact in Okaloosa County. All but six counties have at least $3 million per year in direct defense-related spending.Harper and Florida Defense Alliance executive director Rocky McPherson noted that the study does not include the economic impact generated by the Florida National Guard or Coast Guard operations. You can see a short synopsis of the study for yourselfhere. Or if you have a lot of time, here's thethree-volume version.Harper's study relies on five-year-old data, so we wanted to see if there was anything more recent. McPherson said Harper and University of West Florida researchers were updating their study using 2008 data but, he said, that report is not available yet. Harper declined to share the results of the study with PolitiFact Florida, but did talk about the results in general terms.Since 2005, Department of Defense spending has risen substantially, particularly in terms of procurement (i.e., contracting), as well as payments to disabled veterans, although active duty military staffing numbers (number of people) have declined somewhat and payments to retirees are not growing as they did earlier due to attrition of WWII and Korean era veterans, Harper wrote. The overall growth in military spending (the study to be released uses 2008 federal spending data), combined with weakness in other areas of the Florida economy in the most recent years, means that DoD (Department of Defense) spending will have risen as a share of the total economy.We searched around for other studies measuring the military's economic impact in Florida, but found none. In examining Harper's study, we found it to be a straightforward, unbiased report. Researchers relied on Department of Defense actual expenditures, precise personnel levels and actual government contracts.Where does it leave us? Scott told reporters military spending makes up about 10 percent of the state's economy. In 2005, military spending accounted for 7.5 percent of the state gross domestic product, but that figure did not include the impact of the Florida National Guard or Coast Guard bases. The author of the study, who is now updating his report using 2008 numbers, said that while he cannot release more up-to-date numbers, that the military's position in the economy has risen since 2005. That will make Scott's point nearly right on. We rate this claim True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD3986 | 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: Government Officials Versus Celebrities Claim summaries: Essay compares education and career experience of government officials and celebrities.
contextual information: Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2003] The Hollywood group is at it again. Holding anti-war rallies, screaming about the Bush Administration, running ads in major newspapers, defaming the President and his Cabinet every chance they get, to anyone and everyone who will listen. They publicly defile them and call them names like "stupid," "morons," and "idiots." Jessica Lange went so far as to tell a crowd in Spain that she hates President Bush and is embarrassed to be an American. So, just how ignorant are these people who are running the country? Let's look at the biographies of these "stupid," "ignorant," "moronic" leaders, and then at the celebrities who are castigating them: President George W. Bush: Received a Bachelors Degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard. He began his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy industry until 1986. He was elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In a historic reelection victory, he became the first Texas Governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998, winning 68.6 percent of the vote. In 1998 Governor Bush won 49 percent of the Hispanic vote, 27 percent of the African-American vote, 27 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of women. He won more Texas counties, 240 of 254, than any modern Republican other that Richard Nixon in 1972 and is the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the heavily Hispanic and Democratic border counties of El Paso, Cameron and Hidalgo. Vice President Dick Cheney earned a B.A. in 1965 and a M.A. in 1966, both in political science. Two years later, he won an American Political Science Association congressional fellowship. One of Vice President Cheney's primary duties is to share with individuals, members of Congress and foreign leaders, President Bush's vision to strengthen our economy, secure our homeland and win the War on Terrorism. In his official role as President of the Senate, Vice President Cheney regularly goes to Capitol Hill to meet with Senators and members of the House of Representatives to work on the Administration's legislative goals. In his travels as Vice President, he has seen first hand the great demands the war on terrorism is placing on the men and women of our military, and he is proud of the tremendous job they are doing for the United States of America. Secretary of State Colin Powell was educated in the New York City public schools, graduating from the City College of New York (CCNY), where he earned a Bachelor's Degree in geology. He also participated in ROTC at CCNY and received a commission as an Army second lieutenant upon graduation in June 1958. His further academic achievements include a Master of Business Administration Degree from George Washington University. Secretary Powell is the recipient of numerous U.S. and foreign military awards and decorations. Secretary Powell's civilian awards include two Presidential Medals of Freedom, the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal. Several schools and other institutions have been named in his honor and he holds honorary degrees from universities and colleges across the country. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: attended Princeton University on Scholarship (AB, 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as a Naval aviator; Congressional Assistant to Rep. Robert Griffin (R-MI), 1957-59; U.S. Representative, Illinois, 1962-69; Assistant to the President, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Director of the Cost of Living Council, 1969-74; U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 1973-74; head of Presidential Transition Team, 1974; Assistant to the President, Director of White House Office of Operations, White House Chief of Staff, 1974-77; Secretary of Defense, 1975-77. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge was raised in a working class family in veterans' public housing in Erie. He earned a scholarship to Harvard, graduating with honors in 1967. After his first year at The Dickinson School of Law, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for Valor. After returning to Pennsylvania, he earned his Law Degree and was in private practice before becoming Assistant District Attorney in Erie County. He was elected to Congress in 1982. He was the first enlisted Vietnam combat veteran elected to the U.S. House, and was overwhelmingly reelected six times. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice earned her Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her Master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. (Note: Rice enrolled at the University of Denver at the age of 15, graduating at 19 with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science (Cum Laude). She earned a Master's Degree at the University of Notre Dame and a Doctorate from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies. Both of her advanced degrees are also in Political Science.) She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, and the University of Notre Dame in 1995. At Stanford, she has been a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control, a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions. From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender Integrated Training in the Military. She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. She was a Founding Board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco. Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her Master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, and the University of Notre Dame in 1995. She resides in Washington, D.C. So who are these celebrities? What is their education? What is their experience in affairs of State or in National Security? While I will defend to the death their right to express their opinions, I think that if they are going to call into question the intelligence of our leaders, we should also have all the facts on their educations and background: Barbra Streisand: Completed high schoolCareer: Singing and acting Cher: Dropped out of school in 9th grade.Career: Singing and acting Martin Sheen: Flunked exam to enter University of Dayton.Career: Acting Jessica Lange: Dropped out college mid-freshman year.Career: Acting Alec Baldwin: Dropped out of George Washington U. after scandalCareer: Acting Julia Roberts: Completed high schoolCareer: Acting Sean Penn: Completed High schoolCareer: Acting Susan Sarandon: Degree in Drama from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.Career: Acting Ed Asner: Completed High schoolCareer: Acting George Clooney: Dropped out of University of KentuckyCareer: Acting Michael Moore: Dropped out first year University of Michigan.Career: Movie Director Sarah Jessica Parker: Completed High SchoolCareer: Acting Jennifer Anniston: Completed High SchoolCareer: Acting Mike Farrell: Completed High schoolCareer: Acting Janeane Garofelo: Dropped out of College.Career: Stand up comedienne Larry Hagman: Attended Bard College for one year.Career: Acting While comparing the education and experience of these two groups, we should also remember that President Bush and his cabinet are briefed daily, even hourly, on the War on Terror and threats to our security. They are privy to information gathered around the world concerning the Middle East, the threats to America, the intentions of terrorists and terrorist-supporting governments. They are in constant communication with the CIA, the FBI, Interpol, NATO, The United Nations, our own military, and that of our allies around the world. We cannot simply believe that we have full knowledge of the threats because we watch CNN!! We cannot believe that we are in any way as informed as our leaders. These celebrities have no intelligence-gathering agents, no fact-finding groups, no insight into the minds of those who would destroy our country. They only have a deep seated hatred for all things Republican. By nature, and no one knows quite why, the Hollywood elitists detest Conservative views and anything that supports or uplifts the United States of America. The silence was deafening from the Left when Bill Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory outside of Khartoum, or when he attacked the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and 1999. He bombed Serbia itself to get Slobodan Milosevic out of Kosovo, and not a single peace rally was held. When our Rangers were ambushed in Somalia and 18 young American lives were lost, not a peep was heard from Hollywood. Yet now, after our nation has been attacked on its own soil, after 3,000 Americans were killed by freedom-hating terrorists while going about their routine lives, they want to hold rallies against the war. Why the change? Because an honest, God-fearing Republican sits in the White House. Another irony is that in 1987, when Ronald Reagan was in office, the Hollywood group aligned themselves with disarmament groups like SANE, FREEZE and PEACE ACTION, urging our own government to disarm and freeze the manufacturing of any further nuclear weapons, in order to promote world peace. It is curious that now, even after we have heard all the evidence that Saddam Hussein has chemical, biological and is very close to obtaining nuclear weapons, their is no cry from this group for HIM to disarm. They believe we should leave him alone in his quest for these weapons of mass destruction, even though it is certain that these deadly weapons will eventually be used against us in our own cities. So why the hype out of Hollywood? Could these celebrities believe that since they draw such astronomical salaries, they are entitled to also determine the