id
stringlengths 4
7
| query
stringlengths 166
33.3k
| answer
stringclasses 3
values | choices
sequencelengths 3
3
| gold
int64 0
2
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
FMD900 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: At 7Â a.m., the Kurdish forces began their assault.
Backed by a barrage of U.S.-led airstrikes, about 7,500 Kurdish peshmerga fighters, including thousands of minority Yazidis, launched a three-pronged attack against the ÂIslamic State in the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar.
They had gathered at the base of Mount Sinjar at dawn Thursday. Some prayed and others huddled by campfires before moving to their positions. The dirt tracks to the front lines were jammed with vehicles full of fighters.
On the western side of the mountain, Kurdish special forces tentatively advanced on foot into Islamic State-held territory followed by a snaking convoy of armored vehicles. By nightfall they had succeeded in cutting the highway next to the city, which runs from Raqqa in Syria to Mosul in Iraq, splitting the Islamic State’s territory apart.
Peshmerga forces had entered a former Iraqi military base and cleared a string of Âvillages, Kurdish officials said.
The drive to retake Sinjar is the largest offensive launched by Iraqi Kurds against the Islamic State and a key test of their military capabilities. It comes as the militants face attacks on multiple fronts, from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria, to Ramadi in western Iraq.
The loss of Sinjar would deal the Islamic State a severe setback, cutting its supply lines between Iraq and Syria. But it is also a particularly emotive fight.
The sudden fall of Sinjar to Islamic State militants in August 2014 devastated the Yazidi community. Hundreds of thousands fled Sinjar and the surrounding area — many straight into the hands of the extremists, who Âconsider Yazidis heretics. Yazidi men were summarily executed en masse, and women were rounded up to be bought and sold as sex slaves. Tens of thousands of people fled to Mount Sinjar.
As troops gathered Thursday at dawn at the base of the mountain to launch their attack, the Yazidi fighters pledged vengeance.
“It was a tragedy, and we carry a great sorrow in each of us,†Salim Shevan, a 28-year-old Yazidi fighter, said as he left for the front lines. “We will have revenge.â€
[Horrifying tales of sexual slavery for Yazidis who could not flee]
After the Kurdish forces began advancing, bulldozers broke through the earthen barrier that previously marked the front line to make way for dozens of armored vehicles, led by a U.S.-
supplied MRAP, designed to withstand roadside bombs.
While the closest villages appeared abandoned, the attackers soon encountered resistance as they turned toward Sinjar.
In the distance, a vehicle sped toward the convoy from the direction of Syria.
“Suicide bomber! Suicide bomber!†Brig. Gen. Rawan Barzani, the special forces commander and son of the Kurdish region’s president, radioed to his men on the front line. The convoy fired two antitank missiles, but they missed. Another finally hit as the car neared the convoy, and a plume of gray smoke rose into the air.
[The Islamic State’s attacks on Yazidis constitute genocide, report says]
Sinjar lies on Highway 47, the route used by the Islamic State to transport fighters, weapons and commodities such as oil.
“Getting Sinjar is crucial because then [the Islamic State] has to decide between Raqqa and ÂMosul,†the group’s stronghold in northern Iraq, Barzani said. “It won’t be able to hold both.â€
Kurdish commanders said they expected the offensive to last about a week. Despite quick progress made Thursday, few believed the fighting in the city will be easy.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that advisers from the United States and other countries were taking part in the Sinjar operation but declined to provide the number of foreign forces involved.
“Most of those folks . . . are behind the front lines, advising and working directly with peshmerga commanders,†Cook said. “There are some advisers who are on Sinjar Mountain, assisting in the selection of airstrike targets.â€
British officials said they are also supporting the operation. “The Royal Air Force has been playing a full part in coalition reconnaissance and strike missions to provide effective air support to them and other Iraqi ground forces,†a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
U.S. officials estimate that about 400 to 550 Islamic State militants are in the city.
Lt. Col. Dilgash Zebari, a peshmerga commander, said militants have dug tunnels and hideaways in the city. “We’ve had suicide bombers; we are expecting more when we go inside,†he said.
If the offensive bogs down, Ârivalries between various factions fighting the Islamic State will be to blame, Zebari said.
The long-planned operation had stalled for weeks because of bad weather and political wrangling between factions of Kurdish soldiers. Fighters affiliated with the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have held positions in the city, but Kurdish peshmerga forces launching the offensive said they are not directly coordinating with them.
“If the liberation takes too long, it will be because of having troops from different parties, each of them flying their own flag,†said Zebari.
The Kurdish-led efforts also have significance in the wider Âefforts to cripple the Islamic State. In Syria, Kurdish militiamen emerged as a linchpin in Pentagon plans after the failure of Washington’s strategy to arm and train other Syrian rebel units to fight the Islamic State.
Syrian Kurds have waged a Âseries of strikes against the Islamic State and last year withstood the group’s siege of Kobane, a town near the Turkish border.
But the rising profile of Kurdish fighters poses potential complications for the U.S.-led alliance. Turkey, a NATO member that has battled PKK separatists for decades, has deep concerns over growing Kurdish political and military influence, fearing it could encourage greater calls for autonomy.
The U.S. military said Thursday that it dispatched an additional six F-15E fighter jets to the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey to join the air campaign against the Islamic State.
Bryan Murphy, Missy Ryan and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Sinjar was escape route or trap for thousands
Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD901 | 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 a Woman Charged While Off-Duty Cop Who Killed Her Child Was Not? Claim summaries: A meme provided some factual information, but also excluded many complexities in telling the story of a crash that left a 1-year-old dead.
contextual information: On October 12, 2017, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a Nissan SUV carrying four adults and four children was making a left turn onto Florline Boulevard at a green light when a Corvette driven by a speeding off-duty police officer, traveling at an estimated 94 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, smashed into its passenger side, killing a 1-year-old girl who was ejected from the SUV. As noted in a meme circulated on social media in the aftermath of the accident, the officer behind the wheel of the Corvette, Christopher Manuel, was not penalized (even though he was driving nearly double the speed limit), while the dead girl's mother, 21-year-old Brittany Stephens, who was a passenger and not the driver of the SUV, was charged with negligent homicide for not properly securing the child in a car seat. As is often the case, while the meme provided factual information, it also ignored the many complexities of this case and instead focused on a single, outrage-inducing aspect of it. The primary context omitted here is that both Manuel and Stephens were initially arrested on suspicion of negligent homicide, but prosecutors—who deliberated for two years—ultimately felt they could not determine who was more at fault for the child's death, nor could they meet the burden of proof needed to successfully bring criminal charges against Manuel. In the end, they took no action against either party. The crash occurred when the driver of the SUV turned left onto Florline Boulevard while Manuel was traveling northbound on Airline Highway. According to Manuel's arrest report, investigators estimated his vehicle's speed at the time of the accident at 94 MPH based on calculations from data recorded by his car's airbag control module. Both cars had green lights, so the primary issue was determining whether the SUV's driver failed to yield or whether the Corvette's excessive speed would have made it extremely difficult or impossible for the driver to safely judge the turn. Investigators came down on the side of the latter, and Manuel filed a civil suit alleging that the driver of the SUV was at fault for turning "suddenly and without warning" into his lane. Additional complicating factors were that the driver of the SUV was unlicensed, the vehicle was carrying too many occupants, and no one in the SUV was wearing a seatbelt. Police also stated that Stephens did not properly secure her daughter's car seat, instead placing it on the SUV's center console between the two front seats, which is considered an act of "gross negligence" that was a "contributing factor in the death" of the child. As the Baton Rouge Advocate reported, the district attorney felt his office could not fairly determine whom, if anyone, to prosecute. East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III said his office decided not to bring charges against either Manuel or Stephens, reasoning that both had contributed to the tragic outcome even though "one suffered a bigger loss." "It becomes a conundrum of 'Who's at fault?'" Moore said. "Do you really want to charge the mom with her child's death? Of course not. Which act truly caused the death, speeding or lack of proper restraint? Is one more culpable than the other? We couldn't really determine that based on the facts of the case and what the law requires." This is a trying decision, Moore said. It weighed on me as a parent with children. One aspect of the controversy surrounding the crash was Manuel's status as a member of the Baton Rouge Police Department, which some critics maintained may have influenced the DA's decision not to prosecute a criminal case against him. Another was that no one involved in the accident was even cited. Marcus Allen, an attorney, volunteered to represent Stephens for free after news of her case went viral within some circles online. He said Moore's "unilateral decision" not to prosecute "has the look of impropriety" because the case involves a law enforcement officer and argued prosecutors could have avoided that by going forward with the case and allowing the criminal justice system to decide the officer's fate. Police recommended citations for several other people in the SUV with Stephens after finding various safety issues, including that there were too many occupants, none were wearing seatbelts, and the driver was unlicensed. Prosecutors had two years to issue those citations but instead let the tickets expire without doing so. They did the same for a misdemeanor speeding count against Manuel, which also expired. Moore said prosecuting Manuel for speeding would have meant essentially forfeiting the option to charge him with negligent homicide because of double jeopardy laws at the time. But once prosecutors ruled out the more serious charge, they could have chosen to issue the speeding ticket then with no major impacts on the case. Allen said that's the least Moore's office could have done. "How can you overlook the glaring fact that he was going almost 100 mph?" Allen said. "You just cannot operate a vehicle that fast. For him to walk away from this with no criminal charges ... it almost appears he's above the law." Although prosecutors decided to take no action in the case, some online reports nonetheless mistakenly reported that Brittany Stephens had been convicted and sentenced to prison. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD902 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Because people who scale border walls and break the law to get into our country deserve the same taxpayer funded benefits as legal citizens right?Caving into the demands of the open borders movement and pro-immigrant Spanish media, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will refrain from enforcing immigration laws in areas of Flint, Michigan affected by a water crisis. The water amnesty is the latest of many reprieves issued by the Obama administration to help illegal immigrants nationwide. Judicial Watch has reported on many of them, including recent hurricane, earthquake, Ebola and severe weather amnesties.This one involves the widely reported water situation in Flint, which is located about 66 miles northwest of Detroit. Last year researchers discovered that the city s drinking water was contaminated with lead from decaying old pipes. The problem arose after a switch in 2014 in the city s water source to save money. Soon complaints mounted that the water smelled and looked strange and academic researchers discovered that it was toxic. This all occurred after a 7-1 vote by the Flint City Council to stop buying Detroit water and join a new pipeline project, according to a local news report.Now there s a state of emergency and the feds have stepped in, supplying the area with free bottled water and special filters to install at home until the local water supply is clean. For weeks immigrant rights groups complained that residents had to show identification to receive their free goods from the government and illegal aliens were being left out. National Spanish-language media outlets blasted the Obama administration for discriminating against illegal aliens. One reported that undocumented immigrants weren t getting help for fear of being deported, instead opting to drink contaminated water or pay out of pocket to buy some. Another major Spanish-language newspaper wrote that illegal immigrants and their children suffered lead poisoning and couldn t get clean emergency water because they didn t have identification cards. When the National Guard went door to door distributing potable water, many were scared to open because they feared the uniformed persons were immigration agents who would deport them, the paper wrote.The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which claims to combat bigotry and protect civil rights for all, joined the cause expressing horror and indignation that the government denied undocumented immigrants free water and filters because they couldn t provide a photo ID or Social Security number. In a Spanish-language statement the group s Michigan chapter referred to news reports that Flint-area fire department stations distributing water were requiring identification. But even in places that aren t requiring ID, illegal immigrants are scared to come out and get their potable water out of fear that they will be deported, the ADL stresses in its announcement. We are calling on the National Guard to order all fire departments and other centers distributing supplies that no one be rejected. Like a good lapdog the Obama administration obliged. This week DHS issued a statement in English and Spanish guaranteeing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not conduct enforcement operations at or near locations distributing clean water in Flint or surrounding areas. Moreover, DHS officials do not and will not pose as individuals providing water-related information or distributing clean water as part of any enforcement activities, the statement assures. The agency s priority is to support state and local government efforts to distribute clean water, the statement says, adding that DHS stands ready to assist those in need. Via: Judicial Watch | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD903 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Detroit teachers make viral video: Blame Republican Governor for deteriorating schools Ellen DeGeneres donates $500,000 to help school..Principal BUSTED stealing money from school.But it s all about the kids While there is no question many of the schools in Detroit are in horrible shape, placing the blame on Republican Governor Rick Snyder is laughable. Taxpayers in the state of Michigan have been bailing out the corrupt Detroit Public schools for decades.Some Detroit teachers at Spain Elementary got together to make a video highlighting the issues they were facing due to lack of funds available to their schools. The video caught the attention of Ellen Degeneres. In the video, the teachers blame the deteriorating condition of the Detroit Public Schools on Republican Governor Rick Snyder. The teachers also compare their schools to the schools in the suburbs, where the working taxpayers live who fill the coffers of the public school officials and administrators who always seem to be under investigation for stealing from them. The teachers also make a point at of suggesting that because the students are black, they are somehow being treated unfairly, invoking the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. to prove her point. Watch here:Over a dozen current and former principals in the Detroit public school system have been charged in a conspiracy scheme involving more than $900,000 in kickbacks and bribes, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.At least 13 principals are named in the federal complaints including the principal of a school that was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and received $500,000 in donations because conditions there were so poor.One of the principals, Ronald Alexander, had received about $23,000 in kickbacks, the federal complaint says.Alexander appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in February when DeGeneres surprised his performing arts school with donations from Lowe s Home Improvement and pop star Justin Bieber, who pledged $1 from each ticket of his Michigan concert toward Spain Elementary-Middle School.During the show, teachers told Degeneres how they did not have enough money for books for each of the students and how classrooms lacked heat.[quote_box_center] Of all the people in the whole world, I am the happiest principal on Earth, Alexander said at the time.[/quote_box_center]Here is the video clip of the wonderful principal thief at Spain Elementary-Middle School, who generously accepted the $500,000 donation from Ellen Degeneres: The real victims in a case like this are the students and the families the teachers and the educators who want to make a difference, Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said at a news conference. A case like this is a real punch in the gut. The investigation started two years ago following a routine audit, prosecutors said.As part of the alleged scheme, school supplies vendor Allstate Sales was used by the various schools to purchase items such as auditorium chairs, supplemental teaching materials, and paper. The principals submitted fraudulent invoices for payments to Allstate Sales for some items that were never received.In exchange, those Detroit Public Schools principals received kickback payments, McQuade said. They ve each been charged with conspiracy and face arraignments.Norman Shy, Allstate Sales owner, allegedly worked with Clara Flowers, a principal and assistant superintendent, from at least February 2009 to January 2015. She had the power to select vendors and order materials for various schools.The scheme involved a total of $908,518 in kickbacks and bribes in exchange for Allstate Sales doing business with the Detroit Public Schools worth $2.7 million, McQuade said.Detroit s public schools have been in financial straits, and the allegations against the city principals come as Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced that he signed a law releasing $48.7 million in emergency funding to help the state s largest school district stay open through the end of the school year.McQuade said the announcement of the charges were not linked to the governor s actions. This continues to demonstrate that the challenges at DPS aren t just Detroit s problem, they are concerns for all of Michigan, Snyder said in a statement Tuesday. Via: NBC | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD904 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is the U.S. One of the Worst Countries for Women? Claim summaries: Many readers were surprised by the results of a 2018 global survey about countries where conditions are especially deleterious for women.
contextual information: Many social media users have expressed disbelief and dismay at a graphic indicating that the United States had been deemed "one of the ten worst countries in the world to be a woman," rounding out a list headed by India, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, and Nigeria: The basis of the graphic was a 2018 survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the "charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience." survey This item is therefore superficially "true" in the sense that it reflects the results of a genuine poll, but of course the significance of any particular survey or poll depends upon its methodology. In this case, Thomson Reuters polled 548 experts on women's issues by phone and in person between March 26 and May 4, 2018. The respondents were evenly spread across Europe, Africa, the Americas, South East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific, and included "aid professionals, academics, healthcare staff, non-government organisation workers, policy-makers, development specialists and social commentators." According to Thomson Reuters, "the survey asked respondents which five of the 193 United Nations member states they thought were most dangerous for women and which country was worst in terms of healthcare, economic resources, cultural or traditional practices, sexual violence and harassment, non-sexual violence and human trafficking." Still, Americans (and others) were left puzzled by how the United States could rank so highly in such a survey, given that many of the phenomena that contributed to the other countries' being declared dangerous and unhealthy places for women female infanticide, forced marriages, sex slavery, domestic servitude, death by stoning, civil war, restricted access to health care have little to no prevalence in the U.S. The explanation offered by Thomson Reuters was that the influence of the #MeToo movement and the Time's Up campaign, which were running concurrently with the poll, influenced the results sufficiently to push the U.S. into the top 10: Time's Up Experts said the surprise addition of the United States in the top 10 most dangerous countries for women came down to the #MeToo and Time's Up campaigns against sexual harassment and violence that have dominated headlines for months. "People want to think income means you're protected from misogyny, and sadly that's not the case," said Cindy Southworth, executive vice president of the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence. "We are going to look back and see this as a very powerful tipping point ... We're blowing the lid off and saying '#Metoo and Time's Up'." Reuters. "Factbox: Which Are the World's 10 Most Dangerous Countries for Women?"
25 June 2018. Goldsmith, Belinda and Meka Beresford. "India Most Dangerous Country for Women with Sexual Violence Rife."
Thomson Reuters Foundation. 26 June 2018. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD905 | 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 Fox News talking about the controversial topic of the 'War on Christmas' while other networks were reporting on Michael Cohen's guilty pleas? Claim summaries: Liberals and Fox News have ruined Festivus for everyone!
contextual information: On August 21, 2018, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including multiple counts of tax evasion and violations of federal campaign finance laws. Cohen also appeared to implicate his former client in possible criminal wrongdoing, alleging that Trump, while a candidate, directed Cohen to pay hush money to two women who claimed to have had affairs with the future president. Those bombshell revelations came on the same afternoon that a jury in Virginia convicted President Trump's former 2016 presidential campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on eight counts of banking fraud and filing false tax returns, while failing to agree on a verdict for ten other charges. Both the Manafort and Cohen cases arose from investigative work undertaken as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the possibility of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Understandably, much of the news media in the United States gave these major developments extensive coverage that day, in print, online, and on the major television news networks. Some observers accused the conservative-leaning Fox News of downplaying the Cohen and Manafort stories or of deliberately focusing on other issues of lesser importance. Elements of this criticism were accurate and proportionate in pointing out the striking differences between how most TV news networks reported on the developments and how Fox News covered them. However, one viral Twitter post appeared to contain a screenshot of Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren discussing the 'War on Christmas,' while other networks covered Cohen's guilty pleas. The chyron in the image read, "TOMI: OBAMA CREATED FESTIVUS TO DESTROY CHRISTMAS." CNN: Michael Cohen to plead guilty. ABC: Michael Cohen to plead guilty. NBC: Michael Cohen to plead guilty. FOX News: pic.twitter.com/JR4uAnyCQn pic.twitter.com/JR4uAnyCQn Diane N. Sevenay (@Diane_7A) August 21, 2018. That tweet was then reposted on Facebook by the left-wing page "The Other 98%": The image is fake and is an old meme that first appeared in December 2017. Congrats, @BarackObama, on apparently creating Seinfeld pic.twitter.com/5g2t7eYDHj @BarackObama pic.twitter.com/5g2t7eYDHj jordan (@JordanUhl) December 24, 2017. Lahren herself publicly dismissed the meme: "Does it not bother you to circulate a photoshopped piece of FAKE NEWS? Classy." https://t.co/hvwdgwPkd2 https://t.co/hvwdgwPkd2 Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) December 24, 2017. The meme does indeed consist of a screenshot of a real Fox News appearance that Lahren made in August 2017, but with the original chyron digitally edited and replaced with something different and non-relevant: .@TomiLahren: "How about when the mainstream media stops covering Russia day in and day out, maybe we can drop the Hillary email scandal." pic.twitter.com/OwfYWfuhDD @TomiLahren pic.twitter.com/OwfYWfuhDD Fox News (@FoxNews) August 31, 2017. It's not clear whether those who posted the edited image in the context of Cohen and Manafort's legal troubles in August 2018 intended to engage in satire or to trick other internet users into believing Lahren really discussed Festivus on that day. Diane Sevenay, whose viral tweet was reposted by "The Other 98%," is a comedy writer. As reported by Mashable, a satirical Fox/Cohen news coverage meme emerged on August 21, with Twitter users taking turns to parody Fox News' content on the day of Cohen's guilty pleas: Mashable CNN - Cohen plea deal MSNBC - Cohen plea deal Fox News - Are cats becoming too tall? Fred Delicious (@Fred_Delicious) August 21, 2018. CNN: Manafort guilty on 8 counts NYT: Manafort guilty of fraud AP: Cohen pleads guilty Fox News: Were the lobsters on the Titanic happy that it sank? #1 Rachel (@rachel) August 21, 2018. Another widely shared screenshot purported to show Fox News reframing the conviction of Manafort by only mentioning, in a mobile news alert, the fact that a mistrial was declared on ten of the charges against him, while other news organizations reported his being found guilty on eight charges. The image, posted to Facebook by the "Angry Americans" page, is authentic but very misleading. Another screenshot shows that Fox News first sent out an alert that read, "Jury finds Manafort guilty on eight counts in fraud trial," before following up with a second one about the mistrial on the ten other charges: Same topic. Different perspectives. ?? #Manafort pic.twitter.com/r2ZUgFSxDS Push the Push (@pushthepush) August 21, 2018. Neumeister, Larry and Tom Hays. "Cohen Pleads Guilty, Implicates Trump in Hush-Money Scheme." Associated Press. August 22, 2018. Barakat, Matthew et al. "Ex-Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort Guilty of 8 Charges." Associated Press. August 22, 2018. Stanley-Becker, Isaac. "In Trump's Right-Wing Media Universe, It Was a Day Like Any Other." The Washington Post. August 22, 2018. Sung, Morgan. "What Was Fox News Covering While Manafort and Cohen Were in Court? This Hilarious Meme Has Some Answers." Mashable. August 21, 2018. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD906 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The United Nations and Red Cross on Tuesday urged the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen to re-open an aid lifeline to bring imported food and medicine into the country. It is estimated that seven million people are facing famine there. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi movement in Yemen said on Monday it would close all air, land and sea ports to the Arabian Peninsula country to stem the flow of arms from Iran. The Saudis and their allies say the Houthis get weapons from their arch-foe, Iran. Iran denies the charges and blames the conflict in Yemen on Riyadh. The U.N. Security Council is due to meet on Wednesday, at the request of Sweden, to discuss the humanitarian situation in Yemen, diplomats said in New York. We call for all air and sea ports to remain open to ensure food, fuel and medicines can enter the country, Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs said in Geneva. He said humanitarian operations are currently blocked because air and sea ports in Yemen are closed, The Saudi-led coalition has told the world body to inform all commercial vessels at Hodeidah and Saleef ports to leave , Laerke said, referring to Red Sea ports controlled by the Houthis. The price of fuel jumped 60 percent overnight in Yemen and the price of cooking gas doubled, he said. This is an access problem of colossal dimensions right now. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) joined the call. Food, medicine and other essential supplies are critical for the survival of 27 million Yemenis already weakened by a conflict now in its third year, Robert Mardini, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East, said in a statement. The ICRC said that a shipment of chlorine tablets to prevent cholera did not get clearance at Yemen s northern border. It voiced fears for 50,000 vials of insulin for diabetics due to be delivered by next week, which require constant refrigeration. ICRC spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet said that a ship carrying 500 metric tonnes of rice, which arrived in Hodeidah port in October after a three-month trip from Pakistan, had to leave the port last week without offloading because the ship s crane had broken. The port itself lacks adequate cranes after repeated coalition bombing. Rupert Colville, U.N. human rights spokesman, said it would study whether the blockade amounted to collective punishment , banned under international law, but hoped that it would be temporary. Attacks in Yemen over the past week that have killed dozens of civilians, including children, at markets and homes, he said. These included at least nine air strikes on the Houthi-held city of Sanaa since Saturday, when a missile was fired from Yemen toward the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he said. A cholera epidemic has caused 908,702 suspected cases and 2,194 deaths since the outbreak began in April, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said. In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for increased aid to Yemen, citing alarm at the latest U.N. report. No one will be able to say later, particularly with respect to Yemen, that they didn t know what was happening. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD907 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Truthstream MediaOut of 88 potential horrors this batch of 1,500+ Americans were asked to rank in regard to their personal level of fear in 2015, you ll never guess what the number one thing people are most afraid of in this country Or perhaps you will. What an amazingly sad statement on modern America and the times we are living in.The survey can be found here.Americans Deepest FearsAre Americans today afraid of criminals with guns or a government that would seek to disarm its citizens?The impositions of the system now rank higher among worry than hyped factors like terrorism with distrust at very high levels among citizens and consumers alike. People are becoming disconnected from the wealth and prosperity they once knew, and instead are facing a collapsing system that wishes to loot from its populace as the ship goes down.Dearly held rights in the American tradition are under threat today of vanishing, of being upended by a machine with secret designs.Corporate schemers, conniving bankers and corrupt government insiders are driving perpetual wars, a damaged economy, disappearing jobs and diminishing chances of achieving the American dream.Please share this article and story.Permission to repost or republish with attribution (to Truthstream Media) is granted under creative commons license.READ MORE SOCIAL ENGINEERING NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire SE Files | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD908 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: At first glance, U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen may have little in common. Yellen is an academic economist and veteran of Democratic administrations who is committed to an open global economy, while Trump is a real estate mogul with an electoral base suspicious of the economic order Yellen helped to create. Yet the two may have interests in common now that Trump is president and both want to get as many Americans working as possible. Since her appointment as Fed chair in February 2014, Yellen has kept interest rates low and she currently pledges to raise them only slowly even though unemployment, at 4.5 percent, is at its lowest in nearly ten years. Meanwhile, Trump’s election campaign promises to cut taxes, spend money on infrastructure and deregulate banking, have helped propel a surge in the U.S. Conference Board’s consumer confidence index to its highest level since the internet stocks crash 16 years ago. Former Fed staff and colleagues who know Yellen said Trump’s surprising remarks this week in a Wall Street Journal interview, in which he did not rule out Yellen’s reappointment to a new four year term next year, are not as outlandish as they may appear now that the president has a vested interest in keeping markets and the economy on an even keel. And the same staff and colleagues say Yellen may well accept reappointment, despite Trump’s criticism of her during last year’s election campaign. Many in Trump’s Republican party have called for tighter monetary policy and a less activist Fed, but “the president would not really find that useful,†said former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn. If Trump fills three existing Federal Reserve board vacancies with people Yellen thinks she could work with, “it would be really difficult to turn down†a reappointment when her term as chair expires in February 2018. “If she continues to do well, he’d be nuts to ditch her for an unknown quantity,†said University of California, Berkeley, economics professor Andrew Rose, a long-time colleague and co-author with Yellen of an oft-cited study of labor markets. Yellen took over from Ben Bernanke as Fed chair in February 2014 with the U.S. economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis still on shaky ground, and she has made no secret she puts a priority on growth in jobs and wages and a broad recovery in U.S. household wealth. In a slow return to more normal monetary policy, Yellen has stopped the purchase of additional financial securities by the Fed and in December 2015 began raising short term interest rates for the first time in 10 years. So far those policy shifts have been engineered with little apparent impact on job growth, and so mesh with Trump’s core election campaign promises to restore employment and earnings. The slow rise in interest rates in the past year has also happened while U.S. stock prices have risen to record highs, though Trump has claimed the credit for himself. There is precedent for Trump to stick with a former president’s Fed chair appointment. Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, the three previous Fed chairs, served at least two four year terms and were nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents. However it may be a more difficult step for Trump. During last year’s election campaign, Trump accused Yellen of accepting orders from then President Obama to keep interest rates low for political reasons, and he said he would replace her as Fed chair because she is not a Republican party member. In a particularly biting moment last year, in a campaign video advertisement, he labeled her as among the “global special interests†who had ruined life for middle America. The Fed on Thursday said it had no response to Trump’s comments published on Wednesday on Yellen and or on whether Yellen would consider a second term. Some of Trump’s advisers and some Republican lawmakers want a more conservative Fed in which the chair has less power and would see a Yellen reappointment as yet another step away from his promise to “drain the swamp†of the Washington establishment. There are also three current vacancies on the Fed’s seven member Board of Governors, and unorthodox new members could make it difficult for Yellen to manage policy or accept another four year term. But if the choice is her consensus style or someone unproven in their ability to manage public and market expectations, “he’d be wise to reappoint her,†said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed staffer and Berkeley colleague of Yellen’s currently at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “I don’t see what is in his interests to appoint someone who is going to jack up interest rates.†| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD909 | 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 Sheryl Underwood exiting 'The Talk' following her endorsement of weight loss gummies which has angered CBS? Claim summaries: An online article purportedly published by People magazine said Underwood had "shocked everyone when she announced her departure from the show."
contextual information: In November 2023, multiple Facebook ads were displayed to users that led to an article that bore the People magazine logo and claimed that Sheryl Underwood, the longtime co-host of "The Talk," would be leaving the TV talk show to work on expanding her own line of keto gummies for weight loss. However, this was not true. Underwood has nothing to do with any keto gummies for weight loss, nor did People magazine ever publish any such story. Underwood was simply the latest person in a long line of famous people who had had their image and likeness used without permission to sell keto gummies. Further, this false rumor that mentioned Underwood led to a dangerous scam that could potentially cost victims thousands of dollars per year. a long line of famous people One version of the Facebook ad claimed, "Producers are furious that she came forward." The headline in the ads read, "Sheryl Abandons 'The Talk' After Confessing Her Trick." Two of the false Facebook ads that promoted the scam. These ads led to a fake People magazine article on scam websites including emperorsland.pro, sizzlingpear.pro, mindfulmovement.pro and chillytreats.info. (We were unable to provide an archived link to the article since scammers design these websites so that the scam version of the page is cloaked from prying eyes that is, unless users specifically came from a Facebook ad.) This is not a true story, nor did People.com ever publish any such article. The fake People magazine article, which was nothing more than fiction and a scam, began as follows: Sheryl Underwood Confirms She Is Leaving 'The Talk' After Her Accidental 'Live' Confession On-Air... The host said that it was 'time for a break', but she may actually have bigger things in mind. (People) - Sheryl Underwood, the 60-year-old host on CBS's show 'The Talk', shocked everyone when she announced her departure from the show after 12 record-breaking years on-air. Sheryl, who has earned the reputation of being one of the most business savvy women in the industry, made sponsors (and CBS) FURIOUS. Why? Because Sheryl failed to disclose her new weight loss line to the network. Sheryl's new company is actually a HUGE competitor to CBS's current sponsor Weight Watchers because Sheryl's product is 90% cheaper and five times more effective than Weight Watchers's competing product. According to sources, CBS made Sheryl decide on which direction she was going to focus on in the future. Being so turned off by the reaction of the network and their power move she has decided to pursue her new weight loss line and dream. The scam article went on to falsely claim that other celebrities had joined with Underwood to promote the products, whether they be Belly Blast Keto Gummies, Total Fit Keto Gummies or other products. It is a fact that no celebrities have ever endorsed keto gummies that are purportedly intended for use in weight loss. Websites that promote sales of keto gummies for weight loss usually lack information about the true creators of the products and the source of where they were packaged. In the past, some consumers who fell victim to these scams told Snopes that the post office box numbers included in return addresses for the products don't exist. The rabbit hole for keto gummies goes even deeper, however. Two odd scenarios have been laid out by numerous victims of the scams, which usually involve monthly subscription fees often reported as being around $200 or more, or around $2,400 per year. Some consumers said that they never ordered the products but kept receiving shipments that they had no way of returning, due to fake return addresses. On the flip side, other customers said that they received charges for the products on their credit card statements despite never having ordered them, and then never received any products in the mail. Further, listings for keto gummies for weight loss on Amazon.com and Walmart.com often feature the words "Shark" and "Tank," although not consecutively as "Shark Tank." The two words are included in product listings on Amazon.com and Walmart.com so that any customers searching online for keto gummies with the words "Shark Tank" after those same customers saw false claims that said the TV show's investors endorsed the products would then fall victim to the scam and purchase the products based on the "Shark Tank" lie. Again, to be clear, no investors associated with "Shark Tank" ever endorsed gummies. false claims If any readers have been victimized by these scams, we recommend contacting your credit card company immediately, reporting fraud to the FTC and also searching the U.S. Better Business Bureau's (BBB) website to perform a search for the product name associated with the purchase on your account or the product that arrived at your doorstep, so that you can find the company or LLC connected with the scam. reporting fraud to the FTC website Liles, Jordan. Shark Tank Keto Gummies Weight Loss Reviews Are a Scam. Snopes, 14 Mar. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shark-tank-keto-gummies-weight-loss-reviews/. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD910 | 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: When these [undocumented] students graduate from college, they're still illegal aliens. They cannot get a job.
contextual information: As a result of a decision last year by the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, students who are in the state illegally who graduate from Rhode Island high schools are eligible for the in-state tuition rate if they decide to go to a state college or university. The ruling sparked a furor among advocates of strict enforcement of immigration laws.Two bills --one that would reverse the boards decisionandone that would make the policy state law-- were the subject of an April 24, 2012, hearing before the House Committee on Finance.William T. Terry Gorman, executive director ofRhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement, argued for reversing the regents policy, saying the state would be subsidizing a college education for people who aren't employable because they are in the country illegally.Please keep in mind that these students, when they're attending high school, they're illegal aliens. When they graduate, they're illegal aliens. When they enter college, they're illegal aliens. Because of that status, they're not allowed to get a job to help pay their way through college. They're not allowed to get a driver's license to drive back and forth to college. And when we've provided them that four years of in-state tuition, they're not allowed to get a job, Gorman said. They can't get a job at Textron, they can't get a job at CVS, they can't get a job at Gilbane, they can't get a job at Dunkin Donuts, and they can't get a job at Burger King because of their status. And we provided them with four years of a college education.He again emphasized that point later in the hearing: When these students graduate from college, they're still illegal aliens. They cannot get a job. How does that help the economy?One could argue that it's good to have the state's smartest students -- whether legal or illegal -- move into the Rhode Island work force.But will those undocumented college grads really end up unemployed anyway?We were particularly curious because three of the 12 states that have passed laws to provide in-state tuition for undocumented high school graduates -- California, New Mexico and Texas -- are places where the illegal immigration issue is particularly prominent, thanks to their borders with Mexico.Are those states doing something different, allowing companies to tap the best-educated, motivated undocumented residents?The answer is no, saidLaura Vazquez, a legislative analyst for theNational Council of La Raza, a Washington, D.C.-based Latino civil rights and advocacy organization. She said the situation is the same throughout the United States. When they graduate, we don't get the benefit of having this educated group of people who are eager and ready to contribute fully.They do find work. Some of them are working under the table under poor conditions. Some work for family. A number of students go to law school or enroll in Ph.D. programs, she said. But companies can't hire them because the government requires that all workers be checked for employment eligibility.Graduates could seek employment overseas, but a lot of these kids feel American through and through and want to practice their skills here, Vazquez said. And if they were to leave the country to take an overseas job they won't be allowed back in for a long time. Immigration law says, in general, if you've been in the United States illegally for more than one year after reaching age 18, once you leave the country you are banned from reentering for 10 years.In a few cases, undocumented people who have been scheduled for deportation have gotten a waiver from the Department of Homeland Security, which allows them to seek a work permit. But the DHS is very stingy with it, she said.Other immigration experts told us the same thing: Gorman is essentially correct.It is true that undocumented college graduates are legally barred from working. The only exception is in rare cases they have been able to obtain contract work provided there is no employer/employee relationship, said Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Los Angeles.Gorman sent us a link toa Huffington Post storyabout Iliana Guadalupe Perez, a mathematician and undocumented immigrant, who has writtena free online guidedetailing how undocumented college graduates can find work. Her advice was also to seek work as an independent contractor where proof of citizenship isn't required.When we asked Gorman what was going on in the border states, he suggested that graduates may be able to get jobs because enforcement was lax. He said a source in San Diego reported that immigration officials are not checking on hardly anything regarding illegal aliens here right now, least of all the status of recent college grads applying for jobs. She said the governor just authorized state scholarships for the illegal alien students.I also spoke with Jim Gilchrist from theMinuteman Projectand he echoed basically the same sentiments. He did say there has been more employer audits by ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] but not of the type that would be looking for illegal alien college grads, Gorman said in an e-mail. (The Minuteman Project pushes for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. )I also spoke with the Policy Director of The Center for Immigration Studies and she said she has never heard of any enforcement efforts in Texas or California regarding illegal alien college grads, said Gorman. The center is a research group that opposes illegal immigration and wants less legal immigration into the United States.However, given the strictness of the law, a special effort to focus on college graduates may not be necessary.Michael Olivas, director of the Institute of Higher Education Law & Governance at the University of Houston, said the why-give-them-a-tuition-break-when-they-can't-get-a-job argument is a diversion from the real problem: children brought to the United States, sometimes at a very young age, are left in this netherworld where they can neither work nor be licensed once they become adults.And when their inability to find work is used to try to prevent them from being eligible for the same in-state educational opportunities as their peers, its the worst kind of misdirection. It's hiding the larger issue, said Olivas, a proponent of the federal DREAM Act, which would give such students a path to citizenship.Our rulingTerry Gorman, during testimony on the question of whether to let Rhode Island's undocumented high school graduates take advantage of in-state tuition rates, said, When these students graduate from college, they're still illegal aliens. They cannot get a job.The experts we spoke with said he's generally correct, although they can, in a few cases, be hired as independent contractors.Over all, we rate the claim asTrue. (Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.) | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD911 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: mothers. fathers. Disapproving elders. Parents who warn about regrets. Others whose financial limits were a statement of their values. A week ago, I asked you to send me the best questions you’ve ever asked, or answered, about money, and published seven queries to start the conversation. Of the five best new ones that arrived in the last week, every one came with a story about a parent like the ones described above. This shouldn’t come as an enormous surprise. After all, what we spend, save and give says a lot about who we are. Value and values are just a letter apart, and given how much influence our parents often have on the latter, it makes perfect sense that we think of them when we ponder our financial situations as well. So consider the following five questions, or adapt them to your own financial forks in the road as needed. And if your parents are alive, ask them, too, though you may already know what they will say. Where are we staying in Florida? When Jan Even was in second grade in River Forest, Ill. many of her classmates discussed their pending spring break plans. Some were going to Fort Lauderdale. Others were headed to Sarasota. “I just kind of thought that we were going, too, and that my parents hadn’t told me yet,†she recalled. But they weren’t going, and when she asked about the family’s destination, here’s how her mother replied: It’s more important for you to be able to go to college at age 18 than it is for us to go to Florida now. Ms. Even’s family had enough money that this wasn’t a so much as a conscious choice. Both her parents grew up during the Depression, and her mother told stories of people coming to the back door of their farmhouse looking for food and Ms. Even’s grandmother feeding them dinner. Children make many assumptions about their lives and the lives of others based on where we choose to raise them. So you can’t fault Ms. Even, who is now 66 and lives in Redmond, Ore. for wondering aloud when she was young. Nor can you fault her parents for enforcing a bit of artificial deprivation. “Maybe they really were concerned about the money, but I think it was more an expression of their values,†she said. They did eventually take her to Florida — but not until senior year in high school, when the college fund was safe and she was six months away from starting at Northwestern University. Can you accept the fact that we can’t live the same life that you do? Plenty of parents hope that their children will climb at least one rung up the social class ladder once they are adults, and many more will fight hard to keep their children from slipping even a bit. So it can be jarring for parents when their adult children don’t strive for the same things they do. A reader in Baton Rouge, La. who did not want to use her name because she didn’t think her relatives would appreciate her sharing the story publicly, wrote in to describe the pressure she and her husband once felt to buy and spend and own and live the way that other, more established family members did. They ran up credit card debt before realizing they couldn’t keep up and didn’t really want to, either. Then, they had to gently explain to their family how they felt. “Sometimes, I think it’s easier to talk about sex with your parents than money,†she told me via email. “We choose a simple life. Experiences over possessions. †Her note reminded me of one of the most haunting things I’ve ever read about families and money. In her book “A Wealth of Possibilities,†Ellen Miley Perry described the “centrifugal force†of abundance that swirls around financially successful families. And she described an acquaintance who summed up her relationship with her father this way: “He can’t accept the smallness of my dreams. †What would you do if you weren’t afraid? In 2001, Daniel L. Anderson and his family were living in Reno, Nev. and loving the easy access to the outdoors, the low cost of living and the good schools. But he was slowly growing bored with his real estate job. He posted his résumé online and soon had a promising job offer in Houston. He also sought advice from his old mentor, who eventually offered him a different job in San Francisco, and then put that pointed question to Mr. Anderson when he wavered. The Houston company had a reputation as a terrific place to work. The word on the San Francisco employer was much more mixed. “His question caused me to my situation to make sure I wasn’t doing what was easy and comfortable,†Mr. Anderson recalled, adding that he had to get over a bit of macho denial about his own fear before he could really think it through. There were also the stories his mother told him about all of her retired friends who talked about their regrets over the roads not taken. “I did not want to be that person,†he said. Which is how he ended up moving to Walnut Creek, Calif. where his family thrived. And how he turned down the attractive offer from a company called Enron. What good is having a lot in the bank if you’ve never let yourself live? Lisa and Janice Woolery both grew up in families that didn’t have much money, and in their life together as a couple, they have been fairly careful. There is no mortgage on their home in Des Moines, and they’ve saved money for retirement. “But when you do some of those rather extensive retirement planning programs online, you just feel defeated,†Lisa said. “You start saying, ‘I’m going to die someday, and I want to live in a way that lets me do things that I have been putting off. ’†For the two of them, both 55, that means travel of the sort that might have felt fiscally irresponsible in previous years. New Zealand is high on their list. In an interview this week, I asked Lisa whether they’d been able to answer their big question in a way that had allowed them to put a trip like that on the calendar. “Not in the next year or two, yet,†she said. “But. †Then a long pause. “It’s a … †Then a deep sigh. “The safe answer is the answer I know to use,†she said finally. “Low to no risk. But at what point do you say that low to no risk isn’t living?†As I was writing this column, she followed up with an email. They’d booked a couples getaway to San Francisco, a place that holds fond memories for them from travel earlier in their relationship. It’s a good start. What is the most satisfying thing you’ve spent money on? By the time she’d scraped her way through college and graduate school, Trudelle Thomas recognized that she had inherited some heavy generational baggage from the Great Depression. So Ms. Thomas, an English professor at Xavier University, went to work on herself to see if she could derive more joy from the money that she chose to spend. When she finally persuaded herself to buy a new car, she didn’t draw much additional satisfaction from it. Nice meals out were often unhealthy and expensive. What she enjoyed much more, however, was the money she spent on and with others. She tithes and has contributed to the National Alliance on Mental Illness for a long enough period to feel as if she has been part of important policy changes. Another regular habit: taking her students, many of whom could not afford it, out for lunch in the campus cafeteria. And a few years ago, she took a niece, who otherwise might not have been able to travel, on a trip to California. She liked to dote on people, as she put it, and she reminded me that “thrive†is the root word of thrift. “My niece could think of me as her rich aunt,†she said. “But I want her to think of me as her thrifty aunt who splurges on her. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD912 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Editor's note: This has been updated at 1:25 p.m. ET Friday with additional fact-checking information.
Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for president Thursday night, delivering a speech that lays out her plan to address terrorist threats and create jobs.
NPR's politics team annotated Clinton's speech below. Portions commented on are highlighted, followed by analysis, context and fact check in italics.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all so so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you for that amazing welcome. Thank you all for the great convention that we've had.
And Chelsea, thank you.
I'm so proud to be your mother and so proud of the woman you've become.
Thank you for bringing Marc into our family, and Charlotte and Aidan into the world.
And Bill, that conversation we started in the law library 45 years ago, it is still going strong.
You know, that conversation has lasted through good times that filled us with joy, and hard times that tested us.
And I've even gotten a few words in along the way.
On Tuesday night, I was so happy to see that my explainer-in-chief is still on the job.
I'm also grateful to the rest of my family and to the friends of a lifetime.
For all of you whose hard work brought us here tonight, and to those of you who joined this campaign this week. Thank you.
What a remarkable week it's been.
We heard the man from Hope, Bill Clinton.
And the man of Hope, Barack Obama.
America is stronger because of President Obama's leadership, and I'm better because of his friendship.
We heard from our terrific vice president, the one and only Joe Biden. He spoke from his big heart about our party's commitment to working people, as only he can do.
And first lady Michelle Obama reminded us that our children are watching, and the president we elect is going to be their president, too.
And for those of you out there who are just getting to know Tim Kaine — you will soon understand why the people of Virginia keep promoting him: from city council and mayor, to governor, and now senator.
And he will make the whole country proud as our vice president.
And ... I want to thank Bernie Sanders.
Bernie, Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary.
You've put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong.
And to all of your supporters here and around the country: I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause.
Our country needs your ideas, energy and passion.
That is the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America.
We wrote it together — now let's go out and make it happen together.
My friends, we've come to Philadelphia — the birthplace of our nation — because what happened in this city 240 years ago still has something to teach us today.
We all know the story. But we usually focus on how it turned out — and not enough on how close that story came to never being written at all.
When representatives from 13 unruly colonies met just down the road from here, some wanted to stick with the king. And some wanted to stick it to the king.
The revolution hung in the balance.
Then somehow, they began listening to each other, compromising, finding common purpose.
And by the time they left Philadelphia, they had begun to see themselves as one nation.
That's what made it possible to stand up to a king.
That took courage. They had courage.
Our Founders embraced the enduring truth that we are stronger together.
Now, now America is once again at a moment of reckoning. Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying.
And just as with our founders, there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we all will work together so we can all rise together.
Our country's motto is "e pluribus unum": out of many, we are one. Will we stay true to that motto?
Well, we heard Donald Trump's answer last week at his convention. He wants to divide us from the rest of the world, and from each other.
