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FMD0 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Could this image be depicting the Bitterroot Forest Fire? Claim summaries: An awe-inspiring photograph reportedly captured wildlife fleeing a fire in Bitterroot Forest, Montana.
contextual information: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Photo of a Forest Fire in Bitterroot Forest, Montana
This awesome picture was taken in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000, by a fire behavior analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska, named John McColgan, using a digital camera. Since he was working when he took the picture, he cannot sell or profit from it, so he should at least be recognized as the photographer of this once-in-a-lifetime shot. The year 2000 brought one of the worst fire seasons in half a century to the United States. By August, more than 4 million acres (an area greater in size than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined) had been burned by wildfires, and dozens of blazes raged out of control in eleven western states, with nearly half of the conflagrations occurring in Idaho and Montana. On August 6, 2000, as several fires converged in the Bitterroot National Forest near the town of Sula in western Montana, John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst employed by the USDA Forest Service, snapped the spectacular photograph shown above with a digital camera and described the experience to a writer for the western Montana newspaper The Missoulian: "That's a once-in-a-lifetime look there. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I've been doing this for 20 years, and it ranks in the top three days of fire behavior I've seen." The day was August 6, the Sunday when several forest fires converged near Sula into a firestorm that overran 100,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes. Temperatures in the flame front were estimated at more than 800 degrees. Nevertheless, McColgan said, the wildlife appeared to be taking the crisis in stride, gathering near the East Fork of the Bitterroot River where it crosses under U.S. Highway 93. "They know where to go, where their safe zones are," McColgan said. "A lot of wildlife did get driven down there to the river. There were some bighorn sheep there. A small deer was standing right underneath me, under the bridge." McColgan snapped the photo with a Kodak DC280 digital camera. Since he was working as a Forest Service firefighter, the shot is public property and cannot be sold or used for commercial purposes. After McColgan downloaded his amazing image to an office computer, a friend found it, e-mailed a copy to another friend, and by mid-September 2000, the picture was blazing its way across the Internet. Because many forwarded copies of the image lacked any attribution or explanation, e-mail recipients began to circulate rumors about its origins and authenticity; some claimed that the photo was snapped by a tourist, that it was taken during the extensive Yellowstone National Park fire of 1988, or that it was yet another digital fake. As John McColgan said afterward, "I couldn't have profited from [the photograph], so I guess I'm glad so many people are enjoying it." We're happy to help him at least receive proper credit for his work. This picture has also been circulated with text identifying it as a photograph of August 2003 forest fires in British Columbia, of October 2007 California wildfires, of the June 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and of the November 2016 forest fires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Chaney, Rob. "Mystery Solved: Forest Service Firefighter Captured Tragedy with Digital Camera." The Missoulian. 15 September 2000. CNN.com. "Montana Homes Threatened by Wildfires." 7 August 2000. | 1 | [
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FMD1 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Six pieces of information about healthcare in Japan. Claim summaries: We fact-check a series of claims about Japan's healthcare and medical insurance system.
contextual information: Healthcare reform has been a perennial political project in American politics, spanning the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. Both proponents and opponents of the United States adopting a universal health care system often use comparisons between the U.S. and other countries to advocate for their positions. A notable example is a post from April 20, 2018, on the "U.S. Democratic Socialists" Facebook page, which featured a widely shared meme purportedly outlining the main features of the Japanese healthcare system. We examine this meme point by point below:
1. 100 percent of Japanese have health insurance. This is essentially true. Japan has universal health care, meaning that everyone who lives there (except undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors) can access affordable care and is required by law to be covered by some form of insurance. Most residents obtain this coverage through two types of insurance administered by the government: employment-based health insurance and National Health Insurance (known as "Kokumin Kenko Hoken"). However, Japan's aging population, low birth rate, and economic stagnation have placed a burden on the country's universal health care system, prompting reforms.
2. Costs are half of what is spent on healthcare in the United States. By the two most commonly used metrics, this is approximately accurate. A country's health spending is typically measured in a couple of ways: the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on healthcare and healthcare spending per capita (the total amount spent on health care divided by the number of people living in the country). According to 2016 data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, by far the highest proportion among developed countries. Japan spends 10.9 percent of its GDP, about two-thirds of what the United States spends. In 2016, total healthcare spending in the United States amounted to $9,892 per person per year, again the highest level in the developed world. In Japan, that figure was $4,519 per person, which is less than half of what the United States spends.
3. Japanese can choose their own doctors and see them twice as often as Americans. Japan has what is known as a "free access" system, which means, as the meme correctly states, that for the most part, patients can use whichever doctors and hospitals they choose. According to the Health and Global Policy Institute, patients should obtain a referral letter before presenting at larger hospitals. This is partly because the free access system can sometimes lead individuals with only minor ailments to present at hospital emergency rooms, creating a backlog for patients in more urgent need of care. Japanese people visit doctors even more than twice as often as Americans do, at least according to OECD data. Figures from 2011 (the most recent year for which a direct comparison is possible) show that U.S. residents averaged four doctors' consultations per person that year, while in Japan, the figure was more than three times higher, at 13 doctors' consultations per person. (In 2014, that figure was 12.7 doctors' visits per person per year in Japan.)
4. Japanese have the world's longest life expectancy and the second lowest infant mortality. This is true. According to United Nations data, a Japanese person born in 2014 could expect to live, on average, until the age of 83.6, the highest life expectancy figure among more than 200 countries. (Children born in Hong Kong can expect to live to 84, but Hong Kong is a territory of China, not a sovereign nation.) Research has shown that the relatively healthy diet and lifestyle of Japanese people, along with good healthcare, plays a significant role in their longevity. United Nations data also show that in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, Japan had the joint second-lowest rate of infant mortality in the world, defined as the number of children who died under the age of one for every 1,000 live births. With 2.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan was ranked second, along with Finland, just behind Iceland and Luxembourg.
5. 95 percent of Japanese healthcare is not-for-profit. It's unclear what this claim means, so we can't really evaluate its accuracy. Does this mean 95 percent of healthcare providers operate on a not-for-profit basis? That 95 percent of procedures are performed on a non-profit basis? That 95 percent of all healthcare expenditures relate to not-for-profit providers? We do know that by law, hospitals in Japan cannot operate for profit, with the exception of large for-profit companies that build hospitals for their own employees. According to an analysis by Ryozo Matsuda, a health policy expert at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, 80 percent of hospitals are privately run. Facilities that provide care for the elderly and disabled (e.g., nursing home care, respite care, home care) can operate for profit, and according to Matsuda, most do.
