Questions tagged [united-states]
Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.
1,174
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Is this pie graph describing US government spending accurate?
This graphic is doing the circuit on Facebook. Is the pie chart an accurate depiction of US government spending?
Look closely at this chart of federal spending.
Military 57%
Education 6%
...
74
votes
4answers
31k views
Is there a death penalty if you jump off a building (and don't die) in New York?
According to dumblaws.com, in New York (City? State? or both?):
The penalty for jumping off a building is death.
It is the second most-voted weird law in NY in ranker.com also:
If Jumping Off ...
74
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2answers
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Does Melania Trump's security cost double the National Endowment for the Arts' budget?
This viral post was found at The Resistance with 16,000 shares in less 12 hours. It's from @chapmanchapman who seems to be commenting on Trump cutting the National Endowment for the Arts.
The est. ...
73
votes
2answers
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Does Shell get $2 billion a year in subsidies from the US government?
While browsing reddit, I saw the following graphic from the Late Stage Capitalism subreddit:
(Two stick figures are shown, the second one with Shell's logo for a head)
This is Bob.
Bob gets $...
73
votes
1answer
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Did the maps for services such as Snapchat, CitiBike and StreetEasy label New York City as “Jewtropolis” for a brief amount of time?
While checking my Twitter feed this morning (August 30, 2018) I came across this tweet that claimed that services like Snapchat, CitiBike and StreetEasy renamed New York City as “Jewtropolis.” ...
73
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3answers
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Is any male over 15 years of age considered a combatant if killed by a drone strike?
In the essay "We have always fought" by Kameron Hurley, she makes the following claim:
We don’t kill “fifteen year old boys” but “enemy combatants” (yes, every boy 15 and over killed in drone ...
72
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1answer
14k views
In Massachusetts, can someone be “arrested and fined up to fifty-thousand dollars” for reporting suspicious behavior in a women's bathroom?
A Massachusetts political advertisement No On 3, Keep MA Safe says:
What does Massachusetts Question 3 mean to you? It means any man who says he is a woman can enter a women's locker room, ...
71
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4answers
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Did thousands of women die every year due to illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade?
Dr. Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood, has repeatedly said that thousands of women died every year as a result of abortions prior to Roe v. Wade:
We face a real situation where Roe could ...
69
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2answers
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Is the infant mortality rate among African-American babies in Youngstown, Ohio greater than that of babies in Iran?
In a town hall meeting on June 2, 2019 with Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH), the candidate stated the following (emphasis mine)
Now, a lot of people don't know, but Youngstown, Ohio is 50 percent ...
69
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2answers
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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 ...
69
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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 ...
69
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2answers
17k views
Did Muslims celebrate the attack on 9/11 in New Jersey in 2001?
Donald Trump claimed this in November 2015:
"I
watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of
people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of
people ...
69
votes
2answers
12k views
Did 122 Guantanamo prisoners released by Obama return to the battlefield?
A recent tweet by Donald Trump says:
122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!
According to a ...
68
votes
2answers
18k views
Did millions of illegal immigrants vote in the 2016 USA election? [duplicate]
According to president elect Donald Trump, millions of people voted illegally:
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of ...
68
votes
1answer
11k views
Are black Americans responsible for more than 50% of homicides?
I have read comments and articles (an example) that claim that blacks are responsible for more than 50% of all homicides in the United States of America. How credible is this claim?
67
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1answer
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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 ...
67
votes
1answer
14k views
Is it “perfectly legal” to walk topless in New York City?
A travel advertisement aired on the radio in Italy states that it is "perfectly legal" to be topless in New York City; is this true?
The ad doesn't say anything else useful to the question.
66
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4answers
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Was there a Bowling Green Massacre in 2011? [closed]
A number of news outlets are publishing claims by Kellyanne Conway that the Obama administration put a moratorium on refugee admissions following a "Bowling Green massacre" in 2011.
However, I can'...
66
votes
1answer
14k views
Did Trump's inauguration cake copy the design of Obama's 2013 inauguration cake?
We have now learned that Trump continued to offer up
Apprentice-season-four-quality optics at the “Salute to Our Troops”
inaugural ball, where he served guests a spectacular nine-tiered cake
...
66
votes
4answers
26k views
Do 33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives?
I've seen this statistic reported on several sites (for example, Those Who Don't Build Must Burn and Want To Do Meaningful Work? Keep Reading. Literally), along with a list of other startling numbers.
...
65
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4answers
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Do airlines in North America make around $10 profit per customer?
A quick google search returns several articles such as this one claiming that airlines make less than $10 in profit from each customer.
I feel there are a few reasons to doubt this premise:
You can ...
65
votes
1answer
14k views
If smoking causes lung cancer, why has a decline in smoking not led to a decline in lung cancer?
According to the CDC, smoking prevalence among US adults (18+) has decreased quite a bit over the years:
1974: 37.1% of the population
1980: 33.2
1990: 25.5
2000: 23.3
2010: 19.3
According to cancer....
64
votes
2answers
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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
...
64
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4answers
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How accurate are these nine charts of the economy under the Obama Administration?