He's betting that the perils of today's world will blind us to its unlimited promise. He's taken the Republican Party a long way from "Morning in America" to "Midnight in America." He wants us to fear the future and fear each other.
Well, you know, a great Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came up with the perfect rebuke to Trump more than 80 years ago, during a much more perilous time: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Now we are clear-eyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have. We will not build a wall. Instead, we will build an economy where everyone who wants a good job can get one.
And we'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy!
We, we will not ban a religion. We will work with all Americans and our allies to fight and defeat terrorism.
There's a lot of work to do.
Too many people haven't had a pay raise since the crash.
There's too much inequality. Too little social mobility. Too much paralysis in Washington. Too many threats at home and abroad.
But just look for a minute at the strengths we bring as Americans to meet these challenges. We have the most dynamic and diverse people in the world. We have the most tolerant and generous young people we've ever had. We have the most powerful military. The most innovative entrepreneurs. The most enduring values: freedom and equality, justice and opportunity.
We should be so proud that those words are associated with us. I have to tell you, as your secretary of state, I went to 112 countries. When people hear those words, they hear America.
So don't let anyone tell you that our country is weak. We're not.
Don't let anyone tell you we don't have what it takes. We do.
And most of all, don't believe anyone who says, "I alone can fix it."
Yes, those were actually Donald Trump's words in Cleveland. And they should set off alarm bells for all of us.
Really? I alone can fix it? Isn't he forgetting?
Troops on the front lines. Police officers and firefighters who run toward danger. Doctors and nurses who care for us. Teachers who change lives. Entrepreneurs who see possibilities in every problem. Mothers who lost children to violence and are building a movement to keep other kids safe.
He's forgetting every last one of us.
Americans don't say, "I alone can fix it." We say, "We'll fix it together."
And remember, remember: Our Founders fought a revolution and wrote a Constitution so America would never be a nation where one person had all the power. Two-hundred-and-forty years later, we still put our faith in each other.
Look at what happened in Dallas after the assassinations of five brave police officers. Police Chief David Brown asked the community to support his force, maybe even join them.
And you know how the community responded? Nearly 500 people applied in just 12 days.
That's how Americans answer when the call for help goes out.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book called It Takes a Village. And a lot of people looked at the title and asked, "What the heck do you mean by that?"
This is what I mean. None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community or lift a country totally alone.
America needs every one of us to lend our energy, our talents, our ambition to making our nation better and stronger. I believe that with all my heart.
That's why "Stronger Together" is not just a lesson from our history. It's not just a slogan for our campaign.
It's a guiding principle for the country we've always been and the future we're going to build.
A country where the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top. Where you can get a good job and send your kids to a good school, no matter what zip code you live in.
A country where all our children can dream, and those dreams are within reach. Where families are strong, communities are safe, and yes, where love trumps hate.
That's the country we're fighting for. That's the future we're working toward. And so, my friends, it is with humility, determination and boundless confidence in America's promise that I accept your nomination for president of the United States!
Now, sometimes, sometimes the people at this podium are new to the national stage.
As you know, I'm not one of those people.
I've been your First Lady, served eight years as a senator from the great state of New York.
Then I represented all of you as secretary of state.
But my job titles only tell you what I've done.
They don't tell you why.
The truth is, through all these years of public service, the "service" part has always come easier to me than the "public" part.
I get it that some people just don't know what to make of me. So let me tell you.
The family I'm from, well, no one had their name on big buildings. My family were builders of a different kind. Builders in the way most American families are.
They used whatever tools they had — whatever God gave them — and whatever life in America provided — and built better lives and better futures for their kids.
My grandfather worked in the same Scranton lace mill for 50 years. Because he believed that if he gave everything he had, his children would have a better life than he did. And he was right.
My dad, Hugh, made it to college. He played football at Penn State and enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor.
When the war was over, he started his own small business, printing fabric for draperies. I remember watching him stand for hours over silk screens.
He wanted to give my brothers and me opportunities he never had. And he did.
My mother, Dorothy, was abandoned by her parents as a young girl. She
ended up on her own at 14, working as a housemaid. She was saved by the kindness of others.
Her first-grade teacher saw she had nothing to eat at lunch and brought extra food to share the entire year. The lesson she passed on to me, years later, stuck with me: No one gets through life alone. We have to look out for each other and lift each other up.
And she made sure I learned the words from our Methodist faith: "Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can."
So, I went to work for the Children's Defense Fund, going door-to-door in New Bedford, Mass., on behalf of children with disabilities who were denied the chance to go to school.
I remember meeting a young girl in a wheelchair on the small back porch of her house. She told me how badly she wanted to go to school — it just didn't seem possible in those days. And I couldn't stop thinking of my mother and what she'd gone through as a child.
It became clear to me that simply caring is not enough. To drive real progress, you have to change both hearts and laws. You need both understanding and action.
So we gathered facts. We built a coalition. And our work helped convince Congress to ensure access to education for all students with disabilities.
It's a big idea, isn't it? Every kid with a disability has the right to go to school.
But how, how do you make an idea like that real? You do it step-by-step, year-by-year, sometimes even door-by-door.
My heart just swelled when I saw Anastasia Somoza representing millions of young people on this stage — because we changed our law to make sure she got an education.
So it's true. I sweat the details of policy — whether we're talking about the exact level of lead in the drinking water in Flint, Mich., the number of mental health facilities in Iowa, or the cost of your prescription drugs.
Because it's not just a detail if it's your kid — if it's your family. It's a big deal. And it should be a big deal to your president, too.
After the four days of this convention, you've seen some of the people who've inspired me. People who let me into their lives, and became a part of mine.
People like Ryan Moore and Lauren Manning. They told their stories Tuesday night.
I first met Ryan as a 7-year-old. He was wearing a full body brace that must have weighed 40 pounds, because I leaned over to lift him up.
Children like Ryan kept me going when our plan for universal health care failed and kept me working with leaders of both parties to help create the Children's Health Insurance Program that covers 8 million kids in our country.
Lauren Manning, who stood here with such grace and power, was gravely injured on 9/11. It was the thought of her, and Debbie St. John who you saw in the movie, and John Dolan and Joe Sweeney, and all the victims and survivors, that kept me working as hard as I could in the Senate on behalf of 9/11 families, and our first responders who got sick from their time at Ground Zero.
I was thinking of Lauren, Debbie and all the others 10 years later in the White House Situation Room when President Obama made the courageous decision that finally brought Osama bin Laden to justice.
And in this campaign, I've met many more people who motivate me to keep fighting for change. And, with your help, I will carry all of your voices and stories with me to the White House.
And you heard, you heard from, from Republicans and Independents who are supporting our campaign. Well, I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans and independents, for the struggling, the striving, the successful, for all those who vote for me and for those who don't. For all Americans together.
Tonight, tonight we've reached a milestone in our nation's march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president.
Standing here, standing here as my mother's daughter, and my daughter's mother, I'm so happy this day has come.
I'm happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between.
I'm happy for boys and men, too — because when any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone. After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit.
So let's keep going, let's keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have.
But even more important than the history we make tonight, is the history we will write together in the years ahead.
Let's begin with what we're going to do to help working people in our country get ahead and stay ahead.
Now, I don't think President Obama and Vice President Biden get the credit they deserve for saving us from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes.
Our economy is so much stronger than when they took office. Nearly 15 million new private-sector jobs. Twenty million more Americans with health insurance. And an auto industry that just had its best year ever.
Now that's real progress, but none of us can be satisfied with the status quo. Not by a long shot.
We're still facing deep-seated problems that developed long before the recession and have stayed with us through the recovery.
I've gone around our country talking to working families. And I've heard from many who feel like the economy sure isn't working for them.
Some of you are frustrated — even furious. And you know what? You're right. It's not yet working the way it should.
Americans are willing to work — and work hard. But right now, an awful lot of people feel there is less and less respect for the work they do. And less respect for them, period.
Democrats, we are the party of working people. But we haven't done a good enough job showing we get what you're going through, and we're going to do something to help.
So tonight I want to tell you tonight how we will empower Americans to live better lives.
My primary mission as president will be to create more opportunity and more good jobs with rising wages right here in the United States. From my first day in office to my last, especially in places that for too long have been left out and left behind.
From our inner cities to our small towns, from Indian Country to Coal Country. From communities ravaged by addiction to regions hollowed out by plant closures.
And here's what I believe. I believe America thrives when the middle class thrives. I believe that our economy isn't working the way it should because our democracy isn't working the way it should.
That's why we need to appoint Supreme Court justices who will get money out of politics and expand voting rights, not restrict them.
And if necessary, we will pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
I believe American corporations that have gotten so much from our country should be just as patriotic in return. Many of them are. But too many aren't. It's wrong to take tax breaks with one hand and give out pink slips with the other.
And I believe Wall Street can never, ever be allowed to wreck Main Street again.
And I believe in science. I believe climate change is real and that we can save our planet while creating millions of good-paying clean energy jobs.
I believe that when we have millions of hardworking immigrants contributing to our economy, it would be self-defeating and inhumane to try to kick them out.
Comprehensive immigration reform will grow our economy and keep families together — and it's the right thing to do.
So, whatever party you belong to, or if you belong to no party at all, if you share these beliefs, this is your campaign.
If you believe that companies should share profits with their workers, not pad executive bonuses, join us.
If you believe the minimum wage should be a living wage, and no one working full time should have to raise their children in poverty, join us.
If you believe that every man, woman and child in America has the right to affordable health care, join us.
If you believe that we should say "no" to unfair trade deals, that we should stand up to China, that we should support our steelworkers and autoworkers and homegrown manufacturers, then join us.
If you believe we should expand Social Security and protect a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, then join us.
And yes, yes, if you believe that your working mother, wife, sister or daughter deserves equal pay, join us.
That's how we're going to sure this economy works for everyone, not just those at the top.
Now, you didn't hear any of this, did you, from Donald Trump at his convention. He spoke for 70-odd minutes — and I do mean odd.
And he offered zero solutions.
But we already know he doesn't believe these things. No wonder he doesn't like talking about his plans. You might have noticed, I love talking about mine.
In my first hundred days, we will work with both parties to pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II. Jobs in manufacturing, clean energy, technology and innovation, small business, and infrastructure.
If we invest in infrastructure now, we'll not only create jobs today, but lay the foundation for the jobs of the future.
And we will also transform the way we prepare our young people for those jobs.
Bernie Sanders and I will work together to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for all!
We will also, we will also liberate millions of people who already have student debt.
It's just not right that Donald Trump can ignore his debts, and students and families can't refinance their debts.
And something we don't say often enough: Sure, college is crucial, but a four-year degree should not be the only path to a good job.
We will help more people learn a skill or practice a trade and make a good living doing it.
We will give small businesses like my dad's a boost. Make it easier to get credit. Way too many dreams die in the parking lots of banks.
In America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it.
And we will help you balance family and work. And you know what, if fighting for affordable child care and paid family leave is playing the "woman card," then deal me in.
Now, here's the other thing, we're not only going to make all these investments, we're going to pay for every single one of them.
And here's how: Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes.
This is not because we resent success, because when more than 90 percent of the gains have gone to the top 1 percent, that's where the money is, and we are going to follow the money.
And if companies take tax breaks and then ship jobs overseas, we'll make them pay us back. And we'll put that money to work where it belongs, creating jobs here at home!
Now, now I imagine some of you are sitting at home thinking, well, that all sounds pretty good. But how are you going to get it done? How are you going to break through the gridlock in Washington?
Well, look at my record. I've worked across the aisle to pass laws and treaties and to launch new programs that help millions of people. And if you give me the chance, that's what I'll do as president.
But then I also imagine people are thinking out there, but Trump, he's a businessman. He must know something about the economy.
Well, let's take a closer look.
In Atlantic City, 60 miles from here, you will find contractors and small businesses who lost everything because Donald Trump refused to pay his bills.
Now, remember what the president said last night: "Don't boo, vote." People who did the work and needed the money, and didn't get it — not because he couldn't pay them, but because he wouldn't pay them. He just stiffed them.
And you know that sales pitch he's making to be president? Put your faith in him — and you'll win big? That's the same sales pitch he made to all those small businesses. Then Trump walked away, and left working people holding the bag.
He also talks a big game about putting America first. Well, please explain what part of "America First" leads him to make Trump ties in China, not Colorado. Trump suits in Mexico, not Michigan. Trump furniture in Turkey, not Ohio. Trump picture frames in India, not Wisconsin.
Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again — well, he could start by actually making things in America again.
Now, the choice we face in this election is just as stark when it comes to our national security.
You know, anyone, anyone reading the news can see the threats and turbulence we face.
From Baghdad to Kabul, to Nice and Paris and Brussels, from San Bernardino to Orlando, we're dealing with determined enemies that must be defeated.
So, it's no wonder that people are anxious and looking for reassurance. Looking for steady leadership, wanting a leader who understands we are stronger when we work with our allies around the world and care for our veterans here at home. Keeping our nation safe and honoring the people who do that work will be my highest priority.
I'm proud that we put a lid on Iran's nuclear program without firing a single shot — now we have to enforce it. And we must keep supporting Israel's security.
I'm proud that we shaped a global climate agreement — now we have to hold every country accountable to their commitments, including ourselves.
And I'm proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia.
I've laid out my strategy for defeating ISIS. We will strike their sanctuaries from the air, and support local forces taking them out on the ground. We will surge our intelligence so that we detect and prevent attacks before they happen.
We will disrupt their efforts online to reach and radicalize young people in our country.
It won't be easy or quick, but make no mistake — we will prevail.
Now Donald Trump, Donald Trump says, and this is a quote, "I know more about ISIS than the generals do." No, Donald, you don't.
He thinks, he thinks that he knows more than our military because he claimed our armed forces are "a disaster."
Well, I've had the privilege to work closely with our troops and our veterans for many years, including as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, and I know how wrong he is. Our military is a national treasure.
We entrust our commander in chief to make the hardest decisions our nation faces, decisions about war and peace, life and death.
A president should respect the men and women who risk their lives to serve our country — including Captain Khan and the sons of Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, both Marines.
So just ask yourself: Do you really think Donald Trump has the temperament to be commander in chief?
Donald Trump can't even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign. He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he's gotten a tough question from a reporter. When he's challenged in a debate. When he sees a protester at a rally.
Imagine, if you dare, imagine, imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.
I can't put it, I can't put it any better than Jackie Kennedy did after the Cuban Missile Crisis. She said that what worried President Kennedy during that very dangerous time was that a war might be started, not by big men with self-control and restraint, but by little men — the ones moved by fear and pride.
America's strength doesn't come from lashing out. It relies on smarts, judgment, cool resolve, and the precise and strategic application of power. And that's the kind of commander in chief I pledge to be.
And if we're serious about keeping our country safe, we also can't afford to have a president who's in the pocket of the gun lobby.
I'm not here to repeal the Second Amendment. I'm not here to take away your guns. I just don't want you to be shot by someone who shouldn't have a gun in the first place.
We will work tirelessly with responsible gun owners to pass common-sense reforms and keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and all others who would do us harm.
You know, for decades, people have said this issue was too hard to solve and the politics too hot to touch. But I ask you: How can we just stand by and do nothing?
You heard, you saw, family members of people killed by gun violence on this stage.
You heard, you saw, family members of police officers killed in the line of duty because they were outgunned by criminals.
I refuse to believe we can't find common ground here.
We have to heal the divides in our country. Not just on guns. But on race. Immigration. And more.
And that starts with listening, listening to each other. Trying, as best we can, to walk in each other's shoes.
So let's put ourselves in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable.
Let's put ourselves in the shoes of police officers, kissing their kids and spouses goodbye every day, heading off to do a dangerous and necessary job.
We will reform our criminal justice system from end to end and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
And we will defend, we will defend all our rights — civil rights, human rights and voting rights, women's rights and workers' rights, LGBT rights and the rights of people with disabilities!
And we will stand up against mean and divisive rhetoric wherever it comes from.
You know, for the past year, many people made the mistake of laughing off Donald Trump's comments — excusing him as an entertainer just putting on a show.
They thought he couldn't possibly mean all the horrible things he says — like when he called women "pigs." Or said that an American judge couldn't be fair because of his Mexican heritage.
Or when he mocks and mimics a reporter with a disability. Or insults prisoners of war like John McCain — a true hero and patriot who deserves our respect.
Now, at first, at first, I admit, I couldn't believe he meant it either. It was just too hard to fathom — that someone who wants to lead our nation could say those things. Could be like that.
But here's the sad truth: There is no other Donald Trump. This is it.
And in the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn't get: that America is great — because America is good.
So enough with the bigotry and bombast. Donald Trump's not offering real change.
He's offering empty promises. And what are we offering? A bold agenda to improve the lives of people across our country — to keep you safe, to get you good jobs, and to give your kids the opportunities they deserve.
The choice is clear, my friends.
Every generation of Americans has come together to make our country freer, fairer and stronger.
None of us ever have or can do it alone.
I know that at a time when so much seems to be pulling us apart, it can be hard to imagine how we'll ever pull together.
But I'm here to tell you tonight — progress is possible.
I know, I know because I've seen it in the lives of people across America who get knocked down and get right back up.
And I know it, I know it from my own life. More than a few times, I've had to pick myself up and get back in the game.
Like so much else in my life, I got this from my mother too. She never let me back down from any challenge. When I tried to hide from a neighborhood bully, she literally blocked the door. "Go back out there," she said.
And she was right. You have to stand up to bullies.
You have to keep working to make things better, even when the odds are long and the opposition is fierce.
We lost our mother a few years ago, but I miss her every day. And I still hear her voice urging me to keep working, keep fighting for right, no matter what.
That's what we need to do together as a nation.
Though "we may not live to see the glory," as the song from the musical Hamilton goes, "let us gladly join the fight."
Let our legacy be about "planting seeds in a garden you never get to see."
That's why we're here ... not just in this hall, but on this Earth.
The Founders showed us that. And so have many others since.
They were drawn together by love of country, and the selfless passion to build something better for all who follow.
That is the story of America. And we begin a new chapter tonight.
Yes, the world is watching what we do.
Yes, America's destiny is ours to choose.
So let's be stronger together, my fellow Americans.
Let's look to the future with courage and confidence.
Let's build a better tomorrow for our beloved children and our beloved country.
And when we do, America will be greater than ever.
Thank you, and may God bless you and the United States of America! | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD913 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Bernie Sanders finally endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday with a rousing speech to unite the party, and Donald Trump exploded in rage on Twitter.In a series of Twitter-tantrums, Trump attacked Sanders by claiming that he is selling out by getting behind the Democratic nominee. It took six posts before he tired himself out.Bernie Sanders, who has lost most of his leverage, has totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. He will endorse her today fans angry! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016 I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016#CrookedHillary is not qualified!https://t.co/6qi7KTW43O Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016 Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016Bernie sanders has abandoned his supporters by endorsing pro-war pro-TPP pro-Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016 To all the Bernie voters who want to stop bad trade deals & global special interests, we welcome you with open arms. People first. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016Of course, Trump had been hoping that Bernie would stay in the race because he wanted to see chaos at the Democratic National Convention, which would only help him. Now he s trying to persuade Sanders supporters to join his campaign.Well, Bernie Sanders only needed a single tweet to shut Trump down.Big talk from the same guy who was too afraid to debate Bernie in California. https://t.co/LVCjo0PKrN Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 12, 2016Indeed, Trump had agreed to debate Bernie but chickened out on two separate occasions after the Vermont Senator eagerly accepted Trump s condition that money be raised for charity to make the debate happen.But just because Bernie endorsed Hillary that does t mean he sold out. Hillary Clinton captured the most states and the most delegates. She won, but Bernie still is having a major impact on the party. He pulled Hillary further to the left and has gotten several of his policy goals written into the Democratic platform such as a $15 minimum wage.That s a huge victory that should make Sanders supporters very pleased. Jumping to Trump s campaign just because Sanders isn t the nominee is ridiculous because if Trump wins this country will only go backwards and all the progress Sanders has fought for will have zero chance of happening. At least with Hillary we could expect to see some of his proposals become reality, especially if Democrats retake the House and Senate.Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD914 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: As negotiations between Britain and the EU over Brexit get underway, a senior German politician has declared that a “European Army†is inevitable.[ Bartels, the parliamentary commissioner for the Armed Forces, insisted: “In the end, there will be a European Army. †Bartel alleged the system of national armies accountable to national governments was “disorganised, technically fragmented and duplicate structures unnecessarilyâ€. He claimed Europe’s peoples “do not want to go down the solitary national path anymore. Not in Germany, not in the Netherlands, not in the Czech Republic and not in Italy. †He added: “Every step in the right direction [towards an EU army] is important. †Bartel’s comments follow European Commission President Juncker announcing a European Defence Action Plan, amongst other measures to deepen EU military integration. In the very long run, we will need a European army. Because we have to be credible when it comes to foreign policy #wahlarena #withJuncker, — Juncker (@JunckerEU) May 20, 2014, Eurosceptic groups such as Veterans for Britain, which campaigned for Brexit under the chairmanship of Falklands War hero Major Julian Thompson, has repeatedly warned against the dangers of Britain becoming embroiled in these plans despite its formal departure from the bloc. Towards the end of 2016, Thompson warned that Government officials were signing Britain up to military integration schemes so ambitious that he considered it tantamount to “the UK joining the single currency in its last two years of EU membershipâ€. “The plans use all means at the EU’s disposal to encroach on every single area of UK defence planning,†he said. “Policy, procurement, funding, intelligence services, command structure and defence research are all appropriated by these EU plans. †Juncker has been binding the UK into clever and entangling military plans . UK gov has so far acquiesced. pic. twitter. — Veterans for Britain (@VeteransBritain) June 11, 2017, “British ministers have been creating a labyrinth from which we will need to escape,†said Veterans for Britain spokesman David Banks. “They have agreed to these vast EU plans while the UK is still obliged to comply as a and the Prime Minister will be given yet more to sign off on Thursday. “It is time for ministers to rein in these approvals and to allow MPs to discuss how much control the country wants to give away. Having left the EU we should be giving nothing away, but focusing on our NATO relationships with European partners instead. †Remember when they talk of â€European sovereignty†the UK has signed up to all EU defence agreements since . pic. twitter. — Veterans for Britain (@VeteransBritain) June 11, 2017, As recently as March 2017, the then French President François Hollande was insisting “the UK, even outside the EU, should be associated with [EU military integration]â€. Hollande protege and current President Emmanuel Macron is also an enthusiast for the process of unification. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD915 | 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: Obama's stance on the Debt Limit Claim summaries: In 2006, did Barack Obama speak out against raising the debt limit?
contextual information: Claim: In 2006, U.S. Senator Barack Obama spoke out against raising the U.S. government debt limit. Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2011] 'The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.' Origins: In 2006, while serving his first term as a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made the remarks attributed to him above during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit. The full text of his remarks in the Senate on 16 March 2006 are: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is "trillion" with a "T." That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion. Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America. And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies. But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to thecommonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again. Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit. The shortened quote now attributed to him is a verbatim capture of the opening and closing paragraphs of his remarks of 16 March 2006. (The Senate vote held later that day on a resolution to increase the debt limitpassed by a 52-48 margin, with Senator Obama voting against it.) passed President Obama has undergone a change of position regarding raising the debt limit. In a 15 April 2011 Good Morning America interview, President Obama said this of his reasons for doing so: Last updated: 7 October 2013 Congressional Record. "Remarks by Sen. Barack Obama." 16 March 2006. Farley, Robert. "Obama Says Reagan Raised Debt Ceiling 18 Times; George W. Bush 7 Times." St. Petersburg Times. 26 July 2011. Stephanopoulos, George. "President Obama One-on-One." Good Morning America. 15 April 2011. Werner, Erica. "WH: Obama Regrets Vote Against Raising Debt Limit." Associated Press. 11 April 2011. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD916 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: The market is making this decision. The market has driven down the cost of coal, so you have companies going bankrupt.
contextual information: Some coal country voters see Hillary Clinton as a threat, someone who would install regulations that would hurt rather than help the struggling coal industry. But Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, told CNNs Anderson Cooper that she thinks it's necessary to move away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy, and she wants to do what she can to help current coal mine workers make that transition. But the market is making this decision, she said May 4. The market has driven down the cost of coal, so you have companies going bankrupt. So what I'm offering is a $30 billion plan to really revitalize coal country, to provide support for coal miners and their families, and I think that is the least the country owes these brave people. Coal has historically been the countrys primary electricity generator. But several major coal companies have gone bankrupt in recent years, including Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Peabody Energy. We decided to dig into the question of how much of that change is due solely to market forces, rather than environmental regulation. We talked to coal industry experts who told us that the primary forces working against coal are market-based, notably the growth of natural gas as a cleaner, cheaper alternative. But now that coal is vulnerable, environmental regulations may seal coals demise. Coal has always been able to absorb new regulations, said Robert Godby, a professor and expert in energy economics at the University of Wyoming. But the impact natural gas has had since the fracking boom has been amazing to watch. He added: This would all still be happening regardless of regulations. Natural gas is eating coals lunch, and the coal companies made a bad bet on Chinese demand. Coalused to generateabout 50 percent of electricity in the United States, but now its down to about 30 percent. Just in the past couple years, natural gas has begun todisplacecoal. (In this Energy Information Administration chart, the grey line represents coal, and the orange line represents natural gas.) A recent boom inhydraulic fracturing(fracking) in the United States has dramatically increased the availability of natural gas. Natural gasprices are low, and it produces abouthalf as much carbon. Consequently, demand for natural gas is going up, and demand for coal is going down, and fast. While natural gas is the main threat, a growing demand and diminishing costs for renewable energy, like wind and solar power, also takes away from coal demand, said West Virginia University law professor Patrick McGinley. He added that on top of all this, its getting harder to produce cheap coal in the Appalachia region because a century of mining has depleted supply, and so the costs of mining new coal are going up. This is all a huge problem for coal, because electricity is about 90 percent of the coal market, said Andy Roberts, research director for global thermal coal markets at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. He said the trend is unlikely to reverse. But it was a big, failed bet on the international coal market that ultimately pushed companies to a point where they couldnt pay off their debts, forcing them to file for bankruptcy reorganization. About five years ago, the big coal companies Arch, Alpha and Peabody took out massive loans to invest in metallurgical coal, a type found in the Appalachia region. They thought fast-growing Asian countries, particularly China, would want the coal to facilitate economic development. But Chinas growth slowed, and the demand never materialized. The companies have been unable to pay back their debts on this project, and thats what sent them into bankruptcy, Godby said. Regulations may make electricity companies apprehensive about investing in coal down the line. This is the best way to think about how environmental regulations affect coal: If youre an electricity company considering building a new coal-powered plant or rehabilitating an outdated one, youre already on the fence about whether thats a good investment, because of the threat of natural gas. But then you remember you might have to face strict carbon emission limitations down the line, which convinces you to go with a natural gas plant instead of a coal plant. Take President Barack Obamas Clean Power Plan, a major initiative that would affect coal-powered plants by reducing carbon emissions. It isnt in effect yet, and it faces court hurdles. Even so, the uncertainty of what kinds of carbon limitations coal plants will face, and the possibility that they could be significant, has already reduced coal plant investment, Roberts said. So, investment in coal plants is now basically nil, Roberts said. And when the CPP begins in earnest in 2022, coal demand, already suffering, will more rapidly and inexorably decline. Similarly, the2015 Mercury and Air Toxics Standardsis a federal regulation that has had a significant impact on the coal industry and contributed to coal-powered plant closures. But its impossible to tell how much of the changes in the coal market can be attributed solely to the regulations, rather than the regulations plus the market forces. Multiple experts we asked said that so far, its primarily been the market putting pressure on coal. But looking toward the future, as coal becomes more vulnerable and environmental rules get bigger, regulations may play a larger role. Yes, as Secretary Clinton notes, the market is sorting this out, Roberts said. Competitive natural gas, the market, does indeed have something to do with that. But so do the CPP and federal subsidies for renewable generation. The combination of all these elements has been toxic for coal companies and lethal for those with too much debt. In reality, the market for coal is partially economic but increasingly regulatory. In October,Appalachian Power President Charles Patton saidcoal power wont be able to rebound with or without the Clean Power Plan the economics just dont make sense. Our ruling Clinton said, The market is making this decision. The market has driven down the cost of coal, so you have companies going bankrupt. Economic forces on both the national and international markets are the main reason coals prominence in the American energy sector is now vulnerable, forcing coal-burning plant closures and several high-profile bankruptcies. For a long time, coal has been impervious to government regulation. But more recently, regulations a non-economic force might be the straw that breaks the camels back, especially going forward now that coal is on shaky ground. Clintons claim is missing this important context, so we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD917 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump took power in January pledging to overhaul a global order that he said cheated middle-class Americans with a promise to tear up trade agreements and impose tariffs on China and Mexico. Some of Trump’s policy advisers named allies like Germany and Japan as possible targets for economic retaliation. Fast-forward almost 100 days into Trump’s presidency and the world’s most powerful finance officials, gathered in Washington for the International Monetary Fund spring meetings, have found an administration that is far from the disruptive force Trump promised. Although Trump did act on his campaign promise to tear up a 12-nation Pacific trade pact that had been the cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s Asian pivot, he has taken a much softer stance on other issues. He has refrained from pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, did not carry out a pledge to label China a currency cheat, and his administration has signaled the United States may stay in the Paris climate accord. Constraints being put on Trump by Congress and the courts on issues ranging from healthcare to immigration that would have filtered into the economy and the slow pace with which he is filling key administration jobs have played a role. And some foreign policy makers say they are still not sure who their counterparts are in the Trump administration. But these policy makers said that important initial decisions have been far more centrist than might have been expected. The European Union’s commissioner for economic and financial affairs, Pierre Moscovici, summed up a widely shared sentiment as he highlighted how two people at the top of Trump’s economic team | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD918 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The big scandal involving the Austrian Vice-Chancellor over his "Russian connections" starts to have repercussions in Austria as well as in the rest of Europe. As the European elections approach, the chances of success for the Vice Chancellor's party diminish. But it is already proven that the "niece of a Russian oligarch" in origin of the scandal was Latvian. What competent organization has set up this classic trap?
No one seriously associates Russia with the rise of the European nationalists and traditional conservatives from their marginal ghetto, nor their new popularity. This is the good old method of pointing to "Russian trace" by discrediting the "populists" by sending them so-called "Russians". The search for the "Russian trace" is a tradition of European public policy even older than cathedrals. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD919 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: 21st Century Wire says Washington s Russian witch hunt is now collapsing before our eyes. As host Patrick Henningsen revealed last Wednesday on ACR Radio, the supposedly damning information submitted by the FBI s private cyber security contractor Crowdstrike, of which the entire Russian Hack conspiracy theory hinges on is fraudulent. Here is a link to their primary invented piece of evidence included in the US Intelligence Assessment. This means that we were correct back on Nov 1st when we said the Russian Hack story was a hoax designed distract from the explosive contents on the DNC and Podesta email leaks, and also to bolster a failing Hillary Clinton campaign by discrediting Donald Trump as being somehow in league with the evil Russians.If they keep pressing this story, it will only hurt the credibility of a Democratic Party that still refuses to admit the abject failures and corruption within of their political organization.Now the question remains: how more millions in US taxpayer money will Hollywood s Congressman Adam Schiff, and ringleaders Lindsey Graham waste before they re done trying to look tough on Russia and Trump? Will they be held accountable by anyone?In the end, we discover that Schiff, Feinstein, Graham, McCain and so many others in Washington have done extreme damage to American interests, and in the long run to national security. Here s the story US Congressman and NeoMcCarthyite Adam Schiff has himself become a ridiculous-looking caricature as of late. Justin Raimondo Antiwar.comThe allegation now accepted as incontrovertible fact by the mainstream media that the Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National Committee (and John Podesta s emails) in an effort to help Donald Trump get elected recently suffered a blow from which it may not recover.Crowdstrike is the cybersecurity company hired by the DNC to determine who hacked their accounts: it took them a single day to determine the identity of the culprits it was, they said, two groups of hackers which they named Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, affiliated respectively with the GRU, which is Russian military intelligence, and the FSB, the Russian security service.How did they know this?These alleged hacker groups are not associated with any known individuals in any way connected to Russian intelligence: instead, they are identified by the tools they use, the times they do their dirty work, the nature of the targets, and other characteristics based on the history of past intrusions.Yet as Jeffrey Carr and other cyberwarfare experts have pointed out, this methodology is fatally flawed. It s important to know that the process of attributing an attack by a cybersecurity company has nothing to do with the scientific method, writes Carr: Claims of attribution aren t testable or repeatable because the hypothesis is never proven right or wrong. Neither are claims of attribution admissible in any criminal case, so those who make the claim don t have to abide by any rules of evidence (i.e., hearsay, relevance, admissibility). Likening attribution claims of hacking incidents by cybersecurity companies to intelligence assessments, Carr notes that, unlike government agencies such the CIA, these companies are never held to account for their misses: When it comes to cybersecurity estimates of attribution, no one holds the company that makes the claim accountable because there s no way to prove whether the assignment of attribution is true or false unless (1) there is a criminal conviction, (2) the hacker is caught in the act, or (3) a government employee leaked the evidence. This lack of accountability may be changing, however, because Crowdstrike s case for attributing the hacking of the DNC to the Russians is falling apart at the seams like a cheap sweater.To begin with, Crowdstrike initially gauged its certainty as to the identity of the hackers with medium confidence. However, a later development, announced in late December and touted by the Washington Post, boosted this to high confidence. The reason for this newfound near-certainty was their discovery that Fancy Bear had also infected an application used by the Ukrainian military to target separatist artillery in the Ukrainian civil war. As the Post reported: While CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC to investigate the intrusions and whose findings are described in a new report, had always suspected that one of the two hacker groups that struck the DNC was the GRU, Russia s military intelligence agency, it had only medium confidence. Now, said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch, we have high confidence it was a unit of the GRU. CrowdStrike had dubbed that unit Fancy Bear. Crowdstrike published an analysis that claimed a malware program supposedly unique to Fancy Bear, X-Agent, had infected a Ukrainian targeting application and, using GPS to geo-locate Ukrainian positions, had turned the application against the Ukrainians, resulting in huge losses: Between July and August 2014, Russian-backed forces launched some of the most-decisive attacks against Ukrainian forces, resulting in significant loss of life, weaponry and territory. Ukrainian artillery forces have lost over 50% of their weapons in the two years of conflict and over 80% of D-30 howitzers, the highest percentage of loss of any other artillery pieces in Ukraine s arsenal. Alperovitch told the PBS News Hour that Ukraine s artillery men were targeted by the same hackers, that we call Fancy Bear, that targeted DNC, but this time they were targeting cell phones to try to understand their location so that the Russian artillery forces can actually target them in the open battle. It was the same variant of the same malicious code that we had seen at the DNC. He told NBC News that this proved the DNC hacker wasn t a 400-pound guy in his bed, as Trump had opined during the first presidential debate it was the Russians.The only problem with this analysis is that is wasn t true. It turns out that Crowdstrike s estimate of Ukrainian losses was based on a blog post by a pro-Russian blogger eager to tout Ukrainian losses: the Ukrainians denied it. Furthermore, the hacking attribution was based on the hackers use of a malware program called X-Agent, supposedly unique to Fancy Bear. Since the target was the Ukrainian military, Crowdstrike extrapolated from this that the hackers were working for the Russians.All somewhat plausible, except for two things: To begin with, as Jeffrey Carr pointed out in December, and now others are beginning to realize, X-Agent isn t unique to Fancy Bear. Citing the findings of ESET, another cybersecurity company, he wrote: Unlike Crowdstrike, ESET doesn t assign APT28/Fancy Bear/Sednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone. In other words malware deployed is malware enjoyed! In fact, the source code for X-Agent, which was used in the DNC, Bundestag, and TV5Monde attacks, was obtained by ESET as part of their investigation! During our investigations, we were able to retrieve the complete Xagent source code for the Linux operating system . If ESET could do it, so can others. It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will. Secondly, the estimate Crowdstrike used to verify the Ukrainian losses was supposedly based on data from the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). But now IISS is disavowing and debunking their claims: [T]he International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told [Voice of America] that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened . The CrowdStrike report uses our data, but the inferences and analysis drawn from that data belong solely to the report s authors, the IISS said. The inference they make that reductions in Ukrainian D-30 artillery holdings between 2013 and 2016 were primarily the result of combat losses is not a conclusion that we have ever suggested ourselves, nor one we believe to be accurate. One of the IISS researchers who produced the data said that while the think tank had dramatically lowered its estimates of Ukrainian artillery assets and howitzers in 2013, it did so as part of a reassessment and reallocation of units to airborne forces. No, we have never attributed this reduction to combat losses, the IISS researcher said, explaining that most of the reallocation occurred prior to the two-year period that CrowdStrike cites in its report. The vast majority of the reduction actually occurs before Crimea/Donbass, he added, referring to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The definitive evidence cited by Alperovitch is now effectively debunked: indeed, it was debunked by Carr late last year, but that was ignored in the media s rush to prove the Russians hacked the DNC in order to further Trump s presidential ambitions. The exposure by the Voice of America of Crowdstrike s falsification of Ukrainian battlefield losses the supposedly solid proof of attributing the hack to the GRU is the final nail in Crowdstrike s coffin Continue this story at Antiwar.comREAD MORE RUSSIAN HACK NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russian Hack FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD920 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A black Cincinnati police officer is currently receiving backlash over a controversial Facebook post where he warned his African-American friends and family about white officers that may be targeting them because of their race.Officer Freddie Vincent had shared the message earlier this month, which instructed black people on what to do if they happen to get stopped by police. The post read: A message to all my Afro America friends and family. When you are encountered by a white officer make sure that you are in a public place, and comply to all of their commands, because they are looking for a reason to kill a black man. And always keep your hands in the air, and never resist. I m so tired of cops using these famous words I was in fear of my life. I m praying for Louisiana, that could have been my nephew in B.R. FacebookThis post was written after the high profile police brutality incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota, so it is perfectly understandable why those tragedies would be weighing on Vincent s heart and he would want to warn his loved ones of the dangers they might encounter. Vincent also had other posts on his Facebook account that addressed police brutality. One of them, posted on July 12, was an illustration on 10 rules of survival if stopped by the police. Vincent commented over the illustration: I can t promise you that this is 100% true, but it s about 85% to 95% and you just might make it home safely. Unfortunately, Vincent s post has landed him in hot water. According to Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac, Vincent s post is being reviewed to see if it falls within the department s social media procedure and our rules and regulations. In a statement, Isaac said: The Cincinnati Police Department strives to maintain a culture of professionalism, as well as transparency and accountability for our actions. I am proud of the work of the men and women of the Cincinnati Police Department and our efforts to work collaboratively with the community. We are aware of a recent post to a commonly used social media site by one of our officers that refers to an interpretation of a law enforcement officer s actions. The comments that were posted are under review as they relate to our Social Media procedure and our Rules and Regulations. A panel discussion was later held at New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn, where an audience asked Isaac if there was racism in the Cincinnati Police Department. Isaac responded: I don t think anyone can say there is not racism inside the department. Vincent s post may be even more prominent now, as we are seeing situations where black men are doing everything that police tell them to, and still being shot. Just earlier this week, unarmed black man Charles Kinsey was shot with his hands in the air while trying to take care of a patient with autism. Fortunately, Kinsey lived but many are not so lucky. Referencing Kinsey s incident, Bishop Bobby Hilton of Word of Deliverance Ministries and president of the local chapter of civil rights group National Action Network commented on this horrific incident: When there is a hint of this, that we have police officers who have this thought process about black men, these officers have to be dismissed. We are now seeing situations in Minnesota and Florida, where black men are doing what they are told by police putting their hands up, complying with all instructions and they are still shot. It s understandable why Vincent s posts have caused a stir, but to pretend that there wasn t some truth to what he was saying is ignorant. African Americans have been targeted and mistreated by police for far too long, and it is a situation that must be addressed.Featured image via Flickr | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD921 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Because the tragic drowning of this Muslim Syrian boy (who was not really facing persecution) is apparently infinitely more important to the Left than celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. But we already knew that Worse yet, is the fact that the family of the boy who drowned was not even escaping persecution. Unfortunately, the mainstream media neglected to tell the world that the boy s father was coming to Europe to get his teeth fixed. Click HERE for entire story. A church in Madrid has decided to recreate the nativity scene using the image of drowned Syrian child Aylan Kurdi to highlight the plight of migrants.The photo of the drowned toddler went viral in September, and as Breitbart London reported yesterday, helped change the tone of the debate around Europe s ongoing migrant crisis in favour of the refugees trope.Now The Local reports that a group called Mensajeros de la Paz (Messengers of Peace) have incorporated the image into a nativity scene at the San Anton church in the Chueca district of Madrid.The church already has an ultra-liberal reputation, allowing pets to attend Mass and streaming live-feeds on huge widescreen TVs. The faithful can also go to Confession via an iPad app.In the nativity scene, Aylan takes the place of the baby Jesus while his parents act as Mary and Joseph. The stable becomes a refugee tent, while the floor is a map of Europe with the main routes taken by migrants.It was designed by Spanish artist Ikella Alonso for Messengers of Peace, a charity founded by priest ngel Garc a Rodr guez in 1962 that has been dealing with the migrant crisis.The image has appeared throughout the media since September. Speaking on the its effectiveness, Dr Claire Wardle, research director at the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Colombia University, said: 2015 was the year the Syrian refugee crisis hit the European consciousness, but it s easy to forget that this was not the case before the Aylan Kurdi image. In April, over 700 refugees and migrants lost their lives when their boat capsized off Lampedusa. After one day of coverage, the story disappeared, despite the tragic loss of life. The photo of Aylan Kurdi galvanised the public in a way that hours of broadcasts and thousands of column inches wasn t able to do. It has created a frame through which subsequent coverage has been positioned and compared. Via: Breitbart News | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD922 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: New York is bracing for President Donald Trump’s first trip back to his hometown since taking office in January in a Thursday visit that is expected to draw protests and snarl traffic in the United States’ most populous city. The trip could mark a repeat of the chaotic 2-1/2 months between the real estate developer’s Nov. 8 election and Jan. 20 swearing-in, when crowds of protesters and admirers flocked outside his home in the gold-metal-clad Fifth Avenue Trump Tower. The early days of the Trump administration have brought aggressive rhetoric and moves to crack down on immigration as well as roll back environmental regulations, much of which has ruffled feathers in the liberal northeast city. Anti-Trump activists, some of whom have organized marches across the country since Trump’s stunning election victory, are planning loud protests to mark the native son’s return. “A very hot welcome is being planned for Mr. Trump,†said Alexis Danzig, a member of Rise and Resist, an informal group of activists which formed as Trump came to power. “We’ll be out in full force to voice our grievances.†Trump’s business dealings and romantic fallouts were constant city tabloid fodder in the 1980s and 1990s. His television show, “The Apprentice,†broadcast Trump to the world as the ultimate Big Apple dealmaker during the 2000s. While the Trump brand is internationally associated with New York, fewer than one in five city residents voted for him. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, have said his stance on immigrants has put him at odds with a city where nearly a third of residents are foreign-born. Protesters plan to gather Thursday near the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a decommissioned aircraft carrier where Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull are to have their first in-person meeting. One of the pair’s last exchanges was an acrimonious phone call in January. New York police declined to provide details of their preparations for Trump’s tour and the protests planned around it. One lingering issue from the transition period, that of the costs of protecting the president-elect’s building was resolved earlier this week in a proposed federal budget including $61 million to reimburse New York and other local governments for providing Trump-related security. “That’s good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge,†de Blasio said in a statement. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD923 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Rasmussen Polling wrote a commentary last year outlining ten factors that will determine who the next president will be. Among those was, of course, the candidates themselves and their rung mates, the state of the economy, the ongoing culture wars, and how vigorously the candidates fight in swing states. But one factor, which seems to have an influential and historical trend in elections, is the current president s approval rating. As Rasmussen found:Postwar history suggests that when a president has weak approval, his party pays a price in the next election. Harry Truman (1952), Lyndon Johnson (1968), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980), George H.W. Bush (1992), and George W. Bush (2008) all had mediocre-to-poor approval ratings, and the opposing party won all of those elections (defeating incumbents Ford, Carter, and H.W. Bush, and winning open-seat races in the others).When President Obama was elected in November 2008, George W. Bush s approval rating was a dismal 19 percent. In July 1992, when George H.W Bush was campaigning against Bill Clinton, his approval rating fell to a record low 29 percent.Well if this is a precedential factor that helps determine who the president will be, Democrats should be breathing a sigh of relief.A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows President Obama s approval rating is 51 percent, while his disapproval rating is 46 percent. The last time President Obama had the majority of approval from the country (in this poll), was during his second inauguration in January 2013.The numbers, NBC shows, could be beneficial to Hillary Clinton:The president s relative political strength could be a significant boon for Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 candidacy is largely focused on preserving key aspects of his Democratic policy-making.The poll shows that Clinton, despite her own high negative ratings as an individual candidate, could enjoy some other structural advantages as well in the 2016 contestAstoundingly, 54 percent of Independents (remember, President Obama lost Independents in 2012) approve of the job he s doing.That s good news for Democrats, who are relying on a large turnout of Independent voters to counter Donald Trump s right-wing populism.Similarly, Gallup Polling shows the president s approval rating stands at 52 percent, up two points from the previous week. The last time President Obama had an approval rating of 52 percent (according to their polling), was in February 2013.This is good news for Democrats. Clinton, who is well on the way of becoming the nominee, has made continuing the Obama legacy a staple in her campaign. That resounds well with Democrats and apparently should with Independents.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD924 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republican Donald Trump may have gotten it wrong when he said the moderator of the first U.S. presidential debate next week between him and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is a Democrat. NBC’s Lester Holt, who will moderate the debate on Monday, is registered as a Republican, according to voter information on the New York State Board of Elections website. NBC did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday about Holt’s party affiliation. Trump has said repeatedly the presidential debates will be stacked against him. He said on Fox News on Monday that Holt was a “professional†but that he was a Democrat, adding that the NBC News anchor may be under pressure after critics accused fellow NBC journalist Matt Lauer of giving Clinton tougher treatment than Trump during a recent forum on defense issues. “Look, it’s a phony system. Lester is a Democrat. I mean, they are all Democrats. OK? It’s a very unfair system,†Trump said on the show. Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News host conducting the interview, said two other debate moderators, ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper, were also Democrats. Cooper is registered in New York with no party affiliation, according to the state elections site, which CNN confirmed. ABC did not respond to a request for comment about Raddatz’s registration. The fourth presidential debate moderator, Chris Wallace of Fox News, is a registered Democrat in Washington, D.C., according to the District’s elections website. Wallace has said in interviews that he registered with the party so he could vote in primaries in the heavily Democratic District of Columbia. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD925 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ben Stein is on a Trump-bashing spree again, and it s even more amazing than before. Just a week after he blasted the Republican front runner s sheer idiocy in economics, Stein gave The Donald an epic tongue-lashing for his non-stop complaining about losing Colorado to his rival Ted Cruz.In an interview with Neil Cavuto on Tuesday afternoon, Stein didn t bother to mince his words as he condemned Trump for all of his whiny bitchiness after losing every single one of Colorado s delegates. Calling Trump a big sulking baby , Stein hilariously pointed out that it was Trump s own fault for not reading the state s rules on the delegate process.While Trump s campaign b*tched and moaned about the Gestapo tactics that had supposedly caused Trump to suffer such a humiliating loss, Stein insisted that nothing of the sort had happened. Colorado s delegates had not been stolen, the system was not crooked or rigged, or anything other sorry excuse that Trump is claiming. Trump just sucks, and wasn t smart enough to read the rules beforehand. Stein mocked the ignorant business mogul: He didn t have one paid staffer on the ground. I assume he knows how to read. He s supposed to be so rich. Can t he hire someone to read the rules? What a great point. You can watch Stein s hilarious Trump attack below:To say that Stein likes bashing Trump is an understatement he clearly loves it. Last month, Stein described Trump as a big sulking baby in a previous appearance on Cavuto s show, and he did so again last week. It looks like Stein has been holding his true feelings about Trump in for a long time, and is just getting started.But in all seriousness, Stein is terrified of the possibility of President Trump. In an interview with CNN, the conservative economist confessed that although he s been a life-long Republican voter, he would rather vote for a Democrat than see America s economy become destroyed under The Donald. Stein said: In all of my years as an economist, which is roughly 50 years, I ve never seen such nonsense as we just heard from Mr. Trump. And it breaks my heart, it makes me want to cry because I m Republican, I ve never voted for a Democrat, and to think the guy who s our likely standard bearer has such nonsensical ideas on every single aspect of the economy is just breathtakingly horrible. Featured image via Imeh Akpanudosen / Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD926 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said on Thursday that a re-examination of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico “makes sense,†but praised the 23-year-old trade pact as a “strong anchor†for markets. Hatch, a Republican from Utah, said he appreciated Trump’s desire to modernize NAFTA, adding that decisions involving tariffs should be made in consultation with Congress. “NAFTA has served as a strong anchor for our markets in the northern hemisphere and helped to expand trade opportunities for American products, goods, and services,†Hatch said. “Given that the trade pact is now more than two decades old, a re-examination of the agreement to ensure it remains the best possible deal for American workers and entrepreneurs in the 21st century global economy makes sense.†| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD927 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The cover-ups and mistruths appear to be numerous. The question Americans need to be asking is why?The Oregon murderer was a black male. If you don t believe us, look at the picture of his mother below:Birth Certificate Name is: Christopher Sean Mercer 07/26/1989.Mother: Laurel Margaret Harper 04/05/1951Dad: Ian Bernard Mercer 05/15/1960 Divorced in 2006REAL IMAGE (left) CNN IMAGE (right)On the left is the selfie Christopher Mercer uploaded to his social media. On the right is how CNN presented the same selfie in broadcast stories about him. Why did CNN need to change the complexion (color) of their broadcast? Why is no-one showing pictures of mom, Laurel Margaret Harper.Why change to hyphenated name? Real name is Christopher Sean Mercer. Media using Christopher Harper-Mercer and Chris Harper-Mercer.Several months ago The Last Refuge shared the story of Eric Sheppard Jr. a radical Black Lives Matter , F**k The Police and Islamic radical who used a philosophy of black supremacy similar to the New Black Panthers. Sheppard gained brief notoriety when he held a U.S. Flag Stomping event at Valdosta State University.After his public exposure, and after the police filed a warrant for his arrest on firearms violations, and after he mailed a racist manifesto to a local Georgia Newspaper while on the run, he was finally arrested in Tampa Florida by U.S. Marshals.Eric Sheppard s story disappeared from the headlines and never resurfaced. Yesterday, while reviewing the social footprint of Oregon shooter Chris Harper-Mercer, (aka Chris Sean Mercer) an almost identical world-view to Eric Sheppard Jr. was evident in Mercer s social media history.Chris Harper-Mercer, a mixed-race angry 26-year-old, was essentially the mirror image on social media as Eric Sheppard Jr.Mercer held sympathetic words and thoughts for the Virginia shooter Vester Flanagan, and similarly raged against white people, and expressed sympathy toward the Black Lives Matter movement. (Example Below):However, today almost all of that social media history is GONE -> Example Here. It is either removed entirely, and/or edited for content. How it could be edited is a mystery unless there is some other issue at hand.In addition, as several researchers have noted, anyone who held attachment to Mercer appears to be deleting the content of their association. Including Umpqua Community College itself.As D-Man was pointing out Mercer was part of a production class going to present a play at Umpqua Community College named BLITHE SPIRIT . The play was scheduled to run later this month:From the cache Centerstage Theatre at UCCPlease join me in congratulating the team for our Fall show! This is going to be an awesome comedy to start out the year. This British comedy comes with witty language and spooky effects. We are especially delighted to feature our local star who is now based out of NYC, Josh Carlton! BLITHE SPIRIT, by Noel Coward Presented by UCC Theatre Arts Oct 30-Nov 8 CHARLES: Josh Carlton RUTH: Rebecca Miles EDITH: Abby Dooley DR. BRADMAN: Devin Barnett MRS. BRADMAN: Alexandra Duvall MADAME ARCATI: Rachel Fitzhugh ELVIRA, the Blithe Spirit: Chloe Quinn Understudy for DR. BRADMAN: Benjamin Jacobsen Directed by Stephanie Newman Assistant Director: Aaron Carter Stage Manager: Anna Mae Whatley Production Assistants: Alex Frier, Joel Macha, Mary Chitwood, Chris Harper-Mercer, Isaac Guerrero, Ashley Jakubos Lighting Assistant: Devin Barnett Special Effects: Jim Smith, Keith Weikum Program/Ads: Fred Brenchley Marketing: Travis Newman Other Volunteers: YOU! Get involved and have some fun!However, everything to do with that production has been scrubbed and deleted. Including the FaceBook page (since deleted) But visible on Cache HERE and more HERE (See FB page screen shot below).Being part of an Umpqua college production class and performance etc. would run counter to the seemingly preferred media narrative of Chris Harper-Mercer being a loner, no?Mercer has also apparently given a manifesto (another similarity to E. Sheppard Jr) to a surviving student of the shooting.Summary: The immediate on-line web history of Chris Harper-Mercer showed him to be a mixed-race, angry young man in general alignment with various radical racially aligned groups such as Black Lives Matter, Fuck The Police and Fuck Yo Flag all of which carry a sentiment of favorability and ideological alignment with Islam which was similarly evident in the Ferguson protest movement.[ Against this backdrop shooting White Christians makes sense. ]However, in the course of several hours (one media cycle) the media narrative is selling a profile of a loner, mentally disturbed individual without any mention of his previous writings (deleted/changed), behaviors (hidden) and social tendencies (ignored).Why?Perhaps the answer lies within the response to the shooting from the White House where President Obama took quickly to the microphones to decry another school shooting without fully understanding the motive and intent.Watch Obama s speech following the Oregon mass shooting. His motive and intent in this video are pretty clear. His lack of concern for the victims takes a back seat to his gun control narrative:For entire story: The Last Refuge | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD928 | 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: Barack Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together.