6. The government sets all fees for medical services and drugs. This is true. More specifically, the fees are set by a government-appointed body called the Central Social Insurance Medical Council. A 2016 study in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy described the system as "a uniform fee schedule at the national level," noting that "All providers, no matter whether private or public, share the same prices for their medicines, devices, and services under this nationwide fee schedule." | 2 | [
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FMD2 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Macy's wrote a letter to Rick Perry, asking him to reject the equal pay bill.
contextual information: A reader forwarded anemailto us in which state Rep. Senfronia Thompson urged a boycott of Macys department stores on the day after Thanksgiving 2013. The fact that Macy's doesn't support equal pay for women should stop you from shopping there on Black Friday, the Houston Democrat wrote, saying that her equal-pay proposal cleared the Legislature earlier this year, but then Macy's sent a letter to Rick Perry urging him to veto the law, which he ultimately did. Thompsons House Bill950was among 24 bills PerryvetoedJune 14, 2013. It would have created state law similar to 2009s federal Lilly Ledbetter Act, which gave plaintiffs more time to sue over pay discrimination in federal courts. AnAug. 6, 2013,news storyin theHouston Chroniclereported that Texas Retailers Association members including Macys and Krogers had written Perry in May asking him to kill the legislation because, they said, it would lead to open-ended litigation and duplicate federal law. Thompson spokeswoman Milda Mora told us by phone that the representative learned of the letters from theHouston Chroniclereporter in August and checked with the governors office, which provided her with copies that Moraemailedto us. One written on Macys letterhead (clickhereor scroll down to view it) concluded, The federal requirements under Lilly Ledbetter are unnecessary and would be harmful to Texas employers. We urge you to veto this legislation. Macys spokeswoman Bethany Charlton confirmed that her company sent the May 31, 2013, letter, which was signed by a company vice president. By email, Charlton said the company absolutely supports equal pay for equal work among men and women but believes existing laws provide strong remedies for discrimination. Perrys logic was similar: House Bill 950 duplicates federal law, which already allows employees who feel they have been discriminated against through compensation to file a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said his June 14, 2013,veto statement. Progress Texas, the pro-Democratic organization that distributed Thompsons email and is organizing theboycott,disputesPerrys statement that the bill would have duplicated federal law, saying that the Ledbetter protections need to be codified in state law for them to apply to cases in state courts. The groups executive director, Ed Espinoza, told us by email that his group launched a boycott of Macys and other retailers when the news broke in August. An Aug. 7, 2013,Chroniclenews blog postsaid Thompson took part in that boycott also, canceling a planned appearance at a Macys store to mark the states annual sales-tax holiday. Mora said that Thompson, who was quoted in an Aug. 9, 2013 Texas Public Radionews storyas saying she had previously been a card-packing member of Macys, but had not shopped there since the letters became public. Our ruling Thompson said Macy's sent a letter to Rick Perry urging him to veto her equal pay measure. As the Houston newspaper reported, Macys wrote the governor May 31, 2013, saying We urge you to veto this legislation. The claim is True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | 1 | [
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FMD3 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Spokane, Washington Defeats Monsanto’s Motion to Dismiss PCB Lawsuit Nov 20, 2016 0 0
For years now, high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been documented in the Spokane River. These are a dangerous class of chemicals produced in the United States, solely by Monsanto, from 1930 until 1977. A lawsuit was launched by numerous U.S. cities against Monsanto in an attempt to remove PCBs from their waterways, and Spokane Washington was among them. In the most recent turn of events in the ongoing PCB saga, Monsanto failed to have Spokane’s lawsuit dismissed by courts . This is a win for the water movement, no less significant than the recent developments at Standing Rock.
There have been numerous outspoken defenders of our water supply, and their voices have grown louder. This issue has become paramount at the Standing Rock stand-off where Native American ‘water protectors’ are standing up for clean water, along with a number of other unalienable human rights , but Standing Rock speaks to a wider environmental catastrophe happening all around us.
Judge Mendoza who commented on the court’s decision stated, “The public harm at issue here comes from PCBs reaching the River, but the nuisance itself is Monsanto’s production, marketing, and distribution of the PCBs.”
Lakes, rivers, oceans and groundwater supplies have been compromised more recently with fracking chemicals , lead, agricultural poisons including pesticides , herbicides , fungicides, and petrochemical fertilizers, PFOA and PFOS ( perflourinated chemicals ), as well as tainted with neurologically impairing fluoride , along with pharmaceutical company drugs including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones, but PCBs have been contaminating our waterways for nearly a century now. The seemingly clear Spokane River contains some of the most toxic waters in Washington.
PCBs are but one type in the chemical onslaught we are being subjected to, but they are extremely dangerous. Congressman Gude issued a statement in 1976 which called attention to this contaminant:
“The most important thing about PCB’s … is that we have identified a mad dog—a known bad actor in the case of PCB. There is no doubt about its toxicity and danger in the environment. It has caused millions of dollars worth of damage in the United States; the time has arrived to get rid of it.”
Though the probable damage caused by PCBs has been known for decades now, with Monsanto completely aware of the chemicals’ health-damaging nature all along, there are still 1.4 billion pounds of PCBs that the company produced which haven’t been cleaned up. PCBs are an extremely toxic, persistent chemical that can cause cancer, neurological damage, immunological damage, and many other severe human health problems.
Spokane’s defeat against Monsanto and the company’s attempt to dismiss responsibility for contaminating the entire planet with PCBs is an enormous win – on par with recent developments at Standing Rock.
As the Spokesman reports ,
“The lawsuit, which does not specifically state what the city is seeking in monetary damages, also alleges that Monsanto is responsible for the high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the Spokane River.
Marlene Feist, the city’s utilities spokeswoman, called the suit “long-term litigation,” and noted that the city will spend $300 million to keep PCBs and other pollutants from entering the river in coming years .
PCBs have entered the river by various means, including through commercial and industrial products such as paint, hydraulic fluids, sealants, inks and others.”
A spokesman for Monsanto, Charla Lord, says that “Monsanto is not responsible for the costs alleged in this matter.”
This is a contentious point, after all, since these international companies have no problem ruining ancient burial grounds, and destroying water supplies in the name of profit – all the while denying responsibility for any ‘collateral’ damage their practices (manufacturing carcinogenic chemicals, fracking or dumping oil in our oceans, etc.) cause.
Spokane’s lawsuit names two companies that spun off from Monsanto in the 1990s, and joins other municipalities seeking damages from the company, including San Diego, San Jose and Westport, Massachusetts. Though monetary compensation does little to repair the environmental and health damage that has already occurred, it will at least force these corporations to think twice about polluting on purpose – a practice they’ve become habitual about.