course of our Nation? That they can make viable decisions concerning war and peace? Did Michael Moore have the backing of the Nation when he recently thanked France, on our behalf, for being a "good enough friend to tell us we were wrong"? I know for certain he was not speaking for me. Does Sean Penn fancy himself a Diplomat, in going to Iraq when we are just weeks away from war? Does he believe that his High School Diploma gives him the knowledge (and the right) to go to a country that is controlled by a maniacal dictator, and speak on behalf of the American people? Or is it the fact that he pulls in more money per year than the average American worker will see in a lifetime? Does his bank account give him clout? The ultimate irony is that many of these celebrities have made a shambles of their own lives, with drug abuse, alcoholism, numerous marriages and divorces, scrapes with the law, publicized temper tantrums, etc. How dare they pretend to know what is best for an entire nation! What is even more bizarre is how many people in this country will listen and accept their views, simply because they liked them in a certain movie, or have fond memories of an old television sitcom! It is time for us, as citizens of the United States, to educate ourselves about the world around us. If future generations are going to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers bequeathed us, if they are ever to know peace in their own country and their world, to live without fear of terrorism striking in their own cities, we must assure that this nation remains strong. We must make certain that those who would destroy us are made aware of the severe consequences that will befall them. Yes, it is a wonderful dream to sit down with dictators and terrorists and join hands, singing Cumbaya and talking of world peace. But it is not real. We did not stop Adolf Hitler from taking over the entire continent of Europe by simply talking to him. We sent our best and brightest, with the strength and determination that this Country is known for, and defeated the Nazi regime. President John F. Kennedy did not stop the Soviet ships from unloading their nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 with mere words. He stopped them with action, and threat of immediate war if the ships did not turn around. We did not end the Cold War with conferences. It ended with the strong belief of President Ronald Reagan... PEACE through STRENGTH. Origins: Thefactual information presented here is not difficult to verify, as biographies detailing the educational and professional qualifications of our high-ranking government officials are readily available from a number of on-line sources: President George W. Bush President George W. Bush Vice-President Dick Cheney Vice-President Dick Cheney Secretary of State Colin Powell Secretary of State Colin Powell Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge Homeland Security Advisor Tom Ridge National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice Verifying the educational accomplishments of film stars is less easy: Barbra Streisand had already embarked on a show business career by the time she was a teenager and did not attend college. Barbra Streisand Cher left home at age sixteen to pursue an acting career and did not finish high school. Cher Martin Sheen did fail his college entrance exam for the University of Dayton but maintains that he did so on purpose so that he could pursue an acting career over the objections of his disapproving father. Martin Sheen Jessica Lange studied art at the University of Minnesota but left school before the completion of her freshman year. Jessica Lange Alec Baldwin spent three years studying political science at George Washington University before switching to New York University's drama department to pursue an acting career, and he eventually returned to NYU and received a BFA degree in Drama in 1993. (Could not find any information about a "scandal" prompting his departure from George Washington University.) Alec Baldwin Julia Roberts moved to New York after finishing high school to pursue an acting career and did not attend college. Julia Roberts Sean Penn joined the Los Angeles Repertory Theater after finishing high school and did not attend college. Sean Penn Susan Sarandon graduated from Catholic University in Washington, DC, with a degree in Drama. Susan Sarandon Ed Asner enrolled at the University of Chicago, but his education was interrupted by an Army hitch; after his discharge he embarked on an acting career and did not return to college to complete a degree. Ed Asner George Clooney studied Broadcast Journalism at Northern Kentucky University but left school before completing a degree. George Clooney Michael Moore briefly attended the University of Michigan at Flint before leaving school. Michael Moore Sarah Jessica Parker was already a professional performer before starting high school and did not attend college after graduating. Sarah Jessica Parker Jennifer Aniston graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts and pursued an acting career without attending college Jennifer Aniston Mike Farrell joined the Marines after finishing high school and afterwards embarked upon an acting career without attending college. Mike Farrell Janeane Garofalo studied history at Providence College in Rhode Island. There is conflicting information about whether she completed her degree or left school during her senior year; most biographies indicate the former. Janeane Garofalo Larry Hagman attended Bard College in Anandale-on-the-Hudson for one year before leaving school and pursuing an acting career. Larry Hagman As to the point of this piece, it's safe to say that those who hold high positions in federal government generally have more formal education and more on-the-job experience in politics and government than film actors do, that they are privy to a large amount of information the general public does not have access to, and that they are therefore better qualified to make important policy decisions than the average actor. The question posed by the title "Who's smarter?" isn't so easily answered. Graduating college or holding elected office exposes people to new ideas and concepts and imbues them with practical experience, but those paths don't necessarily make people "smarter," nor is treading those paths necessary for one to become a competent politician or political analyst. Some very highly regarded U.S. presidents had little or no formal education (Abraham Lincoln), did not attend college (Harry Truman), or had no previous experience holding elective office (Dwight Eisenhower), and one (Ronald Reagan) even began his career as a film actor. On the other hand, some very well-educated and intelligent men with experience in governmental administration who served as chief executive of the U.S. (Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter) frequently show up on rosters of "worst U.S. presidents." Last updated: 14 October 2007 <!-- Sources: Dowdell, Kitty. "Seniors Should Be Ashamed." The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer. 24 September 1996 (p. B8).--> | 2 | [
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FMD3987 | 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 Land Surface Temperatures Reach 140 Degrees F in India, Pakistan? Claim summaries: To answer the question, we must first understand the difference between land and air temperatures, and the impacts of wet bulb temperature.
contextual information: As parts of Pakistan and India saw life-threatening temperatures that broke recent records in spring 2022, a map depicting what appeared to be record-setting land surface temperatures was hot on social media. The above tweet was by posted by the ADAM Platform account on April 29, 2022. ADAM stands for the Advanced geospatial Data Management (ADAM) tool that compiles global environmental data. Its part of the European Open Science Cloud, an initiative to make scientific data publicly available. The ADAM account noted that the image above was collected by the Copernicus Sentinel 3 Land Surface Temperature (LST) device, a satellite operating under the European Space Agency that collects land surface temperature. ADAM Copernicus Sentinel 3 Widely circulated on social media, the LST map shared by the ADAM platform indeed painted a dire picture for residents living under oppressive temperatures in Southeast Asia. But some social media users unintentionally used the map out of context. out of context The post came as India and Pakistan saw an intense heatwave in early spring as temperatures in parts of the two countries reached record levels. Indian government officials stated that April was the third-hottest the country had seen since 1901, with an average maximum of 95.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, Pakistan was similarly plagued by warming temperatures in what could be an equally dire situation for both nations, where many lack access to air conditioning. reached record levels stated third-hottest average maximum plagued To understand how LST differs from air temperature, Snopes spoke with Cascade Tuholske, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Columbia Climate School, in a series of questions and answers: Columbia Climate School NASA Earth Observatory Tuholske (T): LST is the radiated heat from the ground, while air temperature is the air heat we experience as humans, sometimes called 2-meter air temperature. It is important to note that LST varies much more over short distances and short time frames than air temperature. We can think about this by touching the asphalt of a parking lot on a really hot day next to a baseball field. The asphalt to the touch is hot, whereas the grass on the field is much cooler. Yet the air temperature on our skin, which is likely somewhere between the temperature of the asphalt and the grass, does not change much as we move from the parking lot to the field. Thus, the LST of heat-absorbing surfaces on the ground, like asphalt, are very hot when we use a satellite to measure LST from space. But we don't live directly on top of the ground; we live 5 or 6 feet above the ground, and thus air temperature is much more important to understanding heat impacts to human health and well-being. Another way to think about this is to turn on a stove. When we put our hand on the stove, we get burned. But when we move away, the heat of the stove dissipates. The stove will heat the air in a room, but that depends on how long we keep the stove on and how well the room is insulated. NOAA Climate T: Wet bulb temperature (WBT) and wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) are very specific metrics that account for humidity but in very different ways, and they should not be confused. Per this explanation, WBT is: "Wet bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which air can be cooled by the evaporation of water into the air at a constant pressure." explanation WBT is a psychrometric is constructed from the air temperature (dry bulb), pressure, and water in a parcel of air. psychrometric WBGT is a metric that was created to estimate the combined impact of air temperature, humidity, radiated heat (e.g., land surface temperature), and wind on human physical output. It is measured with a field instrument and tied to several occupational heat health standards. WBGT Both WBGT and WBT are two of many different metrics that try to assess how air temperature and humidity combined impact human health and well-being. In the U.S., a widely used metric that also does this is the Heat Index. Humidity is important to account for because at certain thresholds, with enough water in the air, we don't get any cooling benefit from sweating. widely used metric Both WBGT and WBT cannot be calculated from LST directly. Thus any attempt to use LST to estimate WBT or WBGT is not only inaccurate, it is highly misleading. T: Both WBGT and WBT cannot be calculated from LST directly. Thus, any attempt to use LST to estimate WBT or WBGT is not only inaccurate, but also highly misleading. This is not to say high LST values do not have impacts on human health and well-being. But it should not be used to measure direct impacts. In areas where we do not have good air temperature data, like