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FMD500 | 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: Can Getting COVID-19 Vaccine Disqualify You From Life Insurance Benefits? Claim summaries: As COVID-19 vaccines distribution ramped up in early 2021, so did misinformation.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As of March 10, 2021, more than 95 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered across the U.S. And, as jabs went into arms, misinformation regarding the immunization continued to spread across the internet. COVID-19 vaccine A number of social media users argued in March 2021 that life insurance providers could deny payout of a death benefit to beneficiaries if the policyholder died as a result of an experimental COVID-19 vaccination. number argued The claim spread widely on Twitter but appeared to have originated on an unidentified social media platform shared in a group called Parler Refugees, presumably a forum for those who previously used Parler, a social media platform popular among the alt-right and conspiracy theorists. claim appeared This claim is false. The original post was shared by a user by the name of Tracey Wiggins, and was specific to Canada. In response to the misinformation being shared online, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, Inc. (CHLIA) issued a statement on March 8 declaring that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine will have no effect on individual or workplace coverage or benefits from life insurance or supplementary health insurance, including disability, nor will it have any effect on the ability to apply for future coverage. statement March 8 No one should be afraid and choose to not protect themselves from COVID-19 because they are worried about it affecting their benefits, said Stephen Frank, President and CEO of CLHIA. All of Canadas life and health insurers are supportive of Canadians receiving government-approved vaccinations to protect themselves from serious illness and death. The insurance lobbying group American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) spokesperson Jack Dolan also confirmed to Snopes in an email that receiving the COVID-19 immunization will have no effect on life insurance in the U.S. and even in instances of experimental drugs, life insurers have to pay death claims. At the time of writing, three mRNA vaccines individually manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech were being distributed in the U.S. All three vaccinations were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under an Emergency Use Authorization, which allows for new therapeutics to be administered during public health emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic. An experimental or investigational drug, on the other hand, is one that has not received approval from government regulatory authorities but has shown promise in treating a disease or medical condition, according to the FDA. Under this definition, the COVID-19 vaccine would not be considered an "experimental" drug. Johnson & Johnson Moderna Pfizer-BioNTech Emergency Use Authorization FDA While COVID-19 vaccines are still being rigorously tested in broader-scale trials, health officials argue that the general safety and efficacy of the immunizations have warranted large-scale distribution. Snopes contacted the FDA and the National Institutes of Health for further clarification on the status of the three vaccines but did not receive a response in time for publication. We will update the article accordingly. As of March 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), has not detected patterns in the cause of death that would indicate a safety problem with COVID-19 vaccines. VAERS "Over 92 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through March 8, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 1,637 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine," wrote the agency. "A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths." In some rare cases, health experts noted that some people experienced a severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis after getting their COVID-19 vaccine approximately two to five people per 1 million in the U.S. However, reports indicate that anaphylaxis nearly always occurs within 30 minutes of receiving the vaccination and administrators will observe the vaccine recipient during this timeframe in the event that they need to respond. anaphylaxis Correction [March 25, 2021]: A quote misattributed to a spokesperson for the organization is now correctly attributed to Stephen Frank, President and CEO of CLHIA. | 0 | [
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FMD501 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump and his allies expect us to dismiss the 35-page dossier that details Donald Trump and his team s ties to the Russian government, but a lot of crazy stuff keeps happening that makes it impossible.When it was just former MI6 agent and author of the report Christopher Steele, who is in hiding to protect himself from both Trump and Putin s goons, saying that President Asterisk s closet is overflowing with skeletons (and Russian hooker urine) it was one thing, but the existence of audio and even video of Trump engaging in incriminating acts was confirmed by at least four sources, including one in the American intelligence community. Israeli intelligence officials have also been warned about sharing intel with Trump s administration for fear that it will be leaked to Vladimir Putin. And then there s the little matter of what happened to a gentleman who helped Steele compile his incriminating yet not entirely verified report Oleg Erovinkin was a former general in the KGB and the FSB. He is suspected of feeding information to Steele, and he was found dead in his car on Boxing Day. Russian state-run media initially reported that foul play was involved when Erovinkin s body was found in a black Lexus [and] a large-scale investigation has been commenced in the area. Erovinkin s body was sent to the FSB morgue. Since then, the cause of death has been downgraded to heart attack. The Telegraph reports:Erovinkin was a key aide to Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now head of Rosneft, the state-owned oil company, who is repeatedly named in the dossier.Erovinkin has been described as a key liaison between Sechin and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Mr Steele writes in an intelligence report dated July 19, 2016, he has a source close to Sechin, who had disclosed alleged links between Mr Trump s supporters and Moscow.The death of Erovinkin has prompted speculation it is linked to Mr Steele s explosive dossier, which was made public earlier this month. Mr Trump has dismissed the dossier as fake news and no evidence has emerged to support its lurid claims.The Russian state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Erovinkin s body was found in a black Lexus [and] a large-scale investigation has been commenced in the area. Erovinkin s body was sent to the FSB morgue .No cause of death has been confirmed and the FSB continues to investigate. Media reports suggested his death was a result of foul play.It was later claimed he died of a heart attack. Christo Grozev, an expert on Russia-related security threats, believes Erovinkin is the key source to whom Mr Steele refers in his dossier. Insiders have described Erovinkin to me alternately as Sechin s treasurer and the go-between between Putin and Sechin . One thing that everyone seems to agree both in public and private sources is that Erovinkin was Sechin s closest associate, Grozev says. I have no doubt that at the time Erovinkin died, Mr Putin had Mr Steele s Trump dossier on his desk. He would arguably have known whether the alleged story is based on fact or fiction. Whichever is true, he would have had a motive to seek and find the mole, he adds. He would have had to conclude that Erovinkin was at least a person of interest. At this point, it will be difficult for our own intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of this situation. Recently, for example, Trump decided to retain James Comey yes, the guy who interfered in the election on his behalf as the head of the FBI. The Donald also has the power to fire Comey if the ongoing investigation is not positive for Trump. At around the same time as the announcement, the Bureau cleared Michael Flynn of any wrongdoing in his numerous, suspicious calls to the Russian ambassador.Our country is in a bad place and we need more information to correctly determine what is going on with any of this information the current administration and his despotic allies will go to any lengths to hide.Was Erovinkin murdered because of his knowledge of information that could greatly hurt Trump and his BFF Putin? Maybe, maybe not. Putin is exactly the sort of person who has been known to leave a trail of dead journalists in his wake for reporting too much. It s not outside the realm of possibility that he had a former KGB agent murdered for knowing too much.Featured image via Getty Images (Drew Angerer)/Twitter | 0 | [
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FMD502 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s all about Hillary and Bill in their world. It s also about how much they can skim off the top or gain monetarily in the political world. Just a couple of grifters Hillary Clinton s greatest strength, the candidate explained in an interview with the morning newsletter The Skimm, is her passionate commitment to helping people. The passion was on display in 2009, for example, when Clinton personally intervened to help Swiss bank UBS settle a lawsuit with the IRS and thus protect the identities of tens of thousands of Americans who may or may not be evading U.S. taxes through Swiss bank accounts.Clinton was also asked about her greatest weakness. Here s what she said:Got that? Clinton s biggest fault is her inability to deal with you idiots who can t comprehend why Hillary Clinton should be president. You already rejected her once in 2008, and God help you if it happens again. You wouldn t like her when she s angry.This weakness was on display in 2008 during the Democratic primary, when Hillary was brought to tears upon realizing that Democratic voters might reject her in favor of an inexperienced celebrity like Barack Obama.Via: WFB | 0 | [
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FMD503 | 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: Hooters Bans Motorcycle Clubs from All Restaurants Claim summaries: Rumor: Photograph shows a sign at a Hooters restaurant stating that motorcycle clubs are not allowed inside.
contextual information: Claim: Hooters has banned motorcyclists from wearing club patches and colors in all of their locations. Example: [Collected via e-internet, May 2015] I was wondering if there is any truth that Hooters as a National chain was completely banning Motorcycle club colors from every Hooters around or only certain ones like in Atlanta. Origins: Shortly after a deadly motorcycle gang shootout took place in in Waco, Texas, in May 2015, a photograph purportedly showing a "no motorcycle colors or patches" sign outside of a Hooters restaurant began circulating online: Several motorcyclist took to the company's Facebook page to voice their complaints about the new rule, with most posters taking issue with the fact that the preponderance of motorcycle clubs have no gang affiliations. Although many viewers assumed the sign was an expression of a new corporate policy, that was not the case: Hooters has not made any official announcements regarding a newly-imposed ban on motorcycle clubs. The above-displayed photograph is the only image documenting the purported policy; there is no information about where it was taken, nor do any other photographs document that this type of sign has been put on display at other Hooters restaurants across the country. In fact, at least one Hooters location has taken to Facebook to say specifically that they have not been instructed to ban people wearing motorcycle club patches. After hearing about the sign, Hooters McKinney changed their Facebook profile to a Hooters girl washing a motorcycle and posted a message to their customers: Facebook The sign being referred to, that has been passed around the Internet, is not and has not ever been at our location. As far as management knows there is not any in the area of us either. We do not know where the sign was seen but can guarantee it was not with our location. We welcome everyone and will continue to welcome everyone. On 28 May 2015, Hooters confirmed that while the sign is real, it was displayed only at a single location (in Waco, Texas), and the company does not have a chain-wide ban on the display of motorcycle patches and colors: confirmed In light of the tragic events of May 17, the Hooters restaurant in Waco, Texas, has posted a sign requesting that patrons refrain from displaying their motorcycle club affiliation while dining with us. Even though none of our restaurants were involved in the incident, the safety and wellbeing of our guests and employees are always our top priorities and we believe special precautions are warranted in this situation, at least for now. This is not a system-wide policy. Although a similar request was made of guests last year in one East Coast location, we have no plans of implementing it elsewhere at this time. We fully understand that the majority of motorcycle enthusiast organizations are comprised of upstanding folks that share a passion for riding and a common interest in our community. It has been and will continue to be our privilege to welcome and serve them, along with all of our other guests, in our restaurants. Hooters will continue to work with local authorities to preserve a safe environment for our guests and employees. Last updated: 28 May 2015 | 0 | [
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FMD504 | 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 it stated by Michael Bloomberg that Donald Trump is a 'con artist' and a 'cheat'? Claim summaries: Michael Bloomberg did call Donald Trump's candidacy a "con," but he didn't refer to Trump as a "con artist" and a "cheat."
contextual information: A graphic featuring an image of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg next to a quote ostensibly attributed to him about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, referring to the GOP candidate as a "con artist" and a "cheat," has been widely circulated on social media. The text of this image first started circulating in July 2016, shortly after Bloomberg made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention to endorse Hillary Clinton. Bloomberg issued several remarks critical of Donald Trump during his DNC speech, including referring to his candidacy as a "con" and mocking his business acumen, but he did not say the words attributed to him above. A full transcript of Bloomberg's speech can be found here, while the relevant portion has been reproduced below: "I'm a New Yorker, and New Yorkers know a con when we see one! Trump says he'll punish manufacturers that move to Mexico or China, but the clothes he sells are made overseas in low-wage factories. He says he wants to put Americans back to work, but he games the US visa system so he can hire temporary foreign workers at low wages. He says he wants to deport 11 million undocumented people, but he seems to have no problem hiring them. What did I miss here?! Truth be told, the richest thing about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy. He wants you to believe that we can solve our biggest problems by deporting Mexicans and shutting out Muslims. He wants you to believe that erecting trade barriers will bring back good jobs. He's wrong on both counts. We can only solve our biggest problems if we come together and embrace the freedoms that our Founding Fathers established right here in Philadelphia, which permitted our ancestors to create the great American exceptionalism that all of us now enjoy. Donald Trump doesn't understand that. Hillary Clinton does. And we can only create good jobs if we make smarter investments in infrastructure and do more to support small businesses, not stiff them. I understand the appeal of a businessman president. But Trump's business plan is a disaster in the making. He would make it harder for small businesses to compete, do great damage to our economy, threaten the retirement savings of millions of Americans, lead to greater debt and more unemployment, erode our influence in the world, and make our communities less safe. The bottom line is: Trump is a risky, reckless, and radical choice. And we can't afford to make that choice. Nonetheless, some newspapers misquoted Bloomberg and reported that he had referred to Trump as a "con artist." It was Florida Senator Marco Rubio who referred to Trump (more than once) as a "con artist" during the campaign for the Republican nomination. "We are so excited about what lies ahead for our campaign," Rubio said. "You see, just five days ago, we began to unmask the true nature of the front-runner so far in this race. Five days ago, we began to explain to the American people that Donald Trump is a con artist. Two weeks from tonight, right here in Florida, we are going to send a message loud and clear. We are going to send the message that the party of Lincoln and Reagan and the presidency of the United States will never be held by a con artist." | 0 | [
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FMD505 | 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: Sean Penn Letter to Washington Post Claim summaries: Did Sean Penn publish a letter to the President in the Washington Post?
contextual information: Claim: Actor Sean Penn published a letter to President George W. Bush in The Washington Post. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] An Open Letter to the President of the United States of America Mr. Bush: Good morning, sir. Like you, I am a father and an American. Like you, I consider myself a patriot. Like you, I was horrified by the events of this past year, concerned for my family and my country. However, I do not believe in a simplistic and inflammatory view of good and evil. I believe this is a big world full of men, women, and children who struggle to eat, to love, to work, and to protect their families, their beliefs, and their dreams. My father, like yours, was decorated for service in World War II. He raised me with a deep belief in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as they should apply to all Americans who would sacrifice to maintain them and to all human beings as a matter of principle. Many of your actions to date and those proposed seem to violate every defining principle of this country over which you preside: intolerance of debate ("with us or against us"), marginalization of your critics, the promotion of fear through unsubstantiated rhetoric, manipulation of a quick comfort media, and the position of your administration's deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim. You lead, it seems, through a blood-lined sense of entitlement. Take a close look at your most vehement media supporters. See the fear in their eyes as their loud voices of support ring out with that historically disastrous undercurrent of rage and panic masked as "straight tough talk." How far have we come from understanding what it is to kill one man, one woman, or one child, much less the "collateral damage" of many hundreds of thousands? Your use of the words, "this is a new kind of war," is often accompanied by an odd smile. It concerns me that what you are asking of us is to abandon all previous lessons of history in favor of following you blindly into the future. It worries me because, with all your best intentions, an enormous economic surplus has been squandered. Your administration has virtually dismissed the most fundamental environmental concerns and therefore, by implication, one gets the message that, as you seem to be willing to sacrifice the children of the world, would you also be willing to sacrifice ours? I know this cannot be your aim, so I beg you, Mr. President, listen to Gershwin, read chapters of Stegner, of Saroyan, the speeches of Martin Luther King. Remind yourself of America. Remember the Iraqi children, our children, and your own. There can be no justification for the actions of Al Qaeda, nor acceptance of the criminal viciousness of the tyrant, Saddam Hussein. Yet, that bombing is answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing; this is a pattern that only a great country like ours can stop. However, principles cannot be recklessly or greedily abandoned in the guise of preserving them. Avoiding war while accomplishing national security is no simple task. But you will recall that we Americans had a little missile problem down in Cuba once. Mr. Kennedy's restraint (and that of the nuclear submarine captain, Arkhipov) is to be aspired to. Weapons of mass destruction are clearly a threat to the entire world in any hands. But as Americans, we must ask ourselves, since the potential for Mr. Hussein to possess them threatens not only our country (and in fact, his technology to launch is likely not yet at that high a level of sophistication), therefore, many in his own region would have the greatest cause for concern. Why then, is the United States, as led by your administration, in the small minority of the world nations predisposed toward a preemptive military assault on Iraq? Simply put, sir, let us reintroduce inspection teams, inhibiting offensive capability. We buy time, maintain our principles here and abroad, and demand of ourselves the ingenuity to be the strongest diplomatic muscle on the planet, perhaps in the history of the planet. The answers will come. You are a man of faith, but your saber is rattling the faith of many Americans in you. I do understand what a tremendously daunting task it must be to stand in your shoes at this moment. As a father of two young children who will live their lives in the world as it will be affected by critical choices today, I have no choice but to believe that you can ultimately stand as a great president. History has offered you such a destiny. So again, sir, I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror. Don't destroy our children's future. We will support you. You must support us, your fellow Americans, and indeed, mankind. Defend us from fundamentalism abroad, but don't turn a blind eye to the fundamentalism of a diminished citizenry through loss of civil liberties, of dangerously heightened presidential autonomy through acts of Congress, and of this country's mistaken and pervasive belief that its "manifest destiny" is to police the world. We know that Americans are frightened and angry. However, sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine. On the other hand, should you mine and have faith in the best of this country to support your leadership in representing a strong, thoughtful, and educated United States, you may well triumph for the long haul. Lead us there, Mr. President, and we will stand with you. Sincerely, Sean Penn San Francisco, California Origins: The letter quoted above did indeed appear in the pages of The Washington Post as a paid advertisement. Numerous news stories have reported that it cost actor Sean Penn $56,000 to run the ad, which took up most of a page in the first section of the 18 October 2002 edition of The Washington Post. Is Sean Penn right? It doesn't matter; the point is every American always has opinions about the government, and this condition exists no matter who is in the White House or what he's doing. There are going to be people on both sides of any issue, and at times some of them will be famous and/or wealthy. There's a larger question here: Should the opinions of celebrities or the well-to-do be accorded higher degrees of respect simply because the folks they issue from have the power or money to publicize them? Most folks don't have the requisite $56,000 to ensure their views get printed in The Washington Post and instead have to make do with a 37-cent stamp and their faith in the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail to the White House. This method, by the way, works well when the sole object of the activity is to relay one citizen's deeply felt concerns to the President of his country; a stamp places that power to be heard into every person's hands, no matter how humble. Buying space in a newspaper, however, is far less about securing the attention of a President deemed urgently in need of guidance than it is about pontificating to the masses, even if the piece is putatively "addressed" to just one person. It's a soapbox grab and an especially arrogant, self-entitled one in that the podium is gained not by virtue of stunning displays of eloquence or irrefutable logic but by way of its having been rented for the day. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1999 the median income for American households was $41,994. In other words, the wage earners in a statistically typical American family would have to work at least 16 months just to gross what Sean Penn paid for a turn on the soapbox. For many of them, including the millions of families living far below the poverty line, $56,000 is an unimaginable fortune, the likes of which they'll never see unless they hit the lottery. | 1 | [
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FMD506 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • A Times investigation reveals how Russia aimed the perfect weapon at the U. S. presidential election: cyberattacks honed in elections elsewhere. Intelligence officials believe an operation to collect information evolved into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump. Above, the Democratic National Convention’s hacked server on a table in the organization’s basement, next to a reminder of a past breach: a filing cabinet jimmied in the Watergate burglary of its offices in 1972. _____ • Mr. Trump is lining up veteran members of the Republican foreign policy establishment to endorse his choice for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson. With Mr. Tillerson as chief executive, Exxon Mobil clashed with China and befriended Vietnam over disputed territory in the South China Sea. Mr. Trump, above at Trump Tower on Tuesday, also selected Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, to lead the Energy Department, placing him in charge the country’s aging nuclear arsenal. Here’s the latest on the transition. _____ • Jobs, jobs and more jobs. That will be the issue when Mr. Trump holds a summit with some of America’s tech leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla, above, Timothy D. Cook of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. The tech community, which was largely averse to Mr. Trump’s campaign, may be asked to spread its wealth beyond places like Silicon Valley and Seattle. And the Federal Reserve is expected to give the American economy a vote of confidence, raising interest rates slightly for the first time in a year. Our analyst cautions that Mr. Trump’s promised stimulus could set off a round of rapid rate increases to stave off inflation. _____ • Russia, Turkey and Syrian rebel groups reached an agreement for rebels to leave their last pockets of territory in the ravaged city of Aleppo. Evacuations were expected to begin shortly, leaving the city fully in the hands of government forces, a definitive victory. But there was confusion over whether the deal would assure safe passage for civilians, who the U. N. said had been shot in the streets by the score. _____ • In Indonesia, the Christian governor of Jakarta, at the start of his trial on blasphemy charges, tearfully denied that he had meant to insult Islam. Critics say the case threatens Indonesia’s reputation as a model for religious freedom and democracy in the region. _____ • A child sex abuse scandal is exploding through British soccer. Since Andrew Woodward, above, became the first professional player in Britain to go public with his account of repeated rapes by his childhood coach, at least 20 former players have come forward. The police are looking into the possibility of hundreds of victims at 98 soccer clubs, from the amateur level to the Premier League. • India’s demonetization crisis has catapulted millions of small and into a cashless economy, with the country’s leading electronic money service now reporting a half a million new customers each day. • Japan’s Asahi will pay $7. 8 billion to InBev for a group of some of the most popular beers in Central and Eastern Europe. • A Southern California Apeel, has created an imperceptible, edible coating for fruits and vegetables that extends shelf life and could bring sweeping changes to the produce industry and grocery aisles. • And don’t view retirement as a light at the end of a career tunnel, our personal finance writer warns. He offers a few tips to rearrange your work life. • Wall Street stocks are up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • More than 8, 000 people gathered in Nanjing for China’s third annual national memorial day for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Japanese invasion in 1937. [Xinhua] • South Korean lawmakers will question medical staff members over President Park ’s whereabouts directly after a deadly 2014 ferry disaster. [Reuters] • Communist rebels in the Philippines, the National Democratic Front, said they would sign a formal if President Rodrigo Duterte agreed to release political prisoners. [Manila Times] • Malaysia’s Federal Court rejected a final appeal by the former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to overturn a jail term for sodomy. [Malaysiakini] • Anastasia Lin, a Canadian who was barred from the 2015 Miss World competition in China because of her criticism of the Chinese government, has been ordered by pageant organizers not to speak publicly during this year’s finals, now underway in Washington. [The New York Times] • Mexico’s 17, 063 homicides by the end of October was the country’s highest tally since 2012, raising fears of a return to warfare among criminal gangs. [The New York Times] • A review of data from 151 countries found wide gaps in education among followers of the world’s major religions. [The New York Times] • Smuggled TV shows, movies and radio programs are helping North Koreans see the outside world, and planting seeds of doubt about their government, a prominent author argues. • Satellite images provide a picture of how the world’s lakes and rivers have been altered over the past three decades by drought and global warming. • Some road trip. A trip through six African countries with five children. What could go wrong? • “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,†opens this week in Asia and the U. S. with projections of one of the biggest December debuts. Here’s our review. We told you last week about a fight in Canada over a proposed official bird, the gray jay. Canadians have also sparred over whether poutine (fries topped with cheese curds and gravy) should beat out maple syrup as their most representative food (no). In some places, trademark foods are not so . Many Britons consider chicken tikka masala, a colonial adaptation featuring a bright orange sauce, as their national dish — more so than fish and chips. The concoction, one official said, “is a perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences. †In other places, there’s no question about the winner. For example, New Mexico reveres the local chile. It’s nowhere near as hot as peppers in China, India or the Caribbean, but it is perhaps the most consistent ingredient in the state’s dishes. Lawmakers in the late ’90s declared the state’s official question to be “Red or green?†As in: Which variety of chile sauce do you want? One answer plays no favorites. Order “Christmas,†and you’ll get both. Can’t handle the heat? Reach for a glass of milk, which neutralizes the capsaicin that makes your taste buds sting. It’s also the official beverage of 21 states. Anna Holland contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 | [
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FMD507 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: "This is an example of Donald Trump managing, and the type of leadership he will bring to the presidency in November," Manafort said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo. "He also understood that winning isn't enough, that it's about how you win and how much you win."
Manafort told CNN, "I work directly for the boss," a notable departure from the usual workflow at Trump's 2016 operation, where most campaign staff answer to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Manafort joins the Trump campaign as a contested Republican convention becomes more likely. Trump suffered a critical loss to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Tuesday in the Wisconsin primary. However, the strategist says he is confident the Cruz campaign will hit a rough patch, allowing Trump to win the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright.
"Utah and New York are two different states," he said. "By the time we get to California, the momentum is going to be clear, and Ted Cruz's path to victory will be in shambles." Donald Trump has 746 delegates to date of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright, meaning Trump would have to win the remaining 61% of delegates up for grabs. RELATED: Donald Trump looks to dominate New York Manafort is also optimistic Trump will block Cruz's chance of winning on the first ballot if the convention is contested. "You got to understand what the game is. If the game is a second, third or fourth ballot then what he's doing is clever, but on the first ballot it is meaningless." Manafort's experience in campaigns goes back to the 1976 contested Republican convention . Trump's hiring of Manafort fueled speculation he was replacing campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. However, Manafort insists there was no internal shakeup. "I listen to everybody," he said. "I view my job as making sure people get to understand and meet Donald Trump." | 1 | [
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FMD508 | 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: Charles Krauthammer's perspective on President Obama Claim summaries: Message summarizes Charles Krauthammer's talk at the Center of the American Experiment?
contextual information: A friend went to hear Charles Krauthammer and listened with 25 others in a closed room. What he shares here is not second-hand but first-hand. You would do well to read this and pass it along to everyone who loves their country. This is very serious for the direction of our nation, and the ramifications are staggering for us and our children. To my friends and associates: Last Monday was a profound evening, hearing Dr. Charles Krauthammer speak at the Center for the American Experiment. He is a brilliant intellectual—seasoned and articulate. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, never resorting to emotions or personal insults. He is not a fearmonger nor an extremist in his comments and views. He is a fiscal conservative and has a Pulitzer Prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post. The entire room was spellbound during his talk. I have shared this with many of you, and several have asked me to summarize his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally. Even two Democrats at my table agreed with everything he said! If you feel like forwarding this to those who are open-minded and have not "drunk the Kool-Aid," feel free. A summary of his comments: 1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual who should not be underestimated. He is a "cool customer" who doesn't show his emotions, making it hard to know what is "behind the mask." Taking down the Clinton dynasty as a political neophyte was an amazing accomplishment; the Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time. 2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he says; rather, watch what he does! 3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something of himself but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He cannot be straightforward about his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand and wants to "level the playing field" through income redistribution and punishment of society's achievers. He would like to model the USA after Great Britain or Canada. 4. His three main goals are to control energy, public education, and national healthcare through the federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for free college education is his goal. Most concerning is his healthcare program; if you make it free and add 46 million people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, costs will skyrocket. The only way to control costs is through massive rationing of services, as seen in Canada. God forbid. 5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store, yet they will try to manage the auto, financial, banking, and other industries. This obviously cannot work in the long run. Obama's not a socialist; rather, he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says. 6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States but more as a ruler over the world. He views himself as above it all, trying to orchestrate and coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he perceives America—as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has made errors at times. This is the first president ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies! 7. He is now handing out goodies, hoping that the bill (and pain) will not "come due" until after he's reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past and, hopefully, his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Mr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist. 8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while but will emerge strong. We are "pining" for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent but needs to seriously bone up on facts and information if she is to be a serious candidate in the future. We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and states' rights. 9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we do not have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression, or worse. No country has ever spent itself into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid, and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually, the bill will come due, and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions, and Congress to placate the left so he can get support for the aforementioned goals. 10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman Brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular president, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of "change" caused people to act emotionally. Any Democrat would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was. 11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it is under 8%, the Democrats will continue to roll. If it is between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight. It will all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what is happening in Washington and Congress. There is a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we are right on most issues and can reclaim our country before it is far too late. | 2 | [
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FMD509 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Whenever we have a terror attack in America, the media goes to great lengths to make sure no one assumes of the killer was a Muslim. Meanwhile, the media has gone out of their way to convince Americans that all Hispanics hate Trump. Isn t it interesting how quickly they print a story about the murderer of two Muslim men who witnesses describe as a tall Hispanic man and then blame Trump?An imam and his assistant were shot and killed in broad daylight as they walked home from a mosque in Queens. That s not what America is about, Khairul Islam, 33, a local resident told the Daily News. We blame Donald Trump for this. Trump and his drama has created Islamophobia. Another Imam, whose name is unknown at the moment, also blamed the real estate mogul and former NYC mayor for the shooting. For those in leadership like Trump and Mr. Giuliani, and other members of other institutions that project Islam and Muslims as the enemy, this is the end result of their wickedness, the Imam said at a gathering of Muslims protesting the shooting.Other Muslim gatherings were chanting This is Donald Trump s fault, and Muslim hate crime. Witnesses providing leads to the NYPD described the shooter as a tall man of Hispanic descent. The NYPD is currently conducting an extensive canvass of the area for video and seeking additional witnesses as the shooter remains at large. Breitbart | 0 | [
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FMD510 | 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 upstate New York split from downstate the economic indicators of upstate New York would be among the lowest in the country.
contextual information: Former Lt. Governor Robert Duffy pennedan op-edpiece in the Rochester Business Journal urging upstate lawmakers to form their own caucus. Doing so would help them press upstate issues in a state legislature dominated by downstate lawmakers. But upstate New York breaking from downstate entirely? Duffy called the idea ludicrous. If we ever did that, the economic indicators of upstate New York would be among the lowest in the country, Duffy claimed. We do count on downstate to carry much of the load for the economic health of New York. Calls for upstate to secede from New York State are not new. But secession gained steam last year when upstate advocates pitched the idea at aprotestin the Southern Tier. Some were angry over gun control laws passed in 2013. Others were upset by the ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, because they believe the gas drilling process would boost that regions struggling economy. One of the leading secession proponents, the Divide NYS Caucus, hopes for momentum to build ahead of a future Constitutional Convention in New York State. Voters will decide whether to hold a convention in the 2017 general election. Downstate hasa bigger populationthan upstate. The Assembly is comfortably in the hands of lawmakers from New York City and the surrounding area, most of whom are Democrats. The State Senate, meanwhile, is controlled by Republicans, mostly from upstate and Long Island. Is Duffy right? Would upstates economy rank low on its own? The Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce was not able to tell us which economic indicators Duffy was referring to. We looked at two indicators typically used to measure the economy - unemployment and wages - to check his claim. The unemployment scorecard As ofJuly, the statewide unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Thats better than the national average of 4.9 percent. But New York State still ranks 25th in the nation, tied with three other states. Duffy says the line dividing upstate from downstate is the same used in this yearsminimum wage hike. In that deal, New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County were given a different timeline to reach the higher wage than the rest of the state. Our analysis uses the same method: We define upstate as everything north of New York City except for Westchester County. Theres no data publicly available that shows unemployment for this definition of upstate. We used county-level data from state and federal databases to evaluate Duffys claim. The unemployment rate in upstate New York is 4.6 percent, according to the latest data from the state Department of Labor. That number is an average of thecountiesweve defined as upstate. Thats better than the statewide average and would rank 23rd in the nation - ahead of the statewide ranking. The wage scorecard Income per capita is different than the average wage. It measures how much money someone takes in, whether its earned at a job or not, instead of just measuring how much a job pays. We looked at both. In upstate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the per capita income was $40,123 at the end of 2014, the latest county-level data. Upstate would have ranked 37th in the nation that year, below the national average of $46,049. New York State as a whole rankedfifththat year. As for wages, only Washington, D.C., had a higher average wage than New York States $67,521. The national average is $52,942. The average wage upstate was $42,287 by the end of 2015, according todatafrom the U.S. Department of Labor. If it was its own state, upstate would rank 44th for wages, ahead of South Carolina but behind New Mexico. Our ruling Duffy wrote in the Rochester Business Journal that the economic indicators of upstate New York would be among the lowest in the country if the region split from downstate. We compared national data on unemployment and wages to county-level data to rate his claim. With Duffys definition of upstate New York, unemployment is close to the national average while wages and income are among the lowest in the country according to the latest data. We rate this claim as Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/fa7c54fa-de00-4abc-9ed1-8e386ceaf46c | 1 | [
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FMD511 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Did a 1922 Article Warn of Oceans Warming? Claim summaries: A newspaper article warning that climate change was melting Arctic ice and disrupting wildlife was published nearly a century ago.
contextual information: One of the key issues in the global warming debate is whether modern scientists have sufficient data and tools to determine if current warming trends are indicative of long-term climatic changes rather than relatively short-term weather pattern variability. A text widely shared online seemingly provides an example of the pitfalls of mistaking the latter for the former, purportedly reproducing a 1922 newspaper article warning that the Arctic Ocean was experiencing a radical change in climatic conditions, which was warming its waters, melting ice, and disrupting wildlife: "The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer, and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot," according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the Gulf Stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. I apologize; I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post 88 years ago! The text in the above example is a genuine transcription of a 1922 newspaper article, an Associated Press account that appeared on page 2 of The Washington Post on November 2 of that year. That article, in turn, was based on information relayed by the American consul in Norway to the U.S. State Department in October 1922 and published in the Monthly Weather Review: "The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters, and explorers who sail the seas about Spitzbergen and the eastern Arctic all point to a radical change in climatic conditions and hitherto unheard-of high temperatures in that part of the Earth's surface." In August 1922, the Norwegian Department of Commerce sent an expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island under the leadership of Dr. Adolf Hoel, a lecturer on geology at the University of Christiania. Its purpose was to survey and chart the lands adjacent to the Norwegian mines on those islands, take soundings of the adjacent waters, and make other oceanographic investigations. Ice conditions were exceptional; in fact, so little ice had never before been noted. The expedition all but established a record, sailing as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes in ice-free water. This is the farthest north ever reached with modern oceanographic apparatus. The character of the waters of the great polar basin has heretofore been practically unknown. Dr. Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees north latitude and took soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters. These show the Gulf Stream to be very warm, and it could be traced as a surface current until beyond the 81st parallel. The warmth of the waters makes it probable that the favorable ice conditions will continue for some time. In connection with Dr. Hoel's report, it is of interest to note the unusually warm summer in Arctic Norway and the observations of Capt. Martin Ingebrigsten, who has sailed the eastern Arctic for 54 years. He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, that since that time it has steadily gotten warmer, and that today the Arctic of that region is not recognizable as the same region of 1868 to 1917. Many old landmarks are so changed as to be unrecognizable. Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now often moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended far into the sea, they have entirely disappeared. As interesting as this nearly century-old article might be from a modern perspective, however, it isn't substantive evidence either for or against the concept of anthropogenic global warming. As documented elsewhere, the warming phenomena observed in 1922 proved to be indicative only of a local event in Spitzbergen, not a trend applicable to the Arctic as a whole. | 1 | [
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FMD512 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Wednesday signaled plans for a big assault on Republican Donald Trump, even as she battles to hold off rival Bernie Sanders in California. Clinton, a former secretary of state, is to deliver what her campaign described as a major speech on Thursday in San Diego to underscore what she feels would be the threat posed by Trump to U.S. national security if he is elected president on Nov. 8. Her language to describe Trump has grown more aggressive by the day. On Wednesday, she seized on testimony released in a lawsuit against Trump University, in which some former workers said they believed Trump’s for-profit school was fraudulent. “Trump and his employees took advantage of vulnerable Americans encouraging them to max out their credit cards, empty their retirement savings, destroy their financial futures, all while making promises they knew were false from the beginning,†Clinton told a campaign event in Newark, New Jersey. “This is just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud.†Lawyers for Trump have said most students were satisfied with Trump University, dismissing the former workers’ testimony as discredited. Trump, anticipating Clinton’s foreign policy attacks on him, tried to raise doubts about her leadership skills at a rally in Sacramento, Calif. “She is a person with absolutely no natural talent,†he said. “All you have to do is watch her speak.†Repeatedly referring to Clinton as “crooked Hillary,†Trump sharply criticized her handling of foreign policy, including the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by Islamic militants on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador. “She went to sleep,†Trump added. Clinton’s effort to define Trump as unfit to be commander in chief comes as she faces fierce opposition from Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont who has insisted on staying in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination despite Clinton’s nearly insurmountable lead. California’s primary next Tuesday is shaping up to be pivotal in the Democratic contest, with Clinton holding a 13-point advantage over Sanders, 51 percent to 38 percent, according to the Hoover Institution’s Golden State Poll in the state. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll gave Clinton a much narrower lead of 49 percent, to 47 percent for Sanders. Clinton, with 2,312 delegates, needs 71 more delegates to reach the required 2,383 for the Democratic nomination. Sanders has 1,545. At stake in the California primary are 548 delegates who are awarded proportional to the vote. Five other states also vote next Tuesday, including New Jersey, which could also turn the tide for Clinton. Despite Clinton’s perceived advantage, there are lingering concerns among some Democrats about possible weakness, given the protracted battle with Sanders, a democratic socialist whose calls for free college tuition have energized young voters. Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that California voters appeared to be leaning toward Sanders in recent days. Sanders has been holding events every day this week in the state. Clinton canceled a New Jersey event planned for Thursday to go to California a day earlier than anticipated and is to stay there until Monday. “The inevitability behind Mrs. Clinton’s nomination will be in large measure eviscerated if she loses the June 7 California primary to Bernie Sanders,†Schoen wrote. “That could well happen.†Other Democrats expressed confidence in Clinton’s position and her move to assail Trump on foreign policy. “I think she has to,†said Democratic strategist Jim Manley. “Leaving aside California, I think they can’t just ignore Donald Trump in that they should be spending a majority of time focusing on him instead of Sanders at this point, because based on the math Sanders can’t win.†Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has faced criticism for a variety of positions on foreign policy, such as his willingness to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his idea that Japan and South Korea might need to develop nuclear arsenals. On the other hand, past Republican presidents and current Democratic President Barack Obama have, like Trump, said NATO nations should pay more for their defense to ease the U.S. burden. Trump, however, has declared NATO obsolete and in need of reconfiguring. A Clinton aide said Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, would say Trump had not outlined a coherent foreign policy doctrine and had proven himself to be temperamentally unfit to serve as president. | 1 | [
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FMD513 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Italy s highest court on Friday upheld a four-year jail sentence on the former chairman of Generali Cesare Geronzi for his role in the 2003 bankruptcy of food company Cirio. The decision, by the Rome-based Court of Cassation, is final and cannot be appealed. However, three of the four years will be wiped out under a national amnesty and Geronzi, a symbol of old-style Italian capitalism, will not actually serve any jail time because of his age, 82. In April 2015 an appeals court had handed Geronzi a four- year prison sentence for bankruptcy, confirming the previous sentence in a long court battle that started in 2003. Geronzi s lawyers over the years have argued that he had no specific powers over Cirio at the time of its bankruptcy, when he was at the helm of lender Capitalia, and that he had acted correctly. The Rome Court of Cassation also ordered on Friday a new trial for Cirio s ex-chief, Sergio Cragnotti, who was handed a sentence of eight years and eight months in 2015. | 1 | [
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FMD514 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Presidential candidate Ted Cruz says he is the most consistent conservative left in the Republican race. The senator from Texas promises to cut taxes, slash regulations, crack down on illegal immigration and stick up for gun owners if he wins the White House. Here is a look at how Cruz has pledged to handle major issues should he become the Republican nominee and then win the Nov. 8 election. The policies are drawn from a review of his website, stump speeches, debates, legislative proposals and televised interviews. Cruz would boost border security by completing 700 miles (1,130 km) of priority fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, tripling the number of Border Patrol agents and adding aircraft for border surveillance. He would rescind President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration, which allow certain undocumented immigrants to stay in the country without fear of deportation. Cruz would ramp up deportations and would expand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention space in the United States. He would withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities†that do not prosecute undocumented immigrants. The candidate would end birthright citizenship, in which children born in the United States are automatically citizens. Cruz introduced legislation placing a moratorium on accepting Syrian refugees and letting states opt out of accepting refugees. He supports prioritizing Syrian Christians for refugee status. Cruz opposes the Export-Import Bank, which finances U.S. exports. He opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, saying in a March debate that the United States is “getting killed†in international trade. He voted against giving Obama fast-track authority to secure the TPP, which Cruz said became enmeshed in backroom political deals. Cruz would abolish the Internal Revenue Service. He would establish a flat personal income tax of 10 percent, keeping deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments and the Child Tax Credit. He would eliminate the corporate income tax and payroll taxes, replacing them with a flat business tax of 16 percent that critics say resembles a value-added tax. Cruz would repeal the healthcare plan commonly known as Obamacare, and would eliminate other regulations. He would audit the Federal Reserve and move to a rules-based monetary policy. Cruz would repeal the Iran nuclear deal, and would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He has said he would “carpet bomb†the Islamic State militant group. Cruz has said he would oppose efforts to oust foreign dictators, which he says create power vacuums and enable terrorists. | 1 | [
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FMD515 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: During Made In America week, an initiative which is supposedly to promote U.S. jobs and products, the Trump Organization is asking the federal government to grant dozens of special visas to foreign nationals to work at two of Donald Trump s private clubs in Florida, including his Mar-a-Lago resort, which he also calls the Winter White House. it s like the former reality show star isn t even trying anymore.ABC reports:The company is seeking 35 waiters and waitresses at Mar-a-Lago along with 20 cooks and 15 maids. A listing is also posted for six cooks at the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter. The jobs pay anywhere from $10.33 to $20.01 per hour. They run from Oct. 1 to May 31.On Thursday, requests for H-2B visas had been made public on the Department of Labor s website.The jobs would begin in October and end in May 2018 and pay a minimum of $10.33, $11.88 and $13.34 per hour but would be eligible for higher wages with overtime.The visa request filing came just days after the Trump administration announced it would offer an extra 15,000 temporary, seasonal work visas this budget year and we re sure that s not a coincidence at all.In mid-April, Trump signed an executive order which promotes the Buy American and Hire American idea.The EO states it is to create higher wages and employment rates for workers in the United States. While we wouldn t have any problem with the hiring of foreign workers, Trump s hypocrisy is staggering.CNN reports:A CNN analysis of visa records in April found businesses run and owned by Trump and his adult children have been certified to hire at least 1,371 foreign visa workers since 2001.Just this past March, a winery owned by Eric Trump in Virginia applied to hire more foreign workers to pick grapes after being unable to find U.S. citizens willing to do the job.Trump s actions against immigration has farmers concerned because, they also hire foreign workers. If it gets worse, as one farmer put it, you re going to be living in a world without peaches maybe at least California peaches. But Mar-a-Lago and the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, will be OK. Whew!Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. | 0 | [
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FMD516 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Andy Nowicki (the Alt Right Novelist) and FunkSoul & Randy J (21WIRE & ACR contributors), for the hundred and twentieth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.This week on the show the ACR Brain-Trust is back with another meeting of the Social Reject Club in the No Friends Left Zone and the gang is discussing the Seymour Hersh audio tapes with all signs pointing to Seth Rich as the leak from inside the DNC to Wikileaks. The implications of this, obviously, being that so called Russia-gate should be renamed to Hillary-gate and traced the mainstream media s obsession with Russian Collusion back to the Presidential Debate back in October of 2016. A quick update on John McAfee s recovery from some form of attack and his new privacy phone s release. Not to mention the usual side tracks and strange rabbit holes we find ourselves in as we navigate the weeks media cycle, including sex robots, further degeneracy from the neo-left youth in Sweden and more.Direct Download Episode #120Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 0 | [
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FMD517 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California blasted President Trump for saying he would move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Feinstein claimed it would be a terrible decision even though she previously voted for the embassy to be moved. The hypocrisy of the left doesn t stop there Today, President Donald Trump announced that America formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel s capital city, changing decades of U.S. policy in a brief afternoon speech and casting the move as a bid to preserve, not derail, aspirations for regional peace.The critics of Donald Trump attacked his decision. Meanwhile, the truth is, that for decades, some of the most beloved Democrats have used the promise of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a way to get votes.In 1999, while campaigning for New York s US Senate seat, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a letter, that she considered Jerusalem to be the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel and will be an active advocate if elected to New York s Senate seat to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.In a letter that became public Thursday, Mrs. Clinton wrote: If I am chosen by New Yorkers to be their senator, or in whatever position I find myself in the years to come, you can be sure that I will be an active, committed advocate for a strong and secure Israel, able to live in peace with its neighbors, with the United States Embassy located in its capital, Jerusalem. Hillary s not the only one to promise, that if elected, they would move heaven and earth to make Jerusalem the rightful capital of Israel. As it turns out, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama (twice) also made the same promise. The only problem is, none of them had the courage to do it.Watch:When President @realDonaldTrump announced that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he fulfilled another campaign promise, in addition to those that go back 25 years . pic.twitter.com/P7M2dEx2qT Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) December 7, 2017Here s why our courageous president, Donald Trump was right to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel:Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon wrote the best article on Trump s bold decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem that we have seen to date.Not only is President Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there one of the boldest moves of his presidency. It is one of the boldest moves any U.S. president has made since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in 1993. That process collapsed at Camp David in 2000 when Yasir Arafat rejected President Clinton s offer of a Palestinian state. And the process has been moribund ever since, despite multiple attempts to restart it.That is why the warnings from Trump critics that his decision may wreck the peace process ring hollow. There is no peace process to wreck. The conflict is frozen. And the largest barriers to the resumption of negotiations are found not in U.S. or Israeli policy but in Palestinian autocracy, corruption, and incitement. Have the former Obama administration officials decrying Trump s announcement read a newspaper lately? From listening to them, you d think it would be all roses and ponies in the Middle East but for Trump. In fact, the region is engulfed in war, terrorism, poverty, and despotism; Israel faces threats in the north and south; its sworn enemy, Iran, is growing in influence and reach; and the delegitimization of the Jewish State proceeds apace in international organizations and on college campuses. I forget how the Obama administration advanced the cause of peace by pressuring Israel while rewarding the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Maybe someone will remind me.One of the reasons the Middle East persists in its decrepit condition is that it has been, for decades, a playground of magical thinking. Whether it is believing that poverty is the cause of terrorism or that the Ayatollah Khamenei is a good-faith partner, whether it is imagining that Assad will go just because we tell him to or that ISIS is akin to a terrorist JV team, liberal internationalists have all too eagerly accepted an alternative picture of the Middle East that is much more flattering than the actuality. A similar form of doublethink is present in our discussions over Jerusalem. Every Israeli knows Jerusalem was, is, and will remain his capital. Every recent president has agreed with him. And the U.S. consensus has been bipartisan. The last four Democratic platforms have said the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel s capital. The Senate voted 90-0 only six months ago urging the embassy be moved to the ancient city. Were we to take seriously neither these platforms nor that vote? Was it all virtue-signaling, a bunch of empty gestures in the kabuki theater of U.S. diplomacy?It is a sign of the disingenuousness of American foreign policy that it required someone from outside this system to behave as if words have meaning. President Trump has no background in or admiration for the routines, manners, and norms of the U.S. foreign service, especially that part of it which specializes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This has enabled him to state unequivocally the fact others would prefer to avoid: Jerusalem is Israel s capital, full stop. His transactional nature also brought him to this fateful recognition. In March 2016, at the AIPAC policy conference, he pledged that We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem. His remarks today make clear his intention to fulfill that promise and to cement his support within the pro-Israel community.I wonder about the journalists and flacks and politicians criticizing this literal reading of U.S. law as disruptive. Have they not paid attention to this man? Donald Trump s purpose in office is to disrupt if not overturn the patterns of governance and ideological consensus that have dominated the U.S. capital for decades. In this sense, his Jerusalem policy is his presidency in microcosm. He is acting on a common sense appraisal of the world and satisfying the wishes of his supporters without regard to global or domestic elite opinion. What Trump knows more than the art of the deal is the art of the bluff and how to call one. By keeping his campaign promise today, he has called the bluff of everyone who thought the United States could have its cake and eat it too on the question of Israel s capital. And by moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the United States will acknowledge Israel s right to determine its own capital city. That is not something to condemn or fear. It is something to be proud of. | 0 | [
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FMD518 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Colombia s FARC rebel group included footwear and orange juicers in the list of assets it will hand over for victim reparations, drawing ire on Thursday from officials who maintain the guerrillas have extensive criminal wealth and sparking the government to announce a special verification commission. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed under a 2016 peace deal with the government to hand over all funds and property to pay reparations to victims of forced disappearance, rape, displacement, kidnapping and land mines. The group has for decades extorted landowners and business people, earned ransoms from hostage takings and sold coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, to drug traffickers. Officials said on Thursday that the list, which was originally given to the United Nations and has not been made public, included many items that have little or no monetary value and made a mockery of victims. Pots, orange juicers, lemon juicers, plates, boots, which will be depreciated and don t have a commercial value and which above all will not be a source of reparation for victims, Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez told journalists. Martinez added the full list should be released. The list will be reviewed by a special commission in a bid to find missing assets, verify their origin and decide how they will be managed, the government said later on Thursday. Those assets which have not been inventoried and are later discovered will obligatorily mean punishment and an ordinary justice procedure against members of the FARC, justice minister Enrique Gil said. All assets will be directed toward victims reparation, interior minister Guillermo Rivera added, and not to reintegration programs for the FARC fighters themselves. Colombian officials have previously accused the FARC of possessing large amounts of cash, as well as ranches, businesses and luxury homes, including some located abroad. A lawyer representing the FARC, Enrique Santiago, told local radio that the group had not earned an income in years and had to spend extensively to maintain its more than 7,000 fighters, after calling off kidnappings and extortion during peace talks. The rebels finished handing over more than 8,000 weapons to the U.N., which oversaw their demobilization, earlier this month. On Sunday the group will kick off a conference that looks set to cement its transition into a political party. | 1 | [
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FMD519 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Theodore Shoebat
A major political leader in France, Francois-Xavier Peron , has declared that France is about to enter into a devastating war against Islam , and its going to be extremely violent. His solution to prepare? Embrace the Christian Faith and never accept the antichrist masonic religion .