This lawsuit also brings light, the fact that Monsanto has not only damaged our agriculture through GMOs and their associated chemical herbicides , but that the multinational corporation has been in the poison business from the very beginning. Our water represents only a fraction of the damage this single company has done. It is time to put a stop to their war on human health and the planet at large. We can only hope Spokane finishes this lawsuit successfully and other U.S. cities follow, to start lawsuits of their own. | 0 | [
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FMD4 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would “take our campaign for transforming the Democratic Party into the convention,†refusing to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton though not explicitly saying he would challenge her for it. Mrs. Clinton earned enough delegates to clinch the nomination last week, but Mr. Sanders has declined to end his campaign. He has contended that he could persuade enough superdelegates, the party leaders who have overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton, to switch their support to him by arguing that he would be the stronger candidate against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. That plan became more improbable last week as Democrats supported Mrs. Clinton. President Obama endorsed her on Thursday, calling her the most qualified candidate ever to seek the White House and imploring Democrats to unite behind her. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the only senator to endorse Mr. Sanders, told CNN on Friday that he now supports Mrs. Clinton. In recent days, Mr. Sanders appeared to acknowledge the odds against him, and began speaking less about beating Mrs. Clinton and more about working to defeat Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. On Sunday, he gathered with about 20 key supporters and advisers at his home in Burlington, Vt. to discuss how to proceed. “We are going to take our campaign to the convention with the full understanding that we are very good at arithmetic and that we know, you know, who has the received the most votes up to now,†Mr. Sanders said after the meeting, standing on his front lawn with his wife, Jane. Among the dozen or so people who attended the gathering were Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the N. A. A. C. P. Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author. Notably, Mr. Sanders also said he would continue his efforts aimed at “transforming the Democratic Party,†a sign that his main goal may no longer be to become the nominee. Besides defeating Mr. Trump, advisers say his focus is to get his ideas, like universal health care and free public college, reflected in the party platform. Refusing to concede and release his delegates to vote for Mrs. Clinton could be a negotiating tactic for winning concessions on the platform. If his delegates tried to nominate Mr. Sanders from the floor of the convention next month, the scene could damage Mrs. Clinton at a time she is trying to project strength and party unity. In recent days, it had been unclear whether Mr. Sanders intended to stay in the race, and even on Sunday he did not rule out the possibility that he would formally concede the nomination in the coming days. After he met with Mr. Obama on Thursday he said he looked forward to exploring how he could work with Mrs. Clinton “to defeat Donald Trump and to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent. †Then he held a rally that night in Washington urging voters to cast ballots for him on Tuesday in the nation’s final primary. When asked by Chuck Todd on Sunday’s “Meet the Press†on NBC whether he was an “active candidate,†he responded that he wanted to see Mr. Trump defeated. Mr. Sanders said that he and Mrs. Clinton planned to meet on Tuesday and that he would ask her “whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families in the middle class, moving aggressively in climate change, health care for all, making public colleges and universities . †“And after we have that kind of discussion and after we can determine whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform,†he said, “I will be able to make other decisions. †There have been signs that he was winding down his run. While Mrs. Clinton has been hiring campaign workers, Mr. Sanders started laying off at least half of his campaign staff members last week. He has let go of a number of advance staff members who help with campaign logistics, as well as field workers who have been canvassing for votes. According to a person who attended the meeting at Mr. Sanders’s home Sunday, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering, there was no talk from Mr. Sanders about trying to win the nomination. The group was keenly interested in how the senator’s meeting with Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday will turn out, and whether he would get assurances that she would fight for his ideas, this person said. While he is effectively no longer a threat, Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats are counting on Mr. Sanders to eventually get behind her candidacy. He has a loyal base of more than 10 million voters and an enormous donor list that Mrs. Clinton will want to tap into. Some of his supporters say they will not vote for anyone but Mr. Sanders, so Mrs. Clinton’s success may depend on how vocally the senator supports her. | 1 | [
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FMD5 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is This a Line of Customers Outside First Republic Bank in Late April 2023? Claim summaries: The U.S. government seized the struggling First Republic Bank on May 1, 2023, and sold it to JPMorgan Chase Bank.
contextual information: On April 28, a Twitter user shared a photograph that purportedly showed a long queue of people waiting outside a First Republic Bank that morning, amid news that the bank was failing. shared a photograph "Can anyone confirm if this was taken outside of $FRC First Republic Bank this morning????," the tweeter asked. (Image Via @GregoryLanzillo/Twitter) This was not an authentic photograph of people standing in a line outside a branch of First Republic Bank. A reverse image searchonGoogle showed that it was a stock photo that had previously appeared on other websites, including on a Purdue University article in September 2016. The image also featured on Twitter in October 2021, in this May 2022 piece on teachers and toilets and on an undated article about college admission waitlist. Additionally, some people in the photo were repeated throughout the line, clearly showing it was digitally created. article Twitter in October 2021 May 2022 piece on teachers and toilets college admission waitlist Snopes reached out to the tweeter who posted photograph and asked whether the user stood by their claim, but we have not heard yet. We will update the report when and if we get a response. Reports and claims about First Republic Bank surfaced soon after it became public that the bank was struggling. Panicky depositors at First Republic Bank withdrew more than $100 billion out of the bank, fearing another bank failureafter the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bankin March 2023. withdrew more than $100 billion after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank On May 1, 2023, the U.S. regulators seized First Republicand promptly sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank. promptly sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank Snopes fact-checked a number of related claims after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. One was about a photograph of "private jets" owned by bank CEOsasking "to get bought out by Warren Buffett," another held that15 banks failed during former U.S. President Donald Trump's term, and another posited that "The Simpsons" predicted the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. photograph of "private jets" owned by bank CEOs 15 banks failed during former U.S. President Donald Trump's term predicted the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank Given that the photo, above, was not of the people standing outside First Republic Bank, we rate the claim "After Two Historic US Bank Failures, Here's What Comes next." AP NEWS, 13 Mar. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/banks-federal-reserve-silicon-valley-lending-rescue-a04875a164165b50e971ff4576bf4e27. All Things Toilets and Would You Encourage Your Children to Become Teachers? This, and More... - Teacher Tapp. 1 May 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20230501135659/https://teachertapp.co.uk/articles/all-things-toilets-and-would-you-encourage-your-children-to-become-teachers-this-and-more/. "First Republic Bank Seized, Sold to JPMorgan Chase." AP NEWS, 1 May 2023, https://apnews.com/article/first-republic-bank-silicon-valley-fdic-5ab48702b7136d42f73ac13e0a20955d. "First Republic Clients Pulled $100B in Deposits during Panic." AP NEWS, 24 Apr. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/first-republic-bank-silicon-valley-federal-reserve-fdic-dimon-a6a5de4b82708573a846f24006b9f4c1. News Features - Purdue Business. https://business.purdue.edu/news/features/?research=3000. Accessed 1 May 2023. On a College Waitlist? Here Are Some Tips - Merit Educational Consultants. 1 May 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20230501135600/https://meritworld.com/gakkomom/on-a-college-waitlist-here-are-some-tips/. | 0 | [
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FMD6 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: New American Tea Party Claim summaries: Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House.