much of India, LST is still a useful proxy for understanding impacts to human health and well-being. Further, LST is quite useful for looking at impacts on crops and plants, as it is tied to soil moisture and canopy temperatures. This is important for understanding how heat waves impact food production or wildfire likelihood. T: There are very clear limits in WBT that the human body can handle with even a few hours of exposure. Basically, when WBT hits between 32 and 35 degrees Celsius, humans do not get an evaporative cooling benefit from sweating. Even with any amount of water, we face high the likelihood of heat stroke, organ failure, and death at these upper WBT thresholds. These WBT thresholds have recently started to be crossed (and may be crossed more frequently going forward) in some of the most populated places on the planet. This means for those living and working in these locations, being outside may be deadly. between evaporative cooling benefit started to be crossed T: Plants, humans, and animals are all impacted by heat differently. Humans, generally, can only tolerate WBT temperatures of between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius. I expect to see significant decreases in labor output in many of the most populated places on the planet where billions of people's livelihoods, both in cities and in rural areas, depend on working outside. I hope we adapt fast enough to prevent mass fatality events, though the heat wave in North America last year shows we need to raise awareness and prepare for extreme heat everywhere. T: The heat wave in Southern Asia is impacting the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet right now. We have tools and the resources to move these people out of harm's way right now. We don't need new technologies per se. We need the political and cultural will to spend money to help vulnerable people. What is disturbing to me is that the rich and powerful worldwide do not care enough to create collective and coordinated action. T: We must rethink what we value as humans. Do we value the well-being of others, especially the poorest? I would say our current economic systems reflect that no, in fact, we do not value vulnerable people. If we shift resources to raise the floor so to speak, we will deploy tools we already have like effective early-warning systems, cash transfers for those who can't work because of heat, infrastructure investments so electricity doesn't cut during heat waves and a/c units work, and so forth and we can reduce the impacts of extreme heat. We have the tools to adapt to extreme heat. We just have to use them. I am hopeful we will. Sources Clifford, Catherine. Indias Record-Setting Heat Wave in Pictures. CNBC, 2 May 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/02/india-heat-wave-in-pictures.html. CNN, Rhea Mogul, Esha Mitra, Manveena Suri and Sophia Saifi. India and Pakistan Heatwave Is Testing the Limits of Human Survivability. CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/02/asia/india-pakistan-heatwave-climate-intl-hnk/index.html. Accessed 3 May 2022. Columbia Climate School. https://www.climate.columbia.edu/. Accessed 3 May 2022. Development of the weather and climate service CRITERION for the touristic sector in e-SHAPE. Ilmastokatsaus, vol. 4, no. 1, Feb. 2022. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.35614/ISSN-2341-6408-IK-2022-03-RL. Freedman, Andrew. India and Pakistan Heat Wave Sets Monthly Records, Triggers Fires and Power Outages. Axios, 2 May 2022, https://www.axios.com/india-pakistan-heat-wave-climate-change-records-a59a1070-e367-43ba-aedc-296670267294.html. Home Page. Adam Platform, https://adamplatform.eu/. Accessed 3 May 2022. Https://Twitter.Com/Leahmcelrath/Status/1520863600642039808. Twitter, https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1520863600642039808. Accessed 3 May 2022. Https://Twitter.Com/Platformadam/Status/1519980107217129472. Twitter, https://twitter.com/platformadam/status/1519980107217129472. Accessed 3 May 2022. Mellen, Ruby, and William Neff. Beyond Human Endurance. Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/climate-change-humidity/. Accessed 3 May 2022. Beyond Human Endurance. Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/climate-change-humidity/. Accessed 3 May 2022. Psychrometrics. Wikipedia, 30 Apr. 2022. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Psychrometrics&oldid=1085398029. Raymond, Colin, et al. The Emergence of Heat and Humidity Too Severe for Human Tolerance. Science Advances, vol. 6, no. 19, May 2020, p. eaaw1838. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1838. The Emergence of Heat and Humidity Too Severe for Human Tolerance. Science Advances, vol. 6, no. 19, May 2020, p. eaaw1838. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1838. Vecellio, Daniel J., et al. Evaluating the 35C Wet-Bulb Temperature Adaptability Threshold for Young, Healthy Subjects (PSU HEAT Project). Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 132, no. 2, Feb. 2022, pp. 34045. Penn State, https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00738.2021. Wet-Bulb Temperature - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/wet-bulb-temperature. Accessed 3 May 2022. | 1 | [
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FMD3988 | 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 Lululemon Recruiting 150 Ambassadors via Instagram? Claim summaries: A viral post promising an ambassadorship with Lululemon in exchange for follows and shares on Instagram is a scam.
contextual information: "If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is," says the mantra of the fact-checking industry. In December 2018, a number of social media users came across a post promising a chance at an ambassadorship with the popular brand Lululemon. The post, shared by Instagram accounts such as @lulurecruitment.co (which has no affiliation with the real Lululemon), explained that anyone with 150 followers had a chance to obtain free clothes and gifts simply by sharing this advertisement with their friends on social media. This is not a genuine offer from Lululemon, and the accounts sharing this message are not affiliated with the brand. Lululemon's social media team has responded to a few queries about the scam with messages similar to the following: Responded FB User: "Is this legit? I am assuming no." Lululemon: "Hi Michelle, you've got it! Our accounts are verified with the blue check mark, and our ambassadors are chosen individually by our stores rather than via our social channels. This account has been flagged to our brand protection team. Let me know if you have more questions!" - Camilla. The non-existent ambassadorship was only offered to users with a minimum of 150 followers, which is a relatively low bar for any sort of social media position, especially for a well-known national brand such as Lululemon. This scam also required potential "ambassadors" to follow the fake Lululemon account and then share its post with their friends. This allowed the scammers to build a following and ensured that their dishonest message would be spread to a greater number of social media users. This Lululemon scam followed a strategy similar to other "like farming" social media schemes. Such fraudsters offer something of value (in this case, an ambassadorship) in exchange for social media engagement, which allows them to quickly build a following and then provides them the opportunity to sell the account to a third party. One way to avoid this type of scam is to double-check to make sure that a company-affiliated post actually originated with the brand's official social media accounts. Social media users should also keep in mind old adages such as "nothing in life is free" when they peruse the internet. | 0 | [
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FMD3989 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego denounced one of its parishes on Friday after its worshippers were told that voting for Democrats is a “mortal sin†that could lead to an eternity in hell. The Diocese said the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in the neighborhood of Old Town made the statement in an insert to a weekly leaflet given to churchgoers on Oct. 16, calling abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and other political issues “non-negotiables.†“It is a mortal sin to vote Democrat,†the insert read, with the words underlined and bolded. “If your bishop, priest, deacon or other parishioners tell you to do so, you must walk away from them. Your immortal soul and your salvation are at stake.†On Tuesday, voters will pick the next president after an often bitter contest that polls suggest has tightened considerably in the last week. While several states are too close to call, polls have shown Democrat Hillary Clinton leading over Republican Donald Trump for some time in California where the parish is located. Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said in a statement that the parish, which will also serve as a polling place, violated its religious duties with the political comments. “It is contrary to Catholic teaching to state that voting for a Democrat or Republican automatically condemns the voter to hell,†the statement said. “The Catholic Church does not endorse specific candidates, use parish media or bulletins to favor candidates or parties or engage in partisan political activity of any kind.†The parish’s pastor, Richard Perozich, did not respond to calls and an email on Friday. The Diocese also took issue with a column in the parish’s Oct. 30 bulletin that railed against abortion and constraints on tax-exempt organizations from certain political activity, and blames elected officials for allowing U.S. society to be “enslaved†to sin. “Satan has deceived many Christians to convert to worldly values from Christian ones,†the bulletin reads. “The devil does this through the tactics outlined by Saul Alinsky with the outcome as Hillary Clinton has stated, ‘And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,’ to draw us away from God’s teachings.†Alinsky was a pioneer in community organizing in Chicago known for confrontational, though nonviolent, tactics to achieve social change. Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, attending first as child with her parents and later attending a Methodist church as first lady. Trump on the other hand has been backed by religious conservatives and evangelicals. Richard Schmalbeck, a professor at Duke University School of Law with expertise in non-profits, said the statements appear to violate requirements for tax-exempt organizations around political activity. “Anything that clearly disparages a candidate is intervention in opposition to a candidate, and I think saying the devil operates through a person would count as disparagement,†he said. Schmalbeck said it seems unlikely, however, that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service would aggressively pursue revoking the church’s tax-exempt status given its recent history of not going after churches that have made similar comments. | 1 | [
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FMD3990 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: German Chancellor Angela Merkel s Christian Democrats (CDU) have agreed on the divisive issue of a refugee cap with her conservative Bavarian allies, two conservative sources told Reuters, removing a hurdle to coalition talks with other parties. The agreement came on Sunday evening after leading members of the CDU held talks with the Christian Social Union (CSU). Merkel aims to build a nationally untested coalition between her conservative bloc, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and Greens after winning a fourth term as chancellor in a Sept. 24 election but losing much support to the far-right. | 1 | [
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FMD3991 | 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 Mayor of Minneapolis responsible for canceling the 4th of July fireworks while permitting a Muslim animal sacrifice at the Vikings Stadium? Claim summaries: A pinch of fake news, a smidgen of flawed reading comprehension, and a dash of Islamophobic fear-mongering resulted in overblown accusations against the mayor of Minneapolis.