contextual information: Compared to immigration and terrorism, the growth of the federal debt may not be as significant a topic for Republicans running for president this year. However, it has not disappeared entirely. In a February 5, 2016, Medium post about his approach to Social Security, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush reiterated a talking point that many Republicans have used before. Barack Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together, Bush wrote. It has been a while since we last checked a claim of this sort, so we decided to take a closer look. Bush phrased his claim carefully, and it largely holds up by the numbers. It is also important to note that Obama is not the only one responsible for the growth of the federal debt.
Running the numbers, we first turned to the U.S. Treasury Department's Debt to the Penny calculator, which allows you to track the federal debt on a daily basis. The website lists two kinds of debt: publicly held debt and gross federal debt. The difference is that federal debt is calculated by taking the amount of publicly held debt and adding to it the debt that is held by the government. These are typically IOUs between one governmental entity and another, such as the money owed by the general treasury to the Social Security trust fund. On January 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the public debt stood at about $6.31 trillion. By the day Bush's column ran, it stood at about $13.67 trillion. That is an increase of $7.36 trillion, which is short of the $8 trillion Bush mentioned. However, remember that Bush said Obama will add that much on his watch, which can be reasonably interpreted to mean the amount by the end of Obama's second term. If the debt continues to rise at the same pace it has increased over the past seven-plus years, it will end up at nearly $8.4 trillion when Obama leaves office. Using this measurement, then, Bush is correct that Obama will see the debt increase by more than $8 trillion on his watch, and that this amount will exceed the total accumulated by the previous 43 presidents ($6.31 trillion).
Bush is not correct, however, when using gross federal debt. Using the same method of estimating, Obama should see an increase of $9.51 trillion in gross federal debt by the end of his second term. That is less than the $10.63 trillion he inherited from his 43 predecessors. Experts say that either publicly held debt or gross federal debt could be used to define the term national debt that Bush uses. Still, economists told us that publicly held debt is often the most popular measurement among specialists, so we will not quibble with Bush's decision to focus on publicly held debt.
The size of debt production under Obama is reinforced by looking at debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. At the end of fiscal year 2008, publicly held debt accounted for 39 percent of gross domestic product. By the end of fiscal year 2016, it is expected to be almost 77 percent. Even if bad timing has exaggerated this increase—fiscal 2008 ended four months before Obama took office, right as the economy was collapsing—it is certainly a significant percentage jump over eight years.
All this said, we will note a few things that are important to keep in mind. How much blame does Obama deserve? Bush makes it sound as if Obama simply flipped a switch and debt started pouring out. Obviously, it is a lot more complicated than that. It is not as if we were projecting balanced budgets and Barack Obama came into office and signed legislation increasing spending and cutting taxes, said Marc Goldwein, a budget analyst at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In fact, Goldwein said, the January 2009 estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt would be around $9 trillion today. So Obama could, at most, be assigned the blame for adding an additional $4.5 trillion to the debt, and that is only if you absolve Congress (which has been controlled by Republicans for most of his tenure) of any responsibility, and if you blame Obama for all of the long-lasting effects of the recession that he inherited.
Also, a lot of the debt comes from entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, which are increasing largely on autopilot due to demographic trends that are out of any president's control. So while Obama does bear some responsibility for the debt accumulation on his watch, he certainly does not deserve sole responsibility. Bush's own party played a role, too, as did the inevitable grind of demographic trends. Any president today would be in much the same situation.
Another type of inevitable grind—inflation—is worth factoring in as well. Every year, inflation puts upward pressure on the scale of the debt. Inflation erodes the numbers and makes them a bit meaningless, Goldwein said. For a comparison, let us take a look at Obama's predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush—a Republican and Jeb Bush's brother. The Debt to the Penny calculator does not offer daily tallies for publicly held debt around the time of Bush's inauguration, but it does offer daily data for gross federal debt, so we will use that. When Bush came into office on January 20, 2001, the gross federal debt stood at $5.73 trillion. At the end of Bush's term eight years later, the debt had risen to $10.63 trillion—an increase on Bush's watch of $4.9 trillion. That is not quite equal to what his 42 presidential predecessors accumulated, but it is 86 percent of the way there. That increase under Bush is a little smaller than the expected increase during Obama's full tenure—89 percent—but it is not off by much.
Our ruling: Bush said that Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together. On the numbers, Bush is right, as long as you measure the nation's publicly held debt, the most commonly cited statistic, and as long as you project forward to the end of Obama's tenure. However, Bush leaves out some important context when he focuses the blame solely on Obama and ignores that the percentage increase in the debt under George W. Bush was similar. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so we rate it Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD929 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Italian Catholics are essentially being told to pray silently (hide their religious convictions) to avoid offending anyone, while Muslims are living free of charge in their church? I can t be the only Catholic who has a problem with this Parishioners in the Italian parish of St. Anthony in Ventimiglia, a small town in northwestern Italy about four miles from the border of France, were ordered Saturday by a Catholic aid organization volunteer to pray the Rosary silently so the Muslim migrants living in the church would not be offended.With a population of about 55,000, Ventimiglia has been overwhelmed by Muslim migrants, receiving over 50 every day, many of which are housed in Catholic churches.ANSA reports a parishioner snapped back at the volunteer, telling him to bring migrants into another church. The parish priest, Don Rito, instead took the parishioners to another church close by where they could pray out loud.Migrants have been pouring into the little town on their way to France and locals feel overwhelmed. The mayor of Ventimiglia, Enrico Ioculano, said the situation is untenable. But the Italian government and Caritas seem to do little to help the burden; already in the first five months of 2016 it has cost the town 220,000, less than half of which will be funded by the government.Caritas is also doing little to allay the town s burden. While it helps migrants who want to file for refugee status, saying they have a special channel, in March the local director said the organization can only afford to provide for a few days those who are passing through, whether they stay for a day or weeks.The Lepanto Institute describes Caritas Internationalis as a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.It has been exposed by the American Life League as being part of the Marxist organization the World Social Forum, promoting communism, abortion, and homosexuality throughout the world.WATCH HERE:Via: Church Militant | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD930 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Muslim rebels brutally stabbed to death a Christian pastor in the Central African Republic (CAR) then proceeded to burn his church to the ground. [In what is being reported as a revenge attack for military operations against the Islamist militia, jihadists attacked Pastor Sankagui of the Church of Christ in the capital city of Bangui on Feb. 7, stabbing him to death and then torching his church as well as two other Christian churches in the area. CAR military together with UN peacekeepers recently attempted to capture local Muslim militia leader Youssouf Sy, but the operation failed and Sy and one of his men were killed in the incident. During the operation, Sy and his men opened fire on the security forces and killed two a man and a woman, at which point the military returned fire and killed Sy and another militiaman. According to World Watch Monitor, Sy’s supporters went on a “rampage†in retaliation for the operation, attacking people and destroying property. “The incident took place following a military operation. Then militiamen started shooting. They burnt down our houses,†one internally displaced person (IDP) told local media, on condition of anonymity. Sy’s allies surrounded Rev. Sankagui’s church, then killed the pastor and burned the church building. After the initial attack, the Muslim militia set fire to two other churches in the area, the Apostolic and St Mathias Church, and also destroyed a local school. Militiamen also reportedly stormed a health facility with the intention of killing off the wounded. According to Dr. Michel Yao, acting U. N. humanitarian coordinator in the country, more than two dozen wounded were brought in for treatment. “Armed elements forcefully entered into the facility with the intention to kill some of the injured,†he said. According to UN reports, the attacks brought about the combined deaths of at least five people with 26 more injured. The Central African Republic erupted in civil war in 2013 after Muslim rebels from the Seleka militia overthrew former president Francois Bozize, a Christian. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD931 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Comment
Melania Trump may have made her homeland more famous thanks to her being the next First Lady of the United States. If you are planning your travels for 2017, know more about Slovenia attractions and why it should be next to your bucket list.
Slovenia recently made headlines in the international news after Donald Trump was elected as president of United States.
His wife, Melania Trump, is a proud Slovenia native.
She was born and raised in the simple and unassuming country before she headed to Paris to pursue her modeling career, The Week said. Slovenia attractions
But what can we see in Slovenia?
One visitor may start off his trip to Slovenia’s capital city Ljubljana. Boasting its name as The European Green Capital for 2016, the place bans cars in its city center and can only be traveled through walking or biking.
The place, which has over 300, 000 in population, has a triple bridge river. The town also has cafes, bars, and boutiques one can explore.
After the city tour, Skocjan Caves should be next in the list.
Considered as Europe’s largest underground ravine, the limestone caves has over six kilometers of lakes and waterfalls.
READ ALSO: AMAs 2016 – Gigi Hadid Showcases Melania Trump Impression, Hosting Skills Questioned By Fans
What made it stunning was also because of its natural bridges, CNN said.
One part of the Skocjan Caves, the Martel Chamber, consists of two million cubic meters in volume. It also displays a grandiose of stalagmites and stalactites.
Aside from this, Lake Bled is also under the list of Slovenia attractions.
One can see in the middle of this stunning body of water the Bled Castle from the 11 th century.
For one to visit the Roman-inspired castle, wooden boats will be perfect.
Bled is with a larger Slovenia attractions site Triglav National Park. It has numerous caves, bridges, and breathtaking views of lime stones.
Want to receive more Slovenia attractions ? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook . | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD932 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: [Photo: Chiquibul Forest Reserve near Guatemalan border: top showing significant illegal clear cuts. while the bottom shows the beginnings of cutting. Credit: Tony Rath .] =By= Jeff Abott Editor's Note The forests, waterways, and tribal homelands are under growing threat across Latin and South America. Increasingly, the indigenous peoples are taking strong stands against the illegal activities, as well as the government sponsored intrusions into the Reserves. It seems that they are virtually the only ones willing to stand in the way of the decimation of their homelands, and of the wild rainforest on which out planet depends. The rainforest is essentially the lungs of the planet and it is being continuously destroyed. A cross Guatemala, indigenous communities are organizing to challenge logging in the country’s vast forests. These communities are concerned with the impact that both legal and illegal logging will have on their watersheds and on the environment.
On June 15, concerned residents from the highland Ixil Maya municipality of Nebaj, Quiche staged a protest outside the municipal building to express their concern with the steady increase in trucks leaving town loaded with lumber.
The action was organized by residents and members of the Indigenous Authority of Nebaj in order to pressure the state authorities to strip the nine companies of their licenses to exploit timber on private lands. Residents raised concern over the fact that the deforestation affects everyone in the area.
Following the protest, concerned residents in the neighboring Ixil municipality of Chajul blocked and detained several trucks transporting lumber from the region for a number of hours. They demanded that the National Institute of Forests, or INAB, and the Division for the Protection of the Environment cease their operations and described the amount of lumber being taken from the local forests as “excessive.”
The Indigenous Authorities of Nebaj also issued a statement to INAB asking them to take action. But the government body declined to act and issued a statement that they are planting new trees for every one that is cut down. But this response did not satisfy concerned residents. “We went to the government bodies and issued statements asking to cease extending licenses for the exploitation of forests,” said Caty Terraza, the communications representative for the Indigenous Authorities of Nebaj. “They told us that they are sowing new trees, but how long will it take for those trees to grow to the same size as the trees that were there before?”
The companies involved in logging operations responded to the protests by significantly reducing the number of trucks transporting lumber from mountains. According to residents, however, it is unclear if this will continue into the future.
The mobilization of communities organizing to challenge logging operations in the highlands of Guatemala represent a growing concern over the destruction of the environment by companies. This challenge to logging companies reflects the understanding of communities of the vital part forests play in the protection of the water sources.
“The trees serve us and the animals,” Terraza said. “The loss of trees is drying up the aquifers. As a youth and as human, I must think of my future, and what I’m leaving my children.” Other communities held similar protests following the actions taken in the Ixil region. On June 26, a similar action was held in Santa Cruz del Quiche, the department’s largest city. Once again protesters were demanding that authorities stop issuing licenses for the exploitation of forests. Increase in Logging across Guatemala
Guatemala is home to vast forests and jungles, but these regions have increasingly come under threat to deforestation. Critics blame uneducated campesinos clearing land for agriculture as one of the prime culprits. This does represent a threat, but there are other bigger threats, including lumber companies, and organized crime. The protest over logging industry activity in indigenous regions occurs at a time in Guatemala of increased concern over deforestation, and comes after the historic march for water in April 2016. Community representatives, nongovernmental organizations, and activists see a connection between forests and water. The Guatemalan government, too, maintains a campaign of reforestation, but this has not stopped companies from cutting down forests for the valuable woods, or the razing of forests by narco-traffickers in the northern department of Petén to build landing strips.
The Guatemalan Ministry of the Economy actively promotes the investment of companies interested in exploiting the country’s nearly 2 million acres of forests. Logging companies and lumber traders have taken an interest in the vast forests of the highlands of Guatemala, where they can find rare hard and soft woods, such as teak, mahogany, oak and the more common pine. These resources can fetch hefty prices at market.
The exportation of lumber and products produced from wood from Guatemala has increased significantly. From 2013 to 2014, lumber exports increased 8 percent, from $6.7 million dollars to $8.6 million. This continues the long trend of the increase in the exportation of lumber and wood products, such as furniture.
But this increase in export of lumber brings the companies into conflict with indigenous communities. According to research by Guatemalan environmentalist and researcher, Juan Skinner, the indigenous regions of the country on average contain more forest cover than the non-indigenous regions of the country.
A 2005 report that Skinner authored highlights that municipalities that are less than 25 percent indigenous have forest cover of around 12 percent. Whereas regions where the population is more than 75 percent indigenous have forest cover of around 35 percent. Guatemala’s Mayan communities are not alone in their concern with the destruction of forests. The southern Xinca community of Quesada, Jutiapa has long taken steps to protect the forests that make up their communal territory. The Xinca people are one of the many ethnicities that make up Guatemala. The rural community in the southern department of Jutiapa has held their forest as communal lands since the 1850s, with subsequent generations continuing to protect the mountain and the forests. Today the forests represent 80 percent of the more than 13,500 acres of land, with the remainder utilized for crops, such as coffee and maize. “Our ancestors left us the land and a group to protect our mountain,” said Jak Mardogueo Ogorio, a representative of the communities’ Directive Council. “All this was passed down through the generations, and we continue this today. In order to cut a tree down, you first must receive permission from the council.” The community leaders have also barred any large-scale logging operations. “We don’t permit companies to operate in our forests,” Ogorio said. “In past epochs companies tried to negotiate for access to the forests, but they always wanted more. How many years for a new tree to grow? Up on the mountain there are trees that you cannot encircle with three people. This is what we are protecting.”
Ogorio and the other 13 members of the community council work directly with the residents to build awareness of the importance of the forests through regular meetings, trainings and a campaign to build alternative cooking stoves that utilize less firewood. In August and September 2016, the council implemented the insulation of 400 cooking stoves in conjuncture with Utz Che, a Guatemalan non-governmental organization.
“This project allows us to slow deforestation because the stoves use less firewood, and there is no need for more and more wood,” Ogorio said. “These stoves allow us to protect our forests.”
Community leaders of Quesada maintain vigilance over the threat of forest fires on communal lands for which they receive funding from INAB. This has generated work opportunity in a region where there are not many options.
The community of La Bendición in the southern department of Esquitla is one of the few regions on Guatemala’s southern coast not dominated by sugar and African oil palm plantations. Residents of the small community were displaced by the country’s 36-year-long internal armed conflict. At the end of the war they negotiated the purchase of a 5,500-acre coffee farm through the Land Fund in 2000 for about $1 million, far more than the value of the land.
When the families already burdened by debt arrived in 2001, they were shocked to learn that the land was not in the state that the Land Fund had promised. There were no rivers, as they were promised there would be, and the high winds meant that their crops were damaged, and there was no paved road. But there was a forest that contained an aquifer. Disappointed residents quickly left the community, leaving just 53 families of the original 170.
Residents continued to be burdened by debt, despite the rich forests. In 2002, the Land Fund proposed a solution: sell the forest. “The same Land Fund that assisted us in purchasing our land was pressuring us to sell the forests in order to resolve the debt,” said Veronica Hernandez, a 47-year-old community leader. “But we refused because if we would have sold our forests, we would have been left without water, or with contaminated water.” Since refusing to sell the land to logging interest, the community has organized to maintain the forests, and protect them from illegal logging and from forest fires. The residents also hold regular community-wide meetings to work to train everyone on the importance of the forests, and to guarantee that no one goes up into the mountain to cut down the precious trees.
Residents have also worked to develop projects like those being implemented in Quesada in order to decrease their impact on the forests. These stoves and solar projects are received across the community to great success. The residents’ resolve to protect their forest was further strengthened following the April 2016 water march, when thousands of campesinos marched to demand the protection of Guatemala’s water sources.
“The April march was important for us and other communities along Guatemala’s coast,” Hernandez said. “It has strengthened our drive to protect the forests and the mangroves along the coast.”
Despite the fact that the community was able to hold off the lumber interests following the purchase of the land, Hernandez and the other residents maintain vigilance to guarantee that no company comes to exploit their land and forests. “These companies always come into our communities to rob from us,” Hernandez said. “They then leave us with all the costs.”
Back in Nebaj, the Indigenous Authority is working to replicate the awareness in La Benedición and Quesada over the importance of forests.
“We are trying to inform community members of the impacts of deforestation,” Terraza said. This sharing of information is strengthened through the local Ixil University, which works to build awareness, and bring higher education to the region.
“But we have to do more,” Terraza added. “We must struggle to guarantee that people know what the impacts are.”
The Indigenous Authorities of Nebaj stated that they are considering other actions, including the continuation of pressure on the state bodies, including INAB, the continuation of protests, and the direct action of blocking trucks transporting lumber.
“[INAB] is an institution of the state,” Terraza said. “If we have all these trees, then it is because we have protected the forests for some time; our ancestors also protected these forests. It should not be so easy for them to arrive and issue licenses to companies to exploit the forests.”
Source: Z Magazine ( N0v 2016 )
Nauseated by the Had enough of their lies, escapism, omissions and relentless manipulation? | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD933 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Roger Wilkins, who championed civil rights for black Americans for five decades as an official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a foundation executive, a journalist, an author and a university professor, died on Sunday in Kensington, Md. He was 85. His daughter Elizabeth confirmed his death, at a care facility. The cause was complications of dementia. A black lawyer in the corridors of power, Mr. Wilkins was an assistant United States attorney general, ran domestic programs for the Ford Foundation, wrote editorials for The Washington Post and The New York Times, taught history at George Mason University for nearly 20 years and was close to leading lights of literature, music, politics, journalism and civil rights. Roy Wilkins, who led the N. A. A. C. P. from 1955 to 1977, was his uncle. Roger Wilkins’s early mentor was Thurgood Marshall, the renowned civil rights lawyer who became the Supreme Court’s first black associate justice. And he organized Nelson Mandela’s triumphant visit to the United States in 1990 as millions turned out to see that living symbol of resistance to apartheid after his release from 27 years in prison in South Africa. Beyond attending a segregated elementary school as a boy and being arrested once in a protest against apartheid, Mr. Wilkins had little personal experience with discrimination. He waged war against racism from above the barricades — with political influence, jawboning, court injunctions, philanthropic grants, legislative proposals, and commentaries on radio and television and in newspapers, magazines and books. Outwardly, he was a successful, popular black man with more white acquaintances than black friends. The second of his three wives was white. A lean, intense, intellectual, he grew up in a genteel family. The customs, attitudes and social currencies of everyday black life “evolved away from me,†he said in a memoir. “I didn’t know how to talk, to banter, to move my body,†he said. It mattered. As he rose to prominence, he came to regard himself as a token black in institutions and social circles that were overwhelmingly white and privileged. It troubled him deeply. In the memoir, “A Man’s Life: An Autobiography†(1982) he cited struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts and drinking problems, and acknowledged years of unease with his blackness, of trying to live up to the expectations of whites. “Instead of standing with my nose pressed to the window, I often found myself inside rooms with people whose names were Mailer, Vidal, Javits, Kennedy or Bernstein,†he wrote. He was surrounded at work by white men, while “my night world was virtually †he added. “It was as if, by entering that world at night, I was betraying everything I told myself I stood for during the day. †A University of Michigan Law School graduate, Mr. Wilkins went to Washington on a wave of New Frontier fervor in 1962 to join the Kennedy administration. He became special assistant to the head of the Agency for International Development. He was soon spotted as a savvy, if outspoken, Democratic asset, and joined campaigns for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson named him the administration’s chief troubleshooter on urban racial issues. He became an assistant attorney general, ostensibly to calm the unrest racking cities. He spoke dutifully against violence and met mayors and community leaders, but did not see his principal task as the suppression of disturbances. “I am a firm believer in the view that the riots are not the real problem,†Mr. Wilkins said, calling for more jobs, housing and help for the poor. “The real threat to American life is our inattention to the really depressed and anguished conditions of the minority group people who live in the ghettos of this country. †In 1966, he and a Justice Department colleague went to Chicago to see the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As he admitted later, Mr. Wilkins harbored suspicions that Dr. King might be an opportunist, Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker in 2013. The visitors found Dr. King in an airless railroad flat in a slum, talking to 40 or 50 young gang members about nonviolence. “For hours this went on,†Mr. Wilkins was quoted as saying. “There were no photographers there, no newsmen. There was no glory in it. He also kept two assistant attorneys general of the United States waiting for hours while he did this. †It was 4 a. m. when Dr. King finished. He woke his wife, Coretta, and she made coffee. “We sat and we talked,†Mr. Wilkins said. “He was a great man, a great man. †When Richard M. Nixon became president in early 1969, Mr. Wilkins detected a “turning away from the paths of cultural decency†and left government to join the Ford Foundation in New York. For three years, he oversaw funding for job training, education, drug rehabilitation and other programs. But he was powerless to support many projects he considered worthy and became disillusioned with the work. In 1972 he began a new career in journalism, writing editorials for The Washington Post. He also began to put aside what he called his “desperate search for white approval. †His editorials on the Watergate scandal that drove Nixon from the presidency, along with reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and cartoons by Herbert Block, helped The Post win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. Mr. Wilkins joined The Times editorial board in 1974 and later became an page columnist. In 1977, he and other minority journalists accused The Times in a federal lawsuit of racial discrimination in hiring and promotions the case was settled for cash and pledges of improvements. He left the newspaper in 1979 and was an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Star in 1980 and 1981. From 1979 to 1989 he was a member of the board that awarded journalism’s Pulitzer Prizes. He was also on an advisory panel that recommended Janet Cooke of The Washington Post for a Pulitzer in 1981, for her article on an heroin addict. It was exposed as a fabrication after she won the prize. He said the episode had harmed “blacks in newsrooms all over the country. †Ms. Cooke, who returned the prize and resigned, is black. From 1982 to 1992, Mr. Wilkins was a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank. From 1988 until his retirement in 2007, he was the Clarence J. Robinson professor in history and American culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. During his teaching years, he wrote for newspapers and magazines and was a frequent commentator on radio and television. Roger Wilkins was born in Kansas City, Mo. on March 25, 1932, to Earl and Helen Jackson Wilkins. Some of his ancestors were slaves in Virginia. His father was a journalist and his mother was the first black national president of the Y. W. C. A. she helped desegregate the organization in the 1960s. In Kansas City, Roger attended the Crispus Attucks School, founded in 1893 and named for a slave killed by the British in the Boston Massacre of 1770. After his father died in 1941, the boy and his mother joined relatives in Harlem, and three years later settled in Grand Rapids, Mich. where he graduated from high school. At the University of Michigan, he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1953 and a law degree in 1956. He tried social work in Cleveland briefly, practiced law in New York City for several years, then joined the Kennedy administration. Mr. Wilkins had a home in Washington. His marriages to Eve Tyler and Mary Myers ended in divorce. His third wife, Patricia A. King, a law professor at Georgetown University, survives him. Besides her and his daughter Elizabeth, from his third marriage, he is survived by another daughter, Amy Wilkins, and a son, David, both from his first marriage two half sisters, Sharon Peters and Judith Claytor and two grandsons. Mr. Wilkins wrote “Jefferson’s Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism†(2001). He produced and narrated two PBS documentaries, “Keeping the Faith†(1987) about black churches, and “Throwaway People†(1990) about a poor black neighborhood. “In a sense,†Mr. Wilkins wrote in his memoir, “I have been an explorer, and I sailed as far out into the white world as a black man of my generation could sail. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD934 | 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: Ghetto Hikes Claim summaries: A blog called 'Ghetto Hikes,' ostensibly written by a tour guide for inner city children who compiled their humorous observations, was a hoax.
contextual information: Claim: A real-life tour guide for inner city children compiled their humorous observations for a blog called Ghetto Hikes. Origins: In March 2015, social media sharing sites including the Meta Picture and DumpADay published articles curating content from an older blog called Ghetto Hikes, which was a set of social media accounts that was briefly popular in 2012 before its creators suddenly stopped updating it. published articles Ghetto Hikes was initially described as a blog inspired by the comments of inner city children during trips to the country. The site's creator, who identified himself as "Cory," described the children as "urban" and explained: I'm 28. I have a full time job leading urban kids on nature hikes. I simply write down shit they say. email: [email protected] The description was later updated to include the modifier "of all races" following "urban kids" after readers opined that "urban" was a code word for black. A Twitter account for Ghetto Hikes was last updated on 22 February 2012 and its final tweets were representative of humor many readers likened to a minstrel show: account "E.J. back there havin' a starin' contest with da sun, slowin' down the whole pack ... homeboy shoulda gone to Space Camp." "Mr. Cody, I ain't no snitch or nuffin' but Denny back there shovin' colored rocks in his pockets. Homie lootin' the forest!" "Is rabbits eatable? Or you just s'posed to cuddle the fuck outta them?" "Yo Mr. Cody, how many these mushrooms I gotta eat fo' I Super Mario da fuck outta dis place?" "I thought Lamar done snuck his puppy Jason on da trip ... turns out that crazy ass just makin' shadow puppets." Ghetto Hikes was briefly popular in the online world throughout January and February of 2012, but readers quickly became suspicious about the veracity of its content. Several critics observed that the premise of Ghetto Hikes (i.e., inner city youth outreach) created a convenient excuse for readers to laugh at thinly-veiled racist jokes that would otherwise be deemed offensive or unacceptable. observed The sudden interest generated by Ghetto Hikes brought with it scrutiny of who was behind the briefly popular social media phenomenon. The cessation of those accounts on or around 22 February 2012 coincided with at least two articles that revealed its connection to other humor sites, Lamebook and MensHumor, as explained by the Daily Dot: @HumorForMens tweeted a screenshot of the domain-name registration for MensHumor.com, an apparently related site. The man behind the account? Jonathan Standefer. According to the domain search conducted by @HumorForMens, Standefer registered the MensHumor.com domain name and most likely tweets from the corresponding Twitter account. We used the Whois search tool on InterNIC's domain-name registry also, but it now comes up as private. But the date Standefer registered the website is the same in the screenshot: Aug. 15, 2011. He also registered GhettoHikes.com, which has a Twitter account of the same name. @GhettoHikes is an offensive, racist account from "Cody" who leads hikes for "urban kids." The tweets are essentially the 21st century version of the racist "blackface" films produced during the Jim Crow era. Some screenshots of the purported domain registration were circulated before it was amended in order to conceal information about the site's registrant to new queries. Ghetto Hikes hasn't been updated since those details came to light in early 2012, but the site's content has been intermittently revived on Twitter and Facebook by users newly discovering it. screenshots Despite its continued circulation, Ghetto Hikes was just a hoax consisting of fabricated quotes based upon things that some people believed inner city children might say. Last updated: 3 February 2016 Valinsky, Jordan. "The Hater: Exposing the Man Behind @MensHumor" Daily Dot. 22 February 2012. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD935 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio — The challenge Annette Cottrell pondered was how to grade President Trump’s stormy first full week on the job. A trade war bubbling up with Mexico. A divisive border wall. A ban on refugees from countries. Brawls with the news media and national parks. “I’d give him an †Ms. Cottrell, 38, said from her salon, Mane Attraction, on Main Street here in the seat of a conservative Ohio county of pastures and maple groves where Mr. Trump won 70 percent of the vote. “He’s doing what he said he was going to be doing. †So, about that week. Mr. Trump drew a torrent of criticism after pressing a series of falsehoods about voter fraud, the size of the crowd at his inauguration and his attacks on the intelligence community. His executive actions reversing years of policy on immigration, abortion and the environment left his critics seething and fearful and liberal opponents preparing a volley of legal challenges to blunt them. But in more than two dozen interviews this week, voters who helped hand Mr. Trump the presidency — and reluctant supporters alike — were cheering from their living rooms, offices and diners across America as they saw the outlines of a new conservative era in government fast taking shape, even if they were still a little uneasy about the man doing the shaping. Yes, they said, Mr. Trump should tone down his tweets and rein in what they gently called his impulse toward “exaggeration. †“Honestly, he sometimes needs to shut up,†said Joshua Wade, 24, of Ann Arbor, Mich. a state that had not supported a Republican for president since George Bush in 1988. “Just do what we elected you to do. We won. Drop the inauguration stuff. It’s fine. †Gun rights top Mr. Wade’s wish list for the new administration. He wants Supreme Court nominees friendly to gun owners and laws that extend rights across state lines. He said he had been encouraged that Mr. Trump took swift action on some campaign promises during his early days in office. “There’s no doubt: He’s good at showmanship,†said Mr. Wade, a registered Republican. “But I think this first week is proving he’s capable of following through on that with real action. †But what appeals to supporters may be turning off independents. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday gave Mr. Trump only a 36 percent job approval rating and found that majorities of people surveyed said he was neither honest nor levelheaded. Still, Trump voters interviewed said they cared little if the president spouted off on Twitter because he was issuing the kind of executive actions many had long craved — freezing federal grant money for environmental research, banning foreign aid for groups that give abortion counseling and cutting off immigration from several nations. “Trump’s done more in five days than Obama did in eight years,†said Doug Cooperrider, 58, who works in construction repairing bridges and roads around central Ohio. The bar at Boondocks, where Mr. Cooperrider dug into a B. L. T. sandwich on a sleety morning, sits about 1, 900 miles from the Arizona deserts where sections of the border wall may rise. The Hispanic population is tiny in this overwhelmingly white county of 35, 000, and it has grown only 0. 3 percent in the past five years. Still, people here said they felt as if immigration had undercut wages for construction workers in the area. One man said he was uneasy about the longstanding Somali community in Columbus, about an hour’s drive south. Several embraced Mr. Trump’s directives that limited new refugees, ordered up the border wall and cut off federal grant money to cities labeled sanctuaries for immigrants. “I’m 100 percent behind the wall,†said Ms. Cottrell, the salon owner. “If he asked me to lay the first brick, I’d sign up. I’m tired of them being here illegally and cutthroating the rest of us. †She and her husband, Andrew, a Navy veteran, said their views of government had been colored by years spent struggling to get a disability claim approved for him by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were early and enthusiastic Trump supporters, and when they went on road trips this year, they gauged their candidate’s support by counting up his yard signs and Hillary Clinton’s. Mr. Cottrell, 34, said he supported aid to feed and shelter refugees — but he blanched at welcoming them here. “It should be about America first,†Mr. Cottrell said. “We see way too many vets waiting in line, homeless, while we’re helping refugees and immigrants. †Mr. Cottrell said he had wanted Mr. Trump to gut the staff of the V. A. and was disappointed when he instead kept on an Obama administration official to oversee the agency. But he said that did not affect his support for Mr. Trump. “I have never seen someone make promises and immediately start keeping them,†he said. Most of those promises are a long way from fulfilled. The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land. Efforts to build the Keystone XL pipeline or finish the Dakota Access pipeline could become mired in years of litigation. There is no agreement on how to pay for a $20 billion Mexican border wall. But moves like banning funding for overseas health providers who discuss abortion have a more rapid effect. Laura Alexandria, the director of operations for Grand Rapids Right to Life in Michigan, said she hoped to see the federal government soon remove financing for Planned Parenthood in the United States. “We have a president back in the White House, and that is very encouraging,†she said. Ms. Alexandria said she had been in Washington for the inauguration, and she was back there this week for Friday’s March for Life by abortion opponents. She said her organization had organized 12 buses to take people from Michigan to the march. If President Obama was a “Rorschach test†for voters in 2008, Mr. Trump’s actions calling for curbing regulations and repealing Obamacare were sketches. He roughed them out, and his supporters filled in the details. Robert Kersey, 82, the president of an foundry in Muncie, Ind. said he hoped Mr. Trump would pull back a recent announcement from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration addressing silica dust, which can lead to debilitating and fatal lung diseases. Mr. Kersey said he sees the rule as a burden and does not believe it will make his employees safer. Inside a gift shop in Mount Gilead’s downtown, Amanda Abdon, 28, said she was eager for a repeal of the health care tax penalty her boyfriend had to pay this year. Eddie Lou Meimer, 70, walking through her family farm south of town, said she wanted the federal government to ease the kind of regulations that she said had forced her to build a $40, 000 canning room for her business. “He’s a person,†Ms. Meimer said of the president. “I wish somebody would grab his phone. But it seems to take the press’s mind off what he’s really doing. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD936 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Russia said it will retaliate tit-for-tat over a new Canadian law that will impose sanctions on officials from Russia and other nations considered guilty of human rights violations. The bill, expected to be approved by Canada s parliament later on Wednesday, was inspired by the case of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in 2009 after a year in a Russian jail. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Wednesday that any anti-Russian actions by the Canadian authorities will not be left without an adequate response. Canada already has cool ties with Russia. It has repeatedly condemned Moscow over Russia s 2014 annexation of Crimea and has imposed sanctions against Russia along with other Western nations. We warn again that in case the pressure of the sanctions put on us increases ... we will widen likewise the list of Canadian officials banned from entering Russia, Zakharova said, according to Interfax. To a large extent, it (the bill) simply copies the odious American Magnitsky Act and is set to further undermine Russian-Canadian relations. The United States adopted a law in 2012 freezing any U.S. assets of Russian investigators and prosecutors said to have been involved in the detention of Magnitsky. In retaliation, Moscow barred Americans from adopting Russian children. The Canadian parliament s lower house approved adoption of the Law on Victims of Corrupt Foreign Governments on Monday and submitted the bill to the Senate for approval. The law, which was proposed by an opposition legislator and is backed by the government, will come into force once it is signed by Canada s governor-general. The Russian embassy in Canada, in a statement posted on its Twitter page, blamed the Magnitsky bill on failed policies, pressed by Russophobic elements . | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD937 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It’s that time of year again, a holiday where you stand around the grill and patiently (or not) explain the truth to your liberal relatives and friends. [Mentioning an article that ran in the Washington Post in 1922, misreporting evidence of weather variability in the Arctic as evidence of a warming trend, is a good way to poke a stick in the eye of your global warming alarmist friends. A conversation starter! The article illustrates a past case where (quoting Snopes, the liberal fact checker) “current warming trends†were misinterpreted as being “indicative of climatic changes rather than relatively weather pattern variability. †Don’t oversell it! It doesn’t prove that people today who refer to warming in the Arctic region as proof of a warming trend are necessarily wrong … only that they might be, that the mistake was made in the past (when emissions could not have been a factor) and so the burden of proof rests on those who say this time is different. Global warming alarmists often claim the recent Arctic warming is unprecedented or must be due to the human presence. On its face, the 1922 article makes those claims dubious. Closer study reveals they haven’t made the case. For example, a scholarly article released just this month suggests the recent reduction in Arctic ice is most likely just a natural correction to a that occurred from the 1940s to the 1970s. Scientists with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) produced a lengthy review of the literature in 2014 that essentially found the same thing. But how many people subscribe to Hydrological Sciences Journal or want to read tomes? Here are some good short references to the climate debate to share with family and friends over the Memorial Day holiday: Craig Idso, Robert Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Why Scientists Disagree, Joseph Bast, Seven Theories of Climate Change A fascinating (and utterly damning) look at the history of the global warming scare campaign is Donna Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world’s top climate expert. A website hosted by meteorologist Anthony Watts, WattsUpWithThat. com, is a wonderful place to go to watch the real science debate taking place over the causes and consequences of climate change. I really don’t think you can visit the site more than two or three times and not come away a “skeptic. †Heartland also produces a free weekly Climate Change Weekly edited by H. Sterling Burnett, to which you can subscribe here. Best regards, happy holidays, and don’t burn the brats! Joseph L. Bast is president of The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He can be contacted at jbast@heartland. org. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD938 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Donald Trump has shown little patience for dissent, but that trait is likely to be tested by his new national security adviser, Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. McMaster is joining the White House staff with views on Russia, counterterrorism, strengthening the military and other major security issues that diverge not only from those of the Trump loyalists, but also from those the president himself has expressed. A military intellectual whose ideas have been shaped more by experience than by emotion, more by practice than by politics, and more by intellect than by impulse may also find himself in political terrain that may be as alien, and perhaps as hostile, to him as the sands and cities of Afghanistan and Iraq were. McMaster will not be alone, however. His prominent administration allies include Defense Secretary Jim Mattis; Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; as well as many of the soldiers who have served with him. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that Trump told McMaster “he’s got full authority to structure the national security team the way he wants.†Trump, however, already has taken the unusual step of adding Steve Bannon, his chief strategic adviser known for right-wing ideological views, to the White House National Security Council. “The real potential for flashpoints is with some of the people that Steve Bannon has brought into the administration ... people who see things very ideologically,†said Andrew Exum, a former Army officer and Defense Department Mideast policy official and McMaster friend for more than a decade. Trump’s early missteps on immigration and other issues “have strengthened the leverage available to not only H.R. McMaster, but also Defense Secretary Mattis and Secretary (of State Rex) Tillerson potentially,†Exum said. One of the first tests of McMaster’s influence will be the administration’s review of U.S. policy in Syria, and more broadly against Islamic militancy. The review’s results are due early next week, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday. Bannon said last June that the United States and its European allies are fighting a “global existential war†against Islam. McMaster’s approach to defeating Sunni Muslim militants has been more nuanced, resting largely on separating extremists from the vast majority of the local population.As commander of the Army’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, then-Colonel McMaster prepared his troopers for retaking the city of Tal Afar on the Iraqi-Syrian border in 2005 by having some of them dress in traditional Arab dishdashas, recruiting Arab-Americans to play the part of locals, and teaching his troops how to determine if a household was Sunni or Shiite by looking at the pictures hung on the walls.McMaster ordered his soldiers never to call the Iraqis they encountered “hajjis,†which many Americans used as a derogatory term for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. Writing in the journal Military Review, he warned that emphasizing force, as Trump has done in his vows to bomb Islamic State into oblivion, could backfire.â€In Iraq, an inadequate understanding of tribal, ethnic, and religious drivers of conflict ... sometimes led to military operations (such as raids against suspected enemy networks) that exacerbated fears or offended the sense of honor of populations in ways that strengthened the insurgency,†he wrote. That is not to say McMaster is a shaved-headed intellectual hesitant to use force. Twenty-one of his troopers were killed in action in Tal Afar, and one unit suffered 40 percent casualties. A second early test for McMaster will be Russia policy. Unlike his predecessor, Michael Flynn, and Trump himself, McMaster regards Moscow as an adversary rather than a potential partner.Last May, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, McMaster cited Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine as evidence of a broader effort “to collapse the post-World War Two, certainly the post-Cold War, security, economic, and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests.â€A third area where McMaster’s thinking differs from the president’s rhetoric is the size and shape of the U.S. military. Trump has promised to add tens of thousands more soldiers, expand the Navy to 350 ships from 282, and “provide the Air Force with the 1,200 fighter aircraft they need,†according to his campaign website.In his scholarly 2015 Military Review article, which has 39 footnotes, including one citing Greek historian Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War, McMaster argued that “promising victory delivered rapidly from stand-off range, based on even better surveillance, intelligence, information, and precision strike capabilities†is a fallacy that “confuses targeting enemy organizations with strategy.â€The question now is whether McMaster’s views will have sufficient force to alter the course of U.S. policy set by the president and his closest aides. “The real challenges he’s going to confront, I think, are not the challenges of strategy and the global responsibilities of the world’s only superpower,†said John Nagl, a retired Army colonel who helped rewrite U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “He knows how to deal with those things.†Nagl continued. “The challenges he’s going to confront are moral, dealing with an administration that has not always been clear in its support for American values.†Whatever his odds, McMaster took the job not simply because his commander-in-chief could order him to do it. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,†he once said. “Those who ignore them are doomed to watch.†| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD939 | 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 a fine imposed on Donald Trump for allegedly misappropriating funds designated for veterans? Claim summaries: Social media posts and memes badly misrepresented the facts surrounding the November 2019 resolution of a high-profile lawsuit against the president.