contextual information: Claim: Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House. Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2009] Mailing Tea Bags to Washington, DC What a wonderful idea, I just wish it had been mine. I have a feeling that USPS is going to have a hell of a lot of tea to contend with, after all it only costs 42 cents to send a message, hopefully heard round the world!!! So please mark your Calendars There's a storm abrewin'. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us. We don't work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO's over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes. I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budget and I don't ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No one listened. They voted for it, pork and all. O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won't make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the reckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and "stimulate" without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall. So, here's the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington, D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, "New American Tea Party", several sites will come up. If you aren't the 'protester' type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes. This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the 'New American Tea Party' and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will. Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500. Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the website for more information about the 'New American Tea Party'. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can't guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.. What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent. We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late. Of course, if you agree with the way things are being done now, just delete!!!!! Origins: On the evening of 16 December 1773, a group of American colonists who called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" furtively boarded the ship Dartmouth, which was docked in Boston harbor with a load of East India Company tea. Working through the night, the colonists dumped over 45 tons of tea into the waters of the harbor as a protest against the Tea Act passed by the British government. The event, which came to be known as "The Boston Tea Party," was one of the seminal events of the American Revolution and remains one of the most iconic moments in all of U.S. history. In 2009, the iconic status of that event was referenced in the name of the New American Tea Party, described as a "coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government" who have begun coordinating events around the U.S. with the announced goal of protesting largesse in federal spending. The item quoted above seeks to take up the "Tea Party" spirit by encouraging Americans to mail tea bags to the White House on 1 April 2009 (in order to arrive by 15 April, the day on which income tax filings are due) as a form of symbolic protest against "the way Washington is handling our taxes." (The concept is vaguely reminiscent of a 1955 campaign that had citizens mailing small bags of wheat to President Eisenhower to encourage the U.S. to provide surplus food to flood victims in China.) New American Tea Party events wheat Of course, everyone is free to choose whether or not to participate in symbolic protests, so such actions don't have much in the way of verifiable "true" or "false" aspects the only issue is how effective the chosen form of protest is likely to be. With that in mind, we offer a few caveats for those inclined to participate: An entry in the New American Tea Party blog states that they don't endorse the effort: entry We have received hundreds of questions about an email circulating that urges folks to send tea to Washington on April 1st or April 15th. This effort is not endorsed by the New American Tea Party, so we can't answer any questions about it. Given the more stringent security procedures for mail handling enacted after 9/11, there are no guarantees envelopes containing mailed teabags will get through to the White House without being discarded or significantly delayed, something also noted in the New American Tea Party blog: It is a neat idea, but things like that will likely either be held up getting scanned or end up getting thrown away due to security precautions. (A subsequent New American Tea Party blog entry suggested that just mailing the labels from tea bags might be a way of avoiding this potential pitfall.) entry Envelopes that cannot be run through USPS sorting machines are subject to an additional 20 postage surcharge. A mailed item is considered nonmachinable if: nonmachinable It is a square letter (the minimum size for a square envelope is 5 x 5 inches) It is too rigid does not bend easily It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter It contains items that cause the surface to be uneven The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5 The specific aims of the tea bag protest are not clearly articulated in the e-mail quoted above, so senders might wish to include explanatory notes with their envelopes stating the desired outcome, such as: "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that provide money to businesses without provisions for strict transparency and accountability in how that money is to be spent" or "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that include earmarks." Last updated: 12 March 2009 Idaho Statesman. "Local Group Stages 'Reckless Federal Spending' Protest." 27 February 2009. WJXT-TV [Jacksonville, FL]. "'Tea Party' Protests Wasteful Spending." MSNBC. 2 March 2009. | 0 | [
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FMD7 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A Canadian judge on Monday temporarily suspended a new Montreal law that would have prevented residents from adopting or buying pit bulls and would have required anyone who already owns one of the dogs to register the animal, the Associated Press reported. The regulations, approved last Tuesday, were drawn up after a woman was fatally mauled by a dog in June, and they were set to go into effect on Monday across all 19 boroughs in the Canadian city. The bylaw requires owners to pay higher fees for the animals than for bull types to go through a check and to keep a muzzle on the dogs outside, even in fenced backyards. “The safety and sense of security of Montrealers are a priority,†Mayor Denis Coderre said in a statement after the vote, which he said provided for more stringent control measures. “I was deeply shocked at the recent events involving dog attacks,†he added. “As a responsible administration, it was our duty to examine this issue closely and make the appropriate decisions. †But opponents denounce the regulations, saying that they unfairly paint all pit bulls, and those dogs similar in appearance, as dangerous. Opposition council members, animal advocates and social media campaigns have protested, saying that the bylaw does not define “pit bull†and that it uses a approach that has not worked in Canadian cities before. “We call it panic †said Sterling Downey, an opposition councilman with the Project Montreal party. The regulations are suspended until Wednesday as Judge Louis Gouin considers a request from the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to throw them out, the Associated Press reported. The group filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the city, saying it would seek to prevent the regulations from being enforced. It said that the bylaw would discourage adoptions and lead to more dogs being euthanized. The decision to enact the measure came after a Montreal woman was bitten and killed by a dog in June. A Montreal police spokesman, Benoit Boisselle, said a neighbor found the woman dead in her backyard. The police shot and killed the dog when they arrived because it was too aggressive for the officers to approach, he said in a telephone interview on Friday. He said he did not know the breed of the dog. With their blocky heads and square jaws, pit bulls have a fearsome reputation in popular culture. They have often been portrayed as overly aggressive toward humans, or fighters and guard dogs. The dogs known by the catchall phrase as pit bulls fall into four breeds: the American pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire terrier, the Staffordshire bull terrier and the American bully. But pit bulls are also known as any dog with a blocky head and muscular build. Online, they are either vilified or defended. There are videos of pit bull fights, gruesome bite photographs and archives of attacks. Animal experts say that the dogs’ reputation is unfounded and that blame for aggressive behavior should fall on their handlers. “There is this idea that somehow they are unstable, relentlessly aggressive and treacherous,†said Bronwen Dickey, whose book “Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon†also questioned the basis for the fearful reputation of the animals, such as that they have extraordinarily strong biting jaws and are prone to using them. “There is always this narrative that they turn on you, that they are unpredictable,†she said. The dogs are generally about 65 to 80 pounds. Centuries ago, they were bred to be used in slaughterhouses to prevent bulls from escaping, said Dr. Bonnie Beaver, a professor at Texas AM University’s veterinary medicine college. As terriers, they tend to be territorial and individualistic. “They are not more aggressive than any other dog,†she said in an interview. “But the terriers tend to have, I would call them, a shorter temper,†she said, meaning they switch “from their thinking brain to their emotional brain faster. †“If the human owner doesn’t have the ability to prevent that switch into the emotional brain, then that dog is off on its own,†she said. “Most of the times when these bans come into effect, it is one or two very tragic events that involved big dogs. †Harout Chitilian, a council member and the chairman of Montreal’s executive committee, said that since January 2015, there were 426 situations involving dog bites. Of the 362 cases in which the dogs could be identified, about half were pit bulls. “It was a very, very difficult debate, but we looked at the figures,†he said. “We had a choice to be even more harsh, to eliminate ownership, but we recognized that they are part of the family. †But Mr. Downey noted that the dog in the June attack was registered as a “bulldog†and that there were no DNA tests to prove it was a breed of pit bull or a mixed breed. Certain breeds of dogs have also been banned in the United Kingdom, and in the United States the effectiveness of such laws is controversial because it is not clear whether they work, and they single out one type of animal. Other Canadian boroughs and cities, like Calgary, have tightened measures on animal ownership instead of instituting an outright ban. In Ontario, Ottawa has said it does not enforce the province’s ban, and Toronto is revising its ban to include dangerous dogs, but not those specific to a breed, Mr. Downey noted. | 1 | [