I did an interview with Mr. Peron about this coming war, and why the Christian Faith must be the religion of the world:
Courtesy of Freedom Outpost
Theodore Shoebat is the Communications Director for Rescue Christians , an organization that is on the ground in Muslim lands, rescuing Christians from persecution. He is the author of two book, For God or For Tyranny and In Satan’s Footsteps: The Source and Interconnections of all Evil , he also has a DVD series called “Christian Militancy,” which is on Christian warfare and our fight against evil and tyranny.
Article posted with permission from Shoebat.com Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 | [
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FMD520 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: What s wrong with Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi is supposed to be the Democrat s leader in the House but she can t complete a thought! She held her daily presser to discuss the budget and how mean President Trump is for cutting entitlements like SNAP. Food stamps are so abused and have been for decades. You d think she d want some new ideas. She seems flustered and angry during the comments about the budget cuts.She s probably mostly angry that her iron grip on Congress is slipping.We have numerous examples of Minority Leader Pelosi stammering and losing her train of thought. Is it time for new leadership? You betcha but will the Dems dump Nancy for new blood?OUR PREVIOUS GAFFE-FILLED MOMENT WITH NANCY:Oh Lordy! Nancy is losing it! The Democrats are pulling out all the stops to prevent the sunlight from shining on the corruption within their party and within the intel agencies. In the short clip below, Pelosi calls the memo release a cover-up by the Republicans. That s pretty funny since the Republicans have been trying for over a year to get information from the Democrats and intel agencies involved in the cover-up of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.Pelosi has repeatedly called President Trump by the wrong name. She just recently called Intel Chair Devin Nunes Dennis :House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on with Chris Cuomo and was pretty rattled. She pulled out all the stops on this even telling Chris Cuomo he doesn t know what he s talking about. She also just called Devin Nunes Dennis and then dropped this big fat whopper: They have made up a memo that isn t even true and they are lying to the American people "They have made up a memo that isn't even true and they are lying to the American people: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on GOP's release of FBI memo https://t.co/t0IH9jBe2B pic.twitter.com/Fkm5luMqUA New Day (@NewDay) January 30, 2018 Dennis ? Chris Cuomo probably felt like a nursing home orderly House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes has acted like a "stooge of the White House at the acquiescence or maybe the guidance of the Speaker of the House https://t.co/t0IH9jBe2B pic.twitter.com/OL8piZyhEx New Day (@NewDay) January 30, 2018We honestly can t keep track of the gaffes from Pelosi. | 0 | [
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FMD521 | 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: Idaho clergy members compelled to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies. Claim summaries: Rumor: Two Idaho pastors were threatened with arrest for refusing to perform gay weddings.
contextual information: Claim: Two Idaho pastors were threatened with legal action and arrests for refusing to perform gay weddings. Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Facebook has a Fox News Radio article about a couple, Don and Evelyn Knapp, that own an Idaho wedding chapel and are supposedly facing arrest if they don't perform same sex marriages. Is this for real? Are officials in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, forcing Christian ministers to perform same sex marriage against their religious beliefs? What has happened to "separation of church and state"? Does it now only apply to churches preaching against orruption in government? Has the First Amendment been rewritten so that the state can now dictate religious beliefs and practices? Origins: On 18 October 2014, the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced in a press release that they were filing a federal lawsuit and a motion for a temporary restraining order on behalf of pastors Donald and Evelyn Knapp of Couer d'Alene, Idaho. According to the announcement, the move was to prevent the city of Couer d'Alene from "forcing [the] two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples." The ADF's release stated that Donald and Evelyn Knapp faced the threat of jail or exorbitant fines if they refused to officiate gay weddings: City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its "non-discrimination" ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho's voter-approved constitutional amendment that affirmed marriage as the union of a man and a woman. "The government should not force ordained ministers to act contrary to their faith under threat of jail time and criminal fines," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. "Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that's what is happening here and it's happened this quickly. The city is on seriously flawed legal ground, and our lawsuit intends to ensure that this couple's freedom to adhere to their own faith as pastors is protected just as the First Amendment intended." On 14 October 2014, three days prior to the ADF's press release, the Idaho state government had announced that they would no longer oppose the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, prompting a number of same-sex couples to obtain licenses and marry in the days immediately following the state's announcement: The marriages came a day after Gov. Butch Otter and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, Republicans who had fought to maintain the state's ban on gay marriage, ended their opposition to a ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that ordered the state to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. The localized battle in Idaho received national attention on 20 October 2014, when Fox News opinion columnist Todd Starnes published an article about the ADF's lawsuit on behalf of the Knapps: According to the lawsuit, the wedding chapel is registered with the state as a "religious corporation" limited to performing "one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by the Holy Bible." But the chapel is also registered as a for-profit A Couer dAlene deputy city attorney reportedly said on local television that for-profit wedding chapels could not legally turn away a gay couple without risking a misdemeanor citation, and that the Hitching Post "would probably be considered a place of public accommodation that would be subject to the ordinance." The Knapps maintain that the City Attorneys office made the same assertion in telephone conversations with them, while the city claims they never threatened to take any legal action against the couple. The difference between churches and businesses is at the heart of the Couer d'Alene ministers' legal dispute, and one eagle-eyed blogger made a compelling discovery in respect to that delineation, noticing that a cached version of theKnapp's "Hitching Post" web site described their services as follows: discovery cached The Hitching Post specializes in small, short, intimate, and private weddings for couples who desire a traditional Christian wedding ceremony. We also perform wedding ceremonies of other faiths as well as civil weddings. We believe that every wedding is special and realize how important this day is to those who walk through our doors. At some point in time around Idaho's issuance of same-sex wedding licenses on 15 October and the ADF's press release on 18 October 2014, the Knapps altered the copy on their web site. As of 20 October 2014, the "About" description on the site no longer included references to the civil and non-denominational services that it had displayed just a few days earlier: description The Hitching Post specializes in small, short, intimate, and private weddings for couples who desire a traditional Christian wedding ceremony. We believe that every wedding is special and realize how important this day is to those who walk through our doors. The ordinance under which the Knapps maintained their religious freedoms were restricted [PDF], issued by the city of Couer d'Alene on 4 June 2014, exempted "religious corporations" from its provisions: PDF Notwithstanding any other provision herein, nothing in this Chapter is intended to alter or abridge other rights, protections, or privileges secured under state and/or federal law. This ordinance shall be construed and applied in a manner consistent with First Amendment jurisprudence regarding the freedom of speech and exercise of religion. This chapter does not apply to: Religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, or societies. Although the City of Couer d'Alene agreed that the Hitching Post was exempted from the anti-discrimination ordinance, the Knapps nonetheless forged ahead with a lawsuit against the jurisdiction. In March 2015, Couer d'Alene television station KXLY reported that the Knapps were maintaining that the city ordinance had cost them money, despite the fact that they had closed their business' doors by choice: reported The Hitching Post wants the city to pay them for wages lost during the time they thought the city was going to force them to perform weddings. The Hitching Post made their stance on gay marriage very clear last year when the initial ban was overturned. Last May they said they would close their doors if they were forced to perform same sex marriages. The Hitching Post now wants the city to pay them for the days the chapel shut down even though they did so by choice. The business also says it lost customers and received hate mail because of media attention. However, the city said they have made it clear the Hitching Post is classified as a "religious organization" and is exempt, whether it's for profit or not. City spokesperson Keith Erickson wrote in a statement that the city "never threatened any legal action against the Hitching Post, nor does it intend to do so." A 2 April 2015 news article added that the chapel closures cited by the Knapps in their suit against the city included days on which same-sex marriage had not yet been legalized in Idaho: Boise-based attorney Kirtlan Naylor wrote in the city's legal response, that while the Knapps claim they lost income when they closed the Hitching Post because they would be in violation of the ordinance, they never allege "that they had any weddings scheduled on those dates, or that anybody came to their business requesting a wedding on those dates." "More so, same-sex marriage was not legal in Idaho on Oct. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14," the motion states. "Additionally, on Oct. 15, 2014, when same-sex marriage became legal, Plaintiffs would not have been subject to the ordinance because they were exempt. Therefore, they were under no legitimate threat of prosecution which would require them to close their business on that date." According to the Hitching Post owners' complaint, the Knapps closed their business due to "a constant state of fear that they would be arrested and prosecuted if they declined to perform a same-sex ceremony." However, the article referenced above also reiterated a city spokesman's statement that officials "have never threatened to jail them, or take legal action of any kind" against them. Last updated: 7 July 2015 Starnes, Todd. "City Threatens to Arrest Ministers Who Refuse to Perform Same-Sex Weddings." Fox News. 20 October 2014. | 0 | [
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FMD522 | 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: College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003.
contextual information: Democrats criticized Rick Perry for college costs on the day the Republican governor delivered his valedictory speech to Texas lawmakers. Among the complaints in a Jan. 15, 2015, email blast from the Democratic National Committee was the assertion that college tuition rates in Texas had jumped by 55% since 2003, putting the dream of earning a college degree further out of reach for many Texans. That year should ring a bell; it was when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislature agreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards. We wondered how much tuition ultimately escalated. By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012 news story in the Dallas Morning News that stated, according to the paper's analysis, Texas students were paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also noted that state officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but costs had ballooned since 2003, even when inflation was factored in. Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, referred us to a February 2014 board document she described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document stated, in part, that from fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 semester credit hours at a public university increased by 104 percent. According to the document, the board's calculations were based on tuition and fees charged to students. However, the board also noted that a student's actual charges might vary based on their classification and level of enrollment, the college they attend within the university, their specific personal circumstances, or other reasons deemed appropriate by the institution. Charts in the board analysis indicated the tuition and fees each year from fall 2003 through fall 2013 for nearly 40 institutions, most of them in the University of Texas or Texas A&M University systems. On average, in fall 2003, tuition and fees were $1,934 for 15 semester credit hours, according to the report. The average in fall 2013 was $3,951, the board stated. By phone, Polden confirmed that the board's results did not take inflation into account. Therefore, we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator to estimate that tuition and fees at the state's public colleges and universities escalated by 61 percent in real terms from fall 2003 through fall 2013. However, this did not cover the 2014-15 school year. So we asked for comparable charges on average for a student as of fall 2014. By email, Polden stated that the fall 2014 statewide average for someone taking 15 semester credit hours was $4,091, raising the raw average tuition increase since fall 2003 to 112 percent. Adjusted for inflation, we calculated that the increase was 64 percent. Separately, we asked the University of Texas at Austin for its fall 2014 charge for that many credit hours. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed the amount, $4,905, which we compared with the fall 2003 charge for that university of $2,721. Adjusted for inflation, the hike over the years amounted to 40 percent. Worth mentioning: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years, Perry also called for $10,000 four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuition so that an entering student would pay the same amount each year while earning a degree. The Democratic group, focusing on Perry, stated that Texas college tuition rates increased by 55 percent since 2003. That figure is outdated—the increase through fall 2014 was 64 percent—and it's also important to clarify that the governor did not directly control tuition, though he approved the 2003 law deregulating rates and appointed the governing boards of public colleges and universities. We rate the statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD523 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In January, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said, I try and pay as little tax as possible, because I hate what they do with my tax money. I hate the way they spend our money. Donald has avoided releasing his tax returns to the public and now we know why.In 1987, Donald signed off on a series of accounting changes that allowed his first hotel to shortchange New York City by nearly $3 million in rent.Just 10 years previously, Trump made a deal which would free the hotel of $160 million in property taxes over the course of 40 years. While that sounds good so far, it was also supposed to guarantee the city a small financial stake in its success: New York City received annual rent payments tied to the Grand Hyatt s profits, according to CBS.In 1986, the hotel had its best year, raking in nearly $80 million. City officials expected to receive at least as much as the $3.7 million paid the year before.But that never happened because a month after Trump and his partners signed off on the accounting changes, the city was paid only $667,155.For two years, city auditors were stonewalled each time they tried to address the issue.Experts asked by CBS News to examine the city auditor s report, which was completed in 1989, described the behavior of hotel and Trump Organization officials as unusual and unheard of. Something was fishy there, Karen Burstein, who was the city s auditor general at the time, said referring to the hotel s owners. This was not the behavior of an innocent party. I think that s what became evident to us. When a date was eventually agreed upon for an audit, it was cancelled by hotel lawyers in a rare move. It s one of those things you want closure on. Why would you want this hanging over your head? said Tobey, a partner at Perelson Weiner LLP, which audits corporations, hedge funds, private equity funds and non-profits. Stonewalling auditors is not a common practice. You want to make them go away. When city auditors finally got a glimpse of the goings on at the hotel, they found missing books and unacceptable accounting principles. Hotel officials tried to keep the audit from being released to the public, much like Donald is doing with his tax returns now.According to Donald, he doesn t remember any of this. I sold the hotel many years ago for a tremendous profit. By building the hotel I created thousands of jobs, saved the Grand Central area, and helped to revive a dying, at the time, New York City, Trump told CBS. The city was extremely happy with that development and you re now bringing up something thirty years later that I ve never heard about. Donald may not really want to become President, because really, he s only into self-promotion. He could be looking for a way out of this race. Trump wants to Make Trump Great Again but now that he s in the spotlight, things may not work out well for him since his previous business ventures are becoming public. Donald s self-promotion may be his undoing. It s funny how that works.Photo by Darren Hauck via Getty | 0 | [
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FMD524 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A new report from the Missouri Ethics Commission documents 32,128 gifts to state legislators from lobbyists undoubtedly hoping to influence their decisions.The Missouri Ethics Commission collected information on gifts provided to state lawmakers from January 2012 to January of this year. St. Louis Today published a searchable database here. The database includes information on lobbying organizations that provided gifts to state lawmakers, as well as the elected officials who accepted them.Many of the gifts were valued at less than $100. The gifts that fell into this value range most often included things like lunch, dinner, drinks and coffee.State lawmakers also accepted thousands of gifts which were valued between $100 and $2,000. These gifts included things like travel expenses and tickets to concerts and sporting events, among other things.Among the organizations that doled out gifts to Missouri lawmakers were lobbyists representing banks, insurance companies, casinos, the pharmaceutical industry, utility companies and many others.An earlier report from the Ethics Commission, which documented lobbyist gifts provided to lawmakers between 2004 and 2014, showed that, on average, state legislators take nearly $1 million worth of free gifts from registered lobbyists each year.While it might be tempting to dismiss the tens of thousands of gifts which are valued at less than $100, the truth is that these gifts buy lobbyists something ordinary citizens don t have, access to government.When was the last time you bought your state representative a cup of coffee or lunch at Red Lobster? Unless you re a lobbyist, you ve likely never had that kind of access to the people who represent you in government.The Missouri Ethics Commission report comes as Governor Jay Nixon seeks to restrict the ability of lawmakers to accept unlimited gifts from lobbyists.Many Missouri residents would like to see a total ban on lobbyist gifts, but it s unlikely that state lawmakers will approve any legislation that goes that far.During an interview with the Associated Press earlier this month, Nixon said he hopes to see the legislature act, even if they refuse to pass a full ban. When the public demands something for a number of years, a response by those that are in elected office to that even if it doesn t get the full loaf, if it moves forward is important. Maybe if the public had the kind of access that lobbyists are getting, Missouri lawmakers would be more willing to take action.Featured image via Pixabay public domain | 0 | [
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FMD525 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Why Sprott Believes Gold Bullion Is A Mandatory Portfolio Asset Posted on Tweet Home » Gold » Gold News » Why Sprott Believes Gold Bullion Is A Mandatory Portfolio Asset
We have long maintained the central thesis for gold is more complicated than a simple hedge against inflation, deflation or economic collapse. We view gold as a mandatory portfolio asset in an investment landscape in which paper claims on productive output (stocks and bonds) have wildly exceeded reasonable relation to underlying productive output itself (GDP). While the Fed may ultimately attempt in December its second rate increase in ten-and-a-half years, it is important for investors to “see the forest through the trees,” and recognize that macro fundamentals supporting the gold thesis only continue to strengthen:
From Sprott’s Thoughts:
In our September report, we suggested short-term developments in gold markets often distract investors from more relevant long-term fundamentals, providing attractive entry points for the nimble-footed. On October 4, we believe just such an investment opportunity materialized in the gold complex.
The spot gold price declined $44.28 on the day (3.4%), and 5% for the week (largest weekly decline since September 2013). As is always the case when gold corrects, financial media were instantly replete with naysayers forecasting the end of gold’s 2016 advance. In recent days, various investment banks have rushed to reduce their price forecasts toward the $1,050-to-$1,100 range.
With all due respect to these market participants, we would suggest absolutely nothing of substance has changed in gold’s medium- and long-term investment fundamentals.
What caused the early-October backup in the gold price? First, hawkish comments on 10/3/16 by Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester (2016 FOMC voter) were echoed by Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker (2018 FOMC voter) on the morning of 10/4/16. Then, before noon on 10/4/16, media reports surfaced that the ECB Governing Council was considering tapering its asset-purchase plan (later denied) and then that the BOJ was contemplating market intervention to weaken the yen.
A fair number of human traders and algorithmic computers perceived these developments as a potential turning point for global-central-bank easing policies, and sell orders were reflexively generated throughout the gold complex. Once bullion penetrated its year-to-date uptrend, as well as the psychologically significant $1,300 support level, technically oriented CTA’s and high-frequency traders joined the fray.
We would suggest these knee-jerk trading decisions have presented an especially fortuitous entry-point for investors contemplating a portfolio allocation to gold and gold equities. In short, we view the above quartet of early-October news items as little more than jawboning from central bankers stuck in an increasingly awkward policy pickle.
Desperate to normalize policy after seven years of extended largesse, central banks are recognizing that aggregate debt levels remain too ominous, and economic growth too fragile, to exit from ultra-accommodative monetary-policy conditions.
While the Fed may ultimately attempt in December its second rate increase in ten-and-a-half years, it is important for investors to “see the forest through the trees,” and recognize that macro fundamentals supporting the gold thesis only continue to strengthen.
At Sprott, we have long maintained the central thesis for gold is more complicated than a simple hedge against inflation, deflation or economic collapse.
We view gold as a mandatory portfolio asset in an investment landscape in which paper claims on productive output (stocks and bonds) have wildly exceeded reasonable relation to underlying productive output itself (GDP).
In essence, the decoupling of financial-asset valuations from any rational underpinning of productive output portends two future developments which are both supportive to the gold investment thesis. First, as the financial system rebalances inflated paper claims back toward supporting output, gold should provide prodigious purchasing power protection, as it has in the past. MacroMavens highlights in Figure 1, on the following page, that even at today’s roughly 2,140 level, the S&P 500 Index still remains 70% lower in gold terms than at its March 2000 peak. During the past two corrections in the S&P 500, during which the Index declined 50.50% (3/24/00-10/10/02) and 57.70% (10/11/07-3/6/09), gold provided unparalleled portfolio protection. We expect the next correction in U.S. financial assets to prove no different.
The second implication of the contemporary mismatch between paper claims and productive output is inevitable official policy response whenever elevated debt levels, weak economic growth, or both, conspire to destabilize the enormous global debt pyramid. Even in the bizarro world of floating exchange rates, central bank debasement of fiat currencies is perhaps the most fundamental investment thesis for gold. Bloomberg highlighted in an October 16 report that the balance sheets of the 10 largest global central banks now total $21.4 trillion in assets, an increase of more than 10% just from the end of 2015!
This aggregate increase accrues largely from the efforts of the ECB and BOJ, which together have grown their balance sheets some $2.1 trillion since 12/31/15. While the Fed’s balance sheet has leveled off in the vicinity of $4.5 trillion in recent years, we remind readers that the Fed has felt compelled to purchase an average of $48 billion worth of Treasuries and MBS every month during 2016 to replace maturing paper. With global-central-bank printing remaining at such a frenzied pace, does the investment case for gold really diminish whenever a central banker floats hawkish commentary or the Fed attempts an annual 25 basis point rate increase? We think not.
Our investment case for gold rests squarely on global monetary and economic imbalances. Among the many valuable measures in monitoring the gold investment thesis, we have always favored (for its clarity) the Fed’s own ratio of Total U.S. Credit Market Debt to GDP (Z.1 Report). As shown in Figure 2, above, the ratio of outstanding claims ($65.066 trillion total debt) to output ($18.437 trillion GDP) in the U.S. today stands at 353%, barely below its June 2009 peak.
Contrary to popular belief, there has been no aggregate deleveraging of the U.S. financial system in recent years. Indeed, quite the opposite has been the case. Since December 2007, total U.S. debt has actually grown by $16.259 trillion, an increase of 33.32% (from $48.808 trillion to $65.066 trillion). Even more eye-popping has been a 48.34% explosion in nonfinancial credit (from $31.213 trillion to $46.301 trillion) during the same span. By way of comparison, U.S. GDP has expanded only $4.362 trillion during this entire period.
Demonstrating the levitating effects of QE policies on equities and real estate, the Fed’s measure of total U.S. household net worth has expanded by a mind-boggling $31.345 trillion, or 54.31% , since year-end 2007 (from $57.718 trillion to $89.063 trillion). While we recognize the power of cognitive dissonance in all euphoric investment cycles, how can any investor rationalize that a $4.362 trillion increase in GDP could support a $31.345 trillion increase in household net worth?
What magic can create “wealth” seven times faster than output? Our answer remains that central banks have fostered unprecedented and unsustainable inflation in financial asset prices. To those who view gold’s portfolio relevance as muted due to the lack of visible CPI-type inflation, we would suggest they are looking in the wrong place. Central banks have enabled absurd decoupling of paper claims from underlying output. There is already rampant inflation throughout the financial system!
Importantly, we believe central bank policies of ZIRP, NIRP and QE have distorted economic decision making for so long that global economic growth has become remarkably unproductive. Every student of economics knows that marginal returns eventually approach marginal costs.
At zero percent interest rates, earnings for all economic agents, on average, will eventually approach zero. Years of malinvestment, plummeting capex, declining productivity, and now an extending trend of declining corporate profits all suggest that the global economy is misfiring on many cylinders. Even worse, we believe, the global financial system has become so dependent on zero percent interest rates that any move toward normalization will have devastating impact on a wide range of financial asset prices.
We are preparing an expanded strategy report which focuses on themes ranging from the broken nature of Fed models to the persistent decline in productivity trends to the rise of global populism to signs of incipient inflation. To those with a high tolerance for dense topics, we look forward to sharing this piece in coming weeks.
As a precursor to this tome, we offer one vignette from MacroMavens, in Figure 3, below, to summarize our views on U.S. economic trends. One of the most reliable precursors of employment gains has always been the direction of corporate profits. The recently stubborn falloff in corporate profits suggests payroll statistics are about to endure significant stress. Hardly an environment for significant Fed tightening!
This report is intended solely for the use of Sprott Asset Management USA Inc. investors and interested parties. Investments and commentary are unique and may not be reflective of investments and commentary in other strategies managed by Sprott Asset Management USA, Inc., Sprott Asset Management LP, Sprott Inc., or any other Sprott entity or affiliate. Opinions expressed in this report are those of a Senior Portfolio Manager of Sprott Asset Management USA Inc., and may vary widely from opinions of other Sprott affiliated Portfolio Managers.
This information is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be an offer or solicitation for the sale of any financial product or service or a recommendation or determination that any investment strategy is suitable for a specific investor. Investors should seek financial advice regarding the suitability of any investment strategy based on the objectives of the investor, financial situation, investment horizon, and their particular needs. This information is not intended to provide financial, tax, legal, accounting or other professional advice since such advice always requires consideration of individual circumstances. The investments discussed herein are not insured by the FDIC or any other governmental agency, are subject to risks, including a possible loss of the principal amount invested.
Generally, natural resources investments are more volatile on a daily basis and have higher headline risk than other sectors as they tend to be more sensitive to economic data, political and regulatory events as well as underlying commodity prices. Natural resource investments are influenced by the price of underlying commodities like oil, gas, metals, coal, etc.; several of which trade on various exchanges and have price fluctuations based on short-term dynamics partly driven by demand/supply and also by investment flows. Natural resource investments tend to react more sensitively to global events and economic data than other sectors, whether it is a natural disaster like an earthquake, political upheaval in the Middle East or release of employment data in the U.S. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Sprott Asset Management USA Inc., affiliates, family, friends, employees, associates, and others may hold positions in the securities it recommends to clients, and may sell the same at any time.
All figures in this report are expressed in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. On Sale At SD Bullion… This Week Only… This entry was posted in Gold News , Silver News and tagged gold update , silver update , Sprott's Thoughts . Bookmark the permalink . Post navigation | 0 | [
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FMD526 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thursday, 27 October 2016 Biden and Trump to Duel
Seeking to duplicate, if not surpass, the famous duel between Vice President Aaron Burr and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, and Vice President Joe Biden, agreed to fight a pistol duel. Although details of the duel have yet to be finalized, Amiko Aventurista, reports the duel will likely take place on the eve of the election.
Three independent sources confirmed negotiations over broadcast rights are extremely tense. Trump demands the duel be the inaugural show of his new venture, Trump TV. "It was my idea. I was the one who said I could shot someone on Fifth Avenue and my supporters would be with me. Other than Hilary, Obama, Rubio, Cruz, Jeb Bush, and a ton of others, I can think of no one better to shot than hair plug Joe. I'm the greatest shooter ever. A real sniper."
Biden insist MSNBC must be the broadcaster because its liberal and minority audience wants to see Trump with several gun shots. In a response to Trump, Biden said, "There is no way I can miss. His hair glows bright orange. All I have to do is point toward the glow".
Megan Kelly of Fox says Fox must host the show because she wants to see "blood" coming everywhere out of Trump just like he said blood was coming out of her. CNN's Wolf Blitzer decline to comment. Even ESPN is making a play for the event, pointing out it regularly shows non-traditional sporting events, such as bull riding, cross bow, and bowling.
Both sides agree Lin Manuel Mirada, producer of the hit Broadway show, Alexander Hamilton, should direct the event. Manuel Mirada said, "I would be honored to produce the event. I know my smash Broadway hit, Hamilton, is only a show about a duel not a real duet but I think that experience qualifies me to produce a show about a real duel. After all, the only difference is the guns are real."