contextual information: In November 2019, we received multiple inquiries about the accuracy of claims that U.S. President Donald Trump had been fined $2 million by a New York court because he was found to have "stolen" charitable donations intended for military veterans. For example, former Democratic Virginia State Senate candidate Qasim Rashid tweeted on several occasions in November 2019 that Trump had "stolen" $2.8 million in charitable donations from veterans and that he had admitted as much in court: "The President stole $2.8M in charity from Veterans & spent it on himself & admits to his crime in court documents. As you speak of honor & service, where is your accountability of a President who trampled on both? Why are you silent, Rep @RobWittman? #VeteransDay" One of Rashid's tweets was later reposted in the form of a meme by the Facebook page Act.tv. Another widely shared meme claimed, "It is a fact that draft dodger Trump stole charitable cash donations that were meant for our veterans." These social media posts and memes grossly misrepresented the facts surrounding a November 2019 settlement agreement between the New York Attorney General and the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Trump himself, and his children Ivanka and Eric. Trump did not "steal" charitable donations intended for veterans, nor did he admit as much in court. All the donations intended for veterans' charities ended up going to those charities. However, Trump's 2016 presidential campaign did direct and benefit from the manner in which many of those donations were distributed to the charities. The claims were related to a lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General's office in June 2018 against the Trump Foundation, the president, and Ivanka and Eric Trump, in their capacity as board directors of the charity. In her June 2018 petition to the state's Supreme Court, then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood wrote: "For more than a decade, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law governing New York State charities. This pattern of illegal conduct by the Foundation and its board members includes improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations or to implement even elementary corporate formalities required by law." One of the examples of "improper political activity" cited in the lawsuit related to a January 2016 fundraiser that the Trump Foundation and Trump's presidential election campaign jointly operated. In January 2016, days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump complained of unfair treatment by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and announced he would be boycotting the next Republican primary debate and instead host a fundraiser for veterans' charities in Iowa. The event raised around $5.6 million, with roughly half going to the Trump Foundation and half going directly to specific veterans' charities. The Trump campaign directed the distribution of funds to recipient charities, and Trump himself repeatedly presented checks at campaign rallies and more broadly used the distribution of funds to boost his presidential campaign. On the basis of those allegations, Underwood requested several outcomes, including asking the court to "dissolve the Foundation for its persistently illegal conduct, enjoin its board members from future service as a director of any not-for-profit authorized by New York law, obtain restitution and penalties, and direct the Foundation to cooperate with the Attorney General in the lawful distribution of its remaining assets to qualified charitable entities." The parties to the lawsuit spent around a year negotiating a settlement. In December 2018, for example, all sides agreed that the Foundation would be dissolved and its assets distributed to a list of mutually agreed charities. In November 2019, the New York Supreme Court published the final settlement. As part of that settlement, Trump, his children, and the Foundation stipulated to a set of facts, among them the following section related to the Iowa veterans fundraiser: The website for the Iowa Fundraiser, DonaldTrumpForVets.com, was developed by campaign personnel and, with the agreement of the Foundation, featured the name of the Foundation at the top of the home page and informed visitors that "the Donald J. Trump Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization"; The campaign planned, organized, and paid for the Iowa Fundraiser, with administrative assistance from the Foundation; and the campaign directed the timing, amounts, and recipients of the Foundation's grants to charitable organizations supporting military veterans. The Iowa Fundraiser raised approximately $5.6 million in donations for veterans' groups, of which $2.823 million was contributed to the Foundation; the balance was contributed by donors directly to various veterans' groups. At campaign events in Iowa on January 30, January 31, and February 1, 2016, Mr. Trump personally displayed presentation copies of Foundation checks to Iowa veterans' groups. On May 31, 2016, at a campaign press conference, Mr. Trump announced the grants the Foundation made to veterans' groups with the proceeds of the Iowa Fundraiser and, on or about the same day, the campaign posted on its website a chart identifying the grant recipients. The New York Attorney General's office objected to the way in which the Trump Foundation had been used to advance the interests of the Trump campaign, and especially the way in which the campaign dictated how more than half of the funds were to be distributed, with Trump at times personally handing out checks at campaign rallies. The Attorney General's Office did not object on the grounds that Trump, his children, or his foundation had stolen or kept the money. Indeed, in an order accompanying the November 2019 settlement, New York Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla wrote that: "The Attorney General has argued that I should award damages for waste of the entire $2,823,000 that was donated directly to the Foundation at the Fundraiser. In opposition, Mr. Trump notes that the Foundation ultimately disbursed all of the funds to charitable organizations and that he has sought to resolve consensually this proceeding. As stated above, I find that the $2,823,000 raised at the Fundraiser was used for Mr. Trump's political campaign and disbursed by Mr. Trump's campaign staff, rather than by the Foundation, in violation of [New York law]. However, taking into consideration that the funds did ultimately reach their intended destinations, i.e., charitable organizations supporting veterans, I award damages on the breach of fiduciary duty/waste claim against Mr. Trump in the amount of $2,000,000, without interest, rather than the entire $2,823,000 sought by the Attorney General." Trump was ordered to pay $2 million to a list of agreed-upon charities as damages for the waste incurred by the fact that his political campaign orchestrated and benefited from distributing around $2.8 million in donations to veterans' groups. (That $2 million in damages was separate from the roughly $1.7 million the Trump Foundation had already agreed to distribute to various charities as part of the resolution dissolving the Foundation.) Neither Trump, nor his children, nor his charity were found to have "stolen" or kept the funds, and so none "admitted" to such actions. The New York Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged that all the funds raised from the January 2016 Iowa event did ultimately end up with veterans' groups. The irony in those claims was that it was, in fact, the manner in which the Trump Foundation and Trump campaign colluded in distributing the donations to veterans' charities that landed the president in hot water, not his having "stolen" the donations. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD940 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said on Monday he believes he could help Afghan forces drive back the Taliban enough to control at least 80 percent of the country within two years, compared with about two-thirds today. General John Nicholson, citing counter-insurgency doctrine, said gaining 80 percent control of the country would represent a turning point in the 16-year-old conflict, which has become the longest U.S war. This we believe is the critical mass necessary to drive the enemy to irrelevance, meaning they re living in these remote outlying areas, or they reconcile, or they die, Nicholson told a Pentagon news briefing via video conference from Afghanistan. His remarks carried echoes of a U.S.-led strategy that began in 2009 and was accompanied by a massive surge in U.S. forces, which peaked in 2011 at more than 100,000 troops. Many areas that were regained during U.S.-led operations eventually reverted to Taliban control when Western forces turned them over to the Afghans. The U.S. military presence is just a fraction of its peak levels today. President Donald Trump sent an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan in recent weeks, bringing the total number of U.S. troops to about 14,000. The Pentagon is also directing more and more intelligence assets and firepower to the country as gains against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria free up resources for Afghanistan. That has allowed for a major increase in U.S. air strikes, which Nicholson said reached their highest level this year since 2012. Still, Taliban control of the country remains roughly steady against last year, Nicholson acknowledged. As of August, 13 percent of the 407 districts in Afghanistan were under Taliban control or influence, compared with 11 percent in February, according to a report released last month by the U.S. government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Many analysts, as well as current and former U.S. officials, believe that Afghanistan s war cannot be won militarily, particularly when the Taliban benefit from safe-havens in Pakistan. Trump has articulated a harder policy toward Pakistan in recent months, but U.S. officials say they have not yet seen a meaningful shift by Islamabad against insurgents using Pakistan as a hub for attacks in Afghanistan. The Afghan army also suffers from deep structural problems, including high casualty rates, rampant illiteracy, corruption and a frequent lack of tribal ties to areas where they are sent to fight. Still, in Nicholson s view, getting Afghan forces to hold 80 percent of the country s population would leave the Taliban with less than 10 percent control. Maybe the rest is contested, he said. One way that Nicholson hopes to increase pressure on the Taliban is to curb their financing, and he showed videos to Pentagon reporters of U.S. strikes in recent days against Taliban opium factories. He cited estimates of between 400 and 500 opium factories in Afghanistan. Afghan opium production reached record highs this year, up 87 percent from last year, the United Nations said last week. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said output of opium made from poppies in Afghanistan, the world s main source of heroin, stands at around 9,000 metric tons this year. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD941 | 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: Planted Evidence Claim summaries: A letter from a clever jailed man results in his family's receiving help with the plowing from the police.
contextual information: Claim: Letter from jailed man results in his family's receiving help with the plowing from the police. LEGEND Examples: [Collected on Facebook, April 2012] An old gentleman lived alone in New Jersey . He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament: Dear Vincent, I am feeling pretty sad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. Love, Papa A few days later he received a letter from his son. Dear Papa, Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried. Love, Vinnie At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Papa, Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. [Collected on the Internet, 2003] A true story told by L.A.P.D. An old mexican man lived alone in East Los Angeles. He wanted to spade his garden, but it was very hard work. His only son, Jose, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament. Dear Jose: I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my garden this year. I'm just too old to be digging up a garden. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the garden for me. Tu Padre A few days later, he received a letter from his son. Dear Papa: Por Dios, Papa, don't dig up the garden. That's where I buried all my drugs and money. Tu hijo,Jose At 6 a.m. the next morning, the L.A. Sheriffs showed up and dug up the entire area without finding any drugs or money. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day, the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Papa: Go ahead and plant your garden now, papa. It's the best I could do under the circumstances. Love,Jose Origins: As is common to urban legends, this tale has been told a number of ways over the years. In the examples above, an elderly man needs help in preparing his garden for planting; but in the version we are more accustomed to encountering, it's the 20-something wife of a young man jailed for robbery who desperately needs assistance in plowing the fields of the family farm if she and the little ones are to make it through another year. Sometimes the family teetering on the brink of starvation includes an aged and infirm grandfather too. Always the characters are presented as sympathetic, with the incarcerated fellow often described either as wrongly imprisoned or as having committed whatever illegal act that landed him in hoosegow only because his family was in dire straits and he knew no other way to get them the money they needed to get by. It should almost go without saying that claims of "A true story told by L.A.P.D." to the contrary, the account is fiction. We've seen that same telling (old man and his garden) reported of a fellow in Minnesota. (So can you, by comparing the example quoted above to this tale, also found on the Web in 2003.) But, as mentioned earlier, the story also circulates in "distressed wife" forms, one of which you can read here. this here The short story "The Good Lord Will Provide" by Lawrence Treat and Charles M. Plotz is a decades-old expression of the legend. It appeared in the June 1973 edition of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and has subsequently been reprinted in the 1981 mystery anthology 100 Malicious Little Mysteries. Likewise, the tale appears in a 1959 humor book, wherein a jailed farmer gets police to spade his potato field by writing to his wife from jail that that's where he hid the money and the guns. However, the legend is indeed an old one. This following example (titled "The Barber's Clever Wife) appeared in print in 1884: [A poor barber, ordered by his wife to go begging to the King, was given a piece of waste land.] 'Was there ever such a dunderhead?' raged the clever wife. 'What good is ground unless we can till it? and where are we to get bullocks and ploughs?' But being, as we have said, an exceedingly clever person, she set her wits to work, and soon thought of a plan whereby to make the best of a bad bargain. She took her husband with her, and set off to the piece of waste land; then, bidding her husband imitate her, she began walking about the field, and peering anxiously into the ground. But when anybody came that way, she would sit down, and pretend to be doing nothing at all. Now it so happened that seven thieves were hiding in a thicket hard by, and they watched the barber and his wife all day, until they became convinced something mysterious was going on. So at sunset they sent one of their number to try and find out what it was. 'Well, the fact is,' said the barber's wife, after beating about the bush for some time, and with many injunctions to strict secrecy, 'this field belonged to my grandfather, who buried five pots full of gold in it, and we were just trying to discover the exact spot before beginning to dig. You won't tell any one, will you?' The thief promised he wouldn't, of course, but the moment the barber and his wife went home, he called his companions, and telling them of the hidden treasure, set them to work. All night long they dug and delved, till the field looked as if it had been ploughed seven times over, and they were as tired as tired could be; but never a gold piece, nor a silver piece, nor a farthing did they find, so when dawn came they went away disgusted. The barber's wife, when she found the field so beautifully ploughed, laughed heartily at the success of her stratagem, and going to the corn-dealer's shop, borrowed some rice to sow in the field. Yet it (or at least key parts of it) are older than even that. Consider Aesop's (620-560 BC) "A Father and His Children" while it lacks the element of the trickster's manipulating enemies into performing the necessary task, the lure of buried treasure is used to con indolent offspring into digging up the arable land left to them, an action that directly leads to a rich reward come harvest time: A Father and his Children. A countryman who had lived handsomely in the world upon his honest labour and industry, was desirous his sons should do so after him; and being now upon his death-bed, my dear children, says he, I reckon myself bound to tell you, before I depart, that there is a considerable treasure hid in my vineyard; wherefore, pray be sure to dig, and search narrowly for it when I am gone. The father died, and the sons fell immediately to work upon the vineyard. They turned it up over and over, and not one penny of money was to be found there, but the profit of the next vintage expounded the riddle; for the ground being so well stirred and loosened, it produced a plentiful crop: a treasure indeed! Like any good piece of contemporary lore, no matter how old the original story, it is reworked to present it in a modern light, as this 2005 example titled "Who Says Rednecks Aren't Bright?" shows: "Hello, is this the FBI?""Yes. What can I do for you?""I'm calling to report about my neighbor Virgil Smith.He's hiding marijuana inside his firewood!""Thank you very much for the call, sir."The next day, the FBI agents descend on Virgil's house.They search the shed where the firewood is kept.Using axes, they bust open every piece of wood, but find no marijuana.They sneer at Virgil and leave.The phone rings at Virgil's house."Hey, Virgil! This here is Floyd.Did the FBI come?""Yeah!""Did they chop your firewood?""Yep.""Happy Birthday, buddy!!!! The tale can also be bent to suit different ethnicities and histories: The phone rings at KGB headquarters, sometime in the 1960's"Hello?""Hello, is this KGB?""Da.""I'm calling to report my neighbor, Hershel Yankovitz is an enemy of the State. He is hiding undeclared diamonds in his firewood.""This will be noted."The next day, the KGB sends their hoodlums to Hershel's tiny house. Out back, in the shed, they violently break every piece of firewood in their search for contraband. They find nothing. Angry and cursing, they leave.Ten minutes later, the phone rings at Hershel's house."Hello, Hersh, did the KGB show up?""They just left.""Did they chop up your firewood?""They certainly did.""Good. Now it's your turn to call. My vegetable patch needs plowing." This urban legend's appeal lies not only in the delightful notion of the police or thieves being sent on a wild goose chase that left them sweaty, dirty, and exhausted, but in the belief this snipe hunt served a noble purpose namely, their wasted efforts resulted in the completion of an important chore that would otherwise have had to remain undone. We marvel at the imagined cleverness of the proponent who found a way to accomplish a task necessary to his family's survival, even using his nemesis as the muscle. Barbara "mail ordered" Mikkelson Sightings: In a 1991 episode of the TV sitcom Wings (titled "Try to Remember the Night He Dismembered," first broadcast on 5 December 1991), Roy Biggins (while supposedly hypnotized) reveals to the rest of the airport crew that he once stole $250,000, and the money was buried in his back yard while he waited for the statute of limitations on his crime to run out. The others sneak into his yard at night and dig it up with the intent of finding the money and returning it to its proper owner, whereupon Roy arrives, informs them that the story about stolen money was fiction, and thanks them for digging a hole for his new outdoor hot tub. A number of our readers have mentioned this legend's having turned up in the British sitcom Porridge and one was able to pinpoint the precise episode: "Ways and Means," air date 3 October 1974: Fletcher: I was on remand once, in Brixton. I done this job a jeweler's in Southwark. Only they got me, but they didn't get the stuff, see. I hadn't ... you know what I mean [indicating stashing it]. So I'm in Brixton. And I writes to my old lady, Isobel, and says how sorry I was that I got done. Then I says, "As you may well be a bit short this winter without me providing, why don't you plant your own vegetables? I suggest you dig over the back garden as soon as possible." Course next morning there's twelve police round there with shovels, the devious nurks. McLaren: Typical. Did they find the stuff? Fletcher: Course they didn't, it was in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. Just my way of getting the garden turned over, see. Why let Isobel do it when you've got twelve great big nosey coppers with spades? McLaren: You crafty nurk. Fletcher: We had some beautiful broccoli with Christmas dinner. I wrote to her next and suggested she swept the chimney, but they wouldn't buy that one. Last updated: 5 March 2014 Cerf, Bennett. The Laugh's on Me. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959 (p. 252). Steel, Flora Annie Webster. Wide Awake Stories. London, Trubner and Company, 1884. Treat, Lawrence and Charles M. Plotz. "The Good Lord Will Provide." Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. June 1973. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD942 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Two months from Election Day, Hillary Clinton has a clear edge over Donald Trump in nearly every measure traditionally used to gauge success in presidential races.
She's raising huge sums of money and flooding airwaves with television advertisements. A sophisticated data team with a history of winning White House contests is meticulously tracking voters in key battleground states. Clinton also has multiple paths to the 270 electoral votes needed to win in November — so many that she could lose Ohio and Florida and still become America's first female president.
But Trump's campaign believes there are pockets of voters eager to be persuaded not to back Clinton. While Trump squandered a summer's worth of opportunities to court those voters, his campaign heads into the fall suddenly confident in its ability to make up lost ground.
Trump aides were gleeful Friday over the release of FBI notes regarding Clinton's controversial email practices while secretary of state. His campaign plans to come out of the Labor Day weekend wielding the report as a warning about the Democrat's judgment.
Getting Trump to make that kind of consistent case against Clinton has been a herculean task for much of the campaign. But advisers say he's more receptive to his new leadership team's more scripted approach, mostly because it's coincided with a tightening in the public polls he monitors obsessively.
"There's a renewed focus on Hillary Clinton and her problems, which I think has been beneficial," said Matt Borges, the chairman of Ohio's Republican Party. "He's got to sustain this for another couple weeks."
Still, Trump aides acknowledge that the brash businessman needs to more to address his own shaky standing with voters.
Trump's campaign has spent no general election money on positive, biographical ads, despite having plenty of cash to do so. Efforts to highlight a warmer side of the New York real estate developer at the GOP convention were quickly overshadowed by flaps of his own making. He's also angered anew Hispanics voters, a fast-growing segment of the electorate that Republicans are desperate to draw from, by holding fast to his tough immigration policies.
"He's running up against a population trend and a demographic reality," said Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist.
If Trump can reshape the race, he'll need to do so quickly. Early voting begins in some states this month. North Carolinians can start submitting absentee ballots Friday. In Ohio — a state no Republican has won the White House without — people can start voting on Oct. 12, a week before the last of three presidential debates.
Both campaigns expect enormous audiences for the debates. Clinton, who has been in intensive study sessions with her debate team in recent days, is sure to face higher expectations from voters. Trump's political inexperience leaves him with a lower bar to clear.
Privately, Republican leaders say it will take more than strong debates for their nominee to alter a race that appears to be leaning in Clinton's favor. While Trump publicly maintains support from numerous high-ranking GOP officials, a striking number of discussions among Republicans in Washington often begin with an assumption that Clinton will be president come January.
Trump advisers vigorously dispute that the race has slipped from their grasp. They contend most Americans are just now tuning into the presidential campaign in a serious way.
"We're very much on schedule to do what we need to do to turn out the vote for Mr. Trump," said Bob Paduchik, Trump's Ohio state director and one of the most experienced operatives on the Republican's staff. Paduchik said Trump's efforts heading into the fall are focused primarily on rallying "disaffected Democrats and independents."
Clinton's campaign has long argued that Trump is overestimating the number of voters willing to switch from voting Democratic in presidential election to Republican. But Clinton aides are monitoring movement toward a pair of third party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein.
"There's no question you've got two candidates who are both underwater on their favorables right now," Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist and pollster, said by way of explaining the appeal of Johnson and Stein. "I think it's important as this gets closer that people understand the stakes and the importance of their vote."
Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine will have an all-star stable of Democrats making that case on their behalf through the fall.
President Barack Obama is expected to spend much of October campaigning for Clinton, focusing in particular on increasing turnout among young people, blacks and college-educated whites. Vice President Joe Biden will camp out in working class areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's vanquished primary rival, will be rallying the young voters and liberals who backed his campaign.
Trump will be largely on his own, with the exception of running mate Mike Pence and a few loyal supporters such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the battle for control of the Senate, most Republicans in competitive races have stayed away from Trump.
Democrats now see a clear path to taking back control of the Senate, with party leaders identifying Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as favorable opportunities to pick up seats. Democrats are also confident that if Clinton wins in some of the most contested state such as New Hampshire, North Carolina and Nevada, she'll bring along the party's Senate candidates.
There are bright spots for Republicans in the Senate contests. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio is running a campaign that mirrors Clinton's more than Trump's — disciplined, well-funded, and heavily centered on data — and appears on track to hold his seat, even if Clinton carries the state in the presidential race. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD943 | 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: Sinking of Titanic Was Orchestrated to Kill Businessmen Who Opposed Formation of Federal Reserve? Claim summaries: "Rumors are circulating that they sunk the Titanic to kill the powerful men on board who opposed a central bank," a user posted on X.
contextual information: On Feb. 19, 2024, X user Matt Wallace, who previously has trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories, suggested in a new post (archived) that hinted the sinking of the Titanic was an inside job. The post read, "Rumors are circulating that they sunk the Titanic to kill the powerful men on board who opposed a central bank." trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories post archived Similarly, a previous post from a Telegram user that was posted in 2022 also promoted the same conspiracy theory, and read, "These men opposed globalist's world banks (Federal Reserve). Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus, [and John] Jacob Astor [all] opposed the new Federal Reserve bank. Today, these men would be worth $11 billion. All three of these men were aboard the Titanic when it sank. All three died that night." According to the TinEye reverse image search website, this meme had been shared since at least 2014. However, the rumor itself had started spreading several years before. It's true that American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's co-owner Isidor Straus and fur magnate and real estate developer John Jacob Astor all perished in the sinking of the Titanic. However, the overall claim intimated by the posts was nothing more than a baseless conspiracy theory. Titanic The misleading meme appeared to have been born out of previous ones that mentioned American financier J.P. Morgan. Morgan owned the companies that managed the Titanic and was not a passenger on its maiden voyage. owned Past memes suggested that Morgan had somehow miraculously orchestrated the voyage to end in tragedy in order to kill Guggenheim, Straus and Astor. According to the memes, Morgan's supposed reason for planning the demise of the three prominent men was because they all opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. (The centralized banking system was established in 1913, the year after the sinking of the Titanic.) established J.P. Morgan striking photographer with cane. (Courtesy: Library of Congress) The meme in question also said, "Today, these men would be worth $11 billion." However, it's unclear how much each of the men's descendants would be worth today had they survived. In March 2021, Reuters published a thorough report that debunked the rumor behind all of the memes on this subject. The article included an interview with a Titanic expert named George Behe, whose research into the history of Titanic goes all the way back to the 1970s. According to Behe, there is no known evidence that showed Guggenheim, Straus, or Astor opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. In fact, in 1911, The New York Times reported that Astor was very much in favor of the idea. published reported It's widely agreed upon by experts that the sinking of the Titanic was an accident, the reporting from Reuters said. The ship struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Within hours, more than 1,500 people had died. died We contacted Behe in an effort to find out if there had been any updates since Reuters published its story in 2021. "To the best of my knowledge, the conspiracy theory is just as false today as it was when it was first created, and no important new revelations have turned up within the last couple of years," Behe told us in an email dated Jan. 8, 2023. "Sadly, once these nonsensical conspiracy theories have been foisted upon the general public via the internet, the theories are destined to plague humanity forevermore and will continue to fool innocent people who are unfamiliar with the facts." For further details, Behe pointed us in the direction of historian J. Kent Layton, who is credited as an author for books including, "Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania," "On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic" and "Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History." "We've been tackling this nonsense with historical data since at least the late-90s to early-00s," Layton told us by email in June 2023. "However, social media is a fantastic breeding ground for conspiracies of all sorts.Titanicseems to be a favorite of many." Layton remarked to us in detail regarding why the conspiracy theory made no sense to him: I would point out that if the sinking had actually been a conspiracy to kill those three individuals, there would have been no way that they could ensure their actual demise unless they had locked them somewhere inside the ship to die as it sank. Instead, the evidence indicates that all three were seen during the sinking. Guggenheim famously case aside his heavy coat and lifebelt after his steward had helped him into them, saying that he and his manservant were 'dressed in their best and prepared to go down as gentlemen'. Straus nearly made it into a lifeboat, and fellow passengers even recommended that he board a lifeboat with his wife, but he deferred, preferring to let women and children board while he waited behind with other men. Astor was seen very late in the disaster, helping his wife into a lifeboat; when he asked an officer loading the boat, apparently Second Officer Lightoller, if he could board, Lightoller said no. However, Lightoller had maintained a rather rigid policy of allowing no men into the lifeboats that he filled, and there had been plenty of other opportunities for Astor to board a boat. In fact, we recently discovered an account that indicated that Astor and his wife had approached an early boat on the other side of the ship, when the situation seemed less serious, but that they had stepped back from the lifeboat of their own accord at the last moment and stayed for a while longer on the ship. If a conspiracy to kill these three men had been so deep and involved so as to actually sink an ocean liner and kill hundreds of innocent people, one would think that the individuals responsible would not have left the survival of these three men to chance. This story will be updated in the future should we uncover any further helpful information. Beattie, Andrew, et al. "How the Federal Reserve Was Formed." Investopedia, 24 June 2007, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/federal-reserve.asp. Bird, Mike. "There's a Wild Conspiracy Theory That the Rothschilds Sank the Titanic to Set up the Federal Reserve." Business Insider, 12 Oct. 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/conspiracy-theory-that-the-rothschilds-and-federal-reserve-proponents-sank-the-titanic-2015-10. "CORRECTED-Fact Check-J.P. Morgan Did Not Sink the Titanic to Push Forward Plans for the U.S. Federal Reserve." Reuters, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-titanic-conspiracy-idUSL1N2LF18G. "Federal Reserve Board - Structure of the Federal Reserve System." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-system.htm. "ISIDOR STRAUS URGES NEW BANKING PLAN; Replies to J.J. Hill's Attack on the National Reserve Association Scheme." The New York Times, 16 Oct. 1911, https://www.nytimes.com/1911/10/16/archives/isidor-straus-urges-new-banking-plan-replies-to-jj-hills-attack-on.html. "John Jacob Astor | American Businessman [1864-1912]." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Jacob-Astor-American-businessman-1864-1912. Kennedy, Dana. "Divers Find Champagne, Dishes In Shipwreck, But No Gold Yet." AP News, 16 July 1987, https://apnews.com/article/a9b6a7e5cd8104edf4501f876eebf44b. Segal, Troy, et al. "Central Bank." Investopedia, 18 Nov. 2003, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/centralbank.asp. "The White Star Line and The International Mercantile Marine Company." Titanic Historical Society, 28 Mar. 2018, https://titanichistoricalsociety.org/international-mercantile-marine-company/. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. "Titanic | History, Sinking, Rescue, Survivors, Movies, & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD944 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A disturbing trend has emerged in India where call centers have cropped up for the sole purpose of scamming Americans out of money, The New York Times reports. [The scheme is simple: impersonate an Internal Revenue Service employee, threaten Americans with penalties, and demand immediate payment for back taxes. The United States has been tracking this scheme from India since 2013, a period of time where Americans lost $100 million to scammers, with many of the victims being recent immigrants, according to a New York Times article from October. Suhel Daud, an F. B. I. agent who serves as assistant legal attaché at the embassy in New Delhi, said India is now seen as a major center for cyberfraud. Daud said several factors have contributed to this rise in cyberfraud cases: an increase in young, job seekers, a culture, technology, and ingenuity. Some of these young, job seekers include boys like Pawan Poojary and Jayesh Dubey, both college who got jobs at a call center in a suburb outside of Mumbai making about 16, 000 rupees ($230) “but the bonuses were double or triple that, based on sales. †“At that time, in my mind is that I want money,†Poojary, 18, said. “That’s it. I want money. That’s why. †But Poojary felt guilty when a woman on the line “begged him to give her a little time†before sending the money, and his supervisor told him to push harder, so he called the IRS in the U. S. to report information about a crime. Poojary was connected to Betsy Broder, the Federal Trade Commission’s counsel for international consumer protection. “He was determined,†she said. “The number of times he called me was overwhelming. I would guess that is why he was reaching out to me, because he wanted some form of law enforcement to take it down. †Eventually, the call center, known as the Mira Road scam, “named for the building’s neighborhood,†got raided by local police. Police arrested 70 senior employees and interviewed and released 630 of the call center workers. Five days later, another call center in Ahmedabad had been raided that had defrauded thousands of Americans. The U. S. Justice Department “released an indictment tracing 1. 8 million calls†to five call centers in Ahmedabad. Since the raids, calls have “dropped 95 percent, according to the Better Business Bureau. †It is unknown who exactly brought down both operations, but other scams out to defraud Americans have continued. As Poojary and Dubey looked for another job, they got several lucrative offers from other scamming companies looking to defraud Americans, a sign that the call centers looking to scam Americans in India have no signs of slowing. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD945 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home › GUNS › 4 STEPS TO ENSURE YOUR AMMO STORES (VIRTUALLY) FOREVER 4 STEPS TO ENSURE YOUR AMMO STORES (VIRTUALLY) FOREVER 0 SHARES
[10/27/16] It’s a fact that without ammunition, your guns will be little more than metal and plastic clubs. But it’s also a fact that if your ammunition has been stored in poor conditions, it not only won’t last as long as it should, but it also could potentially become dangerous to shoot if it is corroded or deteriorated.
This is why you need to store your ammo the same way you store your firearms. After all, you store your firearms in a secure and environmentally safe location, so why wouldn’t you do the same with your ammunition in which you may have invested even more money?
All ammo has a definitive shelf life. Eventually, it will go bad. But if you use proper storage techniques, you can make your ammo last on the shelf for year and years. Ammunition that has been taken care of properly and stored in the right conditions should last for 12 to 15 years before you begin to notice signs of discoloration or corrosion.
Let’s learn about some basic and yet effective storage tips you can use to ensure that you get the most out of your ammo:
1. Store in metal ammo cans.
Regardless of whether you like to keep your ammo in the boxes it came in or store it loosely, you will need to place it in metal ammo cans for storage purposes. Green metal ammo cans can be found at virtually any sporting goods store, in the $10-$20 dollar range, depending on the size of the can.
The reason why you should store your ammo in these metal cans is not just for ease of organization, but also because the cans are airtight and waterproof. They are sealed around the edges, which means you could even dunk them underwater and they would keep the water out.
2. Store in a dry place.
Humidity and moisture in general will be the biggest contributor to corrosion and discoloration. Since corroded ammo is not safe to fire, it’s imperative that you select a storage location where the moisture is kept to a minimum.
Yes, storing your ammunition in the green metal ammo cans will do a lot to resist moisture, but it never hurts to be extra careful. Keep in mind that ammunition is not cheap, so you want to take extra good care of your investment. Store it in a dry place with low moisture levels, and you can sleep knowing your ammo should remain in good condition several years down the road. Post navigation | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD946 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Trump has frequently derided the news media as “fake news,†and on Tuesday his son, Donald Trump Jr. told the world there was one person he wants to see win the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in American journalism: Mike Cernovich. Those who do not closely follow the world of conservative social media might be moved to ask, who? Fair question. Mr. Cernovich is a blogger, author of books, YouTube personality and filmmaker with a social media following. Much of his online persona is driven by two mottos: “conflict is attention†and “attention is influence. †He told The New Yorker, “I use trolling tactics to build my brand. †Before this week, he was perhaps best known for promoting false claims that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring located in the basement of a pizzeria. He describes himself as an “American nationalist†and has been involved in shaping messages on social media, according to The New Yorker. But he has denied being part of the movement, calling it “too obsessed with gossip and drama for my tastes†in a blog post. “Until the right wins for once, I have no interest in arguing with the or disavowing anyone,†he wrote. “Once the right has some actual power, then it will be time to have an ideological civil war. †This has been a busy few days for Mr. Cernovich, who lately has been promoted by people close to the president more than once. A day before the younger Mr. Trump’s tweet, for example, Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to the president, shared a link to an interview Mr. Cernovich recently gave to CBS’s “60 Minutes. †Mr. Cernovich started out several years ago as a men’s writer whose work disdained feminism and promoted a message of men’s empowerment that often dwelled on the question of how to meet women (He is now married with an infant daughter). His advice to straight men, the subject of a book and video talks: Men should be dominant alpha males and embrace a “gorilla mindset†when dealing with the opposite sex. He has long been criticized for his argument that date rape is a liberal fiction. In a blog post published last October, he called it a “harmful concept for men and women†that leads to false rape accusations. “Lying about being in love to sleep with someone isn’t rape,†he wrote. “Getting played isn’t rape. Regret isn’t rape. Thinking, ‘I might have been date raped,’ means you weren’t raped. †Mr. Cernovich now focuses mainly on politics. From his base in Southern California, he has become influential in parts of social media, helping to shape the narrative. He uses a steady stream of tweets and videos to promote conspiracy theories and factually incorrect claims that he bills as journalism. During the presidential campaign, for example, he doggedly promoted false stories that claimed Mrs. Clinton had serious ailments like Parkinson’s disease. He also argued that she was linked to a nonexistent pedophile sex cult located in the basement of a pizzeria in Washington, D. C. That conspiracy theory, known as #PizzaGate, spread widely online and inspired a man to show up at the restaurant to investigate the claims (he was arrested). Mr. Cernovich insisted the conspiracy was true in an hourlong YouTube video that also claimed most people employed by the news media and “every actor†in Hollywood were also pedophiles. During his recent “60 Minutes†appearance, Mr. Cernovich said that he never named the pizzeria at the center of the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory and called the shooting a “very unfortunate thing. †He also said his claims about Mrs. Clinton’s health were based on an anonymous tip sent to him by a doctor who had never examined Mrs. Clinton before and had no access to her medical records. Nevertheless, he stood behind his claims. “They’re definitely not fake,†he said. “They are not lies at all. 100 percent true. †In a blog post published on Sunday, Mr. Cernovich wrote “the White House Counsel’s office identified†Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, “as the person responsible for the unmasking†Trump associates who were caught up in the electronic surveillance of foreigners. Similar reports were published by other news organizations. “Unmasking†is the process by which a official, such as a national security adviser, requests the identity of a person whose name has been blacked out in an intelligence report. It does not mean leaking that information to a third party. Donald Trump Jr. praised Mr. Cernovich’s post on Twitter and said he was the first person to publish this information. In an email on Tuesday, the president’s son declined to answer questions on the record about Mr. Cernovich or his blog post. Ms. Rice denied any wrongdoing in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. She said she sometimes asked the identities of American citizens whose names had been redacted from intelligence reports because she needed that information to properly understand the context of the reports. She said it was part of doing her job and was “absolutely not for any political purpose, to spy, expose, anything. †“I leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would,†Ms. Rice said in the interview. After the president’s son tweeted about him, Mr. Cernovich said he was inundated with media requests, which he gleefully rejected one by one in a rambling live YouTube monologue. Holding his infant daughter in his arms, Mr. Cernovich derided the media as a cabal of “trust fund kids†and “trash. †“They have no idea what it’s like to struggle the way I struggle and the way the working class struggles, and that’s why I am a hero of the working class,†he said. He added that he would not respond to media requests. “I don’t want to be your friends. I don’t respond to your emails. †But Mr. Cernovich did respond to a direct message from me on Twitter asking about the Susan Rice blog post on Tuesday evening. In the reply, he denied that the White House Counsel’s Office had been the source for his blog post about Ms. Rice, even though it said as much in the second paragraph. “I never mentioned sources in my original report and disavow any reports that I have sources within the White House,†he said. He also twice suggested that I buy his book “Gorilla Mindset. †In that exchange and subsequent public tweets that included screen shots of his replies, he also criticized The Times and some of its reporters by name, implied that the Mexican billionaire and Times shareholder Carlos Slim has a role in news coverage (he does not) and generally attacked the integrity of its journalists, living and dead, and its journalism, past, present and future. During his YouTube broadcast on Tuesday, Mr. Cernovich denied accusations from critics that he is a misogynist, a rape apologist or a white nationalist. He said his past statements had been taken out of context and called some of them “obvious satire†that had been misinterpreted in bad faith. “Nobody tells you how to be famous,†he said. Later, shortly before appearing on a talk show hosted by Alex Jones, another conspiracy theorist, Mr. Cernovich said he did not care if the media portrayed him positively or not. “Look at me,†he said, speaking into the camera. “I did this to Susan Rice. I did this to Hillary Clinton. I’m doing real journalism. I’m destroying your fake news outlets. Look at me. Look at my face. I’m the media now. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD947 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A teenaged singer with a transgender sister, best known for performing the U.S. national anthem at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner have both asked to discuss the issue with him. Jackie Evancho, 16, requested the meeting in a Twitter message late on Wednesday, minutes after the administration revoked landmark guidance to public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms of their choice. “I am obviously disappointed in the @POTUS decision to send the #transgender bathroom issue to the states to decide. #sisterlove,†she wrote from her account, @jackieevancho. Trump “gave me the honor†of singing at the inauguration, she added in another tweet. “Pls give me & my sis the honor 2 meet with u 2 talk #transgender rghts.†On Thursday evening former Olympic gold medalist and transgender activist Jenner also weighed in on social media, telling Trump on Twitter that “from one Republican to another, this is a disaster†and asking the president to call her. White House spokesman Sean Spicer, asked at a briefing if Trump would meet with Evancho, said the president would welcome a meeting with her. As of Thursday evening, more than 10,000 Twitter users had liked the request by Evancho, a classical crossover singer who rose to fame on the TV show “America’s Got Talent.†Evancho was the first performer announced for Trump’s inauguration ceremony, an event that a number of other entertainers shunned because of the president’s views. Trump, a Twitter user, has not responded to the request, Evancho said on Thursday during an appearance with her sister, Juliet, on ABC’s “Good Morning America.†“I just want to enlighten him on what my sister | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD948 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on October 29, 2016 by Edmondo Burr in Sci/Environment // 0 Comments Glaciers of the Bolivian Andes receded by 43% between 1986 and 2014 according to the findings of a new study.
Rising temperatures in the Andes have left people living at high altitudes with a water crisis.
The study was published in The Cryosphere , an European Geosciences Union journal. Recommended
The rapid melting of one the largest glaciers on earth, the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica, could raise global sea level at least 2 meters by the end of the century, according to a new study (4 hours ago)
“ On top of that, glacier recession is leaving lakes that could burst and wash away villages or infrastructure downstream, ” says lead-author Simon Cook , a lecturer at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.
European Geosciences Union reports:
Receding glaciers also put water supply in the region at risk. Glacial meltwater is important for irrigation, drinking water and hydropower, both for mountain villages and large cities such as La Paz and El Alto. Throughout the year, the 2.3 million inhabitants of these two cities receive about 15% of their water supply from glaciers , with this percentage almost doubling during the dry season. Glacier retreat also means less water is available to supply rivers and lakes, such as southern Bolivia’s Lake Poopó, which recently dried up .
The new study is one of the first to monitor recent large-scale glacier change in Bolivia, to better understand how receding glaciers could affect communities in the country. “The novelty of our study lies in the bigger picture – measuring glacier change over all main glaciated ranges in Bolivia – and in the identification of potentially dangerous lakes for the first time,” Cook says.
The team measured glacier area change from 1986 to 2014 using satellite images from Landsat, the U.S. Geological Survey’s and NASA’s Earth observation programme. They found that the area of the Bolivian Andes covered by glaciers decreased from about 530 square kilometres in 1986 to only around 300 square kilometres in 2014, a reduction of 43%. Recommended Bodies Of Climbers Alex Lowe & David Bridges Found In Melting Glacier
The remains of renowned American mountain climber Alex Lowe and his companion cameraman David Bridges have been found partially melting out of a glacier on Shishapangma, Tibet. The two climbers disappeared in a Himalayan avalanche 16 years ago while attempting to ascend the 14th highest mountain in the world. (4 hours ago)
As glaciers recede, they leave behind lakes typically dammed by bedrock or glacial debris. Avalanches, rockfalls or earthquakes can breach these dams, or cause water to overflow them, resulting in catastrophic floods known as glacial lake outburst floods. The team reports that both the number and size of glacier lakes in the study region increased significantly from 1986 to 2014.
After studying glacier change, the researchers used their 2014 glacial-lake observations to identify the lakes where outburst floods could occur and present a hazard to populations. “We mapped hundreds of lakes,” Cook explains. “Some lakes are very small and pose little risk. Others are very large, but there’s little or no possibility that they would drain catastrophically. Others are both large enough to create a big flood, and sit beneath steep slopes or steep glaciers, and could be dangerous.”
They identified 25 glacial lakes across the Bolivian Andes as potentially dangerous to communities and infrastructure, as they could result in very damaging floods. If the smallest of these 25 lakes was to drain completely, it would yield a flood with a peak discharge of 600 cubic metres per second. The largest could result in a discharge of over 125,000 cubic metres of water, about 50 times the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, in a second.
While measuring glacier area change was a relatively simple task, Cook says “identifying which lakes are dangerous is the million dollar question” as there are various factors to take into account.
“We considered that a lake was dangerous if there were settlements or infrastructure down-valley from the lake, and if the slopes and glaciers around the lake were very steep, meaning that they could shed ice or snow or rock into the lake, which would cause it to overtop and generate a flood – a bit like jumping into a swimming pool, but on a much bigger scale!” Recommended
A new study on antidepressants published in The BMJ has revealed that the risk of suicide and aggression in children and teens increases two-fold when they are prescribed drugs to treat depression. (4 hours ago)
Such catastrophic floods have occurred in the region in the past. Dirk Hoffmann, a researcher at the Bolivian Mountain Institute and co-author in The Cryosphere study, recently documented a glacial lake outburst flood in the Apolobamba region that happened in 2009 and killed farm animals, destroyed cultivated fields and washed away a road that left a village isolated for months. “As those locations are very remote and far away from the cities, authorities at national level and the wider public are often not even aware of the new dangers that mountain dwellers are facing due to the impacts of climate change, and no appropriate measures are being taken,” Hoffmann says.
Cook says these events could be under-reported, suggesting the risk of such floods in the Bolivian Andes has been overlooked. “We heard of other [glacier lake outburst flood] events from villagers when we visited the Apolobamba region in 2015, but there is no mention of these in publications or papers, possibly because many of these communities are relatively remote.” Hoffmann adds: “A nation-wide risk assessment of potentially dangerous glacial lakes would be of great interest to local communities in glacier watersheds.”
In the study, the team also estimated that glacier area will be severely reduced by the end of the century, to about a tenth of the 1986 values. This would put communities even more at risk from water scarcity, Cook says. “We predicted in our study that most glaciers will be gone or much diminished by the end of the century – so where will the water come from in the dry season? Big cities like La Paz are partially dependent on meltwater from glaciers. But little is known about potential water resource stress in more remote areas. More work needs to be done on this issue.”
The team hope the study raises awareness about the rapid glacier loss in Bolivia, how it could change in the future, and how it could affect water supply and cause glacial lake outburst floods. “Ultimately, I hope that our results will be useful to people in Bolivia – governments, agencies, people living in rural areas and cities,” Cook concludes.
This research is presented in the paper ‘Glacier change and glacial lake outburst flood risk in the Bolivian Andes’ to appear in the EGU open access journal The Cryosphere on 20 October 2016. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD949 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: (Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful underground nuclear test, demonstrating that the U. S. policy of “strategic patience†had failed to deter the North Korean leader, Kim . President Obama said, “The United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state. †But some experts say the U. S. has little choice. _____ 2. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both responded to the nuclear test. Mrs. Clinton, who met with national security advisers, said it was time to expand sanctions and broaden a program in neighboring countries. Mr. Trump sought to connect the test to Mrs. Clinton, saying: “It’s just one more massive failure from a failed secretary of state. Failed at everything. †Mr. Trump also spoke to the Values Voters Summit in Washington, one of the largest audiences of social conservatives he’s addressed. He steered clear of divisive topics like abortion and Israel. Bill Clinton has begun vigorously defending himself and the Clinton Foundation, rankled by the increasing scrutiny of his marquee focus since leaving the presidency. “If creating jobs and saving lives is bad,†he said this week, “I guess you can zing me with it. †_____ 3. Our analysis of new national data shows that murder rates rose last year in 25 of the country’s 100 largest cities. But half of the increase came from just seven cities: Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Milwaukee, Nashville and Washington. Each appears to have unique circumstances contributing to the uptick. But even in those cities, murder rates remain much lower than they were in the ’90s, as they are across the country. _____ 4. Ambitious? New evidence shows that, these days, if you’re aiming to get a job as a top executive, it pays to get experience in as many of a business’s functional areas as possible. “Work used to be much more hierarchical, and in many instances rote,†one expert said. Now, he said, it’s “become incredibly . †_____ 5. A federal ruling cleared the way for the Dakota Access oil pipeline to be laid near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, disappointing hundreds of tribal members and environmental activists protesting the project. But the Justice and Interior Departments and the Army released a statement almost immediately, saying the pipeline would not for the moment be allowed to be built under a dammed section of the Missouri River, the focal point of the protest. _____ 6. Two days before the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the House gave final congressional approval to a measure that would allow families of those killed to sue Saudi Arabia. President Obama is expected to veto the bill, to avert moves by other countries to allow individuals to file suit against the U. S. Above, Congress memorialized the attacks. About half a dozen novels aimed at young readers have come out this year, trying to fill in the gaps for readers with no memory of the events. “Writers are feeling safer about writing about the subject, and also realizing, wait a minute, kids don’t know,†one publisher said. _____ 7. Overwhelmed police radios. Officers stepping over dead, wounded and dying people, desperate to find the attackers. A report containing the first official account of the aftermath of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. details chaos, some missteps and moments of heroism. All the wounded were evacuated to hospitals within 57 minutes of the first 911 call — and all survived. _____ 8. In theaters: “Sully,†which recreates Capt. Chesley Sullenberger’s miraculous landing of a plane in the Hudson River in 2009. Our reviewer finds the film unlike other Clint Eastwood films: “There’s no tragedy in ‘Sully,’ just sighs of relief, probing questions and an outwardly uncomplicated hero whose extraordinariness is so deeply imbued that it is finally the most ordinary thing about him. †The reviews from investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board, who are portrayed as testy and — a technique to increase the film’s drama — have been less enthusiastic. _____ 9. In tennis, Novak Djokovic, above, defeated Gael Monfils, and Stan Wawrinka beat Kei Nishikori, earning a place in his first U. S. Open final. Djokovic and Wawrinka play Sunday afternoon. The women’s singles title will be decided Saturday, as Angelique Kerber faces Karolina Pliskova. Here’s our full coverage of the tournament. The N. F. L. ’s first weekend is packed. There are 13 games on Sunday. Here’s our look at the top games — and who we think will win. _____ 10. Finally, a new space mission is underway. NASA’s spacecraft was put into orbit around Earth by a rocket on Thursday, and then fired its engines to push it onto a path around the sun. In seven years, if all goes well, it will return with samples from a asteroid that could hold clues to the solar system’s roots. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD950 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: With a week to go before the general election in the Netherlands, the race appears to be a dead heat between the populist, nationalist Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders and the centrist People’s Party for Freedom led by incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte. [The Netherlands AEX benchmark stock index has been rising sharply this year, outpacing impressive gains seen in broader European indexes. Conventional wisdom has it that these gains are a sign that asset managers assign a very low probability to a victory by Wilders and the Party for Freedom. Here’s a representative sample from CNBC: “The blase market reaction is because it’s not a core economy like France or Germany, but it does set the table for the rest of the year,†said Jasper Lawler, senior market analyst at London Capital Group. “There’s also a consensus that they won’t be able to form a [coalition]. I think that’s why nobody’s too worried. †“But even though I don’t see an upset here, I do think markets are underpricing risk here,†he said. This echoes a lot of the commentary about how the market would crash in reaction to a Donald Trump victory. We now know that commentary got it backwards: markets boomed after Trump won in November. Similarly, stocks in the U. K. rallied within days of the Brexit vote that many experts had predicted would bring doom to the British economy. In other words, markets appear to like nationalism and populism. Instead of underpricing the “risk†of a Wilders victory, markets are more likely pricing in the odds of a Wilders victory as a positive factor. There’s another reason to think Dutch stocks would rise with a Wilders victory. That begins with the observation that Wilders is often described as “the Dutch Trump. †With 21% of the revenue of the companies in the AEX index derived from the U. S. according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, joining America’s embrace of economic nationalism and populism is likely to lead to improved conditions for the businesses in the index. It’s always dangerous to project future events based on the movements of financial markets. But if there is a message in the Dutch stock market, it is likely that the chances of a Wilders win are stronger than polls and pundits suggest. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD951 | 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 Members of Congress Each Make $100K While Debating $600 Stimulus Checks? Claim summaries: Members of Congress make $174,000 per year.
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 On Dec. 21 2020, the U.S. Senate passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Its aim was to merge a COVID-19 relief bill with the annual appropriations bill that allocates funds for the federal government. For COVID-19 relief, the bill authorized a one-time payment of $600 to most Americans an amount criticized as inadequate compared to the economic suffering it seeks to mitigate. passed most Americans criticized One popular tweet expressing this frustration asserted that each member of "Congress made almost $100,000 during the time they were arguing whether or not we deserved $600." popular tweet The veracity of this statement depends at least in part on how the assertion is specifically defined, but in general it is factually defensible. Members of Congress both senators and representatives each get paid $174,000 per year. What remains to be defined is the amount of time they spent "arguing" over the bill that provided a $600 stimulus check. $174,000 per year In our view, it is fair to say that the fight for a second stimulus check began the moment after the CARES Act (which included authorization of a $1200 stimulus payment) was signed into law on March 27, 2020. There was bipartisan recognition that this massive spending bill would be insufficient to combat the economic problems caused by COVID-19. "The minute were done with phase three," Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt said to The Hill on March 27, referring to the CARES act, "well start talking about phase four because all of us know that phase three cant have included everything that needs to be included. For Democrats, this explicitly included a desire for further direct payments to individual American citizens. Even before CARES officially became law, on March 25, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN, "We'll get more direct payments in another bill." CARES Act said told CNN The "fight" over these direct payments, then, started as the first checks were authorized. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 was approved and sent to the president for his signature (or potential veto) on Dec. 21, 2020. potential veto Dec. 21, 2020 Using these endpoints, the period of time "during" which this debate occurred would be 269 days. This represents 74% of the year. The most straightforward solution to the question would be to take 74% of the annual $174,000 salary. By this math, each lawmaker made at least $128,760 "during" the time it took the bill to pass. 269 days $128,760 More restricted definitions might argue for a shorter time period of debate or argue that only days in which Congress was in session should count. The fact that politicians were talking about a second check even before CARES act was signed, however, makes that argument a hard sell. Because debates surrounding COVID-19 stimulus are not limited to session days, the latter argument does not make much sense either. As such, a simple approach that looks only at the amount of time it took members of Congress to pass a second bill suggests earnings of over $100,000 each, leading us to rank the claim in session | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD952 | 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 'Pioneer Woman' Ree Drummond Experience 'Allegations' or Sad News and Endorse CBD and Keto Gummies? Claim summaries: Drummond, perhaps better known by her nickname, "The Pioneer Woman," was featured in Facebook ads that falsely claimed she had experienced sad news and that there were "allegations" against her.
contextual information: On June 28, 2022, we received reader mail informing us that scammers were using food blogger, author, and Food Network TV host Ree Drummond's image and likeness to sell supposed weight loss products or "dementia solutions" called Condor CBD Gummies, Truly Keto, and TrimClinical Keto. Drummond, also known as "The Pioneer Woman," was featured in several Facebook ads that claimed she had experienced a "tragic end," a tragedy, sad news or unspecified "allegations." These ads were nothing more than misleading clickbait and part of a scam. She never endorsed any CBD or keto gummies products or a "dementia solution." Food Network A reader who emailed us included a screenshot of one of the misleading ads. One of the ads read, "Her entire future is now in jeopardy! Fans feel sad about today's news. A tragic end today for Ree Drummond." Another reader sent in a different ad that read, "Fans are up in arms over the allegations pending against Ree Drummond. Here is all the information available to the public at this moment." These false clickbait Facebook ads were familiar territory. We've reported before on misleading, scammy tactics just like these that were used in other CBD and keto gummies scams. In reality, there were no "allegations" against Drummond, nor was there any brand new sad or tragic news about her. Facebook CBD keto We received a screenshot of the article that showed a picture of Drummond and her name. The article was misleadingly designed to mimic the Fox News website. Fox News had nothing to do with the scam. Drummond Fox News The headline of the fake Fox News article read, "Ree Drummond reverses dementia solution, sparks huge lawsuit pressure on Fox, she finally fights back on air." This was basically the same CBD gummies scam that previously featured "Jeopardy" host Mayim Bialik. the same CBD gummies scam Mayim Bialik Meanwhile, a second article that was designed to look like the Time magazine website claimed, "Weight Loss Industry In Outrage Over Ree Drummond's Keto Formula That's Helping Millions Of Women & Even Men Melt Body Fat And Get Healthy Again In Memory Of Her Brother!" Just as with the fake Fox News article, this one also did not genuinely come from Time. We found these articles being hosted on j40ev2.com/h4Fhjee/, lirknluck.uk.com/tiram/index.html, and sgn394.com/7bn3lo9u/. The web domains may have been registered in China. Time magazine A third false article was created by scammers to mimic the "Today" TV show website and showed the headline, "Ree Drummond Forced To Lose 30 Pounds by 'Food Network' Producers She Lost 50! (Her Diabetes Finally In Control)." In our research, we located a number of scammy Facebook pages that mentioned Drummond's name with the words CBD or keto gummies. According to when several of the pages were created or had their previous names changed, it looked like this scam began no earlier than mid-June 2022. a number of scammy Facebook pages We reached out to Hearst Digital Media to inform them of the scam. The publisher hosts "The Pioneer Woman" blog. We also requested a statement, which we will add to this story if we receive a response. scam blog In sum, there was no sad or tragic news or any "allegations" to report about Drummond, nor did "The Pioneer Woman" ever endorsed Condor CBD Gummies, Truly Keto, and TrimClinical Keto, or any other similar products for Fox News, Time, or "Today." The Pioneer Woman Note: If readers spot any CBD or keto gummies scams for celebrities other than Ree Drummond, please contact us. It's likely that scammers will switch to a different celebrity for the scam in future weeks. If possible, please include a direct link to the Facebook ad or to the page that's hosting the ad. Unlike a screenshot, a link will allow us to fully look into the matter. contact us Ree Drummond. Food Network, https://www.foodnetwork.com/profiles/talent/ree-drummond. The Pioneer Woman. Hearst Digital Media, https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/. On July 5, 2022, this article was updated with new details after a helpful reader located ads that falsely claimed Drummond had experienced "allegations" against her. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD953 | 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 Sgt. Al Powell Stop a Terrorist Attack at Nakatomi Plaza? Claim summaries: Sgt. Al Powell was integral to the plot of "Die Hard," but that movie wasn't quite based on real characters or events.
contextual information: The names "Nakotami Plaza" and "Sgt. Al Powell" may ring a bell to those familiar with 1980s action films, but for those not in the know the following meme may have proved a tad confusing. The meme reads: "This is Sgt. Al Powell. He was integral in stopping a terrorist attack in Los Angeles at Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas in 1988. How many of you will share to honor his heroism?" meme Was there really a terrorist attack at Nakatomi Plaza over Christmas in 1988? Was Sgt. Powell really responsible for thwarting that attempted act of evil? Well, not really, unless you incorrectly insist that the 1988 action flick Die Hard was a documentary. The text of this meme refers to the plot of the 1988 movie starring Bruce Willis in which actor Reginald VelJohnson played Sgt. Al Powell, a beat cop who helped John McClane (Willis' character) take down terrorists holding a group of people hostage at Nakatomi Plaza. Here's a clip from the movie featuring both Sgt. Al Powell and John McClane (WARNING: movie violence): While this meme was certainly made in jest, it was also apparently made in a rush. The included photograph which supposedly shows Sgt. Al Powell from Die Hard actually pictures Carl Winslow from the television show Family Matters. Both characters were played by Reginald VelJohnson. Carl Winslow This isn't the first time that a piece of pop culture has been repurposed as jape to spread misinformation on the internet. In May 2016 we investigated an image supposedly picturing a group of Vietnam soldiers only to find that the photograph showed the cast of the movie Tropic Thunder. image | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD954 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Tweet Widget by Black Power Front
With students joining workers in revolt against South Africa’s neoliberal regime, young people are demanding to know why Black police are engaged in the same kind of repression that was previously used by white governments “to systematically counter Black resistance?” In a letter to Black cops, activists note “an increase and worrying pattern of anti-Black police violence.” An Open Letter to Black South African Police Officers by Black Power Front
“As a Black Police Officer, you must understand that the struggles of Black workers and students are actually your struggles too.”
Dear Black Police Officer,
How are you today? Well, we hope. You may be wondering who we are, why we have decided to write to you and perhaps why we are addressing you as a “Black Police Officer” -- as opposed to just saying “Police Officer.”
Who are we? We are the Black Power Front or BPF. We are a non-party political pro-Black platform which seeks to serve as an instrument to organize and collaborate with like-minded Black individuals and organizations, under a common program that provides practical responses to what is commonly understood as the Black Condition today.
Why have we decided to write to you? First, given the nature of your work, it is not always easy to sit down with you and just talk about issues that affect our country and, in particular, the Black community.
Second, like other members of the Black community, we in the BPF are deeply disturbed by the continued brutality of the police against Black workers and students -- particularly those who engage in legitimate protest action. And third, the BPF holds the view that, given where Black people find themselves economically, socially and otherwise today in relation to other racial groups, it is extremely urgent that like-minded Black groups and individuals (everywhere in the world) come together in exclusive spaces, and engage in constructive dialogue, with the view to find ways of getting Black people out of the quagmire they currently find themselves in.
The anti-Black role of the police before 1994
As members of the Black community, you would know that, in the Azanian (South Afrikan) context, from the 1400s onwards, various forms of colonial police structures were key instruments in enabling the European invaders to advance and bolster their evil agenda of slavery, colonization and land theft. It was these colonial police structures that were used to systematically counter Black resistance, through amongst others the capture, torture and in many cases beheading of our warrior ancestors such as uKumkani uHintsa, Kgosi Toto, Kgosi Galeshewe, uKumkani uStuurman and many other heroes and heroines of Black resistance.
In the 20 th century, it was through these European colonial police structures that successive white supremacist regimes in Azania (South Afrika) were able to murder and torture our freedom fighters and ordinary Black people. They were directly responsible for the murder of our people in Sharpeville and Langa in 1960. The execution by hanging of martyrs like Vuyisile Mini and Solomon Mahlangu, in 1964 and 1979, respectively.
It was the colonial European police who assassinated visionaries such as Onkgopotse Tiro and Steve Biko, in 1974 and 1977, respectively. It was them who murdered the young Zolile Petersen and Christopher Truter, during the student uprising of 1976. And it was them who ensured that many of our revered freedom fighters such as Kgalabi Masemola, Mangaliso Sobukwe, Lekoane Mothopeng, Pandelani Nefolovhodwe, Nkosi Molala, Muntu Myeza and many others, were banished to Robben Island.
Even though it is often argued that the White Police Officers who were involved in these atrocities against Black people were acting under the orders of their superiors, the truth of the matter is that, at an individual and basic level, they knew that what they were doing to Black people was wrong, inhumane and unjustified.
The anti-Black role of the police after 1994
Given this painful history of centuries of systematic and state violence against Black people, the declaration of “freedom” on April 27, 1994, created a legitimate expectation on the part of many Black people that the type of wanton violence and naked brutality that the successive colonial white supremacist regimes unleashed on Black people would be a thing of the past. But to our horror, even after the declaration of “freedom” in 1994 and the installation of a government that is led by Black people we began to see an increase and worrying pattern of anti-Black police violence.
This type of anti-Black police [U1] brutality was palpable in the killing of Andries Tatane, young Nqobile Nzuza, Mike Tshele, Lerato Seema, Osiah Rahube, Jan Rivombo and of course the brutal and targeted assassinations of Mgcineni “Mambush” Noki and other Black workers in Marikana, in August 2012.
All of these anti-Black atrocities beg the question: how it is possible that a government that is led by people who, as part of the Black community, have first-hand experience of the brutality of state violence through the police, do not just unleash the same type of state violence against their own people, but also seek to justify the use of such anti-Black violence?
Our attitude towards Black police officers
By highlighting the involvement of Black Policer Officers (after 1994) in the killing of ordinary Black people who are simply fighting for their right to be human the BPF does not seek to create the mind-set that Black Police Officers are the enemy of the Black community or that Black Police Officers are inherently bad people. Of course, there are many examples of Black Police Officers who don’t just do their job with integrity and dedication, but also do a lot of good work in the Black community.
This notwithstanding, the main focus of this letter, however, is not so much the individual conduct of Black Police Officers but rather the continued use of Black Police Officers (as a state function) in the brutal suppression of the right of ordinary and mainly poor Black people to freely articulate their social, economic and political concerns and aspirations.
Our appeal to Black police officers
As the BPF, we regard Black Police Officers as members of the Black community first and therefore an integral part of Black life in Azania. We also hold the view that the on-going demands by Black workers for decent wages and better working conditions or those of Black students for free-decolonized-Afrocentric education, are not just demands that will benefit individual Black Police Officers (majority of them Black young people), but also their children who might be at university or will be going there in future. Therefore, as a Black Police Officer, you must understand that the struggles of Black workers and students are actually your struggles too.
As the BPF we fully understand that, just like all ordinary Black people, Black Police Officers are under severe financial stress and like most Black people, they are struggling to make ends meet. For these reasons, the BPF’s clarion call to all Black Police Officers is as follows:
* Understand that the economic struggles and frustrations of ordinary Black people are your struggles and frustrations too. And that Black workers and students continue to be oppressed by the same system that is responsible for your personal financial stress;
* As part of the Black community, you must (through your labor unions), engage the management of the SAPS to stop the state’s campaign of apartheid-style violence that is currently being unleashed on Black people in general;
* You are our Black Brothers and Sisters and must never allow yourselves to be used by self-serving politicians as part of an elitist anti-Black-pro-capitalist plot that uses the pretext of “law and order” to justify the murder of poor Black people and wanting that Black people timidly accept their status as economic slaves in the land of their ancestors; and
* Lastly, Black students and workers are not fighting against you (as Black police officers) but against the anti-Black-pro-capitalist system that is using some of you against your own Black Sisters and Brothers.
#FreeDecolonisedAfrocentricEducationNow! | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD955 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Taiwan hopes to find a natural way to exchange views with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders that starts in Vietnam this week, the self-ruled island s envoy to the meeting said on Monday. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have nosedived since President Tsai Ing-wen was elected last year. China believes she wants formal independence for Taiwan, a red line for Beijing. For her part, Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan s democracy and security. China regards Taiwan as its sovereign territory. China has suspended a regular dialogue mechanism with Taiwan, stepped up military drills around the island and boosted diplomatic pressure by siphoning off its remaining diplomatic allies. Speaking to reporters before leaving for Vietnam, Taiwan s APEC envoy James Soong said Tsai had both pointed out to him and said publicly that Taiwan was willing to engage with China. Moreover, we also need to say that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should have some constructive dialogue, Soong said. President Tsai has clearly said to us to use a natural way with Xi Jinping at this APEC meeting to have the opportunity to exchange views, he added, without elaborating on how the two might meet. At the last APEC summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima, Xi and Soong chatted briefly on the sidelines, but had no formal bilateral meeting. The China-born Soong heads the China-friendly People First Party, has met Xi twice before and has visited China. He referred to his past meetings with Xi and also Tsai s recent reiteration that peace and sincerity should mark engagement by both sides. I will have the opportunity to express this view again to the other side, Soong said. China has not said if Xi plans to meet Soong. Asked last week about the possibility of a Xi-Soong meeting, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong would say only that China hoped Taiwan s activities at APEC would accord with the grouping s rules and not affect the summit. Despite Taiwan s lack of diplomatic recognition from the vast majority of countries, APEC allows the island to participate as a separate economic, rather than political, entity. In 2013, Xi told Taiwan s envoy at an APEC summit in Indonesia that a political solution for Taiwan could not wait forever. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD956 | 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 is no proof that a decrease in port activity is caused by the lenient laws in California. Claim summaries: A confluence of issues have created congestion at the busiest port in the U.S.
contextual information: In late October 2021, a misleading copypasta meme spread on Facebook that attributed port bottlenecks and shipping delays to "California's liberal trucking laws." The meme circulated on various platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Here is a version of the meme that was posted to Facebook: The meme above reads, in part: So ships are piling up at Long Beach waiting to get unloaded. The port is jammed full of containers with no place to stack more. The liberal media is blaming it on the trucking industry while the nation's store shelves are becoming bare ... Well there's more to the story. Could Gavin Newsom and California's liberal trucking laws be the blame ? ? The NEWS says the California port situation is caused by a driver shortage. Not so fast: It is in part caused by a California Truck Ban which says all trucks must be 2011 or newer and a law called AB 5 which prohibits Owner Operators. The two state laws mentioned are AB5, a 2019 law intended to prevent employers from wrongly classifying workers as contractors, and something called "California Truck Ban." The meme also mentions a September 2020 executive order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that seeks to phase out fuel-burning vehicle engines by 2035 in an effort to combat global warming. AB5 executive order The meme is referencing congestion at the ports in San Pedro Bay in Southern California and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which collectively handle an estimated 40 percent of the nation's imports. The back-up is resulting in something of a crisis in shipping delays right before the 2021 winter holidays. congestion 40 percent crisis The meme above attempts to lay the blame for the crisis at the feet of Newsom, along with California labor and environmental laws. But from a broad perspective, the disruption in the supply chain is a global phenomenon sparked by a confluence of major calamities in 2020 and 2021, including labor shortages, facility closures, and an increased e-commerce demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather, and a massive container ship that had become lodged in the Suez Canal for nearly a week. global phenomenon Here we will look at whether the two laws and executive order mentioned in the meme are to blame for the slowdown at the Southern California ports. There is no law called the "California Truck Ban." But from the description above that "all trucks must be 2011 or newer" it appears the post is referencing the California Truck and Bus Regulation. That regulation doesn't currently block registration of vehicles from the year 2010 and older, however. Regulation The Truck and Bus Regulation requires trucks serving the ports to have engines from 2010 or newer as of Jan. 1, 2023. If they don't, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would deny registrations to non-compliant vehicles. But the rule, which was adopted in 2008, has taken effect gradually over several years. It's not new, whereas the situation at the L.A. and Long Beach ports in the fall of 2021 is acute. requires In an email, Stanley Young, spokesperson for the California Air Resource Board, told Snopes, "As of 2021 only trucks with engines older than 2005 would have their registration denied." Young added that 96 percent of the trucks currently serving the major ports in California are already compliant with the regulation. "Despite what you may have heard or read, there is simply no evidence to support any claims that the current congestion at our ports has any connection to the states efforts to clean up Californias trucks," Young stated. "Since trucks at major California ports have been required to have 2007 or newer engines since 2014, and since these engines are legal until at least 2023, its impossible that any shortage of vehicles at ports is the result of CARB regulations." Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) is a California law that went into effect in January 2020, although it has faced an onslaught of legal challenges preventing it from being implemented. The law is intended to prevent companies like Uber and Instacart from misclassifying so-called gig workers as independent contractors, rather than employees. Truckers often operate under an "owner-operator" model, in which they own their own vehicles, which they then use to transport goods as contractors for trucking companies. Both the California Trucking Association (CTA) and freight transport company Cal Cartage Express filed legal challenges against AB 5. Cal Cartage lost its case but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether to hear a petition by CTA. Until it does, AB 5 remains in limbo for the trucking industry. Matt Schrap, CEO of the the Harbor Trucking Association (which represents drayage truck companies serving the ports of L.A. and Long Beach) said it's not a shortage of truckers that's driving the delays, and pointing the finger at AB 5 doesn't take reality into account. Instead, Schrap said that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns spurred an explosion of online buying that ramped up sharply during the pandemic lockdowns, and the ports of L.A. and Long Beach don't have the infrastructure to handle the sudden influx. explosion "Its like jamming ten lanes of freeway traffic into five lanes," Schrap said in a phone interview with Snopes. Currently, the bte noire for truckers and trucking companies at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach is an excess of empty shipping containers piling up at the ports, which often block truckers from picking up and dropping off cargo. "Were struggling with these empty containers," Schrap said. "That is really whats working us over." Schrap said he expects that the situation will start to improve, because with the sudden attention on the issue, officials are taking steps to help resolve it, like placing fees on cargo ship companies that leave behind empty containers, and potentially allowing empty container stacking on empty parcels of land at the ports. placing fees But these are just Bandaids on a larger problem, which is that the Southern California ports need investment in infrastructure to prevent crises like these, Schrap stressed. "Were in this problem because of the underinvestment in the infrastructure that supports the American consumers buying habits," Schrap said. "It's a temporary solution to a longstanding problem." Newsom issued an executive order in September 2020 seeking to phase out gas-burning vehicles by making all new vehicles sold as of 2035 and beyond zero-emission. But Newsom's order wouldn't make the current fuel-powered trucks illegal as of 2035. The executive order explicitly states that while California will require new vehicles sold as of 2035 and beyond to be zero-emission, older vehicles will not be illegal to own and operate, and can still be purchased and sold. executive order A news release from the governor's office announcing the order states, "The executive order will not prevent Californians from owning gasoline-powered cars or selling them on the used car market." FreightWaves. "CTAs Last Hope To Protect California Trucking From AB5: US Supreme Court," 10 August, 2021, https://www.yahoo.com/now/ctas-last-hope-protect-california-184730483.html. Goodman, Peter S., and Erin Schaff. Its Not Sustainable: What Americas Port Crisis Looks Like Up Close. The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/business/supply-chain-crisis-savannah-port.html. Koetsier, John. COVID-19 Accelerated E-Commerce Growth 4 To 6 Years. Forbes, 12 June 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/12/covid-19-accelerated-e-commerce-growth-4-to-6-years/. No SCOTUS Review of California Laws Impact on Trucking Industry. Reuters, 5 Oct. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/no-scotus-review-california-laws-impact-trucking-industry-2021-10-04/. Lynch, David J. Stubborn Supply Chain Woes Are Resisting Bidens Remedies. Washington Post, 26 October 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/26/supply-chain-ports-fees-biden/. Swanson, Ana. Angling for a Merry Fishmas Despite Global Shipping Delays. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/business/economy/global-shipping-delays-shortages.html. Updated to note AB 5 remains in limbo for the trucking industry pending legal actions. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD957 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control, which enforces economic and trade sanctions against countries and individuals, recognised the Donetsk People’s Republic. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD958 | 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 was no surge in 501(c)(4) applications in 2010.
contextual information: One of the lines of defense in the current Internal Revenue Service controversy is that the agency stumbled under a heavy workload of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status. Steven Miller, the former acting IRS commissioner, made this point in a piece he wrote forUSA Today,describing a sharp increase in applications. The day after an audit critical of the agency went public on May 14, 2013, the IRS posted on aquestion-and-answer pagethat the number of applications has more than doubled in recent years. The agency connected that directly to the singling out of tea party groups, writing this inappropriate criterion was used as a shortcut to centralize similar cases. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., took issue with that argument. At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, he spoke about myths being thrown around. There was no surge in 501(c)(4) applications in 2010, Griffin said. Its possible to check whether a flood of paperwork was a contributing factor in the IRS missteps and we can see if Griffin is on solid ground. The IRS keeps track of its workload and according to the inspector generals audit, IRS staff was on the lookout for tea party-type groups at least six months before we see a jump in the number of applications. In fact, the data tell us that the volume of applications had dropped a bit from the year before the screening began. Heres how the activity breaks down for 501(c)(4) applications, the sort of tax-exempt group where political activity is allowed: 2009: 1,751 2010: 1,735 2011: 2,265 2012: 3,357 The inspector generals report saidthese figurescame from the IRS Exempt Organizations office and were for the fiscal year. As a reminder, the governments fiscal year starts in October, so FY 2010 begins on Oct. 1, 2009, and runs through the end of September 2010. The inspector generals report also providesa detailed timelinethat tracks when the tea party screening began. On about March 1, 2010, a manager asked a staffer to tally the number of tea party-related applications. According to the report, the staffer used Tea Party, Patriots, and 9/12 as part of the criteria for these searches. The earliest that there might have been a jump in applications would have been in October 2010. That is well after the IRS began its effort to give selective treatment to tea party groups. The IRS is correct in saying that the number of applications doubled, but that happened later -- from 2011 to 2012. We contacted the IRS and nothing we learned changes the numbers or the sequence of events. Reporters for theChronicle of Philanthropyand theWashington Posthave sifted the facts, too, and reached the same conclusion: The rise in applications for 501(c)(4) status came after the IRS began treating tea party-type groups differently. Our ruling Griffin said there was no surge in 501(c)(4) applications in 2010, and the numbers from the IRS back him up. The timeline in the Inspector Generals audit shows that the selective treatment of groups based on their ties to the tea party movement began before any rise in the IRS workload. We rate the statement True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD959 | 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 starting at 6 PM PST | 9 PM EST every Wednesday. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher, & Spore along with Randy J of 21Wire, Andy Nowicki from Alt Right Blogspot and Daniel Spaulding of Soul of the East. Tonight the Boiler Gang brings the internet show with more twists and turns than Space Mountain! Listen in as we discuss the absurd social agendas rampant in universities that project the concept of inanimate objects being racist. We break down Andy Nowicki s hypothesis that the Ted Cruz sex scandal could actually be a PR stunt to improve his alpha male cred and talk about the CIA influence in movements like the 60s counter culture and a thought provoking conversation about the perils of 3rd wave feminism. If you want to participate, bring something interesting to throw into the boiler Join us in the ALTERNATE CURRENT RADIO chat room.BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY! REFERENCE LINKS: | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD960 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia warned U.S. citizens to exercise caution in the area around the Peace Palace in Jeddah on Saturday after reports on social media of an attack there. There were several unconfirmed reports that security forces had foiled an attack near the king s palace, leaving the attacker and several guards dead. The Saudi government has not issued an official statement confirming the incident. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD961 | 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 Donald Trump who ferried stranded troops using his personal aircraft? Claim summaries: A story that Donald Trump personally sent out an airplane to transport hundreds of stranded U.S. Marines home is based on inaccurate information.
contextual information: In May 2016, syndicated talk radio host Sean Hannity aired an item claiming that Donald Trump had sent a plane to give 200 stranded U.S. Marines a much-needed ride home after Operation Desert Storm in 1991. When Corporal Ryan Stickney and 200 of his fellow Marines prepared to return to their families after Operation Desert Storm in 1991, a logistics error forced them to turn to a surprising source for a ride home: Donald J. Trump. Today, Stickney would like to say "thank you." Stickney, a squad leader in a TOW company of a Marine reserve unit based in Miami, FL, spent approximately six months in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War between 1990 and 1991. Upon his unit's return to the United States, the former Marine says the group spent several weeks decompressing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before heading back to Miami. Stickney recalls being told that a mistake had been made within the logistics unit and that an aircraft wasn't available to take the Marines home on their scheduled departure date. This, according to Stickney, is where Donald Trump comes in. "The way the story was told to us was that Mr. Trump found out about it and sent the airline down to take care of us. And that's all we knew ... I remember asking, 'Who is Donald Trump?' I truly didn't know anything about him," the former Marine said. Corporal Stickney snapped a photo to remember the day. The story came up several times during the course of the 2016 presidential campaign (Cpl. Stickney even told it in person at a Trump rally), but skeptics questioned its validity despite a statement from the Trump campaign allegedly confirming it: "The Trump campaign has confirmed to Hannity.com that Mr. Trump did indeed send his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami, Florida, to transport over 200 Gulf War Marines back home. No further details were provided." The few details we do have about Trump's alleged participation don't, in fact, add up. We can confirm, based on military records, that the 209-member Anti-Tank (TOW) Company, part of the 8th Tank Battalion for Operation Desert Shield, deployed to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, from their home base in Miami on 26 November 1990. We can also confirm that the company deployed from Camp LeJeune to Saudi Arabia on 22 December, served throughout the combat phase of Operation Desert Storm (from 17 January to 28 February 1991), and returned to North Carolina in April. A command chronology of the deployment notes that a "Cpl. Stickney" was among those receiving certificates of commendation. We can also confirm, via a 23 April 1991 article from the Sun-Sentinel, that a series of flight delays stalled the company's homecoming to Miami on 22 April, but that they finally did arrive home after being split across two separate flights. Stickney's photograph shows that he arrived on a plane marked "Trump," but it also proves something else: that even if Trump did send the plane, it wasn't his private jet. That Trump didn't send the pictured plane at all was something noted by a sharp-eyed reader, who wrote to us to note: First, that's not Trump's private 727 jet; it's one of the jets in the Trump Shuttle fleet. I wondered if maybe Trump's jet back in those days was painted differently, so I researched his private jet as of April 1991. I found that Trump was deep in the red financially and having to liquidate assets, one of which was his personal 727. The sale of that jet was finalized in the first week of May 1991, making it highly unlikely he was also flying reservists around while discussing the sale at the end of April. The markings of the plane in Stickney's photo match those of the Trump Shuttle fleet, so the question becomes: Did Trump himself send a Trump Shuttle to retrieve the stranded Marines, or was it procured some other way? To arrive at an answer, it's necessary to go into a bit of the history of Trump Shuttle. A July 2015 article in NYC Aviation detailed Trump's short-lived airline industry involvement, beginning with an entirely separate carrier, Eastern Air Shuttle, which he immediately rebranded with his own name. CEO Frank Lorenzo began selling off assets, including the prized Shuttle operation. Donald Trump placed a winning bid for the Shuttle, its aircraft, and landing slots at LaGuardia and National for $380 million, financed through no less than 22 banks. The newly branded Trump Shuttle took to the skies on June 7, 1989. Timing is everything in business, and unfortunately for Trump, he entered the airline game at the wrong time. The U.S. entered an economic recession in the late '80s, leading many corporations to cut back on business travel. In addition, tensions in the Middle East leading up to the first Gulf War caused oil prices to spike. This one-two punch was devastating for the airline industry and led to the demise of several airlines, including Eastern and Pan Am. Given these circumstances, the Trump Shuttle lost money, and with Trump continuing to accumulate debt in his other ventures, it was becoming increasingly difficult to pay back the loans taken to purchase the airline. In September 1990, Trump defaulted on his loan, and control of the airline went back to the banks led by Citibank. Given that the bankers, not Donald Trump, owned Trump Shuttle from September 1990 until it was sold to U.S. Air in 1996, Trump wasn't in a position to send the planes anywhere, much less on a spur-of-the-moment Marine transport mission. So who did? As it turns out, the U.S. military itself chartered the flights—a common practice in the day, according to an 11 August 2016 report by The Washington Post: Lt. Gen. Vernon J. Kondra, now retired, was in charge of all military airlift operations. He said that relying on commercial carriers freed up the military cargo aircraft for equipment transport. Kondra's notes on the flight are declassified and available online and show a contract for Trump Shuttle to "move troops in [the] continental United States" during the 1990-91 timeframe. There are several references to a 1990-91 contract for Trump Shuttle to carry personnel across the United States, between the East and West Coasts, on a standard LaGuardia-Dover-Charleston-Travis-Chord-Kelly-Dover-LaGuardia run. "It worked very well, and the crews loved it, and really thought that we'd done something special for them," Kondra recalled in the oral history. "It was a helluva lot better than using 141s [cargo craft], which we could use for something else." But Kondra said that the notion that Trump personally arranged to help the stranded soldiers made little sense. "I certainly was not aware of that. It does not sound reasonable that it would happen like that. It would not fit in with how we did business. I don't even know how he would have known there was a need." So the real story underlying the claim that Donald Trump personally sent his jet to pick up stranded soldiers and return them to the U.S. is that the military paid to charter a plane from an airline Trump no longer owned in order to bring those service personnel home. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD962 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Anonymous hacker Deric Lostutter faces 16 years in prison, while Steubenville rapists walk free Please scroll down for video
Deric Lostutter was part of the group affiliated with Anonymous who exposed the rapists of an underage girl in Steubenville, Ohio. While his actions eventually helped to highlight the terrible crime against the young woman and helped to bring the perpetrators to justice, he has received no thanks from law enforcement who have instead elected to put him on trial for felony hacking. If he is found guilty, he will face up to sixteen years in prison. Incidentally, the rapists who were also found guilty at trial have already completed their exceptionally short detention sentences. Steubenville hacker indicted for bringing rapists to justice
The sobering details of the Steubenville rape case were detailed heavily in 2013 when the perpetrators came to trial. Members of a local football team gang raped a high school girl and posted pictures, and social media posts are bragging about they had done to her. Only two of the perpetrators were ever arrested on charges of rape and kidnap, Trent May and Ma’Lik Richmond, both of whom received far more local support then their victim.
Initially, local authorities showed a reluctance to prosecute any of the perpetrators of this senseless and violent act owing to their privileged place in local society. This led to international outrage and eventually a group called KnightSec, which is affiliated to Anonymous decided to step in. They hacked into the Steubenville High School sports fan website and exposed the cover-up by school administrators and the identities of the girl’s attackers. They also posted a video of several students making light of the rape victim. They threatened to expose more individuals associated with the cover-up if the rapists did not come forward and confess. Eventually, two young men did come forward and were convicted of the rape of a minor. Ma’Lik Richmond served a paltry ten-month spell at the juvenile detention facility, and Trent May served two years .
According to Tor Ekeland, a lawyer speaking for Lostutter, he and his client were both incredibly surprised that he had been targeted by the FBI about this hacking. He said; “I don’t understand why they are prosecuting somebody who helped expose the rape of a minor… This is not a situation where somebody, you know, hacked a hospital or took down a nuclear power plant. This was an act of political protest against the rape of a 16-year-old girl.”
Now Lostutter must wait and see whether he will face the full sixteen years in prison that his ‘crime’ can carry. Naturally, his supporters are appalled. “You get 16 years for forcibly entering your way into a computer, but you get one year for forcibly entering your way into a woman. I think that’s the precedent the government is setting here, ” said Ekeland.
This article (Anonymous hacker Deric Lostutter faces 16 years in prison, while Steubenville rapists walk free) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with full attribution and a link to the original source on Disclose.tv Related Articles | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD963 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: You might think the phrase “you only live once,†is a modern sentiment, but it was actually also the personal motto of one of the true unsung heroes of the American Revolution — Jack Steward. A tall, handsome, charismatic Maryland officer known for his sizable ego, Steward fought fearlessly in battle for a cause he ardently believed in — the United States. [In late August of 1776, the British Army landed more than twenty thousand troops on Long Island, where they planned to annihilate the Patriot forces. British General William Howe ordered a third of his Redcoats and Hessians to attack Washington’s troops head on, while the remainder circled around behind to trap the Americans. The battle evolved exactly according to Howe’s plan, and within hours, he had trapped Washington and his men on the Heights of Gowanus in Brooklyn. The end seemed near for the young American army. To give hundreds of men in Washington’s army time to escape, the Marylanders mounted a series of suicidal bayonet charges against an old stone house occupied by British General Lord Cornwallis and his Redcoats. Flanked by thousands of British and Hessian troops, a few hundred men fought desperately and somehow bought enough time for the bulk of Washington’s men to withdraw. Washington, watching the action unfold through his spyglass, cried out “Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!†Many of the Marylanders involved in the charge sacrificed their lives. Most lie in a mass grave somewhere near the epic stand in Brooklyn. The exact whereabouts of the mass grave remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the Revolution. But a handful of Marylanders survived. To stay alive, they would have to swim eighty yards across Gowanus Creek while under a hail of fire. Witnessing his brothers in danger, Lt. Steward jumped into action. He provided covering fire as the Marylanders swam for their lives. His valiant actions saved many of his Maryland brothers, who would eventually form the core of the regiment that Washington would call upon time and again in the inflection points of some of the greatest battles of the American Revolution. The story of Steward and the other Marylanders is captured in the book Washington’s Immortals, recently released in paperback. This unique book is the first Band of Brothers treatment of the American Revolution, detailing the most important elements of nearly every significant battle of The War of Independence. Steward’s next bold stand arose at the Battle of Staten Island in August 1777, when the Americans mounted a raid against a British outpost. At first, the Patriots caught the British by surprise and quickly captured dozens of prisoners and large quantities of supplies. But the Redcoats regrouped and drove the Continental troops back to their boats. Steward led a desperate rear guard, holding off hundreds of British troops long enough for most of the raiding party to escape. When all the boats retreated from the island, the enemy surrounded Steward, forcing him to surrender. They placed him on one of the prison ships docked in New York Harbor. Often called “hell ships,†these vessels served as floating concentration camps where prisoners (as many as 15, 000 Americans) slowly starved or perished from disease in the cramped, quarters. However, knowing he would “only live once,†the indomitable Steward miraculously escaped via a rowboat he purloined and rejoined Washington’s Army. By July 1779, the War of Independence had tediously dragged on for more than three years, and the Americans had survived a brutal winter at Valley Forge. After vigilantly gathering actionable intelligence on the British outpost at Stony Point, Washington ordered a raid to assault the fort and remove the threat the British fortification posed to American defenses in the Hudson Valley. Rather than deploy his entire army, which could have played into a British counterattack, Washington unleashed more than 1, 000 men from his light infantry, a corps “composed of the best, most hardy and active marksmen. †The volunteer force, unencumbered by baggage and heavy artillery, earned renown for their daring, alertness, and efficiency. Jack Steward commanded a unit within the light infantry. Steward, now a major, first rode out with the commander of the raid Brigadier General “Mad Anthony†Wayne to spy out the lay of the land and take a closer look at the Stony Point’s defenses. Wayne realized that to have any chance of success he would need a “forlorn hope,†in today’s parlance, a suicide squad. Their mission was to cut through the thick abatis while under fire from the heavily defended fort. The sharpened logs — the eighteenth century equivalent of barbed wire — and multiple cannon made the fort nearly impregnable. Steward volunteered to lead the forlorn hope and the advance guard, the first to pierce the Point’s defenses. He encouraged men to join him, saying, “I want no men but the best, those that are willing to face death for their country. †Steward’s advance guard consisted entirely of volunteers, “desperadoes led by officers of distinguished merit. †The most fervent Patriots volunteered to be part of the forlorn hope, which they considered an immensely honorable post. Steward garnered so many volunteers that the men had to draw lots to determine who would join. Under the cover of darkness, Steward and his forlorn hope stealthily approached the fort. To preserve the element of surprise, General “Mad Anthony†Wayne ordered, “Should there be any soldier so lost to every feeling of honor, as to attempt to retreat one single foot or skulk in the face of danger, the officer next to him is immediately to put him to death. †The same fate would befall any man who spoke or discharged his musket. The officers carried spontoons — long, menacing, iron pikes on the end of wooden poles — which would be used without hesitation to fulfill General Wayne’s order should the need arise (Wayne didn’t provision “safe spaces†for the light infantry). And the need did arise — at least one man who attempted to flee was run through by an American officer. Once on the abatis, Steward’s men began hacking away. Within seconds, a British sentry sounded the alarm, and drummers beat the call to arms. As the axes cut a small opening in the British defenses, musket balls and grape shot from cannon tore into Steward’s men. However, the forlorn hope persisted, eventually cutting a hole wide enough for the rest of the American light infantry to infiltrate. But the forlorn hope was not finished. Steward’s men had to penetrate the second abatis, with the British now fully alert and firing their cannons and muskets. Men fell, cut down by the deadly fire, but the axes finally succeeded in breaching the defenses. Steward and his advance guard poured through the opening, leading the assault on the fort. The Americans won the day, achieving a crucial victory that boosted morale among the Patriots. General Wayne reported the victory to Washington, noting, “Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free. †For his daring actions at Stony Point, Jack Steward received a Congressional Silver Medal, a precursor to the Medal of Honor — one of only about a dozen medals awarded during the Revolution. Steward, promoted to colonel, would go on to fight in many more critical battles of the Revolution in the South. for his day, he petitioned to lead a regiment of African Americans, but the idea never got off the ground. The Man of Forlorn Hope survived countless battles and witnessed the Yorktown surrender of Cornwallis — the very general that killed so many of his Maryland brothers at the stone house in Brooklyn. The war nearly over, Steward was riding on the outskirts of Charleston, to George Washington’s nephew, William Washington’s wedding party when his horse fell. “And the Colonel pitching on his head in a ditch, dislocated his neck. He lived till Sunday morning about seven o’clock and then died. †Maryland’s indestructible man, who had survived the Battle of Brooklyn, escaped a prison ship, led the forlorn hope at Stony Point, and fought in many battles in South, including Yorktown, died 234 years ago this week. The officers of the Maryland Line, Steward’s friends, gathered to mourn. The next day, they interred Steward with every military honor. “This gentlemen, whose untimely death is much to be lamented, had served with great reputation during the war, and was much beloved by the army. †He only lived once, but made the most of that life, dedicating it to the cause of American freedom. Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically acclaimed military historian and an expert on elite units. He is the author of ten books. Washington’s Immortals is his newest, which has just been released as a soft cover and has been named one of the 100 Best American Revolution Books of All Time by the Journal of the American Revolution. O’Donnell served as a combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and speaks often on espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ miniseries Band of Brothers and for documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Discovery. PatrickkODonnell. com @combathistorian | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD964 | 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: When Terry McAuliffe was governor, Unemployment went down in every single county, including rural Virginia by nearly 50%. Claim summaries: Unemployment went down in all 38 cities and 95 counties in Virginia when Terry McAuliffe was governor from 2014-2018., Unemployment in rural Virginia fell by 39% during his term., McAuliffe governed during boom years and Virginia's economy largely followed national trends.
contextual information: President Joe Biden recently lauded once and possibly future Gov. Terry McAuliffes record as a job creator when he led Virginia from 2014 to 2018. Unemployment went down in every single county, including rural Virginia by nearly 50%,Biden saidduring a July 23 campaign speech for McAuliffe in Arlington County. Bidens statement has a familiar ring; McAuliffe has madesimilar claimsfor years. As we examine the presidents claim, keep in mind that McAuliffe was governor during a prosperous time. The United States had shaken the Great Recession and was well advanced into what became arecord 128-montheconomic expansion. Both the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed people dropped in all 95 Virginia counties and 38 cities during McAuliffes term, according todatafrom the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Virginia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was5%when McAuliffe took office in January 2014 and sank to3.6%during his last full month as governor in December 2017. During the same span, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped from6.7%to4.1%. Virginia had the13thlowest unemployment rate among states and the District of Columbia when McAuliffe took office. It ranked17thin the nation when he left. The number of unemployed Virginians fell from almost228,000to about144,000during McAuliffes term a 37% decrease. The number of unemployed people in the U.S. dropped from almost10.2 millionto almost6.6 millionduring the same time a 35% decrease. To define rural areas in the state, we relied on amapposted by the Virginia Department Health that identifies rural counties and towns. Then we added BLS estimates for the number of unemployed people in each of those 50 localities. There were about 37,000 unemployed people in those rural areas when McAuliffe took office and 22,500 when he left. Thats a 39% decrease which, although sizable, seems a little below Bidens claim of almost 50%. We asked the White House for the evidence supporting Bidens statement and did not hear back. McAuliffes campaign tied the presidents remark to a 2018PolitiFact Virginia fact-checkon a similar claim by the former governor. McAuliffe said that when he had been governor, every single city and county in Virginia, their unemployment dropped, and in most of the rural communities, it dropped by over 50 percent. We rated McAuliffes statement Mostly True, taking slight issue with the part of his claim that most rural areas saw their unemployment cut by more than half. If McAuliffe had said most rural localities had seen a 45 percent drop in their number of unemployed people, he would have been correct, we wrote. Bidens statement, however, is slightly different. He says unemployment went down across rural Virginia by nearly 50%. That requires different math than McAuliffes claim. PolitiFact usually puts a caveat on fact-checks about employment numbers. Although presidents, governors and mayors love to take credit for good numbers, economists generally say politicians have only a marginal effect on the numbers. The economy, they say, ebbs and flows with global trends over which politicians have little control. While Virginia unemployment significantly fell during McAuliffes years, the decreases were in step with national trends. Biden said that during McAuliffes term as governor, Unemployment went down in every single county, including rural Virginia by nearly 50%. Biden is right on the first part; each Virginia locality did see a drop in unemployment during McAuliffes term from 2014 to 2018. McAuliffe governed during boom years and unemployment rates fell in every state. The second part of Bidens statement, that unemployment decreased by almost 50 percent in rural Virginia, is slightly inflated. It fell by 39%. On the whole, we rate Bidens statement Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD965 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Channel list
Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually
Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida
Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote
The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush
Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food
Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI
Obama captures rare Pokémon while visiting Hiroshima
Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"
Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"
White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party
President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'
Following Obama's 'Okie-Doke' speech , stock of Okie-Doke soars; NASDAQ: 'Obama best Okie-Doke salesman'
Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber
Experts: melting Antarctic glacier could cause sale levels to rise up to 80% off select items by this weekend
Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line
As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards
John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom
Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'
News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"
Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign
Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009
National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman
National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruz’s basement
Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response
Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican
Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check
Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing
Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first
Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer
Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote
New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"
Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president
Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two
Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence
Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men
In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas
TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons
Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'
Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"
University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities
Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island
Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"
Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy
State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery
NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget
College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action
ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios
Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic
'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood
Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people
Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need
John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side
Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone
John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend
Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider
Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillary’s Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons
Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations
Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals
US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy
China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"
Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'
Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%
America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith
Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine
Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award ; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'
Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State
President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise
Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record
People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services
Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba
White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'
CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate
Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'
Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'
Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first
The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office
White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders
Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time
Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy
Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents
Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences
Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity
Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow
African countries to ban all flights from the United States because "Obama is incompetent, it scares us"
Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it
Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'
BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama
Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free
Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness
President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser
Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members
White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos
Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency
Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole
Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"
Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids
Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution
Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon
"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original
Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts
Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks
100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"
Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news
"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence
Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours
Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues
"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes
Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed
Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account
Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"
In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea
Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"
Mardi Gras in North Korea: " Throw me some food! "
Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"
US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"
Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help
The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back . The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."
In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook
MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine
Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants
Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America
North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"
Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout
Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss
Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district
Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend
Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle
North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party
White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare
Kim Jong Un executes own " crazy uncle " to keep him from ruining another family Christmas
OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea
President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy
Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"
Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC
Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"
Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week
Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message
NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"
Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough
The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"
Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare
Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation
Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans
Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy
GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords
Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare
Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria
Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"
DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women
Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees
Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left
Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'
FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp
Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies
GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'
Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'
Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism
News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota
Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith
Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page
Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment
White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria
Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'
Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins
Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date
IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history
After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot
Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'
Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program
US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?
Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy
This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester
White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras
Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse
Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school
Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition
Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State
Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'
Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'
Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested
Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead
Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending
Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances
Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons
Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago
Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections
Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country
Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'
White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out
New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen
White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class
To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead
State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations
Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward
President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward
Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects
World ends; S&P soars
Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood
Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes
Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway
Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013
Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama
As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list
Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves
Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium
Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future
Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs
Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet
Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'
Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties
Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years
Obama attends church service, worships self
Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending
Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"
Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh
Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"
Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness
Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears
Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke
Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights
Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'
Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter:"Too few words"
Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't
Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost
Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space
Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck
White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus
Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed
Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"
Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere
Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"
Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college
Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!
Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'
Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'
Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome
People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies
Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"
Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans
Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law
Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond
Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics
Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof
Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels
Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party
Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend
May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above
Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"
Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name
Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich
Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag
Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"
Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off
Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"
Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed
White House: "Let them eat statistics"
Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD966 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: David Daleidan, the ringleader for the deceptively named Center for Medical Progress, is foolishly rejecting a plea deal after being indicted by a Texas grand jury for the illegal activities he took part in to create the infamous baby parts videos used in an attempt to discredit and destroy Planned Parenthood. Daleidan surrendered to police on Thursday, and held a press conference in which he held steadfast to his stance that the beloved women s health organization is some kind of grotesque baby part mill. As he spoke to the huge crowd by the courthouse, Daleidan told them: I think we all know that every day that goes by that the Texas authorities do not prosecute Planned Parenthood for their illegal trade in baby parts, they are sending a message to the entire country. The state of Texas right now is open for business in baby body parts. Daleidan s attorneys spoke to the media, insisting that their client would not be making any kind of plea deal with prosecutors, even though he would get no jail time, only probation. They went on to have the gall to actually put Daleidan s work on par with that of people from 60 Minutes. If we re going to be prosecuting undercover journalists, we are sending ourselves down a very, very dark path. This is fully in the tradition, a long storied tradition, of undercover journalism. Well, real investigative journalists don t doctor videos, and real journalists don t break the law, which Daleiden and his organization of rabidly anti-choice zealots did repeatedly. That was when the lawyer actually had the nerve to demand that Daleiden receive an apology for being charged in the first place: What we want is an apology. He deserves an apology at this point. He is innocent of those charges. No, what he deserves is a jail cell, and hopefully at the end of his trial, that is exactly what he gets.Watch the video below:Featured image from video screen capture via Raw Story | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD967 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Now, numerous studies have concluded that milk doesn’t actually build bone and provide the same amount of calcium that we thought. A study published in the British Medical Journal , for example, followed more than 100,000 people in Sweden over periods of 20 to 30 years, with shocking results: The people who drank milk were more likely to die from heart disease and cancer. The women suffered more overall fractures and hip fractures as well. Different studies have also shown that higher dairy intake is linked to higher risks of prostate and ovarian cancer and can trigger type 1 diabetes. It is also linked to forms of acne, just to name a few effects. There is also the disturbing side of the dairy industry, where animals are abused to produce the milk we drink. A lot of dairy products are filled with the hormones that were given to female cows to keep them perpetually lactating so they produce an endless flow of milk. This doctor describes it perfectly when he says “cow’s milk is for baby calfs, just like human milk is for babies.” It is a substance we need while in crucial stages of development, but past a certain age, it becomes obsolete. While there are many alternatives to dairy milk, some are much better than others. Here are some of the better “milk” products out there. Almond Milk Raw organic almond milk is a great choice when you know where it’s coming from. As with many mass produced products, even some almond milks aren’t the best for us. An analysis of a UK almond milk brand showed that nuts make up only 2% of the drink itself. A single serving of almond milk has almost no protein. Compared with plain old almonds, it fares even worse. There is one place where almond milk comes out on top, of course: It has more potassium and more of the vitamins A and D. But almond milk is fortified with these nutrients — they’ve been added during the production process. Making almond milk yourself, however, is a fantastic option, and allows you to control exactly what goes inside it, ensuring there are no additives, preservatives, or substances you’ve never even heard of before. Rice Milk Rice milk is another good choice that works well as a dairy substitute, if you don’t mind the taste. It’s higher in carbohydrates than other milk choices and contains around the same amount of calcium as cow’s milk. Yet it contains almost no protein, so it needs to be balanced with other protein rich foods. During processing, the carbs break down into sugars and give the milk a sweet taste. It is filled with more sugar, around 10 grams for one serving, which is a lot more than something like coconut milk, which has around 3 grams. If you’re trying to have as little sugar as possible, rice milk may not be the best choice, but it’s certainly better than plain old dairy milk. Coconut Milk Coconut milk is definitely one of the healthier options here. When this milk is all natural, meaning there’s no added sugars, natural flavours, or preservatives, it is incredibly healthy for us. “ Coconuts are highly nutritious and rich in fibre, vitamins C, E, B1, B3, B5 and B6 and minerals including iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorous.” The things that makes coconuts so good is the type of fat they contain. They have a form of medium-chain fatty acids rather than long-chain fatty acids, which are stored in our tissue for much longer. One of the beneficial acids within coconuts is called lauric acid. This gets converted inside the body into a beneficial substance called monolaurin acid, which acts as an antiviral agent. But unlike other milks, if you have access, you can go right up to a coconut tree and drink the milk straight from the coconut without the need for processing. This is one of the most pure and fresh ways to get some milk in you! Hemp Milk Ah, hemp; one of the most versatile plants on our planet. Hemp milk has a wide range of health benefits that a lot of other milks don’t. Some companies make fully organic, non-GMO, and unsweetened hemp milk, but it’s always good to check exactly where you’re getting your products from. Hemp milk has a more bean-like and nutty flavor to it, which still tastes great in many drinks or foods. It’s also packed with healthy omega-3 fatty acids, which help with our heart health. In a single 8-ounce glass of hemp milk you can find the following nutrients: Vitamin A | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD968 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: When it was created more than a half century ago, Medicaid almost escaped notice. stories hailed the bigger, more controversial part of the law that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that July day in 1965 — health insurance for elderly people, or Medicare, which the American Medical Association had bitterly denounced as socialized medicine. The New York Times did not even mention Medicaid, conceived as a small program to cover poor people’s medical bills. But over the past five decades, Medicaid has surpassed Medicare in the number of Americans it covers. It has grown gradually into a behemoth that provides for the medical needs of one in five Americans — 74 million people — starting for many in the womb, and for others, ending only when they go to their graves. Medicaid, so central to the country’s health care system, also played a major, though far less appreciated, role in last week’s collapse of the Republican drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. While President Trump and others largely blamed the conservative Freedom Caucus for that failure, the objections of moderate Republicans to the deep cuts in Medicaid also helped doom the Republican bill. “I was not willing to gamble with the care of my constituents with this huge unknown,†said Representative Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey, a member of the centrist Tuesday Group caucus, noting that in three of the counties in his district in the state’s more conservative southern half, over 30 percent of all residents are covered by Medicaid. In the Senate, many Republicans, echoing their states’ governors, had worried about jeopardizing the treatment of people addicted to opioids, depriving the working poor, children and people with disabilities of health care and in the long run reducing funding for the care of elderly people in nursing homes. The Republican bill would have largely undone the expansion of Medicaid under the A. C. A. which added 11 million adults to the program and guaranteed the federal government would cover almost all of their costs. It would have also ended the federal government’s commitment to pay a significant share of states’ Medicaid costs, no matter how much enrollment or spending rose. Instead, the bill would have given the states a choice between a fixed annual sum per recipient or a block grant, both of which would have almost certainly led to major cuts in coverage over time. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the Republican bill would have cumulatively cut projected spending on Medicaid by $839 billion and reduced the number of Medicaid beneficiaries by 14 million over the coming decade. Many Republicans could not stomach those consequences. Even some conservatives — Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, for example, and Daniel Webster of Florida — expressed concerns about the number of Medicaid recipients who could suffer. The Trump administration will likely still seek to rewrite Medicaid rules and give states more leeway to limit benefits or eligibility, for example, allowing them to require certain adults in the program to have jobs or pay monthly premiums. And many Republican governors and members of Congress remain determined to curb Medicaid spending, including by methods proposed in the bill. In 2015, the nation spent more than $532 billion on Medicaid, of which about 63 percent was federal money and the rest from the states. Still, last week’s defeat reflected how hard it is to take away an entitlement. It also showed the broad and deep reach of Medicaid, which covers about six times as many people as the private marketplaces created under the A. C. A. but, perhaps because the markets are more strongly associated with President Barack Obama and his law, got less attention in this month’s contentious debate. Medicaid now provides medical care to four out of 10 American children. It covers the costs of nearly half of all births in the United States. It pays for the care for of people in nursing homes. And it provides for 10 million children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. For states, it accounts for 60 percent of federal funding — meaning that cuts hurt not only poor and families caring for their children with autism or dying parents, but also bond ratings. The program is so woven into the nation’s fabric that in 2015, almost two thirds of Americans in a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they were either covered by Medicaid or had a family member or friend who was. The program not only pays for 16 percent of all personal health care spending nationwide, but also accounts for 9 percent of federal domestic spending. Because it has always covered a patchwork of groups — and many of its beneficiaries are poor and relatively powerless — Medicaid lacks the unified, formidable political constituency that Social Security and Medicare have. States often have different names for the program, and many who rely on it don’t realize that MassHealth in Massachusetts or TennCare in Tennessee are just Medicaid by another name. But in Kaiser’s polling since 2005, the percentage of people who support cutting Medicaid spending has never exceeded 13 percent. “The conventional wisdom that there’s a great deal of stigma attached to this program does not bear out in the public opinion data,†said Mollyann Brodie, who oversees polling for the foundation. President Trump led the charge for the bill that would have slashed Medicaid, but he recognized the program’s political potency during his campaign, proclaiming when he announced his candidacy that Medicaid should be saved “without cuts†and repeatedly taking to Twitter to declare his support for it. “The Republicans who want to cut SS and Medicaid are wrong,†he wrote in July 2015. The C. B. O. report made it clear that within a few years, the cuts to Medicaid in the Republican bill would have been felt by millions of Americans. “It’s health care for a huge chunk of the country,†said James A. Morone, a professor at Brown University, “and as Donald Trump discovered, it’s really, really complicated to mess around with. †As he waited to see what would happen to the Republican proposal last week, Myrone Pickett said, “I’ve got a question mark hanging over my head. †Mr. Pickett, of Bloomfield, N. J. got health insurance under the A. C. A. ’s expansion of Medicaid, and has used it for monthly shots of Vivitrol, a drug that reduces cravings for opioids and alcohol. A heroin addict for 16 years, Mr. Pickett, 51, said the treatment had helped him stay clean for the past year, get medication for bipolar disorder and land a job at a grocery store. The A. C. A. offered a tempting deal to states that agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility to everyone with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level — $16, 400 for a single person — mostly workers like cooks, hairdressers and cashiers. The federal government would initially pay 100 percent of the costs of covering their medical care, and never less than 90 percent under the terms of the law. Over the past three years, 31 states and the District of Columbia took the deal. The move was especially helpful to states overwhelmed by the opioid epidemic. It required Medicaid to cover addiction and mental health treatment for those newly eligible. Announcing his vote against the G. O. P. proposal last week, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who represents a politically moderate district north of Philadelphia, said his top concern was “the impact on the single most important issue plaguing Bucks and Montgomery Counties, and the issue that I have made my priority in Congress: opioid abuse prevention, treatment and recovery. †The Republican bill would have allowed Medicaid payments to grow per person at an inflation rate that would have eroded their value over time. The C. B. O. estimated that states would have gradually had to devote more of their own money to Medicaid, cut payments to doctors, tighten eligibility or cut services covered. In 2020, states would have started losing the 90 percent federal match for anyone who had gained Medicaid under the A. C. A. expansion but was dropped from the rolls, even briefly. And the bill required beneficiaries in the expansion population to every six months, instead of annually, increasing the likelihood that many would be dropped. As a result, the C. B. O. estimated that by 2026, less than 5 percent of Medicaid recipients enrolled under the A. C. A. would have been covered at the higher matching rate. But more broadly, the cuts would have almost inevitably affected every group covered by Medicaid, including the biggest block of recipients: 36 million children as of last year. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington State Republican, announced her “no†vote on the bill Thursday, saying, “Protecting vulnerable children is a core purpose of the Medicaid program and when the program fails to do so, it fails entirely. †The cuts would also likely have eventually hit poor, chronically ill mothers like Tracie Scott of Paulding, Ohio. She has multiple sclerosis and quit her job at a dollar store two years ago because of it. Medicaid covers her and her four children, including her daughter and an son with disease who has needed expensive medication and care for frequent fractures. “I’d be afraid to see some of the bills for my son,†Ms. Scott, 30, said as she cradled her newborn, Izabella, in their hospital room recently. “It’s been a lifesaver. †For more than six million Americans older than 64, Medicaid pays for nursing homes and other care that they would never otherwise be able to afford, while Medicare covers their medical care. The threat to such care propelled Representative Webster, whose Central Florida district includes The Villages, a retirement community with more than 150, 000 residents, to lean “no†on the bill. “This uniquely impacted Florida and our growing senior population that’s only going to explode in years to come,†said Jaryn Emhof, his spokeswoman. Representative Smith of New Jersey said he was voting no because of concerns about the impact on people with disabilities, who make up just 15 percent of all Medicaid recipients but account for 42 percent of spending, making them particularly vulnerable to cuts. For millions of disabled people, Medicaid covers services provided at home or through local programs — aides who help them walk, eat and bathe, for example, and physical and speech therapy — that allow them to stay out of institutions, where care is often more expensive. But those services are optional for states, while the cost of institutional care is not. The law would have given states an incentive to place them in institutions. Medicaid pays for Barbara Theus, 67, to attend a day program in Southfield, Mich. so that her son and caregiver, Royale Theus, can work. Ms. Theus sustained a serious head injury in a car accident 11 years ago and has not been able to care for herself since then. Medicaid also pays for home health aides who help Ms. Theus, a former nurse who did not have much savings at the time of her accident, get showered and fed. Mr. Theus was relieved when the bill failed. Had his mother lost coverage, he said, he would have had to leave his job to care for her. “I was hopeful that the powers that be would make the best decisions for the people, and that’s what happened,†he said. This was the third major effort by Republicans to end Medicaid as an entitlement. The first was under President Ronald Reagan, the second was in 1995, after President Bill Clinton’s unsuccessful attempt to expand health care coverage. But this was the first time Republicans tried it while they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. For all the battles over the years, Medicaid started as something of an afterthought. By 1960, both parties were worried that the country’s growing reliance on insurance was leaving out elderly people, who were unable to pay the rapidly rising cost of health care. The night of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson returned to his home in Washington and, unable to sleep, summoned three aides. “That’s when he took out his pen and wrote down the priorities that he was going to pursue,†one of those aides, Bill Moyers, recalled in an interview. Among them was government health insurance. President Harry S. Truman had sought to establish national health insurance — and failed. Democrats decided to take on a more limited goal: insurance for elderly people. They called it Medicare. Democrats pushed for it to cover hospital bills for the elderly Republicans wanted it to pay for private doctor’s bills. The American Medical Association had long lobbied against Medicare, hiring Reagan, then a Hollywood actor, to be the face of its campaign, producing a 1961 LP titled “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. †And the doctors’ group had an ally in Wilbur Mills, a conservative Democrat who was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, who like the doctors’ group did not think that elderly people should have their bills covered. In 1960, Mr. Mills had a law that established a small program to help the states treat the needy, as a way to stave off proposals for Medicare. The doctors’ group suggested expanding this program, preferring it because it would be administered by states, not the federal government. Mr. Mills had a change of heart after Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964. Johnson’s Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, had denounced Medicare, and Mr. Mills, and many Republicans, were eager to distance themselves from him. In early 1965, Mr. Mills proposed what became known as the cake: Medicare for hospital insurance, Medicare for doctor’s bills and a broadened version of the law that helped states pay for the care of the poor, the program that would become Medicaid. “Hardly anybody talked about Medicaid,†said Paul Starr, a sociology professor at Princeton. “It just got added on. †At first, Medicaid helped states provide medical care only for single parents and children on welfare. Over the next 25 years, Democrats — sometimes working with Republicans — gradually pushed to expand benefits — to families, to children with speech and development delays, to home treatment for people who would otherwise be institutionalized, to children up to age 5, then to age 8 and later to age 18, and to pregnant women. Ironically, some of the biggest expansions in Medicaid came in the 1980s under Reagan, the onetime A. M. A. mouthpiece. After Republicans failed to turn Medicaid into a block grant, Democrats, who still controlled Congress, worked on compromises with the president and other Republicans, sometimes allowing cuts in programs like Medicare in exchange for expanding Medicaid, said former Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat who shepherded many of those expansions. Democrats carefully calibrated each expansion to fit within the annual budget, submitting plans to the Congressional Budget Office for “scoring,†to see how much each would cost. “We couldn’t do it all at once because we didn’t have enough money in the budgets,†Mr. Waxman said. But eventually, the goal to decouple Medicaid from the welfare system was achieved. “We broke the link to welfare,†he said. By the 1980s and ’90s, health insurance was becoming prohibitively costly, and wages were starting to stagnate. health insurance was eroding. States led by Republicans as well as Democrats began to expand their Medicaid programs. “What people began to accept, including Republicans, was that the assumption that you could afford health insurance if you were an adult was not true,†said Colleen M. Grogan, a professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, who has written extensively on health care. “You could be working and still not afford health insurance. †In 1996, Mr. Clinton expanded Medicaid to cover more working families as part of his welfare overhaul. Campaigning for that year, he depicted Medicaid as a program, telling audiences it was helping their grandparents. “He is the first Democrat to start calling Medicaid one of ‘our programs,’†said Professor Morone of Brown. “There was a sense that Medicaid had sort of grown up as an entitlement. †The expansion of Medicaid in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, passed with Republican sponsorship in 1997, set the stage for the sweeping expansions of the Affordable Care Act 13 years later. But politics during Mr. Obama’s presidency had become highly polarized. While earlier expansions of Medicaid had sometimes been bipartisan, the A. C. A. passed without a single Republican vote in Congress. The Tea Party had risen in opposition to the legislation, and later helped elect many of those who now form the conservative Freedom Caucus. Gradually, though, states have adopted the expansion. And now that the law known as Obamacare has survived the effort to repeal it, more states may choose to expand Medicaid. In Maine, voters will decide this fall whether to do so, and in Kansas, the Legislature has all but approved an expansion, although Gov. Sam Brownback could veto it. Last week, despite their desire to repeal Mr. Obama’s biggest domestic legacy, some Republicans recognized that any bill that would lead to such drastic cuts in Medicaid would simply hurt too many of their constituents. In Ashland, Va. Medicaid made it possible for Kim Goodloe and her husband, Tom, to start a small company making metal parts for semiconductors and medical devices after the birth of twin boys with tuberous sclerosis 27 years ago. The genetic disorder causes tumors in vital organs, leading to frequent seizures, and Mrs. Goodloe had quit her job to take care of the boys when they were 4 — Medicaid did not cover services for them back then. But now, Medicaid provides a home aide for Matthew, who is incontinent and nonverbal, suffers daily seizures and needs help walking. For the other twin, Christopher, who is less severely developmentally disabled, Medicaid provided a job coach, helping him to work at their company and earn enough money that he now pays taxes. The Goodloes have private insurance, but it is not required to pay for the twins’ services, she said. With Virginia facing such steep cuts to its federal Medicaid payments, Mrs. Goodloe worried about losing the home health aide. They would have had to downsize the business, which employs 30 people. “Even within my own family, when you say ‘Medicaid’ it comes with some, ‘Those people don’t want to work.’ They believe there’s a lot of fraud, there’s people that don’t deserve it. †“But then,†she said, “They’ll say, ‘How could they take it away from Matthew? ’†| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD969 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump will not attend the Kennedy Center Honors in December, the White House announced on Saturday, after several honorees said they would boycott a White House reception before the show. The Kennedy Center also said in a statement the White House reception “will no longer take place.†The White House said the president and first lady would not take part in the Kennedy Center Honors “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.†The announcement came after television producer Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade said they would not attend the White House reception that was set to take place prior to the Dec. 3 annual gala event. The other honorees are singer Gloria Estefan and rapper LL Cool J. The awards are presented each year in December to recognize honorees for their lifetime contributions to the arts. All five honorees are expected to attend a Dec. 2 dinner and awards ceremony at the State Department, the Kennedy Center’s chairman, David Rubenstein, and its president, Deborah Rutter, in a statement. The Kennedy Center “respects†the decision made by the Trumps, they said. “In choosing not to participate in this year’s Honors activities, the administration graciously signaled its respect for the Kennedy Center and ensures the Honors gala remains a deservingly special moment for the honorees,†Rubenstein and Rutter said. De Lavallade, an African-American actress, dancer and choreographer, said in a statement on her website that she was honored to receive the award and would attend the show. But, she said that she would not go to the White House “in light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our existing leadership is choosing to engage in.†Her comments come after the president blamed “both sides†for violence that erupted last week between counter-demonstrators and neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and white nationalists holding a “Unite the Right†rally in Charlottesville, Va. Trump’s comments prompted a slew of resignations from presidential councils, including all 17 members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. In a New York Times article on Aug. 3, Lear was quoted as saying that he would forgo the White House reception because, “This is a presidency that has chosen to neglect totally the arts and humanities — deliberately defund them — and that doesn’t rest pleasantly with me.†The Kennedy Center Honors is the second annual Washington event that Trump decided not to attend. The president, who called the U.S. news media as “enemies of the American people,†also withdrew from the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD970 | 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 Carter Sell His Peanut Farm When He Became President? Claim summaries: Social media users were back in the business of comparing presidential business practices in spring 2020.
contextual information: As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepared to take office in December 2016, multiple news reports addressed the potential conflicts of interest he would face as he transitioned from a businessman to chief executive. Many critics urged Trump to divest himself of his businesses and cited former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's sale of his peanut farm as an exemplary model of how to head off such potential conflicts of interest. In May 2020, after an appeals court ruled that a lawsuit could proceed alleging that Trump had violated the constitution by receiving foreign money through his hotels, comparisons between Carter and Trump once again gained traction on social media. While Carter did place his businesses into a blind trust before he was elected president in 1977, he didn't actually sell his peanut farm until he left office in 1981. On Jan. 5, 1977, Carter released a plan detailing how his assets would be handled when he assumed office. Carter listed eight actions that he would take to avoid conflicts of interest, including transferring Carter's Warehouse, Carter Farms, and all funds related to those business ventures into a trust. The transition group studied existing laws and regulations regarding conflicts of interest and the regulation of ethics for officials in the executive branch of government. The existing law is extremely strong in prohibiting outside earned income. Governor Carter heavily approves of that law and its policy. In order to prevent possible financial conflicts of interest while President, Governor Jimmy Carter is taking the following actions: 1. All common stock is being sold, consisting of 100 shares of Rich's, Inc. and 956 shares of Advanced Investors. A small net loss on this stock is likely. 2. Jimmy Carter's interest in (a) Carter's Warehouse and Carter Farms, Inc., and any funds related to them (b) all property except the private home and personal items, and (c) his father's estate will be transferred to a trust. Income or principal from the trust will be available to Jimmy Carter but only as distributions of cash. Carter's business suffered significantly while he served as president, but it wasn't until he left office in 1981 that the decision was made to sell the family farm. While he served as president, Jimmy Carter placed the family farm supply business into the protection of a blind trust before he left for Washington, D.C. in 1977. This trust allowed a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the farm supply business during his years in the White House. The Carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else's care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office. Their personal counsel, Charles Kirbo of the Atlanta law firm, was their financial trustee. Following the election loss in 1981, the Carters were informed by Charles Kirbo that because of three years of drought and several changes in warehouse management, they were over $1 million in debt. As they struggled to recover from the unexpected financial blow, the solution to their problem became evident. The Carters sold the family business and also began writing books, which helped them recover financially. Regarding a meme's claim that Carter was still building houses at the age of 92, that is, for the most part, true. Carter has been building houses with Habitat for Humanity since 1984. At the age of 92, he was still actively participating in the construction of new homes. The above-displayed meme is a few years old, however, as Carter is 95 years old at the time of this writing in May 2020. If the text of this meme was altered to give Carter's current age, it would still be true. In October 2019, shortly after suffering a fall at his home that required stitches, Carter was back on the construction site. A Habitat for Humanity's Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project has also been announced in the Dominican Republic for November 2020, but it's unclear if Carter will travel to the country to take part in the construction. Since beginning their work with Habitat for Humanity in 1984, President and Mrs. Carter have helped to build, renovate, and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries alongside more than 104,000 volunteers through their annual work project. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat has served more than 22 million people around the world. "We are honored to host the 2020 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in the Dominican Republic," said Cesarina Fabin, national director of Habitat for Humanity Dominican Republic. "President and Mrs. Carter are shining examples of service. We are so grateful for their commitment to building a world where everyone has a safe and decent place to live." In summary, Carter placed his peanut farm into a blind trust when he took office in 1977. It wasn't until he left office four years later that the farm was sold. With that in mind, we rate this claim "Mixture." | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD971 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Washington (CNN) The White House is making clear that President Barack Obama will defy Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail who want him to leave the momentous task of nominating a new Supreme Court justice to the next administration.
"This is not the first time that Republicans have come out with a lot of bluster, only to have reality ultimately sink in," White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz told reporters Monday.
Schultz pointed to previous White House victories over the GOP-led Congress -- raising the debt limit, implementing the Iran nuclear deal and reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank -- and said history shows "Republicans fell back when their positions aren't tenable."
Washington is in tumult after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia, which left a turbulent White House race transformed, a lame-duck president back at the center of the political storm and Senate Republican leaders juggling an electoral hand grenade. After the shock of Scalia's passing and the swift eruption of a bitter partisan feud over his replacement, Obama and his GOP adversaries are digging in for a showdown.
Schultz emphasized Obama's plans to nominate a successor to Scalia and said it's the Senate's job to fulfill its constitutional duty to consider that nominee.
"There are no caveats. The Constitution does not include exemptions for election years or for the president's last term in office. There's no exemption for when a vacancy could tip the balance of the court," Schultz said.
But he said Obama won't select a nominee immediately.
"The president will take the time and rigor this process deserves before selecting a nominee. I would not anticipate an announcement this week, especially given that the Senate is out of recess," Schultz said Monday. "But as soon as the Senate returns, the president was very clear that he's going to fulfill his constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor to Justice Scalia."
That position ensures a titanic fight over Scalia's replacement, placing Obama on a collision course with Republicans while thickening the plot of an election that now leaves the White House, the Senate and the nation's top court up for grabs.
GOP presidential candidates are leading the charge in the battle over a replacement for Scalia, a beloved icon for conservatives who was found dead at the age of 79 at a resort in West Texas on Saturday. They are warning that since an appointment could remake the court for a generation as key legal battles over abortion rights, affirmative action and campaign finance loom, it should be put off until next year.
"This is for the people to decide," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said at a rally in South Carolina on Monday. "I intend to make 2016 a referendum on the U.S. Supreme Court."
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already warned Obama not to try to fill the vacancy on the Court, saying it should be up to a new president to weigh in once voters have spoken in November.
McConnell must navigate a treacherous political moment and decide whether a Republican maneuver to block a confirmation process could benefit his party at the polls or risk driving up Democratic turnout in November and put his grip on the Senate at risk.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and several other Democrats want Obama to choose a Supreme Court nominee who would inflict maximum political pain on Republicans because he or she would be very difficult for the GOP to oppose, according to two Democratic sources.
In other words, some influential Senate Democrats want Obama to choose a nominee who Republicans would ordinarily support but are only opposing now because it's an election year. This, they believe, would allow them to paint the GOP as intransigent and well outside of the mainstream, undermining the Senate GOP's election-year argument that they are committed to governing in a bipartisan manner.
Going this route, they believe, would increasingly ratchet up pressure on at-risk Republicans who are facing tough reelections, energize the Democratic base and potentially flip the Senate if the GOP stands in their way and denies a popular nominee a vote.
Reid spoke with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough shortly after Scalia's death, according to a source familiar with the call.
It's unclear who specifically Reid wants in the post. Some Democrats point to appellate judge Sri Srinivasan, who would be the first justice of South Asian descent serving on the court and was confirmed to his current post by a 97-0 vote in 2013.
"I think the president, past is prologue, will nominate someone who is in the mainstream," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, the likely incoming Democratic leader, said Sunday.
But several other Democrats are also pointing to other potential groundbreaking choices and candidates who don't hold judicial posts, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota and Cory Booker, D-New Jersey.
The sudden political crisis also put one group of Republicans -- swing-state senators whose seats could dictate whether the GOP can hang on to the chamber in November -- in a difficult position. Privately, senior Democratic officials told CNN that there's little chance of Obama's nominee winning confirmation unless these endangered GOPers break ranks.
One vulnerable incumbent, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, would not say if they wanted the Senate to deny Obama's nominee a vote.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, who often votes with Republicans, wants the Senate to act on a nominee when the President puts one forward, an aide to the senator told CNN.
But several others made clear they stood with Republican leaders who believe that the issue could invigorate conservative turnout in November.
"I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate," Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a vulnerable incumbent, said in an email to CNN.
And in a statement, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican facing a competitive reelection fight in 2016, said the Senate should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee until a new president is elected.
"We're in the midst of a consequential presidential election year," Ayotte said, "and Americans deserve an opportunity to weigh in given the significant implications this nomination could have for the Supreme Court and our country for decades to come."
On Monday, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania became the fourth of five swing-state Republicans to back McConnell's strategy.
"We should honor Justice Scalia's legacy, and we should put off a decision on his replacement until the newly-elected president can make his or her choice," Toomey said in a statement.
Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican up for re-election this year, also said Monday he thought the future president should nominate Scalia's replacement.
"Whether the next president is a Republican or Democrat, I will judge any nominee on the merits, as I always have," Portman said in a statement. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD972 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. President Donald Trump said anti-Semitism should be defeated and called the Holocaust the “darkest chapter of human history†in a video address on Sunday, following two missteps by his administration regarding statements about genocide during World War Two. “The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror and the loss. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear,†Trump said in a speech to the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in New York on Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. “On Yom HaShoah, we look back at the darkest chapter of human history,†Trump added. “We mourn, we remember, we pray, and we pledge: ‘Never again.’†In January, on international Holocaust Remembrance Day, a Trump administration statement failed to mention Jews, the overwhelming majority of those who were killed in concentration camps under Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Earlier this month, White House spokesman Sean Spicer triggered an uproar when he said Hitler did not sink to the level of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by using chemical weapons. [nL1N1HJ1YK] Spicer later apologized after his comments aroused criticism on social media and elsewhere for overlooking the fact that millions of Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers. Trump’s four-minute message included somber references to Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, a commitment to support Israel and a rebuke of prejudice and anti-Semitism. “We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found. We must defeat terrorism, and we must not ignore the threats of a regime that talks openly of Israel’s destruction,†Trump said in an apparent reference to Iran. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD973 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Kanye West likened himself to Donald J. Trump at a concert on Saturday in California before tumbling into a speech addressing radio programmers, MTV, his friends and collaborators Jay Z and Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg and more. After getting an array of grievances off his chest — from politics to politics — Mr. West ended the performance with a microphone drop, having played only three songs, leaving fans bitter and upset, according to reactions on social media. “It’s a new world, Hillary Clinton, it’s a new world,†Mr. West said from his floating platform stage above the crowd. “Feelings matter. Because guess what? Everybody in Middle America felt a way and they showed you how they felt. †The brief concert, at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, came two nights after Mr. West shocked his audience by announcing at a show in San Jose, Calif. that he had not voted, but would have cast a ballot for Mr. Trump if he had. Though the rapper affirmed his belief in the importance of issues like Black Lives Matter and women’s rights, he praised Mr. Trump’s “method of communication†as “very futuristic. †On Saturday night, in a trademark polemic the likes of which had been mostly absent from his current Saint Pablo tour, Mr. West doubled down on his embrace of political incorrectness and opined on the state of the media. “Yeah, I’m taking his lead,†Mr. West said of the . “A lot of people here tonight felt like they lost,†the rapper began. “You know why? Because y’all been lied to. Google lied to you. Facebook lied to you. Radio lied to you. †Turning his focus on the music industry, Mr. West questioned gatekeepers for promoting songs by Drake but not Frank Ocean, and wondered once again why he is often overlooked at awards shows. Referring to this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, Mr. West pulled back the curtain on what he said was the political dealings that go into booking celebrities for such events. “Beyoncé, I was hurt because I heard that you said you wouldn’t perform unless you won Video of the Year over me and over ‘Hotline Bling,’†he said. “Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win,†he continued. “I’ve been sitting here to give y’all my truth even at the risk of my own life — even at the risk of my own success, my own career. †However, Mr. West said, such was necessary for real progress. “Obama couldn’t make America great because he couldn’t be him to be who he was,†he said. “Black men have been slaves. Obama wasn’t allowed to do this†— the rapper screamed — “and still win. He had to be perfect. But being perfect don’t always change†things. When more music failed to follow the impromptu stump speech, disappointed fans turned to social media to demand refunds. On Sunday, the Golden 1 Center announced that ticketholders would be paid back in full, including Ticketmaster fees. On Monday, a representative for Mr. West said that remaining dates on the second leg of the “Saint Pablo†tour have been canceled. Even amid his raw, spontaneous and sometimes rambling monologue, Mr. West seemed to know he was courting controversy. “I’m not always going to say things the perfect way, the right way,†he said. “But I’m going to say how I feel. †He added, “Get ready to have a field day, press. Get ready, get ready. Because the show’s over. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD974 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: France said on Tuesday it wanted the United Nations Security Council to consider imposing targeted sanctions on human traffickers operating in Libya after a video appearing to show African migrants sold as slaves sparked global outrage. Several members of the 15-member Security Council expressed their horror at the video during a meeting on Tuesday, requested by France, to discuss human trafficking in Libya. The footage broadcast earlier this month by CNN showed what it said was an auction of men to Libyan buyers as farmhands and sold for $400 each. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said the council should use sanctions to help stamp out trafficking in Libya. France will propose to assist the sanctions committee ... in identifying responsible individuals and entities for trafficking through Libyan territory, Delattre told the council. We count upon support of the members of the council to make headway to that end. Under a sanctions regime set up in 2011, the Security Council is able to impose a global asset freeze and travel ban on individuals and entities involved in or complicit in ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Libya. France can propose names for targeted U.N. sanctions but needs to win consensus support within the Security Council s 15-member Libya sanctions committee. Some council members expressed support for the possibility of imposing targeted sanctions, while others backed the council first issuing a statement. Diplomats said France, Britain and Sweden were drafting a statement. We all have a responsibility to act. This is not the moment to pass the buck, said Sweden s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Carl Skau. Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 led to the overthrow and killing of leader Muammar Gaddafi, with two competing governments backed by militias scrambling for control of the oil-producing country. Islamic State militants have also gained a foothold in the North African state. People smugglers operating with impunity in Libya have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe, mainly Italy, by sea since 2014. Thousands have died during the voyages. The Security Council last week adopted an Italian-drafted resolution urging tougher action to crack down on human trafficking and modern slavery worldwide. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD975 | 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 Walt Disney Born in Robinson, Illinois? Claim summaries: It's a charming story, but the details don't quite add up.