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FMD8 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Setting the Stage of the Press-President War.US ruling ideology and Washington power have become unstuck as never before. A war of opposing certitudes and denunciations is waged day to day between the long-ruling US corporate media and the White House. Both continuously proclaim ringing recriminations of the other s fake news . Over months they both portray each other as malevolent liars. Prof. John McMurtry Global ResearchUS bully pulpits are now beyond show disagreements and successful media inquisitions of the past. Slanderous accusations long confined to vilifying the designated Enemy have crept into accusations of the President himself. The Russians are coming is returning as the final recourse of smear to stop deviations from the global program of hugely profitable enemy hate and perpetual preparations for foreign war.The ruling big lies of the US money party and corporate globalization have divided into opposing camps. The Press and the President denounce each other non-stop on the public stage, while US dark state agents take sides behind the scenes.Fake news is the medium of battle.Tracking the Real Fake News Built into Corporate GlobalizationBeneath the civil war of official narratives, cognitive space opens for truth long suffocated by the Washington Consensus . Even the US-led G-20 has recently agreed not to automatically condemn protectionism as an economic evil. The battle slogan of transnational corporate rule over 30 years has been quietly withdrawn on the global stage.Is the big lie of free trade finally coming to ground? It has long led the hollowing out of societies and life support systems across the world in a false mass promotion as freedom and prosperity for all . In fact beneath the pervasive fake news, a closed-door transnational corporate command system forces all enterprises across borders into a carbon-multiplying trade regime with thousands of rules to protect the transnational corporate looting and ruin of home economies and environments as the only rights enforced.Propagandist names and fake freedoms are proclaimed everywhere to conceal the reality. The corporate-investor regime has stripped out almost all evolved protections of workers, ecologies and social infrastructures. Non-stop liquidations and roboticizations of local jobs and enterprises are reversed in meaning to jobs, jobs, jobs and higher living standards , the very opposite of the facts. Destabilization and bombing wars attack resource-rich and air-defenceless societies outside the circle of treaty subjugation.False news allows every step. Even the happy-face Trudeau regime is taken aback by the tidal shift to national priorities. Its ministers scuttle around the US in near panic to find common cause for restoring the unaccountable regime. Multiplying carbon, disemployment and ecological plunder are ignored throughout in the longest standing fake news of all economic growth .In fact, there is no real economic growth in universal life necessities or reduction of waste. The only growth is of volumes and velocities of transnational money exchanges, foreign commodities, and private profits to the top. More prosperity for nations and the world means, decoded, more transnational corporate-state treaties to deprive nations of their rights to organization and production for citizens real needs as well as organically regulated protection of environments and ecosystems.The consequences covered over by pervasively false cover stories are speeded-up ecocidal extractions, permanent disemployments, and wastes hemorrhaging into cumulatively more polluted oceans, air, atmosphere and life habitats. Corporate-state solutions of carbon markets for pollution rights have nowhere reduced any of these life-and-death crises, but only further and selectively enriched transnational corporations.As for the Obama solution, we need more Canadas , fake news again conceals the reality. Beneath the global celebrity hype covering empty and broken promises, Canada s Trudeau regime is essentially a brand change of PM rhetoric to advance transnational corporate dictates as free trade and to ensure oil pipelines out of the most polluting oil basin in the world, Alberta s tar-sands, are built through water basins and indigenous lands across Canada and the US. One cannot help but observe this is Trump s plan too, and overrides Trudeau s promises to protect Canada s first peoples.I recently sent a letter to my local MP requesting evidence for what PM Trudeau promises over months of repetition that more free trade means a better life for those in the middle class and those wanting to join the middle class . As always, there is no evidence to support the non-stop false news from the PMO. Revealingly, the middle class turns out to be people making $180,000 a year slated to get significant tax cuts.Trump s rogue elephant charge on Washington-led lies, war, and dispossession of the working class is no solution to life-blind corporate globalization. Trump in office is a US nationalist oligarch commanding policies even more blindly rapacious in despoliation of the environment and transferring far more public wealth to the rich.The common ground of all our lives, collective life capital, does not exist for any government in the free world or any policy of globalization . The lies that must be promulgated to advance the private corporate agenda are built into its transnational command system from the beginning.Out of the Ruling Memory Hole with the Internet CommonsJoining the dots shows that every step of US money-party globalization has, in fact, been driven by fake news.No corporate media tolerance has been given in a quarter of a century to any voice demanding accountability to the common life-ground of citizens. A new game of numbers has proceeded instead. At most, a euphemistic climate change has been endlessly debated while the totalizing destabilization of human and planetary life cycles remains without a name or collective response. Only more profitable market panaceas which do not reduce any pollution continue to divert from the deepest degenerate trends destroying the planetary life host.On the upside, the big lies of free trade and humanitarian wars have been called into official question for the first time by the Trump presidential campaign, and he has been elected against the official line. Yet opposing camps are still at each other s throats. So the perpetual fallback on accusing the long-designated foreign enemy is triggered by the fallen establishment. The fake news chorus of Russia s aggressions now includes collusion of the Trump administration with its officials to win the US election. This mainspring diversion from reality is called back from the dead witch-hunts of the past. As then tool, facts do not count, only accusations do. The official media line is almost predictable: Russia is behind Trump s election victory. As always, reverse projection is the mass-psyche operation to blame an official Enemy to divert attention from the life-and-death facts. The Enemy is once again accused of doing what the US has always done worse as the reason for attacking It. Russia is the usual placeholder in this reverse-blame operation. The 2016 US election of Trump is the latest variation.Meanwhile throughout the election and its aftermath, the new transnational internet commons including Wiki-leaks over a decade has increasingly laid bare the greatest propaganda machine in history now in many-leveled crisis. The long normalized half-truths, one-sided slanting of the facts, and non-stop fallacies of inference are coming out into the open as never before. The pretexts and lies for US imperial bullying and war are exposed beyond any corporate-media gate.This time the accusation is interference and attack on the US presidential election with no evidence of wrongdoing or vote manipulation whatsoever. Yet as in the long past, the method is smear with no evidence for the accusations. Ever more media repetition and shadowy insinuation does the job. It has always worked before, why not again since all the other media buttons pushed on taking down the Trump peace initiatives with Russia and opposition to globalization of US jobs have failed.Having wondered during the election campaign whether we could be friends with Russia and promoted diplomatic relations into his administration, Trump can be named as the enemy in hiding to be rooted out. The real problem the fake news never mentions is that he threatens the cornerstone of the US war state over 70 years.So when Trump won the election with his heresy still intact, the ever-ready accusation of evil-Russia connection moves into high gear although the target is the opposite of communist and an epitome of capitalist riches and connections. We see here the historical mind-lock compulsion to blame the Enemy Russia and smear whoever dissents from it, even if it is a bully-capitalist president. There are very big stakes in keeping the game going.Yet the no-profit and unpaid analyses from the internet commons have no such ulterior motive and interest in false accusations. With more objectively informed analysts than the commercial press and unimpeachable facts like WikiLeaks going to tens of millions of readers across the world, the genie is out of the bottle. The official grand narrative and its normalized big lies are coming apart at the seams.So blame as usual is diverted onto the accepted Enemy, now conniving with Trump to attack the 2016 US presidential election. Beneath the fake news, the fact is that positive diplomatic relations with Russia not only threaten to stop the highly profitable permanent war against it, but spike the longest pretext for US war and military domination now moving through Ukraine.The free internet commons cannot be gagged for telling the truth. Freedom of speech in the US cannot be openly stopped without fatal loss of legitimacy of rule.So the rest follows. All the non-corporate and non-profit messages from the critical sites on the internet commons which are speaking against the US war state inside are now vilified as fake news . A third, unofficial protagonist has entered the battle with no private profit or career motive or corporate boss to serve and a wealth of proven professional knowledge and talent at work. It has to be denounced to sustain the big lies of the ruling money-war game which is in deepening crises and conflicts all the way to the unprecedented US President-Press civil war.The Harvard Proclamation of a New Memory HoleThe innermost fount of US ideology and war, Harvard University, has now stepped in. It is officially naming and denouncing US-critical internet sites for fake news .Not even the medieval Church went so far in its Index Librorum Prohibitorum of prohibited writings. It was at least innocent of scientific method and openly declared its dogmas. Not Harvard.Underneath notice, all the sites it attacks are internet commons, and none are financed by private corporate donors and captive institutions while Harvard and the corporate media are. This is the real battle agenda underneath, the long war to privatize the news for profit as everything else with anti-establishment internet criticism now the target.In the background, Harvard University has long propagated an unexamined academic method. It normally cuts off any faculty or learned source of opposition to the private corporate rule of America and the wars of aggression to impose it on the world. Accordingly, the underling grand