Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.
-1
votes
0answers
158 views
Did Omarosa claim in her book to have heard Trump’s N-word tape? [on hold]
Former Trump White House official and reality TV star Omarosa Manigault-Newman said this in an interview with NPR regarding her new book:
MANIGAULT-NEWMAN: And once I heard it...
RACHEL MARTIN, ...
28
votes
1answer
4k views
In California, is water from the north diverted into the Pacific Ocean?
Possibly addressing the Californian wildfires, president Donald Trump claims that in California "water coming from the north" is "being diverted into the Pacific Ocean".
Governor Jerry Brown must ...
9
votes
0answers
287 views
Has Israel interfered in US Elections? [closed]
So I came upon this July 2018 Independent article which quotes social critic Noam Chomsky as saying that Israel interfered in US election(s):
Veteran activist Noam Chomsky has accused Israel of “...
8
votes
1answer
418 views
Do the recent changes in US drug policy correlate with an increase in people moving from prescribed opioids to heroin?
I was reading about the price of heroin on The Recovery Village and they say:
Heroin pricing varies a lot depending on the region where it’s sold, and as drug cartels have seen people become ...
3
votes
1answer
598 views
Does Florida have a law which states that unmarried women are not allowed to go parachuting on Sundays?
KHSB (NBC News) (2011) has a self-explanatory headline:
No unmarried woman can parachute on Sundays is just one of Florida's most bizarre laws
CNN talks about this law in "World's strangest laws" (...
5
votes
1answer
426 views
Is at least $70 million in health care costs in the USA directly attributable to low literacy?
According to the Gaston Literacy Council of Gastonia, North Carolina:
Reports show that low literacy directly costs the healthcare industry over $70 million every year.
That website does not ...
3
votes
0answers
88 views
Is lack of adequate funding a substantial factor determining the poor accuracy of US state-level polls?
One of the conclusions of an AAPOR paper on the 2016 US polls contains this detail:
As this report documents, the national polls in 2016 were quite accurate, while polls in key battleground states ...
2
votes
1answer
364 views
Does the US military use an Xbox 360 controller to control one of their EOD robots?
According to this 2016 gameranx video:
The US military actually uses an Xbox 360 controller for EOD robots - which are essentially robots that pick up bombs, or deliver bombs.
(EOD stands for ...
47
votes
1answer
10k views
Was Paul Manafort exonerated for the crimes he’s now charged with?
Andrew Napolitano just said this on Fox News regarding the trial of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort:
Here’s Manafort’s defense: I was investigated for all this by the government 8 years ago ...
0
votes
0answers
77 views
Are discrepancies between exit polls and official election results in the US usually indicative of systematic election problems? [duplicate]
Paul Grossinger writes on Inc.com about the last US presidential election:
1) In 28 states doing exit polling, 23 states had a margin favoring Trump, against 5 for Clinton. That's 82% of states ...
0
votes
1answer
340 views
Did President Carter state that the United States had developed “an invisible plane”?
The book The Presidents and UFOs: A Secret History from FDR to Obama says:
Prior to the 1980 election Carter had stated in a news conference that the U.S. had developed “an invisible plane” which ...
5
votes
2answers
387 views
US trade deficit and the iPhone
CNBC has an article arguing that the way the US trade deficit with China is quite misleading, particularly as to the ultimate source of the deficit, using the iPhone as an example:
Some $70 billion ...
29
votes
2answers
1k views
Did Republicans select a nazi, neo-Confederate, pedophile, and pimp as general election candidates?
Post from Facebook Teabonics
Reads
In the past year, Republicans have selected a Nazi, a neo-Confederate, a pedophile, and a pimp as general election candidates. [Pictures of presumed GOP ...
29
votes
1answer
10k views
Drop in IQ due to immigration?
An alt-right web site, "Red Ice" (apparently belonging to Henrik Palmgren), proposes that there's a nearly worldwide decrease in IQ due to immigration. The Red Ice piece apparently originated from unz....
4
votes
1answer
332 views
Are dollar bills seen by the Turkish government as a secret sign of connections to Gülen?
Turkeypurge.com has an article on the trial of a (Turkish-American) NASA scientist, convicted in Turkey:
The prosecutor submitted as evidence in the case a statement by an anonymous informant, a ...
6
votes
2answers
409 views
Does Russia consider it unconstitutional to extradite its citizens?