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has agreed to fully pay for and sponsor the event. NRA President Wayne LaPierre release the following statement, "Finally we have bi-partisan agreement. I should have thought of this first". Make Amiko Aventurista's | 0 | [
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FMD527 | 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 the American Rescue Plan, just about 1% of the money is for vaccines. Claim summaries: Estimates of vaccine spending in the American Rescue Plan bill range from $14 billion to $20 billion or more., Total spending directly on COVID-19s health impacts ranges from $100 billion to $160 billion., The biggest spending in the bill includes $422 billion in stimulus checks for individuals, $350 billion for state and local governments, and $242 billion for unemployment benefits., At the high end, direct COVID-19 spending represents about 8.5% of the bills $1.9 trillion cost.
contextual information: Republicans primary objection to the COVID-19 and economic stimulus bill making its way through Congress is that it spends relatively little on the disease itself. In a speech on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the $1.9 trillion package known as theAmerican Rescue Planwas loaded with pet projects that had nothing to do with the pandemic or economic recovery. All kinds of liberal wish list items that would do nothing to help American families put COVID behind them, McConnell saidFeb. 24. Just about 1% of the money is for vaccines. McConnells focus on 1% for vaccines caught our attention. His staff said he drew on the words of the Democrats themselves when they unveiled a key section of the sweeping bill. The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., highlighted a handful of items in the packagein a news release, including $14 billion for vaccines, $46 billion for testing, contact tracing, and mitigation, and $25 billion to reduce health disparities across the country. The nonpartisanCongressional Budget Officeand theCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budgetuse the $14 billion figure. However, there are different ways to add up the numbers. The same Democratic-controlled committee that provided the $14 billion figure came out a few days later with a factsheet thatuses an amountof $20 billion. And they note theres an additional $5 billion for advanced vaccine development. The different totals depend on what counts as vaccine spending. The lower figure in the first Democratic press release included only work at the CDC, the FDA, and ensuring a reliable supply chain to produce and administer the vaccine. The higher Democratic tally included other activities, such as sequencing the genome of virus variants and paying for health care workers to administer the vaccine. How much does this matter? In percentage terms, not that much. Even a total of $25 billion still amounts to just over 1% of the bills estimated price tag. Thats because the overall package includes big ticket items such as$422 billionin stimulus checks to individuals, $350 billion for state and local governments, and$242 billionfor expanded unemployment benefits. But in terms of dollars, theres a big difference between $14 billion and $20 billion or $25 billion. The point is, its possible to use percentages to make an amount appear small, and actual dollars to make the same amount look substantial. The most heated debate in Congress centers on how the American Rescue Plan deals with the economic damage of the pandemic. McConnells claim has more to do with the money aimed most directly at the virus and pandemic itself. In that vein, focussing strictly on vaccines leaves out a lot of the picture. The biggest overlooked piece is $46 billion for testing and other surveillance work. That work is as important as any other, said Amesh Adalja at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Better surveillance helps target vaccine distribution to certain states or communities, and is part of spotting virus mutations to improve the next generation of vaccines. There is a continuum and integration between all response activities, Adajla said. Those include testing, tracing, isolating and vaccinating. Vaccines have to make their way into peoples arms, and the legislation funds several programs to support that work, including $7.6 billion to hire 100,000 community health workers. We found different ways to add up all the spending tied directly to COVID-19. On the low end, the total is about$100 billion. On the high end, theWhite Housesays it is $160 billion, which adds items such as$10 billionin medical supplies, $24 billion in child care for health care and other essential workers, and literally dozens of smaller amounts. Depending on which line items you include, the legislation would spend anywhere from 4.5% to 8.5% of the total cost directly on the pandemics health aspects. McConnell said that in the American Rescue Plan, just about 1% of the money is for vaccines. Based on Democratic figures of either $14 billion or $20 billion for vaccines, and a $1.9 trillion overall price tag, the math is about right. The American Rescue Plan spends much more on the financial damage caused by the virus than on its health aspects alone, and McConnell picked a way to minimize the health-related spending. The statistic omits a much greater amount of spending on overall efforts to contain the pandemic. That ranges from about $100 billion to $160 billion, or between 5% and 8% of the bills total cost. His statement is accurate, but needs additional information. Thats our definition of Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD528 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A fledgling party led by popular Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike gained momentum on Thursday ahead of an Oct. 22 election as the biggest opposition Democratic Party said it would step aside to let its candidates run under her conservative, reformist banner. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a conservative who returned to power in 2012, hopes a recent boost in voter support will help his Liberal Democratic Party-led (LDP) coalition maintain a simple majority. It now holds a two-thirds super majority. But Koike s new Party of Hope, only formally launched on Wednesday, has upended the outlook for the election after the former LDP member announced she would lead it herself. I m someone who is always ready to take action, Koike told a news conference where she spoke about her achievements since taking office as governor a year ago. A media-savvy former defense minister whose name has often been floated to be Japan s first female prime minister, Koike said she would not run for a seat herself, although speculation persists that she will. Democratic Party executives said they would not run candidates of their own and would let members run under the Party of Hope banner. The party has struggled to overcome rock-bottom ratings, defections and an image tainted by its rocky stint in power from 2009 to 2012. After the cabinet formally set the date of the election, Abe told reporters, I decided to call this election because we must overcome the national crisis of the threat from North Korea and an aging population by obtaining a mandate from the people. Some opposition lawmakers boycotted the dissolution session, in protest against Abe s election decision, which could bring about a political vacuum at a time of high tension with North Korea over its missile and nuclear arms programs. A survey by the Mainichi newspaper showed 18 percent of voters plan to vote for Koike s party, compared to 29 percent for Abe s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). An Asahi newspaper poll showed 13 percent planned to vote for her party, versus 32 percent for the LDP. Both surveys asked voters their preference for proportional representation districts where ballots are cast for parties, rather than candidates. Voters in many countries have shown they are willing to take a risk, even a severe risk, in terms of what will actually happen because they are disappointed with the status quo, said Martin Schulz, a researcher at Fujitsu Research Institute. But Schulz, who drew a comparison to French President Emmanuel Macron s meteoric rise, added that Koike s platform might not be so appealing, given its similarities to LDP policies. Abe s personal ratings have risen to about 50 percent from about 30 percent in July, partly on the back of his leadership during the current North Korea crisis. But opposition parties say he called the election to escape questioning in parliament about suspected cronyism scandals that had cut into his support. Koike, 65, defied the LDP to run successfully for Tokyo governor last year and her novice local party then crushed the LDP in a metropolitan assembly election in July. Her Party of Hope shares policy space with the business-friendly LDP, but she has staked out different stances on two issues likely to appeal to voters. Koike, who wants Japan to abandon nuclear power, said she would study ways to eliminate dependence on it by 2030. Abe s government aims to retain its role in the energy mix, despite worries over safety after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. Koike also wants to freeze a planned rise in the national sales tax to 10 percent from 8 percent in 2019. Abe says he will raise the tax but spend more on child care and education instead of paying down public debt. Recent reforms will cut to 465 from 475 the number of lower house seats in the coming election. | 1 | [
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FMD529 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: “What is left when unhungry? ,†Justin Vernon sings midway through “22, a Million,†his third album as Bon Iver. It’s one of many questions this songwriter and asks of himself in the course of the album. And it’s answered, in some ways, by the songs themselves on Bon Iver’s most diverse, noisiest, shortest, knottiest and most experimental album so far. Due for release on Sept. 30, “22, a Million,†is one more sharp turn in a career that has carried Mr. Vernon from obscurity in Wisconsin clubs to festival stages and the Grammys, including an improbable detour via and Kanye West. The songwriter and pianist Bruce Hornsby — one of Mr. Vernon’s avowed influences and, lately, a collaborator — described Mr. Vernon in a phone interview as “a soul singer who creates these unique and beautiful sonic landscapes on which to perform. †Those landscapes have grown ever more painstakingly inventive. Making the album, Mr. Vernon said earlier this month, was at times spontaneous, at times convoluted and often uncertain. “It was a long moment, these last few years, thinking: What am I doing? What do I want to do it for?†he said. Mr. Vernon needed five years, three of them concentrated on writing and recording the new album, to clarify for himself what Bon Iver means and sounds like, now that he can count on a worldwide audience to keep him “unhungry. †“I feel both blessed and cursed by the fact that I can do whatever I want at this point,†Mr. Vernon said in a rare extended interview in the recording studio at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, a gallery and performance space in Red Hook where he is on the advisory board. “I have more recognition than I had ever wanted to deal with. †The pressure he felt was not commercial. “22, a Million†is a bumpier ride than Bon Iver’s previous albums. It constantly mixes distorted and manipulated sounds with natural ones, and it deliberately veers away from pop familiarity. But it also progresses toward solace, grounding its closing songs in steadfast melodies and consoling harmonies. “It’s important to me to not pay any attention to questions of, ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’ or ‘What are you going to leave behind?’ or ‘How do you work into the current scene?’ or ‘How do you relate to the ? ’†Mr. Vernon said. “I find all of that stuff not only distracting but kind of the opposite of what it all means. †Wearing loose pinstriped pants and a dark gray that revealed some of his many tattoos, with a neatly trimmed beard and casually tousled hair, Mr. Vernon was by no means the introvert his songs might suggest. Affable and articulate, he was eager to delve into and at least partly decrypt his work. The polite of his Midwestern upbringing came through, but Mr. Vernon battles excessive modesty. “I got in a friendly argument with Kanye West about the word humble once,†he recalled. “He said, ‘Have you ever looked up the word humble?’ I was like, ‘Actually I don’t know if I have.’ And he showed me the definition of it, and it’s far more kind of the problematic Midwestern ‘Sorry!’ mentality, than I realized. †He continued, “I took a lot out of that conversation. Ultimately, I think it’s great to serve others and everything, but I think there’s a certain point where it’s diminishing returns for the people around you if you’re not showing up and being who you are. †“22, a Million†— the title reflects Mr. Vernon’s numerological whims — is the successor to the 2011 album “Bon Iver, Bon Iver,†which sold more than half a million copies in the United States and won Grammy Awards for best alternative album and best new artist. Grammy recognition “didn’t change anything about me,†he said. “It did make me realize that there are people out there that really care about monetary success and recognition for the commodity that is music, like way more than I do. Not to say I don’t care about recognition. I like when people like a song, but I certainly don’t care as much as some folks out there. †The first Bon Iver album, “For Emma, Forever Ago,†was a nearly solitary work. Mr. Vernon wrote and recorded it after the breakup of both his longtime band and a relationship, in his father’s chilly hunting cabin in Wisconsin during the winter of and it was full of pensive ballads with translucent layers of guitars and vocals. “For Emma†quietly won hearts, eventually selling half a million copies. It also brought Bon Iver to the attention of Mr. West, who sampled “Woods,†a song from a 2009 Bon Iver EP, and went on to feature Mr. Vernon at concerts and as a songwriting collaborator on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,†“Watch the Throne†and “Yeezus. †The second Bon Iver album, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver†was both more expansive and more ambiguous. Mr. Vernon built his own studio, April Base, in his hometown, Eau Claire, Wis. The music was still gracious, mostly as Mr. Vernon welcomed a broader range of collaborators and instruments, bringing a lapidary detail to the arrangements, while the lyrics posed new riddles. In the interview, Mr. Vernon noted that “Perth,†which opens that album, and Ҡwhich concludes it, rhyme with “birth†and “death. †The continue: A song title on the new album, “10 Death Breast,†rhymes with “ . †Mr. Vernon found plenty of distractions before settling in to work on “22, a Million. †He toured the world with the large band he needed to recreate “Bon Iver, Bon Iver†onstage, an elaborate and demanding project. “I didn’t ever plan on having that much popularity, and being from Wisconsin, whatever amount that I could have dreamt about, I was not prepared for any of that,†he said. One thing that weighed on him was being photographed constantly, he said his face is noticeably absent from the artwork of the new album. “I felt very exposed, with scarred skin from the whole experience. Not that it was all bad, but it wore down these outer layers, and everything kind of hurt. †When the tour ended, he turned to collaborations: producing albums for the Blind Boys of Alabama and the folky English group the Staves, and regrouping and touring with his band Volcano Choir. He started and closely curated a festival, Eaux Claires, with Bon Iver headlining alongside its influences and favorites. And, gradually, he pushed himself to write new songs. Instead of having his guitar at their center, they largely relied on a portable synthesizer and sampler along with a customized Vocoder and thoughts of the heady blend of Duke Ellington’s saxophone sections one new song, he said, weaves about 150 saxophones into its mix. A turning point came when Mr. Vernon traveled to Greece, alone and . He found himself singing the line “It might be over soon†into the sampler, hearing it as a kind of mantra that could suggest relief, loss, mortality or a reason to get to work. “The bad stuff might be over soon, but maybe the good stuff might be over soon,†he said. “So you’d better figure out how to enjoy this life and participate in it. †Back in Wisconsin, Mr. Vernon worked like both a and a producer. He improvised with musicians in his studio, then culled snippets that might engender songs he toyed with loops and effects he let samples lead him to ideas. Where he had organized “Bon Iver, Bon Iver†around places, he decided to unify his new album with numbers. Each song title on “22, a Million†begins with a number that holds a private significance for Mr. Vernon. He has always been drawn to the number 22. While growing up and playing sports, he chose it as his jersey number he also, he said, sets alarms to 22 minutes after the hour. As he chopped up the phrase “It might be over soon†in the sampler, “soon†began to turn into “two, twoâ€: 22. The album opens with “22 Over Soon†and concludes with the hymnlike “1000000, a Million. †“Being 22 is me,†he said, “and then the last song being a million, which is this great elusive thing: like, what’s a million? The album deals a lot with duality in general and how that works into the math. I was big into Taoism in college, and the paradox of duality, and how it’s always one thing and the other — you can never have one thing without the other. So it’s 22 being me and a million being the Other. That was a way to look at it as a circle. †He also delved into sonic manipulation. “A big thing for me on the album was, how do we get something to sound accidental or new or fresh,†he said. When he was dissatisfied with the overly digital sound of “22 Over Soon,†he and his engineer took a cassette (Neil Young’s “Unpluggedâ€) pulled out the tape and crumpled it and wrote on it with a marker. Then they recorded the track onto it, creating distortion and dropouts. Other songs toy with recording speed, ending up between standard pitches. The that runs through all of Bon Iver’s songs emerged anew in lyrics and song titles that draw on thoughts of consecration, prayer and God. A spacious yet fragile ballad, “666 Upsidedowncross,†presents the singer as an uncertain pilgrim, musing, “I don’t know the path. †The album booklet cites the anguished Psalm 22 — “Why are you so far from saving me?†— alongside the song “33 ‘God’,†which includes samples from a gospel choir. “When you use enough of that language, it perks some people’s ears up,†Mr. Vernon said. “I do love those words, I love the word consecration, these holy words so to speak. I like using them in a way people haven’t heard before, or right next to a bunch of swear words. It’s just fun — it puts a smile on my face. †But there was also a more serious undercurrent. He added: “For me from a very early age, music has been my religion. It’s been my way of understanding, it’s been my way of celebration, it’s been my way of contemplation. †As Bon Iver Mr. Vernon is thinking hard about . “When I made the last record, actually both records, I very much felt like I’d healed myself,†he said. “Oh, I got done, and oh! now I’m better. And this one, I’m smarter than that. Now that this album’s done, as much as I healed a lot of things by making it, I know that it’s an ongoing thing. The river does not end. †| 1 | [
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FMD530 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: During her time in the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama has championed so many important causes many of them geared toward helping children and women around the world.One of these crucial initiatives, launched last year, was Let Girls Learn an effort to educate teenage girls. This effort was backed by studies that showed that when women and girls are educated, a nation s economy rises. In an interview with a U.S. Agency for International Development publication, Michelle said: Studies from the World Bank show that one extra year of secondary school can increase a girl s future income by 15 to 25 percent. And we know that when girls are educated, they are less likely to contract HIV, more likely to delay childbearing and vaccinate their children, and have lower maternal and infant mortality rates. Research even shows that sending more girls to school can boost an entire country s GDP. The link between the education of girls and a nation s GDP has been made before and thanks to an analysis by Politifact, we now know that there s a lot of truth to that statement.According to research, when there are more girls in school, there is a higher gross domestic product although there is some uncertainty if it s a stronger economy that results in more girls being educated, or if having more girls in school leads to the rise of a nation s economy. One policy report from the World Bank said: By effectively educating more women that is, providing more women with a high-quality education more will enter the labor market, and the economy will show the favorable results. Although educating girls has been shown to improve the economy, this doesn t account for any obstacles women might encounter even if they are educated. Sexism and gender inequality can still have an impact on the economy even as efforts are made to put more girls in school and give them more resources and opportunities. According to a 2009 article in the journal Feminist Economics, the economic benefit will be lost if companies refuse to hire educated girls.However, the gains of educating girls are far more than any roadblocks they may encounter. Education allows girls to make informed decisions about their lives and allows them to contribute to and help improve society. Michelle was dead on when she said: We need to get these girls into school, because we know that education is the single-most important stepping stone to power, to freedom, and to equality. Featured image via Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD531 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: People over profits The Ease of Doing Halloween à la Russe
The West's biggest monster this Halloween is Russia, but behind the mask the country is doing absolutely fine Print The author is Chairman, Disciplinary Committee, National Association of Corporate Directors, Russia
Over the past few years I have had various views levelled at me by my fellow citizens such as “You are an apologist for Russia!”, “Putin and his circle are mass murderers”, “you are now blind to the truth!” and so on. I get such statements mostly long distance through the internet from the States and some cases the EU. It is understandable given that bad news sells news, and objective deep investigative reporting by professionals appears relegated to selective interests mostly in the blogosphere. As I live and work in this “nasty, criminal Russia” and am concerned for my family’s welfare, I am more than interested to get the facts on what is happening around us and where we are heading. My sources of information like most people comes from friends, neighbors, work acquaintances, colleagues and of course the global media. A potpourri of opinions, much accusatory noise, so where in this hubbub lurk simple evidential truths? As it is now Halloween, I thought it only appropriate to wheel out the ever-popular ghoulish Russian monster and the attendant gaggle of batty tricky gremlin familiars from Siberian wastes. I do this to pay homage to one of my favorite holidays with the help of such “evildoers” as a backdrop. I invite you to have a look into this fiery pit of horrors, it may entice you re-examine your views, question, and set you on the course to establish your business in Russia! Hhmmmm… trick or treat? Although statistics and rankings tend to overlook fundamental differences in what drives economic progress, or from what starting point one or another nation had to contend with, nonetheless the wicked witch of the west and her legions of LaGardettes have researched some interesting views, namely: The World Bank, Ease of Doing Business Rankings ( http://www.doingbusiness.org/data ). To be fair, I thought a ten-year slice would be sufficient to compare and contrast Russia against the rest of BRICS and the USA, so 2006 through 2016 it is, otherwise Russia’s Government guided by “Count Vlad the Bad” would look even more horrifying. Ease of Doing Business Rankings (World Bank) Countries Rank 2006 Rank 2016 Brazil 119 123 United States 3 8 (Note: The higher the number, the more difficult to do business). What the above indicates to me is that there are general trends becoming apparent, in all cases except Russia and China the ease of conducting business is becoming comparatively harder. Each of the six countries listed above have an individually complex bouquet of internal and external specifics that make direct comparisons almost meaningless, however what is common are overall directions based on common metrics. I would recommend going to the world bank website mentioned earlier as it breaks down the components leading to these overall rankings, which if you are an aficionado of economics and history is an invaluable additional overlay to any reasoned geopolitical assessments of our world. Russia is paternalistic, steeped in a black miasmic lagoon of traditions long since abandoned by our innovative world, stifling development, basic freedoms, and even repressing women! Back home, the issue of women’s rights is vital, newsworthy, of vast political import – it can and does titillate the electorate in many ways both subjective and objective as witnessed in these 2016 elections. Russia on the other hand, popularly prejudged an outcast country, feels it has little to shout about or act on concerning women. This aside from the fact that they are in the main warm, intelligent, competent and stunningly beautiful – fodder for male sexist fantasies. I was horrified to learn that Russia (almost like Don Trump) perniciously tops the list of countries with the highest number of female board members, and that at least 45 percent of senior management positions across its nine time zones are held by women. This evolved without quotas, Hillary Clinton, or any extraordinary outside pressures, which really disappoints me. The pragmatic characteristics of Russians tend to value the actions a person chooses to make, rather than rhetoric and show. In this context, the traditionally developing values and roles between women and men seem naturally to be doing fine. Whistling in appreciation of a woman passing on the street is not insulting; it is what it is, a compliment, pleasure, a bravo between strangers, and a positive normal interaction. Cultural preferences can be hard mistresses to live and work with, no doubt. What Halloween would be complete without including the most odious, shuddersome monster of all? Who else but Vladimir Putin, or “Count Vlad the Bad” as Washington and Brussels like to paint him. His background is frighteningly direct given the infamy he gets. Serving as a KGB analyst for much of his career in East Germany when the wall came down. Moving back to St. Petersburg with his family he worked advising the then mayor on foreign affairs. He resigned from the KGB and progressed within the political administration of the mayor’s office coordinating relations with the military, police, district attorney, customs officials, and other city related diplomatic matters. Considered by those who knew him then as a progressive and talented manager who played a key role attracting a number of Western corporations to the city. He pushed for and directly assisted enabling a great many of joint ventures with foreign companies, establishing a large foreign banking presence, legalizing sale of land that allowed privatization of residential properties, opening the international trade center, strengthening municipal and regional banks. He earned a good reputation within the foreign business community of being an open, practical, ethical man who to the amazement of many, and contrary to the norms of those times did not ask for or accept bribes. Seen by colleagues in Moscow as objective, disciplined and capable was therefore invited into president Yeltsin’s administration where he advanced to the level of prime minister. On New Year’s Eve in 2000, he became acting president, a Yeltsin parting gift to Russia. Count Vlad it seems takes his task of representing Russia’s national interests seriously as evidenced everywhere one looks today inside this monstrous, politically incorrect federation. Russia to be seen as a successful country, particularly in spite of doing so in ways not answerable to the west, does not seem to play well with the leaders in the US and EU. The record of accomplishment of the Russian administration is chilling, the citizenry saw their incomes rise many fold, the poverty rate was halved, consistent economic growth, flat income tax, and a country safe to live in. Unlikely as it may sound coming from this authoritarian hellhole of a country, it has one of the highest rates of education in the world with 54% of Russians having college degrees. Legally mandated paid maternity leave for women, and a payment made directly to the mother on giving birth of a second child of 450,000 rubles (up from 250,000 due to effects of US/EU sanctions). Healthcare is improving steadily as is life expectancy, which has steadily risen to 71 (from a deep dark abyss) and is still rising. All this without Tories, Labor, GOP, Democratic Party, EU a la Brussels, or other “democratic brands” and popular models currently on sale – just the government of the Russian Federation. Frightening! Have a fun and reflectively chilling Halloween! | 0 | [
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FMD532 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s no wonder that Fusion GPS wants to block documents from coming out. The newest unsealed documents are explosive enough with the revelation that there was a payoff to three reporters to push negative news on Trump. Who are the three journalists? Well, Fusion GPS wants that to remain a secret Unsealed court documents reveal that the firm behind the salacious 34-page Trump-Russia Dossier, Fusion GPS, was paid $523,000 by a Russian businessman convicted of tax fraud and money laundering, whose lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was a key figure in the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower arranged by Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone.In short, D.C. opposition research firm Fusion GPS is the common denominator linked to two schemes used to damage the Trump campaign.PAYOFF TO THREE JOURNALISTS:Newly filed court documents confirm that Fusion GPS, the company mostly responsible for the controversial Trump dossier on presidential candidate Donald Trump, made payments to three journalists between June 2016 until February 2017.The revelation could be a breakthrough for House Republicans, who are exploring whether Fusion GPS used the dossier, which was later criticized for having inaccurate information on Trump, to feed anti-Trump stories to the press during and after the presidential campaign. The three journalists who were paid by Fusion GPS are known to have reported on Russia issues relevant to [the committee s] investigation, the House Intelligence Committee said in a court filing.REDACTED DOCUMENTS AND RESTRAINING ORDERS:But the recipients names, the amounts, and purposes of those payments were either redacted from the documents that Fusion GPS filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or were not disclosed.Fusion has asked the court to issue a restraining order against the House committee, which is demanding documents from the company that, among other things, explain the payments it made to reporters. Most of the documents sought are banking records.Let s hope that the details come to light and all are held accountable for their corruption. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD533 | 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 Santa Hang on a Cross in Japan? Claim summaries: Did a Japanese department store once display Santa Claus nailed to a cross?
contextual information: Driven by a thriving retail industry, a cultural penchant for obligatory gift-giving, and a fascination with the West, the Japanese adopted (and adapted) several traditional Western holiday celebrations after World War II. Stripped of their meaning and bent to the whims of retailers, however, these holidays have taken some rather unusual forms in Japan over the years. The Mary Chocolate Co. is credited with bringing Valentine's Day to Japan in 1958, with the twist that it should be a day for girls to give gifts to guys. Naturally, this led to the retail industry's creation of "White Day" on March 14, an occasion for boys to reciprocate all those chocolates they had received a month earlier by buying white presents (such as white candy, handkerchiefs, or panties) for their partners. Likewise, the Seibu department store recast St. Patrick's Day as "Green Day," a retail promotion featuring things green and Irish. (It didn't work.) The Japan Biscuit Association touted Halloween as an occasion that Americans celebrate by eating biscuits. (When that failed to go over well, the custom melded into one of friends giving each other orange candy and cakes.) However, the Western holiday that carries the most influence in Japan is, not surprisingly, the holiday that carries the most influence in the West as well: Christmas. Although St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, the celebration of Christmas was mostly limited to churches and missionary schools until the 20th century. (Indeed, Christianity was outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639 and henceforth practiced only clandestinely until 1854.) The exchanging of gifts at Christmastime by Japanese families began in a small way early this century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. Starting with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Christianity enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, and Christmas took off in a big (and commercialized) way. As you'd expect in a country where less than 2% of the population is Christian, Christmas is primarily a secular occasion in Japan, with shops and businesses remaining open for the day. The Japanese have adopted many of the traditional trappings of 'Kurisumasu,' such as stores with elaborate displays of Christmas decorations and piped-in Christmas music, and homes made festive with Christmas lights, Christmas trees, and poinsettias. The elimination of the religious aspects of Christmas and its hyper-commercialization have led to some unique (and, to us, bizarre) ways of celebrating it. The exchanging of kurisumasu cakes is not exactly a Western tradition, but it doesn't sound too unusual to us. What we do find unusual are reports of Japanese Christmas customs such as young couples exchanging presents of expensive jewelry, heading out to high-priced hotels, and being directed by scantily-clad female elves to rooms complete with Christmas trees, where the lovebirds spend their Christmas Eve in romantic bliss. The co-optation of familiar Christmas figures, both secular and religious, in the service of mass merchandising has also produced some rather curious blendings (real and imagined): Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa suit (as KFC tried strenuously to promote fried chicken as the "traditional" Christmas meal), nuns singing advertising jingles to the tune of Christmas carols, Christmas cards featuring a ghoulish Santa in a graveyard accompanied by the Virgin Mary on a broomstick, elves plastered on sake, and a Christmas revue featuring "stripping nuns and three lecherous Wise Men." And sometimes they just don't get it at all, such as when a Japanese TV station reportedly ran the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a disturbing film about English soldiers in a Japanese POW camp, as its festive holiday offering. By far the most well-known of these Japanese/Western holiday blendings is the notorious story of a department store somewhere in Japan that one year supposedly erected a prominent Christmas display featuring as its centerpiece the smiling figure of Santa Claus nailed to a cross. It's a perfect expression of the clash between the holy and the profane, the secular and the religious, the East and the West. It speaks to xenophobic fears (these foreigners can't be trusted with our religion and our traditions!), and it's a darn funny story. A few Decembers ago, a Japanese department store, desperate to appear westernized and with-it, mounted an extravagant Christmas display featuring a life-sized Santa Claus crucified upon a cross. The granddaddy of cultural faux pas in Japan occurred just after World War II when a Ginza department store rolled out its elaborate Christmas promotion: a smiling Santa nailed to a crucifix. A Japanese department store reputedly once put up a big Christmas cartoon that prominently displayed a Santa Claus on a crucifix. Whether or not this story, which has been circulating in Tokyo for some years, is true or just another urban legend is unclear. A famous story from 1945, the first year of the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, recounts how shopkeepers in Tokyo's Ginza district knew there was a big Western holiday coming and wanted to capitalize on it. "They knew there was this guy in a white beard and a red suit, and they knew there was a religious angle," said an American Motorola executive. "And the result was little Santa Clauses on crucifixes." A few years ago, in Kyoto, one department store filled its center window with an enormous effigy of a crucified Santa Claus. However, despite all the people who assert that the tale of the crucified Santa is true and that they know someone who actually saw it, the literal truthfulness of this legend is suspect. No one to our knowledge has produced evidence documenting that such a Christmas display was ever used commercially in Japan (other than as a knowing joke), such as a photograph of the scene or a contemporaneous news account that recorded its date and location. In true urban legend fashion, the details of where, when, and how the crucified Santa Claus was displayed are vague and vary from telling to telling: Santa appeared on a cross in Kyoto, Tokyo, the Ginza district, or a specific department store (such as Mitsukoshi); he was represented with a gigantic figure, a life-sized display, several small characters, a billboard, or a cartoon drawing; and Santa was nailed to a cross in Japan in 1945 or 1962 or 1990 or anywhere between "just after World War II" to "a few years ago." The mixing of Christian crucifixion iconography and Santa Claus is an unlikely pairing, even to non-Christians. Nativity scenes, not crucifixes, are the religious displays featured at Christmastime, and anyone with the least bit of thoughtfulness would have to wonder why a smiling, happy, jolly figure would be depicted hanging from boards with nails driven through his hands and feet. Santa Claus in a creche might be a plausible mistake (there are claims that figures such as the Seven Dwarfs have been spotted standing in for the Three Wise Men in various parts of the world), but a crucified Santa challenges credulity. As parody, it's believable; as an honest mistake, we find it implausible. Perhaps the key to this legend is the timing. Despite claims of crucified Santas in Japan that span the entire post-war era, the earliest reports of this legend we've found so far all stem from the early 1990s. Not coincidentally, up until that time, Japan had been riding the economic high of their "bubble economy," and Americans watched in dismay as the Japanese business model was widely touted as superior to the American. Dire predictions were made about the dominance of the American (and world) economy by Japan, and asset-rich Japanese began snapping up foreign (especially American) real estate such as New York's Rockefeller Center. Should we be surprised that a xenophobic legend involving a clash between Japan and one of the most hallowed aspects of Western culture might arise from such circumstances? Alternatively, we can ignore all the foreign trappings and simply interpret this legend as a commentary on the commercialization of Christmas, a holiday in which Jesus Christ has now been replaced (symbolically and literally) by Santa Claus. This was the point artist Robert Cenedella was trying to make when he drew the ire of religious groups over his painting of a crucified Santa Claus, which was displayed in the window of New York's Art Students League in December 1997. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD534 | 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 Nancy Pelosi Say Building a Wall Will Violate the Rights of 'Millions of Illegals'? Claim summaries: A quote from the House Minority Leader about how building a wall on the Mexican border would violate the rights of undocumented people is a hoax.
contextual information: In January 2018, amid a brief government shutdown and a furor over the potential deportation of recipients of the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals act, or DACA, a months-old meme reappeared featuring a photograph of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and a quote about how building a wall on the southern United States border "will violate the right of millions of illegals": The graphic proved popular in some conservative circles, where it was shared along with messages that insult Pelosi as dumb, clueless, or out of touch. It was also frequently attached to comments asserting (inaccurately) that the rights of "illegals" couldn't be violated since illegal immigrants don't have any rights to violate: shared clueless already barrier knows This fake quote originally appeared in August 2017, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a government shutdown in order to secure funding for a border wall. Nancy Pelosi released a statement in response which labeled the wall "immoral" (emphasis ours): threatened statement "Last night, President Trump yet again threatened to cause chaos in the lives of millions of Americans if he doesnt get his way. Make no mistake: the President said he will purposefully hurt American communities to force American taxpayers to fund an immoral, ineffective and expensive border wall. President Trumps multi-billion dollar border wall boondoggle is strongly opposed by Democrats and many Republicans. Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall and the rest of Republicans unacceptable poison pill riders." This fake quote began to circulate shortly after Pelosi released that statement: circulate The argument might be made that this particular meme paraphrases Pelosi's attitude toward the wall. However, it naturally became incorrectly presented as though it was a direct quote from House Minority Leader: incorrectly presented The idea that undocumented people can't have their rights violated because they have no rights to begin with is false. Undocumented people may not enjoy all of the Constitutional rights given to American citizens, but they do have some protections under the law. Furthermore, referring to undocumented people as "illegal" is not accurate, as the violation in and of itself is civil, not criminal: protections civil criminal In fact, a 2006 study showed that roughly 45% of undocumented immigrants originally entered the US legally, but then remained in the country without authorization after their visas had expired. a 2006 study The penalty for this type of violation of immigration law is deportation, and according to the ACLU, "civil removal proceedings far outnumber criminal prosecutions and remain the primary manner in which the federal authorities enforce the immigration laws." according to the ACLU If, however, an undocumented immigrant is deported and then returns to the US without permission, then that "illegal re-entry" constitutes a federal offense with different tiers of accompanying prison time. a federal offense Even so, undocumented individuals do have rights in the United States, despite concerted disinformation and propaganda efforts to obscure them. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001, for instance, that the due process clause (that is, the 14th Amendment) applies to "all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent." instance due process clause Epstein, Jennifer. "Trump Threatens Government Shutdown Over Border Wall Funding."
Bloomberg. 22 August 2017. Detrow, Scott. "Republicans And Democrats Seek Path To DACA Deal In Coming Weeks."
NPR. 4 January 2018. Contreras, Raoul. "Yes, Illegal Aliens Have Constitutional Rights."
The Hill. 29 September 2015. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD535 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg welcomed greater cooperation between the Western military alliance and European Union on Thursday, saying the two were stronger together. Forces and capabilities developed under EU initiatives have to be available also for NATO because we only have one set of forces, NATO s secretary general told reporters on arrival at a summit of European leaders. Together we are stronger. With Brexit also on the summit s agenda, he said that Britain s withdrawal from the EU would not change its relationship with the military alliance. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD536 | 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: Ohio's (payday lending) laws are now the worst in the nation. Things have gotten so bad that it is legal to charge 594 percent interest on loans.
contextual information: Though consumer advocates have long called for changing the payday lending law in Ohio, a criminal investigation has resulted in the resignation of the state House speaker. Republican Cliff Rosenberger resigned in April as the FBI was investigating his foreign travel sponsored by payday-lending lobbyists. He denied wrongdoing. Rosenbergers resignation brought votes on legislation screeching to a halt, including aproposed bill to strengthen consumer protections for payday loans. Consumer advocates are collecting signatures to put similar language before voters on the ballot, likely in 2019. The Ohio Consumer Lenders Association, which represents the industry,opposes the measures. Richard Cordray, the Democrat running for governor against Republican Mike DeWine, has criticized the state law. The current shutdown of the State House has delayed legislation addressing payday lending, where Ohio's laws are now the worst in the nation, CordraytweetedMay 17. Things have gotten so bad that it is legal to charge 594 percent interest on loans that end up ruining peoples lives. Unconscionable. Cordrays statement comparing Ohios payday industry to the nation comes from a 2014 report by Pew Charitable Trusts. Cordray worked on changing rules on payday lending on a national level when he was the first director of the federal Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. The bureaufinalized ruleson payday lending in October 2017, several weeks before he resigned to run for governor.Cordray has attacked his successor, Mick Mulvaney,for attempting to roll back the rules. Payday loans are small, short-term loans that borrowers promise to repay out of their next paycheck at ahigh rateof interest. Aboutthree dozen stateshave their own payday laws, including Ohio. Proponents argue that the working poor need payday loans to cover their bills, while opponents argue that they trap borrowers in a cycle of debt. Aboutone in 10 adults in Ohiohave taken out a payday loan. In 2008, Ohio lawmakers approved the Short Term Loan Act. The law, opposed by the industry, includedprotections for borrowers, such as capping the loan at $500 and the annual interest rates for payday loans at 28 percent. However, payday lenders found a loophole: They registered as mortgage lenders instead. TheOhio Supreme Courtupheld the law in 2014, prompting one concurring judge to ask, Were the lobbyists smarter than the legislators? Did the legislators realize that the bill was smoke and mirrors and would accomplish nothing? Ohio is the only state where lenders operate under such a statute that was not intended for payday loans, said Alex Horowitz, senior research officer for Pew Charitable Trust's consumer finance project, which has researched payday laws in the states for many years. In a2014 analysisof states payday lending laws, Pew didnt flat-out label Ohio as the worst in the nation for payday lending. But it did find that borrowers were charged much more than their peers in many other states. By examining payday loan prices in each state from the four largest lenders, Pew found that over five months a $300 payday loan would cost an Ohio borrower $680 in interest and fees, which equals an average annual percentage rate of 591 percent (which is close to the 594 percent figure cited by Cordray.) No other state had a higher rate, according to the Pew analysis. The interest and fees amount in Ohio was slightly exceeded by Texas, but Texas has more protections for consumers, including a 180-day loan limit that Ohio doesnt have. While the typical loan is technically two weeks, in the majority of cases the borrower ends up in a cycle of loans for several months. While most states that allow payday lending cap loans at $500, Ohio lenders dont operate under the Short Term Loan Act, so they can make loans that are double or even triple the amount of conventional payday loans. The Center for Responsible Lending, an organization that calls for more safeguards for consumers,found in 2015that payday loan storefronts in Ohio advertised rates of more than 600 percent annual percentage rate. Diane Standaert, director of state policy, said that since that time some storefronts now reflect rates between 300 and 400 percent for some loans. But this is basically comparing the differences between (1) a very bad loan, and (2) another very bad loan, she said. The effort to change Ohios payday lending law gained steam in March 2017 whenHouse Bill 123was introduced by State Reps.Kyle Koehler,a Republican of Springfield, and Michael Ashford, a Toledo Democrat. The bill is similar toColorados payday lending lawwhich consumer advocates have upheld as a model example. After languishing for a year, itpassed a House committeein April 2018 about a week after Rosenberger resigned, but a full vote was placed on hold while lawmakers deadlocked over picking a new speaker. On June 7, theHouse passed the bill and it now heads to the Senate. The bill would cap the interest rate at 28 percent and a fee of up to $20 a month, which would mean that a borrower of $300 would pay $96 in interest and fees. Cordray said, Ohio's (payday lending) laws are now the worst in the nation. Things have gotten so bad that it is legal to charge 594 percent interest on loans. Pew Charitable Trusts found in 2014 that over five months a $300 payday loan would cost an Ohio borrower $680 in interest and fees, which equals an average annual percentage rate of 591 percent. While the report didnt call out Ohio as the worst in the nation, no other state had a rate that was higher, according to the report. The difference between the 591 percent cited in the report and the 594 percent tweeted by Cordray is negligible. We rate this statement True. ' | 1 | [
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FMD537 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: This is how coddled kids who have never had to deal with losing an innocent family member, friend or co-worker at the hands of evil Islamic terrorists behaves At Occidental College on Saturday, vandals trashed 2,977 U.S. flags planted in the quad to memorialize those who died on Sept. 11.The students who planted the small American flags found them uprooted and thrown in campus garbage cans. Every last flag. Some were even snapped in half.Not only that, dozens of makeshift fliers accompanied the vandalism. Taped to benches and other surfaces, most of the fliers stated R.I.P. to 9/11 victims as well as to 1.45 million Iraqis who died during the U.S. invasion for something they didn t do. Sophomore Alan Bliss, a math and economics major who helped lead the effort to plant the flags, told The College Fix in a telephone interview Sunday that when he and a friend came across the destroyed memorial, three students confronted him and said they found the display triggering. He said the students also accused him of white privilege and ignorance.Occidental is a small liberal-arts college in Los Angeles known as far-left. President Barack Obama attended for two years before transferring to Columbia. So when the right or even moderates try to do something on campus there is extreme push back, Bliss said of his school, adding conservatives are a silent majority there and some students are even scared of speaking up against progressives for fear of retribution.As for the display, Bliss said it was installed Saturday afternoon by his conservative student club, which is affiliated with the College Republican National Committee and Young Americans for Freedom, the latter of which helped sponsor the Never Forget memorial project.Later that night Bliss said he learned bandits had uprooted and tossed the flags. When Bliss and his friend arrived at the scene, it was 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The three students who told Bliss the display is triggering denied involvement in the vandalism, he said.Campus safety was called and officers took statements from Bliss as well as the other three students.Meanwhile, Bliss added, as word spread on social media that the Never Forget memorial was razed, students left their dorm rooms in the middle of the night to help replant the flags. As students came home from parties, they chipped in, too. They were just like, I am not Republican, I am not conservative, but this is a terrible act, Bliss said. They stayed there late into the night, 2 a.m., planting flags. It was pretty amazing, it was pretty touching. A Facebook post from the club offers more details on the long evening: Later that morning, a few of us stood guard at the memorial. Four Occidental students came up and snapped a few flags right in our faces. When we confronted them, those cowards got away as fast as they possibly could. When Bliss (pictured) and his friends returned to the display after breakfast Sunday morning, he said he found another 100 flags trashed. And again, Bliss and his peers replanted.Bliss, 20, co-founder and president of the club, which he alanblisslaunched in the spring of 2016, said he plans to fight back. The College Fix | 0 | [
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FMD538 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Illegitimate Stock Markets Back Hillary By Daily Bell Staff - November 01, 2016
The Stock Market Has a Favorite in the Election … On the evening of Sept. 26, two interesting things happened. First, Hillary Clinton won a decisive debate victory over Donald Trump in the first presidential debate, as judged by prediction markets (and later, by polls). Second, financial markets abruptly experienced large, abnormal swings. Economists Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz have documented this extraordinary convergence in a new paper, titled “What do financial markets think of the 2016 election?” – Bloomberg
This Bloomberg article actually questions conclusions regarding stock market support for Hillary, but adds: “So Wolfers and Zitzewitz make a strong case.”
Indeed the study has attracted a lot of attention, though one of the reasons is obviously because it is a pro-Hillary study and apt to be picked up by the mainstream media.
The larger question, of course, is why equity markets would find an anti-freedom, pro-war candidate attractive.
More:
The most likely explanation is that financial markets think a Clinton victory would be good for the economy ….
We saw some of the opposite happen when stock markets plunged on Friday, immediately after an announcement by FBI Director James Comey that the agency was reviewing new evidence in a probe related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.
Why would markets not like Trump? Well, it’s pretty obvious. Trump’s mercurial temperament, unconventional ideas and lack of governing experience would create large doubts about the direction of all sorts of government policy — just the sort of thing that makes investors uneasy.
This really doesn’t make much sense. On almost every front, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s actions over decades have been inimical to freedom. If investing and trade thrive in free-market environments, then markets should not reflect a pro-Clinton bias.
The reason that markets are pro-Clinton is probably because markets – especially stock markets – are not expressions of free markets. That sounds strange because stock markets, especially, are seen as expressions of capitalism.
Of course “capitalism” is not necessarily an appropriate nomenclature but that’s an article for another day.
The point is that corporations and the stocks that offer investment opportunities are not necessarily any more legitimate than central banks. Neither corporations nor central banks are “normal” expressions of a free-market system.
Central banks fix the price and value of “money” via interest rate manipulation. This price fixing has the force of law. If you don’t obey – or agree – you can end up in prison.
Corporations are artificial entities that the founders of the US greatly feared. (See here and here ). Before the Civil War corporations were almost non-existent.
Corporations are also the outcome of government force. They are in existence because of intellectual property laws, corporate personhood, monopoly central banking and regulations that prop them up.
Without significant government support, modern corporations would not exist and neither would their “stocks.”
The titanic nature of modern corporations is the outcome of government manipulation. The “investment” opportunities presented by such quasi-government monopolies would not be viable in a normal free-market environment.
People simply don’t realize how distorted modern economies are. They are entirely artificial creations, dependent on state-enforced central banking and industrial monopolies.
And this is why “stock markets” prefer the Clintons in this election cycle. It’s because large industries depend on government to sustain their artificial competitive advantages.
One can certainly speculate what a real free-market would look like within the context of stock markets. Probably such markets would be a good deal smaller and oriented toward a select clientele rather than a mass audience of “investors.”
Most people would make their living in the trades or in others ways that were directly in demand. Societies would probably be more agrarian-based – as they used to be. Savings would gradually appreciate in value as technology brought down the price of goods and services on a regular basis.
The stampeding of savers into stock markets is surely an unnatural occurrence. It has been promoted because those who control stock markets and their corporations want people to feel that their net worth is tied up in the current system.
Ironically, this system does not provide much wealth to the average individual. Most people in the West are relatively impoverished and times are growing more difficult not less so. Middle classes seem to be shrinking rather than expanding.
Conclusion: Many people in the West and certainly in the US would be glad to see real entrepreneurism flourish in the context of companies aligned with a fully competitive marketplace. Stocks and stock markets would still exist of course, but they would reflect a bias toward freedom rather than fascism. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD539 | 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 there an allegation that Derek Chauvin failed to report $500,000 in income? Claim summaries: The former Minneapolis police officer, already sentenced for the murder of George Floyd, has been charged with nine counts of felony tax evasion.
contextual information: In June 2021, as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin faced sentencing for the murder of George Floyd, one widely-shared social media post accused Chauvin of other crimes, namely tax evasion. On June 25, @davenewworld_2 wrote on Twitter: "Derek Chauvin underreported half a million dollars in income while owing $20,000+ in taxes, and then fucking murdered George Floyd over an alleged $20 counterfeit bill..." wrote That tweet, and the claims it contained, were further promoted in a popular Reddit post, on the following day. popular Reddit post On June 25, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of Floyd, a Black man who died after Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes, in May 2020. sentenced The claim that Chauvin "underreported half a million dollars in income" stems from an ongoing criminal case against him, and his former wife Kellie May Chauvin. However, Chauvin has not yet entered a plea in that case, and has not been tried or convicted, as of June 28, 2021. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven," for now. When the case is resolved, we will update this fact check accordingly. A brief note: Kellie May and Derek Chauvin divorced in February 2021, and during those proceedings she expressed an intention to change her last name. However, we have not been able to find any record of that name change, so this article refers to her using her last-known last name, Chauvin. expressed an intention On July 22, 2020, the office of Washington County Attorney Pete Orput charged the Chauvins with nine counts each of felony tax evasion, claiming that they "failed to file income tax returns and pay state income taxes, underreported and underpaid taxes on income generated from various employments each year, and failed to pay proper sales tax on a vehicle purchased in Minnesota." charged The complaint against Derek Chauvin summarized the details of their alleged offenses, as follows: complaint The Chauvins did not file tax returns in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The filed tax returns for years 2014 and 2015 did not report income received from D. Chauvin's off-duty security work and K. Chauvin's photography income. Tax returns for years 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 filed on June 26, 2020, did not report D. Chauvin's off-duty security work and K. Chauvin's photography income. According to prosecutors, the Chauvins under-reported a total of $464,433 in income between 2014 and 2019, just short of the "half a million dollars" included in the widely-shared tweet from June 2021: Source: Washington County Attorney's Office However, the Chauvins have not yet entered pleas in this case, as of June 28, 2021. An omnibus hearing, at which the two defendants could potentially enter pleas, was scheduled for June 30, the Washington County Attorney's office told Snopes. could potentially enter pleas Since Derek Chauvin has not yet pleaded guilty or been convicted of the charges against him, and neither might ever occur, the claim that he "under-reported half a million dollars in income" was unproven, as of June 28. When the case is resolved, we will update this fact check accordingly. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD540 | 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: Coke Donates to Israel Claim summaries: Has Coca-Cola announced that it will be donating four days' worth of income to Israel?
contextual information: Coca-Cola has announced that it will be donating four days' worth of income to Israel. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] I have heard various rumors about the nature of the relationship between Coca-Cola and the State of Israel. Today, I received a text message on my cell phone stating: "NBC states that the income that Coca-Cola will get in the coming four days starting from Monday will be donated to Israel."
