Questions tagged [united-states]
Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.
1,412
questions
9
votes
1answer
590 views
Was it ever common in the USA for women to use their husbands' Social Security Numbers as their own?
The December 2015 Uniform Assessment Instrument of Virginia's Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (an instruction manual for administration of certain public social services) contains the ...
33
votes
2answers
12k views
Did about 150 die from gun violence in the US during the 4th of July weekend 2021?
CNN reports
At least 150 people were killed by gun violence in more than 400 shootings across the country during the Fourth of July weekend
Ref: CNN.com
In the article this data is based on data ...
11
votes
2answers
1k views
Is this the flag of Niobrara County, Wyoming?
I recently encountered this image, stated to be the flag of Niobrara County, Wyoming:
It was posted specifically as an "eye hurting flag"; that is, it was noted as especially ugly. I know ...
10
votes
2answers
826 views
Has a company been indicted for failing to pay taxes on benefits?
CNN is reporting that Ron Fischetti, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, stated:
“It’s outrageous. It’s unprecedented. It’s never happened before,” he said of a company being indicted in ...
53
votes
4answers
9k views
Did the 2nd Amendment limit the purchase of cannons from the day it was passed?
Joe Biden says in a BBC snippet that
the Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people that could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn't buy a cannon....
8
votes
1answer
1k views
Is there a bill in Iowa that bans the teaching of sexism, slavery, and racial segregation?
Is there a critical race theory bill in Iowa
that bans the teaching of the following topics: sexism, slavery,
racial segregation, racial discrimination, including topics related to
the enactment and ...
5
votes
1answer
283 views
Did Heimlich maneuvre posters become mandatory in New York shortly after that technique was performed on mayor Ed Koch in 1981?
The New York Times reports in its obituary on former New York mayor Ed Koch, that posters on the Heimlich maneuvre became mandatory in New York restaurants when the mayor got rescued by it:
If you ...
6
votes
1answer
512 views
Did a former CIA accountant testify that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA employee?
Harvey and Lee is a web-site that documents some conspiracy theories about the death of John F. Kennedy.
In particular, it contains a purported transcript of the testimony of a 1978 former CIA ...
0
votes
0answers
226 views
Are financial companies in the US obligated to keep personal information for a decade after they close or lock an account?
For example, there are quite a few stories of Paypal experiences scattered throughout the internet. Since they are common enough I had assumed Paypal simply operates a very strict fraud detection ...
8
votes
1answer
524 views
Did the Pulse nightclub shooter target the LGBTQ community? [closed]
On the fifth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting Orlando, several US Senators condemned it as a targeted attack on the LGBTQ community.
5 years ago, we lost 49 people in a deadly, hate-filled ...
37
votes
3answers
6k views
Are US colleges awarding more A-scores?
On the June 4, 2021, episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host makes the claim:
In 1960s colleges awarded A's to 15% of the students. Now it is 45% of the students.
Ref: Youtube clip from the ...
6
votes
1answer
885 views
Is this “Dear Liberal Communists” poster a real poster from Turning Point USA?
The following poster has circulated on social media and blogs:
Examples:
https://twitter.com/viet_t_nguyen/status/1378598473314930691
https://twitter.com/krupali/status/1378556380550852613
https://...
44
votes
3answers
9k views
Do the murder statistics of 5 cities bring the USA to the 3rd highest country, from 189th? [closed]
I'd like to know if the claims about murders are accurate.
The "3rd in murders" is clearly referring to absolute deaths by murder, as it can be seen here, USA holds the 96th position for ...
4
votes
0answers
367 views
Has anyone ever lost a lawsuit for giving a bad employment reference? Has a case like this even happened in the U.S.? [closed]
It's is a well-known "fact" that companies can be sued for giving a bad employment reference about a former employee and that, because of this, many HR departments refuse to give any type of ...
10
votes
1answer
980 views
Do more than 22% of American adults own Bitcoin?
NYDIG published this statement:
Our findings suggest that 46MM+ Americans own Bitcoin today. That’s more than 22% of adults over the age of 18.
That figure sounds extraordinarily high to me. And ...
5
votes
1answer
181 views
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-...
25
votes
3answers
6k views
Did Fauci argue that gain-of-function research is worth risking a global pandemic?
In a related question, it's asked whether the Wuhan Lab conducted gain-of-function research, as claimed by Sean Hannity of Fox News.
But moments later in the same piece Hannity says that Anthony Fauci ...