I've seen the image below around and would like to know the accuracy of the charts. The original image I was sent was fairly low quality and a reverse image search lead to a bunch of right-leaning ...
64
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2answers
14k views
Are there any laws preventing the copying of keys containing a DO NOT DUPLICATE stamp?
While I worked at Walmart during college in the states, we would copy keys for customers, unless the key looked like this.
We were told that it was illegal to copy such keys, however, customers would ...
64
votes
2answers
11k views
Did the United States reject an offer by North Korea to freeze their nuclear missile development?
In a recent interview, Noam Chomksy claims that the United States rejected an offer from North Korea and China that would have frozen the North Korean nuclear missile program in exchange for the ...
64
votes
1answer
25k views
Did a raid by a SWAT team from Joe Arpaio's office end with a house on fire and deputies laughing as a dog burned in it?
I've seen references to the article Dog Day Afternoon (Phoenix New Times, August 2004) in a few places around the internet. It tells a story of:
An incompetent SWAT team under Arpaio's jurisdiction (...
64
votes
2answers
14k views
Has the marijuana black market in Colorado increased since the state repealed its state laws prohibiting it?
Jeff Hunt, the Vice President of Public Policy at Colorado Christian University, wrote in a recent opinion piece in USA Today:
In the years since, Colorado has seen an increase in marijuana related ...
63
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3answers
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Did Donald Trump “[imitate] a disabled reporter”?
During her speech at the Golden Globes, Meryl Streep said the following:
But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It, it sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. It was -...
62
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3answers
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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 ...
62
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3answers
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Did Henry Ford say “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”?
Did Henry Ford say
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
62
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1answer
17k views
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 ...
61
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2answers
16k views
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 ...
61
votes
1answer
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Did the US Department of Defense produce and release the poster “tweets sink fleets”?
This has been floating around social media recently.
If it's not something you recognize it's a play on Loose Lips (might) Sink Ships which was utilized as American propaganda during World War II. On ...
60
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1answer
35k views
If American churches paid taxes, how much revenue would that generate?
A recent Cracked.com photoplasty contest produced this image:
Is this image correct? Would taxing churches generate that much money, and would that much money be enough to cover food stamps and house ...
59
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2answers
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Do 40% of U.S. Americans think that global warming is unproblematic since Christ will return soon?
Noam Chomsky states in a recent interview:
One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the US population does not see why ...
58
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3answers
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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 ...
58
votes
2answers
9k views
Has Barack Obama achieved these goals in the last six years?
A claim, attributed to Occupy Democrats (which may or may not be true), that is doing rounds in social networks shows a photo of the current US President Barack Obama raising a toast with these words: ...
57
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4answers
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Has Trump's administration been making more human trafficking arrests than the Obama administration?
I come across this image below circulation on the internet.
The image is comparing the human trafficking arrests during Trump's and Obama's administrations. Are these figures true?
57
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2answers
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Is it legal to shoot groups of Native Americans in some US States?
At a young age, I remember being told by a teacher that if there are five or more native Americans in a group, it is legal to shoot them, because it is considered a war party. The teacher told me that ...
57
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2answers
16k views
Can the US government garnish 100% of your income?
I was reading a Wikipedia article about Karl Hess. The article contained this quote (emphasis mine):
During that time [1967], President Johnson, a Democrat, ordered the Internal Revenue Service to ...
57
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3answers
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Are right-wing extremists a bigger terrorist threat than islamic extremists in the USA?
The Cato Institute claims the following (my highlight):
The ongoing controversy and litigation over the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” has reignited a debate that has raged since the 9/11 ...
57
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1answer
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Would Trump be worth more if he simply invested in mutual funds?
I have seen several claims that Trump would be worth significantly more if he had just invested his father's money in an index.
Bloomberg puts Trump's current net worth at $2.9 billion... if Trump ...
56
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2answers
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Did Hillary Clinton refuse to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organisation when the FBI, CIA and the Justice Department asked?
Tera Dahl at Breitbart writes:
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton refused to designate Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram in Nigeria, which was named the deadliest terrorist organization in ...
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4answers
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Was a 15-year-old teen sentenced to 15 years because he took 5 seconds to stop intercourse with an 18-year-old?
This story has been floating around in image form. Is it as ludicrous as it is presented, or are there nuanced facts being left out? Did it even happen?
The 18-year-old woman (“J.L.”) had sex in ...
53
votes
4answers
19k views
Are US workers legally required to pay income taxes?
In the 2006 film America: Freedom to Fascism, several interviews are shown which claim that American workers do not need to pay income tax. Specifically, this clip claims that
There is no law which ...
53
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3answers
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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 ...
53
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2answers
13k views
Are American media controlled mostly by Jews?
The image "Who controls your mind? 2013" below claims that a very large proportion of the US media companies have Presidents, CEOs, Founders, Owners, Vice Presidents and Chairs that are Jewish.
It ...
53
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1answer
13k views
Did the CIA blow up a Siberian pipeline in 1982?
The Telegraph claimed in 2004 that the CIA blew up a Russian gas pipeline in Siberia, by tricking the operator into installing booby-trapped software.
Thomas Reed, a former US Air Force secretary ...
53
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1answer
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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 ...
