Questions tagged [united-states]
Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.
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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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Did NASA invest a million dollars in the research of a space pen, when the USSR simply used a pencil?
I encountered this picture of the "Russian space pen" from the MIT Museum gift shop
When NASA first started sending astronauts into space, they realized that the ball-point pen would not ...
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Are people of Nordic Nations "happier, healthier" with "a higher standard of living overall than Americans"?
Ernest W. Adams wrote in the answer to the question "Why are people so negative about Nordic nations, especially Sweden?":
There are a lot of right wing Americans who have been preaching ...
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Did Donald Trump say that "global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese"?
In the Presidential debate of 26th September, Hillary Clinton claimed that "Donald Trump said that global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese" . Trump replied several times "I did not say that"....
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Was pink a boy color and blue a girl color prior to the 20th century?
A recent essay in the New York Times by Claire Cain Miller, entitled How to Raise a Feminist Son, claims that:
Until the mid-20th century, pink was the boy color and blue was for
girls.
It, in ...
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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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Are there 96 million workers in the US who want a job and can't get one?
On Wednesday 11 Jan 2017, US President-elect Donald Trump claimed in a press conference that:
There will be a major border tax on these companies that are leaving and getting away with murder. And ...
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Did Amazon pay $0 in US taxes in 2018?
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: ...
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Are violent video games a better explanation of school shootings than access to guns?
This site already has a question on the general relationship of video games and violence.
But the recent Florida school shooting has raised a more specific set of claims that deserve to be addressed.
...
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Did the @POTUS Twitter account use a picture from Obama's inauguration for its cover image?
There's an image going around Facebook claiming that the @POTUS Twitter account is using an image from President Obama's inauguration.
Is this true? Where is the original image from?
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Did Republicans take 10 of 13 Congressional seats in the 2018 North Carolina general election with roughly the same number of votes as Democrats?
This image has been shared on social media
Transcription:
Gerrymandering in North Carolina
1,747,742 votes for Democrats = 3 Congressional seats
1,638,684 votes for Republicans = 10 Congressional ...
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Is the USA murder rate at a high? Specifically is it at a 45 year high?
Current US President Donald Trump is on record as repeatedly saying that "The murder rate is the highest it's been in I guess 45-47 years."
Is that true?
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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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Has the 9th Circuit Court been overturned 80% of the time?
This claim is being made in some parts of the media:
The 9th Circuit Court has been overturned 80% of the time.
Similar versions abound. Here is another one
Why? Because the “reversal rate” of ...
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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 ...
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Were there 18 school shootings in the US from Jan 1 to Feb 14, 2018?
CBC Radio (Canada) reported earlier this evening that the Florida shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School "was the 18th school shooting in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018.".
On its face ...
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Entire GOP voted against letting senators read the new tax bill?
Following the passing of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in the U.S. Senate on December 2nd 2017, this photo has been making the rounds on social media (facebook in my case). The tweet by Jesse Lehrich claims
...
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In the US, are illegal immigrants more likely to commit crimes?
Trump has claimed numerous times that part of the reason we need to close the border is that the illegal immigrants are prone to crimes. I want to check these claims. Are illegal immigrants more ...
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Is a police officer 18x more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be by a police officer?
PragerU is a YouTube channel for expressive conservative views. They published a video titled Are The Police Racist? (with over a million views) that has this claim [at 2:48]:
a police officer is ...
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Is it possible to fly 4 helicopters anywhere in a country without official knowledge?
According to reports, there were 4 helicopters used in the raid on Osama Bin Laden.
Is it conceivable that even one helicopter could be flown so close to the capital of another country without raising ...
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Do these pictures depict David Hogg after two separate crises?
A post circulating on social media - 48,000 shares and counting so far - depicts still images of two news reports, one in California in August 2017 and one in Florida in February 2018 after the ...
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Does the US spend more public money (i.e. tax/capita) on Health Care than other developed countries?
The author John Green on a YouTube post Why are American Health Care costs so high? makes the (referenced) claim that US public health expenditure per capita, is higher than most other developed ...
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Did close to 3,000 Puerto Ricans die in Hurricane Maria?
CNN reports:
Earlier this month, [Puerto Rico]'s governor formally raised the death toll from Hurricane Maria to an estimated 2,975 from 64 following a study conducted by researchers at The George ...
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Does America not lead the world in mass shootings?
According to an OpEd in the NY Post by John Lott and Michael Weisser that cites a report by the Crime Prevention Research Center, America doesn't lead the world in mass shootings.
"Of the 86 ...
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Are there more open jobs than available developers?
A recent Stack Overflow blog post claims that:
With nearly five open jobs for every available software developer, the need for qualified technical talent is higher than ever.
I have seen this ...
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Did the UK homicide rate go up after handgun ownership was banned?