-2
votes
2answers
463 views
Have there been no long lines or price hikes for gas in the eastern US?
On May 11, 2021, the New York Times reported
Colonial Pipeline, a vital U.S. fuel artery that was shut down by a cyberattack, said it hoped to restore most operations by the end of the week. Since ...
1
vote
2answers
683 views
Are these claims about the changes in the economy during Obama accurate?
An image was recently posted on politics about how the economy changed under Obama. While that question was not asking about the validity of the claim itself, instead focused on the validity of ...
48
votes
1answer
13k views
Did a US school test ask this question about norms in Chinese culture?
OpenDemocracy.net presents this as a question that has recently been asked of 12-year-old children in a US school:
It is described so:
A IS FOR ANTI-ASIAN
A worried Korean American woman recently ...
41
votes
2answers
11k views
Are unusually many people dying after being vaccinated for COVID-19?
On May 6, 2021, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said:
We all assume the risks are negligible. Vaccines aren’t dangerous. That’s not a guess, we know that pretty conclusively...Every flu season, we give ...
0
votes
0answers
207 views
Did Dr. Rajendra Kapila get both his Pfizer vaccine shots prior to his India visit? And is Pfizer vaccine not so effective against the Indian variant?
A WhatsApp forward I received says the following.
[Text:]
Dr Rajendra Kapila, Infectious disease expert with Rutgers University was visiting India due to his father in-law's poor health. He got ...
1
vote
1answer
881 views
Does US American beer contain animal products?
I just came across a video from Donald Trumps former advisor Larry Kudlow where he talks about "plant based beer" (video).
OK, got that? No burgers on 4 July. No steaks on the barbecue … So ...
60
votes
2answers
11k views
Did Abner Schoenwetter spend 6.5 years in jail because he used plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes when importing lobsters from Honduras?
Forbes states that:
Abner Schoenwetter was importing seafood to sell to U.S. restaurants for over 12 years from Honduras. Those shipments were overseen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ...
3
votes
0answers
547 views
Why is YouTube removing dislikes on The White House Channel? [closed]
The website https://81m.org/ has developed a tool to periodically check the latest videos uploaded to the Official White House YouTube channel using YouTube's API, and counts the increases of likes/...
11
votes
1answer
951 views
Does New York restrict voting more than Georgia's new law?
Some people have claimed that New York actually restricts voting more than Georgia, even after Georgia's new Election Integrity Act.
New York’s voting laws are far more restrictive than Georgia’s by ...
7
votes
2answers
628 views
Is it illegal to give water to voters in line in Delaware?
After the passage of S.B. 202 in the U.S. state of Georgia, there was a lot of outcry about the provision that makes it illegal for anyone to hand out food or water at the polls (emphasis added):
No ...
1
vote
1answer
708 views
Did the CIA have a plan to airdrop condoms over Russian soil as a way of psychological warfare?
In various place on the internet, a story circulate about a scrapped CIA plan in which they would airdrop very large condoms labelled "Small" or "Medium" as a way to imply american ...
52
votes
3answers
6k views
Has the distribution of income and wealth in the USA got much more skewed towards the rich in the last 4 decades?
I recently asked this question about a statistic quoted by Kurt Andersen designed to illustrate the current wealth distribution in the USA in his book Evil Geniuses. It provoked a great deal of (...
26
votes
1answer
7k views
Would the median household income in the USA be $140K and mean net worth $800K if wealth were evenly distributed
In his book (Evil Geniuses) about how the USA got where it currently is, Kurt Andersen speculates about how far wealth and income inequality has risen in the last few decades.
He attempts to visualise ...
4
votes
1answer
328 views
Has any US official said that the economy cannot be “fixed” if the pandemic is not “fixed”?
Context
A week ago or so, Romania observed a conflict between the central authorities dealing with the pandemic (who want more restrictions) and the local authorities in a county (who want fewer ...
9
votes
2answers
873 views
Is there currently an epidemic of crimes against Asian Americans?
There's a common belief that we're seeing an epidemic of crimes against Asian Americans. Claims are too numerous to cite comprehensively so I'll just cite President Biden's tweet:
We can’t be silent ...
10
votes
1answer
3k views
Is this video of an attack on an elderly Asian woman authentic?
A video of what appears to be an attack on an elderly Asian woman has been posted on social media, with the following description:
UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON ELDERLY ASIAN WOMAN
A 69-year-old woman was ...