contextual information: In August 2018, a bit of Islamophobic copypasta started making its way around social media, asserting that the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota had canceled a 4th of July city fireworks display but allowed "Muslim animal sacrifice" to be held in the city's U.S. Bank Stadium (home of the Minnesota Vikings football team) the following month: copypasta This copypasta was based on a bit of fake news, a fear-mongering report about the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, and a misreading of two genuine news reports. Fake News On 10 June 2018, the Last Line of Defense web site published an article positing that the Muslim mayor of Minneapolis had "canceled the 4th of July": article Mayor Ahneid al Ahmed of Haskentot, Minnesota has done the unthinkable and canceled the 4th of July. According to his office, the city has no desire to spend money on something so frivolous. Muslim spokesman Art Tubolls said: This city elected our mayor to do what is best. We dont hink buying a bunch of flags and fireworks and spending a day celebrating nationalism like nazis is a good idea. This was not a genuine news story about the mayor of Minneapolis, who is neither named "Ahneid al Ahmed" nor a Muslim. (The city's actual mayor is Jacob Frey.) The Last Line of Defense is part of a network of sites that engages in political trolling under the guise of proffering "satire." Jacob Frey This junk news piece may have prompted some confusion, as it resembled a genuine news story about a nearby Minnesota city. The mayor of St. Paul did cancel the city's Independence Day firework show due to budgetary concerns: cancel St. Paul will go without the rockets red glare on Independence Day this year. Mayor Melvin Carter announced that the city wont hold a Fourth of July fireworks event. The cancellation may foreshadow of what could be a difficult budget season. Carters announcement, posted to Facebook, cited concerns about the citys budget climate. Minneapolis, on the other hand, hosted multiple firework shows on July 4th. multiple firework shows Fear-Mongering Reports About Eid al-Adha The Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha is also referred to as the "Feast of Sacrifice." The holiday, which honors Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, is celebrated by Muslims around the world. In many places, Muslims observe that holiday by sacrificing an animal and then sharing its meat with the poor: sacrificing To commemorate God's test of Ibrahim, many Muslim families sacrifice an animal and share the meat with the poor. They also are required to donate to charities that benefit the poor. Muslims also routinely exchange presents during the holiday. When it was announced that U.S. Bank Stadium would be hosting a Eid al-Adha festival, the Islamophobic web site "Bare Naked Islam" published an article about the upcoming event imploring readers to "imagine" 50,000 Muslims at the stadium and displaying various photographs and videos of animal sacrifices from around the world. article The following photograph, for instance, was taken in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2008: taken These photographs led many readers to mistakenly believe that the "Super EID" festival at U.S. Bank Stadium would also feature animal sacrifices, but that wasn't the case. Ahmed Anshur, executive director of Masjid Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in St. Paul and one of the organizers of "Super EID," attempted to quell these fears, telling Minnesota Public Radio that no animal sacrifices would take place at the event: Minnesota Public Radio Eid Al-Adha, the second Muslim holiday of the year, comes at the end of the pilgrimage. Its name in Arabic means the "festival of sacrifice." Muslims celebrate by sacrificing animals and donating meat to charity. But Ahmed Anshur, executive director of Masjid Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in St. Paul and one of the organizers, wants to be clear: The actual ritual will not take place at U.S. Bank Stadium. "Nobody is going to sacrifice an animal, or nobody is going to slaughter an animal in that field," he said. "I can assure you that, 100 percent." The Minneapolis Star Tribune filed a report after the 21 August 2018 celebration on which stated that in fact no animal sacrifices had taken place at the stadium during the EID celebration: report The holiday honors the prophet Ibrahim, also known as Abraham in Judaism and Christianity, and his willingness to sacrifice his son for God. It comes at the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage. It is one of the holiest days of the year for Muslims, who celebrate with prayer, shared meals and gifts. In some places, families who can afford it slaughter an animal and share the meat with family and charities. No animals were sacrificed at the stadium Tuesday. Bowling, Chris. "Thousands Join in 'Super Eid' Celebration at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis."
[Minneapolis] Star Tribune. 21 August 2018. Feshir, Riham. "Thousands Expected for 'Super Eid' in Downtown Minneapolis."
MPR News. 20 August 2018. CNN. "5 Things to Know About the Muslim Holiday Eid al-Adha."
21 August 2018. The Current. "Fourth of July 2018: Where to See Fireworks in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Beyond."
26 June 2018. Melo, Frederick. "St. Paul Mayor Cancels July 4 Fireworks, Cites Budget Concerns."
TwinCities.com. 27 June 2018. | 0 | [
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FMD3992 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump kicked off his Monday morning by tweeting something so stupid that it was necessary to check multiple times if it was a parody account. Apparently, The Emperor has been told he is wearing the finest of clothing for so long that he is completely unaware he stands naked (in the figurative, not the claw your eyes out to make the awful visage disappear manner) and looking pretty stupid before us.According to The Donald, any and all negative polls are fake news and don t at all reflect the actual feelings of the millions of people who are protesting him in the streets and the millions more who are gathering to denounce him online. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting, Trump says.Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017Trump, of course, is referencing his Muslim ban, which stopped people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering our country (including a baby who needed heart surgery, for a time). The ban was met by widespread condemnation before a judge ultimately shut it down at least for now. Contrary to The Donald s assertion, most Americans actually oppose the ban. Politico reports:Fifty-three percent opposed the order, according to a CNN/ORC poll, with 46 percent arguing that it makes the U.S. less safe from terrorism and 49 percent saying it harms American values by preventing those seeking asylum from entering the U.S.Fifty-one percent expressed disapproval with the ban in a CBS News survey, in which 57 percent of respondents said the ban goes against the country s founding principles. I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it, Trump, who posted a completely fake story on his timeline to support the ban and whose propaganda minister completely invented a massacre in an effort to sway public opinion in The Donald s direction. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017Trump does indeed call his own shots (the ones President Steve Bannon doesn t call for him, anyway), but none of them are based in reality. Thanks to his cozy relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who helped Trump win the election through an aggressive propaganda campaign and hacks of his political opponents (something Trump specifically requested during his campaign) and the numerous horrific actions he has taken since assuming office, Trump has managed to become the most hated President in history and Americans happily let him know it daily.Lol fake news, fake judge, fake voting, right, @realDonaldTrump? pic.twitter.com/DHuz5z1CrM David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump So anything you don't like is fake? Well, America doesn't like you so we will call you the fake president. Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump you are my favourite character in Alice in Wonderland. The mad king who denies any negative opinion of himself. Matt Haig (@matthaig1) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump Saying Muslims are pouring in is the sort of racist language Nazi propaganda used to justify attacks on certain people. pic.twitter.com/lJBFqBlwNv The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump #NoBanNoWall #MuslimBan #TheResistance #alternativefacts #WomensMarchpic.twitter.com/gGjOZ7yqIU Lil' Kim Ms. G.O.A.T (@killerbee805) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump Anything out of your mouth or Twitter feed is fake news. You're supposedly the President. You're failing. GET TO WORK. John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/lYMZj6AA0d Ciaran Jenkins (@C4Ciaran) February 6, 2017The Narcissist in Chief is now living in Fantasyland full-time. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/K0HZwCEmPD Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump Donald, we ve been over this a thousand times. The US already has border security and extreme vetting. Emma Kennedy (@EmmaKennedy) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump Any negative polls? For the rest of time? Is this how it works now? If the data isn t in your favor, it s fake? #resist MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump this is exactly something that a leader like the Vladimir Putin would be saying right now. Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump this is literally dictator language nick brennan (@nfbrennan) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump Be honest. Did you plagiarize this from 'Fascism For Dummies"? pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) February 6, 2017@realDonaldTrump You're like America's drunk, angry, controlling father. But you don't drink, which makes this all the more disturbing elan gale (@theyearofelan) February 6, 2017But despite reality s uncomfortable bias against him, Trump is convinced that anyone who tells him he is not wearing any clothing is like his tailor Steve Bannon tells him unfit for their position and must be removed. This isn t limited to his administration. Ultimately, this includes you. It includes me. It includes Muslims, women, Hispanics, African-Americans, and anyone else who largely opposes him.Trump is growing more unhinged before our eyes. It is up to our elected leaders to do their jobs and make sure he is not in a position to act on it for much longer for the good of our nation.Featured image via Getty Images (Joe Raedle)/screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD3993 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: John Kerry had heard enough. After last week’s bombing of a U.N. aid convoy in Syria dealt a death blow to a ceasefire deal in which he had invested all his diplomatic capital with Russia, the U.S. Secretary of State tossed aside a page of notes and looked at Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov across the horseshoe-shaped table in the U.N. Security Council. “I listened to my colleague from Russia, and I sort of felt a little bit like they’re sort of in a parallel universe here,†said a visibly angry Kerry, effectively calling Lavrov a liar for blaming the United States for spoiling the ceasefire. The moment in some ways captured the former politician’s time as the top U.S. diplomat, which will end with a new administration in January. Not for the first time, Kerry had invested months of intensive diplomacy and tireless traveling on an issue only to end up feeling let down or deceived by negotiating partners. On Syria, Kerry has wanted greater U.S. involvement than President Barack Obama was willing to support. In an interview on Friday with Reuters, Kerry said Lavrov’s “blatant obfuscation of reality ... took my breath away.†The attempted Syria ceasefire was his most ambitious effort to fix what some argue was the biggest foreign policy misstep of Obama’s administration, which began with the failure in 2013 to follow through on a “red line†threat against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the use of chemical weapons. Kerry hammered out the truce two weeks ago, but was left pleading in vain with Russia last week to halt renewed air strikes on the besieged city of Aleppo. James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, noted Kerry’s “tireless, ceaseless engagement†even when pursuing administration policies he didn’t always agree with. “Kerry to his credit has stayed in the game even when he had a weak hand,†said Dobbins, a career diplomat who worked alongside Kerry in 2013 to hammer out a deal with President Hamid Karzai to keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “The situation in Syria is too serious and too consequential to simply back off and leave it to others.