Origins: The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East creates a precarious business climate, where any company operating in both Israel and other Middle Eastern countries risks being denounced by one side as a supporter of the other. Companies dealing in relatively inexpensive, ubiquitous products such as soft drinks or fast food are particularly visible targets for those who call for boycotts to protest financial support of one side or the other. American-based companies, in particular, often become the focus of such boycotts, as the USA is home to many of the world's most well-known brands and has been one of the few countries to openly support Israel. McDonald's and Coca-Cola frequently find themselves at the center of boycott calls; the former became a target a few years ago when Saudi Arabian McDonald's outlets donated a portion of their proceeds to Palestinian children's hospitals, while the latter is currently facing backlash due to false claims that they will be "donating four days' worth of income to Israel."
Pepsi is also included in this short list, with claims sometimes taken literally that it is a 'Jewish product' whose name is an acronym for 'Pay Every Penny to Save Israel' or 'Pay Every Penny to the State of Israel.' As the Associated Press once noted, "Calling Pepsi a 'Jewish product' is ironic, given that Pepsi was one of many multinationals that wouldn't do business in Israel during the 40-year Arab commercial boycott of the Jewish state."
Recently, a series of graphics employing Coca-Cola imagery has been circulated to garner support for an Arab boycott of American companies such as Coca-Cola. At least one such image, which depicts the Dome of the Rock emblazoned with a Coca-Cola logo, has caused an uproar among Muslims who have mistaken it for a bona fide Coca-Cola advertisement, lending support to the unfounded rumor that Coca-Cola will be donating four days' worth of income to Israel. It is hard to imagine that this rumor could be anything but a deliberate lie concocted to smear an American-based company that does business in both Israel and Middle Eastern countries, as no Coke-related business is currently engaged in any sponsorship that could reasonably be misunderstood as constituting a financial "donation" to the state of Israel.
As The Coca-Cola Company itself has stated, the company does not support or oppose political or religious causes and does not take a stance on issues that do not directly affect the soft drink industry. The Coca-Cola Company operates worldwide in nearly 200 countries and territories with different cultures, political systems, religions, and histories. People from all around the world own shares in The Coca-Cola Company, and the company employs individuals from many different backgrounds and nationalities. Our partners who bottle, distribute, and sell our products are local business people who hire individuals in their local markets. We cannot and do not take the side of one country over another in any dispute.
It's unfortunate that the incredible power of the Internet is being misused to spread false information. Moreover, since Ramallah is home to a Coca-Cola bottling facility that employs about 400 local residents (and indirectly creates employment for hundreds more), and Coca-Cola industries throughout the Middle East are operated as local businesses, any boycott of Coca-Cola in Middle Eastern countries is likely to cause more monetary harm to Arabs and Palestinians than it is to Americans or Israelis.
Unfortunately, the maxim that the first casualty in war is truth still holds sway. Last updated: 2 December 2007. | 0 | [
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FMD541 | 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 Pins Placed in the Collars of Chinese Officers to Correct Posture? Claim summaries: It's definitely difficult to slouch when a needle is poking you in the neck.
contextual information: On Aug. 26, 2019, the Twitter account Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) posted a photograph that supposedly showed "how Chinese soldiers keep their posture" by placing a pin or needle in their uniform collars with the point facing toward the neck skin. This is a genuine photograph. It was taken in Beijing in February 2012 and shows a Chinese paramilitary policeman preparing for the National People's Congress. The picture is available via Getty Images with the following caption: A pin, used for training purposes, is placed on the collar of a Chinese paramilitary policeman undergoing a drill to prepare for the upcoming National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on February 28, 2012. China's parliament, the National People's Congress, is set to open its annual session on March 5. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images). While this is a genuine photograph of a pin being used to correct posture, this is not a training method that all soldiers have to endure. A 2009 article from The New York Times indicated that this is a corrective measure for soldiers whose postures aren't up to standards: The New York Times The Olympics that dazzled spectators last year showed China's knack for meticulous preparation. Participants in the Thursday parade have engaged in similarly intense drills for months, according to reports in the Chinese news media. Soldiers have practiced endless hours to hold their rifles at precisely the same level. Photos show their instructors holding threads as rifle guides or sticking needles in soldiers' shirt collars, pointed at their necks, to correct poor posture. They have trained to stand motionless for a solid hour, to refrain from swaying during the second hour, and not to collapse after three hours, reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency. We found one other photograph from Getty Images showing a Chinese officer with a pin being placed in his collar in an attempt to correct posture. The following picture is available with the caption: "An officer sticks a needle in the collar of a paramilitary policeman to correct his posture during a training session in Hefei, Anhui province, September 13, 2009. VCP (Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images)." LaFraniere, Sharon. "No Detail Is Overlooked as China Prepares to Celebrate." The New York Times. 28 September 2009. | 1 | [
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FMD542 | 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: 'Media Silence' on $12B Reduction to the National Debt During Trump's First Month? Claim summaries: Although President Trump cited accurate national debt figures in a tweet, the newsworthiness of that information was questionable.
contextual information: On 25 February 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted to complain that the news media were not reporting his success in reducing the national debt during his first month in office: "The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama's first month." As noted by news media from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, the tweet appeared shortly after a "Fox & Friends" segment in which guest (and former presidential candidate) Herman Cain reported the same numbers. That story seemed to have its origins in a post on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit titled "Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month," which took credit for the Trump tweet in an update to their story.
There are two claims implicit in the tweet. The first claim is simply the factual nature of the figures reported. The second is that the numbers represent an item worthy of coverage. The numbers are factual in a literal sense, according to the online debt history search application offered by the US Treasury Department. Though the numbers regarding the debt at the end of Trump's and President Obama's first month are factual, their significance as a reportable bit of information or as an indicator of the impact or success of Trump's policies is questionable. Speaking to CBS News, Maya MacGuineas, director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, said, "It is true the debt outstanding declined by $12 billion in the first month of Donald Trump's presidency. We applaud the president for focusing on the debt as an important metric of success and economic health, but would point out that the improvement this early in his term has to do with normal fluctuations in spending and revenues rather than new policies he has implemented."
Indeed, in terms of newsworthiness (or lack thereof), sporadic reductions of the debt are not uncommon on a month-to-month basis, according to the "Monthly Statement of the Public Debt of the United States" reports released during President Obama's second term in office. In fact, the Washington Post's Wonkblog reports that, even on a day-to-day basis, fluctuations even greater than the one Trump referenced are not unheard of. The Gateway Pundit article states that the change in debt under Trump translates to a 0.1 percent reduction in the U.S. debt burden. Actually, it's 0.06 percent between Jan. 20 and Feb. 21—a very small change. (The national debt has gone up or down by as much as 0.19 percent on single days this year.)
Secondly, there are few mechanisms by which any actions Trump has taken as president would affect the national debt thus far, as he has not signed into law any financial measures related to federal borrowing. While there are arguments to be made that other factors related to Trump's presidency could affect the debt, the Post has said it is unlikely and also impossible to quantify: "It's impossible to know whether Trump's election has really had time to filter through to concretely affect the economy. Congress has not passed any of his policies yet. The stock market has certainly continued to boom, but it was already rising before the election. While it's possible anticipation of tax cuts or regulatory relief is heating up the economy and leading to increased government receipts, investors might also be choosing not to sell assets to avoid current capital gains tax rates and waiting to see whether the Republican-dominated Congress successfully slashes rates."
Keith Hennessey, a former director of the U.S. National Economic Council appointed by George W. Bush, wrote a hypothetical memo to Congress analyzing the 45th President's tweet. In this document, he stated that neither Obama nor Trump had any effect on the national debt in their first month in office: "Government borrowing in January and February is the byproduct of spending and tax policies set by Congress the year before. President Obama signed the fiscal stimulus law on February 17, 2009, but it took months before that began to change government cash flows and borrowing requirements. President Trump has so far not measurably affected fiscal policy in general or government borrowing in specific. It's unfair to assign any responsibility for borrowing in the first month to either president." Hennessey added that it is equally unfair to compare the 2009 economic situation with the 2017 one: "GDP was plummeting when President Obama took office. Tax revenues were down, automatic stabilizer payments (e.g., unemployment insurance and safety net spending) were up, and funds were being spent from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In early 2009, government was borrowing a lot because the economy was weak, not because of President Obama's policies. In contrast, the U.S. economy is now growing. The smaller borrowing requirement for this month is mostly a result of this economic difference and may also in part be simply an artifact of choosing such a short timeframe for comparison."
More to the point, however, the fact that the day-to-day and month-to-month fluctuations of the national debt are so volatile, he argued, is why analysts don't typically look at the data for these time periods: "Had the president / Mr. Cain ended his timeframe one day earlier, this tweet would have been invalid and debt would have increased (by just $1 billion) in the first month. This is why analysts look at debt on an annual basis rather than daily/weekly/monthly." It should also be noted that, as the Fox and Friends segment aired on one of the nation's most popular national cable news networks, "the media" did indeed report on this story. The reason it didn't pick up much steam is that the numbers were not newsworthy because they were taken out of context and are likely irrelevant to President Trump's actions in office.
UPDATE: 28 February 2017 -- Modified the status of this article to better explicate the difference between the accuracy of the debt figures and their newsworthiness. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD543 | 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 Leonardo DiCaprio Donate $10M to Ukraine via International Visegrad Fund? Claim summaries: This rumor just doesn't add up.
contextual information: In March 2022, a rumor started circulating online that actor Leonardo DiCaprio had donated $10 million to Ukraine after the country was invaded by Russia. While this claim was repeated ad nauseam across social media, there's little evidence to suggest that it's true. In an article that has since been deleted, the Daily Mail reported: Daily Mail reported Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio has donated $10million (7.6million) to a fund for Ukraine, where his grandmother was born in 1915. The actor was reportedly very close with his grandmother - Helene Indenbirken - and would take her to premiers of many of his films. DiCaprio would call her 'Oma'. The donation from the 47-year-old was announced by the International Visegrad Fund, according to Polish News. For starters, neither Leonardo DiCaprio nor the International Visegrad Fund (IVF) have made any announcements about this alleged donation. We searched the social media profiles and websites for both the actor and the IVF, an international donor organization that finances grants and scholarships to encourage the "advancement of innovative ideas in Central and Eastern Europe," and found no mention of this alleged donation. Leonardo DiCaprio International Visegrad Fund Furthermore, this rumor can't be traced back to a reputable news source. While most articles about this alleged donation quoted a report from a website called "Polish News," that March 7 article is not the primary source for this rumor. The earliest iteration of this claim that we could find was published on guyanasouthamerica.gy on March 5, 2022. That article cited anonymous "sources" inside Ukraine: guyanasouthamerica.gy on March 5, 2022 Sources inside Ukraine today, 5th of May, 2022, disclosed that Hollywood superstar, famed for his role in the hit movie Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio, has transferred ten million US dollars to the Ukrainian government as the war rages on between Russia and Ukraine. Presumably, the huge donation is meant to support the war efforts as well as humanitarian efforts within the country. This original report states that DiCaprio donated money directly to the Ukrainian government. This simply doesn't seem feasible, especially without any statements from the Ukrainian government. (We checked. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has not mentioned any multi-million dollar donations from DiCaprio.) The claim that this money was donated to the International Visegrad Fund appears to come from people making big assumptions based on little information. On March 6, a day after the anonymously sourced guyanasouthamerica.gy article was published, the Twitter account Visegrad 24 picked up on the story and published the following tweet. (Visegrad 24 previously shared a false rumor that Pornhub was blocking Russian users from accessing its site). Visegrad 24 picked up on the story and published the following tweet. previously shared a false rumor Pornhub was blocking Russian users from accessing its site This tweet does not claim that DiCaprio donated money to the International Visegrad Fund. Rather, it says that the money was "donated to Ukraine." It seems likely that people saw this tweet, connected Visegrad 24 to the International Visegrad Fund, and assumed that this is where DiCaprio's alleged donation went. A spokesperson for the International Visegrad Fund told us that they were unaware of any such donation from DiCaprio: "We are not aware, neither do we have any information about Leonardo DiCaprio donating USD 10 million/7.6 million to Ukraine. International Visegrad Fund has not announced this information." While DiCaprio did not donate $10 million to this fund, the spokesperson did say that prime ministers from V4 countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) agreed on a "support package of 1 million euros to help Ukraine via the International Visegrad Fund." The spokesperson said: I can, however, inform you that the V4 Prime Ministers met in London on 8 March 2022 where they agreed on a support package of 1 million euros to help Ukraine via the International Visegrad Fund. An extraordinary call for applications will be shortly available to NGOs, organisations, and municipalities from the V4 countries and Ukraine with a focus on improving the situation of refugees from Ukraine. While the rumors that DiCaprio donated $10 million to the Ukraine military or the International Visegrad Fund are untrue, the actor really has made a few private donations of unknown amounts to various humanitarian organizations working in Ukraine. People Magazine reported: People Magazine reported Previous reports claiming the actor had donated $10 million for Ukrainian military use and that DiCaprio has family ties to Ukraine are not true. "Leo had privately made several donations to humanitarian groups CARE, IRC, UNHCR and Save the Children. All directed at Ukraine," a source close to the Don't Look Up actor tells PEOPLE. "He had been watching things unfold and wanted to support Ukraine the best he could. He will continue to support the humanitarian groups on the ground which are helping the people of Ukraine." Dickler, Jessica. Heres a List of the Top-Rated Charities to Help the Ukraine Relief Effort. CNBC, 9 Mar. 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/heres-a-list-of-top-rated-charities-to-help-the-ukraine-relief-effort.html. Examiner, Luke Gentile, Washington. Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $10 Million to Ukraine. Colorado Springs Gazette, https://gazette.com/news/leonardo-dicaprio-donates-10-million-to-ukraine/article_b1faacaa-b309-587c-8905-19f046619474.html. Accessed 9 Mar. 2022. Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $10 Million to Ukraine. Washington Examiner, 9 Mar. 2022, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/leonardo-dicaprio-donates-10-million-to-ukraine. Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $10MILLION to Fund for Ukraine - His Grandmothers Homeland | Daily Mail Online. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10593687/Leonardo-DiCaprio-donates-10MILLION-fund-Ukraine-grandmothers-homeland.html. Accessed 9 Mar. 2022. REPORT: Leonardo DiCaprio Donates $10 Million To Help Ukraine. https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/09/report-leonardo-dicaprio-donation-10-million-ukraine-russia/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2022. Updated [9 March 2022]: Article updated with statement from DiCaprio's spokesperson about the actor's genuine donations to Ukraine. | 0 | [
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FMD544 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A possible cancellation of a meeting planned next week between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump would fuel uncertainty, Mexican Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said on Thursday. “That’s correct,†Meade said on Mexican radio when asked if a cancellation of the meeting would fuel uncertainty. Earlier, Trump said on Twitter Pena Nieto should cancel his upcoming visit to Washington if Mexico refuses to pay for the border wall the American wants to build along the border. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD545 | 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: Costco CEO Claim summaries: Image presents information about Costco CEO James Sinegal?
contextual information: Claim: Image presents information about Costco CEO James Sinegal. PARTLY Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2012] Is this true? Costco CEO pays his employees $17 hour plus benefits and resists Wall Street demands to cut pay and benefits. Origins: This graphic featuring a photograph and information about Costco warehouse store chain CEO James Sinegal was circulated in November 2012 and was generally accurate, but a bit outdated. Jim Sinegal co-founded Costco and served as the company's President and CEO for nearly three decades, but he stepped down from those positions in January 2012 (although he remains a company advisor and a member of the Costco board of directors). The accompanying text about employee pay and benefits and Sinegal's resistance to Wall Street criticisms appears to have been drawn from a July 2005 New York Times profile of Sinegal and Costco: Combining high quality with stunningly low prices, [Costco products] appeal to upscale customers and epitomize why some retail analysts say Mr. Sinegal just might be America's shrewdest merchant since Sam Walton. But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well. Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder." Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands. Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers' expense. "This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business." He also dismisses calls to increase Costco's product markups. Mr. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said that heeding Wall Street's advice to raise some prices would bring Costco's downfall. Despite Costco's impressive record, Mr. Sinegal's salary is just $350,000, although he also received a $200,000 bonus last year. That puts him at less than 10 percent of many other chief executives, though Costco ranks 29th in revenue among all American companies. Similarly, Slate wrote in 2008 that: It's not hard to make a case that Costco pays employees more. The most relevant comparison is between Costco and Sam's Club, Wal-Mart's membership warehouse, since both business models rely on membership fees for a large percentage of revenues. A Sam's Club employee starts at $10 and makes $12.50 after four and a half years. A new Costco employee, at $11 an hour, doesn't start out much better, but after four and a half years she makes $19.50 an hour. In addition to this, she receives something called an "extra check" a bonus of more than $2,000 every six months. A cashier at Costco, after five years, makes about $40,000 a year. Health benefits are among the best in the industry, with workers paying only about 12 percent of their premiums out-of-pocket while Wal-Mart workers pay more than 40 percent. In my interview with Costco CFO Richard Galanti, he mentioned Jim Sinegal every couple of minutes, attributing the company's high wages to the CEO's personal values. CFO Galanti acknowledged having at times argued with his boss, urging him to curb Costco's generosity on health care. (Sinegal eventually agreed with him, reluctantly, in 2003 but insisted that care remain affordable to employees.) Sinegal's kindliness is impressive, but he's also 72 years old and thus won't be around forever. Perhaps he's created a corporate culture strong enough to outlast him, but that's impossible to predict. In a November 2010 report of data gathered by the job site CareerBliss.com, Costco employees gave the company "the highest ratings for salary, benefits and work-life balance." CareerBliss.com According to Yahoo! Finance, in 2011 Jim Sinegal's total yearly compensation as a Costco company executive, including salary and bonuses, was $629,000, and he garnered another $12,300,000 through the exercise of stock options. Yahoo! Finance Last updated: 28 November 2012 Featherstone, Liza. "Wage Against the Machine." Slate. 27 June 2008. Goldwert, Lindsay. "Costco Employees Give company Top Ratings ." New York [Daily News]. 29 November 2010. Greenhouse, Steven. "How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart." The New York Times. 17 July 2005. Schmit, Julie. "Costco Wins Loyalty with Bulky Bargains." USA Today. 23 September 2004. | 1 | [
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FMD546 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thu, 27 Oct 2016 08:47 UTC © Francois Lenoir/Reuters Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of "narrowing perspective," and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right. Comment: Obviously it has nothing to do with your immigration policy. Only right wing racists would ever have a problem with that. Right comrades? "The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others? " said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday. Comment: What we have here is a confluence of stupid. Take a politician who doesn't understand technology, give them a microphone, and listen as they embarrass themselves with hyperbolic pronouncements and decrees. "These algorithms, when they are not transparen t, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information. " Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user's liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user's own media interests . These algorithms are at the core of the intellectual property of any social media or search website, and comprise some of the most highly-protected trade secrets in the world, potentially worth billions. No internet giant has ever revealed its inner workings. Merkel did not specifically name Facebook, Google or Twitter, but implied that the large platforms are creating "bubbles" of self-reinforcing views, and squeezing out smaller news providers. Comment: Hypocrite says what? The rule with politicians is: ALWAYS INVERT. What Merkel means to say is that: large platforms allow people to get a more concise summary of news from smaller providers, which is squeezing out the larger state propaganda news agencies. "The big internet platforms, via their algorithms, have become an eye of a needle which diverse media must pass through to reach users ," warned Merkel. "This is a development that we need to pay careful attention to." Comment: See what we mean. What she is saying here is: "People shouldn't be able to choose what they want to read, we should make sure that what they read is what we (the state) wants them to read. " Can't have all willy-nilly preference reading, now can we. The internet giants themselves have argued that the so-called social media bubble is largely a myth, and that online users have a wider access to differing views than under a pre-internet model, where most news would be acquired from just a handful of newspapers and one or two TV channels. German establishment raises 'Sword of Damocles' over social media attack on social media by Merkel and her Grand Coalition government , and while the German politician advocates diversity of views, she has previously accused it of perpetrating opinions t hat are most at odds with those of the establishment and traditional media . Comment: Her agenda is showing. Last month, Merkel accused AfD, the recently-established anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party, which receives overwhelmingly negative coverage in most newspapers, of "spreading their lies" through social media, as it achieves breakthroughs in regional elections around the country. Comment: Couldn't be because of popular support? What functioning brain buys this horsehockey? This is the same kind of thinking that leads tot he belief in magical spells. What, these "right-wing" parties have learned the 14 words to magically turn anyone into a racist? A year ago, at the height of the refugee influx into the country, Merkel, who was first elected in 2005, was caught on a hot mic personally pressing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to clamp down on anti-migrant posts during a UN session in New York. A fortnight ago, the leader of Merkel's parliamentary CDU faction, Volker Kauder, said that social media should be fined €50,000 for failing to remove "hate speech," saying that a "Sword of Damocles" has to hang over social media. Kauder also called for warnings, similar to those on cigarette packs or before entering pornographic websites, to be given to those about to go on social media. Justice Minister Heiko Maas - who said that there had been a 77 percent increase in hate crimes following the arrival of 900,000 asylum seekers - has given internet media companies until February next year to comply with EU directives on xenophobia and racism , or face legal action. Comment: You see the language game? Immigrant = asylum seeker = refugee. But those words are not the same, they are all different things. Xenophobia is the fear of foreigners, and racism is the belief that certain ethnicities have inescapable inherent traits. These words are not cognates, nor are they even within the same semantic continuum. They are bombarding you with a bunch of negative words hoping they'll stick. Why? What do they want you to think? And do you really want to think it? | 0 | [
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FMD547 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: news outlet Vox attacked Marines on Memorial Day, claiming in an article that the Marine Corps has a “toxic masculinity problem. â€[The article, which was simply titled “The Marine Corps has a ‘toxic masculinity’ problem,†continued to claim that the Marine Corps often “marginalizes or mistreats female troops. †The Marine Corps has a â€toxic masculinity†problem https: . pic. twitter. — Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox) May 29, 2017, Citing the Marines United nude photo sharing scandal, Vox staff writer and defense correspondent Alex Ward attempted to link the Marines with systemic sexism and listed ways how the Corps could get rid of their “toxic masculinity. †“And to be fair, it’s not just the Marines. Sexual assault has increased in other services, and even in military academies,†concluded Ward in the article. “According to one Pentagon review, there were 6, 172 reports of sexual assault last year. †“So as the service tries to win battles around the world, the most important fight may be the one closest to home,†he continued. “The battle for the soul of the Marine Corps. †The article was criticized by numerous other journalists on Twitter: Dude who never served 👇 https: . — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) May 29, 2017, This piece is very unfortunate https: . — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 29, 2017, It’s fucking Memorial Day, — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 29, 2017, Vox has a â€beta male staff writer†problem https: . — Charlie Nash (@MrNashington) May 29, 2017, “I’m an woman. This article is hysterical bullshit,†commented one user, while another added: “Yeah, you know that toxic masculinity saving lives. Just terrible. †I’m an woman. This article is hysterical bullshit @voxdotcom. Marines were https: . — Lisa Lisa (@prolifemom123) May 29, 2017, @AlexWardVox Yeah, you know that toxic masculinity saving lives. Just terrible. — MUNTY (@altMonty) May 29, 2017, @AlexWardVox Good thing they are really good at killing the bad guys and protecting the freedoms of jerkoffs like you, — A Foot in Your Ass (@Afootinyourass) May 29, 2017, Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD548 | 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 Donald Trump 'Save' the NYC Vets Day Parade in 1995? Claim summaries: Trump reportedly donated $200,000 and helped raise another $500,000 for the "Nation's Parade."
contextual information: A story from 1995 resurfaced around Veterans Day 2019, reporting that then-private citizen and real estate mogul Donald Trump had "saved" the Veterans Day parade that year in New York City when organizers ran out of money. On Nov. 6, 2019, for example, the Daily Caller News Foundation website published a story bearing the headline, "The 1995 NYC Veterans Day Parade Had $1.21 In The Bank. Then Donald Trump Stepped In." A meme circulating on Facebook similarly described Trump's intervention:This claim apparently originated with Trump himself, or at least it was touted on his campaign website in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. The website at the time stated: headline campaign website Mr. Trump has long been a devoted supporter of veteran causes. In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of World War II, only 100 spectators watched New York Citys Veteran Day Parade. It was an insult to all veterans. Approached by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the chief of New York Citys FBI office, Mr. Trump agreed to lead as Grand Marshall a second parade later that year. Mr. Trump made a $1 million matching donation to finance the Nations Day Parade. On Saturday, November 11th, over 1.4 million watched as Mr. Trump marched down Fifth Avenue with more than 25,000 veterans, some dressed in their vintage uniforms. A month later, Mr. Trump was honored in the Pentagon during a lunch with the Secretary of Defense and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. First off, Trump's website contained some confusing pieces of misinformation: The Veterans Day parade in New York City went by the name the "Nation's Parade." The poorly attended parade "with only 100 spectators" occurred in 1994, not 1995 (The New York Times reported police did not give a crowd estimate). Only one Veteran's Day parade took place in the city in 1995 the Nation's Parade on Nov. 11. That event was slated by the U.S. Defense Department as representing "the official close of the 50th anniversary of World War II." reported We contacted the United War Veterans of New York (UWNY), which organized the Nation's Parade in 1995, to ask about claims that Trump's intervention saved the event from cancellation, and we were referred by spokesman Pat Smith to a Nov. 10, 1995, New York Times article about the event. Smith told us that Trump did make a financial contribution toward the parade, but also said UWNY is a small, volunteer-staffed group that doesn't keep records that could answer questions in detail about an event that occurred more than two decades ago. article The 1995 Times article reported that Trump did make a financial contribution, but that he tried to make it in exchange for being named the parade's grand marshal even though he is not a veteran. The Times reported Trump gave $200,000, not $1 million: By mid-August, organizers had a bank account of exactly $1.21. A request to airlines to donate blankets for aging veterans was turned down because logos might not be visible on television. Then Donald Trump, a nonveteran, agreed to throw in $200,000 as well as raise money from his friends, in exchange for being named grand marshal. Since then, money has come in, though not enough to meet the original budget, which was reduced from $2.9 million to $2.4 million. Fireworks were just one of many cuts. In May 2016, CNN spoke to Vincent McGowan, the president emeritus of UWNY who organized the parade in 1995. McGowan said that Trump's contribution was "somewhere between $325,000 and $375,000," but McGowan also said Trump's donation did save the event. McGowan also said Trump was never the grand marshal because that honor was only given to military veterans. CNN In a follow-up story, the Times in 1995 reported that organizers had agreed to make Trump the parade's grand marshal, a move that had angered some veterans, while others expressed appreciation for his "crucial" financial assistance: reported Also in the reviewing stand was the developer Donald Trump, who provided the only note of controversy in an otherwise positive day. Many veterans were angry that organizers had agreed to name Mr. Trump, who is not a veteran, as grand marshal in exchange for his contribution of $200,000 and help in raising additional funds. Another story, dated Nov. 11, 1995, from the news service UPI, reported that Trump contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000 for the parade, which was viewed by parade Director Tom Fox as having been key: UPI Police estimated 500,000 people attended the largest military parade ever held in New York. Organizers, who placed the turnout at closer to a million, said the parade would not have been a success if it hadn't been for real estate developer Donald Trump, who contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000. "Donald Trump saved the parade," said parade director Tom Fox, himself a Vietnam veteran. "We had asked for donations from 200 corporations, and none of them came through," he said. "This donation is the single most important thing I've ever done," said a beaming Trump. "This is more important than all of my buildings and my casinos. This is my way of saying thank you to all the men and women in the armed services who have made it possible for me to become a success. Without them freedom and liberty would be gone." In sum, we are rating this claim "True" because two individuals involved with the planning of the 1995 parade stated on two separate occasions that Trump's efforts and donation did indeed enable the event to take place. Still unclear are the origins of other sources of funding. Martin, Douglas."Veterans Day Parade Tries for a Comeback."
The New York Times.10 November 1995. Fitzpatrick, David and Curt Devine."Trump Will Give $1 Million to Marine Charity, but There Are Other Discrepancies."
CNN.25 May 2016. McFadden, Robert D. "On Parade To the Beat of History."
The New York Times.12 November 1995. UPI."More Than 500,000 Watch Nation's Parade."
11 November 1995. | 1 | [
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FMD549 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PHILADELPHIA — President Obama delivered a stirring valedictory address at the Democratic convention Wednesday night, hailing Hillary Clinton as his rightful political heir and the party’s best hope to protect democracy from “homegrown demagogues†like the Republican Donald J. Trump. Taking the stage to rapturous roars of “We love you†and “Yes we can,†Mr. Obama acknowledged that Democrats were still divided after a bruising nomination fight and that Mrs. Clinton had made “mistakes. †But he vouched passionately for Mrs. Clinton as a trusted and reliable ally not just for him but for all Americans who need a fighter to improve their lives and keep them safe. “She’s been there for us — even if we haven’t always noticed — and if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue,†Mr. Obama said, an explicit appeal to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders who continue to resist Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama offered an optimistic portrait of America and a strong defense of his policies, but also unleashed by far his most ferocious attack yet on Mr. Trump, even portraying the Republican nominee as a threat to the country. “That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end,†he said. In the most unmistakable declaration yet by Mrs. Clinton that she is effectively seeking Mr. Obama’s third term, she strolled on stage after his speech and embraced the president as the delegates roared. It was a tableau of continuity and a vivid illustration of how dependent the two former rivals are on each other now. Mr. Obama also used his own remarks to try to drive a wedge between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Republican voters. “It wasn’t particularly Republican and it sure wasn’t conservative,†he said of last week’s Republican convention. “There were no serious solutions to pressing problems. Just the fanning of resentments and blame and hate and anger. †The president’s contempt for Mr. Trump took on a personal dimension as well when he recalled his grandparents from Kansas and said, “I don’t know if they had their birth certificates†— a reference to Mr. Trump’s leadership of the birther movement that raised questions about Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Wednesday signaled a transition for the party. Emotion suffused the convention hall: Some delegates, in tears, were not ready to say goodbye to Mr. Obama yet, and others — particularly some liberals and young Democrats — were not ready to accept Mrs. Clinton as their new leader. As she prepares to give her nomination acceptance speech on Thursday night, the left wing of the party still remains divided, while many Republicans appear ready to fall in line behind Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama’s speech, a passionate defense of Mrs. Clinton’s vision and character, did not itself herald the start of new political era. Mrs. Clinton has wrapped herself in the cloth of the Obama presidency rather than break with him and offer a new path, like Vice President George Bush’s promise of “a kinder, gentler nation†in 1988 after the Reagan years. Instead, the lineup on Wednesday reflected a party attempting to rally its own partisans and attract Republicans with blunt warnings that, whatever they may think about the new Democratic they must all do their duty to thwart Mr. Trump. And the convention speeches were full of appeals, as Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee, offered Republicans “a home†if they felt Mr. Trump did not represent “the party of Lincoln,†and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York urged independents to vote for “a sane, competent person†— Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Kaine, a senator and a former governor of Virginia, introduced himself to his largest television audience yet as a product of a Jesuit high school who embraced its motto — “Men for others†— who held close to his faith while trying to help Americans as a civil rights lawyer and then as a political leader whose most searing experience was the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007. He occasionally shifted to Spanish, which he speaks fluently, and led the audience in a chant of an Obama political slogan, “Sà se puede†(“Yes you canâ€). Mr. Kaine paid brief tribute to Republicans and also hailed Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Mrs. Clinton defeated for the nomination, at several points. Yet some Sanders supporters were not willing to fall behind the new nominee. As Mr. Kaine spoke, jeers broke out from the Utah delegation attacking the Partnership trade deal that the senator has supported and Mr. Sanders is against — and Mrs. Clinton has shifted to oppose. Placards denouncing the trade deal quickly spread through the hall, including a couple of dozen in the California delegation. Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary and C. I. A. chief, spoke early in the evening and was repeatedly interrupted with shouts of “No more war!†from several state delegations that favored the candidacy of Mr. Sanders during the presidential race. As the heckling persisted, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters took up a heard more often at the Republican convention to drown out the jeers: “U. S. A. U. S. A. !†Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. also turned to images and language more commonly used by the right to depict Mr. Trump as denigrating American greatness, invoking patriotism and saluting military service. Before Mr. Obama even entered the convention hall here, the audience was clearly as devoted to him as they were excited for Mrs. Clinton. The first lady, Michelle Obama, was received with adoration and her speech on Monday was the most moment of the first days of the convention. And even a quick flash of Mr. Obama’s face, amid a procession of past presidents on the convention screen Tuesday, brought a burst of applause. The president is also the strongest adhesive holding Democrats together after five months of bitterly fought primary and caucus contests between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders of Vermont. According to a New York poll earlier this month, 82 percent of Sanders supporters approved of Mr. Obama’s job performance. After two nights of convention speeches focused on Mrs. Clinton’s virtues and attempts to make peace with Sanders supporters, Clinton campaign officials sought to address the threat of radical Islamists — an omission early on that Republicans had criticized. And in a shift from only about a decade ago when they largely avoided the issue, Democrats used much of Wednesday to advocate gun control, sending relatives of those murdered in Newtown, Conn. and Charleston, S. C. as well as a former congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, to recount their stories. But virtually all of the anticipation on Wednesday surrounded Mr. Obama and the symbolic passing of the torch to Mrs. Clinton after she became the party’s nominee on Tuesday night. Mr. Obama’s resounding endorsement of his rival was the final consummation of a political alliance over a decade in the making, since Mrs. Clinton flew to Chicago in 2004 to raise money for a state senator and discovered a phenom. Back then he was the one who benefited from the imprimatur of a political star, and her support continued to prove critical over the years. After he won the presidential nomination that she expected to be hers in 2008, Mrs. Clinton put aside her resentment and helped him unify a divided Democratic Party. And later that year, she again came to his aid by agreeing to become his first secretary of state. Mr. Obama is the one riding high now, his approval rating over 50 percent. And his image is only enhanced as voters view him, in his final months as president, through the prism of a race to replace him that features two deeply unpopular candidates. While acknowledging that Mrs. Clinton has “her share of critics’’ on the right and the left, the president sought to transfer his prestige and political appeal to his long ago rival. “Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me,†he said. “I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me. †“And if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue. You’ve got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport. America isn’t about ‘Yes he will.’ It’s about ‘Yes we can. ’†| 1 | [
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FMD550 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Northern Irish party that props up Prime Minister Theresa May said it only got the text of the draft Brexit deal late on Monday morning and that the party told the British government that the terms were unacceptable. Despite several briefings over the course of the last few weeks, we only received written texts late yesterday morning, Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said. We understand this was due in part to delays caused by the Irish government and the EU negotiating team, Dodds told reporters. Upon immediate receipt of that text we indicated to senior government representatives that it was clearly unacceptable in its current form. Dodds said the party would work for as long as needed to get the Brexit deal right. | 1 | [
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FMD551 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Nearly of white evangelical voters plan to cast their ballots for Donald J. Trump despite his multiple marriages, lack of piety and inconsistency on the issues they care about most, a new poll has found. Support for Mr. Trump among white evangelicals is even stronger than it was four years ago for Mitt Romney, the previous Republican nominee for president, according to the poll of religious voters, released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. White evangelicals make up about of all registered voters and are a coveted bloc who, when energized, can turn out the vote through their churches and social networks. It has been unclear to what extent Mr. Trump will be able to capture this core Republican constituency, because some leading evangelicals have spoken of being disturbed by his penchant for boasting about himself and belittling others, his pledges to deport Mexican immigrants and bar Muslims from entering the country, and his past support for abortion rights and gay rights. Some influential evangelical leaders have joined the “Never Trump†camp, while others have pledged support for Mr. Trump. More came on board after he wooed about 1, 000 of them in a meeting in New York. “Trump is not a true believer in any sense, both religiously and on the issues, but he’s speaking to them,†said J. Tobin Grant, a professor of political science at Southern Illinois and a columnist at the Religion News Service. “He’s actively courting them, and that’s what the activists want. They want to have a seat at the table, and they felt they didn’t have that with Romney. †The poll also found that Roman Catholics favored Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, over Mr. Trump by 17 percentage points — a significant shift from the 2012 presidential race, when Election Day exit polls showed Catholics split almost evenly between Mr. Romney and the Democratic incumbent, President Obama. The change is largely because of the support of Hispanic Catholics, who make up about of Roman Catholics in the United States and favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump by an overwhelming 77 percent to 16 percent. White Catholics narrowly favor Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton, 50 to 46 percent, but Mrs. Clinton has a advantage among all Catholics who say they attend Mass weekly. Black Protestants are firmly in Mrs. Clinton’s camp, and white mainline Protestants favored Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton, 50 to 39 percent. The survey did not show results for members of minority religious groups, like Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, because there were not enough of them in the poll. The survey found Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump decisively in a contest, 51 to 42 percent. Mrs. Clinton has solid support from voters who claim no religion — a cohort known as the “nones,†according to the poll. This group has grown rapidly in recent years, and now makes up about of registered voters — about the same share of the electorate as white evangelicals. Religiously unaffiliated voters back Mrs. Clinton by 68 percent to 26 percent, but their support is softer than evangelicals’ support for Mr. Trump. The poll found that 36 percent of white evangelicals said they strongly supported Mr. Trump, while in June 2012, just 26 percent said they strongly supported Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney faced resistance from some evangelicals because of his Mormon faith. Mr. Trump is a member of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A. a liberal mainline Protestant denomination, has demonstrated little fluency in the Bible or Christianity, and has said that he has never asked God for forgiveness. But the poll showed that voters in general, including evangelicals, were dissatisfied with their options this year. percent of white evangelical voters said it would be difficult to choose between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton because “neither one†would make a good president. In fact, the survey found that the desire to defeat Mrs. Clinton was the prime reason evangelicals supported Mr. Trump. Of the 78 percent of white evangelicals who said they would vote for Mr. Trump, 45 percent said their decision was “mainly a vote against Clinton,†while only 30 percent said it was “mainly a vote for Trump. †| 1 | [
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FMD552 | 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: Harvard Science Endowment Claim summaries: Is Harvard offering tuition-free education to African-American students majoring in the sciences?
