Questions tagged [united-states]
Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.
8
votes
0answers
290 views
Has the US killed close to half a million since 9/11?
The Brookings Register reports a half a million people have been killed by the US since 9/11. From A different path: Let’s try nonviolence:
According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, ...
4
votes
0answers
220 views
Did India shoot down any Pakistani F-16 on 27th February 2019? [on hold]
According to DG ISPR of the Military of Pakistan, Gen. Asif Gafoor, on 27th February 2019, Pakistan Air Force's jets engaged IAF's jets and "shot down two IAF jets".
On the same day, India claimed ...
15
votes
2answers
693 views
Is the rate of food poisoning in the USA much worse than the rate in the UK?
One part of the interminable debate in the UK about leaving the EU has been a debate about what the UK would have to agree to if they do trade deals with other countries. In an interview with BBC ...
14
votes
1answer
655 views
Have textbook prices in the US more than doubled in the last 15 years?
The above chart was recently published on Reddit.
( Source: r/dataisbeautiful )
The author of the reddit thread cites the following data sources:
Consumer Price Index for All Urban ...
132
votes
1answer
28k views
Did Amazon pay $0 in taxes last year?
Background
I saw this article saying that Amazon paid $0 in corporate income tax last year. Is this true or just phrased to sound like they are getting away with paying nothing?
Here's the article: ...
9
votes
2answers
666 views
Could Michael Cohen reduce his sentence by cooperating with, or lying to, Congress?
This Trump tweet said
Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also. He was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He ...
2
votes
0answers
156 views
Did the Trump admin. hire an Israeli private security firm to spy on Obama aides?
According to Ynetnews.com:
Black Cube, notorious for its work for disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, reportedly hired by Trump administration officials to spy on 2 Obama aides involved ...
3
votes
0answers
287 views
How many middle class families' tax burden was less in 2018 because of Trump's tax cuts?
In the news lately (early 2019) are many stories of regular people complaining that they have drastically lower tax refunds than the previous year, and some even owing instead. This is in the wake of ...
9
votes
0answers
613 views
Would the Green New Deal cost 600k per household?
A recent Fox News report uses numbers provided by a self-proclaimed "center-right" American organization which details the predicted costs of the Green New Deal, totaling up to 93 trillion dollars, or ...
5
votes
0answers
531 views
Do 100,000 foreign spies reside in the US?
CNN Declassified, "Spies among us: Get a peek at their playbook" by Thom Patterson, Updated July 18, 2017, reports of an expert estimate of 100,000 foreign agents:
(CNN)Spies are living among us.
...
4
votes
2answers
450 views
Do US sanctions against Venezuela outweigh the aid being sent?
President Trump recently imposed sanctions against Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA.
However, the US has also sent aid, primarily food, to the Colombian border, with the aim of getting it to ...
20
votes
2answers
9k views
Were there no “white” people in Virginia between 1619 and 1679?
The back cover of historian and scholar Theodore W. Allen's The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control quotes the late Mr. Allen
When the first Africans arrived ...
50
votes
1answer
12k views
Did a Tesla car collide with a Russian robot?
This story made the rounds in the news: a Tesla car "killed" an autonomous robot in Las Vegas in January 2019.
There is some controversy about whether the incident was a real accident or a ...
4
votes
1answer
697 views
Is this an authentic US army pamphlet about Red Army, issued to soldiers in 1945?
Archive.org contains a scan of an 84-page pamphlet, called "Our Red Army Ally" that purports to be a document published by the United States War Department in 1945, for the purposes of training ...
7
votes
0answers
777 views
Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or her office write and publish this FAQ concerning her Green New Deal? [closed]
There is a PDF circulating online that is purported to be an FAQ released by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (hereinafter referred to as AOC).
Here is a link to the PDF
Examples of high-...
81
votes
4answers
19k views
As of February 2019, were US wages rising at the “fastest pace in decades”?
The President of the USA, Donald Trump, told during his "State of the Union address" speech on 5th February 2019, that
[...] wages in America are rising at the fastest pace in decades
Source: at ...
23
votes
1answer
9k views
Did Neomi Rao defend dwarf-tossing?
A recent article about Neomi Rao's nomination to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals claims that Rao has a record of defending dwarf-tossing.
Conservatives are discouraging ...
10
votes
1answer
1k views
Did the Houston Police Department intentionally target the house on Harding Street?
In this video by News Now Houston an investigative reporter suggests that the Houston Police may have raided the wrong location and killed two innocent homeowners (Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas) ...
35
votes
1answer
10k views
Did John Bolton hold a notepad with the text “5000 troops to Colombia” written on it when he announced new sanctions against Venezuela?
A lot of news outlets across the entire political spectrum had a major news item about John Bolton today. An example from the CBS News Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/...
41
votes
3answers
12k views
Can a US President's declaration of emergency be overridden by simple majorities of both chambers of Congress?
Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post that:
[the US President's] declaration of an emergency can be overridden by a simple majority of both houses
Is it true that a presidential declaration ...
-8
votes
1answer
860 views
“We do not need 2000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shiny sea. We never did. We never proposed that” Has Trump ever proposed a ~2K mi border wall?
On January 25, 2019 U.S. President Donald J. Trump stated
"We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shiny sea. We
never did. We never proposed that."
CNN could not ...
5
votes
2answers
760 views
Did Hillary Clinton support legalising such late-term abortions of fetuses as claimed by Ben Shapiro?
Please note that this question contains some graphic language that some people will find distressing. Ben Shapiro makes two statements about Hillary Clinton's views on allowing abortion of a fetus. ...
33
votes
1answer
5k views
Did Hillary Clinton pay Russian officials 30 million dollars, through her campaign to get dirt on Trump?
In tonight's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Ann Coulter said:
I mean, Hillary Clinton paid, through her campaign, 30 million dollars to Russian officials to get dirt on Trump
The full ...
3
votes
1answer
500 views
Was the quantity of Fentanyl imported in 2018 enough to kill every American?
ABC reporter Meridith McGraw, who covers the White House, recently tweeted:
Inbox: For a payment of $20.20, the Trump campaign says they will send a “faux brick” to Pelosi and Schumer’s offices “...
0
votes
0answers
154 views
Chocolate milk drink and brown cows [duplicate]
At at TV quiz game they claimed that about 16 millions adult Americans believe that chocolate or cocoa milk drinks are milked from brown cows.
As it is unbelievable I've quickly searched for it and ...
62
votes
3answers
15k views
Did college students clamor for cyanide pills in student health clinics in the 1980's in America?
According to the article Media Throw Everything at the Wall to See What Sticks:
Witless college students demanded cyanide pills be stocked in campus health care clinics, on the grounds that Reagan ...
23
votes
1answer
5k views
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 is a ...
52
votes
3answers
10k views
Is only 4% of original forest left in the US?
The 2009 video The Story of Stuff makes several rather incredible claims. For example:
Where I live, in the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left.
My gut feeling tells ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
Do illegal immigrants commit more murders than mass shooters?
Notable claim
The claim I wish to examine is from dcwhispers.com,
Case in point—the number of deaths, assaults, and sex crimes,
including human trafficking, taking place on America’s southern ...
5
votes
2answers
392 views
Do Low-skill workers earn one cent in extra income for every 19 cents the government spends on walling off Mexico
From Quartz - The ROI on border walls is terrible, the following claim was made::
Low-skill workers earn one cent in extra income for every 19 cents the government spends on walling off Mexico
It ...
-2
votes
1answer
730 views
Is the biggest terror threat in the US white men? [duplicate]
Don Lemon, a journalist and CNN host, recently stated
the biggest terror threat in this country is white men.
and did not retract his statement "following the backlash", but rather, re-emphasized ...
13
votes
1answer
870 views
Was the United States the equal fifth deadliest country for journalists in 2018?
As reported in the CNN article In a violent year for journalists, United States among the deadliest countries for first time, the group Reporters Without Borders has claimed that the United States is ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views
Do people in USA have to take an unpaid vacation day to vote? [closed]
As a European I was quite shocked to hear that people in the USA have to take an unpaid vacation day from work to be able to take part in elections.
Is that really true? So do people really get ...
10
votes
1answer
697 views
Did Trump reveal the identities of a SEAL team in Iraq?
According to Newsweek (and several other news outlets that cite Newsweek), during his trip to Iraq over Christmas, Trump revealed the identities of a SEAL team that was deployed in Iraq.
President ...
15
votes
1answer
3k views
Will the US military receive a 10% pay raise in 2019?
Supposedly, Trump told soldiers in Iraq that (1) he just got them a 10% pay raise, and (2) supposedly also told them that this is the first raise they have received in a decade.
Fact check: Trump ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
Can the US president order the army into construction?
I know the President can order the troops into battle "in defense of the nation", but can he order the troops into manual labor? I'm skeptical over this claim of presidential power from Politico
...
2
votes
0answers
120 views
Did Bob Corker ask Trump for his endorsement?
President Trump just tweeted this (see here and here):
Senator Bob Corker just stated that, “I’m so priveledged to serve in the Senate for twelve years, and that’s what I told the people of our ...
25
votes
3answers
5k views
Is this chart of executive branch criminal prosecutions accurate?
I am curious about the accuracy of the numbers quoted. In particular, are the Republican numbers inflated or Democratic numbers deflated?
The original source says:
The chart below only includes ...
24
votes
1answer
7k views
Is the Clinton Foundation currently under investigation?
Marc Lotter, former special assistant to President Trump, just said this to CNN's Erin Burnett in the course of defending President Trump from the fact that the Trump foundation is shutting down after ...
11
votes
2answers
608 views
Is the equity ratio of US banks around 3%?
Did John H. Cochrane, a professor of economics at Chicago, wrote:
In order to make $100 of loans, a typical bank borrows $97—from
depositors, from money-market funds, from other banks, or from
...
8
votes
0answers
575 views
Is the US saving enough money from the USMCA to pay for the Wall?
President Trump just tweeted this:
I often stated, “One way or the other, Mexico is going to pay for the Wall.” This has never changed. Our new deal with Mexico (and Canada), the USMCA, is so much ...
67
votes
1answer
16k views
Was George H. W. Bush the “youngest pilot in the US Navy”?
According to this Miller Center,
Bush enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday and became notable as the youngest pilot to earn his wings in World War II.
And, again, on The Independent,
he ...
15
votes
1answer
1k views
Is this heart transplant denial letter from an insurance group?
In a recent tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she claims that this letter which recommends a fundraising effort of $10,000 for medical care, 'comes from an insurance group'.
Well-known conservative ...
25
votes
2answers
6k views
Did the number of U.S. Food & Drug Administration food safety inspections fall from the 1972 to 2006?
Food Inc documentary claims that the number of FDA food safety inspections had fallen from 50,000 in 1972 to 9164 in 2006 and this information is also cited here.
However, I cannot find any ...
22
votes
1answer
4k views
Has the USA used CS gas at the Mexican border since at least 2010?
CS gas is one particular type of tear gas.
The Washington Times claims today:
Tear gas used once a month at border under Obama
The same tear-gas agent that the Trump administration is taking ...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
Are these photos of burned home surrounded by pristine trees in California due to the forest fires real?
These photos are circulating on social media. Are they real? How can a forest fire burn homes in the center of a forest without burning the trees?
Portion of Paradise, CA after the "Forest Fire".
...
4
votes
0answers
245 views
Was Joseph Mifsud working for Western intelligence agencies?
George Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy advisor on President Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, just tweeted this:
I just have a responsibility to inform America of the truth. Western ...
3
votes
0answers
519 views
Was the recent bust of 12 people in Florida the largest food stamp bust in history?
The United States Department of Justice, in September 2017 sent out the following press release.
12 Defendants Charged Federally with Collectively Receiving Over $20 Million from USDA by ...
6
votes
1answer
2k views
Was there DEA headquarters located on top of a strip club?
In episode 1 of the Netflix show Narcos: Mexico they state that
The [DEA] headquarters in D.C. sat on top of a f*****g strip club
If this was true it would have been in the 1980s or before.
Did ...
8
votes
2answers
781 views
In the U.S., is more water used for electric generation, and more electricity used for water infrastucture, than anything else?
Today I received an e-mail message regarding an upcoming Energy Water Nexus Technical Conference that made this unsupported claim:
Nationally, the largest category for water consumption is electric ...