†From Kerry’s perspective, it is better to fail than not to have tried. “The weakest hand of all would be to have another round of migrants going into Europe, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin do whatever he wants by dropping bombs and the United States doing nothing but pretending we’re sending some support to people,†Kerry told Reuters. “That is the weakest hand, and it is far stronger to stand up and find a way to leverage getting to the table and getting some kind of an understanding,†he added. In his nearly four years as America’s top diplomat, Kerry has racked up more miles than any other secretary of state, sometimes appearing to rush in without a clear strategy. “It is clear that Kerry is prepared to take greater risks with his own personal reputation than others might have ... because they did not want to be identified with failure,†said Dobbins. But some critics say Kerry stayed in the game too long in negotiating with Russia, which they argue manipulated his quest for a deal over Syria to strengthen its position. The Syrian conflict, with its shifting geopolitical forces, complex new alliances and new threats such as the rise of Islamic State, has tested Kerry like no other issue. After Obama declined to carry out threatened attacks on Assad’s forces over chemical weapons, Kerry perceived an opening to work with Lavrov on an agreement to get Syria to turn over its chemical arsenal, he told Reuters. That deal struck in 2013 was considered a success, but the war has since deteriorated and grown more complex following Russia’s military intervention backing Assad last year. Now the continuing ceasefire push by Kerry strikes some as hopeless gesturing. “Kerry’s plan is to do more of the same despite the repeated failure of U.S. attempts to strike a deal with Russia,†said Mutasem Alsyofi of the Syrian Civil Society Declaration Initiative, who met Kerry in New York last week. It’s not the first time Kerry’s been accused of overreaching. At the start of his term in 2013, Kerry vigorously pursued a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. Even as others warned of failure, an undaunted Kerry spent months shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah. However, U.S. ally Israel’s announcement of 700 new housing units for Jewish settlements in territory the Palestinians claim for a future state finally caused the talks to collapse, although Israel blamed the Palestinians move to apply to join 15 international conventions and treaties. Kerry’s biggest accomplishments came in 2015 with the Iran nuclear deal and the U.N. climate change agreement. In both instances, he had Obama’s leadership and full support for the very visible U.S. role, though both deals have been vilified domestically in the polarized American political environment. Last week’s failure of a second Syrian ceasefire agreement brokered by Kerry unleashed a fresh round of stinging criticism of the administration’s Syria policy. Republican Senator John McCain called Kerry “intrepid but delusional†for placing too much faith in the prospect of cooperation with Russia. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who lost to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, is not running for office again and has often remarked that he has nothing to lose. “In this business of diplomacy, you have to test things sometimes,†he told Reuters. “It is a mistake to delude yourself. It is also a mistake to avoid putting something to test where there is a reasonable chance something may be able to happen.†Hours after the tense exchange at the U.N. Security Council, Lavrov and Kerry met again. The Russian diplomat had brought a new proposal for putting the ceasefire back on track. Kerry looked at the sheet of paper, folded it tightly and stuffed it into his top pocket. | 1 | [
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FMD3994 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Kevin Shenkman could be described as one of the most prolific and successful civil rights lawyers of his generation, after almost pushing dozens of Southern California communities to change their election systems under the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA) over the past few years. [To many in those communities, however, Shenkman is a villain, a from Malibu who is creating racial divisions where they do not exist — and making millions in the process. He is, according to local podcaster Stephen Daniels, “the most hated man in Santa Clarita. †And he is “hated†there — and elsewhere — because he wins. Shenkman scored his latest victory last Wednesday evening, when the Oceanside City Council voted to approve a proposal to move from an system, where every council member is elected by the voters as a whole, to a district system, where voters are only represented directly by one member, from a particular geographic area. The change was prompted by a March 22 letter from Shenkman, claiming that the city’s system prevented minority groups from winning elections, and warning of a lawsuit to follow. Residents of Oceanside were shocked, and angry, at the charge. The city has had several Latino council members, including one who has served on the council for the last 16 years. It also recently had an mayor. Shenkman claimed in his letter to the city that Oceanside’s 65. 2% white majority engaged in “bloc voting†to exclude Latinos, and cited Linda Gonzales, who lost a city council race last year. Gonzales opposed Shenkman’s effort, and told Breitbart News that she believes lost her election fairly. She added that Shenkman never asked her permission to use her name. Nevertheless, the council members capitulated to Shenkman’s threat, after the city attorney advised them last Wednesday that no city or school board had ever successfully defended an election system from a CVRA challenge in court. Score another win for Shenkman. His law firm, Shenkman Hughes, boasts on its website that he “has never lost a case, and has no intention of breaking that winning streak. †Curiously, in his extensive bio on the website, which touts his work in “all aspects of intellectual property law, including litigation of patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret matters,†as well as other areas of civil litigation, he omits any mention of his voting rights cases (as of this writing). Shenkman’s path to law, and voting rights, are rather unconventional. Today, he lives in Malibu, one of the wealthiest communities in the state, whose population is over 90% white. But as he told the Talk of Santa Clarita podcast in January, he grew up in the Detroit area. There, he said, he was a “bad kid,†committing “the occasional little criminal misdemeanor kinda thing, maybe the occasional felony that I never got caught for. †He had “some interaction with the justice system,†and formed a bond with his attorney, who inspired him to pursue a legal career. Shenkman graduated from Rice University with a B. S. in mechanical engineering (which he describes as “completely uselessâ€) and went to Columbia Law School. He is married, with four daughters. He told Talk of Santa Clarita that if he were still practicing patent law, “I would have shot myself by now,†calling it “ boring. †Shenkman’s Facebook profile photo is an image of a giant metal fist: the Joe Louis monument in Detroit, Michigan. (His cover photo is the same image: “Fuck your FB rules,†he explains in a comment to a relative.) His timeline features a photograph of Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was killed while fighting neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012, who was later acquitted. He is a Democrat, and gave $1375 to the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee in 2014, according to the Federal Elections Commission. He has also contributed to Democrats at the state and local levels, according to the California Secretary of State. The public record also suggests that Shenkman has had a colorful career as a plaintiff’s attorney, filing class action suits on behalf of consumers — and sometimes acting as the plaintiff himself. Currently, Shenkman and his law partner are plaintiffs in a class action suit filed last year against AutoZone, claiming that the auto parts dealer had not informed them that it was changing its rewards program so that a $20 credit on purchases over $20 would expire after one year. In 2014, he represented consumers in successful class action claims against restaurant chains that falsely advertised Kobe beef during a period when Japanese beef imports were banned. In 2011, Shenkman personally filed a consumer class action suit against Chipotle Mexican Grill, claiming that employees had misled him into believing the restaurant’s pinto beans were vegetarian, when they are actually made with bacon. In his lawsuit, he cited his vegetarianism and Jewish faith (though Jewish dietary laws, which require that food be certified kosher by a rabbi, would not have permitted him to eat at Chipotle at all). That case was dismissed in 2015, more than four years later, according to court documents. He also reportedly sued the Chinese chain Panda Express, claiming it failed to disclose that it adds chicken powder to its vegetarian entrees. That same year, he was the plaintiff — identified as an “avid runner†in media reports — in class action suits filed against coconut water companies Vita Coco and One World Enterprises, claiming they had exaggerated the hydration benefits of their products. Both cases were dismissed court documents indicate that he accepted a token settlement of $2, 000 in the Vida Coco case as part of a related nationwide class action settlement. Following those adventures in consumer litigation, Shenkman found a new issue to litigate: minority voting rights. Specifically, Shenkman turned his attention to the CVRA, a law signed in 2002 by Democratic Governor Gray Davis — who was later recalled by the California electorate — that made it easy for activists to sue towns, school boards, and other local government bodies with voting. In addition, the CVRA allows plaintiffs to “prove†that “racially polarized voting occurs†simply by showing that a member of a minority group might have won an election if not for being outvoted by members of the majority (usually white). The CVRA is a law with a contentious history. Over a decade ago, in the Sanchez v. City of Modesto case, a state court found the CVRA unconstitutional. But that ruling was overturned on appeal in 2006, and the U. S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, keeping the law intact. Among other questionable provisions, the CVRA includes incentives for lawyers to sue by allowing successful plaintiff’s attorneys to recover their fees from the defendants, while preventing successful defendants from doing the same. For activist groups and ambitious lawyers, the CVRA is a scheme but for local governments, it is a scenario. They must pay their own legal fees, win or lose, and if they lose they must also pay the legal costs — often exorbitant — of the other side. For the first several years that the CVRA was in force, just two attorneys made “all of the roughly $4. 3 million†that resulted from settlements under the law, according to the Associated Press. Those two attorneys just happened to be the two lawyers who drafted the law, including San civil rights lawyer Robert Rubin. At some point, Shenkman apparently recognized the political and financial opportunity that the CVRA presented in Southern California. “Like everything else, it just fell on me,†he told Talk of Santa Clarita, recalling an early conversation with Antelope Valley Democratic Party activist Darren Parker. In 2012, Shenkman began suing cities and school districts throughout the region — most notably the city of Palmdale, which was likely seen as an easy target because of its population are minorities, while its city council is largely white. Palmdale fought back, and the subsequent court fight set the template for other confrontations between Shenkman and his targets. At first, the city was defiant, fighting Shenkman in court and holding elections that a judge later declared were illegal. In the end, however, after being worn down by years of litigation and appeals, Palmdale agreed to a settlement that required it to pay $4. 