narrative equations of the US is Good and the designated Enemy is Evil is not questioned. It is presupposed. Malevolent motives are always assumed of the designated Enemy, down to Harvard-produced geostrategic economic and war models. So when a host of internet commons sites challenge the grand narrative framework, Harvard and satellites denounce them to stop people reading them. A long list of critical sites is accused without criteria, proof or evidence as all spreaders of fake news .What is not recognised here is that only on the internet commons can the process of truth be free from ruling pressures to control message for external sponsors.Here there is no commercial-profit condition to speak and write, and no livelihood dependence on private profit. There is no inducement to avoid life-and-death issues in academic obfuscation or ad-vehicle style. Internet authors not on the payroll can be free of the game of all games behind the scenes enriching the rich further with no life-coherent criterion of truth.These underlying conditions of the internet commons and free speech itself cannot be recognised by the academy or the corporate press without undercutting their proclaimed status as the only legitimate founts of truth. The internet commons is a new world of competitive capacities to research, understand and disseminate not bound by private money patronage (as over centuries in Harvard University).When challenged in this way, Harvard (and the official press) are set back on their heels. They cannot think the facts through because their instituted presumptions have long been what they must presuppose and not question to acquire their credentials and pay for public speech. They must attack what calls all this into question if it effectively speaks truth to power to expose or de-legitimate the ruling system narrative as false. Harvard and the US press thus follow the reigning method of reverse projection. They accuse the effective opposition of fake news .The most revealing fact here is that Harvard authority as other academic administrations proceed in name-calling without any valid argument or demonstration the very basis of reasonable conclusion. Yet this is such a long tradition of presumptive accusation allowed against anyone designated as the Enemy, and anyone else exposing the falsehood of the ruling US story of moral superiority over all others and God s blessing to lead the world by force or money.This is why only dissenting sites from the official storyline of US freedom and rightness in all things are accused as fake news . Accusation of opposing positions is so well-worn into conditioned brains that endless repetition locks it in as self-evident. This is why attributions of vile motive are automatic from Harvard or the New York Times for any outside leader opposing US interference in their countries including elections. US hypocrisy here is staggering, but unreported. In fact, Harvard s life-blind elite of war criminal geo-strategists, economic modellers and so on are fawned upon within the wider corporate rule they serve.None can engage critical facts and thought challenging the US moral superiority assumptions because they have never been required to consider them. So they denounce them as once the Church denounced apostasy.In the end, US system worship is a war-state religion. It eliminates all enemies to its right to rule. Its globalizing system institutes the market laws of God. War crimes are God-blessed justice.Freedom of Speech, the Process of Truth, and the US ConstitutionLed by senior academics, journalists and technical expertise, the internet commons provide for the first time impartial witness and free speech open to public examination and circulation across borders. They are free from corporate-rank dictate and private copy-right control.In consequence, the internet commons are liberated from private corporate profit as controlling goal. Those who know what they are talking about can speak truth to dogma and power without words to appease editors, business boards and ad revenues. Truth itself is not defined, but its principle of process is a more inclusively consistent taking into account towards life-coherent conclusionDespite Google black-holing of radical legal facts, CIA penetration of Wikipedia, and so on, the internet commons freedom of speech is far beyond anything guaranteed in the US constitution. In fact, the sacred US Constitution that all presidents give oath to preserve, protect and defend guarantees in the end only freedom of public speech to private money demand.Long before the Supreme Court s 2010 decision reverse-titled as Citizens United , the US constitution was structured to one overriding end to remove prior limits to private-money right over all else,including to begin, the rule of British law and the lands of the first nations West of the Appalachians.This is why no common life interest exists in the US Constitution from the start. People s universal human life necessities of water, food, protection and liveable environment are ruled out a-priori. This is why civil rights themselves were first federally enforced by the commerce clause protecting freedom of commercial bus passengers including blacks to cross borders.It is also why the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the equal rights of freed slaves ended up being the legal basis for private-profit corporations and wealthy funds to acquire the constitutional rights of living persons (e.g., to freedom of speech for big money to buy elections and to avoid government access to financial records).Even the iconic rights of life, liberty and happiness turn out to be in fact only private market rightswhich allow corporate fictive persons to unlimited money wealth, protection against public redistribution, and the freedom of private wealth alone to speak to America by buying corporate self promotions and election attack ads.The US Constitution fix goes all the way back to 1787. As professor of constitutional law at Chicago s iconic Kent College of Law, Matthew Stanton, explains in personal correspondence: [The fix] goes all the way back to the 1787 coup where the 39 signatories to the Constitution sequestered themselves in a Philadelphia meeting house, with locked doors and shuttered windows, to ostensibly make adjustments to the Articles of Confederation, but instead delivered an entirely new document that enabled creating a federal system centralizing control of the economy by propertied wealth .Russia the Enemy: the Deus ex Machina of Fake NewsWe may recall that the corporate-press and Wall-Street-enriched candidate for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, started the accusation of fake news to explain her defeat. As establishment mask of the politically correct masses with the money-war party as her paymaster, Clinton blamed her fall in the 2016 US election on the new enemy she saw arising against the official story and herself. When the glass mirror story line did not take, she joined forces with the corporate media on another plane. Fake news misled Americans. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the TV Networks, and other establishment tale tellers saw pay-dirt far beyond Clinton s failed bid for president.In fact, the corporate mass media were losing marketability by the escalating appeal of free social media. The once all-powerful press propaganda system has been increasingly deserted. The fake news story provided a media base to condemn free internet news and commentary as immoral. The 2016 election became the leverage for a big market grab back.Very soon it was not just fake news to spike news cycles and subscriptions. War as peace and corporate globalization as freedom found its long place of rule the enemy of Russia to blame. Now the news can be that Russia hacked and attacked the lost 2016 election. Russia may be a hollowed-out shell by global corporate and oligarch dispossession. But it can still continue as pretext for US-NATO war crimes and aggression reverse-blamed on it. As the European breadbasket and newly discovered fossil-fuel rich nation, Ukraine is a very big prize. Now in Ukraine s US-led coup aftermath and ethnic civil war, evil Russia can be an ace card again to accuse for attacking the US election.Since Russia led by Putin is drawing the line as in Crimea to support the Russia-speaking region against US-led war crimes under international law (documented in previous articles), all roads connect. Russia s uncontrolled aggression is reverse-projected onto the victim again in a glorious new use. Reverse blame it for interference in the US election of Trump and kill Russia-US peace initiatives at the same time. No fact is required to verify the accusation, and no law broken is needed to insinuate treason of whoever relates with Russia s officials in peace initiative. It can work even against an elected US president.At the same time, the US s own record attacking other nations elections and societies is thereby erased as well continually orchestrating mass-murder and dictatorship to sabotage the electoral process from Vietnam and Chile to Ukraine in 2010 and Latin America social democracies since.If it were a story of reverse projection by a mass-murderous psychopath, it would be too much to believe. Yet it now runs the US news cycle as the big story unfolding with no evidence of US illegality, force, or non-compliance with international law. The accusations run by themselves in US media culture and across the empire. So as 2017 Spring breaks, endless media insinuations of treason seep into the populace from corporate media sites across borders with backrooms and Congress setting up for another presidential inquisition.It is interesting to observe two precedents. Past inquisitions were unfolded soon after Bill Clinton said in India, it s time to level up rather than down in global trade and Richard Nixon founded the Environmental Protections Agency, stopped corporations from outsourcing US jobs, and made peace with China as Trump sought with Russia.The ludicrous hypocrisy, factual vacuum, and war-drums of blame-the-enemy go into high-volume operation again, led by an attack-dog media against the elected US president whose only action has been to have business-like relations with Russia. Few observe the immense stakes of the US media and war establishments in this process. Cui bono? who benefits? is the question never asked Continue this article at Global ResearchREAD MORE ABOUT FAKE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Fake News Files | 0 | [
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FMD9 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Ulta Beauty Email Scam Promises $500 Gift Card Claim summaries: The email phishing scam led to a survey that asked for a credit card number, which we strongly advise against providing to suspicious websites.