contextual information: Claim: Harvard is offering tuition-free education to African-American students majoring in the sciences. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2009] Greetings: A quick note about an exciting scholarship opportunity in case you know anyone who might be interested. Harvard University wants to get the word out that the University has a massive science endowment for African American high school juniors and seniors who are interested in majoring in the sciences, such as Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. This program offers a four-year tuition-free education at Harvard University, regardless of parents' income! The professor to contact for more information is Professor Gregory Tucci at [email protected] or 617-496-4668. If you know any African American junior or senior students who excel and are passionate about the sciences, please pass along this information. Origins: This item promoting a "massive science endowment" that supposedly provides "four-year tuition-free educations" for African-American science students at Harvard has been circulating since at least mid-2009 and has been reprinted in a number of online bulletins and newsletters that publish information about educational opportunities. Although Harvard does provide a number of financial aid opportunities that prospective students might qualify for, a completely tuition-free, four-year program for African-American students majoring in the sciences is not among them, according to the professor whose name, address, and phone number have been attached to this item. Thank you very much for your interest in financial support for students interested in the sciences at Harvard University. Unfortunately, the information you received regarding "four-year tuition-free education ... regardless of parents' income" appears to be a hoax. Additionally, I am not involved in admissions or financial aid. Harvard has very generous financial aid support for all students who qualify based on need. On a very positive note, families with incomes below $60,000 need not contribute to the cost of sending their children to Harvard. Furthermore, families with incomes up to $180,000 with assets typical for that income level need not pay more than 10 percent of their incomes. No student should be discouraged from applying to Harvard because of financial concerns. The Financial Aid Office is always eager to work with talented students to ensure they receive the financial support that will make a Harvard education possible for them. For more information, please visit the financial aid website: https://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/, or call 617-495-1581. Additional information: Financial Aid Overview (Harvard College) Last updated: 27 March 2010. | 1 | [
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FMD553 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Influential groups representing hospitals and nurses came out on Wednesday against a Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, joining doctors and the retirees’ lobby to warn that it would lead to a rise in the uninsured. In a letter to lawmakers, major hospital groups wrote, “As organizations that take care of every individual who walks through our doors, both due to our mission and our obligations under federal law, we are committed to ensuring health care coverage is available and affordable for all. †The groups, including the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States and the Children’s Hospital Association, said they could not support the bill “as currently written. †The hospitals and the American Nurses Association joined the American Medical Association and AARP, which rejected the bill on Tuesday. House Republicans have been left scrambling to marshal support from businesses and other interests that stand to benefit from lower taxes if the bill passes. Insurers are on the fence, and other powerful forces like pharmaceutical companies remain largely on the sidelines. Squeezed between wary health care providers and angry conservatives who believe that the bill leaves too much of the Affordable Care Act in place, the Republican leadership and President Trump appear to be facing an uphill climb. But the White House appears increasingly confident about the prospects for a health care overhaul to pass in the House. In a meeting with conservative leaders in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he anticipated the most trouble in the Senate, where moderate and conservative lawmakers are opposing the plan for different reasons. He said he was prepared to pressure holdout senators by holding the kind of rallies he led during his presidential campaign. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said Republicans were “going through the inevitable growing pains of being an opposition party to becoming a governing party. †“It’s a new system for people,†he added. “But it’s all the more reason why we have to do what we said we would do and deliver for the American people, and govern and use our principles. †The array of groups taking strong positions against the bill is evidence that its potential consequences extend far beyond health insurance coverage, to much of the nation’s economy. The opposition is also a powerful reminder of how many past efforts to overhaul the American health care system failed because of resistance by major interest groups. Winning the support of the health care and insurance industries allowed the Obama administration in 2010 to push through the most significant health care legislation since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. Within a few months after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, his administration had lined up support from health care providers, insurers, consumers and pharmaceutical makers by offering a grand bargain: The health bill would include a requirement that most Americans have health insurance, providing millions of new customers through the law’s often substantial premium subsidies and its option for states to expand Medicaid. In exchange, hospitals would have to accept spending cuts and the health care industry would have to accept new taxes to pay for the legislation. The Obama White House dedicated enormous effort to win pledges of support before Democrats even put out a bill — an effort not replicated by the Trump White House or Republican leaders in Congress. But the Affordable Care Act also created an array of taxes that the Republicans now hope to wipe away, helping them win the support of groups like the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Tax Reform, led by the activist Grover Norquist. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation issued estimates this week showing how much revenue the government could lose starting in 2018 under the Republican bill, which the party has called the American Health Care Act, as a result of repealing taxes on drug makers (nearly $25 billion over 10 years) insurers (nearly $145 billion) makers of medical devices (nearly $20 billion) and households (more than $270 billion from taxes on earned income and investment income). “The American Health Care Act repeals the medical device tax, which will result in greater investments in medical cures, lower health care costs and more manufacturing jobs in communities across the United States,†trumpeted the Medical Device Manufacturers Association. The extent to which these groups mobilize on behalf of the Republican bill may help determine whether it succeeds. For now, the supporters of the House bill seem badly outgunned by opponents. On Wednesday, as two congressional committees took up the Republican bill, the American Nurses Association and a coalition of hospital groups came out against the proposal. The A. M. A. which has nearly 235, 000 members and calls itself the voice of the medical profession, sent a letter to leaders of the two committees on Tuesday saying it could not support the Republican bill “because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations. †In particular, the group said it opposed a plan to replace the sliding, premium tax credits provided under the Affordable Care Act with fixed credits based on age. The current system, it said, “provides the greatest chance that those of the least means are able to purchase coverage. †America’s Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance lobby, released its own lengthy statement on Wednesday. In a letter to the leaders of the House committees that drafted the bill, Marilyn B. Tavenner, the group’s chief executive, warned Republican leaders that their plans to change Medicaid financing, among other things, could harm coverage and care. While many insurers have lost money in the Affordable Care Act’s private insurance marketplaces, they have generally profited from the expansion of Medicaid, which would effectively be phased out under the Republican plan. “As a core principle, we believe that Medicaid funding should be adequate to meet the health care needs of beneficiaries,†Ms. Tavenner wrote. “Medicaid health plans are at the forefront of providing coverage for and access to behavioral health services and treatment for opioid use disorders, and insufficient funding could jeopardize the progress being made on these important public health fronts. †A day earlier, AARP — the association of and older Americans that is another crucial supporter of the Affordable Care Act — declared its opposition to the bill and even started running an ad against it. In a letter to Congress, the group said the bill would increase health costs for people ages 50 to 64, could lead to cuts in Medicaid coverage of care and would allow insurers to charge older people five times as much as younger ones. The hardening resistance complicated the case for the Republicans as they moved their bill forward on Wednesday. “I respect those organizations and their views,†said Representative Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and a heart surgeon who conceded that criticism of the bill from doctors and hospitals could make it more difficult to sell the measure to the public. “Their voice is an important voice in health care. †But, he noted, those groups supported the health care law in 2010. “Hospitals have done quite well under the Affordable Care Act, but my constituents have not,†he said. “Their premiums are going up. Their deductibles are high. †Across the rotunda, Republican senators were less enthusiastic. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said she was not certain that a delay in the rollback of Medicaid coverage was “enough for me. †Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, expressed alarm that the bill’s tax credits would not account for higher premium costs in insurance markets like hers, a largely rural state with little competition. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said he did not want states that took the Medicaid expansion to “get a benefit†that the states that rejected the program did not. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she was unhappy that the bill removed money for Planned Parenthood. There was also a creeping concern about how quickly the bill was moving. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, essentially promised to move the bill to the Senate floor without the hearings and other processes that are normal for such a piece of legislation. He had promised when Republicans took the majority that they would honor normal Senate processes and traditions. “I think if that’s the approach they take,†Mr. Rubio said, “they won’t have the votes in the Senate. †| 1 | [
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FMD554 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump Jr. sought on Thursday to clarify his remark that the media would be “warming up the gas chamber†if the Republican Party behaved the same way as the Democrats during the U.S. presidential campaign, saying it was a reference to capital punishment, not the Nazi-led Holocaust. Trump, the son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, spoke to NBC News after the Anti-Defamation League, which combats anti-Semitism, asked him to retract his statement. “Trivialization of the Holocaust and gas chambers is NEVER okay,†the Anti-Defamation League tweeted. John Podesta, the chair of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, told reporters on a call that the wording of Trump’s remark was “extremely insensitive, divisive and probably pretty consistent with the kind of rhetoric he heard around the house when he was growing up.†“I think it’s never acceptable to use language like that,†Podesta added. Nazis used gas chambers during World War Two to kill millions of Jews imprisoned in European concentration camps. Trump made the “gas chamber†remark during an interview with a Philadelphia radio station on Thursday morning to explain how the media would react if the Republican Party had intervened in the nominating contest the way the Democratic Party has been accused of doing to benefit Clinton over former party rival U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. “Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up, they’ve let her slide on every discrepancy, on every lie, on every DNC game, trying to get Bernie Sanders out of the thing,†Trump said. “If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now,†the nominee’s son added. Trump’s campaign said the uproar over the comment was another example of bias among the media covering the presidential campaign. “Don Jr. was clearly referring to capital punishment to make the case that the media continues to take words out of context in order to serve as the propaganda arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign,†Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in an email. | 1 | [
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FMD555 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The speech Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to give to a joint session of Congress Tuesday is one of the most critical of recent times. It concerns not only the very existence of his nation, but also the terribly real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the foreseeable future. Our own security is at stake as well: Iran is developing intercontinental missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons that will reach our shores.
The question isn’t why should Congress listen to what he has to say, but rather why in the world would certain members not to hear him out?
Prime Minister Netanyahu will speak on the prospect of Iran being able to develop nuclear weapons. He is making this speech because – like many people – he is fearful that the agreement President Obama wants to strike with Iran would not put in place effective controls to prevent the mullahs – and plausibly in turn the many terrorist organizations they actively support – from acquiring weapons-grade fissionable material.
The Obama administration has tried to discredit Prime Minister Netanyahu and dismiss his appearance on Capitol Hill as a political stunt tied to the upcoming Israeli elections. Some of the president’s followers in Congress have vowed to boycott the speech. But their red herring arguments cannot be allowed to disguise the crucial importance of his visit or of the issue that has prompted it.
Allowing Iran to join the nuclear club – or come perilously close -- would trigger a frightening round of weapons proliferation. Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the region would all be understandably motivated to similarly arm themselves. The Middle East of today, which far too often teeters on the brink of meltdown, could in comparison seem a relatively stable, peaceful place.
And make no mistake, the specter of the revolutionary government of Iran armed with nuclear weapons does not just threaten the Middle East. Iran is believed to already possess missiles capable of delivering a warhead to Israel and perhaps even Europe. Development of more powerful models that would extend their range to include the United States is just a matter of time. Iran’s ability to not only attack, but also to intimidate other countries into meeting its demands would increase exponentially with its acquisition of nuclear capabilities. Imagine Tehran “suggesting†to European countries how to treat their growing Muslim populations? Sharia law, anyone?
But obviously, the nation most likely to first suffer from Iran’s nuclear ambitions is Israel. That is why it is so important for members of Congress to listen to Prime Minister Netanyahu. The United States and Israel have a longstanding friendship that has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support. We cannot refuse our close ally at least the opportunity to explain how a nuclear Iran would affect it. No one demands that every member of Congress agree with the Prime Minister, but they all have a duty to listen to him.
Additionally, Congress definitely has a fundamental obligation – to the American people and the world - to be actively involved in this policy decision. This is not Obamacare or regulating the Internet. The consequences of allowing President Obama to go it alone with another opaque executive action could not only be catastrophic, but also impossible to remedy with after-the-fact legislation. Once Iran has the bomb, the game is over.
The stakes here could not be higher – Israel’s continued existence, America’s moral authority, nuclear conflict, and the ghastly breakdown of world order. Party politics cannot be allowed to interfere with bringing this matter to the most successful resolution possible. Congress must listen to Prime Minister Netanyahu -- and so should President Obama.
Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media. His latest book, "Reviving America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code, and Reforming the Fed will Restore Hope and Prosperity" (McGraw-Hill Education, December 10, 2015). | 1 | [
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FMD556 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Another stunning cover-up for #Unfit Hillary by her most committed media cheerleader One week ago, board-certified medicine specialist, TV personality and CNN employee Dr. Drew Pinsky broke the mold of conformity, when he said that he is gravely concerned about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton s health, pointing out that treatment she is receiving could be the result of her bizarre behaviors.Appearing on KABC s McIntyre in the Morning, Pinsky said he and his colleague Dr. Robert Huizenga became gravely concerned .not just about her health but her health care, after analyzing what medical records on Hillary had been released. Pinsky pointed out that after Clinton fainted and fell in late 2012, she suffered from a transverse sinus thrombosis, an exceedingly rare clot that virtually guarantees somebody has something wrong with their coagulation system. What s wrong with her coagulation system, has that been evaluated? asked Dr. Drew.Pinsky described the situation as bizarre, and said that Hillary s medical condition was dangerous and concerning . Dr. Drew also went on to add that it was a sign of brain damage when Hillary had to wear prism glasses after her fall. Just as stunning as Pinsky s assessment which promptly went viral and led to the immediate takedown of the original interview webpage by KABC-AM radio, was that it came from an employee of HLN, which is part of the pro-Clinton CNN network.As such it is probably not surprising that earlier today, just one week later, CNN executive vice president Ken Jautz announced Thursday that Dr. Drew and I have mutually agreed to air the final episode of his show on September 22. Zero Hedge | 0 | [
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FMD557 | 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 24 million people in this country can't find a full-time job, 50 million can't see a doctor when they're sick, 47 million people need government help to feed themselves and 15 million families owe more than the value of their home.
contextual information: Alan Grayson, an Orlando Democrat and former U.S. Representative running to reclaim a seat in 2012, emerged a big-time supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement after appearing on HBO'sReal Time with Bill Maheron Oct. 7, 2011.A couple of Maher's panelists, and even Maher himself, mocked the protesters for their worrisome bathroom situation, lack of media spokesperson, name choice, and proficiency (or lack thereof) in economics. Saying he was a former economist, Grayson jumped in, saying he had no problem understanding the protesters' grievances.They're complaining about the fact that Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody's held responsible for that, he said. Not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying 20 percent of our national net worth accumulated over the course of two centuries. They're upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country. And that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street. And the other party caters to them as well. That's what they're upset about.It gets more interesting. P.J. O'Rourke, a political theorist and author, said, Get the man a bongo drum. They've found their spokesman, okay. Take your shoes off, get a bongo drum, forget where to go to the bathroom, and it's yours. He got a few laughs. Then Grayson shot back with this:Listen, if I am a spokesman for all the people who think we should not have 24 million people in this country who can't find a full-time job, that we should not have 50 million people in this country who can't see a doctor when they're sick, that we shouldn't have 47 million people in this country who need government help in order to feed themselves, and we shouldn't have 15 million families who owe more on their mortgage than the value of their home, okay, I'll be that spokesman.Maher's audience gave Grayson a standing ovation. His retort popped up on YouTube and then spread through Facebook and Twitter. Liberal bloggers praised him for his succinct explanation. You can see the video cliphere.We decided to check Grayson's litany of claims about the economic plight of many Americans. (We previously checked a claim from Michael Moorethat gets at Grayson's other major point, that no one associated with the 2008 economic collapse was arrested or indicted. )We'll take the economic claims one by one.24 million people in this country can't find a full-time jobA similar claim -- More than 25 million Americans are unemployed -- was presented in an article in the protester-producedOccupied Wall Street Journal, which we examined in a fact-checkhere.Grayson was wise to distinguish between the number of people who are unemployed and those who can't find a full-time job.According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 million Americans were unemployed as of September 2011, which is how officials determine the unemployment rate. We pointed out in our fact-check that BLS methodology has been criticized for not expanding the definition of unemployment so that it includes people who have stopped looking for work or who are working part time, even though they would rather have a full-time job.An alternative measure called the U-6 paints that picture. As of September, an additional 2.5 million Americans were deemed marginally attached to the labor force, and another 9.3 million are working part time but would prefer a full-time job. That adds up to 25.8 million people.In our item, we pointed out theOccupy Wall Street Journalarticle described the expanded definition of unemployment, not the traditional one. Grayson's statement is a little low at 24 million but more precise in its definition.50 million people in this country can't see a doctor when they're sickAgain, this is close to what is cited by theOccupied Wall Street Journalarticle but is a little different. That story claimed more than 50 million live without health insurance, and we found that they were almost exactly right. A U.S. Census Bureau study called Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage: 2010,found that49.9 million Americans were uninsured in 2010. That's about 16 percent of the population.While Grayson's statement isn't exactly the same, his point seems clear enough to us.47 million people in this country need government help in order to feed themselvesGrayson is talking about what we know as food stamps, which has been called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program since 2008. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds SNAP and the states administer it, sometimes by other names. The economic recession has forced more people into the program since 2008, and the numbers are climbing, according to thisannual summary.In fiscal year 2008, 28.2 million people received nearly $35 billion worth of benefits. The program served 33.4 million in FY 2009 and 40.3 million in FY 2010.Themost recent participation figure,for July 2011, is 45,344,946 people, with the most recent monthly allotment per household at $283.68. That enrollment figure isn't the program's highest number, but it's just 65,737 people short of the May 2011 record.We are dealing with historic participation, said Regan Hopper, USDA Food and Nutrition Service spokeswoman.Grayson's figure is pretty close.He probably wasn't accounting for other government food programs, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children -- better known as WIC -- in his tally. But that USDA program provides low-income pregnant, post-partum and breastfeeding women, as well as infants and children up to age 5, with checks for certain kinds of food to supplement their diets.WIC served8.9 million in July 2011, said Regan Hopper, a USDA Food and Nutrition Service spokeswoman. Further, USDA funds school lunch and breakfast programs, which provide free and reduced-price meals to some schoolchildren, and provides food and money through its Emergency Food Assistance Program to states for distribution in food banks, soup kitchens and the like.15 million families owe more on their mortgage than the value of their homeThis housing phenomenon is also referred to as being underwater or upside down in mortgage payments. We asked a few companies that keep databases of mortgages and home loans, usually public records in counties, for the financial and property industries.Seattle-based Zillow.com puts the latest figure for these homes at 26.8 percent for the second quarter, which ended in June. That amounts to 15.3 million homes. It's down slightly from Zillow's first-quarter analysis, which put the number of underwater homes at 28.4 percent, or 16.2 million.We posed the same question to CoreLogic,a Sana Ana, Calif. firm.In a study released in September, CoreLogic reported that 22.5 percent of all homes with a mortgage were in negative equity in the same period. CoreLogic's number is roughly 5 million homes fewer than Zillow's, coming in at 10.9 million. The company found another 2.4 million borrowers at the brink of negative equity, or having less than 5 percent equity. You may have noticed some disparity with those estimates. Corelogic's data includes 48 million properties with a mortgage, accounting for more than 85 percent of all mortgages in the country. Zillow.com tries to provide an estimate for the country's total number of homes with outstanding mortgages, estimated by the U.S. Census bureau to be 50 million to 55 million. So part of the difference could lie in the 15 percent of homes CoreLogic does not cover. There are also estimation errors to consider, said Zillow.com chief economist Stan Humphries, particularly in guessing the value of homes and current outstanding loan balance. A difference of about 4 percent between the companies' estimates is not really significant, he said. We think this is a critically important metric in understanding the housing market, he said. The point remains that economists have never seen housing values fall so low. Housing data is scant for the Great Depression, but Humphries believes the ongoing crisis outranks that period. He says Depression-era down payments were higher in the 1930s, giving folks some cushion as the crisis set in. Our rulingGrayson's defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement earned him praise from the left-wing blosophere and pundits for its pith. No pundit or officialin the movement's first monthhad quite articulated the protesters' qualms -- high unemployment, expensive health care, poverty and underwater mortgage payments -- as Grayson did in 20 seconds on Maher's show.We examined each of his economic claims and found them accurate, point for point. We rate his claim True. | 1 | [
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FMD558 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A Bloomberg analysis of Amazon s same-day delivery service locations shows that Black neighborhoods are routinely excluded from access to the service.Although all customers pay the same $99 fee for the Amazon Prime membership, which includes same-day delivery service in covered areas, Black customers are significantly less likely to have access to that service.According to the Bloomberg study, Black customers who live in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Washington DC are 50 percent less likely to have access to same-day delivery.Bloomberg further reports:In New York City, same-day delivery is available throughout Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, but not in the Bronx and some majority-black neighborhoods in Queens. In some cities, Amazon same-day delivery extends many miles into the surrounding suburbs but isn t available in some ZIP codes within the city limits.Out of all the places where Amazon same-day delivery services are available to Amazon Prime members, the analysis shows the greatest disparity in the city of Boston.According to the Bloomberg analysis: Three ZIP codes encompassing the primarily black neighborhood of Roxbury are excluded from same-day service, while the neighborhoods that surround it on all sides are eligible. In many cases this means that Black customers have no access to same-day delivery, while white customers, living just a few blocks away, do have access.Here s what the delivery zones look like in some of the most populated urban areas.Image credit: Screen capture Bloomberg.comAccording to Amazon vice president for global communications, Craig Berman, the company did not intentionally create a service area which excludes Black neighborhood.Berman says that service areas were determined by data and algorithms.As Tech Insider reports here, Amazon PR Director Scott Stanzel described the criteria the company used to generate the algorithm.According to Stanzel, that included distance to the nearest fulfillment center, local demand in an area, numbers of Prime members in an area, as well as the ability of our various carrier partners to deliver up to 9:00 pm every single day, even Sunday. So how does a computer program which doesn t include race as a factor, generate a service area that excludes Black neighborhoods?Tech Insider sums it up best, by explaining:Racism, as researchers have documented in countless studies and reports, is the systemic marginalization of minority communities. It s the aggregate of small and large effects that make it harder for people to find housing, accumulate wealth, avoid the criminal justice system, and succeed in school if they aren t white. Data and algorithms selected in deliberate ignorance of racism can pick up and reinforce that systemic problem.So basically the algorithm reflects the racism that is already present in a service area. As described by Tech Insider, it reflects ongoing economic disparities and segregation between white and black communities created by decades of redlining. That appears to be exactly what happened in the case of Amazon s same-day delivery service area coverage.Amazon says the company has plans to fill in the gaps in service coverage over time. That doesn t seem like a good enough answer when the data shows that many Black customers are being denied equal service under the company s current model.Mistakes can happen, yes, but now that the problems have clearly been exposed, Amazon should take immediate steps to correct them.It s one thing to unknowingly generate an algorithm that excludes Black neighborhoods. It s another thing altogether to look the other way once you re aware of the issue. Image credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD559 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: China Airport Security Robot Gives Electroshocks 11/02/2016
ACTIVIST POST
While debate surrounds the threat of autonomous “killer robots,” the mechanized replacement of humans continues across the workforce.
The industrial robotics industry is logging record sales worldwide, and there appears to be no sign of a slowdown. As you can see in the graphic below, 2015 sales surged 12% over a previous record year to reach almost 1/4 million units.
There are many factors driving this growth, which you can read about here; but one point worth noting is that the two leading countries are the US and China, with China leading the way.
The nature of robotics is also changing, as new developments in artificial intelligence are giving robots an increasing range of potential uses. One key area, of course, is security. Robot security guards have already begun appearing at prisons , care facilities , and schools, in various locations around the world.
One U.S. robot company, Gamma 2 Robotics, has designed several models for mass production. Their latest – RAMSEE – can be seen in the video below. A true mass roll-out of this fully autonomous security guard could significantly impact the 1.5 million humans that are currently employed in some form of security patrol.
RAMSEE advertises the following capabilities: Is a physical presence that autonomously patrols without supervision Provides real-time data: intruders, motion, heat, fire, smoke, gases & more Is a human-machine interface that creates a powerful force multiplier
Significantly, Gamma 2 Robotics has partnered with Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure: “the global leader in public safety and security solutions.”
However, RAMSEE is missing one thing: weapons. For that, we have to travel to China, where they seem to have embraced police robots full throttle.
In late 2015, I covered an announcement from China’s Xinhua news agency where they announced the development and deployment of 3 weaponized “anti-terrorism” robots that would be far more active than a mere patrol:
“The toy-sized robots can coordinate with each other on the battlefield,” said the report, following their unveiling at the 2015 World Robot Conference in Beijing.
The first model is known as a “reconnaissance” robot, which scouts for poisonous gases, dangerous chemicals and explosives before transmitting its findings back to base.If this initial investigation detects a simple bomb is the source of danger, the second robot model – a small explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) machine – would be sent in to diffuse it.
But with other, more complicated threats, an attacker robot would start its mission, armed with “minor-caliber weapons, recoilless rifles and grenade launchers”.
“With a sighting telescope, a trigger and a safe installed, the attacker can hit its target from a long distance,” Xinhua said.
The local police force in Beijing was reported to be among the buyers for the three robots , which are priced at 1.5 million yuan (£156,000) for the set by manufacturers HIT Robot Group, who are based in the northern city of Harbin.
“Apart from anti-terror operations, they can also be applied in fire fighting, public security, forestry and agriculture,” the company’s sales manager Chen Deqiang said, according to Xinhua.
If we have learned anything about anti-terrorism efforts, authorities consider front-line deployment to be areas of public travel. We were given the TSA based on such notions, and have since witnessed its intrusive role in airports, and soon-to-be at other public transportation if authorities have their way.
China has gone to the next level with a robot TSA of sorts called AnBot that is equipped with what is essentially a taser-like device that is being fittingly compared to a cattle-prod.
Image Credit
It was first introduced at a tech show earlier in the year, and was speculated to have been designed for protest suppression. For now, its first job is to patrol China’s Shenzhen airport.
Most alarming, however, is that it is tied to one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet.
The back end of this “intelligent security robot” is l inked to China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer , where it has access to cloud services . AnBot conducts patrols, recognizes threats and has multiple cameras that use facial recognition.
These cloud services give the robots petascale processing power , well beyond onboard processing capabilities in the robot. The supercomputer connection is there “to enhance the intelligent learning capabilities and human-machine interface of these devices,” said the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review, in a report released Tuesday that examines China’s autonomous systems development efforts . [emphasis added]
( Source )
This link to “cloud services” is a new trend in robot artificial intelligence that also has been referred to as the Wikipedia for Robots – essentially an Internet Cloud Brain. Through robot-to-robot information sharing they can speed up their learning process … autonomously. Examples have included robots that can learn to cook, and robots that can learn the tasks involved in care-giving. However, when applied to policing, things become much more ethically troubling.
People were outraged in the U.S., for example, when a robot in Dallas was used to deliver a pound of C-4 explosive to a U.S. citizen whom the police deemed a sufficient threat worthy of immediate execution. At least, in that case, a human made the decision. But it is being viewed as a tip-toe along the path to the widespread use of “killer robots” much as we have seen with the use of drones. Discussion was once limited to overseas – egregious enough – but there has been a growing voice of those who are urging weaponized domestic police drones.
As John Vibes wrote , it might be inevitable:
The Taser corporation is planning on building a drone that is equipped with a stun gun, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.
Not only will the drones be equipped with tasers, but there is also talk of them being autonomous, meaning that an actual human won’t necessarily be needed to fly the drone.
This is actually already being done in India , the first country to have approved the use of drones attached with “non-lethal” weapons. And, just this week, British tabloid, The Sun , had a feature entitled “Vladimir Putin’s Russia is preparing an army of robots and drones to take on its enemies, Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin admits.” Given the available facts, this title no longer seems so deliberately sensational.
Clearly we are entering a potentially dangerous convergence of expanding robotic artificial intelligence along with the political will to continue allowing robots more and more autonomy as they carry out the traditional duties of the military and police. Some experts argue that the precision of robotics will curb many of the abuses we have seen from our military and police. But is that the trend we are actually seeing? Or will automated systems of violent control inevitably lead to even greater industrial-level suppression and killing?
Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com . This article may be republished in part or in full with author attribution and source link . | 0 | [
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FMD560 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: BY the time you finish reading this column, you would be foolish not to download the messaging app Signal onto your smartphone and computer. The free encrypted messaging service has won the acclaim of security researchers and privacy advocates, including Edward J. Snowden. All have said that Signal goes above and beyond other chat tools in keeping electronic communications private. And now more than ever, we may need it. That’s because hacks are on the rise — look at how the activist group WikiLeaks posted a trove of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, for all to see. Many are also watching for how government surveillance may grow under Donald J. Trump, who has chosen Mike Pompeo, who advocates greater surveillance, to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. Signal is one of many encrypted messaging services, but it stands out for its uncompromising security and ease of use. The chat service retains virtually no information from users, including messages and address books, on its servers. What’s more, messages remain encrypted when passing through Signal’s servers, meaning that the app’s creators can’t read them. “The default recommendation you’ll get from most security researchers for a messaging app is Signal,†said Joseph Bonneau, a postdoctoral researcher at the Applied Crypto Group at Stanford University. “It’s still the best in the field. †That said, Signal is not perfect. It lacks some features of other messaging apps, like the ability to send stickers. And during my tests, the service had some glitches. But adding Signal to your folder of messaging apps is a must in an era when technology companies are collecting more personal information and government surveillance may expand. Some people have already cottoned on to this. Signal experienced a 400 percent jump in daily downloads since Mr. Trump won the election, according to Moxie Marlinspike, who founded Open Whisper Systems, the nonprofit that developed Signal. To Mr. Marlinspike, the surge in downloads reflects anxiety among Americans about the implications of Mr. Trump’s presidency for personal privacy. “Trump has threatened a lot of people and he’s about to be in control of the most pervasive and least accountable surveillance infrastructure in the world,†Mr. Marlinspike said. “A lot of people are justifiably concerned about that. †Signal offers encryption, meaning a message is scrambled so that it becomes indecipherable to anyone but its intended recipient when it is sent from your device, and it remains so when it passes through the app’s server and reaches the recipient. When you initiate a conversation with someone on Signal, you and the recipient exchange cryptographic keys. Only the person who receives your message holds the key to decrypt and read it. That means that if a government agency had a wiretapping order for your Signal messages, Open Whisper Systems would not have the key to decipher the messages and would be unable to comply. Signal’s technology sets the standard for other messaging services, with its protocol being an system that other companies can freely use. WhatsApp, Facebook’s Messenger and Google embedded Signal’s encrypted messaging system into their own apps this year. Even so, security researchers said they preferred Signal over other messaging apps because it was more thorough in protecting users’ privacy. The only information Signal stores about users in its database is the last time someone connected to its server and when a person signed up for Signal. Other messaging apps maintain pieces of personal data on their servers. By contrast, while WhatsApp enables Signal’s full encryption by default in messages, there are caveats. WhatsApp may retain some meta data on conversations, including the phone numbers used in an exchange and the times that the messages were sent, according to the company’s privacy policy. WhatsApp also regularly accesses your phone number and contacts list, so the app can provide an list of your contacts who use its service to make it easier to message them. Google Allo, Google’s new messaging app that leverages artificial intelligence, does not enable Signal’s encryption in all its messages by default. Google offers full encrypted messaging only in Incognito sessions, a private mode that must be turned on manually. When you’re not chatting in Incognito mode, Google stores your Allo messages on its server. Similarly, Facebook’s Messenger enables encryption inside a private chat mode called Secret Conversations. But by default, normal Messenger chats lack that encryption. Even though Signal doesn’t record your information, the app still works across devices, like a desktop computer and a mobile device. Messages and contacts’ data are stored directly on users’ devices and synchronized between them. Let’s say you already use Signal on your iPhone and want to use it to chat on a Mac (Signal is available as a web app for Google’s Chrome browser for desktop computers). To link the desktop app with your iPhone, you would use the iPhone’s camera to scan a bar code on the Mac web app, which links the two devices together. Then, to get your contacts list and conversations to appear on the Mac, the Mac app pulls your contacts list and messages directly from the iPhone via an encrypted channel, according to Mr. Marlinspike. “It’s a bit more work, from our perspective,†Mr. Marlinspike said. “It’s more complicated than storing all this stuff on a server. †Signal occasionally runs into glitches, such as when it comes to synchronizing data between computers and smartphones. In my tests, there were several occasions when Signal messages that were sent or received on my smartphone did not immediately show up inside the desktop app — though the messages eventually synchronized minutes later. Mr. Marlinspike, who is also the former head of security at Twitter, says he encourages people to report bugs so the group can continue to improve the service. Another downside is that your Signal account can work on only one mobile device at a time I could not, for instance, use Signal on both my iPhone and iPad. Mr. Marlinspike said it would support multiple mobile devices eventually. One last caveat is that Signal isn’t as fun to use as apps like Facebook Messenger, which lets you send stickers and animated GIFs to add color and personality to conversations. Open Whisper Systems said it planned to add these features, noting that GIFs are already supported in the Android version of Signal. Still, this is a trivial issue. I’d choose stronger privacy over sending stickers and animations any day. There is no logical reason to skip using Signal. The app is free for Android and iOS, and for computers it is a free for the Google Chrome browser. Plus, it’s easy to install and so architecturally secure that you can have the confidence to say whatever you want without fear of being spied on. Another benefit is that Open Whisper Systems is a nonprofit that relies on donations and grants, not a business that might eventually have an incentive to share your information with third parties like advertisers. That’s not to say Signal should be your only messaging app. You could use it exclusively for sensitive matters, like conversations. Then for casual chats like making plans with friends and loved ones, you could switch to more “fun†apps like Facebook Messenger and send all the stickers you want. Probably the biggest thing missing from Signal will be many of your friends. The app isn’t as popular among consumers as other mainstream messaging apps, so hanging out on Signal can feel lonely. So if you care about your privacy, other than installing Signal today, you should nag everyone you know to join the service, too. | 1 | [
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FMD561 | 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 Oregon Officials Say 'Showing Work' in Math Class Is White Supremacism? Claim summaries: We reached out to the Oregon Department of Education about a newsletter it sent to math teachers statewide.
contextual information: In early 2021, Snopes became aware of online reports alleging that the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) stated that the practice of students documenting how they solve math problems perpetuated white supremacism. Among the web pages circulating this claim was a February 15 article on conservative commentator Ben Shapiro's media website, The Daily Wire. It read: "A mathematics guide sent out to Oregon schools tells educators that asking students to show their work in math class is a form of white supremacy." Examples of classroom actions that allegedly perpetuate white supremacy include asking students to show their work, focusing on getting the right answer, tracking student success, and grading students. A separate web page by Fox News titled "Oregon promotes teacher program that seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics'" also made this assertion, while users of social media sites, including Twitter and Reddit, debated the accuracy of such reports or circulated their allegations about the state department's instructions to educators as fact. We learned that the rumor's source was a February 5 newsletter from ODE to math teachers across the state that included links to additional teaching resources. See the below-displayed screenshot of a portion of the public bulletin, which Snopes confirmed the authenticity of via ODE's Director of Communications, Mark Siegel. In other words, a portion of the ODE-sponsored newsletter promoted a virtual learning seminar designed by an outside entity, Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, which aimed to equip middle school math teachers with ideas to address documented performance gaps between white and English-speaking students and all other students, according to the bulletin and our correspondence with Siegel. The Oregon newsletter included links to the home page of the so-called "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction" project, as well as to register for the course. Siegel stated in an email to Snopes, "The materials contained in the [newsletter] are drawn from both internal and external sources, and the inclusion of external materials does not necessarily indicate Oregon Department of Education endorsement." More than 30 people from agencies across California and other states, such as San Diego State University, the Los Angeles County of Education, and UnboundEd (a hub of training resources for teachers), designed the ODE-advertised project "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," according to an online pamphlet listing collaborators. In addition to the online teaching classes featured in the ODE newsletter, the initiative's website hosts several PDFs to which middle school teachers anywhere can refer if they are interested in working toward the project's goal: dismantling racism in math classes. One such report, totaling 82 pages, stated more than halfway through: In other words, a resource on the website for "Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction," which ODE called a partner in the newsletter, indeed stated that "white supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms" when educators require students to show their work because the mandate does not necessarily help students process information. Instead, the PDF encouraged teachers to offer a variety of ways for students to demonstrate their question-answering process, including through verbal discussions or multimedia projects that do not use written words or numbers. We reached out to several of the project's collaborators for their comments on The Daily Wire and Fox News' framing of the above-described advice for middle school math teachers, and we heard back from Joanne Rossi Becker, a math and statistics professor at San Jose State University. Becker said that while she did not author the report—she served as a reviewer of its materials—the recommendation aimed to encourage educators to allow students to explain their thinking in ways other than writing, such as through conversations, graphs, or videos. "Overall, the document is well done and has cogent recommendations for teachers and other educators to ameliorate implicit bias and racism," Becker wrote in an email to Snopes. To be clear, while the ODE newsletter promoted a course designed by the project to eliminate racial and language gaps in teaching, as well as a link to a homepage, it did not include a link to or mention the above-displayed PDF specifically. Siegel told Snopes that ODE did not directly instruct educators in terms of specific instructional practices; rather, an optional resource was shared to support teacher conversations to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The department is supportive of conversations in the larger context of identifying beliefs and practices that perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics. The authors of this resource described this larger idea using the term white supremacy. The term "showing the work" in this resource refers to a single approach identified by the teacher. Although a single answer may be expected, students could arrive at correct answers using a variety of approaches, such as grouping physical objects (Legos, blocks), diagrams of problems, writing it out, video explanations, and spreadsheets. Put another way, the department said it supports the project's goal to help students of color and multilingual students perform better in math class, as well as its recommendation to allow classes a variety of ways to explain how they solve problems. "Neither ODE nor the course has made claims that math content itself is racist," Siegel wrote. "The system of mathematics education, including policy, graduation requirements, standards, instruction, course sequences, and assessments, must be evaluated through an equity stance to disrupt inequitable outcomes we currently experience." In sum, it is true that a project designed by dozens of school administrators and scholars stated that expanding options for math students to explain their processes for answering questions could help close racial and language gaps in teaching, addressing existing "white supremacy culture." However, it was false to frame that recommendation as a mandatory directive from ODE to teachers or to suggest that the department itself claimed the standard idea of "showing work" is a form of white supremacy. For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and misleading information. | 2 | [
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FMD562 | 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 Joe Manchin strongly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton after she said, Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work.
contextual information: Appearing at a rally with President Donald Trump in Charleston, W.Va., Patrick Morrisey -- the Republican challenger to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin -- riled up the crowd by invoking a particularly embarrassing remark by Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential nominee of Manchins party. Joe Manchin strongly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton after she said, Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work, Morriseytold the crowdafter Trump turned over the podium on Aug. 21, 2018. Morrissey's statement has a basis in truth, but it glosses over some context. (We're not addressing the portion of Morrisey's remark about how Manchin voted, since ballots are cast privately, making it impossible for us to verify independently.) On March 13, 2016, as she was running for president, Clinton appeared at a televised town hall in Columbus, Ohio. At one point during the event,Clinton said, Im the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean, renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business. She continued, And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on. While the latter portion of her comments communicated empathy for coal-mining families, her remark that were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business drew intense criticism, not only from Americans in coal country but also with her allies, who said Clintons phrasing seemed to trivialize the seriousness of coal workers economic dilemma. So how did this episode affect Manchins support for Clinton? Lets review. Manchin and Clinton had known each other for years, and he endorsed her on CBSsFace the Nationon April 19, 2015. I support Hillary Clinton. I know Hillary Clinton, and I find her to be warm and engaging, compassionate and tough. All of the above, Manchin said. After the town hall remark,MetroNewsreported that a senior advisor to Manchin was troubled and concerned by the comments and reached out directly to the Secretary and her senior advisor for energy. In June 2018, Manchin toldPoliticothat he repeatedly threatened to revoke his support for Clinton after her remark. First, Manchin told Bill Clinton that he would withdraw his support, as the former president pleaded with him not to, Politico reported, Then Hillary Clinton called him. She said, Please dont. Let me come to West Virginia, I need to explain. I said, Thats a bad idea, you shouldnt come, Manchin recounted. But the two sides reconciled, and on March 15 -- two days after the town hall -- Clinton formally reacted to the fallout from her remark, sending aletterto Manchin. Simply put, I was mistaken in my remarks, she wrote. I wanted to make the point that, as you know too well, while coal will be part of the energy mix for years to come, both in the U.S. and around the world, we have already seen a long-term decline in American coal jobs and a recent wave of bankruptcies as a result of a changing energy market and we need to do more to support the workers and families facing these challenges. She also said in the letter that she supported the Miners Protection Act backed by Manchin, which would provide health benefits and pensions for former miners and family members. I pledge to you that I will focus my team and my Administration on bringing jobs to Appalachia, especially jobs producing the carbon capture technology we need for the future, Clinton wrote. About six weeks later, on May 2, Clinton came to West Virginia for aroundtableat the Williamson Health and Wellness Center. At that event, she talked with Manchin and a former coal miner, Bo Copley. I don't know how to explain it, other than what I said was totally out of context from what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time and I did put out a plan last summer, Clinton said. It was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now we are going to continue to lose jobs. What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to try to help and prevent it. At the roundtable, Manchin also expressed his discomfort with Clintons initial statement. I have two ways to go when that statement came out, Manchin said. I could have said, 'I thought she was my friend, by golly I'm done, I'm gone.' Now that's not the way we were raised, I wasn't raised that way. So, I said I'm going to call her instead. He added, If I thought that was in her heart, if I thought she wanted to eliminate one job in West Virginia, I wouldnt be sitting here, and she wouldnt be sitting here if she felt that way.. Manchins office did not respond to an inquiry, butCNNreported on June 17, 2016, that Manchin remained one of the Democratic Senators who were backing Clinton for president. And in the 2018 Politico interview, Manchin called his decision to stick by Clinton a mistake. It was a mistake politically. But the article added that to Manchin, her $20 billion commitment to his state was too much to pass up. Is this about me? Or trying to help a part of my state thats never recovered and is having a tough time? Morrisey said Manchin strongly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton after she said, Were going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of work. Its worth noting some of the context that Morrisey left out -- that Clinton had also expressed empathy for coal miners economic challenges in her initial remark, that she later clarified what she had meant to say, and that Manchin had worked to convince Clinton of why her remarks had been unacceptable. Still, none of that changes the gist of Morriseys assertion -- that Clinton said the remark, and that Manchin remained in her camp through the election (while we know he endorsed her, we do not know for sure he voted for her, as ballots are secret). We rate the statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD563 | 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: Airline Ticket Giveaway Scam Claim summaries: Airlines are not giving away free tickets or spending money to Facebook users who share and like a page. Those offers are a form of online scam.
contextual information: Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion. Virtually every major U.S. air carrier including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Emirates, United Airlines, US Airways, Continental Airlines, Alaska Airlines, WestJet Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Air Canada has been invoked in various online "free ticket" giveaway scams in recent years: Air Canada The primary type of free ticket fraud is the "sweepstakes scam," which is intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print. The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the airlines they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies: Similar phony free ticket lures are used to spread malware. In those versions of the scam, those who attempt to reach the URL provided for the purpose of claiming the free tickets are instead victimized by a Facebook "lifejacking" attack, a malicious script that takes over a user's Facebook profile without their knowledge and propagates itself to their friends' accounts as well. lifejacking In short, those who seek "free" merchandise generally end up paying a dear cost for it. | 0 | [
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FMD564 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Russia Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN (Photos by AFP)
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has accused the United Nations aid chief of arrogance and bias after he told the UN Security Council that Russian and Syrian airstrikes have turned Aleppo into a "kill zone."