5
votes
1answer
874 views
Will China soon have a bigger navy than the USA?
According to this CNN article China either already has, or is on course to have a larger number of 'battle force ships' than the USA.
Is this true?
8
votes
1answer
712 views
Did the US government accuse China of genocide against Uyghurs based on a single report?
Background:
CNN reported in January 2021 that
The US has officially determined that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and ethnic and religious minority ...
5
votes
0answers
239 views
Did BGI genetically test Uyghurs in Xinjiang?
In July of last year the U.S. Commerce Department publicly accused subsidiaries of BGI (formerly Beijing Genomics Institute) of genetically testing Uyghurs in Xinjiang as part of a campaign of ...
11
votes
1answer
714 views
Does the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission require weatherized pipelines and equipment (but Texas's doesn't)?
The Houston Chornicle writes:
Texas has the only American electricity grid with no rules for resiliency. Instead, the GOP majority argued that a system that pays higher prices when demand goes up ...
26
votes
5answers
8k views
Is it dangerous to use a gas range for heating?
According to the CDC, you should "NEVER use a gas range for heating".
Never use a gas range or oven for heating. Using a gas range or oven for heating can cause a build up of CO inside your ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Were 80 million black slaves killed in the USA by the end of the civil war?
I was listening to a speech by Malcolm X, where he said (at 1:57) that over 80 million black people were killed in America (100 million brought over as slaves, but less than 20 million remained at the ...
1
vote
1answer
223 views
Did Emma Willard send a letter to the French government appealing for women’s suffrage in 1848?
In T.M. Roberts' Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the challenge to American Exceptionalism it's said briefly (on p. 92 and without a citation/reference) that:
In 1848 Emma Willard, the director of the ...
30
votes
1answer
7k views
Did Barry Goldwater claim peanut butter is good shaving cream?
If you don't mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.
I've seen this quote floating around, attributed to Barry Goldwater, but only on those ...
26
votes
1answer
8k views
Did “Antifa in Portland” issue an “anonymous tip” in Nov that John E. Sullivan be “locked out” of their circles because he is “agent provocateur”?
A Jan 15 OpIndia article says:
On the 23rd of November 2020, Antifa in Portland is said to have issued an ‘anonymous tip’ demanding that John Sullivan be “locked out” of their circles. “While it’s ...
3
votes
0answers
394 views
Did John Earle Sullivan invite Proud Boys on stage at a rally and said he wants to work with them?
The Salt Lake Tribune writes (Jan 16) about John Earle Sullivan:
In June 2020, John attended his first Black Lives Matter event, according to Lex Scott, the founder of the Utah chapter of the group. ...
-3
votes
1answer
1k views
Was John Earle Sullivan at the Capitol Riot?
Controversial conservative journalist Andy Ngô claims that a blurry photo from the recent storming of the US Capitol building is of John Earle Sullivan, who he (mis-?)characterises as an extreme BLM ...
62
votes
3answers
12k views
Did Trump himself order the National Guard to clear out protesters (who sided with him) on the Capitol on Jan 6?
An op-ed on Russia Today (which obviously has its biases) claims about Trump's reaction to the Jan 6 events:
The supposed Nazi fascist dictator himself ordered National Guard and police to clear out ...
70
votes
1answer
19k views
Are there 300,000 items in the average American household, and 10,000 items in the average European household?
There is a trope that can be found in many articles discussing topics such as consumerism or minimalism: the average number of items that can be found in an average household. The number that is ...
11
votes
0answers
286 views
Do for-profit prisons lobby against early childhood education?
This popular reddit comment claims that for profit prisons "...literally lobby against things like early child education..."
I can't find any evidence for or against this claim. I've found ...
8
votes
1answer
808 views
Are 40,000 Americans injured by toilets every year?
It is widely claimed across the internet that 40,000 Americans are injured every year by toilets.
A Wikipedia article mentions it:
Toilet related injuries are also surprisingly common, with some ...
-2
votes
1answer
355 views
How did the myth that student loans are non-dischargeable originate?
A fairly common myth is that student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy (USA). For example, this NPR article discusses the myth and its falsity.
While I have been able to find plenty of ...
-1
votes
2answers
393 views
Did Nancy Pelosi call herd immunity “quackery”?
There are a number of news sources quoting Nancy Pelosi referring to herd immunity as "quackery":
“It becomes clear to us now that they believed in herd immunity, quackery, springing right ...