5 million. (Curiously, one of the plaintiffs’ other lawyers was R. Rex Parris, the mayor of the neighboring city of Lancaster, which still uses the election system.) Since the Palmdale case, Shenkman told Voice of OC last year, he has been inundated with calls from potential plaintiffs. Some of Shenkman’s potential plaintiffs are local politicians. He told Voice of OC that he also works with the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, a Latino organization (with a Los Angeles office) which he reportedly represented in at least one case. Shenkman uses the Palmdale case to push other cities into immediate compliance. In his letter to Oceanside, for example, he wrote: “As you may be aware, in 2012, we sued the City of Palmdale for violating the CVRA. After an trial, we prevailed. After spending millions of dollars, a remedy was ultimately imposed on the Palmdale city council, with districts that combine all incumbents into one of the four districts. †Shenkman and his supporters argue that districts increase the chance that minority candidates will win elections, presuming people vote as racial blocs. Shenkman told Talk of Santa Clarita that the system had been created in the early 20th century to “freeze out†minorities. elections, according to Shenkman and to the few advocates who spoke in favor of districts at the Oceanside city council meeting, are also theoretically less expensive, lowering the barrier to entry for candidates. And with fewer constituents per public official, districts might allow more direct interaction between local voters and their elected representatives. (In Santa Clarita, Shenkman pushed for cumulative voting, in which voters can vote more than once for their preferred candidates, telling Talk of Santa Clarita that the system would be more likely than districts to elect Latinos to the city council.) Many residents, however, seem to prefer the system. One reason, frequently cited by the opponents of Oceanside’s proposed district system, is that every single member of a local government body under an system is accountable to each voter. Some, like Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, also argue that small communities share too much in common to be divided politically in ways that encourage politicians to favor their local neighborhoods over others. And many communities reject the idea that they are racist — or that they use “bloc voting†to exclude minorities, as Shenkman alleges. They also dislike the drawing of districts using racial criteria, arguing it creates new divisions in the community — a frequent refrain among the opponents in Oceanside. More than the particular form of government, what many communities resent is the way they are being compelled to accept districts — through legal threats and accusations of racism. Oceanside Councilmember Jack Feller, who voted against the new system, told the Los Angeles Times that he felt “disgusted … that this is being forced on us. †If Palmdale was an attractive target, Oceanside was a poor one. Just over a third of its residents are Latino, and there has been at least one Hispanic representative on the city council for the last two decades. At the council meeting on Wednesday evening, many of the most vociferous opponents of the new plan were Hispanic. But the Palmdale case loomed large in the minds of the council members, who voted — narrowly — to surrender. Gonzales, the candidate whose name Shenkman used in his letter to the city, told Breitbart News that she felt he had exploited her for his own purposes. She said that she had reached Shenkman by telephone, and found him rude, until she explained who she was. At that point, she said, he expressed sympathy for her recent election loss. She told him she had lost because she was running against veteran incumbents, not because of racism. “I told [Shenkman] that I agree we need to get more Latinos involved in the government, and in our democracy, and in our Constitution,†but without special districts, Gonzales recalled. “He didn’t want to talk to me after that. †And she added: “They’re working against the people they’re trying to help. †That is a common sentiment in the communities Shenkman has confronted. In Palmdale, when Shenkman sued to stop city council elections in 2013, the city accused him of “attempting to stop an election where at least one minority candidate is essentially guaranteed to win a seat on the City Council,†given the field of candidates. The city attorney opined that Shenkman’s legal team was “only interested in gouging the taxpayers to line their pockets. †Shenkman later defended his payout to the Los Angeles Times: “We did very well on the Palmdale case. But people who criticized us don’t realize the enormous risk that we took. †(It is not clear what “risk†Shenkman was referring to, since — as noted above — the CRVA does not allow successful defendants to recover costs. He told Voice of OC: “I was not paying my mortgage in order to pay the experts. And the court reporters’ fees, and other stuff. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. †Other lawyers, he said, might not have been “crazy enough†to try.) Shenkman also told Talk of Santa Clarita that he “embraced†the financial rewards of his voting rights cases, admitting that he posted a photograph of the check he received from Palmdale on his Facebook page with the caption: “Picture me rollin’ bitches. †He has, at times, described his highly lucrative voting rights campaign in more idealistic, even terms. In a speech in 2013, he said: “Other people have introduced me as just being the bad guy. They call [me] the the ambulance chaser, some other names that are probably not even as nice as that. And all for seeking to allow racial and ethnic minorities … to have a say in their city governments, their school boards. †He later admitted, however, to “extorting†local governments, in an interview with Voice of OC: “That’s all true … taking advantage of easy targets — yeah. There are a lot of easy targets, but they should change. If they change their election system, I wouldn’t need or have the opportunity to sue them. †Since the Palmdale case, Shenkman has overturned election systems throughout Southern California, most of which had been in place for many decades, without complaint. The Orange County Register called the changes a “historic upheaval,†citing “dozens†of local agencies that had been forced to change from to district voting. Not even liberal cities are safe. Last year Shenkman sued the City of Santa Monica, which prides itself on its “progressive†politics, and which has a Latino mayor. Shenkman’s client in Santa Monica is Maria Loya, who has run unsuccessfully for local office. She is married to Oscar de la Torre, who claims he lost a race for city council in November 2016 because of the system. (De la Torre came sixth in a race where the top four won seats Mayor Tony Vazquez won the number of votes.) He is on the board of the Pico Neighborhood Association, which is also a plaintiff in the case. (In addition to Shenkman, one of the other lawyers for the plaintiffs is none other than CVRA Robert Rubin himself another is Mayor Parris of Lancaster, once again.) Shenkman told Talk of Santa Clarita that the Democrats on the Santa Monica city council are “hypocritical. †He added: “[T]hey’re saying the same things†as the city of Palmdale . Last year, however, Shenkman’s lawsuit nearly derailed negotiations between Santa Monica and his home town of Malibu over the creation of a separate Malibu school district, something local activists in Malibu fervently desire. Initially, Shenkman was on Malibu’s negotiating team. But when Shenkman filed his lawsuit, without warning, Santa Monica cut off talks. “[T]his legal action could jeopardize our ability to move forward in a productive manner,†the school board president said in a press release, reported at the time by the Santa Monica Daily Press. A group called Advocates for Malibu Public Schools, which had initially joined Shenkman’s lawsuit as plaintiffs, withdrew from the case, and Shenkman resigned as a member of the negotiating team, saying his involvement had become a “distraction. †Given Shenkman’s unsparing style, perhaps Santa Monica should not have been surprised. When voters in the San Fernando Valley town of Glendale rejected a district system by a margin in a 2015 referendum, Shenkman sued the school district. When the San Bernardino County town of Upland agreed to a settlement with Shenkman, which involved hiring demographers to draw districts that favored Latinos, they still had to pay legal fees. And when the Orange County city of Fullerton created districts, Shenkman went back to court to challenge the new boundaries. Shenkman has a brash style of speaking, and is not shy to express contempt for his legal and political opponents. On Talk of Santa Clarita, Shenkman referred disparagingly to local Latino politicians with whom he disagreed — in explicitly racial terms: “I don’t think very highly of the crowd in Santa Clarita who are Latino by name only,†he said, singling out Republican Assemblyman Dante Acosta ( ) as “one that comes to mind. †Shenkman also made an astonishing allegation about a former State Senate candidate, Democrat Johnathon Ervin: Shenkman: And the Democrats that were up [for election] were horrible candidates. Daniels: Mmm. Shenkman: I mean, Johnathon Ervin is a horrible candidate. Daniels: Why do you say that? Shenkman: He’s got so many problems, man. First of all, the guy takes bribes, OK? Daniels: Ugh. Shenkman: You know — Daniels: Hey man, you’re a lawyer. I mean, don’t you at least want to say, “allegedlyâ€? Shenkman: No. He added, later in the interview, that he had received death threats, and threats to his family, as a result of his work on voting rights. But he was undeterred, and said he has many requests from local activists to confront their cities. In discussing the cities he has taken on, Shenkman seems to adopt an imperious tone, confident that he can shape outcomes to his will. When asked by Daniels about whether Santa Clarita could avoid a lawsuit by appointing a Latino member to the council, he said that it would depend on whom they appointed: I think it very much depends on who they appoint. And right now, as the council stands, there are four white, conservative Republicans of a similar mind. And that is not what the City of Santa Clarita is. I would love to see the city council have the kind of maturity to appoint someone who does not share all of their views … Maybe the fifth person should bring some diversity of ideas. Shenkman also vowed on Talk of Santa Clarita to depose the current Santa Clarita city council — which he claimed was elected unlawfully — eventually: “Any time a city fights us to the bitter end, that’s the approach that we take. †Ironically, Shenkman’s own town of Malibu has an election system — the very system Shenkman is destroying elsewhere — and an apparently city council. But not enough minorities live there: only 6. 1% of the population is Hispanic, and only 1. 2% is black. Ironically, that means the CVRA might not apply to Malibu. But perhaps the greatest irony is that for all of Shenkman’s legal work over the past five years, the new district systems are little better at electing minorities to office than the old systems. Last month, the Times observed: “A voting law meant to increase minority representation has generated many more lawsuits than seats for people of color. †It added: “Of the 22 cities that have made the move to district elections since June [2016] only seven saw an overall gain in Latino council members. †And the reasons for poor Latino representation had nothing to do with racism, the Times reported: A number of factors likely contributed to the low numbers, including historically low turnout by Latino voters and a lack of candidates with the means to run, experts said. Also, even in cities with large Latino populations, some residents can’t vote because they are too young, are here illegally or are not citizens. The threat of legal action has forced cities to switch to council districts, but in some cases the move hasn’t resulted in more minority representation because the city already is and drawing districts where minorities predominate is difficult. Shenkman told the Times that he had filed about ten lawsuits — and that, in the newspaper’s words, he “couldn’t remember how many warning letters he has sent to local governments. †That campaign has upended local government in Southern California, and divided communities by race in ways that may linger for generations, but it has achieved almost nothing else — except making Kevin Shenkman richer. There are only two ways to stop Shenkman. One is to meet his challenge in court. Since 2013, the legal landscape has changed: the Supreme Court tossed part of the federal Voting Rights Act in 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder. In doing so, the Court emphasized the importance of evidence in determining whether there is racial discrimination in any particular jurisdiction. The Court could, theoretically, toss out the California Voting Rights Act for vagueness, since its evidentiary standards are so low that it allows virtually any candidate to challenge an election loss as racist. Given the wide impact of the CVRA across the state over the last few years, the Court might have also a greater interest in hearing a challenge than it did a decade ago. The confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch might also offer hope to defendants. But realistically, few local communities have the money to gamble on a Supreme Court win. That leaves one last recourse: the state legislature. The communities of Southern California could approach their elected representatives, Democrat and Republican, and ask them to amend the CVRA to require higher standards of proof of racism, or at least to remove the monetary incentives that reward lawyers like Shenkman for their exploits. On most issues, Democrats in Sacramento might not be inclined to listen to conservative cities in the Inland Empire or San Diego County. But Shenkman is pursuing liberal Santa Monica, too. There could be bipartisan interest in protecting local government from outside lawyers who can squeeze taxpayers with arguably frivolous lawsuits. Until then, Shenkman will keep going. As he said in 2013: “The law is the law. †Shenkman did not reply to requests for comment. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential†people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. This article has been updated to include a reference to state and local campaign contributions. | 1 | [
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FMD3995 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hillary Clinton & The Ghosts Of Watergate Posted on Home » Headlines » World News » Hillary Clinton & The Ghosts Of Watergate
Are Goldman Sachs et al. delusional? If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds…
From Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds :
If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds.