contextual information: On Jan. 9, 2023, we reviewed an Ulta Beauty email scam that claimed recipients had won a $500 gift card. This was a phishing scam, and it did not come from Ulta Beauty. The Ulta Beauty email scam claimed to come from "Ulta Department 74130" via an email address that ended with the domain name, climatekids.net. "Answer and win a brand new $500 Ulta Beauty gift card," the email read. We scanned the link in the scam email with IPQualityScore.com's helpful malicious URL scanner, which readers can use for free. The scan found that the link was "very risky" and contained "suspicious activity." malicious URL scanner We visited the link in a safe way and noted that it began on cosmosis.org, then redirected to quinyspike.com. The browser then redirected once more to resonatorbang.com, where we were presented with the fake survey. The fake survey began, "Congratulations! You've been chosen to receive a brand new $500 Ulta Beauty Gift Card! To claim, simply answer a few quick questions regarding your experience with us.Attention: This survey offer expires today, January 9, 2023." After the fake survey, we were redirected for the final time togillydealdays.com, where we were asked to provide our personal information and a credit card number. The credit card number was supposedly needed to pay shipping costs for the $500 gift card. We strongly advise against providing any such details to websites that readers are unfamiliar with. Always safeguard your personal and financial data when browsing online. Remember that if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. We checked the Whois domain information for the registration ofgillydealdays.com. According to the details we found, the website had been registered for the first time ever just four days before on Jan. 5. Brand new websites can often be a sign of a scam, and that's exactly what was happening here. "Malicious URL Scanner | Scan URLs for Malware | Malware URL Checker." IP Quality Score, https://www.ipqualityscore.com/threat-feeds/malicious-url-scanner. "Wayback Machine." Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/. "WHOIS Domain Lookup." GoDaddy, https://www.godaddy.com/whois. | 0 | [
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FMD10 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: America’s closest allies condemned U.S. President Donald Trump in unusually strong and personal terms on Wednesday after he put part of the blame for violent clashes in the state of Virginia on those marching against gun-brandishing neo-Nazis. British Prime Minister Theresa May, widely criticised at home for cultivating close ties to Trump during his first half year in office, spoke out after the president repeated his view that the white nationalists and counter-protesters were both to blame. “There’s no equivalence, I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them and I think it is important for all those in positions of responsibility to condemn far-right views wherever we hear them,†May said. The leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats said May should rescind her invitation to Trump to pay a state visit to Britain. “After. @realDonaldTrump whitewash of murder and hatred by #WhiteSupremacists why is he still on list of invited official guests to UK?†Vince Cable tweeted. Politicians in Germany, which has tough laws against hate speech and any symbols linked to the Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, expressed shock at the images of people in Charlottesville, Virginia carrying swastikas and chanting anti-Jewish slurs. Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the “racist, far-right violenceâ€. Her challenger in next month’s election called Trump’s comments the “confused utterances†of a dangerous man. “We should not tolerate the monstrosities coming out of the president’s mouth,†Martin Schulz told the RND newspaper group in an interview. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, like Schulz a member of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) which rules in coalition with Merkel, accused Trump of trivialising anti-Semitism and racism. His Israeli counterpart, Ayelet Shaked, a member of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, tweeted: “The neo-Nazis in the United States should be prosecuted. This was not what the American constitution was meant for.†In a heated news conference on Tuesday, Trump said there was “blame on both sides†for the violence, which culminated in the death of a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, after a car crashed into anti-racist demonstrators. A 20-year-old Ohio man said to have harboured Nazi sympathies has been charged with her murder. Trump’s remarks were praised by white supremacists like David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, who applauded the president’s “honesty and courageâ€. But in Europe, even far-right parties that have welcomed Trump’s nationalist message, were critical of his stance. “These were white supremacists and racists. They need to be condemned in very clear terms,†said Florian Philippot, vice president of France’s National Front and the manager of Marine Le Pen’s campaign for the French presidency. (This story has been refiled to delete typo in paragraph seven) | 1 | [
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FMD11 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: By ramping up US troop levels in Afghanistan, Trump is alienating many supporters. (Photo: DoD/USAF Tech Sgt Brigitte N Brantley. Source: Wikicommons)Miles Elliot 21st Century WireOn Monday night, US President Donald Trump made a speech in which he outlined his long-awaited new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. As predicted by 21WIRE in July, Trump will undertake a fourth US surge in Afghanistan, building up US troop levels in the country just like Bush and Obama did before him.However, to say that he outlined a new strategy in his speech is being very kind to Trump. He did very little outlining and what he did present does not exactly qualify as new, or as a strategy.One of the most notable features of his speech was his refusal to disclose troop numbers or timescales for their deployment. Granted, publicising those aspects of the US presence in Afghanistan did not create a win for Obama; the former president promised to pull out all the troops by 2014, but left office in January 2017 with over 8,500 US military personnel still stationed in the country. For Trump to keep such details from the American public, particularly the troop numbers, goes against basic democratic principles of transparency and accountability. As Finian Cunningham says: America s overseas wars are not just expanding under Trump; they are going secret and unaccountable. Furthermore, simply sending more troops and beefing up military deployments to Afghanistan is not a new strategy. George W Bush deployed a quiet surge to Afghanistan in 2008, and Obama presided over two separate surges in early and late 2009, none of which won the war. See 21WIRE s recent article which points out fundamental flaws and problems with the US strategy and modus operandi in Afghanistan; doubling down on these flaws with more personnel, money and weapons may only amplify them.The war was probably unwinnable from the outset anyway. There is a reason Afghanistan is referred to as the Graveyard of Empires. Justin Raimondo s latest article responding to Trump s announcement alludes to it: So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle, [Trump] claims. Really? Did he study it enough to realize that no one has ever conquered Afghanistan? Did he contemplate the storied history of that unforgiving land, which caused even Alexander the Great to turn back? Or for a more lighthearted approach, the following tweet plays on the seeming endlessness of the Afghan war in American political life.I made this political cartoon in 2010. Enjoy! https://t.co/fSosAGURCW pic.twitter.com/jyfQIZOFzY Matt Bors (@MattBors) August 22, 2017Another interesting feature of Trump s speech was its focus on Pakistan, which he sharply criticized for harboring terrorists and allowing them safe havens . However, as Michael Krieger points out in his excellent analysis: Guess which country he didn t mention? The greatest sponsor of Islamic radicalization the world has ever seen: Saudi Arabia. This once again proves that Trump represents the same old tired thinking that s been running the U.S. economy and society into the ground for decades. This is now a 100% establishment Presidency, which will be completely defined by establishment thinking. In other words, imperial collapse is coming. It seems an obvious point that talking about combating terrorism without addressing its primary causes and sources of support is somewhat foolish. However, it appears that Trump and his administration need a reminder.By far the most striking aspect of Trump s announcement, however, is that it represents a 180 U-turn, totally reversing the attitude he had to US involvement in Afghanistan since before he even began campaigning to become President. The following is just one of many tweets dating back quite a few years in which Trump complains about the US being in Afghanistan.When will we stop wasting our money on rebuilding Afghanistan? We must rebuild our country first. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2011Trump s announcement is already alienating much of his political base, especially supporters who wanted him to prioritize American jobs and infrastructure over globalist projects such as trade deals and foreign wars. More than that, it is unlikely to be popular with the overall US electorate, who are on the whole opposed to continuing the war. On the other hand it is no surprise that the announcement is gaining praise from neocons and lawmakers such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).Does it even need to be said that the US has had troops deployed to Afghanistan for 16 years? This might make Afghanistan one of the only truly inter-generational wars the US has fought.Met a man today who served in Afghanistan 16 yrs ago -now says his son serves there. Let that sink in as you support perpetual war Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) August 22, 2017There is of course a question as to how much of this plan is coming from Trump himself as opposed to from his advisers, deep state handlers or other influences. As Finian Cunningham argues below, there is reason to believe that Trump has been compromised by the deep state . Many even believe that soft coup has occurred and that Trump is no longer really in charge. Yet others question whether Trump had any authenticity to begin with; on the left especially some people perceive Trump to be thoroughly dishonest and merely a representative of robber-baron, capitalist fascism .These issues are part of the larger question of Trump s authenticity, but unfortunately we can t provide those answers here. Whatever one s position on this, however, none of the possible options lets the President off the hook. In all cases, he is the man responsible, it s his name on the door, and it is his responsibility to either make good on his promises to the American people or at the very least to keep them informed. In light of his announcement on Afghanistan, neither one appears to be happening.SEE ALSO: AFGHANISTAN: Forgotten, But Not GoneMore on this from RT US Army soldiers in Afghanistan. The country has been called the Graveyard of Empires for being notoriously hard to conquer (Photo: US Army. Source: Wikicommons)Finian Cunningham RTIf one moment stands out as the clearest signal yet of US President Trump turning his back on supporters, it was his announcement this week to re-escalate American military intervention in Afghanistan.His signature campaign promise of putting America First and ending the folly of overseas wars launched by previous administrations was shredded on prime time television when he gave orders for thousands of more US troops to be sent to Afghanistan. The already 16-year war in that country America s longest will now go on indefinitely longer.The Huffington Post headlined: Trump s vague new Afghanistan strategy continues an endless war. Not only that, but this president is refusing to give any public information on force numbers or timescale. America s overseas wars are not just expanding under Trump; they are going secret and unaccountable.This surge in militarism is precisely what candidate Trump said he would not do when he campaigned for votes among blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt states, vowing instead to channel US economic resources to revive forgotten communities at home. Recall his blustering inauguration speech on January 20 when he bemoaned the American Carnage, at home and abroad.As the Huffington Post writes: When Obama was still in office and overseeing a massive troop presence in Afghanistan, Trump repeatedly bashed the operation as a waste of money and called for a quick withdrawal from the country. How s that for a U-turn? This is at a time when support among Trump s voter base in the Rust Belt states has plummeted. There is weakness in the heartland, reported NBC, because workers fear Trump is reneging on past commitments to revitalize their livelihoods. Their concern is that this president is too interested in giving tax breaks to corporations and kowtowing to the Pentagon.Ironically, Donald Trump likes to portray himself as an alpha-male who is his own boss. It is abundantly clear now that Trump is a mere manikin who sits in the White House taking orders from his generals.When Trump ousted Stephen Bannon, his staunchest ally in the White House, it was under the orders of the military figures who are now dominant in his administration. Trump s chief of staff, former Marine General John Kelly, wanted Bannon out because of his contrarian views.When Bannon gave a surprise interview last week contradicting the militarist policy on North Korea that was the last straw. Bannon said there was no military option in solving the North Korea standoff, which flew in the face of what the Pentagon has been advising Trump, with all options on the table. Only days later, he was kicked out.Bannon has now returned to edit Breitbart News, the nationalistic website which has in the past served as a media booster for Trump. Following the announcement on Afghanistan, Breitbart News declared: Trump reverses course and blasted his speech a flip-flop, as reported by Politico.Bannon had been a vigorous counsel to Trump against overseas militarism and in particular about Afghanistan. He is thought to have been the primary influence behind Trump s economic nationalism of America First.It is no coincidence that Trump decided to get rid of Bannon while huddled with military generals and intelligence chiefs at Camp David last weekend. Then three days after his departure from the White House, Trump delivers his U-turn on re-escalating the military involvement in South Asia, exactly as the Pentagon top brass had been urging.With little or no policy achievements so far, Trump is emerging as a blowhard who is all too willing to toe the line to survive even if that means stabbing his supposed allies in the back. This is a president who has a big mouth and big ego, and not much else. All the promises to his voter base are being seen to be cruel hoaxes, perpetrated by one who is always denouncing others over hoaxes.The rise of the generals in Trump s administration, alongside a weak-kneed figurehead president, should surely be cause for concern for its sinister constitutional implications. But disturbingly, the drift toward a military government in the US hardly causes a public ruffle; indeed, it is actually welcomed by prominent news media.In an editorial last weekend condemning The Failing Trump Presidency, the New York Times seems to be oblivious in its endorsement of military control over the White House.It states: One measure of the despair caused by Mr. Trump s behavior is that we find ourselves strangely comforted by things that in any normal presidency would be cause for concern Americans accustomed constitutionally and politically to civilian leadership now find themselves relying on three current and former generals John Kelly, the new White House chief of staff; H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser; and Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense to stop Mr. Trump from going completely off the rails. Last week, too, when the five Joint Chiefs of Staff roundly rebuked Trump over his ambiguous comments on racial violence, the US media widely saw that intervention by the Pentagon as a welcome disciplining of the president.It s a sobering reality-check on how the supposed radical, populist president who promised to return governing power to the ordinary citizens is now firmly in the vice of a corporate-military cabal.Look at Trump s cabinet. Apart from the three generals, Kelly, McMaster and Mattis, the other key posts are run by an ex-oil CEO, Rex Tillerson at the State Department, and former Wall Street executives, Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, Gary Cohn as national economic adviser, and Wilbur Ross as Commerce Secretary.This combination of military and industrial corporatism at the executive level of government is a definition of a fascist state. Combine that with a malleable megalomaniac who is willing to betray his allies and voter base, and that makes for a dangerous cabal.Trump s readiness to go to war in Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran and to give license to the Pentagon to step up its air force slaughter in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen are all signals of how far this presidency has degenerated.But it is Trump s brazen backtracking on Afghanistan that most transparently shows his unscrupulous character and just how much the Pentagon has taken control over this presidency.Last November, the American people voted for a radical change, one that would deliver economic revival and jobs at home, while implementing more peaceful foreign relations.Today, Americans have got the opposite of what they were calling for when they elected President Trump. The implications are blatant and disconcerting. American democracy no longer exists, if it ever did. The will of the people has been subverted by the will of the military-industrial complex. Trump is but a pathetic puppet who is taking orders from the generals and his oligarchic friends in Wall Street.The so-called exceptional nation the one that never tires of proclaiming its lofty democratic virtues to the rest of the world has degenerated into a military-corporatist state. Trump s betrayal is complete and stands out as one of the biggest cons in modern political history.READ MORE AFGHANISTAN NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Afghanistan FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE AND BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD12 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Hell has a special spot reserved for this horrible man According to an article published Sunday by World Net Daily, a Princeton University professor has suggested that severely disabled infants be killed to cut health care costs and for moral reasons. In a radio interview Sunday with Aaron Klein, broadcast on New York s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia s NewsTalk 990 AM, Princeton University ethics professor Peter Singer argued it is reasonable for government or private insurance companies to deny treatment to severely disabled babies.Several times during the interview Singer argued the health-care system under Obamacare should openly acknowledge health-care rationing and that the country should acknowledge the necessity of intentionally ending the lives of severely disabled infants. Singer also repeatedly referred to a disabled infant as it during the interview.According the WND, Singer is well-known for his controversial views on abortion and infanticide. He essentially argues the right to life is related to a being s capacity for intelligence and to hold life preferences, which in turn is directly related to a capacity to feel and comprehend pain and pleasure.Singer told Klein rationing is already happening, saying doctors and hospitals routinely make decisions based on costs. Klein is the host of Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, a syndicated radio program that airs in several markets across the US. Klein is also a columnist at WND. It s different in the U.S. system, in a way, because it doesn t do this overtly; maybe it doesn t do it as much, Singer explained. And the result is it spends about twice as much on health care as some other countries for very little extra benefit in terms of the outcome. During the interview Klein quoted from a section of Singer s 1993 treatise Practical Ethics, titled Taking Life: Humans. In the section, Singer argued for the morality of non-voluntary euthanasia for human beings not capable of understanding the choice between life and death, including severely disabled infants, and people who through accident, illness, or old age have permanently lost the capacity to understand the issue involved. Singer contends that the wrongness of killing a human being is not based on the fact that the individual is alive and human. