Questions tagged [politics]
Use this tag for questions that regard statements made by politicians. Do not use [politician name] tags unless the claim is *about* that politician.
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On 9/11, was Building 7 destroyed in a controlled explosion?
There have been a lot of claims made about the circumstances surrounding the events of 9/11 and Building 7 in particular.
The central claim regarding Building 7, that I have heard personally, is that ...
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Is Barack Obama a natural born US citizen?
In this Politico Article dated 8/5/10 the results of a poll taken on President Obama are discussed:
The poll of 1,018 adults shows 27
percent of Americans believe the
president was “probably” ...
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Is SARS-CoV-2 a biological weapon released by the US military?
SARS-CoV-2 is a novel coronavirus that is the cause of the disease COVID-19.
Some people have questioned the origins of the virus.
RadioFreeEurope reported on March 5, 2020 on a claim by an Iranian ...
user28943
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Did the National Rifle Association (NRA) block research into statistics related to gun control?
About 30,000 Americans die every year from gun-related deaths (a number likely to exceed those dying from automobile-related accidents very soon if trends continue). About 1 in 3 of those are ...
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Did Donald Trump say republicans are the dumbest voters in the country?
I saw this image going around Twitter lately:
If I were to run, I'd run as a republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They love anything on FOX News. I could lie and ...
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Was there 100% turnout and 100% Obama support in Cuyahoga County in 2012 Presidential Election?
The Tea Party Facebook page posted this Monday night.
Is it accurate that:
There are exactly 900135 registered voters in Cuyahoga County Ohio for the 2012 predidental election
There were 900135 ...
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Does decriminalizing drug use lead to less drug use?
While listening to the RSA talk Addiction: What to Do When Everything Else has Failed I'm reminded of an article in the Times from 2009 about Portugal's decriminalization of drugs.
The Cato paper ...
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Is there a "red shift" in U.S. elections — a significant shift to republican votes between polls and voting? Does this imply fraud?
This questions on Politics SE introduced me to the concept of the red shift. In short, the claim of a red shift boils down to a statistically significant difference between outcome of final exit polls ...
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Is this map of Israel-occupied territory accurate?
There's an image going around Facebook, showing Israel's occupied territory over the last few decades:
I have seen at least two people (both Christian Zionists) criticize this map as "very biased" ...
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Were 3 million votes cast by non-citizens in the 2016 US presidential election?
Various websites are repeating the claim in this tweet, which says:
Completed analysis of database of 180 million voter registrations.
Number of non-citizen votes exceeds 3 million.
...
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Does the US government voluntarily underreport inflation?
According to Shadow Government Statistics, inflation in the USA is around 11%, not 3% as the official statistics claim, as shown in this chart:
(source)
In fact, they suggest that the US government ...
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Does torture work well as an interrogation technique?
Wikipedia's Effectiveness of torture for interrogation says,
Torture has been used throughout history for the purpose of obtaining information in interrogation. Some arguments say that it is an ...
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Does the President of the United States have the ability to deploy nuclear weapons at will?
I heard this claim back during the Bush years, and recently I've been hearing it again. For example:
Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All - The New Yorker
I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and ...
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Has every U.S. presidential election been won by the campaign with the most money?
According to Russell Brand:
Every election in American history has been won by the party with the most money to campaign.
Let's assume that he means every presidential election. Has every ...
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Did Donald Trump say that muslims should be visibly marked?
Donald Trump has been reported in the news and over the internet for suggesting that Muslims should wear some visible id or badge of some sort.
Raw Story headlined with:
Trump crosses the Nazi ...
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Do non-educated people tend more to the right/conservative political wing?
This is a common prejudice in my social environment, but is it true?
Are educated people more likely to vote for a social/left wing party?
Examples: [1]; [2].
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Did a counter-protester at Charlottesville use a spray and lighter after being threatened with a gun and attacked with a flag?
According to Independent Mr Long said:
At first it was peaceful protest. Until someone pointed a gun at my head. Then the same person pointed it at my foot and shot the ground.
...
Another ...
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Do US companies pay significantly less taxes than European ones (based on tax rates)?
I have frequently heard claims that US companies pay significantly less taxes than European ones (based on tax rates). The last time I saw this claim (and what caused me to ask this question) was ...
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Does being a strong free market supporter correlate with rejection of scientific claims?
The following research claims that there is a link between one being a strong free market supporter and being more likely to reject scientific claims:
Paralleling previous work, we find that ...
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Is this photo of Occupy Wall Street authentic?
From Facebook:
This photo is actually getting pulled off Facebook...so, the photographer added a lil text and renamed the file. Pass it on. I'm SURE the media doesn't want this one out there. Share ...
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Do lower income workers tend to vote Republican?
It's election season in the United States and something that you tend to hear from domestic and international pundits is that:
Lower income workers tend to vote Republican...
which also tends to ...
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Is Huawei the front for a Chinese espionage attempt?
There are a lot of rumors and claims being made that products manufactured by Huawei act suspiciously or in a non-standard way in order to send information "back home" or to facilitate unauthorized ...
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Do minimum wage laws disproportionately harm black employment?
There is a common claim that applying minimum wage laws impacts the poorer members of society, and thus impacts poorer minorities, such as blacks, more than others.
Milton Friedman openly argued ...
user4951
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Is the belief that vaccinations cause autism correlated with liberal political beliefs?
There are some people who continue to believe that there is a link between vaccination and autism. See this question for more:
Are there any other studies (besides the discredited Wakefield studies) ...
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Did NIH ask the EcoHealth Alliance to provide information about the “apparent disappearance” of a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher?
In a long story in Vanity Fair that has some interesting twists it's claimed at one point that
At a White House COVID-19 press briefing on April 17, 2020, a reporter from the conspiratorial right-...
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Does politically controlled redistricting in US elections make incumbents more secure?
Many western democracies limit the power of their politicians to control the electoral boundaries to avoid the possibility of gerrymandering. UK electoral boundaries, for example, are redrawn when ...
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Is the F-35 aircraft literally invisible? [closed]
Donald Trump said of the F-35 "You can’t see it. You literally can’t see it. It’s hard to fight a plane you can’t see"
The video of him saying this makes it seem as if he really believes it can't be ...
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Do vote counts for Joe Biden in the 2020 election violate Benford's Law?
Benford's Law is a statistical rule that says that the distribution of digits in real-world numerical datasets tends to follow a specific pattern. It is often used to test whether an election is ...
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Was ISIS created by the USA?
I hear many folks talking about the founders of ISIS and they say that USA created it to make chaos in the Arabic countries.
Mark Danner in an episode of Talking Heads by Vice News
"In effect the ...
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Are crime rates up by 10% in Germany?
On June 18th and 19th, 2018, the President of the United States, Donald Trump tweeted that the crime rate in Germany has increased:
(1) Tweet from June 18th, 2018
(2) Tweet from June 19th, 2018 ...
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Did Valerie Jarrett say she wanted "America to be a more Islamic country"?
This picture, being shared on Twitter, alleges that Valerie Jarrett, former Senior Advisor to the President, during the Obama administration, claimed to be of Iranian descent and of Islamic faith in ...
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Was there violence on both sides in Charlottesville?
Was violence perpetrated by factions on both the left and the right side of the political spectrum during this rally?
A specific quote by US president Donald Trump is:
TRUMP: The driver of the car is ...
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Are most terrorists Muslim?
Those arguing for more profiling quite frequently claim that while not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists are muslim. Is there data to show that more than 50% of terrorists attacks can be ...
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Did Trump order tear gas to be used on protesters to clear a pathway to a church for a photoshot?
There are dozens of articles out there like this one which states that Trump ordered the use of tear gas to disperse peaceful protesters so he could do a photoshoot. However I recently read that ...
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Is low emotional intelligence associated with right-wing and prejudiced attitudes?
Accordiing to Diply,
Researchers in Belgium have linked a lack of emotional intelligence with right-wing political views, reports PsyPost. The study, published in Emotion, found that those who ...
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Did Fox News win a court case for the right to lie?
Project Censored have an 2010 article titled The Media Can Legally Lie:
In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against ...
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Did George W. Bush spend 32% of his presidency vacationing, versus Barack Obama's 5.2%?
This picture is making the rounds on Facebook:
[Picture of George W. Bush] 32% [Picture of Barack Obama] 5.2%
Percentage of presidency spent on vacation.
Guess which one conservatives call "The ...
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Is there currently riots/looting *ONLY* in Democrat cities in the USA?
trumptweet :
So pathetic to watch the Fake News Lamestream Media playing down the gravity and depravity of the Radical Left, looters and thugs, ripping up our Liberal Democrat run (only) cities. It ...
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Did Jews "take over" 73% of their land from Palestinians?
I found an article by Matt Giwer saying that the cause of the Israeli-Arab war is that
The Jews, [...] did in fact steal the land from the Palestinians. They actually bought and paid for at most 9% ...
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Is there a correlation between voting for the Democratic Party and gun crimes in the USA?
The following image has been making the rounds on social media:
Is the infographic even accurate?
If so is the conclusion it's pushing backed up by valid statistics? (that there's a clear correlation ...
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Is there economic data to suggest whether or not trickle-down economics provides a net increase in standards of living?
One of the chief arguments for Reagan's fiscal policy of trickle-down economics was "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy." Essentially that by ...
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Are there "1,071 Proven Cases of Voter Fraud"?
The Heritage Foundation, an American Conservative think tank, has recently published a report listing over a thousand individuals who committed voter fraud:
The United States has a long and ...
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Is the skeptical movement an offshoot of the Communist Party?
Found on
EXTRAORDINARY MEDICINE The truth about homeopathy is the following claim:
Media Skeptics: A Popcorn Gallery
The skeptical movement is an offshoot of the Communist Party. (Really: see ...
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Did Donald Trump only tell the truth in 22% of his fact-checked statements?
I was reading through post-debate comments made by prominent writers and the such, and came across one who linked the Washington Post (who linked Politifact) in saying that of the statements made by ...
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Do men with no prior exposure to child pornography go on to harm children once exposed?
UK government advisor John Carr, of the Council on Child Internet Safety, claims in a radio interview:
Mr Carr said there was "no question" that some men who look at child sex abuse images ...
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Do police officers have monthly quotas of traffic tickets to write?
I always wondered about this. When times are tough, the officers seem to start getting stricter, writing tickets in cases where they may otherwise give a warning or not bother to pull you over. No, I ...
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Have Democrats attacked Trump's proposed wall as "medieval"?
In this video President Trump says "They say a wall is medieval, well so is a wheel".
The official transcript says:
Democrats have refused to listen to the border agents, and they say this ...
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Does the US ban high-gas-mileage cars?
A recent YouTube video features a claim that the VW Passat TDI 1.6 and similar cars have been banned by the US government, specifically because their gas mileage is too high. The purported reasoning ...
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Are Fox News viewers more likely to believe misinformation than viewers of other news outlets?
Huffington Post writes:
Fox News viewers are much more likely than others to believe false information about American politics, a new study concludes.
The study, conducted by the University of ...
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Does the Bilderberg Group have influence on world events?
Is there any evidence to support the claim the Bilderberg Group have control of the world and its money supply?
Is there evidence to suggest they are planning on exterminating the majority of the ...
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