The parallels between Hillary Clinton and Richard Nixon are not legal–they are political: specifically, how can a leader crippled by scandal and cover-ups govern?
In even blunter terms: how can a crippled politico deliver the goods to the special interests who bet their cash and political capital on the politico’s ability to deliver favors?
Among the many ghosts of Watergate, one specter especially haunts Hillary: once the special interests and party stalwarts who defended you through every scandal and every cover-up–month after month and year after year, on the promise that you would deliver the goods upon ascending to the presidency–realize you are too damaged to deliver anything of value to anyone, why would they continue supporting you?
Once a politico has to declare “I am not a crook” based on legalese rather than a moral foundation, that politico’s ability to lead has vanished.
Hillary and her supporters rely entirely on legalese parsing of wrong-doing rather than on a self-explanatory, basic moral foundation of right and wrong.
Declaring “I am not a crook” because the wrongdoing escapes prosecution is the same as declaring “I am above the law. “ I f the foundation of one’s ability to lead is a reliance on legal parsing and allies in the Department of Justice squashing investigations while handing out immunity like candy on Halloween, the political capital required to lead no longer exists.
Ultimately, the President leads by moral persuasion. Even the political act of delivering the goods to the special interests that funded your campaign and your wealth must be backed by the moral authority of personal integrity and a morally grounded appeal to the common good.
A politician who has effectively zero personal integrity is only as viable as his/her ability to deliver favors to the few (i.e. special interests) over the objections of the many. A reliance on cold-blooded horse-trading only works if the leader has enough political capital to arm-twist everyone into granting favors to allies and special interests.
But this political capital rests on moral suasion and support earned not by issuing promises but by leading the nation through thorny thickets to solutions that work for the many, not just the few.
Once the ability to lead has been lost, special interests can forget about getting favors. And once they realize their politico is a liability rather than an asset, self-preservation requires abandoning the liability as quickly as possible.
It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Anyone who thinks Hillary has the personal integrity to build sufficient political capital to lead is delusional. Anyone who believes Hillary has the moral foundation to deliver the goods to the myriad special interests that have funded her campaign and her personal wealth is equally delusional.
Are Goldman Sachs et al. delusional? If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds.
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FMD3996 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Says food stamp growth, while high, lagged the rise in unemployment.
contextual information: Mention food stamps in a mixed political crowd and youll get a full buffet of opinions -- starchy, sugary, wilted and done to a turn -- about the people who use them.Exhibit A is the array of reader comments on Cleveland.com aftera story there, and in The Plain Dealer on Dec. 3, described efforts in Congress to cut the federal food safety net.Sorry, but youll get no dish here about the habits or consumption patterns of Americans using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (now delivered in the form of an electronic card rather than with stamps or coupons). Instead, PolitiFact Ohio is using this as an opportunity to revisit a claim from the food stamp story, made by Anne Goodman, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foodbank. The food bank provides food for 450 meal sites, shelters and pantries, whose clients include Ohioans on SNAP whose food budgets run out before the end of each month.Goodman said that while national SNAP enrollment grew by 70 percent between 2007 and 2011, unemployment jumped by a much higher rate, 94 percent. That shows, she said, that SNAP is working as it was intended. It was designed to ensure that families have food when they need a helping hand.PolitiFact Ohio was curious about those figures. Did food stamp growth really lag unemployment as the economy turned sour.A cursory look at labor statistics showed she was in the ballpark. But the data, and thus the rhetoric, can change depending on the months reported or even the dates when the data is released, so we asked for more.Goodman provided three sources of information.The first was the latestSNAP Annual Summaryfrom the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP. The summary provided data from 2007 to 2011, a five year window that includes pre-recession data for a baseline and carries into recovery. 2011 also is the most current year for which statistics are available.The summary shows annual participation, measured in fiscal years. In 2007, there were 26.316 million individual SNAP recipients. In 2011, there were 44.709 million.That comes to a growth rate of 69.89 percent. With almost no rounding, thats the same as 70 percent. So Goodman was accurate on that figure.We should note that these are annual averages. As the article in The Plain Dealer on food stamps said Dec. 3, participation was as high as 47.1 million at one point, in August, 2011. That figure came from another Agriculture Department set of data, tracking SNAP participationby the month.The second source that Goodman sent us was a set ofU.S. Census Bureau dataon economic characteristics of Americans. This was from the bureaus American Community Survey, and it estimated the percentage of individuals on food stamps was 7.7 percent in 2007, and 13 percent in 2011.Thats a 68.8 percent growth rate, or 1 percent lower than the figure from the Agriculture Department. The difference is likely due to a difference in methodology: The census asks questions of households, and the Agriculture Department has actual figures from the food stamp program, since it runs it. With the numbers so close, it makes little difference here.So Goodmans numbers were good on food stamp growth. But what about unemployment growth?That leads to the third set of data she cited, this from theU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau, a division of the Labor Department, tracks the number and percentage of people in the workforce who are unemployed.In 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.6 percent.In 2011, it was 8.9 percent.Thats a 93.48 percent rise. Goodman put it at 94 percent -- within a percentage point of the actual figure. We checked BLS data using adifferent table-- the government agency allows you to use its information in different formats -- and got the same result as Goodman.These, too, were annual averages, and some months were higher, some lower. If you were to pick certain months in those years to find high and low points, you could show an even bigger leap in unemployment -- as high as the 105 percent rise between May 2007 and May 2011. But by using the more conservative annual average, it becomes clear that Goodman did not cherry pick the data to show extremes.Her comments to The Plain Dealer, and anop-ed columnon food aid that she wrote for the newspaper on Dec. 2, were not the first time these numbers have been cited. Goodman mentioned them when sheappeared before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committeeon March 7 to discuss the need for food assistance.And Feeding America, a national charity,has cited them in its materials.Goodmans figures check out entirely.On the Truth-O-Meter, her claim rates True. | 1 | [
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FMD3997 | 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 Senator Tom Cotton advocate for drug testing individuals receiving Social Security benefits? Claim summaries: The Arkansas Republican has supported drug screening for welfare programs, but never for Social Security.