During debates about gun control, I have seen gun advocates quote a statistic that the UK homicide rate increased in 1996 following a ban on handguns. Furthermore, the claim usually goes on to suggest ...
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Are Americans more likely to be killed by vending machines than terrorist refugees?
The Financial Times did some analysis of Donald Trump's controversial immigration restrictions (which were claimed to be about protecting Americans from terrorism).
They focus on analysing risk from ...
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Did two crisis actors both claim to be the father of the same child killed in the Uvalde, Texas shooting?
A friend-of-a-friend posted a BitChute video on my friend's Facebook wall: Two crisis actor "fathers" share the same daughter in Uvalde, Texas
The description states:
NBC and CNN interview ...
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Is it illegal for regular US citizens to possess or read the Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks?
While referring to the the Podesta emails which were leaked by WikiLeaks this week, CNN's Chris Cuomo said on live TV:
Also interesting is, remember: It's illegal to possess these stolen
...
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Can 1 in 1,000 black men expect to be killed over the course of their lifetime by the police?
In Last Week Tonight of June 8th, 2020, John Oliver mentions that 1 in 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by the police.
At 5:05 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY
I have tracked the ...
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On average in the US, is there a mass shooting 9 out of every 10 days?
Reading the New York Times today, I came across this very amusing "tourism video" touting the benefit of visiting/moving to Australia, namely, "You Won't Get Shot".
Don’t Get Shot in America. Live in ...
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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 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 ...
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Did Donald Trump fire the entire pandemic response team in 2018?
This tweet claims Trump "fired the entire pandemic response team in 2018":
Text: Just a reminder: it’s okay to blame the president for how bad things get with COVID-19 because he fired the ...
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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 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?
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Is it illegal to refuse US currency for a purchase?
I hear this claim every now and then. That US currency is legal tender and that it is illegal to not accept it.
The most recent example of this was on an old episode of 30 Rock: The head and the hair....
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Has the Trump administration revoked these listed LGBT protections?
This image is doing the rounds on Facebook:
It quotes a tweet by Donald Trump from early 2016, followed by claims that the Trump administration has performed these actions:
Thank you to the ...
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Was Donald Trump's father a member of the KKK?
This tumblr post has garnered over 13,000 notes:
The post makes 3 main claims:
Donald Trump's father was a member of the KKK for over 70 years
He was arrested in 1927 at a KKK event
He was ...
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Was President Trump's inauguration "the first time ... that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall"?
On 21 Jan 2017, the White House called a press conference where the press secretary accused the media of "deliberately false reporting" on two issues of which the number of people attending President ...
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Is the curtain behind Obama in this picture a "muslim prayer curtain"?
I've been shown this image a few times:
Naturally, it's a little ridiculous, because there are surely at least a thousand pictures of him near an American flag.
But it is making a claim that the ...
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Did Donald Trump make campaign contributions to Attorneys General who then decided not to prosecute him?
According to this Medium article and this Vox article Donald Trump made campaign contributions to two attorneys general who then suddenly decided to stop investigating his "Trump University" for fraud....
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Did Colorado replace any 420 mile markers with a 419.99 mile marker to deter theft?
This claim has been circulating on Facebook:
Although marijuana is now legal in Colorado, I don't see any particular attraction to mile markers from this state, as US mile markers are pretty standard-...
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Did Steve Mnuchin's OneWest Bank foreclose on a 90-year-old woman's house after a 27-cent payment error?
Politico reports:
Two years ago, OneWest filed foreclosure papers on the Lakeland, Florida, home of Ossie Lofton, who had taken a reverse mortgage, a loan that supplies cash to elderly homeowners ...
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Has the US COVID-19 lockdown resulted in more years of life lost than COVID-19 itself?
Published in The Hill on May 25, 2020, an opinion piece by Scott W. Atlas, John R. Birge, Ralph L. Keeney, and Alexander Lipton claims that as of the time of writing, in the United States, COVID-19 ...
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Do blacks in the US get arrested more often for drug usage despite using drugs at the same rate as whites?
Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk says in this YouTube video that
The studies show that as well. Blacks and whites use drugs at the same rate but black people get arrested way more often for it.
Is it ...
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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 ...
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Are there vaccine ingredients which may not be disclosed ("hidden", "trade secret", or similar)?
I sometimes encounter people claiming that there are ingredients in vaccines that can be kept secret by the manufacturer. I would be surprised to hear this, because the manufacturers have to conduct ...
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Will the healthcare premiums of a 64 year old making $26,500 a year grow to $14,600 under the GOP Health Care Plan?
This picture was posted on the Facebook page, The Other 98%.
Is this really true? Will the premium be more than half of the income of a 64 year old under the proposed new system? And is the old ...
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Is the US federal government still paying Civil War survivor benefits?
I read an article claiming that the US federal government is still paying out a Civil War survivor pension today, over 150 years after the Civil War ended. Is this accurate?
In 1924, Mose Triplett,...
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