During a Wednesday Security Council meeting, Churkin accused Stephen O'Brien of making "arrogant” and "outrageous" remarks and failing to recognize that Russia and Syria have been observing a humanitarian pause, which has been in place for the last eight days.
“The moratorium on flights has been in place for eight days. Give us at least one proof or leave those narratives for a romance you would probably write later," he said.
"If we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church," the Russian envoy added. UN aid chief Stephen O'Brien speaks during a press conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on October 5, 2016.
On Tuesday, Russia announced plans to extend the week-long suspension of airstrikes targeting foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in Aleppo.
Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military's General Staff said that Russian and Syrian jets had stayed 10 kilometers away from Aleppo since October 18, and that humanitarian corridors out of Aleppo remained open.
Rudskoi further expressed Moscow’s readiness to organize more ceasefires on the ground in Aleppo to allow wounded civilians to be evacuated. Smoke rises from buildings hit by militant shelling in a government-held neighborhood of the Syrian city of Aleppo on October 20, 2016.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, has been divided between government forces in the west and the militants in the east since 2012. In an attempt to free the trapped civilian population and to end the militants’ reign of terror in the east, the Syrian army, backed by Russian fighter jets, began a major offensive on September 22.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by deadly militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Loading ... | 0 | [
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FMD565 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ukrainian politicians scramble to delete old anti-Trump posts November 9, 2016 - Fort Russ - PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski - Ukrainian politicians are rushing to delete their posts on social networks in which they called Donald Trump different offensive words. Among the epithets sprinkled on the Republican candidate and new US President were “dangerous marginal," "complete idiot," and “clown.” If Arseniy Yatsenyuk, having already left Ukrainian Olympus, might not threatened by the consequences of destructively criticizing the new US president, then the acting head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, will have to explain the words he wrote on Facebook as well as the accompanying picture. "US presidential candidate Trump's shameless statement on the possibility of recognizing Crimea as Russian is a diagnosis of a dangerous marginal. He is just as dangerous for Ukraine as he is for the US. A marginal indulging Putin's dictatorship cannot be a guarantor of democratic freedoms in the US and the world..No wonder Manafort earlier headed Yanukovych's headquarters, and now Trump's. Yanukovich fled to Russia through Crimea. Where will Manafort take Trump? #Trumpisours" Besides the ex-prime minister and head of the Ukrainian interior ministry, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, diplomats, and other officials have bad mouthed Trump. Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Yuri Sergeev, called the newly elected US president a clown. "Apparently, the clown Trump has gone off the rails on his tour. He is a greater danger to the US than terrorism." The Kiev-based political analyst Kost Bondarenko sarcastically advised everyone insulting Trump to look at the experience of the French press writing about Napoleon Bonaparte depending on when he won or not. “Trump’s victory reminds me of a classic anecdote from the early 19th century. After Napoleon returned from the island of Elba and began his march on Paris, a Parisian newspaper printed rather endemic editorials with such titles as ‘The Corsican Monster Broke Loose and Landed in the Gulf of Juan’, ‘The Ogre is in Grasse,’‘The Usurper has entered Grenoble’, ‘Bonaparte captured Lyon,’‘Napoleon is closing in on Fontainebleau,’ and then ‘Today His Imperial Majesty will Arrive in his Loyal Paris and Hold a Banquet at the Tuileries Palace.' Follow the comments and publications in the Ukrainian media,” Bondarenko wrote. Follow us on Facebook! | 0 | [
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FMD566 | 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: Google PhoneBook Claim summaries: Will entering a phone number into Google produce a home address and a map with directions to that address?
contextual information: Entering a phone number into the Google search engine can produce a home address and a map with directions to that address. For example, if you type your home telephone number into Google's search bar and click the search button, MapQuest returns a physical location associated with your phone number. People could use this feature to locate your home address and receive explicit directions on how to get there from anywhere in the country. You can remove your name from this database. To do this, type in your full phone number using dashes, like this: 555-123-4567. If your number appears in the mapping database, an icon resembling a telephone will appear to the left of the entry on the results page. Click on this icon, and it will take you to a page containing a description of the service and a link to request the removal of your number. Recheck your phone number to ensure it has been removed. Also, if you have children, please check their phone numbers too! This is another example of an invasion of privacy, isn't it?
The gist of the message quoted above is true: typing a phone number into the popular Google search engine can produce a display showing the name and address of the person to whom that number is assigned, as well as links to services like Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest, which will provide maps and driving directions for that address. Clicking on the telephone icon will take the user to an informational page about the Google Phonebook feature, which includes a link to a form that can be used to request the removal of personal information from this feature.
As for whether this Google feature is a shocking "invasion of privacy," there are a few points to consider: this feature is not "new"; the PhoneBook service has been offered by Google for several years. Additionally, this feature does not work for every phone number. Some classes of phone numbers, such as unpublished numbers (i.e., numbers belonging to customers who have requested that their local phone service providers not publish their numbers in printed directories or make them available through directory assistance), will not display. The information shown is compiled from publicly accessible sources and is not unique to Google. Many other web sources allow users to look up the same information. Google has simply combined two different services readily available on various websites: reverse phone directory look-ups and mapping/driving directions services.
Even without Google, it's relatively easy for any moderately knowledgeable web user to input a phone number into a reverse phone directory website to find the name and address corresponding to that number, then use an online service such as MapQuest to obtain directions to that address. In short, the Google PhoneBook feature may be troubling to those who value their privacy, but it is a symptom and not a cause. The larger issue is that many entities we interact with in daily life, which have access to our personal information, can make that information available to sources that compile databases used by services like Google PhoneBook. The public has made privacy gains through the implementation of laws requiring credit bureaus, phone companies, and motor vehicle bureaus to offer "opt-out" features that provide customers with means to restrict the distribution of their personal information. However, until that larger issue is completely resolved, trying to keep one's personal information off the web is akin to engaging in a perpetual game of "Whack-a-Mole": it provides momentary satisfaction but accomplishes little. | 1 | [
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FMD567 | 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 It Illegal to Have More Than Two Dildos in a Home in Arizona? Claim summaries: Various states still have a lot of odd laws on the books, but are lawmakers really regulating the number of dildos one can own in Arizona?
contextual information: Does Arizona have a law limiting the number of dildos a person can have in their home? That rumor has been bouncing around blogs, books, and websites for decades. In December 2018, a Twitter user renewed interest in this suspiciously strange piece of legislation: renewed This restriction is not actually codified in Arizona law. But it almost was. Arizona State Rep. Leslie Johnson (R-Mesa) attempted to pass an obscenity law in the 1980s aimed at regulating pornography and banning the sale of dildos. House Bill 2613, which was later dubbed the "dildo bill," would have made the commercial sale of "obscene devices," such as dildos, a felony. The first news report we could find covering the bill was published in the Arizona Daily Star in December 1987: The original proposal focused only on the sale of "obscene devices" and not their ownership. Alan Sears, the lawyer who drafted the bill for Johnson, said that ownership of such devices was less important as women didn't like using them anyway. However, a provision of the proposed bill stated that ownership of six or more dildos would be considered proof of intent to sell them commercially -- which would have made such ownership a felony. dildos While the bill faced some ridicule from members of the public (some Arizonans reportedly sported bumper stickers reading, "When dildos are outlawed, only outlaws will have dildos"), it was eventually passed by both the House and Senate. Ultimately, however, Gov. Rose Mofford vetoed the measure. ridicule passed vetoed Dildo ownership, however, was not at the center of Mofford's decision to veto the bill. The then-Arizona governor's action was based more on the term "obscenity," how it was defined, and how it would be enforced: In her veto message, Mofford said she fully supports the enforcement of tough laws to eliminate obscene material, but "I must regretfully use my veto power, primarily because I believe the bill is unconstitutional." The anti-pornography bill also known as the "dildo bill" because it would have banned the commercial sale of sexual devices would have allowed juries to decide what books and movies are obscene by using a standard of community acceptance rather than community tolerance. Moffard said she believes that the acceptance standard could allow higher courts to overturn convictions, so "persons who would otherwise have been convicted under the tolerance standard would go free." She said she also feared that the acceptance standard a tougher standard than used in several U.S. Supreme Court obscenity decisions could allow the removal from library shelves and movie theaters of works that are widely recognized as fine literature or works of art. Johnson, who insisted that dildos were used solely to abuse children, filed similar legislation the following year. When the Arizona House amended some of the language in the bill, replacing the word "dildo" with "child molestation devices," Johnson killed the legislation: insisted amended killed The Arizona Legislature disposed of a couple of controversial bills. Rep. Leslie Whiting Johnson, best known for changing hats and hairdos daily, prematurely withdrew her dildo bill after her fellow representatives had amended it to her dissatisfaction. As originally crafted, the bill would have made it a felony to possess more than five sexual devices. That caused Rep. Bobby Raymond, D-Phoenix, to ask: "Which one of my hands will I have to cut off?" The story behind Johnson's obscenity law was eventually boiled down to a factually inaccurate sentence published on the website Dumblaws circa 1999. From there, it spread to a number of listicles concerning "obscure laws" in the United States. Perhaps most famously, photographer Olivia Locher created a visual representation of this rumor in her 2017 book I Fought the Law: Dumblaws listicles obscure laws book Despite the widespread prevalence of the rumor, no law on the books in Arizona prohibits the number of dildos a person can own. The rumor stemmed from a failed piece of 1989 legislation dubbed the "dildo bill" which, among other things, would have made it a felony to sell sex toys. The "ownership" aspect of the rumor was due to language in the bill stating that owning more than six (not two) dildos would have constituted proof of intent to distribute. The Phoenix New Times reported on the legislation (and several other fabled Arizona statutes) in 2013 and asserted that Arizonans "can have dildos stacked to the rafters" without fear of legal repercussions. reported Carson, Susan. "Mofford Vetoes Bills on AIDS, Peep Shows, Mountain Bell."
Arizona Daily Star. 9 July 1988. Nett, Walt. "House Panel Chairman Kills Anti-Porn Bill Amid Protests."
Arizona Daily Star. 22 March 1988. Nett, Walt. "House Approves AIDS, Porn Bills."
Arizona Daily Star. 25 June 1988. Bass, Jonathan. "House OKS Bills on Child Abuse, Jail Fires, Insurance Firms' Books."
Arizona Daily Star. 15 March 1989. Pires, Kevin. "Arizonas Two-Dildo Policy and Other Photos of Obscure Laws You Might Be Breaking."
Flavorwire. 11 November 2013. Locher, Olivia. I Fought the Law: Photographs by Olivia Locher of the Strangest Laws from Each of the 50 States.
Chronicle Books, 2017. ISBN 1452156956. Hendley, Matthew. "10 Arizona 'Dumb Laws' That Are Complete Horse S**t."
Phoenix New Times. 11 September 2013. | 0 | [
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FMD568 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: ( ANTIMEDIA ) If you had happened to Google the term ‘pathological lying’ on Sunday evening, you would have been met with none other than the bright, smiling face of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Before Wikipedia administrators put a temporary lock on the entry early Monday morning, the top Google result for the term was a link to the Wiki article displaying Clinton’s photo, along with the following quote defining pathological lying:
“It is a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders such as psychopathy and antisocial, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders, but people who are pathological liars may not possess characteristics of the other disorders. Excessive lying is a common symptom of several mental disorders.”
The revision history of the entry shows the picture of Clinton was originally added to the ‘pathological lying’ Wikipedia article on the morning of October 29th, but it wasn’t until the next night that the ever-vigilant internet community took notice and excitedly spread the word on Facebook and Twitter . Check out the Google Trends report for ‘pathological lying’ below:
Unsurprisingly, most reactions were supportive of the alteration to the Wikipedia article, once again showing the public’s general distrust of the presidential candidate. A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last year asked voters to say the first thing that came to mind when they thought of Hillary Clinton. The most popular response was “liar,” followed by “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.” Maybe if the biggest names in journalism weren’t outright colluding with Hillary’s campaign , that poll would have been more widely reported. Maybe.
Due to the fact major media corporations are completely ignoring the corruption surrounding the Clinton campaign, it has been left to Wikileaks, independent media outlets, and the social media community to push this information into the public eye. Just a week away from the election, new evidence was discovered that prompted the FBI to announce they have reopened the criminal investigation into Hillary’s private email server.
With Republican nominee Donald Trump scheduled to appear in court to face rape allegations, there is a high possibility the next president of the United States will be facing criminal charges before they’re even inaugurated. If nothing else, this election cycle is proving that people want truth — and they’ll get creative to expose it.
Courtesy post via Josie Wales and theAntiMedia.org. | 0 | [
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FMD569 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: After months of internal discord, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which they have been attacking since it was enacted in 2010. Two attempts in recent weeks to pass an overhaul bill had collapsed in confusion, but Republicans overcame their differences in a 217-213 vote that will send the bill to the Senate, where its outlook was uncertain. Obamacare brought health insurance coverage to millions of Americans. An early estimate by nonpartisan congressional researchers of the impact of the Republican rollback bill, known as the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, said it would leave 24 million more Americans without insurance coverage by 2026. Here are the bill’s main provisions: The Republican plan would maintain some of Obamacare’s most popular provisions. It would allow young adults to stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26. The bill would let states opt out of Obamacare’s mandate that insurers charge the same rates on sick and healthy people. It would also allow states to opt out of Obamacare’s requirement that insurers cover 10 essential health benefits, such as maternity care and prescription drug costs. The measure would provide states with $100 billion, largely to fund high-risk pools to provide insurance to the sickest patients. The bill also would provide $8 billion over five years to help those with pre-existing conditions pay for insurance. It would let insurers mark up premiums by 30 percent for those who have a lapse in insurance coverage of about two months or more. Insurers won a provision they had long sought: The ability to charge older Americans up to five times more than young people. Under Obamacare, they could only charge up to three times more. The bill would end in 2018 Obamacare’s income-based tax credits that help low-income people buy insurance. These would be replaced with age-based tax credits ranging from $2,000 to $4,000 per year that would be capped at upper-income levels. While Obamacare’s credits gave more help to those with lower incomes, the Republican plan would be largely age-based. The Republican bill would abolish most Obamacare taxes, including on medical devices, health insurance premiums, indoor tanning salons, prescription medications and high-cost employer-provided insurance known as “Cadillac†plans. Those taxes paid for Obamacare. Republicans have not said how they would pay for the parts of the law they want to keep. The bill would also repeal the Obamacare financial penalty for the 2016 tax year for not purchasing insurance, as well as a surtax on investment income earned by upper-income Americans. It would repeal the mandate that larger employers must offer insurance to their employees. Under Obamacare, more than 30 states, including about a dozen Republican states, expanded the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor. About half of Obamacare enrollees obtained insurance through the expansion. The bill would allow the Medicaid expansion to continue until Jan. 1, 2020. After that date, expansion would end and Medicaid funding would be capped on a per-person basis. State Medicaid plans would no longer have to cover some Obamacare-mandated essential health benefits, fulfilling a Republican promise to return more control to the states. | 1 | [
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FMD570 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: As pieces of luggage, human remains, wreckage and what could be a tell-tale oil slick were found early Friday in the Mediterranean Sea, one aviation expert said telemetry received by satellites from the doomed plane suggested a fire could have started onboard, knocking out computers and control mechanisms.
David Learmount said the fire could have started in the plane's avionics compartment. Such a scenario could indicate an electrical fire, and not terrorism, brought down EgyptAir flight 804 on Thursday.
The first physical clues to the crash of flight 804, which carried 66 passengers, crew and security officers, surfaced about 190 miles off the coast of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Reports of debris being found on Thursday proved false, but the verified debris field could bring authorities closer to the all-important flight data recorder, which could provide insight into what caused the crash.
An EgyptAir official said midday Friday that wreckage of the missing plane has been found, including body parts, luggage and passengers' seats. The announcement came hours after a Greek official also reported evidence being found.
"A short while ago we were briefed by the Egyptian authorities... on the discovery of a body part, a seat and baggage just south of where the aircraft signal was lost," Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters in Athens, according to Reuters.
The Cairo-bound flight had left Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris late Wednesday night, and disappeared from radar as it neared its destination. Authorities have said terrorism is more likely than technical failure, but the investigation is still in the early stages.
A flotilla of international ships and boats were searching a wide swath of the sea Thursday and during the night for debris from the ill-fated Airbus 320. The mile-long oil slick was identified from satellite images from the European Space Agency, which cautioned that there was no guarantee the slick was from the missing aircraft. The agency said the slick was about 25 miles southeast of the plane's last known location, and passed the information to relevant authorities late Thursday.
The Egyptian presidency Friday expressed its "deep sadness and extreme regret" over the deaths of the passengers and crew members aboard the flight -- the first official recognition of the tragic crash. Egypt’s military also confirmed for the first time Friday that plane debris and passengers’ personal belongings were found in the Mediterranean Sea.
Egyptian army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir wrote on his Facebook page that Egyptian jets and naval vessels participating in the search for the missing plane had found "personal belongings of the passengers and parts of the plane debris."
Egyptian airport officials said Friday that three French and three British investigators and an AirBus technical expert had arrived in Cairo to join the investigation.
No terror groups had taken credit for the disaster as of Friday morning, and authorities were going through the passenger manifest, crew members' backgrounds and airport staff for possible links to terror. Authorities said the plane swerved and spun wildly before plummeting into the sea. The Egyptian military said that no distress call was received from the pilot.
In Paris, French authorities scoured Charles de Gaulle Airport, the country's main hub, for any sign of a security breach prior to the flight's departure. Reuters reported that investigators were interviewing officers who were on duty at the airport Wednesday night to determine whether they heard or saw anything suspicious.
"We are in the early stages here," a police source told Reuters about the investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reported that French investigators were poring over surveillance footage from the airport, as well as performing background checks of those on board the plane and anyone who may have had ground access to the aircraft.
Flight 804 was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two babies, three security staff and seven crew members, officials said. Egypt's aviation minister, Sharif Fathy, described those on board as including 15 French passengers, 30 Egyptians, one Briton, two Iraqis, one Kuwaiti, one Saudi, one Sudanese, one Chadian, one Portuguese, one Algerian and one Canadian.
Families of the victims spent the night in a hotel in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, while they awaited the news of their loved ones. Egyptian officials said some arrived from Paris late Thursday, among them eight relatives of the 15 French passengers on board the missing jet.
Later Friday, the relatives of those killed held prayers for the dead at Sultan Hussein mosque in Cairo. Some of them cried as they prayed.
Among those killed were Salah Abu Laban, his wife Sahar Qouidar, their son Ghassan Abu Laban and daughter-in-law Reem al-Sebaei
The relative, Abdel-Rahman al-Nasry, told The Associated Press, "I ask God for forgiveness. This is very hard for the family."
Magdi Badr, a family friend, said, "we pray for the victims."
In the U.S., Los Angeles International Airport announced Thursday that it was stepping up security in the wake of the EgyptAir disappearance. A statement from airport authorities said they were eliminating or restricting airport worker access to 150 doors in the terminals. The statement also said additional airport police officers had been assigned to monitor employee access points and conduct random screenings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | 1 | [
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FMD571 | 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: Minimum Rage Claim summaries:
contextual information: FACT CHECK: Are minimum wage workers in Seattle asking for fewer hours in order to retain welfare benefits? Claim: Minimum wage workers in Seattle are asking for their hours to be cut so they can retain welfare benefits. WHAT'S KNOWN: Five full-time Seattle caregivers may have asked to adjust their hours in order to remain in subsidized housing. WHAT'S UNPROVEN: More than five to seven workers have deliberately reduced their working hours to retain subsidized housing; workers are spending fewer hours on the job to retain benefits other than subsidized housing; the Seattle minimum wage law has caused a reduction in overall hours worked by low-wage workers. Examples: [Collected via Twitter, June 2015] Workers Now Requesting To Work Fewer Hours In Order To Still Qualify For Welfare https://t.co/IzHMno6bJD #fightfor15 pic.twitter.com/KiC53fO12c The Patriot (@ThePatriot143) July 25, 2015 In Seattle, which now has a $15 minimum wage, workers are now demanding fewer hours to remain eligible for welfare. Ken Gardner (@kesgardner) July 25, 2015 Hey #Fightfor15 if workers just want to get out of poverty, why are they asking for fewer hours to stay on WELFARE? https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf el Sooper (@SooperMexican) July 25, 2015 This is just pathetic: Workers making $15 minimum wage in Seattle are asking for fewer hours just to stay on WELFARE: https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf el Sooper (@SooperMexican) July 26, 2015 Origins: On July 22, 2015, Fox News published an article titled "Seattle Sees Fallout from $15 Minimum Wage, as Other Cities Follow Suit." Credited to correspondent Dan Springer, the article lamented what it claimed were "unintended consequences" resulting from a Seattle law raising the minimum wage there to $15 per hour. The Fox News article and video reported that "evidence is surfacing" to suggest Seattle workers have begun to work less in order to claim a higher hourly wage while still qualifying for government assistance: Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise in a bid to keep overall income down so they don't lose public subsidies for things like food, child care, and rent. Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less. "If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn't actually help get them out of poverty, all you've done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people," said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM. However, if Springer found "evidence" of such a trend, he did not include it in his July 22, 2015 article. While Springer pointed to a Seattle home nursing nonprofit (Full Life Care), he only vaguely referenced a statement an unidentified individual there made to a third party, then quoted an opinion provided by a local radio host who speculated upon what might happen if workers opted to cut their hours based on a higher minimum wage in order to retain government assistance. Lacking from this narrative was any actual evidence that such claims were rooted in any measurable labor trend in Seattle. It appears Springer's entire premise was lifted from an June 8, 2015 report by television station KIRO, which provided additional context that painted the claim in a slightly different light: Nora Gibson is the executive director of Full Life Care, a nonprofit that serves elderly people in various homes and nursing facilities. She is also on the board of the Seattle Housing Authority. Gibson told KIRO she saw a sudden reaction from workers when Seattle's phased minimum-wage ordinance took effect in April, bringing minimum wage to $11 an hour. She said anecdotally, some people feared they would lose their subsidized units but still not be able to afford market-rate rents. For example, she said last week, five employees at one of her organization's 24-hour care facilities for Alzheimer's patients asked to reduce their hours in order to remain eligible for subsidies. In that same article, Full Life Care's executive director explicitly stated that the issue was not one of worker laziness or an intent by employees to "game the system" for additional "welfare benefits," but rather one of necessity due to Seattle's exceptionally high market rate for private housing: "This has nothing to do with people's willingness to work, or how hard people work. It has to do with being caught in a very complex situation where they have to balance everything they can pull together to create a stable, successful life," Gibson said. Gibson said she fully supports a minimum wage increase but was not surprised when her employees asked for fewer hours. "The jump from subsidized housing to market rate in Seattle is huge," she said. While two other Seattle residents spoke to KIRO about the specter of being shut out of subsidized housing by earning a slightly higher wage, a Seattle city council member told the outlet that the accounts did not reflect any measurable trend of which he was aware: Seattle Councilmember Nick Licata said he hadn't heard of purposeful reduction of hours before. "We need more information, for one thing. This is anecdotal," Licata said. Still, he said people need more options, especially after breaking the threshold that pushes them out of public housing. "We do not want this to be an improvement on one side of the scale, and then a decrease in living conditions on another," Licata said. "We should not be using this as an excuse not to address the overall problem." What has been reported is that several full-time workers at a single Seattle nonprofit may have expressed a desire to adjust their hours to retain subsidized housing, but more evidence of workers requesting fewer hours on the job after the minimum wage increase hasn't turned up yet. Moreover, the source originally quoted about the issue stated that workers earning the higher hourly rate would likely be unable to afford private housing in Seattle due to market conditions, but they were not seeking other welfare benefits nor unwilling to work. Last updated: July 28, 2015 Originally published: July 28, 2015 | 0 | [
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FMD572 | 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 Dave Ramsey Warn About a 'Cashless Society'? Claim summaries: A common tactic of purveyors of misinformation is to attach a well-known person to an opinion piece in an attempt to give those opinions credence.
contextual information: In July 2020, a message supposedly written by radio host and financial advisor Dave Ramsey about the dangers of a cashless society went viral on social media. This piece of text typically started with the title "Here's What No Cash Actually Means" and included a line attributing the message to Ramsey. A common tactic of purveyors of misinformation is to attach a well-known or well-liked person to an opinion piece in an attempt to give those opinions credence. In this case, Ramsey was linked to this warning about a cashless society to lend some authority to the diatribe. However, Ramsey did not write the text in question. On July 10, 2020, he took to Twitter to clarify that he had nothing to do with this message. Ramsey exclaimed, "NOT me," before adding a common and obviously fictitious quote from late U.S. President Abraham Lincoln about believing everything you read on the internet.
It should also be noted that many of the activities mentioned in this post wouldn't actually be precluded in a cashless society. One could still, for instance, do odd jobs, send money for birthdays, or sell used items for extra cash. The nature of these transactions might change (one would have to find a digital solution, such as prepaid debit cards or a mobile payment service), but it wouldn't cause these acts to disappear entirely. Although Ramsey did not write this warning, the financial guru has expressed his thoughts on the idea of a cashless society. When asked about his views on businesses eliminating cash transactions, Ramsey stated that it wasn't a topic that caused him much concern: "I really don't spend a lot of time thinking or worrying about the situation. When it comes right down to it, most businesses are doing that for one or | 0 | [
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FMD573 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Unless she’s indicted, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination.
That kind of sentence is rarely written about a major presidential candidate. But I don’t see a realistic third alternative (except for one long-shot, below).
Clinton is now hostage to the various investigations — the FBI, Congress, the courts — of her e-mails. The issue has already damaged her seriously by highlighting once again her congenital inability to speak truthfully. When the scandal broke in March, she said unequivocally that she “did not e-mail any classified material to anyone.†That’s now been shown to be unequivocally false. After all, the inspector general of the intelligence community referred her e-mails to the Justice Department precisely because they contain classified material.
The fallback — every Clinton defense has a fallback — is that she did not mishandle any material “marked†classified. But that’s absurd. Who could even have been in a position to mark classified something she composed and sent on her own private e-mail system?
Moreover, what’s prohibited is mishandling classified information , not just documents . For example, any information learned from confidential conversations with foreign leaders is automatically classified. Everyone in national security knows that. Reuters has already found 17 e-mails sent by Clinton containing such “born classified†information. And the State Department has already identified 188 e-mails on her server that contain classified information.
The truth-shaving never stops. Take a minor matter: her communications with Sidney Blumenthal. She originally insisted that these were just “unsolicited†e-mails from an old friend. Monday’s document release showed that they were very much solicited (“Keep ’em coming when you canâ€) and in large volume — 306 e-mails, according to the New York Times’ Peter Baker, more than with any other person, apparently, outside the State Department.
The parallel scandal looming over Clinton is possible corruption involving contributions to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state. There are relatively few references to the foundation in the e-mails she has released. Remember, she erased 32,000 e-mails she deemed not “work-related.†Clinton needs to be asked a straightforward question: “In sorting your private from public e-mails, were those related to the Clinton Foundation considered work-related or were they considered private and thus deleted?â€
We are unlikely to get a straight answer from Clinton. In fact, we may never get the real answer. So Clinton marches on regardless. Who is to stop her?
Yes, Bernie Sanders has risen impressively. But it is inconceivable that he would be nominated. For one thing, he’d be the oldest president by far — on Inauguration Day older than Ronald Reagan, our oldest president, was at his second inaugural.
And there is the matter of Sanders being a self-proclaimed socialist in a country more allergic to socialism than any in the Western world. Which is why the party is turning its lonely eyes to joltin’ Joe Biden.
Biden, who at 72 shares the Democrats’ gerontocracy problem, is riding a wave of deserved sympathy. But that melts away quickly when a campaign starts. Even now, his support stands at only 18 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll. For him to win, one has to assume that Sanders disappears and Biden automatically inherits Sanders’ constituency.
That’s a fantasy, modeled on 1968 when Bobby Kennedy picked up Eugene McCarthy’s anti-Lyndon Johnson constituency. But Joe Biden is no Bobby Kennedy. And in a recent Iowa poll, Biden’s support comes roughly equally from Clinton and Sanders. Rather than inheriting the anti-Clintonite constituency, he could instead be splitting it.
There is one long-shot possibility that might upend Clinton: Biden pledges to serve one term only and chooses Elizabeth Warren as his running mate — now. One-term pledges address the age problem but they are political poison, giving the impression of impermanence and mere transition. Warren cures that, offering the Democratic base — and the Sanders constituency — the vision of a 12-year liberal ascendancy.
When asked on Wednesday whether she had discussed such a ticket with Biden, Warren answered “it was a long conversation,†a knowing wink in the form of a provocative nondenial.
I doubt a Biden-Warren ticket will happen, but it remains the only threat to Clinton outside of some Justice Department prosecutor showing the same zeal in going after Hillary Clinton as the administration did in going after David Petraeus.
Otherwise the Democrats remain lashed to Clinton. Their only hope is that the Republicans self-destruct in a blaze of intraparty warfare. Something for which they are showing an impressive talent.
Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD574 | 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 Snapchat Building a Facial Recognition Database for the Feds? Claim summaries: Online conspiracy theorists claim Snapchat's image filter feature called "Lenses" is covertly amassing a database of users' faces to share with law enforcement agencies.
contextual information: One of the more whimsical messaging options offered by Snapchat a social media app for mobile devices introduced in 2011 is the ability to personalize selfies in real time and share them instantly with other users, a feature that has at once contributed to the app's immense popularity (Snapchat boasts an estimated 166 million users daily) and raised privacy concerns among some of its customers. Snapchat's rotating toolbox of image filters, called Lenses, enables users to manipulate photos and videos to humorous effect, as seen in these examples shared publicly on Instagram by celebrity Snapchatter Chrissy Teigen: Cute and innocent though it may appear, the feature has become the target of conspiracy theorists claiming that Snapchat's corporate owner, Snap Inc., uses it to collect facial recognition data which it allegedly stores and shares with law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA. We've found examples of such rumors dating back to Fall 2015 (soon after the Lenses feature was officially rolled out): you guys are all swooning over the snapchat filters... And The FBI is getting the most extensive facial recognition library ever TEENWOLF (@TEENWOLFREMIX) October 3, 2015 October 3, 2015 It wasn't until April of the following year that the rumors reached takeoff speed, however, thanks largely to a tweet composed by hip hop artist, songwriter, and unabashed flat-earth theorist B.o.B to his roughly two million followers: tweet flat-earth when you realize all the snap chat filters are really building a facial recognition database ? B.o.B (@bobatl) April 16, 2016 April 16, 2016 In May 2016, with civil cases already pending against Facebook and Google alleging unauthorized use of facial recognition technology, a class action lawsuit was filed by two Snapchat users in Illinois complaining that the app violated their rights under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by failing to obtain adequate permission before gathering and storing their "biometric identifiers and biometric information". lawsuit BIPA The company flatly denied it: denied Contrary to the claims of this frivolous lawsuit, we are very careful not to collect, store, or obtain any biometric information or identifiers about our community. The class action suit was eventually dismissed in favor of arbitration in September 2016, but as of this writing the case remains unresolved. Crucial to Snapchat's defense is their position, as stated in the Privacy Center of the company's web site, that the app relies on object recognition, not facial recognition, to make Lenses work: arbitration stated Have you ever wondered how Lenses make your eyes well up with tears or rainbows come out your mouth? Some of the magic behind Lenses is object recognition. Object recognition is an algorithm designed to understand the general nature of things that appear in an image. It lets us know that a nose is a nose or an eye is an eye. But object recognition isnt the same as facial recognition. While Lenses can recognize faces in general, they can't recognize a specific face. If it's true that Lenses can't recognize (i.e., identify) specific faces, then the claim that the app produces anything qualifying as a "biometric identifier" under Illinois law is seriously in doubt. (The district judge in Illinois overseeing the Google facial recognition case previously defined "biometric identifier" as "a set of biology-based measurements ... used to identify a person.) case As to the wider claim that Snapchat is building a "facial recognition database," the distinction between object and facial recognition, at minimum, places a burden of proof on those trumpeting the claim to show that the app is capable of identifying specific faces in the first place. If this explanation (provided by the web site Vox) of how the software works is accurate, Snapchat doesn't need to be able to identify specific faces to accomplish the task. It has to recognize a face as a face, and identify the parts of a face as the nose, eyes, ears, chin, etc., but it doesn't have to recognize who the face belongs to: this Moreover, Snapchat's Privacy Policy states that the company neither collects nor permanently stores user-created content (meaning photos and videos) let alone preserves such items in a database: states Snapchat lets you capture what its like to live in the moment. On our end, that means that we automatically delete the content of your Snaps (the photo and video messages that you send your friends) from our servers after we detect that a Snap has been opened by all recipients or has expired. And although the policy further acknowledges that Snap Inc. may share users' personal information "to comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation" (and transparency reports show that the company has indeed complied with such requests in the past), they can't grant the FBI (or any other agency) access to a "facial recognition database" that doesn't exist. reports Some rumors die hard, however. An updated variant that cropped up in early 2017 brought two new claims to the mix: one, that the FBI literally created Snapchat's image filtering software (and alleged facial recognition database); and two, that there is a smoking gun to prove it namely U.S. patent #9396354: granted According to an analysis by Sophos' Naked Security blogger Alison Booth, the patent proposes using facial recognition software to identify individual subjects in photos, whereupon the latter would be modified and/or their distribution restricted in accordance with the subjects' pre-established privacy settings. analysis There is a catch. Implementation of the process would, of course, require amassing a facial recognition database. "For facial recognition to work," writes Booth, "Snapchat would need to store images of all users that sign up to the feature as a reference image to compare photos against." So, there it is a "facial recognition database" of the sort conspiracy theorists have been going on about since 2015, except that Snapchat has not, to date, implemented such a feature (a fact we were able to confirm with the company), nor is there evidence that the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency) was involved in creating it, nor does the patent itself mention sharing facial recognition data with government entities. Despite finding no legitimate basis for the claim that Snapchat is currently engaged in collecting, storing, or sharing facial recognition data on its users, we do not wish to downplay the increasing prevalence of facial recognition technology in both commercial and government applications, nor the privacy issues this raises. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) articulated some of these issues in a statement announcing the release of a 2015 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the privacy implications of the technology: report The newly released report raises serious concerns about how companies are collecting, using, and storing our most sensitive personal information. I believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, which is why it's important that, at the very least, the tech industry adopts strong, industry-wide standards for facial recognition technology. But what we really need are federal standards that address facial recognition privacy by enhancing our consumer privacy framework. The tech industry has yet to address these concerns to the satisfaction of consumer privacy watchdogs, however, nor has Congress made progress toward establishing the federal standards Franken called for. Thus far, issue has been dealt with primarily in the court system via cases such as the aforementioned BIPA class action lawsuits against Facebook and Google. watchdogs lawsuits One of the ironies of the false alarms about Snapchat's alleged sharing of facial recognition data with the FBI is that the agency already maintains a biometric data network comprising the facial images of more than 117 million Americans (about half the U.S. adult population, and growing), mostly drawn from state DMV databases and other non-criminal sources. A 2016 report by the Georgetown Law Center for Privacy and Technology warned that the technology is both error-prone, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color, and almost totally unregulated. already report disproportionate In testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by Sen. Franken in 2012, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Jennifer Lynch urged Congress to act sooner rather than later to protect the biometric privacy of all Americans: testimony Face recognition and its accompanying privacy concerns are not going away. Given this, it is imperative that government act now to limit unnecessary biometrics collection; instill proper protections on data collection, transfer, and search; ensure accountability; mandate independent oversight; require appropriate legal process before government collection; and define clear rules for data sharing at all levels. This is important to preserve the democratic and constitutional values that are bedrock to American society. Booth, Alison. "Snapchat Turns Facial Recognition Technology on Its Head."
Naked Security. 20 July 2016. Danley-Greiner, Kristin. "Snapchat Defends Procedures After Facial Recognition Class Action."
Legal Newsline. 2 September 2016. Garvie, Clare et al. "The Perpetual Line-up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America."
Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology. 18 October 2016. Graham, Meg. "Illinois Biometrics Lawsuits May Help Define Rules for Facebook, Google."
Chicago Tribune. 13 January 2017. Korte, Amy. "Federal Court in Illinois Rules Biometric Privacy Lawsuit Against Google Can Proceed."
Illinois Policy. 8 March 2017. Maass, Dave. "Memo to the DOJ: Facial Recognition's Threat to Privacy Is Worse than Anyone Thought."
Electronic Frontier Foundation. 18 October 2016. Mathies, Daven. "The Incredible Underlying Technology of Snapchat's Selfie Lenses."
Digital Trends. 1 July 2016. Nelson, Steven. "Half of U.S. Adults Are in Police Facial Recognition Networks."
US News & World Report. 18 October 2016. Roberts, Jeff John. "Tech Industry's Facial Recognition Plan Bashed by Privacy Groups."
Fortune. 16 June 2016. Thielman, Sam. "FBI Using Vast Public Photo Data and Iffy Facial Recognition Tech to Find Criminals."
The Guardian. 15 June 2016. Trujillo, Mario. "Facial Recognition Quietly Taking Hold."
The Hill. 1 August 2015. Welinder, Yana. "EFF Urges Congress to Protect Privacy in Face Recognition."
Electronic Frontier Foundation. 18 July 2012. Yakowicz, Will. "Snapchat Sued Under Illinois Biometric Information Usage Law."
Inc. 18 July 2016. Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Testimony of Jennifer Lynch to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law."
18 July 2012. Google. "Patent: Apparatus and Method for Automated Privacy Protection in Distributed Images - US 9396354 B1."
19 July 2016. Government Accounting Office. "Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues, and Applicable Federal Law."
20 June 2015. U.S. Senate. "Sen. Franken: New Report on Facial Recognition Technology Highlights Lack of Privacy Standards."
30 July 2015. U.S. Senate. "Sen. Franken Releases Extensive Report Detailing Concerns with FBI Facial Recognition Program."
15 June 2016. | 0 | [
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FMD575 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Republicans in Washington are coming to grips with what many of them not long ago considered an unimaginable reality: Donald Trump is likely to be their presidential nominee and standard-bearer. The prospect of Trump winning the Republican primary had been the stuff of Washington jokes, whispered hallway conversations and eye-rolls, even as he led in public opinion polls for months and dominated debate after debate. But with the brash billionaire now winning three straight contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, denial is giving way to a mostly gloomy acceptance that he may have too much momentum to be stopped, especially if wins big in key Southern primaries next week that look favorable to him. “It fills all of us with concern and dread,†said Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has endorsed fellow Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, considered the main hope of the Republican establishment to derail Trump’s march to the nomination. That march was given a boost on Friday when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican presidential candidate who dropped out of the race after a dismal finish in New Hampshire, became the first major establishment Republican to endorse Trump. “There is no better fighter than Donald Trump,†Christie said at a news conference with Trump in Texas. Trump has vowed to scrap U.S. trade deals, slap a tariff on imported goods and raise taxes on hedge-fund managers, as well as retain some sort of mandate to purchase health insurance | 1 | [
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FMD576 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Paranoid apoplexy over the Russkies By Jacob Hornberger Posted on October 28, 2016 by Jacob Hornberger
As I watch the paranoid apoplexy that U.S. officials and their acolytes in the mainstream press are displaying over the hacking of Democratic Party computers and the disclosure of their emails, I’m tempted to say that it might all be some sort of karmic justice. But since I’m a Christian rather than a Buddhist, I’m more tempted to say that it might all be a ratification of the principle, “You get what you sow.”