contextual information: Amid tense talks between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over the 2018 federal budget, the attention of many observers turned to each side's record on government spending, benefits and entitlements, and fiscal priorities. In that vein, a widely shared Facebook meme targeted Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, accusing him of supporting a modified version of a long-standing liberal bugbear: drug testing for welfare recipients. On January 21, 2018, Facebook user Ken Stanley wrote, "Tom Cotton calls for every person who receives Social Security to be drug tested; those who test positive will lose benefits." This claim is false. We searched Cotton's speeches, op-eds, and press releases, as well as the Congressional Record and news archives, and found no evidence of the Senator ever having advocated such a policy. In an email, a spokesperson for Cotton told us the meme was "completely false": Senator Cotton does not support (nor has he ever supported) drug testing for Social Security recipients. Indeed, even those who call for drug testing for welfare recipients do not typically propose the same policy for Social Security. This is because Social Security is more widely regarded as an earned benefit (workers contribute to it through payroll taxes), while programs such as housing assistance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) are regarded as welfare. Senator Cotton does, however, have a record of making statements and advocating policies around welfare assistance that have raised eyebrows. In 2015, Salon and Raw Story headlines accused Cotton of "blaming" drug addiction on Social Security benefits and claiming that receiving Social Security disability benefits causes individuals to "spiral" into drug addiction. The articles, as well as Cotton's actual comments, were more nuanced. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Cotton advocated for reform of the Social Security disability system and drew a link between population decline and social ills (including drug addiction) in certain counties and regions, and rates of Social Security disability insurance uptake: "It's hard to say what came first or caused the other: population decline or increased disability usage. Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be, at least at the county and regional level, something like a disability tipping point. When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm. It becomes an acceptable way of life and an alternative source of income to a good-paying, full-time job. After a certain point, when disability keeps climbing and becomes endemic, employers will struggle to find employees or begin or continue to move out of the area. Population continues to fall, and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once-thriving communities into further decline. Not only that, but once this kind of spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime." In 2014, while running for the Senate, a Huffington Post writer accused Cotton of "calling food stamp recipients addicts." Again, his comments were much more nuanced than that description. According to a Huffington Post transcript of a virtual town hall hosted by Cotton in July 2014, the then-Congressman defended voting down a Democratic bill relating to agricultural payments and federal food aid on the basis that it did not sufficiently reform the food stamps program, including by requiring drug testing for applicants: "I don't think that we should be using farmers as a way to pack more welfare spending into Barack Obama's government," Cotton said. "Nor should we have a food stamp program that isn't reformed, that doesn't have job training and work requirements, that doesn't have drug testing requirements, so we can get people who are addicted the help they need. Or make sure that long-term addicts or recidivists are not abusing taxpayer dollars." In March 2017, Cotton joined with Republican Senate colleagues in voting to nullify an Obama-era Department of Labor rule that limited the circumstances under which states could conduct drug testing for individuals applying for unemployment insurance. President Donald Trump later formally reversed the guideline, effectively giving states greater powers in conducting drug screening for jobless benefits. So Senator Cotton has certainly supported drug testing for welfare programs but never for Social Security. | 0 | [
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FMD3998 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Russian Twitter accounts posted almost 45,000 messages about Brexit in the 48 hours around last year s referendum in an attempt to sow discord during the vote on whether to leave the European Union, the Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Times cited research from an upcoming paper by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California, Berkeley, which it said showed accounts based in Russia had tweeted about Brexit in the days leading up to the June 23 vote. The Times said most of the tweets seen by the newspaper encouraged people to vote for Brexit, although a number advocated remaining in the EU. It quoted Tho Pham, one of the paper s authors, as saying the main conclusion is that bots were used on purpose and had influence . The research tracked 156,252 Russian accounts that mentioned #Brexit, including one, Svetal1972 which posted 92 tweets between June 20 and 24, including one calling for Britain to make June the 23rd our Independence Day . It said many of the messages appear to have come from automated accounts known as bots or from cyborg accounts which are heavily automated but have some human involvement. In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million votes, or 51.9 percent of votes cast, backed leaving the EU while 16.1 million votes, or 48.1 percent of votes cast, backed staying. Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in Brexit. Russian officials say the West is whipping up anti-Russian hysteria around Moscow s alleged involvement in both the U.S. presidential election and Brexit. In Britain, a parliamentary committee has written to Facebook s Mark Zuckerberg asking for information on any paid-for activity by Russian-linked Facebook accounts around the EU referendum and the 2017 national election. British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday accused Russia of meddling in elections and said the government would maintain its commitment to protecting Europe after Brexit. We will take the necessary actions to counter Russian activity, she said. | 1 | [
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FMD3999 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Share This: Dispatches from Eric Zuesse O n November 7th, a Morning Consult and Politico poll of early voters showed Donald Trump to be overwhelmingly viewed by early voters as being the more dangerous of the two major-Party candidates. The mega-corporation Alphabet, formerly known as Google, deserves a lot of the credit for that result, on candidate Hillary Clinton’s behalf — against, first, Bernie Sanders, and, now, Mr. Trump. Eric Schmidt, the billionaire Chairman and top executive of Alphabet Corporation, has been behind the scenes working for her campaign all along, and will be beyond being the most powerful person in the world (which he already was) if she wins. On 1 February 2016, FORTUNE bannered, “Google’s Parent Seizes Apple’s Crown As Most Valuable U.S. Company” , and that understated the reality: it’s been actually the entire world’s most valuable company ever since that time (and not merely the “Most Valuable U.S. Company”). Eric Schmidt: One of the billionaires who control our destiny, for the worse.
Schmidt detailed in the recently wikileaked 2014 email to Hillary’s campaign, the means for winning both the nomination and the ultimate victory. It was an email to Hillary Clinton’s aide Cheryl Mills, dated 15 April 2014 , and was promptly forwarded by her to John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign manager. Here is just the opening of it, to indicate the types of matters it addressed: 1. Size, Structure and Timing Let’s assume a total budget of about $1.5Billion, with more than 5000 paid employees and million(s) of volunteers. The entire startup ceases operation four days after November 8, 2016. The structure includes a Chairman or Chairwoman who is the external face of the campaign and a President who is the executive in charge of objectives, measurements, systems and building and managing the organization. Every day matters as our end date does not change. An official campaign right after midterm elections and a preparatory team assembled now is best. 2. Location The campaign headquarters will have about a thousand people, mostly young and hardworking and enthusiastic. Its important to have a very large hiring pool (such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees. DC is a poor choice as its full of distractions and interruptions. Moving the location from DC elsewhere guarantees visitors have taken the time to travel and to help. The key is a large population of talented people who are dying to work for you. Any outer borough of NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston are all good examples of a large, blue state city to base in. Employees will relocate to participate in the campaign, and will find low cost temporary housing or live with campaign supporters on a donated basis. This worked well in Chicago and can work elsewhere. The computers will be in the cloud and most likely on Amazon Web services (AWS). All the campaign needs are portable computers, tablets and smart phones along with credit card readers. 3. The pieces of a Campaign a) The Field Its important to have strong field leadership, with autonomy and empowerment. Operations talent needs to build the offices, set up the systems, hire the people, and administer what is about 5000 people. Initial modeling will show heavy hiring in the key battleground states. There is plenty of time to set these functions up and build the human systems. The field is about organizing people, voter contact, and get out the vote programs. .. Then, for example, there’s this: .. Partners like Blue State Digital will do much of the fund raising. A key point is to convert BSD and other partners to pure cloud service offerings to handle the expected crush and load. d) Media (paid), (earned) and (social), and polling New tools should be developed to measure reach and impact of paid, earned and social media. The impact of press coverage should be measurable in reach and impact, and TV effectiveness measured by attention and other surveys. Build tools that measure the rate and spread of stories and rumors, and model how it works and who has the biggest impact. Tools can tell us about the origin of stories and the impact of any venue, person or theme. .. and this: .. In the case where we can’t identify the specific human, we can still have a partial digital voter id, for a person or “probable-person” with attributes that we can identify and use to target. As they respond we can eventually match to a registered voter in the main file. This digital key is eventually matched to a real person. It’s focused on controlling the outcome regardless of the actual merits of the competing candidates; and Schmidt was an ultimate insider in his knowledge of what companies Podesta should select to carry out the various parts of this operation. (Of course, those companies will then be in a privileged position, alongside Alphabet, serving a Clinton Administration.) S chmidt also was proving to Hillary that in his work for her he was entirely objective in her interests, such as by his recommending Amazon, his big cloud-computing competitor, instead of Alphabet’s own cloud-computing service. This is a bipartisan operation, for her, against any and all other candidates. .. Schmidt also was crucially involved in helping in 2011 to plan the coup in Ukraine that Hillary’s State Department was then working on, and which culminated successfully in February 2014 . ( Here’s Hillary’s protégé Victoria Nuland overseeing the operation and selecting on 4 February 2014 who would be leading the country after the coup: “Yats” .) This ‘democratic revolution’ “featured civic self-organization aided by the use of Internet-based social media, neighborhood initiatives, and online news sites” , and this online operation (directed mainly at rallying Ukraine’s anti-Russians, called ‘pro-EU’ people) fits precisely the “tech camps” that started inside the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine on 1 March 2013 , after Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and Google’s and the U.S. State Department’s Jared Cohen, had deceived wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange into informing them, on 23 June 2011 , how to foment massive public demonstrations online. As planned (and, of course, Assange had no fore-knowledge of any of this), the coup ended in a very bloody ‘false-flag’ operation on 20 February 2014, in which Right Sector paramilitaries who had been trained by the rabidly anti-Russian racist Dmitriy Yarosh , and who were dressed as state-security police, shot down upon the crowd and murdered both regular policemen and the protesters, so that the bloodshed would be blamed on the man Obama was trying to oust, the democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych (who was lots more popular among Ukrainians than any of the subsequent top leaders of Ukraine have been). .. Then these Right Sector mercenaries massacred an untold number of Crimeans who had been peacefully demonstrating there in Kiev against the anti-government (called ‘Maidan’) demonstrators, and who fled back into their eight buses that had taken them there from Crimea, back now to Crimea. Yarosh’s people blocked the buses at the town of Korsun and murdered some and injured others . This terrified the people in Crimea, which had voted 75% for the very person that the Obama Administration had just overthrown. That massacre was a key precipitating-event for the plebiscite that was then held in Crimea on 16 March 2014, at which over 90% of the residents voted for Crimea to rejoin with Russia, of which it had been a part until the Soviet leader in 1954 arbitrarily transferred Crimea to Ukraine. .. Right Sector thugs (now in plain clothes) were also behind the subsequent 2 May 2014 massacre of the new regime’s peacefully demonstrating opponents inside the Trade Unions Building in Odessa — the event that sparked the breakaway of yet another region of Ukraine: Donbass. .. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wanted to control Ukraine because it has the longest border with Russia of any European country and would be ideal for placing missiles aimed at Moscow just a five minutes flight-time away. This was part of a plan that was started actually by U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush on the night of 24 February 1990 and which both Bill Clinton and Bush’s son advanced, as did Obama and as will Hillary — presumably to the plan’s ultimate conclusion, war against Russia. .. It’s a massive, decades-long, team-effort, on the part of America’s billionaires and their allied billionaires around the world; and, if Clinton wins, then it will be culminated. Eric Schmidt is key to her success in it, and will probably benefit hugely from it, if the conquest can be carried out by non-nuclear means or by ‘bluffing’ (which, of course, is being carefully gamed-out). But, just in case it goes nuclear, the people who are on the inside have already invested in nuclear bunkers for themselves and their friends and their friends’ friends . They are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best (for themselves, at least). About the author =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS | 0 | [
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