U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said this to ABC regarding why President Trump is not going to demand that Putin extradite the 25 Russians indicted by Special Counsel Mueller:
It’s ...
67
votes
2answers
12k views
Were World War II scrap drives in the United States truly necessary for the procurement of raw materials?
I’ve been reading up on World War II scrap drive efforts in the United States, and am wondering if these (mostly) community-based efforts actually contributed enough raw materials to the war effort ...
2
votes
1answer
262 views
Have unions destroyed the US automobile industry? [closed]
Elon Musk claims that unions have destroyed the US automobile industry:
http://labor411.org/411-blog/2056-elon-musk-blasts-labor-unions-they-destroyed-once-great-us-auto-industry
But he is not alone,...
30
votes
1answer
8k views
Have any Ivanka Trump branded products been made in America?
In this video by The Young Turks, Cenk claims that Ivanka
That Ivanka does not make one product in America. Not one. She's never made a single product that she's sold in the United States of ...
11
votes
3answers
862 views
In USA the foreign-born are only a fifth as likely to be incarcerated as the native-born?
An article in the Economist from last year, arguing for open borders says:
If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with ...
90
votes
2answers
32k views
Are cars in Arizona melting in the 2018 summer heat?
Facebook just posted to my timeline this picture claiming that cars in Arizona are melting in the heat.
Is it true?
5
votes
0answers
329 views
Are African-Americans more impatient than whites or Hispanics?
A 2017 paper written by five economists (Andreoni et al.) finds that
Time preferences have been correlated with a range of life outcomes, yet little is known about
their early development. We ...
3
votes
1answer
237 views
Does attending a highly ranked high school in the US increase one's future success?
At the very least in the US it is widely believed that sending one's kids to a highly ranked high school is paramount, to the point where parents deliberately move to a better school district just to ...
33
votes
2answers
13k views
Is this picture from an abortion clinic dumpster?
I found this picture from a reply to Kamala Harris' tweet.
Warning, graphic and possibly disturbing image of a man handling what appear to be human fetuses: Click to view.
It has the following text:...
7
votes
1answer
465 views
Almost all the US jobs created between 2005-2015 “are temporary” (alt-work)
A piece of research from a pair of well-known economists, Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger as summarized in Quartz a couple of years ago:
“We find that 94% of net job growth in the past decade was ...
5
votes
2answers
343 views
Were the vast majority of lost manufacturing jobs since 2000 lost due to automation?
There has been a lot of discussion here in the US about manufacturing and about bringing back jobs from overseas.
While interviewing US presidential candidate Andrew Yang on the Waking Up podcast, ...
4
votes
1answer
861 views
Was—or is?—there an ICE checkpoint at the 23rd Street N/Q/R/W subway station in Manhattan? [closed]
All around social media this past Tuesday in New York City a viral message claiming there was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "checkpoint” at the 23rd Street N/Q/R/W subway station in ...
4
votes
1answer
613 views
In Kentucky, did one man beat up another man after they both bought the same woman's vote?
According to the Washington Post article Selling votes is common type of election fraud:
corrupt candidates in Clay County, Ky., once paid $100. But that was probably too much: It attracted one ...
17
votes
1answer
1k views
Did a senior U.S. Justice Department official state that 3- and 4-year-olds can learn immigration law well enough to represent themselves in court?
The following article—dating from March 5, 2016—in The Washington Post titled, “Can a 3-year old represent herself in immigration court? This judge thinks so.” is now making the rounds across the ...
6
votes
1answer
906 views
In 1982 did then President Ronald Reagan send a letter to an 8-year-old kid congratulating him on getting a Pac-Man high score?
According to multiple online sources (an DidYouKnowGaming?! forum post here and an AtariAge forum post) Jeffrey R. Yee of San Fransisco set a worldwide record for the high score on Pac-Man by scoring ...
4
votes
1answer
549 views
Only half of students graduating with a STEM degree [in 2009] were able to find STEM jobs [then]
From a 2013 EPI report as highlighed in an article published in The American Prospect:
As the EPI report lays bare, the common wisdom about our STEM problem is mistaken: We are not facing a ...
9
votes
1answer
602 views
Did 61% of all Americans agree that 'a politician who does unethical things in their personal life can still fulfill their duties' in 2016?
A colleague shared the below graphic from Twitter with claims about how the opinions of various demographic groups hava changed between 2011 and 2016:
This seems automatically dubious as neither the ...