Consider their accusation: that it was the Russkies who did the hacking and the disclosing of those emails. Is there any evidence that they’ve shown us? None! But heaven help anyone who points that out. He will be labeled a lover and defender of Vladimir Putin as well as an American who hates America, one who dares to doubt the word of the U.S. “intelligence establishment.” Why, they might even insinuate that he is a communist or a communist sympathizer, as they did during the old Cold War.
When it comes to U.S. national-security state accusations against Russia, Americans are supposed to do what they were expected to do during the previous Cold War: hop to, salute, pledge allegiance, and unconditionally accept the conclusions of the U.S. “intelligence community.” Sort of like when they were expected to blindly support the invasion of Iraq based on those WMD conclusions that were being issued by the national-security establishment.
Don’t ask questions. Just defer to their authority. They know what’s best for us. They have access to information we don’t have. They’re just protecting “national security.”
Evidence? Who needs any stinking evidence? Everyone knows that the Russkies do these sorts of things. It has to be them. Who else?
Never mind that these people lie from time to time. Recall Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who lied under oath to Congress about the NSA’s super-secret illegal surveillance scheme on the American people. (Of course nothing happened to him.) Or CIA Director Richard Helm’s lying to Congress about the CIA’s super-secret schemes in Chile to effect regime change there. (He was permitted to plead out to a misdemeanor and hailed as hero back at CIA headquarters.)
In fact, the subject of Chile raises the possibility that the paranoid apoplexy that these people are experiencing over Russia’s supposed efforts to influence U.S. elections might be some sort of psychological payback for all the things that the U.S. national-security establishment has done to influence elections in other countries.
In the 1960s, one could be forgiven for concluding that the CIA was a super-secret political party in Chile, given the millions of dollars that the CIA spent to support its candidates in Chile’s elections. Of course, that wasn’t the worst of it. When the 1970 presidential election failed to go the CIA’s way, it bribed members of the Chilean legislature, bribed national food truckers to go on strike, assassinated an innocent man (Rene Schneider, the head of Chile’s armed forces), orchestrated a violent military coup that left the democratically elected president of Chile dead, and then supported a regime that raped, tortured, executed, and assassinated thousands of innocent people, including two innocent Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi .
And they’re complaining of a few hacked emails belonging to some U.S. political hacks?
Don’t forget Guatemala. When the Guatemalan people elected Jacobo Arbenz to be their president, U.S. national-security state officials were outraged because he was a socialist (just like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, who brought us Social Security and Medicare). So, the CIA did some interfering with that election by instigating a violent military coup in Guatemala, one that sent that nation into a 30-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
What about Iran, where the CIA decided that it would do a some influencing in an election in that country by instigating a coup that ousted the democratically elected prime minister of the country? Americans and Iranians are still paying the price for that bit of influencing.
Lest anyone think that those democracy-busting regime changes are ancient history and that the U.S. national-security establishment has reformed itself, let’s not forget the massive amount of weaponry and foreign aid that is poured into the coffers of Egypt’s brutal military dictatorship, which ousted a democratically elected president it didn’t like.
If there weren’t so many innocent people who have suffered death, rape, torture, execution, and assassination from U.S. interference with the elections of other countries, the rank hypocrisy would be rather humorous. The simple fact of the matter is that U.S. officials lack moral standing to complain about any foreign regime’s supposedly influencing U.S. elections.
I’d be remiss if I failed to point out one humorous aspect of this karmic or you-get-what-you-sow experience. U.S. officials just arrested a national-security state official and charged him with stealing U.S. national-security secret secrets. What are the secrets he stole? He stole secret codes that enable U.S. officials to hack into the computers of foreign regimes! How’s that for a bit of dark irony? It’s just a matter of time before they say that Putin is using the codes that their man stole to hack into the email accounts of Democratic Party hacks.
One final question: Why are U.S. officials and their mainstream press supporters complaining that everyone is reading those Democratic Party emails? As those people say to Americans who have had their emails, Internet visits, and telephone calls monitored by the NSA, if you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about? This work by MWC News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License .
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. This entry was posted in Commentary . Bookmark the permalink . | 0 | [
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FMD577 | 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: Most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today
contextual information: New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo toured a sprawling solar panel factory that the state funded in Buffalo two weeks ago and said, "I am just blown away by this facility." Cuomo returned to Buffalo on Friday, a day after U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced bombshell corruption allegations that included bid rigging to build the plant at RiverBend for SolarCity. "The criminal charges won't stop Buffalo's resurgence," Cuomo said in his remarks at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. He cited the completion of the $750 million facility as a milestone in the state's Buffalo Billion economic development initiative, which he claimed is working because the private sector believes in Buffalo again. Cuomo defended the state's investments in Buffalo by citing the number of private jobs in the Buffalo region. "Most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today," Cuomo said. He has devoted his time and the state's resources to upstate revitalization. Is he right? Does Buffalo have more private sector jobs than ever before? Neither the state nor the U.S. Department of Labor tracks the number of jobs for the city of Buffalo alone. Instead, they break the state into regions, including the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The state and national labor departments both show the same numbers for private sector jobs, but information is available only back to 1990. The way job data is compiled changed in 1990, so the figures from the past 25 years can't be accurately compared with the numbers before 1990. The federal and state labor departments reported 479,500 private sector jobs in August in the Buffalo Niagara region, compared to 439,000 jobs in 1990. The closest the Buffalo area came to the August jobs number before Cuomo took office was in November 2000, when the state reported 474,700 private sector jobs. Private sector jobs in June and July of this year exceeded that number but still fell below the August figure. During Cuomo's remarks in Buffalo, he stated that the most private sector jobs in the history of Buffalo exist in Buffalo today. Data from the federal and state labor departments support his claim. There are more private sector jobs in Buffalo today than at any other time dating back to at least 1990. The data doesn't prove that his policies and economic development projects are responsible for the increase, but we rate his claim as True. | 1 | [
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FMD578 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Pennsylvania State Rep. Jamie Santora ( ) is pushing a ban on private gun sales nearly identical to the ones Michael Moms Demand Action pushed in Washington state, Maine, and Nevada. [Santora’s bill would bar the private sales that Americans have enjoyed since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 and would require that every sale be processed in front of an agent of the government via a background check. This means that Pennsylvanians selling a gun to a fellow hunter, lifelong or childhood friend would have to seek out a Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder and the buyer would have to pass a background check just as the Orlando Pulse attacker (June 12, 2016) the Aurora movie theater attacker (July 20, 2012) Gabby Giffords’ attacker (January 8, 2011) the Fort Hood attacker (November 5, 2009) and the Virginia Tech attacker (April 16, 2007) did. According to the Delaware County News Network, Santora says his attempt to expand the frequency of background checks is “common sense. †He said, “We’re not trying to take away Second Amendment rights. Anyone who has a gun should have a background check. †It should be noted that the following individuals all submitted to background checks in order to acquire their guns: The two of Santora’s gun control bill are Democrats. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 | [
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FMD579 | 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: Charlie Crist raised taxes in 2009 and won't rule out raising taxes again.
contextual information: Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that will cut auto tag fees and pointed the finger at his predecessor for raising them in the first place. We are going to right the wrong of the 2009 tax increase that Charlie Crist enacted, Scott said as he signed the fee rollback on April 2. Scott, a Republican, is expected to face Democratic frontrunner Crist in November. The Republican Party of Florida joined the Crist-as-tax-hiker chorus onTwitter: . @charliecrist raised taxes in 2009 and won't rule out raising taxes again. Well examine what type of taxes were raised under Crist in 2009 and what he has said about raising taxes in the future. Crist signed tax and fee increases in 2009 In May 2009, then-Republican Gov. Crist signed a $66.5 billion budget that included a slew of new taxes and fees -- roughly$2 billionworth -- intended to balance the state budget during the recession. The hikes included auto tag fees, a $1-a-pack cigarette tax, as well as higher fees to visit state parks and to file civil lawsuits and foreclosure actions. There is no dispute that Crist signed those tax and fee increases into law, but the Republican Party of Florida omits that the tax and fee hikes were supported by the Republican-led Legislature at the time. That includes influential Republican legislators who now in key leadership positions: Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, who was House majority whip at the time; House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel; and Senate President Don Gaetz. Recently, Crist made no apologies for supporting the auto tag increase when he spoke during an event in Tampa on the same day that Scott signed the cut into law. We had to get through a tough time, and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions, Crist said in Tampa. And we saved thousands of teachers' jobs, law enforcement officers' jobs, firefighters' jobs. What Crist has said about the potential for future tax increases As for Crists willingness to raise future taxes, the Republican Party of Florida pointed to a briefclipof MSNBCs Ed Schultz interviewing Crist on Nov. 18, 2013, a couple of weeks after Crist declared his candidacy. We went looking for thecomplete exchangeabout taxes; heres how it went: Schultz: What is your philosophy of taxation? What would you do different. We have income inequality as a huge issue in this country. The wealthy seem to get the breaks. They have under the conservative rule. What would you do differently? What would you do with Floridas finances and what would you expect? Would you expect more out of the wealthiest residents? Crist: Well, I think we all have to expect more out of each other. I dont like to raise taxes. I dont know that anybody really enjoys the idea of doing that. I did that as a governor, though. Schultz: Would you do it again? Crist: If necessary, I would. I mean, you know. Schultz: Is it necessary now? Crist: We have the highest budget weve had in the history of Florida right now at $74 billion. So, I dont know if its necessary right now. I like to live within our means if we possibly can do so, but we have to properly fund public education. We have to properly fund the needs of the most vulnerable in our society. And when Governor Scott got elected, the very first session, he whacked public education funding by $1.3 billion. Schultz: Would you restore that? Crist: Absolutely, wed restore that. Schultz: So that money would come back in under Charlie Crist. Crist: Yes sir. It would. And the $300 million, he took out of higher ed the second session. Schultz: And how would you pay for it? Crist: Pay for it by the existing revenues that we have. And if necessary, if we have to raise taxes, I would do it, but Id rather not if we dont have to. Like I said, I like to live within our means. Crists campaign website includes a mention of tax cuts for middle-class families on his policy position page about theeconomy and jobs, but its vague. It states: Today, Floridas tax policy works only if you are a special interest with a lobbyist but it fails everyday Floridians and small business owners. As Governor, Charlie will reform government to put the people first, using incentives to help homegrown Florida small businesses grow the economy from the middle class out, not simply giving handouts to political supporters. We sent the claim by the Republican Party to Crists campaign and an informal adviser to the campaign, former state Sen. Steve Geller. Geller said Crist supports giving small businesses a tax break and pointed to part of Cristsannouncement speechin November: As governor, we are going to have a tax policy that puts you the people first and when we can cut taxes and I do believe in cutting taxes it is you the people who would get the relief and when we spend money to help business, we are using it to grow the economy from the middle class out, not simply giving it away to supporters. Our ruling The Republican Party of Florida said that Crist raised taxes in 2009 and wont rule out raising taxes again. Crist -- along with the Republican-led Legislature -- did raise the cigarette tax and a slew of fees including auto tag fees in 2009 to balance the budget during a recession. When asked in November if he would raise taxes in the future, Crist said if necessary. The Republicans omitted Crists softer language in the same interview when he added, I dont know if its necessary right now. We rate this claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD580 | 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: (Retail) milk has gone up 7.5% since this time last year. The price farmers are paid has dropped 23%. Claim summaries: This post oversimplifies the system a bit, since only about 30% of milk produced in the U.S. is sold in liquid form., But the numbers cited here are close to the latest national data., Payments to farmers have dropped because those are determined through a complex system that incorporates geography, commodity prices and how the milk is used., And retail milk prices have steadily risen since the start of 2019.
contextual information: The coronavirus pandemic has been especially unkind to the already staggering dairy industry. Plunging demand from restaurants and schools and an inability to quickly shift processing to meet new categories of demand has left farmers dumping milk on a massive scale. But at least milk prices are going up, right? Thats not exactly a help, one dairy farmer said in a widely-shared Facebook post. The price consumers pay at retail for a gallon of milk has gone up 7.5% since this time last year, Pennsylvania farmer Greg Hemsarth said in aMay 2, 2020, postthat was shared more than 3,500 times. The price farmers are paid has dropped 23%. Figure that one out. This post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about ourpartnership with Facebook). Are farmers really getting paid less even as retail milk prices go up? Lets dive into the data behind this dairy dichotomy. For starters, connecting any pair of dots to explain milk pricing is tricky. This post referenced liquid milk prices, but only 30% of the milk produced in the U.S. is actually sold in liquid form, said Michael Nepveux, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation. While we may see fluid milk flying off grocery shelves and wonder why farmers are having to dump milk, it must be remembered that many of these other products rely heavily on the foodservice and restaurant sector, he said. And farmers pricing is part of a system that is complex to say the least. RELATED:Are bottling limitations on liquid milk to blame for milk dumping? Nepveux spent nearly 2,000 words and a handful of charts detailing how pricing works ina primer the Farm Bureauposted in June 2019. It started this way: Theres an old adage in the dairy industry that only five people in the world know how milk is priced in the U.S. and four of them are dead. Milk payments to farmers are influenced by commodity prices, geography and whether the milk is being used for liquid sales, yogurt, cheese, butter, etc. We started with Hemsarth himself. Though the numbers in the post are stated generally, he told PolitiFact Wisconsin he was actually referring only to his own observations. Hemsarth was comparing the price of milk at a grocer in Bloomsburg, Penn., to a picture he took of the milk case a year prior. And he was looking at payments he received for milk he sold compared to a year ago. Given the generic wording and wide sharing of this post, most readers likely assumed it referenced some broader dataset, at either the state or national level. So lets check those datapoints. National data shows the trend Hemsarth highlighted isnt confined to his corner of the world. Prices paid to farmers have dropped even as retail prices rose. The retail price for a gallon of milk averaged $3.27 in April, according to thelatest datafrom the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thats up 9.6% from the April 2019 mark ($2.98). Data provided by Dairy Management Inc., a group funded by farmers to help increase sales of dairy products, shows a nearly identical comparison. They reported a national average of $3.11 as of mid-April, compared to $2.83 a year prior. Thats an increase of 9.9%. A state-level breakdown showed a year-over-year increase in all but one state. The largest jump was in Ohio more than 28%. Pennsylvania prices increased 9.5%, and Wisconsin was up 8.7%. So, on that part of the equation, the post was in the ballpark actually understating the magnitude of the retail increase nationally. On the farm payment side, Hemsarth reported a milk payment drop of 23%. The Farm Bureau, using U.S. Department of Agriculture data, reported a 21.1% drop in the price paid to farmers in May 2020 compared to May 2019. Nepveux said that is based on Class 1 fluid milk, the highest valued class of milk. A month earlier, in April, farmers were seeing payments 5.6% higher than the year prior. May is the first month where 2020 was lower than that month in 2019, though prices have fallen each month since December. May milk prices dropped because the formula relies heavily on commodity prices, and those dropped sharply in April, Nepveux said. A viral Facebook post said retail milk prices are up 7.5% from last year while the price paid to farmers dropped 23%. The farmer who provided these numbers was just referencing payments for the milk he sold and prices at a local grocer, but the trends are in line with what we see nationally. Nationwide, retail milk prices in April were up nearly 10% from the prior year, while the price paid to farmers dropped sharply in May to about 21% below the prior year. The comparison oversimplifies things a bit, since the majority of milk produced in the U.S. isnt sold in liquid form. And the specific numbers arent exactly right. But the general point is. We rate this Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD581 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Obama aims to make illegals eligible for federal benefits This is unreal but what s more unreal is that Obama gets the vote if the Supreme Court has a tie vote. Oh, so we really just have one branch of government and that s the Executive Branch Lawful presence is an immigration classification established by Congress that is necessary for valuable benefits, such as Medicare and Social Security. Does the president of the United States have the power to unilaterally tell millions of individuals who are violating federal law that he will not enforce that law against them now, that they may continue to violate that law in the future and that he will take action that makes them eligible for federal benefit programs for which they are not currently eligible due to their unlawful status?Through Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama is telling the Supreme Court exactly this right now.The solicitor general calls what Obama is doing prosecutorial discretion. He argues that under this particular type of prosecutorial discretion, the executive can make millions of people in this country illegally eligible for Social Security, disability and Medicare.On April 18, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case. Entitled United States v. Texas, it pits President Obama against not only the Lone Star State, but also a majority of the states, which have joined in the litigation against the administration.At issue is the policy the administration calls Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, which would allow aliens in this country illegally who are parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents to stay in the United States. The Executive Branch unilaterally created a program known as DAPA that contravenes Congress s complex statutory framework for determining when an alien may lawfully enter, remain in, and work in the country, the attorney general and solicitor general of Texas explained in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of the states seeking to block the policy. DAPA would deem over four million unlawfully present aliens as lawfully present and eligible for work authorization, says the Texas brief. And lawful presence is an immigration classification established by Congress that is necessary for valuable benefits, such as Medicare and Social Security. Read more: cns | 0 | [
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FMD582 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Chancellor Angela Merkel said her conservative bloc would begin exploratory talks next week on forming a three-way German coalition government with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmentalist Greens. Merkel s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), would hold talks with the FDP and Greens separately next Wednesday, she said. Then on Friday, October 20th we will have a first round of exploratory talks with all partners, Merkel told a joint news conference with CSU leader Horst Seehofer on Monday. Merkel s CDU appeared to make a concession to the CSU on Sunday by agreeing to put a number on how many people Germany would accept per year on humanitarian grounds. Merkel said she was pleased with the compromise, which was a very, very good basis to go into exploratory talks . | 1 | [
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FMD583 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Could a directive from Trump reduce the cost of insulin to just a few cents daily? Claim summaries: The president described it as a "massive cost savings," but the fine print of his executive order lacked specifics.
contextual information: Sitting in front of a mock pharmacy and flanked by people in white lab coats, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on July 24, 2020, that he framed as end-all solutions for Americans who struggle to pay high premium prices for prescription drugs. Of one of the directives, specifically, Trump told a crowd of supporters and reporters at the ceremony: told Under this order, the price of insulin for affected patients will come down to just pennies a day pennies a day from numbers that you werent even able to think about. Its a massive cost savings. News outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post described the signing event like it was largely symbolic, since the executive orders are unlikely to take effect this year, if at all (we explain more below). The New York Times Washington Post Meanwhile, at least two conservative media sources, Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire and CNSNews which claims to balance "liberal bias" in mainstream news with its coverage reported on the president's pledge to slash prescription prices at face value, and highlighted the above-mentioned quote by Trump regarding insulin. Daily Wire CNSNews published the story, "Trump Says Executive Order Will Drop the Price of Insulin Down to Pennies a Day," which mainly quoted the president verbatim, and numerous Snopes readers reached out to us to investigate the claim's accuracy. Namely, diabetic patients wondered whether they would indeed pay less for insulin syringes or insulin cartridges for their pens or pumps because of the president. story pens According to a Congressional analysis in September 2019, insulin averaged $34.75 per dose in the U.S. a total that's almost 2.5 times higher than the average price in other countries. First, we'll lay out what was unequivocally true: Trump issued Executive Order on Access to Affordable Life-saving Medications during the July 24, 2020, signing event, and that directive authorized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make certain changes regarding the cost of EpiPens for Americans with severe allergies and the cost of insulin for those who suffer from diabetes, specifically. It stated: Executive Order on Access to Affordable Life-saving Medications Department of Health and Human Services EpiPens The price of insulin in the United States has risen dramatically over the past decade... While Americans with diabetes and severe allergic reactions may have access to affordable insulin and injectable epinephrine through commercial insurance or Federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, many Americans still struggle to purchase these products. Medicare Medicaid Here's some more context: Medicare, the federal program that covers the majority of Americans over age 65 and those with disabilities, offers plans that help diabetic patients cover the cost of some insulin products. Meanwhile, policies for Medicaid, the government-run health insurance system for low-income people, vary state by state variances that include whether or not the program covers the cost of diabetic enrollees' insulin, or to what extent. state by state Trump's directive pertained to "federally qualified health centers" (FQHC), which are about 1,400 community health care clinics nationwide that treat low-income patients on sliding fee scales and purchase discounted drugs from pharmaceutical companies under an existing federal program, known as 340B. The July 2020 executive order was worded like this: federally qualified health centers 1,400 340B In other words, the president's order requires participants of the 340B Program to offer insulin at greatly reduced prices to patients with no or little insurance coverage, without providing specifics on how or when the change would take effect. Advisory Board, a news site for health care providers, said in a statement: "Only patients with low incomes; those with high cost-sharing requirements for insulin or epinephrine; those with high, unmet deductibles; and/or those without health insurance would be eligible for the discount." A news release from the HHS said: statement news release This will increase access to life-saving insulin and epinephrine for the patients who face especially high costs among the 28 million patients who visit FQHCs every year, over six million of whom are uninsured. For perspective, about 34.2 million Americans had diabetes as of 2018, which represented about 10.5 percent of the population, according to the American Diabetes Association. So, hypothetically, if the same proportion of people had diabetes within the FQHC population of 28 million patients (a total reported by the HHS), then Trump's executive order could help about 2.9 million people, depending on whether their insurance already covers the treatment. American Diabetes Association So to recap, in regard to the claim in question, it was true to state Trump signed an executive order in July 2020 that aimed to make it easier for low-income diabetic patients to pay for insulin. But nowhere in the federal document did the presidential administration explain its plan for implementing the change, nor the level to which insulin prices would drop. There was no proof that the order would allow any American to someday pay "pennies a day" on the protein hormone. We should note here: In addition to that previously explained executive order, a separate directive signed by Trump on July 24, 2020, touched on a yet-to-be-finalized initiative by the White House to relax international drug importation rules and added insulin to a list of prescription medications that can be imported from Canada. The president characterized that directive, too, as a positive step for people who want lower insulin costs. separate directive yet-to-be-finalized And that brings us to our final point: Much of what Trump celebrated in the July 2020 executive orders had been proposed by his administration prior to the signing ceremony but stalled amid opposition from pharmaceutical companies and political barriers. "[None] of these ideas put forth are new, or in fact any more implementable than before, especially without congressional action, an investor told FeircePharma, a trade publication for the pharmaceutical industry. FeircePharma For instance, in May 2020, Trump unveiled a plan to cap the cost of insulin for Medicare recipients at $35 per month beginning in 2021 (even that initiative would cost patients more than "pennies a day"). But as of this writing, it was unclear exactly how that directive would roll out, and when or if qualifying seniors with diabetes would notice a price difference. The Washington Post reported on July 24, 2020: May 2020 Washington Post The moves [by Trump] are largely symbolic because the orders are unlikely to take effect anytime soon, if they do so at all, because the power to implement drug pricing policy through executive order is limited. Voters will not see an impact before the November elections, and the drug industry is sure to challenge them in court. A couple days after the July signing ceremony, for example, Politico reported that representatives of major drug lobbies refused to meet with the president to discuss one of the four executive orders: a non-specific and controversial proposal to link Medicare payments for certain medicines to lower costs that people pay in other countries. After that refusal on industry leaders' part, investors told MarketWatch that the executive orders were "largely campaign fodder" and "come without the necessary force to meaningfully change prices in the U.S." Politico reported meet controversial MarketWatch In sum, while it was truthful to claim Trump issued an executive order in July 2020 that was intended to lower the price of insulin for some Americans, it was misleading to claim that all diabetic patients would save money as a result of the directive the directive only targeted low-income patients who are uninsured or underinsured and seek help from certain federal community health providers. Additionally, it was unclear as of this report when, if at all, that group would actually reap the benefit of the cost savings, and the estimated amount of such was unknown. It would be wrong to state based on available evidence that the executive order alone would drive down prices to "pennies a day." For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and falsehoods. White House. "Executive Order On Access To Affordable Life-saving Medications".
24 July 2020. White House. "Executive Order On Lowering Prices For Patients by Eliminating Kickbacks To Middlemen".
24 July 2020. White House. "Executive Order On Increasing Drug Importation To Lower Prices For American Patients".
24 July 2020. White House. "Remarks By President Trump At Signing Of Executive Orders On Lowering Drug Prices".
24 July 2020. Sanger-Katz, Margot. "As He Woos Drugmakers On Virus, Trump Demands Drug Price Controls".
New York Times. 24 July 2020. Arter, Melanie. "Trump Says Executive Order Will Drop the Price of Insulin Down to Pennies a Day".
CNSNews. 24 July 2020. National Conference of State Legislatures. "Diabetes Health Coverage: State Laws And Programs".
10 January 2016. HHS.gov. "Trump Administration Announces Historic Action To Lower Drug Prices For Americans".
24 July 2020. American Diabetes Association. "Statistics About Diabetes".
Accessed 30 July 2020. White House. "Executive Order On Increasing Drug Importation To Lower Prices For American Patients".
24 July 2020. Luhby, Tami. "Trump Administration Proposes Allowing Imports Of Certain Drugs From Canada".
CNN. 18 December 2019. O'Donnell, Carl. "Explainer: Trump's Plan To Cut Drug Prices".
Reuters. 27 July 2020. Abutaleb, Yasmeen and Josh Dawsey. "Trump Signs Executive Orders Aimed At Lowering Drug Prices In Largely Symbolic Move".
Washington Post. 24 July 2020. Cohen, Joshua. "Trump's Executive Orders On Drug Pricing Contain Caveats And Limitations".
Forbes. 25 July 2020. Ways And Means Committee Staff. "A Painful Pill To Swallow: U.S. Vs. International Prescription Drug Prices".
September 2019. Reklaitis, Victor. "Trump's Meeting With Pharma Execs Called Off, As Analysts Say His Moves On Drug Prices Lack Bite". Prestigiacomo, Amanda. "Trump Issues Executive Orders To Slash Insulin, EpiPen Prices; End 'Global Freeloading'.
The Daily Wire. 27 July 2020. | 2 | [
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FMD584 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. military will not provide details on specific cases of American service members injured in Iraq and Syria because it could give information to Islamic State militants, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday The spokesman, Peter Cook, was responding to a question at a Pentagon press briefing seeking confirmation that four Americans had been wounded in Syria earlier this month. Cook said there had been no a change in policy and aggregate numbers would still be provided. “Our policy is not to identify wounded service members for a variety of reasons, including operational security, including privacy reasons,†Cook said. “Also, we do not want to provide additional information to the enemy that might enhance their own assessment on the battlefield situation,†he said. However, the Pentagon has released such information in the past and responded to queries, and it was unclear how Cook’s comments were consistent with previous disclosures. Last month a spokesman said two U.S. service member had been injured, one each in Iraq and Syria, during the last weekend in May. Captain Jeff Davis said the incident in Iraq took place in the north, near Erbil, while the injury in Syria was north of Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital. According to Pentagon data, there have been 16 American service members wounded in action since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve, the military’s name for an operation targeting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria which started in 2014. Cook’s comments came the same day that President Barack Obama visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; he has visited wounded U.S. service members there throughout his presidency. | 1 | [
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FMD585 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A deal with Libya that has slashed the number of migrants reaching Italy could scupper the ruling center Democratic Party s (PD) already dwindling hopes of staying in power next year as it is opposed by the PD s potential coalition partners. The deal, struck in February, is popular with the Italian public and with right-wing and anti-establishment parties now ahead in opinion polls, but it has drawn criticism from the United Nations, rights groups and many on Italy s left. Under the accord, Italy and the European Union pledged to finance migrant camps in Libya, and Rome also agreed to train the Libyan coastguard, part of a crackdown on migrants attempting the hazardous sea crossing to Europe. But the deal has also led to tens of thousands of migrants being trapped in Libya, where humanitarian groups say they are locked up in appalling conditions, bought and sold, and subjected to crimes on a daily basis. One politician who wants changes to the agreement is Emma Bonino, a former foreign minister in a center government. I ve always criticized this agreement with Libya. It s a cork in a bottle that cannot hold, Bonino told Reuters. Italians have the perception that they are being invaded by Muslim foreigners. It s not true. Fear is fantastic for winning elections, but it s simply useless for controlling migration. Bonino is considering forming a pro-EU party with other left-leaning figures that could support the PD ahead of next year s national election, which must be held by May. In other criticism of the Libya deal, Giulio Marcon, the top lawmaker in the lower house for the Italian Left party, said: We cannot be complicit in migrant push backs. Left-wing voters hold humanitarian values dear, said Marcon, whose party has so far refused an alliance with the PD. ANTI-IMMIGRANT PARTIES GAINING The PD needs the support of other parties, on the left in particular. It trailed the populist 5-Star Movement in a recent poll with 24 percent to 29 percent, while a center coalition that includes the anti-immigrant Northern League, Silvio Berlusconi s Forza Italia (Go Italy!) and the far-right Brothers of Italy has combined support totaling about 36 percent. The deal with Libya, modeled on a similar one struck between the EU and Turkey, has been successful in reducing the flow of migrants into Italy, with arrivals down by about a third so far this year compared to the same period in 2016. In October alone arrivals were down about 80 percent from a year earlier. Ordinary Italians, alarmed by the arrival of some 600,000 migrants in the past four years, have welcomed the trend. An SWG poll this month showed two thirds of Italians do not want more immigrants, fearing they will take away jobs and increase crime. The Northern League, tapping into the anti-immigrant mood, has seen its popularity more than double to about 15 percent in three years. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, has accused fake refugees of invading Italy and bringing crime with them. Not to be outdone, the 5-Star Movement s candidate for prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, this summer accused charity ships rescuing migrants piled onto overcrowded and unseaworthy boats of being a taxi service . Under the February deal, Libya s coastguard has so far picked up about 20,000 migrants, including refugees. They are then forced into detention centers where they can be held indefinitely. Last week the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the EU s support for the Libyan coastguard as inhuman because intercepted migrants were imprisoned and subjected to unimaginable horrors . Former U.N. secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan said the Libya deal suggested Italy was complicit in a breach of the Geneva Convention, which says refugees cannot be returned to a place where they may be persecuted. Under the Convention, you cannot push them (refugees) back. But if you make an arrangement with somebody else to keep them from moving, in a way you are complicit, Annan said during a trip to Rome this month. | 1 | [
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FMD586 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On March 6, newly-minted Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Dr. Ben Carson, gave a speech before employees of the organization. During the speech, he made a controversial remark, referring to African slaves as immigrants. Here are a few of the vile tweets celebrities posted for everyone to seen Twitter:Actor, radical leftist and Obama cheerleader Samuel L. Jackson apparently had not yet gotten the memo that Obama said almost the exact same thing only one year ago. There s always the very real possibility that Jackson was just too ignorant to understand what Dr. Carson was saying Here s Jackson s vile tweet:OK!! Ben Carson .I can't! Immigrants ? In the bottom of SLAVE SHIPS??!! MUTHAFUKKA PLEASE!!!#dickheadedtom Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) March 6, 2017There s nothing like a has been rapper calling the most brilliant pediatric neurosurgeon in America a DumbF*ck LOL! Christopher Jackson played George Washington in Hamilton. Being an actor in Hamilton apparently makes him the authority on all things black, including the meaning behind the comments made by Dr. Ben Carson. Our Ancestors didn't have a "CHOICE" you IDIOT!!!! Ben Carson, you are Hopelessly Ignorant. Again, Kids look the other way Please. Christopher Jackson (@ChrisisSingin) March 7, 2017Jackson has this tweet pinned to the top of his Twitter account. Apparently telling other people to love your neighbor makes you somehow a better person. And it also apparently gives you immunity when you act like a bully when you tell others to, Stand up to the bully. Love your Neighbor. Make your cause known to them. Stand up to the bully. Speak for those with no voice. This work is JUST Beginning. Christopher Jackson (@ChrisisSingin) November 9, 2016These people are such utter phonies and have no idea what it means to be tolerant of anyone who hold a view that is in opposition to theirs.On Tuesday, The Washington Free Beacon published a side-by-side video featuring Ben Carson s remarks alongside those made during a 2015 speech by then-President Barack Obama and they were eerily similar:Watch: Daily WireInstead of apologizing for his ignorant remarks, ICE T makes lame attempt at blaming Trump for his hateful and racist remarks:In the past Year or so of Politics.. Twitter and all of Social Media has shown the true Divide of the people.. It s sad But its REAL. ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) March 8, 2017 | 0 | [
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FMD587 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The film critics of The New York Times — Manohla Dargis, A. O. Scott and Stephen Holden — share their picks for the best movies of the year. It was the best of times, it was — well, you know. “Captain America: Civil War†and “The Purge: Election Year†may sound like the zeitgeist, but if you’re looking for the defining movie of 2016, look no further than the new “Ghostbusters. †It was hardly my favorite, but it made me laugh. And while its transformation into a target of misogynist and racist vitriol was surprising, it was not especially shocking. It was just another reminder that female power remains deeply threatening, even in the realm of the imaginary. As usual when it came to this year in movies, it was sometimes good if also hard, lean, bad and familiar times, both critically and commercially. “Box Office Meltdown,†a Variety headline shrieked in July by Nov. 25, the trade was reporting “U. S. Box Office Tops $10 Billion†— “the that it’s reached the milestone. †It turns out that after the acrimonious presidential election, people were coming together at the movies. Then again, packed theaters could also be chalked up to the number of solid mainstream releases, including “Arrival,†“Almost Christmas,†“Doctor Strange†and “Moana. †It’s worth noting that even the most popular movies — as I write, Pixar’s “Finding Dory†tops the yearly box office — are unlikely to show up on many lists or scoop up critics’ awards. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (I’m a former member) for instance, recently gave Barry Jenkins’s “Moonlight†best picture, best director and best supporting actor (Mahershala Ali). Its other honorees included releases that, according to the website Box Office Mojo, opened in a limited number of theaters: “Krisha†(26 theaters) “The Handmaiden†(125) and “Certain Women†(138). The divide between what most Americans see and what critics reward is not new or surprising. Yet it seems worth repeating that this gulf remains as vast and seemingly unbridgeable as the one that characterized the electorate. This is less about taste (or elites versus Jill Popcorn) than the bottom line of today’s conglomerate cinema. As of early December, the six major studios have an 83. 4 percent market share of the domestic box office. Disney alone enjoys a staggering 24. 2 percent, a number that will increase with the release of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. †It’s Disney’s world, after all. Though not only: By the time the Academy Awards roll around in February, the United States will have a new president. A few critics I know are trying to name the most Trumplike release of 2016 one suggested Clint Eastwood’s “Sully,†which I see more as an exemplar of classic Hollywood’s heroic individualism. Viewing movies through the lens of today is a favorite game, never mind that most titles are in the works long before the real world catches up to them. A more fruitful game may be to weigh how this year’s releases — be they “Moonlight†or “Deadpool,†“Manchester by the Sea†or “Suicide Squad†— signify the end of the Obama era. As to my own favorites, well, they just keep on changing, depending on mood, both personal and national. 1. ‘NO HOME MOVIE’ This was the final feature from Chantal Akerman, who died of an apparent suicide in 2015. Akerman explained that “No Home Movie†was about rooms and faraway places but “above all†about her mother, Natalia, a Holocaust survivor, “but not only. †It was also, Akerman wrote, about love and loss. She was presumably speaking about her mother, although of course she was also speaking for us, those who loved the daughter. [Read the review] 2. ‘TONI ERDMANN’ The filmmaker Maren Ade’s latest is a perfectly directed and performed movie about a father, his daughter and the ludicrous gag teeth that help close this pair’s generational, economic and social divide. It couldn’t be timelier in how it considers the consequences of neoliberalism, wherein all human interactions are reduced to market relations, but it also has a beat you can dance to. [Read a review] 3. ‘MOONLIGHT’ Bathed in blue and anguish, Mr. Jenkins’s elegiac film traces a single life across three chapters. There’s much to love and admire about this haunting movie, including its lapidary visuals. Here, every moment — light flooding a darkened room, an oceanic baptism and a halo of shampoo crowning the head of an abandoned child — speaks more eloquently than most of its dialogue, though the words are very fine, too. [Read the review] 4. ‘O. J.: MADE IN AMERICA’ There’s a tradition of documentaries that dig into their subjects episodically, sometimes at monumental length. Such is the case with Ezra Edelman’s “O. J.: Made in America,†which for close to eight hours takes up the case of O. J. Simpson — his football glory years, infamous murder trial and tawdry aftermath — to create a titanic inquiry into race, class and celebrity in the United States. Race may be a construction, but it is one that Americans continue to live and die by. [Read the review] 5. ‘MY GOLDEN DAYS’ The director Arnaud Desplechin beautifully transcends the usual romantic clichés with a deeply moving, exquisitely directed tale of young love and the lessons never learned. [Read the review] 6. ‘I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO’ In his thrilling documentary, Raoul Peck closes the divide between the personal and political through a portrait of James Baldwin. Expressively narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the movie largely draws on Baldwin’s own writing — as well as material like his F. B. I. files — to create a portrait of a man that turns into a harrowing indictment of his country. 7. ‘ARRIVAL’ The E. T. s in Denis Villeneuve’s twisty heartbreaker don’t want to phone home, but they would really like to get someone on the horn. As she often does, Amy Adams comes to the rescue. Among the movie’s pleasures is a creature design that at last breaks with H. R. Giger’s slavering aliens. [Read the review] 8. ‘THE HANDMAIDEN’ Set in Korea in the 1930s, the latest from Park involves two women, one a Japanese heiress and prisoner, the other an impoverished Korean con artist who could pick pockets for Fagin. Their delectable relationship takes them and the movie to places you might not imagine, while advancing an argument about gender, desire, erotica and pornography that is more complex than the movie’s slickness suggests. [Read the review] 9. ‘13TH’ In her ferocious, intellectually galvanizing activist documentary, Ava DuVernay takes a hard look at race in the United States through the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. You may think you’ve heard it all before you haven’t. [Read the review] 10. ‘FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF … ’ One of the high points of this year’s New York Film Festival, this masterwork from Robert Beavers is quite a few years old but new to me. (It was apparently finished in 1971 and reworked in 1998.) Here, Mr. Beavers considers the nature of cinema using light and shadow, various mattes and apertures — including a window spilling sun on a desk — a meditation that at times has the quality of a holy confession. “Aquarius†(from Kleber Mendonça Filho) “Autumn†and “The Dreamer†(Nathaniel Dorsky) “Bagatelle II†(Jerome Hiler) “Certain Women,†especially Kristen Stewart (Kelly Reichardt) “Creepy†(Kiyoshi Kurosawa) “The Fits†(Anna Rose Holmer) “The Illinois Parables†(Deborah Stratman) “Into the Inferno†(Werner Herzog) “Jackie†and “Neruda†(Pablo LarraÃn) “Krisha†(Trey Edward Shults) “La La Land,†if mostly its finale (Damien Chazelle) “Loving†(Jeff Nichols) “Mountains May Depart†(Jia Zhangke) “Paterson†(Jim Jarmusch) “Sunset Song†(Terence Davies) “20th Century Women†(Mike Mills). Last spring, with #OscarsSoWhite in the rearview mirror and Donald J. Trump’s victory on the horizon, I reviewed Jeremy Saulnier’s “Green Room. †It struck me at the time as a smart, brutal, slightly contrived thriller about members of a rock band battling a gang of punks in the Northwest. In retrospect, though, it seems possible that this scrappy little indie (which just missed making the list below) was something more than a bit of nasty fun. Maybe it was a harbinger, an unheeded political signal amid the noise, a allegory of battles to come. Am I reading too much into it now, or was I not paying close enough attention then? If so, I’m hardly the only one. Relevance is one of the great shibboleths of criticism, and after a event as dramatic and complex as this year’s election, the temptation to seek clues and answers in works of popular art is almost overwhelming. Think pieces promising to tell us “How [insert title here] Explains Trump†popped up after Nov. 8 like mushrooms after a rainstorm, and entertainment has been mined for signs and symptoms of disaffection, gullibility and every other real and imaginary affliction of the American body politic. But cinema is better at exploring than explaining, and the screen is more like a prism or a kaleidoscope than a mirror or a window. We seldom get the news from movies. Which is not to deny that they are useful tools for reckoning with reality. In a time of confusion, the best films can offer clarity, comfort and a salutary reminder of complexities that lie beyond the bluster and expedience of political discourse and conventional journalism. We go to the movies — and we still go quite a lot, by the way, in spite of the seductions of the couch and the streaming queue — in search of escape from reality. We’re also looking for alternative routes to the truth, for sparks of imagination that can ignite or illuminate our own thinking when it gets muddled or stale. The 11 releases listed below were not only my most memorable experiences of the year they were also, in ways I can’t always specify, helpful. They stirred my curiosity, troubled my sleep and increased the range of my understanding. Sometimes they just made me feel better. 1. ‘MOONLIGHT’ Much has been written about Barry Jenkins’s luminous second feature, based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, which depicts three phases in the life of a young man named Chiron. And much of that writing has drawn out the film’s complicated themes — of race, place, sexuality and manhood — and the exquisite artistry Mr. Jenkins and his cast bring to them. But the most eloquent testimony comes when words fail, when I run into someone on the street or at a party and they say, “‘Moonlight,’†and I say “yeah, ‘Moonlight,’†and we take a deep breath because nothing more really needs to be said. [Read the review] 2. ‘O. J.: MADE IN AMERICA’ History, biography, sports, celebrity, race, gender, police brutality and media insanity — Ezra Edelman’s documentary touches on nearly everything horrible and fascinating in the last of American life. A triumph of archival research, it’s also a masterpiece of insight, a rare documentary with the heft and sprawl of great literature. [Read the review] 3. ‘TONI ERDMANN’ Maren Ade’s sublime and squirmy comedy will change the way you think about a lot of things, including (but hardly limited to) fatherhood, daughterhood, false teeth, Bulgarian folklore, German humor, workplace sexism, exercises, petit fours and global capitalism. [Read a review] 4. ‘CAMERAPERSON’ Kirsten Johnson, a prolific and widely traveled cinematographer, makes her living shooting other people’s films, many of them dealing with war, injustice and sexual violence. She assembled this memoir from outtakes and home video, and the result is revelatory testimony to the simple, mysterious power of the camera to bridge the chasm between personal experience and public history. [Read the review] 5. ‘AFERIM!’ Radu Jude’s Romanian western — a epic set in the mountains of Walachia in the century — was barely released in the United States, which is a shame for several reasons. For one thing, its rugged humor, high adventure and ethical seriousness pay tribute to an enduring and often misunderstood genre. For another, it takes up the moral and political problem of slavery (in its Balkan rather than its Southern manifestation) with unsparing honesty and startling nuance. [Read the review] 6. ‘AMERICAN HONEY’ The British director Andrea Arnold leads a raw and ragged adventure into the heartland, discovering it to be a strangely innocent zone of greed, lust, youthful idiocy and startling natural beauty. Sasha Lane, a fearless nonprofessional, is thrilling to watch, as is Shia LaBeouf. There is also a single shot — of Riley Keough (who happens to be Elvis Presley’s granddaughter) standing in a motel doorway, wearing a bikini with the price tag still attached — that just might say more about the state of the nation in 2016 than the words of a thousand pundits. [Read the review] 7. ‘AQUARIUS’ The United States was not the only country undergoing a wrenching political upheaval this year. In his generous and angry second feature, the Kleber Mendonça Filho tracks the changes shaking Brazil as they play out indirectly in the daily life of Clara, a retired music critic played by the great Sônia Braga. A mother, a cancer survivor and an avatar of culture, sensuality and intellectual independence, Clara is a fittingly embattled and indomitable heroine for our times. [Read the review] 8. ‘SAUSAGE PARTY’ This animated feature, with the voices of Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig, is a profoundly religious film that explores, with devastating rigor, a stark and scary existential predicament. What if you woke up one morning and found out that everything you had always believed in was a lie? Not for kids, obviously. [Read the review] 9. ‘A BIGGER SPLASH’ Commissioned to remake a ’60s thriller, Luca Guadagnino composed a gorgeous meditation on sex, rock ’n’ roll and the enduring decadence of European art cinema. Tilda Swinton is silent, Ralph Fiennes never stops talking and the gorgeous volcanic island of Pantelleria plays host to a divine and lethal vacation from hell. [Read the review] 10. ‘ELLE’ AND ‘THINGS TO COME’ (TIE) Paul Verhoeven’s lurid thriller and Mia ’s meditative domestic drama are complementary portraits of Frenchwomen in middle age, both of them played by Isabelle Huppert. Each movie has its flaws of directorial perspective — reflexive sexism in Mr. Verhoeven’s case, generational condescension in Ms. ’s — but Ms. Huppert transcends all limitations. She’s at once the most ferociously intuitive and the most serenely intelligent actress working in movies today. [Read the reviews: ‘Elle’ | ‘Things to Come’] 1. ‘MOONLIGHT’ Kindness and tenderness, as opposed to melodrama, are traits not commonly associated with movies that aim primarily to thrill and excite. Genuine intimacy is so rarely encountered in film that when you come upon it, your tendency is to suspect that somehow you’re being played. But in Barry Jenkins’s “Moonlight,†my pick for the best movie of the year, there are moments of generosity and selflessness that take your breath away. This is an entirely human story in a medium enthralled by technology, violence and fantasy. As I watched the film, based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, it held me in a state of awed recognition and remembrance of the times I was touched by transformational acts of gentleness and caring. These radiant moments soften an otherwise tough movie, about Chiron, a gay black youth played by three different actors, growing up in a Miami housing project where he acquires the armor of a street thug to survive. Along with “Brokeback Mountain†and “Boyhood,†it is one of the three finest movies of the last decade or so. Is it a coincidence that all three have male protagonists who instinctively resist patriarchal brutishness? In its brokenhearted examination of race, class, privilege and inequality in modern America, “Moonlight†is one of several excellent movies set in places beyond the country’s affluent enclaves. When I raved about “Moonlight†to several white liberal friends and described Chiron, they politely took note but behaved as if I were telling them to eat their spinach. These same people couldn’t wait to see films like “The Big Short†and “The Wolf of Wall Street,†about the financial chicanery and decadence of rich white crooks. This, then, is the America we’re living in: The haves would rather not contemplate the suffering of the . And we are shocked to discover that our indifference has consequences. [Read the review] 2. ‘O. J.: MADE IN AMERICA’ The obverse of “Moonlight†in its focus on O. J. Simpson, a rich, entitled black star athlete, the documentary directed by Ezra Edelman is an epic examination of race, class, sex, celebrity and the cult of sports heroism in America. It is an of the American psyche focused on the place where all those themes converge to create what some would call the American dream. Or is it a nightmarish orgy of bloodlust? [Read the review] 3. ‘AMERICAN HONEY’ Star (Sasha Lane) the at the center of Andrea Arnold’s pungent road movie, flees a broken home and a sexually abusive father figure to join a band of teenagers roaming the heartland selling magazine subscriptions door to door. On one level, “American Honey†is a grimy travelogue that shows you the poverty and hardship in a Middle America where the social safety net has frayed, families are ravaged by poverty and drug addiction, and young children are left unattended. The wanderers are the photonegative opposites of ’60s hippies who deserted comfortable homes in search of adventure. Most of these stragglers have no place to go back to. [Read the review] 4. ‘EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT’ Viewed largely through the eyes of an aggrieved shaman whose tribe is on the verge of extinction at the hands of Colombian rubber barons in the 19th and 20th centuries, the director Ciro Guerra’s fantastical mixture of myth and historical reality challenges lingering illusions of culture as more advanced than any other. Beautiful isn’t a strong enough word to describe scenes of the heaving waters of the Amazon and its tributaries, on which two explorers, separated by more than 30 years, navigate in canoes, accompanied by the shaman, Karamakate, the last survivor of an Amazonian tribe killed off by European invaders. Along the way they encounter Conradian horrors. [Read the review] 5. ‘MANCHESTER BY THE SEA’ In Kenneth Lonergan’s sad, powerful film, Casey Affleck plays an embittered janitor in Boston who, after the death of his older brother, reluctantly returns to the fishing village where he grew up to be the guardian of his teenage nephew. The residents of the town may not be poor, but most are struggling. There are no easy answers and pat resolutions in a movie that feels absolutely authentic. [Read the review] 6. ‘NEON BULL’ This Brazilian movie, directed by Gabriel Mascaro, immerses you in the intensely pungent world of vaquejada, a rodeo sport in which two cowboys on horseback, seek to tug a bull to the ground by the tail. Iremar (Juliano Cazarré) is a handsome cowboy who dreams of being a fashion designer. In this deep, sexy reflection on man and animal, the riders use fancy colognes to camouflage barnyard scents. The movie is a celebration of animal smells. [Read the review] 7. ‘FIRE AT SEA’ The Italian director Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary is set on the small island of Lampedusa, whose residents — fishing families that have lived there for generations — help rescue desperate African migrants arriving by sea. [Read the review] 8. ‘ELLE’ Isabelle Huppert may be the only living actress brave enough to play the heroine of a diabolical black comedy about rape and perverse desire. [Read the review] 9. ‘AQUARIUS’ In the politically pointed “Aquarius,†the great Brazilian actress Sônia Braga gives a towering portrayal of a retired movie critic who refuses to move out of her apartment when her building is sold to a developer. [Read the review] 10. “Fireworks Wednesday,†“Krisha,†“Sunset Song,†“†“The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years,†“Chronic,†“Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,†“20th Century Women,†“13TH,†“Paterson†and “Things to Come. †More highlights from the year, as chosen by our critics: Television, Pop Albums, Pop Songs, Classical Music, Dance, Theater, Art, Podcasts and Performances | 1 | [
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FMD588 | 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 nation established by brilliant minds, yet managed by fools. Claim summaries: Did a list of "A Country Founded by Geniuses but Run by Idiots" entries originate with comedian Jeff Foxworthy?