contextual information: We can't all be famous, but many people who aren't have tried the next best thing: associating themselves with someone famous. Others, denied the opportunity even to hobnob with anyone of renown, have taken the process a step further and manufactured such associations themselves. A particularly prevalent genre of "brush with fame" legends involves those who claim to have had chance encounters with notable personages during their formative years, contributing something—an idea, a suggestion, or maybe just a helping hand—that had a lasting impact and aided those later-famous people in becoming successful in some artistic, scientific, or political endeavor. After all, the early lives of people who later become famous are often not well documented, making it difficult to dispute a claimant's tale of a chance encounter way back when. Not surprisingly, Walt Disney is the subject of several such legends, one of which pertains to the site of his birth and the origin of his given name. In 1982, the Robinson Argus newspaper, based in Robinson, Illinois, published a local resident's recollection of the putative circumstances surrounding Walt's birth: "So many great people were born in Robinson! And now we must add Walt Disney to the list." The Argus is indebted to Doris Davis and Ada York for the surprising information that the famous Walt Disney was actually born in Robinson. On Friday, February 12, Ada provided the following information to Doris Davis, who in turn brought it to the Argus on Monday of that week. This is February 12, 1982, at Cotillion Ridge, and this is Ada talking to Doris Davis: "In 1925-26, I worked for Mr. George Walter on West Plum Street. This was a time when Walt Disney was coming into great popularity. He told me that several people knew that Walt Disney was born in Robinson, and I asked him how he developed that knowledge. He said that he owned the brickyard at the time and that they were migrating through Robinson back to Chicago and ran out of money while in this town. Mr. Walter gave him a job, and he got a room over what is now the Rembrandt Studio, and their baby was due at any time. When the baby was born, it was a boy, and they named him Walter for Mr. Walter, who had been so kind to them and gave Mr. Disney work to enable him to support his wife and baby son." Doris: "Later, you heard an interview?" Ada: "Yes! Edward R. Murrow interviewed Walt Disney, and he asked him where he was born. Walt Disney said, 'Well, the record shows that I was born in Chicago, but actually I was born in a little town 200 miles south—Robinson!' So that sort of tied the ends together!" It's a charming story, but the logical holes in its premise and timeline are numerous: Every significant piece of Disney biography states that Walt was born in an upstairs bedroom of his parents' house in Chicago. If Walt had publicly stated, to a news reporter as prominent as Edward R. Murrow, that he was actually born somewhere else, how is it that this fact has somehow eluded every Disney biographer to the point that none of them so much as mention it? And if Walt both knew and publicly proclaimed that he was really born in Robinson, why did he nonetheless maintain in his autobiography (published under his daughter's name) that he was indeed born in Chicago? Walt Disney's parents could not have been "migrating back to Chicago" just before his birth in 1901, as they had been living in Chicago continuously since 1889. Even if Elias Disney, Walt's father, had some reason to travel away from Chicago in late 1901, it is extremely unlikely (given the rigors of travel in those days) that he would have taken a heavily pregnant wife along with him except under the most exigent of circumstances (and there is no record of any such circumstances affecting the Disney family in 1901). The account quoted above states that a brickyard owner in Robinson gave Elias Disney work immediately after Walt's birth "to enable him to support his wife and baby son." By the time Walt came along, the Disneys already had three children—who was taking care of them? Surely Mr. and Mrs. Disney had not left their three young sons behind somewhere to fend for themselves, so why does this recollection fail to mention anyone but Walt? Why in the world would the Disneys, who already had a permanent home in Chicago (in a house built by Elias himself), have been traipsing around the countryside with three children in tow and Mrs. Disney about to give birth to a fourth? (Again, there is no record of the Disneys having left their three eldest children in someone else's care for an extended period of time just before Walt's birth.) The statement that Walt Disney was "coming into great popularity" in 1925-26 (a claim made to explain why the narrator clearly remembered a story she'd been told over fifty years earlier—obviously she wouldn't have found the tale so memorable if Walt Disney wasn't already famous when she heard it) is a bit off the mark: the debut of the character who made the name 'Disney' a household word, Mickey Mouse, was still several years in the future, and even Disney's first successful animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, would not first appear until late 1927. Disney had moderate success in the mid-1920s with his Alice in Cartoonland series (short silent films that mixed live action and animation), but he was hardly a nationally known figure in 1926. (As a point of comparison, we note that although Disney began working in Los Angeles in early 1923, his name appeared in the pages of the Los Angeles Times but once prior to 1929.) Wherever Walt may have been born (and no matter what the circumstances of his birth), his given name was demonstrably not the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision by his parents to honor someone who had aided them at the time of Walt's birth in 1901. As the following birth record demonstrates, the Disneys had already selected "Walter" as a name for one of their sons as far back as 1890: Walt Disney, of course, was not born until 1901—this certificate, which documents a birth on December 30, 1890, records the arrival of one of Walt's older brothers, Raymond Arnold Disney. Evidently, Mr. and Mrs. Disney considered naming one of their earlier children "Walter" to the extent that that name was listed on the birth certificate, but they later changed their minds and named him "Raymond" instead. The important point, however, is that this certificate documents that the Disneys had the name "Walter" in mind for one of their sons a full eleven years before Walt was born. So, we leave off where we began, by noting that people sometimes manufacture their own brushes with greatness, as was evidently the case here. To mangle a familiar phrase: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some fabricate greatness out of whole cloth." | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD976 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Thursday, the U. S. military published a report on the death of 33 Afghan civilians, and wounding of 27 others, during a joint U. S. and Afghan special forces raid against the Taliban in November. [“The investigation concluded that U. S. forces acted in in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict, and in accordance with all applicable regulations and policy,†the military said in a statement quoted by Reuters. “It has been determined that no further action will be taken because U. S. forces acted in and followed all applicable law and policy,†the statement said. The operation was intended to drive Taliban forces from the area around Kunduz, which they had overrun in October 2015, and partially occupied the year before that. Specifically, two senior Taliban commanders were targeted in village of . (They were indeed killed during the raid, along with an estimated 26 Taliban fighters.) The Wall Street Journal reports U. S. and Afghan forces were “led into a trap by the Taliban and ambushed on a street. †The Taliban opened fire from within civilian structures, inflicting several casualties and forcing the American and Afghan troops to call for air support. Two U. S. soldiers were killed and four wounded during the battle, while the Afghans lost three commandos and had 11 wounded. According to the investigation, the responding aircraft appropriately used “the minimum amount of force required to neutralize the various threats from the civilian buildings. †The report said no civilians were identified by U. S. special forces during the firefight, the dead and wounded civilians were effectively serving as human shields for the Taliban, and some of the casualties resulted from a Taliban ammo dump exploding. The Associated Press notes that after the battle was over, local residents “carried over a dozen corpses of the dead, including children and family members of the Taliban fighters, toward a local governor’s office in a show of rage. †“Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives. On this occasion the Taliban chose to hide amongst civilians and then attacked Afghan and U. S. forces,†said General John Nicholson, commander of U. S. forces in Afghanistan. “I wish to assure President Ghani and the people of Afghanistan that we will take all possible measures to protect Afghan civilians. We will continue to assist the Afghan security forces in their efforts to defend their country. †The Associated Press notes that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani criticized the Taliban for using civilians as shields shortly after the raid in November. The Wall Street Journal offers some contextual information that doesn’t square easily with departing President Barack Obama’s rhetoric about pulling U. S. troops out of Afghanistan: Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased in 2016, with more than 5, 000 deaths recorded in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations. Data for the remainder of the year hasn’t been released. The U. S. Air Force dramatically increased the number of airstrikes it carried out in Afghanistan in 2016, data released by the military shows, a further sign of growing U. S. involvement in the country’s war following the withdrawal of most coalition troops two years ago. Just about every media report on the outcome of this military investigation mentions the controversial U. S. airstrike in the Kunduz region from October 2015, which killed 42 at a Doctors Without Borders hospital, and led to disciplinary actions against a U. S. general and 15 other military personnel. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD977 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Facing mounting pressure over civilian casualties in American airstrikes, the United coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said on Saturday that it was likely that at least 229 civilians had been unintentionally killed by its operations since they began in August 2014. In February, the last month covered by the report and the first full month of the Trump administration, four such civilians were killed, the coalition said. The assessment, issued monthly, therefore does not include the March 17 strike against a building in Mosul in which scores if not hundreds of civilians were killed, according to Iraqi witnesses. That strike is under investigation. The coalition’s overall count is far less than estimates by some human rights groups. Airwars, a nongovernment organization that monitors reports of civilian casualties in international airstrikes, has asserted that at least 2, 831 civilians are likely to have been killed as of March 28 by the coalition’s air attacks since August 2014. The worries about civilian casualties have grown as Iraqi forces push to take western Mosul from the Islamic State with the help of American and allied air power, rockets and artillery. President Trump has vowed to step up the fight against the militants, though the basic strategy in Mosul was set by American commanders during the Obama administration. “We take the issue of civilian casualties seriously, every day, not just when it makes news,†said Col. John J. Thomas, the spokesman for the United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East. Colonel Thomas added that the command, in an effort to be “fully transparent,†was sharing information on unresolved cases and was even describing episodes that military personnel had reported up the chain of command but had not received public attention. Chris Woods, the director of Airwars, asserted that while the Central Command had been working to improve its casualty counts, it was still lagging behind. “Certainly, both Centcom and the coalition have put a lot of effort into improving their casualty monitoring process, and we have been in extensive dialogue with them,†Mr. Woods said in a telephone interview from London. “But despite these improved resources, both Centcom and the coalition appear unable to keep up with the number of allegations,†Mr. Woods added. “Given the intensity of operations in Mosul and around Raqqa, that gap continues to grow. †Raqqa, in Syria, is the Islamic State’s capital. In western Mosul, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped, and airstrikes are an essential part of the operation. The Iraqi military has suffered enormous casualties — 284 Iraqi troops were killed in the first 37 days of the offensive to take western Mosul — and it depends on American firepower to advance. American military officials also allege that Islamic State fighters have herded Iraqi residents into buildings, calculating that escalating civilian casualties would prompt American commanders to slow the pace of airstrikes. But critics say that the firepower that is being applied is so extensive that civilians are being put in danger. During a recent week in Mosul, the United coalition carried out attacks with 700 bombs and rockets and 400 more strikes with Himars missiles, according to military officials. With the United States unwilling to play a major ground combat role in Iraq and Syria, air power has become increasingly important. Between August 2014 and February 2017, the coalition carried out 18, 645 strikes. According to data made public on Saturday by the command that is directing the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, there were 37 reports of possible civilian casualties related to the operation to evict the Islamic State from the eastern half of Mosul, which began in . But 12 of these were deemed upon investigation to be “noncredible,†sometimes because no coalition strikes had been carried out in the area. In five cases, the command found that the reports of civilian casualties were “credible. †In a Feb. 16 strike on a site that the military said was being used to make or hide an Islamic State car bomb, two civilians were killed when they entered the target area after the munition was released. cases of possible civilian casualties are still being assessed, including an April 2015 strike near Mosul. That case was reopened after new information was received. In the March 17 strike in Mosul, which led to the building collapse, American officials have acknowledged that the United States had a role, but said that the munition used should not have been powerful enough to bring down a building. They are examining whether the American strike might have set off a larger blast from explosives set by militants. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD978 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber struck a hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Monday, officials said, killing at least 74 people in another devastating attack on civilians in a city that has become a byword for massacre and struggle over the past decade. Before the bomber attacked, dozens of lawyers had gathered at the hospital to condemn the shooting death hours earlier of a prominent colleague, officials said. They feared that the death toll from the bombing would rise, given the vast crowd of people seriously wounded in the attack. Late on Monday evening, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the shooting and the bombing. “Our attacks will continue till the imposition of the Islamic system in the country,†the statement of responsibility read. The bombing was also claimed by the regional branch of the Islamic State, according to the Amaq news agency, which is affiliated with the militant group. If confirmed, that would be a first attack by the group in Pakistan — though the claim may be related to the fact that in the past, the Ahrar splinter group has expressed support for the Islamic State. Even as militant attacks have been down sharply across Pakistan as a whole in the past two years, Baluchistan Province, where Quetta is the main city, remains violent. For more than a decade, Baluchistan, a rugged and province bordering Afghanistan and Iran, has been wracked by a separatist war, ethnic and sectarian violence and militant intrigue. Those fault lines come to a point in Quetta, a city of more than one million. Quetta’s Hazara minority, which is mostly Shiite, has been targeted repeatedly by Sunni extremist groups such as . Political tensions between ethnic Pashtun and Baluch leaders have been another source of conflict. Additionally, the Afghan Taliban’s leadership is based in Quetta, and infighting, assassinations and kidnappings have scarred the city. At the same time, Baluchistan is one of the most forbidding environments for journalists. Foreign reporters are routinely barred from visiting, and many local journalists have been killed or intimidated, according to human rights groups. The bombing on Monday came hours after the president of the Baluchistan Bar Association, Bilal Anwar Kasi, was gunned down by unknown attackers. Local news reports said that he was killed by men on a motorcycle while on his way to court. As the news of Mr. Kasi’s death spread through Quetta, dozens of lawyers went to Civil Hospital, where his body had been taken for an autopsy. As they protested the killing, a powerful blast ripped through the entrance of the hospital’s emergency ward. Television footage showed dozens of lawyers running for cover as gunfire echoed in the background. Some lawyers could be seen pushing a stretcher bearing a wounded colleague, as others urged them to safety. “Get inside! Get inside!†one lawyer could be heard saying, as others rushed into the hospital building. Two cameramen working for local news networks were among those killed. The bombing left a trail of destruction. The charred bodies of victims lay in pools of blood. Several vehicles parked nearby were damaged, and windows of buildings were shattered. One witness, Hajji Abdul Haq, who survived the bombing with minor injuries, said in a telephone interview that he was standing outside the hospital entrance with other lawyers, waiting to receive the body of their slain colleague. “I was in the second row, senior lawyers were in the first row,†Mr. Haq said. “Suddenly, there was a deafening explosion. †Rescue workers pulled Mr. Haq from under a pile of bodies. “I lost my hearing for almost an hour after the blast,†he said. Mr. Haq said the suicide bomber was dressed in the traditional “lawyers’ uniform†of Pakistan — a black suit and black tie. The bomb went off right as the attacker moved toward the center of the crowd. Acme Roger, a cameraman for GEO TV, told his network that he was inside the hospital when he heard a loud explosion outside. “Smoke spread quickly and one could hear loud screams,†Mr. Roger said. “When we got out of the building, there were dead bodies everywhere and people were shouting and screaming, trying to find their loved ones. †Sam Zarifi, the Asia director of the International Commission of Jurists, said in a statement, “This attack targeted mostly lawyers and intellectuals (many of them from the Pashtun community) who had gathered at the hospital to mourn the loss of one of their own. “As such, it constituted a serious loss for the legal community and increases existing pressure on the independence of the bar. †Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing on Monday, urging the law enforcement authorities to improve security in Quetta. “No one will be allowed to disturb the peace in the province that has been restored thanks to the countless sacrifices by the security forces, police and the people of Baluchistan,†he said in a statement. By the afternoon, Gen. Raheel Sharif, the Pakistani Army chief, had reached the city to visit victims and express solidarity. General Sharif then led a meeting of senior security officials, according to Lt. Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa, the army spokesman. General Bajwa, in a message posted on Twitter, claimed that the attack was “an attempt to undermine the improved security†in Baluchistan, specifically targeting the Economic Corridor, a endeavor by both countries that includes infrastructure networks and energy projects. Soon after, Mr. Sharif arrived in Quetta and with General Sharif visited the wounded at a military hospital. A spokesman for Baluchistan’s government, Anwar Kakar, said that the perpetrators would soon be brought to justice. “This is indeed a highly condemnable act, but such cowardly acts cannot shake our resolve of eradicating the menace of terrorism,†he said by telephone. The Pakistani Bar Association said lawyers across the country would hold a strike in all courts and spend a week in mourning. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD979 | 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 Chinese Company Buy America's 'Most Famous Burger Brand'? Claim summaries: McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King are among the most popular burger chains in terms of U.S. sales figures, according to online reports.
contextual information: In December 2023, multiple display advertisements were shown to online users on YouTube and other websites that claimed, "America's Most Famous Burger Brand Is Now Chinese Owned." In this story, we've detailed how these ads were both false and misleading. We've also provided information about some of the most successful U.S. burger brands. One ad that we reviewed showed a photo of a large cheeseburger in what appeared to be the dining room of a restaurant. We performed a reverse-image search and traced the picture to a page on Pinterest. A link on that Pinterest page led to another page on friesandsalt.tumblr.com, which revealed that the photo was captured in a Five Guys restaurant. Five Guys is headquartered in Virginia and is not owned by a company in China. reverse-image search page friesandsalt.tumblr.com headquartered Additional ads that displayed similar captions showed other pictures of burgers. One of those images may have been a stock photo or was possibly captured in Cyprus, according to a user's post on TripAdvisor.com. TripAdvisor.com All of these ads led to a lengthy article that was hosted on either Investing.com or StreetInsider.com. The story's headline read, "American Companies That Are No Longer American." Investing.com StreetInsider.com The article was massive in its text. It listed nearly 200 businesses and had close to 400 paragraphs. Nowhere in the story did the author mention anything about any American burger brands being bought by a company in China. The ads with the photos of burgers were false and misleading clickbait that may have originally been created to lure readers to click or scroll through nearly 200 slides for nothing. We hope that our brief article saved readers some time. The reason why these kinds of ads and articles exist is usually something called advertising arbitrage. Advertising arbitrage is a strategy in which an advertiser hopes to make more money on ads displayed in a lengthy article than it would cost to display an initial clickbait ad meant to attract users to the article. In other words, instead of the ads being both attractive and potentially helpful to consumers, they instead mislead users from the start. Advertising arbitrage Naming America's "most famous" burger brand might be a subjective choice. However, if sales figures were considered, McDonald's was at the top of the food chain, according to QSR Magazine, Restaurant Business and Yahoo Finance. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, not China. QSR Magazine Restaurant Business Yahoo Finance headquartered The same three sources that provided sales figures for burger chains also reported that McDonald's was followed by Wendy's and Burger King. Wendy's is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, while Burger King is owned by the Canadian company Restaurant Brands International. headquartered Restaurant Brands International Note: If readers would like to report any strange or misleading ads on Snopes, we invite you to contact us. Please include the full link of the website where the questionable ad led to so that we can attempt to investigate and potentially block any such ads. contact us Ahmed, Ali. 20 Best Burger Chains in the US. Yahoo Finance, 5 Aug. 2023, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-best-burger-chains-us-214700611.html. Campus Gardens at Wendys Headquarters in Dublin, OH. Wendys, https://www.wendys.com/csr-what-we-value/footprint/corporate-office-initiatives/gardens. Careers at the McDonalds Global Headquarters. McDonalds Careers, https://careers.mcdonalds.com/mhq-and-field-offices. El Clasico Sports Pub. TripAdvisor.com, Apr. 2019, https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g190383-d6651868-i275560000-El_Clasico_Sports_Pub-Nicosia_Nicosia_District.html. Evon, Dan. Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches. Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/. Five Guys Bacon Triple Cheeseburger. Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/513973376204398170/. ---. friesandsalt.tumblr.com, https://friesandsalt.tumblr.com/post/136992557459/photoset_iframe/friesandsalt/tumblr_nragqdSeHE1qhffuc/0/false. Liles, Jordan. Snopes Tips: How To Avoid Ad Arbitrage Clickbait. Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/387913/avoid-ad-arbitrage-clickbait/. Our Locations. Restaurant Brands International, https://careers.rbi.com/global/en/locations. Ranked: The Top Fast-Food Burger Chains in America. QSR Magazine, 1 Aug. 2023, https://www.qsrmagazine.com/operations/fast-food/ranked-the-top-fast-food-burger-chains-in-america/. Restaurant Business Staff. The Largest Burger Chains in the U.S. Restaurant Business, 13 May 2020, https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/largest-burger-chains-us. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD980 | 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 a housing project for Syrian refugees being constructed in West Virginia with intentions of establishing a 'Sharia Zone'? Claim summaries: A video shot at a public housing project makes numerous, factually challenged claims about Syrian migration to West Virginia.
contextual information: On 5 March 2019, a conspiracy-minded Twitter account shared a video purporting to be from the site of a construction project funded by West Virginia taxpayer money for the purpose of housing 321 Syrian refugees. The video also claimed this was being done at the expense of regular Americans who, the man asserted, were being pushed into substandard housing. He stated that the area he was standing in would become a sharia zone, where no non-Muslims would be allowed to enter. Several factual problems exist with the assertions in this video. Chief among them is the fact that this video shows the Littlepage Terrace housing project, a low-income housing tax-credit property allocated through the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, which houses zero Syrian refugees and many regular Americans. Several lines of evidence support this conclusion. First, someone who works next to the project refers to it as Littlepage Terrace. Second, a wider, composite view of the man's video shows clearly identifiable markers of the Littlepage housing complex, including a telltale smokestack and buildings that exactly match the structures built at Littlepage. Third, Mark Taylor, the chief executive officer of the Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority, which works with the Littlepage Terrace project, confirmed to us by email that the suspect video was taken at that site during renovations that likely occurred in May 2017. He also confirmed that the community houses no Syrian refugees. Another significant oversight in the tweeted narrative is that the entire state of West Virginia has taken in far fewer than 321 Syrian refugees in total. In 2016, the year the United States took in the largest number of Syrian refugees, West Virginia resettled only five of them. On 1 February 2017, the Trump Administration announced Executive Order 13769, commonly referred to as the "travel ban," which indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States. In 2017, West Virginia took in 13 refugees, but these individuals were not necessarily Syrian. It is true that Littlepage was torn down and rebuilt, but that decision had nothing to do with refugee housing. Instead, the renovations aimed to reduce crime and revitalize the area, as reported by West Virginia's WCHS television station in 2016. The Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority is now in the last phase of revitalizing three housing projects. Similar to Orchard Manor and Washington Manor, Littlepage Terrace will be demolished and rebuilt as two-story townhomes. This housing project was built nearly 80 years ago with no air conditioning and poor visibility. Now it is simply not a secure living space. The goal for these new developments is to reduce crime and revitalize the area. Because the housing complex displayed was not built for Syrian refugees, and because the state has taken virtually no Syrian refugees at all, we rank the claims made in this video as aggressively and demonstrably false. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD981 | 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 Ron Paul Call Congress "A Bunch of Psychopathic Authoritarians"? Claim summaries: Ron Paul did use the words "psychopathic authoritarians" in his final address, but not specifically to describe the U.S. Congress or its members.
contextual information: A popular meme asserts that Ron Paul, a Republican/Libertarian who was the U.S. Representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district and a presidential candidate, once to referred his U.S. Congress colleagues as a bunch of psychopathic authoritarians: Ron Paul supposedly made such a pronouncement during his final speech to the House of Representatives on 14 November 2012. In that speech, he affirmed his commitment to limited government and sought to put the history of the country (and his career) into a narrative about retaining personal liberty in the face of an expanding federal government. Paul offered the argument that the use of government to promote social change can lead to the immoral use of force, even when intended to promote humanitarian ideals (emphasis ours): final speech Humanitarian arguments are always used to justify government mandates related to the economy, monetary policy, foreign policy, and personal liberty. This is on purpose to make it more difficult to challenge. But, initiating violence for humanitarian reasons is still violence. Good intentions are no excuse and are just as harmful as when people use force with bad intentions. The results are always negative. The immoral use of force is the source of mans political problems. Sadly, many religious groups, secular organizations, and psychopathic authoritarians endorse government initiated force to change the world.. Even when the desired goals are well-intentioned -- or especially when well-intentioned -- the results are dismal. While it is true that Paul used the phrase psychopathic authoritarians, he was referring not to Congress only or specifically, but -- along with religious groups and secular organizations -- to people who might be predisposed to endorse government-initiated change. Although it is undoubtedly true that some members of Congress, either implicitly or explicitly, support the use of government to effect social change, the notion that Paul was calling everyone serving in the U.S. Congress "a bunch of authoritarian psychopaths to their faces" is a misleading reduction of context. psychopathic authoritarians Campaign for Liberty. "Transcript of Farewell Address"
14 November 2012. | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD982 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Obama s know how to go big and their post-White House adobe is no exception! It s a HUGE (8,000 sq ft) mansion worth over $6 million! Of course, Obama made millions during his 8 years as president so it comes as now surprise that he ll be hanging around to make more in DC According to Market Watch, this move is raising some eyebrows:Already, some observers have criticized the 44th president s choice of Kalorama. As far as legacies go, the thought of our President of Hope and Change moving to one of the oldest, most established, filthy-richest neighborhoods in the city just doesn t jibe, sniffed Washingtonian magazine real estate columnist Hillary Kelly in a May 24 post. It s hard to imagine the Obama of eight years ago deciding to forgo the potential to move to a revitalizing area, or just a slightly less hoity one, in favor of a zip code where the blood runs royal blue and the servants stairs are still used by the help, she wrote.THE OBAMAS MOVE TO HOITY TOWN :By now you ve probably heard that Barack and Michelle Obama plan to relocate from the White House to a home in the upper-upper scale Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood in northwest Washington.Like many Baby Boomers, they are downsizing from the 55,000-square-foot White House to a home of 8,000 square feet. Its interior is contemporary, and exterior inviting.The Obamas own a home in Chicago, so word about town is that they will be leasing the Kalorama home until both first daughters are finished with high school and in college.Kate Bennett of Independent Journal Review unloads lots of details on the nine-bedroom, eight-bathroom house:1) The house, located off Massachusetts Avenue NW, is owned by former White House press chief Joe Lockhart. It was purchased for $5.295 million in May 2014 and now has a current estimated value of $6.35 million, according to Redfin.2) The house is situated off Massachusetts Avenue NW and adjacent to Rock Creek Park.3) The Obamas, according to anonymous sources, worked privately with the Lockharts to reach a lease agreement for their bright and airy house, which features a large back patio, parking for up to 10 cars, and a full in-law suite (perfect for Michelle Obama s mother, Marian Robinson, who has since 2009 lived with the family in the White House), Ms. Bennett writes.Read more: WT | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD983 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Saturday that the death of Fidel Castro was an occasion for Americans to “extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people†and acknowledge the “powerful emotions†the revolutionary leader had evoked in both countries, seeking to use Mr. Castro’s fraught legacy to underscore his own efforts to bury decades of bitterness between the United States and Cuba. “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,†Mr. Obama said in a statement that neither criticized nor praised Mr. Castro. “The Cuban people,†he added, “must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America. †The death of Mr. Castro, the embodiment of decades of suspicion and enmity between the two countries, has the potential to hasten Mr. Obama’s goal of cementing the historic rapprochement that he hopes will be a signature part of his legacy. But with Donald J. Trump, who has been critical of the détente, set to succeed Mr. Obama, the fate of the thaw between the United States and Cuba is far from clear. Mr. Trump’s initial response on the matter Saturday morning was a post on Twitter. “Fidel Castro is dead!†he wrote. A few hours later, in a statement issued by his transition team, Mr. Trump called Mr. Castro a “brutal dictator†who had oppressed his own people for decades and left a legacy of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights. †“While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,†Mr. Trump said. “Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. †The statements from the president and the were remarkable both for their differences and their similarities. While Mr. Obama steered clear of disparaging Mr. Castro, in keeping with his efforts to essentially defang a mutual grudge, Mr. Trump condemned him. But both also described Mr. Castro’s death as a potential turning point for Cuba, and both appeared to accept as fact that its prospects for freedom and prosperity are bound up with that of the United States. During the campaign, Mr. Trump sent mixed signals about how he intended to approach American policy toward Cuba, even as Mr. Obama was using the final months of his presidency to try to codify as much of the opening as possible. While Mr. Trump said during the Republican primary race that restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba — a step the Obama administration took last summer — was “fine,†he called Mr. Obama’s December 2014 agreement with President Raúl Castro of Cuba, Mr. Castro’s younger brother, a “very weak agreement†that provided too many “concessions†to the Cubans. “All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,†Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in Miami in September. “Not my demands. Our demands. †Mr. Trump announced last week that he had named Mauricio a fierce critic of Mr. Obama’s opening with Cuba who leads a political action committee, to his transition team for the Treasury Department. The move was seen as a signal that Mr. Trump is considering unraveling the web of regulations Mr. Obama has put in place to ease trade and commercial restrictions against Cuba. Last month, Mr. Obama issued a sweeping directive setting forth a new United States policy to lift the Cold War trade embargo entirely — a move that would require congressional approval — and end a of clandestine plotting against Cuba’s government. And he announced that his administration was lifting perhaps the most symbolically potent aspect of trade restrictions, the $100 limit on bringing Cuban rum and cigars into the United States. Earlier, Mr. Obama had also resumed direct flights between the two countries. “During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends — bonds of family, culture, commerce and common humanity,†Mr. Obama said in his statement. Advocates of the opening argued that Mr. Castro’s death could be a pivot point, clearing away the last emotionally charged remnants of a policy that has outlived its usefulness. “Symbolically, it makes a difference,†said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, the sponsor of bipartisan legislation to lift the embargo. “A lot of this policy for decades has not been based on sound reason. It has been based on the ghosts of the past. This could mark a major change. I don’t think it’s going to happen immediately, but symbolism is important in this relationship. †But among Republicans, such a shift was not immediately apparent. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said that if anything, Mr. Castro’s death should stiffen the resolve of those determined to oppose the Cuban government. “The dictator has died, but dictatorship has not,†said Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. “The future of Cuba ultimately remains in the hands of the Cuban people, and now more than ever Congress and the new administration must stand with them against their brutal rulers and support their struggle for freedom and basic human rights. †Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “Sadly, Raúl Castro is no better for Cubans who yearn for freedom. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD984 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told business leaders in Seoul on Tuesday that the Trump administration will review and reform the five-year-old free trade agreement between the two countries. Pence said the U.S. trade deficit has more than doubled in the five years since the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement began and there are too many barriers for U.S. businesses in the country. Pence’s meeting in Seoul with business leaders comes before he heads to Tokyo later on Tuesday, where he will meet Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso and kick off talks that Washington hopes will open doors for U.S.-made products. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations like China and Japan, saying he would boost U.S. manufacturing jobs. “That’s the hard truth,†Pence told an American Chamber of Commerce meeting in Seoul. “We have to be honest about where our trade relationship is falling shortâ€, said Pence, adding the Trump administration would work with businesses on reforms. Trump campaigned on an “America First†pledge, promising to overhaul trade agreements that he said hurt U.S. jobs. Before the free trade agreement between the two countries took effect in 2012, South Korea’s trade surplus against the United States stood at $11.6 billion at end-2011. In 2016, the surplus measured at $23.2 billion, according to official data. James Kim, CEO of GM Korea, said there are opportunities to improve the free trade deal between Washington and Seoul. “We need to minimize as many unique Korea standards which would make it easier to buy American products made in America,†Kim said at the meeting with Pence. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD985 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald J. Trump’s victory in the presidential race has presented some companies with a new challenge: how to find the right balance in their postelection messages to employees and customers. Matt Maloney, the chief executive of the online food delivery company GrubHub, found himself in a clash of business and politics this week after he sent an email to employees on Wednesday that appeared to say that anyone who disagreed with the company’s policy of inclusion and diversity should resign. “As we all try to understand what this vote means to us, I want to affirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at GrubHub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States,†Mr. Maloney wrote. “If you do not agree with this statement, then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here,†he said. But on Thursday, in a sign of the new political flash points on the corporate landscape, a message was posted to the company’s website with the original email attached. The new message said the message had been misconstrued. “I want to clarify that I did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump,†Mr. Maloney wrote. “I would never make such a demand. To the contrary, the message of the email is that we do not tolerate discriminatory activity or hateful commentary in the workplace, and that we will stand up for our employees. †The footwear company New Balance also encountered a postelection backlash after its vice president for communications, Matt LeBretton, said after Mr. Trump’s victory that “we feel things are going to move in the right direction. †The remarks were made in an interview with a Wall Street Journal reporter, Sara Germano, who published them on Twitter on Wednesday. The reporter also tweeted that the remarks were made within the context of global trade, noting that New Balance has publicly opposed the Partnership. New Balance says it makes more than four million pairs of athletic footwear in the United States per year, which represents a limited portion of its sales. Some interpreted the comments as supportive of Mr. Trump, and they drew a backlash. Online, images of New Balance footwear being burned or thrown in the garbage were posted, and there were calls for a boycott. On Thursday, New Balance emailed a message to other news media outlets and Sole Collector, which reports on the sneaker industry and its culture: “As the only major company that still makes athletic shoes in the United States, New Balance has a unique perspective on trade and trade policy in that we want to make more shoes in the United States, not less. †“New Balance publicly supported the trade positions of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump prior to Election Day that focused on American manufacturing job creation and we continue to support them today,†it said. Another New Balance message was published on Twitter on Thursday that also seemed to allude to the controversy, saying it welcomed “all walks of life. †Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, congratulated Mr. Trump on Twitter on Thursday. Mr. Bezos added that he had an “open mind†and wished Mr. Trump “great success in his service to the country. †But comments below the message spoke of canceling Amazon Prime subscriptions and boycotting Amazon altogether, although some were supportive. The New York Times this week examined the views of some business leaders in the postelection climate here. Some American companies have a tradition of using their unique hold on consumer attention to express support for the causes they believe in. The ice cream company Ben Jerry’s posted statements on its website advocating for voting rights and climate change action. After Mr. Trump’s election, it published an open letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday that it described as a “challenge†to “hear the voices of all Americans. †“Whoa, does your new title sound as weird to you as it does to us?†the letter said, addressing Mr. Trump. “Well, we’ll all get used to it quickly. †“And while we recognize that this is the outcome that many wanted, this is also an outcome that leaves half of our country feeling sadness and shock,†it said. “We want to honor all of our nation’s experience. †Chris Miller, the activism manager at Ben Jerry’s, said in an interview on Friday that the letter to Mr. Trump had reached about 350, 000 people on the company’s Facebook page and that the feedback had been “overwhelmingly positive. †But he said the letter took longer to draft than the company’s other statements about causes it supports because more “eyeballs†were put on it as the company strove for balance between people who were saddened by the result and those whom “mainstream establishment candidates†did not reach. “We wanted to be part of setting the tone here,†Mr. Miller said. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD986 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Washington Post published a propaganda organizing piece for the Democrat Party: Democrats resistance calls for a July 4th recess push to kill GOP billFrom the article: The moment that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republicans that there could be no vote on the party s health-care bill this week, Senate Democrats were in a familiar position headed to a protest.In the Senate swamp, a well-kept lawn across from the Capitol, hundreds of activists from Planned Parenthood, AFSCME and smaller progressive groups were hooting and cheering their latest mini-victory. The People s Filibuster, scheduled to last all week, had triumphed in its first few minutes. The delay of BRCA, which Republicans had hoped to vote on this week, came after disagreements inside the majority party. But it was egged on by the Resistance, the loose collection of more than 1,000 groups working to stop the Republican agenda that sprang out of Trump s surprise election. A bill designed by wealthy white men, for wealthy white men will only further marginalize disenfranchised communities, said the organizers of the Jan. 21 Women s March in a statement. While a delay on the vote is a small victory, it s time to crank up the outrage and tell all Senators to vote NO. The call to action that has everyone on social media laughing however was a tweet by Michael Moore who suggested liberals storm ( nonviolently ) the local offices of Senators and pack their town halls. Hmmm .Is there such a thing as nonviolently storming someone s office? Perhaps someone should tell the irrelevant Michael Moore that the Senators don t work over the July 4th weekend.I call upon EVERYONE to observe this 4th of July week by nonviolently storming the local offices of your Senators, pack town halls, RISE UP! Michael Moore (@MMFlint) June 28, 2017Moore got called out on Twitter by several people who were smart enough to figure out the Senate would be on recess or that storming offices of US Senators was anything but nonviolent :His EVERYONE = Flint's & #OFA Soros paid violent protesters.BTW, storming is violent.#July4th @FBI adnilhoom (@adnilhoom) June 29, 2017What is the point in storming offices that are going to be completely empty because July 4th is a holiday, you utter moron? https://t.co/o8eIaKkr4f Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) June 29, 2017Yes, YES! Storm offices that will be closed on the 4th of July. pic.twitter.com/owUNMI7C5y The Mental Recession (@rustyweiss74) June 29, 2017The most embarrassing propaganda piece we could find was USA Today s piece titled:USA Today joined in with other leftist propaganda rags in an effort to help the left organize agains our President and the GOP. Yesterday, they ran a one-sided fear mongering article that was clearly designed to motivate Democrats to spend their extended holiday weekend harassing Republican Senators to change their votes on the replacement bill for the failed Obamacare.In an effort to discredit the efforts of the GOP, USA Today s propaganda piece mentions how Republican Senators are not 100% on board with the bill. USA Today even offers their readers a George Soros resource to help them find ways to resist our President and the GOP agenda.USA today also offered their readers a heavy dose of fear with a Youtube video featuring a woman named Priscilla and her 38-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy and could die from seizures without health insurance.USA Today also featured 2 tweets in their article showing Americans who are singing the praises of Obamacare. Every day, we see horror stories about Americans who were financially devastated by Obamacare, not one of those stories appeared in the lopsided USA Today article. These 2 tweets were apparently the only examples a major publication like USA Today could find in their embarrassing propaganda piece:B/c of the ACA I was able to give a kidney to my husband @kevinbehr when he needed it. This is us post op '15 and now #HowTheACASavedMyLife pic.twitter.com/ilX6ikEva3 Erica Behr (@the_erica) June 27, 2017#ACA ensures my Chemo Baby and I will always have coverage despite me surviving being #pregnantwithcancer #HowTheACASavedMyLife #FacesOfACA pic.twitter.com/9L3f3O9HvU Beth KACM (@elizebethtown) June 26, 2017Here s the extent of USA Today s balanced reporting, as they mention the GOP near the end of the article, but only in a negative light, as they make a point to say the GOP is attacking Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren. They also point out that according to polls, most Americans disagree with the GOP and want taxpayers to pay for everyone s health care: Republicans will have their own messaging campaign, as they try to tie all Democrats to comments made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is pressing for a single-payer health care system, in which the government would run a health insurance program available to any American.Republicans plan to have their own digital campaign and hold press conferences that include testimonials from Americans who ve been negatively impacted by Obamacare, said Republican National Committee spokesman Rick Gorka.Yet McConnell has acknowledged if Republicans can t pass a bill soon, they may have to work with Democrats, who will demand preserving the current Obamacare program by shoring up the individual market exchanges. People get really emotional about health care, but Republicans have clearly lost the narrative on this, and the discussion has moved towards Who are you taking health care away from? said former Republican House member Tom Davis of Virginia, who previously headed reelection efforts for his party.Republicans worry Democrats will ultimately push for a single-payer system that is anathema to their limited-government, free-market driven ideology. Once a politically toxic prospect Hillary Clinton faced significant blow back as first lady for her 1990 s flirtation with universal health care that stopped short of single payer polls now show modest increases in support for such a system.A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found 33% of respondents favor a single-payer system. More relevant to the current debate, 60% said the federal government is responsible for providing healthcare coverage to all Americans. In an interview on MSNBC, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, D-OH, who represents a working-class area including Youngstown, also expressed support for single-payerAdditional polling also suggests Democrats have a running start on public opinion heading into the break. According to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll, just 12% of Americans support the Republican plan, a similar number other major surveys including by Marist. NBC News/Wall Street Journal found just 16% of adults believe the House bill was a good idea. | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD987 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on November 4, 2016 by DavidSwanson
For the past eight years millions of people have expended billions of words speculating about exactly how the United States kills people with missiles from drones (and missiles from other sources, such as manned aircraft, targeting people identified with drones). There is good reason to believe that for each such attack there exists a video and audio record of what the drone pilots saw and what they and their colleagues said to each other as they decided to launch a missile and as they observed its results.
This is a level of documentation we rarely have with killings by domestic police officers, who are typically filmed by observers with phones, a method of documentation that excludes the leadup and the aftermath.
It’s also a level of documentation that is almost entirely denied to the public, meaning that it doesn’t actually do us much good. As far as I know we have not seen a single video or heard a single audio recording of a drone murder. The “Collateral Murder” video is a powerful record of a non-drone attack.
With drones, however, we do have one (incomplete) transcript of what was said during the hours leading up and the minutes following one particular attack. This was an attack in Afghanistan in February 2010 that killed zero fighters but numerous innocent civilians. According to survivors, 23 men, women, and children were killed. According to the U.S. military 15 or 16 were killed and 12 wounded. The U.S. military apologized and paid some $4000 to the family of each acknowledged victim.
The ACLU obtained the transcript in 2011, and it was published by the Los Angeles Times , which wrote an account of the incident, but I didn’t pay much attention until the new film, National Bird , dramatized part of it. I think it deserves a bit longer excerpt than either the Times or National Bird provided. So, here is my selection plus commentary. Feel free to read the whole thing at the links above and make of it what you may.
00:38 (JAG25): We are going to hold on containment fires and try to attempt PID, we would really like to take out those trucks.
PID means positive identification. This individual is eager to send missiles into trucks on the ground in Afghanistan but is aware of the need to identify somebody in one or more of them as an armed fighter. In fictional fantasies like Eye in the Sky or presidential speeches, targets must exclude any possibility of killing civilians and the targeted people must be known, specifically identified, be beyond any possibility of arrest, and be “immediate and continuing” threats to the United States of America. None of those criteria or anything like them are even discussed in this actual drone attack. Instead, the question of whether to launch hellfire missiles at automobiles is whether the targeted people are males over 10 years old and whether at least one of them has a gun. As we’ll see, even those standards are not met, but they are discussed.
00:38 (Slasher03): Copy that. Break, break, Slasher, we passed you coords for the vehicle on the west side of the river again you have multiple dismounts in the open break. On the east side of the river there’s an additional vehicle majority of the dismounts are inside a compound located just to the north of that vehicle if you get eyes on that compound. Compound has multiple movers as well as one pickup truck hot.
00:38 (Slasher03): Kirk97, Slasher in addition if you’re able to pick up illumination it appears the two vehicles are flashing lights signaling between.
Before anyone was murdered on this day, everyone was discussed for hours with words like “vehicle,”“compound,”“dismounts,” and “movers”— which simply has to have a different impact than “cars,”“houses,”“pedestrians,” and “people walking around.”
…
00:41 (Pilot): Does he have a weapon?
00:41 (Sensor): Can’t tell yet
00:41 (MC): Can’t tell
CLASSIFIED
…
00:42 (Kirk97): Jag25/Slasher03/Kirk97 we are eyes on a vehicle, personnel in the open, definite tactical movement, cannot PID weapons at this time, how copy?
…
Still, they are hoping to positively identify a weapon. But, in the absence of that justification, they have spotted “definite tactical movement.” How, one wonders, given that these were a bunch of civilian commuters, does such movement differ from a handful of families and students walking about and arranging themselves into a couple of SUVs and a pickup truck?
00:43 (Sensor): possible mortars (reference to what the JTAC is trying to PID)
00:43 (Pilot): Kirk97, good copy on that, be advised personnel in the open, by the vehicles moving tactically definitely carrying objects at this time we cannot PID what they are however we’ve got eyes on and we are working our best
…
So now there are automobiles with objects and human beings in them, and those automobiles are moving (as they are principally designed to do).
00:44 (Jag25): Jag25, roger, ground force commander’s intent is to destroy the vehicles and the personnel, right now Kirk97 is showing that the individuals egressed the trucks holding cylindrical objects in their hands *radio static*
…
Personnel egressed some trucks, meaning that some people got out. And they had objects with them. As you read on, see if you notice eagerness or wariness to interpret such a phenomenon as a threat.
00:44 (Pilot): Be ready for a lot of (exploitive deleted) squirters dude
00:44 (Pilot): These guys look to be lookouts, man
…
People who get out and walk away from a group are “squirters” though not yet “bugsplat” (what drone pilots have sometimes called those they’ve killed). They are also “lookouts.” This identification of them as “lookouts” is made on the basis of the fuzzy little green linear shapes these people appear as in the video being observed, not on the basis of a high resolution color image in which something like binoculars or facial expressions could be identified.
00:45 (MC): See if you can zoom in on that guy, ‘cause he’s kind of like
00:45 (Pilot): what did he just leave there
00:45 (Pilot): Is that a *expletive* rifle?
00:45 (Sensor): Maybe just a warm spot from where he was sitting; can’t really tell right now, but it does look like an object
Well an object could be a rifle. There’s at least a 1% chance, as Dick Cheney would say.
00:45 (Pilot): I was hoping we could make a rifle out, never mind
Why was this man or woman hoping that? Why not fearing it? After all, it could mean being ordered to do something horrific: to kill. Even believing that killing to be somehow justified and possibly even somehow legal, the drone pilot of our imagination faces it regretfully and somberly. Not these guys.
00:45 (Sensor): The only way I’ve ever been able to see a rifle is if they move them around, when their holding them, with muzzle flashes out or slinging them across their shoulders
…
And yet no such identification happens on this day. Nonetheless, 23 people lose their lives while others lose their limbs. You can see the survivors and hear them tell their stories in National Bird.
00:48 (Slasher03): jaguar25, slasher03 again, on the west side you have 10 pax that are dismounts that appear to be huddled down, hunkered down, holding position they are all static on the east side, you have the original vehicle with 2 dismounts waiting outside, believe you had up to two to three to four that are still inside the vehicle, then just north of that position you have the compound where our 1 individual exited the vehicle and rendezvous, you have multiple movers within that compound as well as a hot pickup truck
…
Pax does not of course mean peace. It means passengers. “Hot” I believe actually means hot, as pilots are able to observe heat recorded by heat sensors. They sometimes observe the cooling of a body on the ground as the blood leaves it.
END OF 0023z VIDEO SEGMENT BEGINNING OF 0054z VIDEO SEGMENT
…
The line above suggests that there is a video we could be shown. Exactly whose embarrassment — er, I mean, national security — overrides our right to see it?
00:54 (Jag25): … we believe we may have a high level Taliban commander …
…
Don’t they always? If you want to prove they don’t always, make the videos public.
00:55 (Pilot): wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of their important guys, just watching from a distance, you know what I mean?
00:55 (Sensor): yea he’s got his security detail
…
A group of people, by virtue of containing multiple people, is now wishfully seen as a Taliban bigshot with a “security detail.”
00:55 (Pilot): … Be advised on the west side of the river we still have one vehicle with ten pax, two lookouts, could be definite tactical movement with a commander over watching, definitely suspicious how copy?
…
These bees are acting suspicious, said Winnie the Pooh.
00:56 (JAG): roger good copy, due to distance from friendlies we are trying to work on justification, we’re gonna need PID
00:56 (Pilot): Good copy on that, no PID on weapons at this time only tactical movements on the west side, can you pass coords for the east please?
…
00:59 (Sensor): not sure what compound they came from or what we are apparently dealing with.
…
These guys have no idea who they are looking at, but they are working on coming up with a “justification” to murder them.
00:59 (Pilot): what about the guy under the north arrow, does it look like he is hold’n something across his chest
00:59 (Sensor): yea it’s kind of weird how they all have a cold spot on their chest
00:59 (Pilot): It’s what they’ve been doing here lately, they wrap their *expletive* up in their man dresses so you can’t PID it
…
The conversation oozes with respect for the people whose country is being “liberated.”
1:00(Sensor): maybe five in the back of the bed 1:00 *broken radio chatter*
1:00 (Jag25): Jag25 have you loud and clear
…
1:01 (Pilot): Jag25, Slasher03, Kirk97 it looks like the dismounted pax on the hilux pickup on the east side is carrying something, but we cannot PID what it is at this time but he is carrying something
1:02 (Sensor): He slung it on his shoulder whatever it was, just switched arms with it or something, and is getting in the truck
…
01:03 (Sensor): the screener is reviewing, they think something is up with that dude as well. I’ll take a quick look at the SUV guys, sorry
1:03 (JAG25): Slasher03 JAG25 1:03 (Sensor): what do these dudes got, yeah I think that dude had a rifle
1:03 (Pilot): I do too
…
There’s a wishful guess that a group of two dozen people traveling through an extremely dangerous country might have a gun. Wait and see what that is taken to justify.
1:04 (Pilot): All players, all Players from KIRK97, from our DGS the MAM that just mounted the back of the hilux had a possible weapon, read back possible rifle
…
1:04 (JAG25): Kirk we notice that, but you know how it is with ROEs, so we have to be careful with those, ROE’s *broken radio chatter*
…
1:04 (Sensor): sounds like they need more than possible
…
A MAM is a military aged male and an ROE a rule of engagement. These guys are figuring out that they should come up with more than the possibility of a gun before blowing up this convoy.
1:05 (JAG25): copy, slasher03 1:05 (Sensor): that truck would make a beautiful target, ok that’s a Chevy suburban
1:05 (Pilot): yeah,
…
Beautiful.
1:07 (MC): screener said at least one child near SUV 1:07 (Sensor): bull (expletive deleted)…where!?
1:07 (Sensor): send me a (expletive deleted) still, I don’t think they have kids out at this hour, I know they’re shady but come on
1:07 (Pilot): at least one child… Really? Listing the MAM, uh, that means he’s guilty
1:07 (Sensor): well maybe a teenager but I haven’t seen anything that looked that short, granted they’re all grouped up here, but.
…
The eagerness to spot a gun is just not matched by eagerness to spot a child. And having a child on the road with his or her family early in the morning is taken as a sign of evil deeds. Or if the child is a military aged male (later defined as having an age in the “double digits”) that is taken as “guilt.” Guilt is the language of a court. Drone piloting has often been discussed as law enforcement, although it violates numerous laws and does not enforce any.
1:07 (Pilot): Yeah review that (expletive deleted)…why didn’t he say possible child, why are they so quick to call (expletive deleted) kids but not to call (expletive deleted) a rifle
1:08 (MC): two children were at the rear of the SUV… I haven’t seen two children
…
1:09 (Sensor): little bit of movement by the SUV. I really doubt that children call, man I really (expletive deleted) hate that.
…
1:10 (MC): is this the child entering the rear of the SUV?
1:10 (Sensor): they’re moving, I’ll stay with the pickup truck
…
1:11 (Pilot): they just threw someone into the back of that truck, and were like, wrestling with somebody did you see that?
1:11 (Senor):Yeah I saw those two dudes wrestling.
1:11 (Pilot): they probably are really using (expletive deleted) human shields here, that’s probably what that is.
…
Here is an incredible case of believing ones own propaganda. People are here imagined to be forcing victims into their trucks in order to use them as “human shields,” a phenomenon as ill conceived in U.S. culture as “voter fraud.”
1:21 (Pilot):yeah, exactly man. So what’s the, we passed him potential children and potential shields, and I think those are both pretty accurate now, what’s the ROE on that?
1:21 (Sensor): Ground commander assessing proportionality, distinction
…
And here we are back to eye-of-the-murderer medieval “just war” theory in which someone pretends to determine that killing a certain number of children would be “proportionally” acceptable, although no empirical test of such a thing has ever been devised, and President Obama claims that no shots are fired by his drone warriors without “near certainty” that no civilians will be harmed. You can’t calculate how many civilians are acceptable to kill AND claim that you’re certain of not killing any.
01:32 (Sensor): Wonder what these other dudes at this compound are doing. Picked‐up at third vehicle on their train.
01:33 (MC): Guilty by association.
…
I suppose they know that’s not a legal term.
01:48 (Pilot): JAG25 just want to confirm that you copied we have about 20 pax dismounted, they are outside the trucks praying at this time and we’re 3 1⁄2 miles from the friendly location.
…
01:48 (Sensor): … Praying? I mean seriously, that’s what they do.
01:48 (MC): They’re gonna do something nefarious.
…
When I was very briefly in Afghanistan I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t pray. I also didn’t meet anyone who did anything nefarious. I have also never heard a presidential speech in which President Obama explains that he targets people who pray.
01:50 (MC): Adolescent near the rear of the SUV.
01:50 (Sensor): Well, teenagers can fight.
01:50 (MC): Pick up a weapon and you’re a combatant, it’s how that works.
…
Got that?
01:52 (Sensor): Oh sweet target. I’d try to go through the bed, put it right dead center of the bed.
01:53 (MC): Oh that’d be perfect.
01:52 (Sensor): Like more of them from the other vehicles are around this one right now.
…
Such cool, level headed reluctance to use excessive force is no doubt what we would hear in police videos as well.
01:54 (Sensor): MAM near SUV appear to be holding a weapon.
01:54 (Jag25): Roger, still awaiting confirmation.
01:54 (Pilot): JAG25 be advised, our screener just called 1 MAM near the SUV in the line of 3, appears to be holding a weapon.
…
01:56 (MC) :one weapon on ground may have picked it up and walking around the pickup.
01:56 (Sensor): I didn’t quite catch that but I believe it.
…
I didn’t see it either. Should I believe it too?
02:29 (Pilot): Can’t wait till this actually happens, with all this coordination and *expletive*
(agreement noises from crew)
02:29 (Pilot): Thanks for the help, you’re doing a good job relaying everything in (muffled), MC. Appreciate it
…
02:48 (Sensor): Still a sweet *expletive* target, geez….Take out the lead vehicle on the run and then uhh bring the helos in
…
02:54 (MC): Looks like they’re bringing a Reaper in
…
02:54 (Sensor): *Expletive*that, man
02:54 (MC): just claim we’re here first
02:54 (MC): At least we know these guys have weapons
02:55 (Muffled talking off comms, some profanity, a chuckle)
…
Laughing and eagerness to be the one to pull the trigger.
02:58 (Sensor): Hey, that dude just put a weapon down right above the truck. See it?
02:59 (Pilot): See it. See if DGS will call that
…
DGS is an office that is supposed to approve before eager pilots push the button. A veteran in National Bird describes routinely trying to restrain the eagerness of pilots at Creech Air Force Base to kill.
03:01 (Sensor): Aww where is he going? Just pulling off the road maybe. They probably mostly left their weapons in the vehicles. I’ll be damned, it looks like a short dude back there.
…
No weapons? They must be inside. A child? It must be a short dude.
03:05 (Pilot): Jag 25 standby one. Kirk 97, we’re checking. Looks mostly to be military aged males. We have seen approximately two children. Standby.
03:05 (Pilot): Dude the only thing I can see if this isn’t something [expletive deleted]is the locals trying to get away. You know what I mean? But I don’t think so.
…
Here a pilot surmises the situation accurately but chooses not to believe it.
03:06 (Sensor): 24 or 25 at the praying stop.
03:07 (Sensor): CLASSIFIED view I saw the one that looked short enough to be a child.
…
03:08 (Pilot): And Jag 25, our screeners are currently calling 21 MAMs no females, and 2 possible children. How copy?
03:08 (JAG25): Roger. And when we say children, are we talking teenagers or toddlers?
03:08 (Sensor): I would say about twelve. Not toddlers. Something more towards adolescents or teens.
03:08 (Pilot): Yeah adolescents
…
03:10 (Pilot): And Kirk 97, good copy on that. We are with you. Our screener updated only one adolescent so that’s one double digit age range. How Copy?
03:10 (JAG25): We’ll pass that along to the ground force commander. But like I said, 12‐13 years old with a weapon is just as dangerous.
03:11 (Sensor): Oh we agree. Yea.
…
04:05 (Pilot) : Yeah. Alright, so the plan is man, uh, we’re going to watch this thing go down, the helo’s are going to take out as much as they can and when they Winchester we can play clean up.
…
04:07 (Pilot) : As long as you keep somebody that we can shoot in the field of view I’m happy.
…
Happy! It’s good to stay positive about your job! Everybody knows that.
04:09 (Pilot) : Yeah, well that’s what we were talking on this. I was talking to the JTAC he said the exact same thing man. Um they called them an adolescent. We called it you know… most likely double digits age range. And he was like that’s old enough to be dangerous.
…
04:13 (Pilot): It’s a cool looking shot
04:13 (Sensor): O, awesome | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD988 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee ended his long-shot presidential bid on Friday.
"As you know, I have been campaigning on a platform of Prosperity Through Peace. But after much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today," Chafee announced at the Democratic National Committee Women's Leadership Forum.
The onetime Republican turned independent turned Democrat is the second candidate to withdraw this week, following former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's announcement on Tuesday that he was ending his Democratic bid. Webb, however, left open the possibility of running as an independent.
Both Chafee and Webb had barely campaigned, making only a handful of visits to early states. But more so than Webb, Chafee had struggled to make any dent at all in the race.
Chafee had little financial backing for his campaign, raising just $8,300 from 10 major donors during the last quarter. But his few supporters told NPR this week they liked the positive attitude he brought to the race and hoped he would remain in the mix.
The former senator, who hailed from a prominent political family in the Ocean State, had an unremarkable performance in last week's presidential debate. He spoke for just nine minutes during the two-hour faceoff.
Chafee underscored that he had been against the Iraq War from the beginning, a contrast to front-runner Hillary Clinton's controversial 2002 vote. He echoed his anti-war sentiment in his withdrawal announcement on Friday, too.
"The United States of America is so strong militarily, economically and culturally that we can take chances for peace. In fact, as a strong mature world leader, we must take chances for peace. If we have courage, if we take risks, we can have Prosperity through Peace, not just in the United States, but all over the world," Chafee said.
At the debate, he also tried to needle Clinton on her and her husband's past scandals, proudly noting that he had never had a whiff of any misdeeds during his decades in office. But when he tried to engage Clinton over her email server and land a blow, she declined to engage.
Chafee's most damaging answer was when he was asked why he voted to repeal banking regulations known as the Glass-Steagall Act. His answer was that he had just gotten to the Senate after his father died (he was appointed to succeed him) and that he was not familiar with the bill, making Chafee come across as even more unprepared.
Even his sparsely attended announcement in June that he was running for the White House was widely panned, having spent much of his time advocating for the U.S. to switch to the metric system.
Chafee, who like his late father, John, served as both senator and governor of Rhode Island, had an interesting life before entering politics, though. After attending an exclusive Northeastern prep school, where he was a classmate of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Chafee graduated from Brown University and then headed to Montana State University to learn to be a farrier, someone who shoes horses. For years he traveled around the U.S. working at racetracks. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD989 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: We have provided at least 16 tax cuts to small businesses.
contextual information: During a July 6, 2011, question-and-answer session on Twitter, President Barack Obama was asked -- in a tweet by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio -- After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?Part of Obamas answer is that his administration has worked to aid small businesses in job creation.We have provided at least 16 tax cuts to small businesses who have needed a lot of help and have been struggling -- including, for example, saying zero capital gains taxes on startups -- because our attitude is we want to encourage new companies, young entrepreneurs, to get out there, start their business, without feeling like if theyre successful in the first couple of years that somehow they have to pay taxes, as opposed to putting that money back into their business.This response echoed acomment we checkeda few weeks earlier. In a face-off between the heads of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee on NBC'sMeet the Presson June 11, 2011, the discussion turned to what the government should be doing to accelerate job creation.I think we need to cut taxes on small businesses, said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.Well, that's good, retorted DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., because we've done that, 17 times.Heres what we found when we looked at the question of small business tax cuts.When asked for supporting documents, the DNC press office pointed us to a Feb. 25, 2011, posting on the official White House blog titledSeventeen Small Business Tax Cuts and Counting.The post enumerated 17 small business tax cuts and credits created or extended through legislation signed by Obama.Eight of them were included in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (more commonly known as the economic stimulus bill), the Affordable Care Act (also known as the health care law), and the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (aka the HIRE Act). Among the cuts were the exclusion of up to 75 percent of capital gains on key small business investments; a tax credit for the cost of health insurance for small business employees and new tax credits for hiring Americans out of work for at least two months.Another eight cuts came via the Small Business Jobs Act, signed by Obama in September of 2010. These included: adding deductions for business cell phone use; creating a new deduction for health care costs for the self-employed; allowing greater deductions for business start-up expenses; eliminating taxes on all capital gains from key small business investments, and raising the small business expense limit to $500,000.Three months later, the president signed a tax bill that raised the expense limit to 100 percent of small business new investments until the end of 2011. It also extended the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business investments through the end of 2012.Here's the full list:From the Recovery Act, HIRE Acts, and Affordable Care Act:1. A new small business health care tax credit2. A new tax credit for hiring unemployed workers3. Bonus depreciation tax incentives to support new investment4. 75 percent exclusion of small business capital gains5. Expansion of limits on small business expensing6. Five-year carryback of net operating losses7. Reduction of the built-in gains holding period for small businesses from 10 to 7 years to allow small business greater flexibility in their investments8. Temporary small business estimated tax payment relief to allow small businesses to keep needed cash on handFrom the Small Business Jobs Act:9. Zero capital gains taxes on key investments in small businesses10. Raising the small business expensing to $500,00011. An extension of 50 percent bonus depreciation12. A new deduction for health care expenses for the self-employed13. Tax relief and simplification for cell phone deductions14. An increase in the deduction for entrepreneurs start-up expenses15. A five-year carryback of general business credits16. Limitations on penalties for errors in tax reporting that disproportionately affect small businessFrom the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act:17. 100 percent expensingConservative tax specialists don't quibble much with the list, but they did take issue with the context earlier this year when we asked them about the same claim by Wasserman Schultz. I can't argue with any of these, but it ignores all the proposed and enacted tax hikes on small businesses, said Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy at Americans For Tax Reform, an anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist.For example, Ellis said, it ignores President Obama's proposal to allow Bush-era individual income tax cuts to expire for those making more than $250,000. A clear majority of small business profits are earned in households making at least $250,000 per year. Ellis said...That's a tax hike on the small business sector. (PolitiFact Virginia addressed a similar claim inthis fact-check. )There are also a number of tax increases included in the health care law, Ellis said, some of which apply directly to small businesses. For one, he said, businesses with more than 50 employees could face a tax penalty if they don't provide enough health insurance to their employees. Another example, the 10 percent tanning tax, which he said is nearly exclusively applied to small businesses.So the overall story is much more of a problem for small firms than the Obama administration would suggest, Ellis said.Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, allowed that there have been targeted tax cuts for small businesses. But, he said, it's an error to just point to the number of tax cuts. You have to look at the overall impact and that certainly has been steep tax hikes.Dubay also noted that six of the 17 cuts were not just for small businesses but were made widely available to all businesses.Richard Morrison at the Tax Foundation, a pro-business group, said that nothing on (the White House list) stands out as egregiously unjustified from a fact-checking perspective. Some of them are temporary, and some arent targeted exclusively at small businesses, but that doesnt necessarily mean they shouldnt 'count' as far as the claim is concerned.We think there's room for critics to note that in addition to the 17 tax cuts enumerated by the White House, there are there are also some tax increases in the health care law that will fall on some of the same small business owners that got tax cuts. Some health care law tax increases won't go into effect for a couple years. And with some, like the excise taxes on tanning beds, one could argue it is a tax on the customer, not the small business.As for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012, that's still just an Obama proposal; it hasn't happened. The only policy actually signed by the president so far was a compromise agreement that extended the tax cuts. On balance, we rated Wasserman Schultz's comment Mostly True. Because Obamas comment is substantially similar, we also rate his comment Mostly True. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD990 | 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: Caroline Kennedy's thoughts on Barack Obama. Claim summaries: Caroline Kennedy said she can't stand President Obama's voice and that he's a liar?
contextual information: Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2012] Just saw on Facebook a photo of Caroline Kennedy quoting that she just can't stand to listen to President Obama's voice and that he is a liar. True? Origins: The quote attributed to Caroline Kennedy (daughter of President John F. Kennedy) referenced above originated with Edward Klein's 2012 book The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House. It appeared in the following passage, which talked about Caroline Kennedy who had been a strong supporter of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign becoming disenchanted with the Obamas for making "catty" remarks about her family and for not being more liberal in political policy-making: "Through these [spies that the Kennedy family has in the Obama administration] and other people, Caroline heard back that there was a lot of nasty shit being said about the Kennedys by the president and Michelle," [a] family member [said]. "There were catty remarks about how badly the Kennedy women dressed, and how their houses were shabby and threadbare. Caroline got the impression that most of this negativity was coming from Michelle, who didn't want the Kennedys to be part of the administration for fear that they would have too much influence over the president." "Gradually, Caroline began to change her tune and side with Bobby and Kathleen [Kennedy Townsend] against the Obamas. Unlike Jackie, who was completely apolitical, Caroline is a liberal with a capital L. When Obama didn't raise taxes to balance the budget, Caroline marked him down. In her eyes, he's a mess because he doesn't follow the liberal bible on politics. More important, Caroline discovered that the Obamas didn't give a damn about her support. For instance, she was not invited to the state dinners at the White House hosted by the Obamas, or to the president's forty-ninth birth celebration in Chicago. "It really annoyed Caroline when comparisons were made by the media between Michelle [Obama] and Jackie [Kennedy]. Caroline had a word for such comparisons; she called them 'odious.' She really got annoyed. And when she began to fall out of love with the Obamas, love was replaced by outright scorn. Now she says things about Obama like, 'I can't stand to hear his voice any more. He's a liar and worse.'" However verifying exactly what Caroline Kennedy might have said is difficult because the quote offered in this passage is second-hand rather than direct (i.e., it's someone else talking about what she said, not a direct statement from Caroline Kennedy herself) and because the source of the statement is anonymous (beyond the description of his or her being a "member of the Kennedy clan"). Caroline Kennedy herself has neither confirmed nor denied that she made the remarks attributed to her, but even after their publication she has continued to publicly express support for the Obamas, such as issuing a message to wish President Obama a Happy Father's Day, campaigning in New Hampshire for the President's re-election, and making plans to attend the Democratic National Convention. message campaigning attend Last updated: 19 August 2012 | 2 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 2 |
FMD991 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Barack Obama appeared today at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation s Goalkeepers event, an event aimed at effecting change on a global scale in the areas of world hunger, education access and quality, clean energy, healthcare, gender equality, clean water, climate action, and a host of other goals the Foundation wants to help us work toward.Many speakers were on hand for the event, including President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will.i.am, Malala, Stephen Fry, and more, all with stories of empowerment and positive change and possibility. But in America s current climate of fear and unease about what will happen with health care in this country, it was President Obama s speech that was particularly emblematic of the struggle we face in determining the outcome of the American way of life when it comes to insurance, medical care, and ongoing health concerns.This is in stark contrast with what we see in everyday life in America, where we seemingly can t even agree on whether or not white supremacists are bad, or if it s okay to run over protesters. We are engaged in a fight for our very lives, and at least legislatively speaking, Obama knows how hard it looks from where we are.From the video you re about to watch: [W]hen I see those people trying to undo that hard-won progress, for the 50th or 60th time, with bills that would raise costs or reduce coverage, or roll back protections for older Americans or people with pre-existing conditions the cancer survivor, the expecting mom, or the child with autism, or asthma, for whom coverage once again would be almost unattainable it is aggravating.And all of this being done without any demonstrable economic, or actuarial, or plain common sense rationale it frustrates. And it s certainly frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents. President Obama couldn t be more right. Although he is diplomatic here and does not call out Donald Trump and the Republicans by name, it is vital that we hold them to account. It is absolutely imperative that we make sure they cannot tear away at the fabric of our society and rip away at the moral cloth we ve woven in beginning the process of ensuring every American has access to health care.Watch the video here:Featured image via Yana Paskova/Getty Images | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD992 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over Islamic State on Saturday after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country, three years after the militant group captured about a third of Iraq s territory. The announcement comes two days after the Russian military announced the defeat of the militants in neighboring Syria, where Moscow is backing Syrian government forces. Iraqi forces recaptured the last areas still under Islamic State control along the border with Syria, the military said. Honorable Iraqis: your land has been completely liberated. The dream of liberation is now a reality, Abadi said in a televised address. He was speaking with five Iraqi flags and dozens of servicemen from different branches behind him. We have accomplished a very difficult mission. Our heroes have reached the final strongholds of Daesh and purified it. The Iraqi flag flies high today over all Iraqi lands. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Several squadrons of Iraqi helicopters flew over Baghdad carrying Iraqi flags at noon, in an apparent rehearsal for a victory parade that Iraq is planning to hold in coming days. The government said the declaration meant Iraqi forces had secured the western desert and the entire Iraq-Syria border, and marked the end of the war against Islamic State. Abadi declared Dec. 10 a national holiday to be celebrated every year. State television aired celebratory songs praising government forces and militias, and showed scenes of celebration on the streets of Baghdad and other provinces. The U.S.-led coalition that has been supporting the Iraqi forces against Islamic State welcomed the news, as did Brett McGurk, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy to the coalition. We congratulate the Prime Minister and all the Iraqi people on this significant achievement, which many thought impossible, he said in a series of tweets. We honor the sacrifices of the Iraqi people, its security forces, and the Kurdish Peshmerga, and admire the unity in their ranks that had made this day possible. The U.S. State Department also issued a statement of congratulation. Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, fell in July after a grueling nine-month campaign backed by a U.S.-led coalition that saw much of the northern Iraqi city destroyed. Islamic State s Syrian capital Raqqa also fell to a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition in September. The forces fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of. Abadi said Iraq had entered the post-victory over Daesh phase and must be prepared for future threats. Daesh s dream is over and we must erase all its effect and not allow terrorism to return. Despite announcing final victory, we must remain vigilant and prepared against any terrorist attempt on our country, for terrorism is an eternal enemy. The war has had a devastating impact on the areas previously controlled by the militants. About 3.2 million people remain displaced, a U.N. statement said on Saturday. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who in 2014 declared in Mosul the founding of a new Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria, released an audio recording on Sept. 28 indicating he was alive following several reports of his death. He urged his followers to keep up the fight despite setbacks. Baghdadi is believed to be hiding in the stretch of desert in the border area. His followers imposed a reign of terror on the populations they controlled, alienating even many of those Sunni Muslims who had supported the group as allies against the heavy-handed rule of the Shi ite majority-led government of the time. The militants took thousands of women from the Yazidi minority, which lives in a mountain west of Mosul, as sex slaves and killed the men. Driven from Mosul and Raqqa, Islamic State was progressively squeezed this year into an ever-shrinking pocket of desert, straddling the frontier between the two countries, by enemies that include regional states and global powers. In Iraq, the group faced mainly U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and Iranian-trained Shi ite paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation. Abadi praised the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and Iraq s top Shi ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose fatwa calling volunteers to fight Islamic State led to PMF s creation. Still, the prime minister said the state should have a monopoly on the use of arms. Disarming the PMF is seen as Abadi s most difficult test after Islamic State s defeat. Weapons should only be in the state s hands. The rule of law and respect for it are the way to build the state and achieve justice, equality, and stability, he said. Abadi called for unity, which he said was the main reason for the victory, a reference to the contribution of different communities, including Sunni tribal fighters. However, Iraq faces a fresh internal conflict after it retaliated economically and militarily against the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government for holding a referendum on independence despite Baghdad s opposition. The joy of victory is complete with Iraq s unity after it was on the verge of division. The unity of Iraq and its people is the most important and greatest accomplishment, he said. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD993 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on October 31, 2016 by Daisy Luther
Oh, Loretta.
I’ll bet that AG Loretta Lynch is shaking in her boots right now, because when Hillary Clinton goes down, Lynch’s career will go down with her. Heck, maybe they’ll even be cellmates.
Loretta Lynch’s ties to the Clintons go back to 1999 when then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to run the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office. She left in 2002 and went into private practice, but returned to the Brooklyn office in 2010 at the behest of President Barack Obama. ( Here’s her official bio. )
In 2015, she was sworn in to become the 83rd Attorney General of the United States, taking the place of the blatantly corrupt Attorney General, Eric Holder , who will probably be most famous for his roles in the Fast and Furious operation, inciting racial tensions, and his mishandling of the Lois Lerner/IRS debacle. First, there was the secret airplane meeting with Bill Clinton
It all started to publicly go downhill for Lynch during the first investigation into Hillary Clinton’s carelessness with national secrets via her home email server . Right before FBI Director James Comey was to meet with Hillary Clinton to interrogate her about the subject, Lynch was busted having a secret meeting with Bill Clinton . The Washington Post reported:
Clinton’s private, unplanned meeting with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch at the Phoenix airport last week, coming at a time when the Justice Department should be nearing completion of its examination of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails as secretary of state, will inevitably — and negatively — affect public attitudes about that investigation…
…Lynch has tried to make amends, though not without leaving some confusion in her wake. In a conversation Friday with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart at the Aspen Ideas Festival, she insisted again that the conversation was innocent — about grandchildren and golf and such — and did not touch on the investigation of the emails. But she said she recognized that others would not see it that way. “The fact that the meeting that I had is now casting a shadow over how people are going to view that work is something that I take seriously, and deeply and painfully,” she said.
Lynch said that she would “be accepting” whatever recommendation the career prosecutors and FBI Director James B. Comey bring her — though she did not say she would remove herself completely from the case. She also said she had made that decision some months ago but was only now making it public.
Of course, it was all much easier for Lynch to abide by the decision when Comey miraculously found that Hillary Clinton was not criminal in her negligence with national secrets.
Now, though, people are asking questions about that ill-founded meeting. Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit for “all records” related to the illicit meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton .
“On June 29, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch is reported to have met privately with former President Bill Clinton on board a parked private plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting occurred during the then-ongoing investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and mere hours before the Benghazi report was released publicly involving both Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration. Judicial Watch filed a request on June 30 that the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigate that meeting.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested that during that meeting, Bill Clinton may have offered to extend Lynch’s position in the AG’s office during a Hillary Clinton administration. Then she blocked a congressional investigation into the notorious Iranian ransom payment.
Last week, AG Lynch blocked a congressional investigation into the cash payments that the Obama administration made to Iran by pleading the Fifth. The Washington Free Beacon reported:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon …
…“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.”
“As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries,” they stated. “The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”
How very judicial of her. Lynch tried to shut Comey up about the new investigation into the Clinton emails.
Now, even the mainstream media can’t turn its head.
Earlier I wrote about the fact that FBI Director James Comey made the decision on his own to go public about the new investigation into the Hillary Clinton emails. But let’s talk a little further about Lynch’s desperate attempts to shut him up.
The New York Times reported that the Justice Department “strongly discouraged Comey” against releasing the information: The day before the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to Congress announcing that new evidence had been discovered that might be related to the completed Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Justice Department strongly discouraged the step and told him that he would be breaking with longstanding policy, three law enforcement officials said on Saturday. Senior Justice Department officials did not move to stop him from sending the letter, officials said, but they did everything short of it, pointing to policies against talking about current criminal investigations or being seen as meddling in elections.
How interesting that it’s seen as “influencing the election” to investigate someone now but it wasn’t back when she was investigated and not charged. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but according to USA Today (emphasis mine), a “…federal official familiar with Comey’s decision said Saturday that the FBI director considered the attorney general’s advice during a spirited discussion of the matter Thursday and early Friday but felt compelled to act.” Do you remember Janet Reno?
Poor Janet was another Attorney General who went down for the Clintons. She was also sworn in as AG under Bill Clinton, and many questioned her appointment at the time. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune :
She arrived in Washington from Miami as Caesar’s wife, and so she has remained. She was ignorant and independent of insider D.C. and has stayed that way. Bill Clinton never much liked her and never confided in her, and she reciprocated.
She became AG just in time to take the fall for the debacle in Waco , actually. According to History.com
The Waco standoff had already begun by the time Janet Reno became the first female attorney general on March 12, 1993. She approved the FBI’s tear gas plan the following month, explaining that negotiations with the Branch Davidians had stalemated and that the children inside the compound were at risk. “We will never know whether there was a better solution,” Reno said in 1995. “Everyone involved … made their best judgments based on all the information we had.” Nonetheless, a Republican-led congressional report called her decision “premature, wrong and highly irresponsible.” She was also criticized when facts emerged contradicting some of her earlier statements.
The Tribune post continued to discuss Reno’s position as a scapegoat:
Every day since she took office , she has been supervising at least one probe embarrassing to Clinton–Whitewater, fundraising, Lewinsky, China espionage, etc. Clinton can’t afford the political beating he would take if he cashiered her.
…But no such attorney general could have survived the Clinton scandals, much less survived them with her own reputation–and her department’s–intact.
Attorney Generals who have anything to do with the Clintons don’t seem to fare too well. They end up so embroiled in Clinton scandals that they, too, are pulled down into the mire, regardless of what their intentions were when they started out. Lynch can see her future…and it has something to do with “Help Wanted” ads
The last time Lynch was involved in the Clinton email kerfuffle, she promised to abide by FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation .
I wonder if she’ll make that same promise this time?
She really can’t, because if she does, it will show she was complicit with the Clintons the last time around, and also this time when she decried Comey’s release of information about the investigation.
I wonder if she and Hillary Clinton will be able to get adjoining cells when/if the truth comes out.
Courtesy of Daisy Luther 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 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD994 | 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: Facebook Scammers Seize On Gas Monkey Garage Giveaway Claim summaries: The best tip to avoid scams on Facebook is to always look for the official and trustworthy verified badge next to the page name.
contextual information: On May 24, 2022, Facebook scammers seized on a real giveaway from Richard Rawlings' Gas Monkey Garage, which was once affiliated with the "Fast N' Loud" reality television series. The show aired its final episodes in 2020. Facebook Richard Rawlings Gas Monkey Garage Fast N' Loud It's true that the official and verified Facebook page for Rawlings' Gas Monkey Garage was promoting a giveaway for $200,000. In order to enter, users simply needed to purchase products on the company's website. page However, scammers reposted videos about the giveaway from the official Facebook page to their own accounts. The scammers' posts instructed potential victims to visit a potentially malicious website that asked them to send money through the Stash finance app in order to claim a supposed prize. One of the scammers' posts showed a video of Rawlings talking about the real Gas Monkey Garage giveaway. That video was downloaded and reposted by a scammer's account named Nyong Desi (facebook.com/uygdvuidfhvyfdgviushv): It read as follows and included three steps, which we've seen in many scams before: Nyong Desi ????????????? ???????-??????? 2022 CONGRATULATIONS for those of you who have received comments from me have been selected as winners???Step 1 = Like and ShareStep 2 = Coments "Done"Step 3 = Register here? (link removed) ? to receive my prize. And the Gift will be sent after you successfully register (this is authentic and official) God bless you Good Luck The edit history for the post above showed that it was originally created on Jan. 30, 2022 as a giveaway scam involving PlayStation 5 game consoles and $10,000. It was edited on the morning of May 24 in order to change it to the Gas Monkey Garage giveaway scam. PlayStation 5 We visited the website that was displayed in the scammers' posts. In addition to asking users to send the scammers money through the Stash finance app, it also claimed that they had already won $10,000. Of course, this was all misleading. asking Our best tip to avoid these kinds of scams is to always look for the verified badge next to Facebook page names. If it's a big brand name and there's no verified badge, it might be a scam. scams verified badge In sum, the official Gas Monkey Garage Facebook page truly was holding a real giveaway. However, scammers sought to capitalize on the giveaway by downloading and then reposting several videos that showed Rawlings talking in order to trick potential victims into losing money. For further reading, this story might remind some readers of a similar Facebook scam we reported on in the past for the "Diesel Brothers" reality television series. reported on | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD995 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: MOSCOW — The Russian police arrested hundreds of people in nationwide protests on Sunday, including the opposition leader Aleksei Navalny in Moscow, where thousands gathered for the biggest demonstration in five years against President Vladimir V. Putin. The protest in the capital took the form of a synchronized walk along a major shopping street to avoid a ban on unsanctioned stationary gatherings. It was one of 99 similar rallies in cities and towns across the country — from Vladivostok in the far east to Kaliningrad in the west — according to the organizer, Mr. Navalny’s foundation. All but 17 of these, the foundation said, had been declared illegal by the authorities. In Moscow, some protesters tried to block security vans with cars, and the authorities deployed the riot police and surveillance helicopters. But they mostly avoided the brutal measures used in neighboring Belarus on Saturday against protesters in the capital, Minsk, and other cities. The police in Belarus beat and arrested hundreds of people who tried to gather for the latest in demonstrations against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994. But while less than in Belarus, whose president is often referred to as “Europe’s last dictator,†the police crackdown in Moscow could still complicate efforts by President Trump to deliver on pledges to “get along†with Mr. Putin. In a statement on Sunday that reflected widespread wariness of the Russian leader in Washington, Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said: “Putin’s thugocracy is on full display. The United States government cannot be silent about Russia’s crackdown on peaceful protesters. Free speech is what we’re all about and Americans expect our leaders to call out thugs who trample the basic human rights of speech, press, assembly and protest. †Shortly after the senator’s statement, Mark Toner, the acting spokesman for the State Department in Washington, said the United States “strongly condemns the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters throughout Russia on Sunday†and called for their immediate release. “Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values,†he added. The protests in Russia on Sunday — nominally against corruption but also a rare show of public defiance against Mr. Putin, who has found a fierce and enduring critic in Mr. Navalny — were the largest coordinated display of public dissatisfaction since demonstrations in 2011 and 2012, after an election that was tainted by fraud. Protesters tried to prevent a police van from taking Mr. Navalny away and chanted: “This is our city. This is our city. †Others shouted, “Russia without Putin,†and held up pieces of paper denouncing the Russian president and his allies as thieves. In a Twitter post, Mr. Navalny urged his followers to continue with the demonstration after he was grabbed by police officers as he tried to join the crowds along Tverskaya Street in the center of Moscow. “Guys, I’m O. K.,†he wrote in a message in Russian. “No need to fight to get me out. Walk along Tverskaya. Our topic of the day is the fight against corruption. †The Moscow Police Department said on its website that “around 500†people had been arrested in the city for taking part in an “unapproved public event. †a group that monitors arrests, said the number of arrests in Moscow was at least 1, 000. Instead of waving big banners with antigovernment slogans as in previous protests, most of those who joined Sunday’s walk on Tverskaya Street displayed their feelings discreetly. Some waved Russian flags, cloaking their opposition in the same patriotism that Mr. Putin has used so successfully to boost his popularity. Others carried easily hidden signs featuring pictures of ducks, a reference to a claim by Mr. Navalny that corrupt officials even build houses for their ducks. Among those arrested in Moscow were Russian and foreign journalists, the leader of a small opposition party, Nikolai Lyaskin — who said he was hit around the head by police officers and taken to a hospital — and a British student, Gregory Hill, 17. Demoralized and divided since the election protests, which fizzled amid a wave of arrests, Russia’s opposition has struggled to make its voice heard over a din of sentiment on television, which invariably presents opponents of Mr. Putin as traitors in cahoots with the West. But Mr. Navalny, a charismatic campaigner who helped lead the protests, has shown a knack for turning repressive action against him and his followers to his own advantage. When an assailant doused him in a green liquid in Siberia last week, he exulted that his face made him look like a superhero. Instead of directly attacking Mr. Putin, who is hugely popular outside more cities like Moscow, Mr. Navalny has focused on rallying support by exposing corruption, an issue that alarms even many of Mr. Putin’s supporters. Mr. Putin, who is widely expected to seek another term as president in elections next year, has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since the former president, Boris N. Yeltsin, resigned on Dec. 31, 1999. He faces no credible opposition other than that mobilized by Mr. Navalny, the founder and leader of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption. The opposition leader has declared his intention to run in the 2018 presidential race, despite a criminal conviction in February on fraud charges that made him ineligible to compete but was widely viewed as a political ploy to keep him out of the race. Even if Mr. Navalny manages to compete for the presidency, he has little chance of winning. But his presence on the ballot would end what since 2000 have been a series of tightly choreographed presidential contests that resembled coronations. Dmitri Charishnikov, a web designer who answered Mr. Navalny’s call to walk up and down Tverskaya Street, said protests would change nothing as most Russians “believe what they see on television†and strongly support Mr. Putin. But he added that he still wanted to show that “another Russia still exists. †Nearby, a police officer shouted through a bullhorn that all those walking in the area were “participants in an unsanctioned gathering†and must immediately disperse or risk prosecution. State television, the main source of news for most Russians, responded to the protests by ignoring them. In a report published this month, Mr. Navalny detailed how Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev, a close ally of Mr. Putin’s, had built a lavish empire of mansions, country estates, luxury yachts, an Italian vineyard and an palace near St. Petersburg. Mr. Navalny called for the protests after Russia’s Parliament, which is dominated by United Russia — a political party loyal to Mr. Putin — ignored demands for an investigation into accusations of corruption by senior government officials. By dusk on Sunday, the protests in Moscow had wound down after sporadic scuffles between the police and protesters. Russian news media reported at least one police officer was taken to a hospital in Moscow with head injuries. A spokesman for the interior ministry in St. Petersburg denied reports one of its officers had died after being beaten by protesters. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD996 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Bill Maher is a hardcore supporter of the legalization of marijuana. On Friday, during a segment of New Rules on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher, the host laid out his case for legalizing marijuana. He also admonished Congress for refusing to legalize marijuana, despite historically high (no pun intended) levels of support for the legalization of the drug.Maher even went as far as to light up a joint while he railed against the powers in place that are preventing marijuana legalization efforts from succeeding. This is the first time that Maher has smoked marijuana on his show. It is, however, not the first time someone has smoked marijuana while on the show.In the fall of 2010, Zach Galifianakis appeared on the show as a guest. During the middle of a segment, Galifianakis quietly and calmly lite up a joint, with hilarious consequences.Maher noted how horrible it is that people who use medical marijuana cannot use their medicine in other states where it is not legal. It s not a tenable situation. When I leave Colorado, Oregon, Washington or Alaska, my back pain doesn t go away. Or whatever it is I have. I m kidding I use medical marijuana because my third eye has glaucoma. Maher pointed out how utterly ridiculous it is that in 2016, Congress has not made any serious effort to pass marijuana legalization legislation. Maher says: Somehow, this is the year that everything from socialism to mass deportation is on the table and voters love the authentic guys who speak their minds, but when it comes time for Congress to consider common-sense pot legislation, it s like smoking a joint with Woody Harrelson; they just won t pass it! I couldn t agree with Maher more. It s time for the self-described Republican lovers of small government in Congress to put their legislation where their mouth is. Marijuana is now is legal in twenty-three states, as well as the District of Columbia, in one form or another. Of those, four states and Washington D.C have fully legalized recreational marijuana. That number is expected to dramatically increase over the next few years.You can watch the segment from the show below.Featured image from video screenshot via YouTube | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD997 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump is losing it. On Monday, he kicked off his morning with perhaps his dumbest ravings yet about swamps and sewers and fake news (oh my?). Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer it s actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News! our middle-schooler-in-chief tweeted.Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017If you re thinking what the f*ck is he on about? then you re not the only one. For one, a sewer is a drainage system. That s the whole point.Just like Adolf Hitler, Trump continued his attacks on the L genpresse FAKE NEWS as Trump calls the media.He also once again demanded that everyone focus on Crooked Hillarys rather than himself. It is unclear if he meant that as a possessive or a plural.So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017Basically, this tantrum was a gigantic mountain of stupidity and Americans were glad to mock him mercilessly for it.You are right. If DC was a swamp before, you made it a sewer. Next stop: toxic waste dump Dani Bostick (@danibostick) July 24, 2017How do you think sewers work, exactly? Ryan Broderick (@broderick) July 24, 2017Brilliant!Although, to be fair, DC s sewer is clogged by a MASSIVE fatberg at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sean (@DailyChef7) July 24, 2017If by Fake News you mean My misleading tweets, statements & surrogates, agree! Screw the sewer; in 2018 & 2020 let s Flush the Toilet ! Pep Rosenfeld (@peprosenfeld) July 24, 2017Okay, have you tried calling the plumber? Let me know how it goes. nic shields (@nicshields) July 24, 2017You ARE the biggest, slimiest, diseased sewer rat so stop whining #DonnieTwoScoops! pic.twitter.com/Zx7GKfBUV4 alexandra halaby (@iskandrah) July 24, 2017You re SO right! You DID create a sewer in the @WhiteHouse! Thank you for correctly pointing that out. #drainthesewer Shaun O Banion (@shaun_obanion) July 24, 2017Ofcourse it s worse. You added half of Goldman Sachs, the foreclosure king, a racist elf, white nationalists, neo-nazis & Russian colluders Facts Do Matter (@WilDonnelly) July 24, 2017Where would sewers drain into? Surely you d have to use more sewers and that would compound the problem, no? Conor Mac (@thefella) July 24, 2017Yes, change the slogan. That should stop you from hiring a rogues gallery of the least qualified, most compromised federal officials ever. Mark Banker (@themarkbanker) July 24, 2017Is a sewer better or worse than a swamp? This is the most interesting debate topic you ve raised since becoming president. Paul Caiozzo (@PaulCaiozzo) July 24, 2017Yes, you managed to drain the swamp directly into the WH. And your constant refrain of fake news leads us to believe it isn t fake at all Susan Price (@PriceSjrw5614) July 24, 2017So you turned the swamp into a sewer ? And now it s overflowing. So much winning! Paul Cyr (@PaulCyr5) July 24, 2017We know you re much worse than we first thought. We d love to drain the sewer . How long before you can move out? Kristine Lynne (@thegoodmama) July 24, 2017It begins with you so when are you gonna resign so we can drain the sewer? Sheree Williams (@ShereeW1974) July 24, 2017Trump seems nervous about something. Could it be that his son-in-law, son, and former campaign manager are testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee about their collusion with Russia? The fact that the noose is tightening?What s he worried about?Featured image via Getty Images/screengrab | 0 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 0 |
FMD998 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Spain s government on Friday passed a law to make it easier for companies to move their operations around the country just as some businesses consider leaving the region of Catalonia amid a rising conflict over a plan for independence. The new law loosens the bureaucratic red tape needed for a company s board to take the decision to move the company s base, unless the group s statutes expressly say otherwise, the government said in a statement. The law had been discussed with the opposition political parties, the Socialists and business-friendly Ciudadanos, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said in the press conference following the weekly cabinet meeting. | 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
FMD999 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — It was 2:40 p. m. on Monday, a lull before the evening rush hour in Russia’s city, St. Petersburg, where the subway normally carries two million people a day. The train had just entered a tunnel between stations, on its way out of a sprawling downtown hub, when the bomb exploded. The homemade device, filled with shrapnel, tore through the third car. It killed 11 people wounded more than 40, including children and spread bloody mayhem as the train limped into the Technology Institute station with smoke filling the air. Videos circulating on social media showed long red streaks across the white floor as the injured were dragged from the car. With the doors damaged, some people smashed windows to get out. “What a nightmare!†somebody yelled amid piercing screams. With the attack, Russia once again appeared to have found itself a target of terrorism, shattering a respite in its main urban centers. Law enforcement agencies initially said they were seeking two people suspected of planting explosive devices, according to Russian news reports, but later indicated that the attack might have been carried out by a suicide bomber from a militant Islamic group. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but speculation turned toward militants from southern Russia, who fled the law enforcement policy in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus, joined the Islamic State by the thousands and have repeatedly threatened attacks. President Vladimir V. Putin sent the Russian military to Syria in September 2015 in order, he said then, to battle militants on their own turf before they could strike in Russia. In a nod to that possibility — a potential political setback — Mr. Putin, who was in St. Petersburg for the day, emphasized that terrorists were the likely culprits, although he said investigators were exploring various possibilities. He laid flowers at the site of the explosion and went to the local security headquarters to be briefed on the investigation. The last major terrorist attack in a Russian city was in Volgograd in 2013. “If somebody announces that it is related to the Russian invasion in Syria, it would be a sensitive scenario for Putin, because the Syria campaign would lose support inside Russia,†said Kirill Rogov, a political analyst, while adding that it was too early to connect the attack to Mr. Putin’s Syria policy with any certainty. The dead and wounded had barely been evacuated before the factions in Russia’s heated political sphere began blaming one another. Nationalists and others on the right pointed the finger at the opposition, saying such attacks emerged from the same womb as the street protests on March 26, in which tens of thousands of people marched against government corruption. Opposition figures responded that the security forces, feeling vulnerable, were perfectly capable of provoking a crisis in order to expand their powers of search and seizure. There were also unconfirmed reports that a suicide bomber from Uzbekistan or a neighboring country might have been responsible, unnerving St. Petersburg’s Central Asians. “This will be a stain on us, as though we are criminals,†said Rafael Artikov, a Uzbek, standing in front of a makeshift memorial. “The goal was to frighten us and split us into separate groups,†he added, lamenting that “people look at me as though I am suspicious. †There was some relief that the attack had not been worse. A larger bomb was found at a nearby station, Vosstaniya Square, but was disarmed, a spokesman for the National Committee, Andrei Przhezdomsky, said on television. That bomb had been disguised as a fire extinguisher. Security was increased in the Moscow Metro system and at major transportation facilities across Russia. The health minister, Veronika Skvortsova, announced live on television that 10 people had died — seven in the subway system, one en route to a hospital and two while they were being admitted to an emergency room — and that 39 had been injured. Some of the wounded were children, she said. Mr. Przhezdomsky appeared on television later with an update that 11 people were dead and 45 wounded. Mikhail Syrovatsky, 20, wrote on VKontakte, a Russian social media network, that he had been ascending the escalator at the Technology Institute station when the blast occurred, followed by urgent calls to evacuate the station and the arrival of ambulances and a helicopter. “Left metro just in time,†he wrote. Mr. Syrovatsky added later, “I was standing on the escalator when some kind of noise started coming from below, then I heard the noise of the coming train. †People began to scream, he said, and an announcement ordered passengers to evacuate. “Very soon, you could detect the smell of burning, but I didn’t see any smoke,†he said. “I didn’t see what was going on the platform itself. I think everyone thought this was a fire. †A St. Petersburg transit worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was forbidden to comment to the news media, said the bomb exploded just after the train left the Sennaya Square station but was not powerful enough to derail it. The train limped to a stop at the Technology Institute station with smoke billowing, as passengers broke glass windows to escape and rescue workers smashed open the doors. At the Dzhanelidze Hospital, a large Soviet block of concrete, arriving relatives were whisked into a special room away from the news media. Valery Parfenov, the chief doctor, said at a news conference that many of the victims were dazed. He said six patients were in serious condition and four in very serious condition, including some with skull injuries that would require complex surgery. He held up a ball bearing to show the metal bits extracted from victims. The subway system was shut down for about five hours, and the city declared surface transportation free. Still, as offices let out, the streets clogged with traffic, and sidewalks were jammed with people making the long trek home from work on foot. “I appeal to you, citizens of St. Petersburg and guests of our city, to be alert, attentive and cautious, and to behave in a responsible manner in light of events,†Georgi S. Poltavchenko, the governor of St. Petersburg, said in a statement. He declared a mourning period starting on Tuesday. In a televised statement less than an hour after the explosion, Mr. Putin said he had spoken with the leaders of the special services, including the Federal Security Service, and with law enforcement officials, who he said would “do everything to find out the causes of what had happened. †Speaking from the Konstantin Palace in the Strelna district of St. Petersburg, about 10 miles west of the blast, he added, “The government, both on the city and federal levels, will do everything to support families of the victims and injured. †Mr. Putin was in St. Petersburg for a meeting with the president of Belarus — Alexander G. Lukashenko, a traditional ally who has recently feuded with the Kremlin — and to give a speech to the People’s Front, a political group Mr. Putin started. At a joint appearance with Mr. Lukashenko to say they had resolved their differences, he did not mention the attack again. According to a White House statement, President Trump spoke with Mr. Putin on Monday and condemned the “attack†in Russia. Over the years, most terrorist attacks against domestic targets in Russia have been the work of Islamic insurgents. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a bomb that brought down a Russian airliner in Egypt in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Many victims were from St. Petersburg. In December 2013, weeks before the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, twin bombings at a train station and on a bus in the southern city of Volgograd killed more than 30 people. And in January 2011, a suicide attack at Domodedovo International Airport near Moscow killed more than three dozen people. The last fatal attack on a subway system in Russia occurred in March 2010, when explosions at two stations in central Moscow killed at least 33 people. Investigators blamed two suicide bombers from the Dagestan region for those attacks, and the leader of the Islamic insurgency in Chechnya, who has since been killed, claimed responsibility. The subway system in Moscow was also struck twice in 2004. In February of that year, a bomb detonated inside a train car as it left the Avtozavodskaya station in southeastern Moscow, killing at least 39 people. That August, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a station in northern Moscow, killing nine. Mr. Putin, in deploying the Russian military to Syria, said the move was meant to take the fight to Islamic radicals. Once deployed, however, the Russians concentrated more on shoring up the government of President Bashar than on attacking the Islamic State. The Russian militants in Syria have periodically threatened reprisals in Russia. In a video posted on YouTube last July, a masked man driving across a desert landscape growled, “Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and kill you at your homes. †| 1 | [
"0",
"1",
"2"
] | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.