4
votes
0answers
200 views
The average age of a highly skilled factory worker in the U.S. is 56 (or so)
In a 2012 NYT piece we read that
The average age of a highly skilled factory worker in the U.S. is now 56. “That’s average,” says Hal Sirkin, the lead author of the study. “That means there’s a lot ...
6
votes
0answers
297 views
Are roughly 90% of H-1B visa workers in the IT sector paid below-market rates?
In an article penned last year by (present and former) IEEE-USA presidents, we read that (my experpts and emphsis):
In 2014 (the last year we have good data), Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, and Tata ...
2
votes
0answers
245 views
Do people with centralist political views have a higher IQ then those with extreme political views? [closed]
This article claims that those with centralist political affiliation have a higher IQ then those with more extreme political views.
I've already inspected the original study linked, it is ...
5
votes
1answer
606 views
Does the President of the US have the right to pardon themselves? [closed]
Recently, Donald J Trump stated that the right to pardon himself.
As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have ...
83
votes
5answers
51k views
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 ...
88
votes
2answers
17k views
Was Morocco the first country to recognize USA?
Here in Morocco, when you talk about relations between Morocco and the USA, Moroccans tell you, proudly, that Morocco was the first country to recognize
the United States of America, and that the ...
8
votes
1answer
777 views
Are handguns used in 80% of mass shootings?
I've heard it several times, "More than 80% of mass shootings are carried out with handguns", often on social media, for example:
Handguns are responsible for more than 80% of mass shootings
......
113
votes
1answer
25k views
Have more Americans been killed in schools than in military service this year?
I've just come across a tweet by @spectatorindex that reads:
In 2018, more Americans have died in schools, with twenty-nine people killed, than in military service, where thirteen troops have been ...
26
votes
2answers
6k views
Did the FBI plant an informant in the Trump campaign during the Obama administration?
Donald Trump has tweeted allegations of the US's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) planting spies in his 2016 presidential campaign:
Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI “SPIED ...
3
votes
1answer
594 views
Is it true that other cultures don't see having two windows opened as a health risk? [closed]
I live in Romania and since I was a kid, I heard people talking about something we call, here in Romania, current—basically, the air flow which is being formed if at least two exterior windows are ...
8
votes
2answers
737 views
Do US Pharma firms have an incentive to develop useless cancer drugs?
An economic analysis of cancer drug approvals in the USA was recently published.
Drug regulators’ acceptance of any statistically significant improvement shown in a single randomized trial and ...
17
votes
3answers
3k views
Did Mueller indict a Russian company that didn't exist?
Conservative author Dinesh D'Souza just tweeted this:
Is Mueller this dumb? Or does he think the press is too dumb to notice he indicted a Russian company that doesn’t even exist?
This is a ...
13
votes
1answer
984 views
Is it illegal for pharmacists to tell their patients that their drugs are cheaper than their co-pay if they pay cash without using their insurance?
I read in the news article Why do the insured pay more for prescriptions? (mirror):
Eight states (including Texas) have enacted legislation authorizing pharmacists to tell their patients that their ...
63
votes
2answers
12k views
Did Susan B. Anthony make these statements regarding suffrage for women and former slaves?
Telesur posted an article on 8 November 2016 which claims Susan B. Anthony made a number of statements under the headline "White Women Pay Tribute to Susan B. Anthony, Notorious Racist":
The Bad
...
11
votes
1answer
931 views
Is a tow truck driver killed every six days on average in the US?
Along I-90 in Massachusetts (and I presume elsewhere in the state), there is a digital billboard which sometimes displays a message from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation that a tow truck ...
12
votes
1answer
5k views
Are there 2400 bank robberies per year in the US?
At the beginning of the movie Den of Thieves it is stated that:
2400 TIMES A YEAR. 44 TIMES A WEEK. 9 TIMES A DAY. EVERY 48 MINUTES. A BANK IS ROBBED HERE.[sic]
Anyway, I don't know whether HERE ...
8
votes
2answers
556 views
Does corporate lobbying provide benefits to those funding it?
This 2018 Bloomberg article claims that "Lobbying Doesn't Help Companies or Their Shareholders".
The numbers instead indicate that lobbying hurts the underlying capital values of the corporations. ...
8
votes
0answers
912 views
Has Trump freed hundreds of children per month and broken up trafficking rings?
Roseanne Barr just tweeted this to explain her support for President Trump:
President Trump has freed so many children held in bondage to pimps all over this world. Hundreds each month. He has ...