contextual information: Collected via email, 2013: A Country Founded by Geniuses but Run by Idiots Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy: If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you have to get your parents permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If, in the nations largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is "cute," but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class ingrade school is perfectly acceptable you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If the governments plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldnt be found you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more "safe" according to the government you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots. What a country! How about we give God a reason to continue blessing America! The above-referenced list of entries detailing "A Country Founded by Geniuses But Run by Idiots" was widely circulated via the internet in early 2013 with an "Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy" tag at its head, leading many to believe it was actually the work of that nationally famous comedian. Jeff Foxworthy However, othen than its basic "If you ... you might be ..." pattern that mimics Jeff Foxworthy's popular "You might be a redneck" routines, this item bears little resemblance to anything produced by Foxworthy: his comedic material is typically affectionate and self-deprecating and involves poking fun at his own milieu; his brand of humor is much more apolitical and non-partisan than the list reproduced above. (Nonetheless, Jeff's name has been falsely attached to other similar political pieces that have little in common with the tenor and substance of his comedy material.) attached Jeff's brother, Jay, confirmed for us that this material was not written by his sibling. The original compiler of this list appears to be Fritz Edmunds, who posted it to his "Politically True" blog back on Feb. 3, 2013 (albeit with a disclaimer noting that "some of the ideas were from an email that did not contain any copyright"). Politically True As usual, the list has seen numerous alterations in the process of being passed around the Internet, and several of the entries appearing in earlier versions have since dropped off: If the only school curriculum allowed to explain how we got here is evolution, but your government stops a $15 million construction project to keep a rare spider from evolving to extinction you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If your government believes that using steroids or other drugs will ruin your life, but throwing you in prison for years will not you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them with spankings while children of addicts are left in filth and drug infested homes you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. If your government believes that the way to make a school of unarmed children safe is to pass another law, this time with the illusion that three 10-round magazines in a rifle is safer than a 30-round magazine you might live in a country founded by geniuses and run by idiots. The phrase "founded by geniuses and run by idiots" appears to be a variant of a similar statement that appeared in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel "The Caine Mutiny": "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots." In the 1954 film of the same name, the line was rendered, "The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots." <!-- Sources: Metz, Ken. "It's Never Wise to Insult the Police Officer." The Bath County News-Outlook. 30 August 2007.--> Update [Aug. 2, 2022]: Updated SEO and title. | 0 | [
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FMD589 | 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 ISIS Call for the Assassination of Barron Trump? Claim summaries: A message on the Telegram app from an "ISIS supporter" used a hashtag translated to "handle the son of the mule of America."
contextual information: On 21 November 2017, several outlets published articles under irresponsible headlines claiming that ISIS had called for the assassination of Barron Trump. One of the most egregious was published by The Daily Caller, which, in addition to stating that the terrorist group had called for the assassination of President Trump's son, also claimed that they had released a "detailed plan" for how the deed would be accomplished. Nearly all of these reports linked back to an article published by The Washington Beacon, which in turn cited a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that provides translations of foreign reports. The claims made in the initial report, however, were far less daunting than subsequent headlines made them appear. The MEMRI report was not available on their website at the time of this writing. The full report, which MEMRI sent to us via email, can be seen below. The MEMRI report states that this threat was posted in a "pro-ISIS" channel on Telegram, a popular communication app, by a "supporter of ISIS." The report did not state that the threat came from a known terrorist, a leader of ISIS, or through any form of official communication from the terrorist organization. This lack of verification of the message's original source puts the post on shaky ground and was omitted from the exaggerated headlines. When we reached out to MEMRI for comment, they emphasized this distinction: "Please note the report indicates it was a supporter of ISIS on a pro-ISIS Telegram channel." Popular in the Middle East, Telegram is an encrypted chat application that has been used by ISIS in the past, with The New York Times reporting in February 2017 that one of the Islamic State's most influential recruiters instructs newcomers to contact him on the messaging app. Additionally, the message on Telegram did not include a "detailed plan." The Telegram post, which MEMRI shared with us, consisted solely of a photograph of Barron Trump, a map showing the location of his school, and a few hashtags. One of these hashtags, which MEMRI translated to mean "handle the son of the mule of America," appears to be the only reference to a "plan" for an assassination. It should also be noted that the location of Barron Trump's school was publicly known long before this message was posted on Telegram. Here is the full report from MEMRI: On November 21, 2017, a supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Telegram called for the assassination of Barron Trump and shared the name of the school that Barron attends along with a Google map pinpointing its location. Using the hashtag "handle the son of the mule of America," the supporter, who uses the name "Dak Al-Munafiqeen," Arabic for "striking the hypocrites," wrote: "Barron Trump goes to this school in Washington." The post was followed by a photo of Barron Trump. To widely disseminate the call for assassination, several pro-ISIS Telegram channels have shared and forwarded the post. Although we have no reason to dispute MEMRI's translation, it should be noted that the group has been accused of biased reporting in the past. In an article entitled "Selective MEMRI," Guardian reporter Brian Whitaker argued that the non-profit has a habit of translating articles that shine a particularly bad light on the Muslim world. The second thing that makes me uneasy is that the stories selected by MEMRI for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel. I am not alone in this unease. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Washington Times: "MEMRI's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible." Threats against the President and the First Family should not be taken lightly, but the outlets reporting that "ISIS called for the assassination of Barron Trump" exaggerated the contents of a message posted to Telegram to make it appear as if this were a credible threat sent directly from the terrorist organization. | 2 | [
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"2"
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FMD590 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The global economy is in better shape than it’s been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased. And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory. Beneath the veneer of optimism over the economic outlook lurks acute anxiety about an increasingly toxic political climate and a deep sense of uncertainty surrounding the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on the final day of the forum. Last year, the consensus here was that Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalization and free trade to multilateralism. Trump is the poster child for a new strain of populism that is spreading across the developed world and threatening the post-war liberal democratic order. With elections looming in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and possibly Italy, this year, the nervousness among Davos attendees is palpable. “Regardless of how you view Trump and his positions, his election has led to a deep, deep sense of uncertainty and that will cast a long shadow over Davos,†said Jean-Marie Guehenno, CEO of International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution think-tank. Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was even more blunt: “There is a consensus that something huge is going on, global and in many respects unprecedented. But we don’t know what the causes are, nor how to deal with it.†The titles of the discussion panels at the WEF, which runs from Jan. 17-20, evoke the unsettling new landscape. Among them are “Squeezed and Angry: How to Fix the Middle Class Crisisâ€, “Politics of Fear or Rebellion of the Forgotten?â€, “Tolerance at the Tipping Point?†and “The Post-EU Eraâ€. The list of leaders attending this year is also telling. The star attraction will be Xi Jinping, the first Chinese president ever to attend Davos. His presence is being seen as a sign of Beijing’s growing weight in the world at a time when Trump is promising a more insular, “America first†approach and Europe is pre-occupied with its own troubles, from Brexit to terrorism. British Prime Minister Theresa May, who has the thorny task of taking her country out of the EU, will also be there. But Germany’s Angela Merkel, a Davos regular whose reputation for steady, principled leadership would have fit well with the WEF’s main theme of “Responsive and Responsible Leadershipâ€, will not. Perhaps the central question in Davos, a four-day affair of panel discussions, lunches and cocktail parties that delve into subjects as diverse as terrorism, artificial intelligence and wellness, is whether leaders can agree on the root causes of public anger and begin to articulate a response. A WEF report on global risks released before Davos highlighted “diminishing public trust in institutions†and noted that rebuilding faith in the political process and leaders would be a “difficult taskâ€. Guy Standing, the author of several books on the new “precariatâ€, a class of people who lack job security and reliable earnings, believes more people are coming around to the idea that free-market capitalism needs to be overhauled, including those that have benefited most from it. “The mainstream corporate types don’t want Trump and far-right authoritarians,†said Standing, who has been invited to Davos for the first time. “They want a sustainable global economy in which they can do business. More and more of them are sensible enough to realize that they have overreached.†But Ian Bremmer, president of U.S.-based political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, is not so sure. He recounted a recent trip to Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York where he saw bankers “rejoicing in the elevators†at the surge in stock markets and the prospect of tax cuts and deregulation under Trump. Both Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his JP Morgan counterpart Jamie Dimon will be in Davos. “If you want to find people who are going to rally together and say capitalism is fundamentally broken, Davos is not the place to go,†Bremmer said. Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), believes a “modern version of globalization†is possible but acknowledges it will take time to emerge. “It is going to be a long haul in persuading a lot of people that there is a different approach. But you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water,†he told Reuters. Still, some attendees worry that the pace of technological change and the integrated, complex nature of the global economy have made it more difficult for leaders to shape and control events, let alone reconfigure the global system. The global financial crisis of 2008/9 and the migrant crisis of 2015/16 exposed the impotence of politicians, deepening public disillusion and pushing people towards populists who offered simple explanations and solutions. The problem, says Ian Goldin, an expert on globalization and development at the University of Oxford, is that on many of the most important issues, from climate change to financial regulation, only multilateral cooperation can deliver results. And this is precisely what the populists reject. “The state of global politics is worse than it’s been in a long time,†said Goldin. “At a time when we need more coordination to tackle issues like climate change and other systemic risks, we are getting more and more insular.†| 1 | [
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FMD591 | 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 2021 Infrastructure Bill Include 'Methane Tax' on Cattle, Pigs? Claim summaries: Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin said Democratic proposals for a "methane tax" would "run ranchers out of business." But do his claims stack up?
contextual information: In October and November 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of social media posts claiming that the Build Back Better Act, a major budget and infrastructure bill, contained a "methane tax" of around $2,600 per head of cattle and around $500 per swine per year. For example, one widely shared Facebook post claimed: "Were you aware the $3.5 Trillion Human Infrastructure package includes an animal agriculture tax of $2,600 per head of cattle? $500 for swine!" The post contained a photograph of a column written by U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma. In the column, which was also posted to his website on September 22, Mullin claimed that in an attempt to eliminate fossil fuels, this legislation [the Build Back Better Act] would impose a fee on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry. We all know that a fee is just a tax and that consumers are the ones who will pay for it. The tax is estimated to cost $6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine each year. That is more than what the animals are worth; it will run ranchers out of business. Mullin's description of the provisions of the bill was inaccurate, as were the numerous social media posts based on it. At the time those claims were made, and as of November 2, 2021, the Build Back Better Act did not contain a tax or fee on methane that would equate to thousands of dollars per head of cattle or hundreds of dollars per head of swine. As a result, we are issuing a rating of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, which is a 2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill that has been the subject of intensive negotiations during the fall of 2021. Section 30114 of the legislation provides for a "methane fee," but it applies only to "petroleum and natural gas systems," and not the agriculture sector. Therefore, Mullin's claim that "this legislation would impose a 'fee' on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry" is false. A spokesperson for Mullin told Politifact that the congressman was referring to an amendment to the bill proposed by Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would have explicitly stipulated that the methane fee does not apply to agriculture. Democrats voted down that proposal on the basis that the text of the legislation already explicitly stipulated that the fee related only to oil and gas production. While expressing concern about hypothetical future actions on the part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the spokesperson effectively acknowledged that the Build Back Better Act does not currently do what Mullin claimed it did: "While the language specifies the oil and gas industry, it also references the EPA's greenhouse gas inventory and leaves too much room for the EPA to expand its regulatory reach." The same spokesperson also told Politifact that the key figures from Mullin's op-ed—"$6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine"—came from an analysis prepared by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). However, the AFBF later issued its own news release clarifying that the analysis was conducted to address an entirely hypothetical question, namely what the effect of a methane tax would be if it were applied to the agriculture industry—a proposal that no participants in Congressional negotiations have so far made. In that September 30 news release, AFBF Vice President Sam Kieffer said: "Over the summer, American Farm Bureau economists conducted an analysis, at the request of Congressional committee staff, to determine the potential impact if agriculture were to be included in legislation imposing such a tax. We did so based on the formula set forth in legislative proposals that impose a methane tax on the oil and gas sectors. While we oppose any tax on methane, Farm Bureau is grateful to lawmakers for recognizing the thin margins in agriculture and that such a tax would undoubtedly put family farms out of business. We are especially grateful to the Senate for passing an amendment that specifically exempts agriculture." That Senate amendment was proposed by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and passed by a vote of 66-33 on August 10. It prohibited "the imposition of new Federal methane requirements on livestock." | 0 | [
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FMD592 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: This story is about more than a massive cover-up for an elected officials who sexually assaulted innocent women, it s also about the media s lack of desire to report about crimes that have obviously been covered up in DC for a very long time. Perhaps the media s reluctance to report about the sexual abuse taking place in Washington DC, is because most, if not all, of the elected officials whose crimes are now being uncovered, are Democrats? So far, two of the most rabid anti-Trump Democrats in Washington, Senator Al Franken (D-MI) and now Representative John Conyers (D-MI) have been outed is it a coincidence, or could it be that one of the reasons Democrats are so adamantly opposed to Trump s presidency is because he is shaking things up in Washington, and in doing so, he s breaking up the good ole boys network?Buzzfeed Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not succumb to [his] sexual advances. Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News from Mike Cernovich, include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sexual favors, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: a grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her. I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go, she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman s name at her request because she said she fears retribution.Last week the Washington Post reported that Congress s Office of Compliance paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the office, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures.The woman who settled with Conyers launched the complaint with the Office of Compliance in 2014, alleging she was fired for refusing his sexual advances, and ended up facing a daunting process that ended with a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a settlement of more than $27,000. Her settlement, however, came from Conyers office budget rather than the designated fund for settlements.Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process that involves counseling and mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.After this an employee can choose to take the matter to federal district court, but another avenue is available: an administrative hearing, after which a negotiation and settlement may follow.In this case, one of Conyers former employees was offered a settlement, in exchange for her silence, that would be paid out of Conyers taxpayer-funded office budget. His office would rehire the woman as a temporary employee despite her being directed not to come into the office or do any actual work, according to the document. The complainant would receive a total payment of $27,111.75 over the three months, after which point she would be removed from the payroll, according to the document.The draft agreement viewed by BuzzFeed News was unsigned, but congressional employment records match the timing and amounts outlined in the document. The woman left the office and never went public with her story.The process was disgusting, said Matthew Peterson, who worked as a law clerk representing the complainant, and who listed as a signatory to some of the documents.Hillary Clinton and John Conyers have been longtime friends. What is it about Hillary that sexual predators find so endearing? It is a designed cover-up, said Peterson, who declined to discuss details of the case but agreed to characterize it in general terms. You feel like they were betrayed by their government just for coming forward. It s like being abused twice. Two staffers alleged in their signed affidavits that Conyers used congressional resources to fly in women they believed he was having affairs with. Another said she was tasked with driving women to and from Conyers apartment and hotel rooms.Rep. Conyers did not admit fault as part of the settlement. His office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday.Citizen journalist Mike Cernovich admonishes journalists who are tasked with reporting the news for a living for ignoring how massive this cover up really is:The Conyers settlement was 1 out of 264!How about you "journalists" stop hating on me and go find those other 263? Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 21, 2017The documents were first provided to BuzzFeed News by Mike Cernovich, the men s rights figure turned pro-Trump media activist who propagated a number of false conspiracy theories including the Pizzagate conspiracy. Cernovich said he gave the documents to BuzzFeed News for vetting and further reporting, and because he said if he published them himself, Democrats and congressional leaders would try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger. He provided them without conditions. BuzzFeed News independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents with four people directly involved with the case, including the accuser.Here s citizen journalist Mike Cernovich telling his massive Twitter audience that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan helped to cover up John Conyers disgusting sexual assaults:Congressman John Conyers is a sexual predator, and Paul Ryan covered it all up https://t.co/rHAzX4Hevo Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 21, 2017In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to touch it, in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go. Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions, the former employee said in the documents.Three other staff members provided affidavits submitted to the Office Of Compliance that outlined a pattern of behavior from Conyers that included touching the woman in a sexual manner and growing angry when she brought her husband around.One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources, said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)The employee said in her affidavit that Conyers also made sexual advances toward her: I was driving the Congressman in my personal car and was resting my hand on the stick shift. Rep. Conyers reached over and began to caress my hand in a sexual manner. The woman said she told Conyers she was married and not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, according to the affidavit. She said she was told many times by constituents that it was well-known that Conyers had sexual relationships with his staff, and said she and other female staffers felt this undermined their credibility. I am personally aware of several women who have experienced the same or similar sexual advances made towards them by Rep[.] John Conyers, she said in her affidavit.A male employee wrote that he witnessed Rep. Conyers rub the legs and other body parts of the complainant in what appeared to be a sexual manner and saw the congressman rub and touch other women in an inappropriate manner. The employee said he confronted Conyers about this behavior. Rep. Conyers said he needed to be more careful because bad publicity would not be helpful as he runs for re-election. He ended the conversation with me by saying he would work on his behavior, the male staffer said in his affidavit. | 0 | [
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FMD593 | 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: Crown Fools Claim summaries:
contextual information: FACT CHECK: Do crown tattoos secretly signal that a woman is or once was sold into slavery? Claim: Crown tattoos secretly signal that a woman is or once was sold into sexual slavery. MOSTLY Example: [Collected via Twitter, September 2015] Crown Tattoos Being Forced on Women Across the US. If You See One, Heres the Disturbing Meaning https://t.co/u0fabfCANc https://t.co/u0fabfCANc Phillip Hernandez (@Flipy602) September 8, 2015 September 8, 2015 Origins: On 8 September 2015, the web site IJ Review published an article with the misleading headline "'Crown' Tattoos Being Forced on Women Across the US. If You See One, Heres the Disturbing Meaning": article For thousands of women across the United States their tattoos are a constant reminder of the men who enslaved them for profit. Sex trafficking in the United States affects countless women, and many are left with the scars and marks of their former pimps. A CNN interview with a victim and survivor of sexual slavery and addiction named Jennifer Kempton helped shed light on these tattoos. The article (and several subsequent republications of it) attributed its claims to a 2 September 2015 CNN piece titled "Sex-trafficking survivors use new ink to reclaim their lives." That report profiled Survivor's Ink, a group devoted to assisting victims of sex trafficking to remove or cover tattooed brands acquired in the course of their victimization: piece [Founder Jennifer] Kempton said the new ink changed the way she looked at herself, but she still had three other brandings. There was one on her neck, one on her back and one right above her groin that said "Property of Salem," a trafficker who played a major role in bringing Kempton into the life she had now left behind. She told a human trafficking advocate about the "property of" tattoo. The advocate contacted a family member who agreed to pay for her to have the rest of her brandings covered. This was the beginning of Survivor's Ink. Kempton wanted other survivors to experience the freedom she had found, so she started a nonprofit organization that pays for trafficking survivors to have their branding tattoos covered by new tattoos of their choosing. Both CNN and IJ Review linked to Survivor's Ink's Facebook page, which contained photo albums illustrating before and after tattoos. Notably, only a single crown was featured among the tattoos depicted, casting the "here's what it means" headline into doubt. photo albums It's likely that some pimps chose a crown as the brand forcibly inked upon their victims. But nothing in the CNN report suggested that crowns are universal (or even common) among tattoos forced on unwilling sex workers. Moreover, crown tattoos are a popular choice among the inked. We found no evidence that crown tattoos were linked to sex trafficking before 7 September 2015; however, we located a number of proudly-displayed, intentionally-chosen crown tattoo examples: crown tattoos #Blue Crown #Tattoo By Iuri Chmel #Ink #Tattoos https://t.co/CyEDUYWFGJ pic.twitter.com/RTLEVcFWuP #Blue #Tattoo #Ink #Tattoos https://t.co/CyEDUYWFGJ pic.twitter.com/RTLEVcFWuP Tattoo Ideas (@tattooideas__) August 24, 2015 August 24, 2015 #tattoo #tattoos https://t.co/1rHc7pdmdR #Black-And-Grey Crown and Scepter pic.twitter.com/iZxtLdp9Vg #tattoo #tattoos https://t.co/1rHc7pdmdR #Black pic.twitter.com/iZxtLdp9Vg Linda Severino (@redsomcom) August 20, 2015 August 20, 2015 Upper back tattoo of a crown by Murat Bilek. Tattoo artist: Murat Bilek#littletattoos #t https://t.co/clx2Dxo6iT pic.twitter.com/Edrj0vqg5w #littletattoos #t https://t.co/clx2Dxo6iT pic.twitter.com/Edrj0vqg5w Little Tattoos (@little_tattoos) August 12, 2015 August 12, 2015 #tattoo #tattoos https://t.co/pfsfDphHef #Arm #Couple #Crown One Love pic.twitter.com/2hWSEfs6r3 #tattoo #tattoos https://t.co/pfsfDphHef #Arm #Couple #Crown pic.twitter.com/2hWSEfs6r3 Linda Severino (@redsomcom) July 14, 2015 July 14, 2015 Even if a small fraction of the crown tattoos (shared across the internet in body modification galleries) were coerced, the vast majority of folks with a crown tattoo were not victims of sex trafficking; the presence of one is definitely not "disturbing" proof its owner was once enslaved. Last updated: 8 September 2015 Originally published: 8 September 2015 | 0 | [
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FMD594 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will meet this week with prominent conservatives in the media, a spokesman said on Sunday, to address allegations of political bias at the popular social networking site. Some 12 “conservative thought leaders†will join the meeting with Zuckerberg on Wednesday, a Facebook spokesman said. Among the invitees are media personality Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel’s “The Five†co-host Dana Perino and Zac Moffatt, co-founder of Targeted Victory, a technology company that aims to bring transparency to media buying. Facebook came under fire last week when an unnamed former employee told technology news website Gizmodo that workers often omitted conservative political stories from the company’s “trending†list of topics. Zuckerberg said Facebook has “found no evidence that this report is true,†but would continue to investigate. A U.S. Senate committee has also opened an inquiry into Facebook’s practices. Beck, a former Fox News host, took to Facebook early Sunday to say he is going to the meeting in Menlo Park, California, and “it would be interesting to look him (Zuckerberg) in the eye as he explains.†“While they are a private business and I support their right to run it any way they desire without government interference,†Beck said, “it would be wonderful if a tool like face book [sic] INDEPENDENTLY CHOSE to hold up Freedom of speech and freedom of association as a corporate principle.†On Friday, Facebook outlined its “Trending Topics†guidelines in its media relations section and stated that reviewers are neither allowed nor advised to discriminate against sources. Facebook, now valued at around $350 billion, has become a bigger source of news for its more than 1 billion daily active users. Sixty-three percent of users, or 41 percent of all U.S. adults, say they get news from the site, according to a study last year by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation. | 1 | [
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FMD595 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: There are a lot of casinos across the country that have gone bankrupt.
contextual information: It appears likely that come November, Rhode Islanders will decide whether to expand the state's two slot parlors into full-fledged casinos. State legislators have already approved holding a referendum on a proposal to allow table games at Twin River in Lincoln and are considering doing the same for Newport Grand. On March 6, before the House passed legislation to put the Newport Grand question on the ballot, Rep. Robert Jacquard raised concerns about allowing casinos in Rhode Island. "Let's face it: there are a lot of casinos across the country that have gone bankrupt," the Cranston Democrat said. "Just because you give them a casino license is not a guarantee that you are going to save all this money for the state and guarantee all this revenue. It is just not true at all. Management is the most important factor."
But doesn't the house always win? Have a lot of casinos around the country really gone bankrupt? We called Jacquard, who explained that he's not necessarily opposed to casinos in Rhode Island, but he does want to ensure that if the state opts to go down that route, responsible operators with a lot of experience in the industry are brought in. He told us that he's read about a number of casinos failing around the country, and although he hasn't kept a list, he recalls bankruptcies occurring particularly in the South. "I know what I read in the paper," Jacquard said.
We couldn't find a central repository of information on casino bankruptcies, but we did come across numerous news reports about casinos and their financial struggles. Donald Trump has filed four corporate bankruptcies—in 1991, 1992, 2004, and 2009—in connection with his casinos in Atlantic City, N.J. Tropicana Entertainment, which operates casinos in Nevada, New Jersey, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Indiana, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 and 2009. Station Casinos, which owns or operates 18 casinos in and around Las Vegas, made a similar filing in 2009.
And on a side note, Rhode Islanders will be familiar with the struggles of Twin River, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and emerged under new ownership the following year. It's not technically a casino, but it is a local reminder of the potential pitfalls of the gambling industry. I. Nelson Rose, distinguished senior professor of law at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif., who writes about gambling and legal issues, has kept a partial list of gambling companies that have closed or filed for bankruptcy protection in the last three years as the recession has dragged on. He has counted 18 companies so far.
Rose said that other casino operators, including MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, and Foxwoods, may not be facing bankruptcy but have struggled because of mounting debts and falling revenues. David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said gambling revenues in all major U.S. markets have declined since 2007 as discretionary spending has dried up. He also pointed to heightened competition in the gambling industry as another factor that's squeezing casinos. For example, Atlantic City has lost business to newer casinos in Pennsylvania, whose residents can now gamble closer to home instead of making the trip to New Jersey.
It's in that sort of competitive market when management can be particularly important. Rose referred to Colorado's experience in the early 1990s when 68 casinos opened in two or three years. A third of them eventually went bankrupt, and, said Rose, it turned out that the operators of those failed casinos had no previous experience in the industry.
Our ruling: Gambling is a boom or bust industry. Even when times are good, casinos fail. And when times are bad, even more fail. As Schwartz told us, casinos definitely are not a sure thing. Good management matters—a point Jacquard made as well. We rate Jacquard's statement True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD596 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Typically the White House releases a few excerpts in advance of the State of the Union, and 2015 is no exception to that rule. Here's what they've told us to expect:
"We are fifteen years into this new century. Fifteen years that dawned with terror touching our shores; that unfolded with a new generation fighting two long and costly wars; that saw a vicious recession spread across our nation and the world. It has been, and still is, a hard time for many.
But tonight, we turn the page."
"At this moment - with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, and booming energy production - we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It's now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come.
Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?"
"So the verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don't get in the way."
"In fact, at every moment of economic change throughout our history, this country has taken bold action to adapt to new circumstances, and to make sure everyone gets a fair shot. We set up worker protections, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to protect ourselves from the harshest adversity. We gave our citizens schools and colleges, infrastructure and the internet - tools they needed to go as far as their effort will take them.
That's what middle-class economics is - the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."
"I believe in a smarter kind of American leadership. We lead best when we combine military power with strong diplomacy; when we leverage our power with coalition building; when we don't let our fears blind us to the opportunities that this new century presents. That's exactly what we're doing right now - and around the globe, it is making a difference."
"In Iraq and Syria, American leadership - including our military power - is stopping ISIL's advance. Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group. We're also supporting a moderate opposition in Syria that can help us in this effort, and assisting people everywhere who stand up to the bankrupt ideology of violent extremism. This effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed. And tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL."
"No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids. We are making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism. And tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children's information. If we don't act, we'll leave our nation and our economy vulnerable. If we do, we can continue to protect the technologies that have unleashed untold opportunities for people around the globe." | 1 | [
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FMD597 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Emails released by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office show a cozy relationship between energy companies and Scott Pruitt, who was the state’s top prosecutor before being sworn in last week as the new chief U.S. environmental regulator, a media watchdog group said on Wednesday. The Center for Media and Democracy has sought the release of emails between energy companies and Pruitt for the past two years, saying they show energy companies drafted language that Pruitt’s attorney general office then used in suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the office he now heads, over regulations on energy operations. The center had sued Pruitt on Feb. 7, ahead of the Senate vote to confirm his nomination by President Donald Trump, to release the records detailing his communications with energy companies. The attorney general’s office released more than 7,500 pages of emails late on Tuesday, holding back an unknown number of documents it called exempted or privileged. Oklahoma Judge Aletia Timmons is reviewing those documents, but there is no set time for when or if they would be released. Among the documents released were communications between Devon Energy and Pruitt's office that suggest the company gave the Oklahoma officials language on limits on methane emissions at oil and gas operations. Pruitt's office then used this language in suing the EPA over the regulations, the documents suggest. (bit.ly/2lFEymC) The EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Devon serves as a resource with information and expertise for decision makers, and its contact with Pruitt was consistent with its policy of engaging with policymakers, company spokesman John Porretto said. Nick Surgey, a research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, called the document release a “major breakthrough†that revealed a close and friendly relationship between Pruitt’s office and the oil and gas industry, with frequent meetings, calls, and dinners. The center said before the release of the emails that Pruitt’s office had violated Oklahoma’s Open Records Act by delaying their issuance. Critics of Pruitt’s nomination to head the EPA were concerned over his record on the environment | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD598 | 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: PG&E/Atmos Phishing Scam Claim summaries: A phishing scam is being spread via PG&E and Atmos billing statements.
contextual information: Phishing bait: Billing statements from PG&E and Atmos Energy. SCAM Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Comment: I received two emails like this. I don't have an account with PG&E, nor do I use gas. I didn't click, just in case that's how they get their info. Any insight would be appreciated. PG&E ENERGY STATEMENT Account No: 441401665-1 Statement Date: 01/07/2014 Due Date: 02/01/2014 Your Account Summary Amount Due on Previous Statement $344.70 Payment(s) Received Since Last Statement 0 Previous Unpaid Balance $344.70 Current Electric Charges $165.20 Current Gas Charges $49.20 To view your most recent bill, please click here. You must log in to your account or register for an online account to view your statement. Total Amount Due BY 02/01/2014 $559.70 Origins: In January 2014, Internet users began receiving messages like the one reproduced above that purported to be energy statements (i.e., utility bills) from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). Such messages included instructions for the recipients to follow a hyperlink or open an attachment in order to view their statements and/or register for an online account. These messages were intended to lure recipients, concerned about receiving unexpected bills, into attempting to view the referenced statements—a process that would lead them not to a document but into launching an executable file. Similar messages have also been sent out in the name of Atmos Energy, and that company has posted a warning on their website advising customers that: "As an Atmos Energy e-Bill customer, you are accustomed to receiving your monthly bill notice by email. We would like to inform you of a widespread email scam that portrays a bogus Atmos Energy bill. The emails have been sent to individuals nationwide, including Atmos Energy customers. The 'phishing' message references a fake account number and contains links to fraudulent websites. The email provides links to mislead you into believing you are going to view your bill, learn more about natural gas, or view bill inserts. Actually, the links lead you to a compromised website that hides malware. We are asking anyone who receives that deceptive email to delete it immediately and not click on any links." PG&E has also posted a warning on their site advising consumers to "Please be alert to an email scam using PG&E's name," with a link to an article about confirming contact from PG&E: "Individuals and companies are posing as PG&E employees or contractors to gain access to your account information or entry into your home. Here are ways to protect your home or business. You should always ask to see | 0 | [
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FMD599 | 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: Southwest Airlines Las Vegas Ticket Giveaway Fraudulent Scheme Claim summaries: Southwest Airlines is not giving away four tickets to Las Vegas and $5,000 spending money to Facebook users who share and like a page.
contextual information: Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion. The name of Southwest Airlines, a major U.S. airline which is also the world's largest low-cost carrier, has frequently been invoked in various online "free ticket" giveaway scams in recent years. In February 2016, social media users encountered posts that appeared to be from Southwest Airlines, offering to give away four tickets to Las Vegas and $5,000 spending money to Facebook users who shared and liked a page. The primary type of free ticket fraud is the "sweepstakes scam," which intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print. The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by Southwest Airlines) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies: Similar phony free ticket lures are used to spread malware. In those versions of the scam, those who attempt to reach the URL provided for the purpose of claiming the free tickets are instead victimized by a Facebook "lifejacking" attack, a malicious script that takes over a user's Facebook profile without their knowledge and propagates itself to their friends' accounts as well. lifejacking Southwest Airlines has responded to such scams by issuing messages on Twitter that read: "Hey folks! There is a scam being passed around on Facebook about a free ticket offer from SWA. Please don't click or share the links!" As well, Southwest spokesperson Christi McNeill has said of these attempts to defraud that "We are aware of the scam for free tickets being spread across Facebook. This offer is in no way affiliated with Southwest Airlines and we are working with Facebook to get it removed." | 0 | [
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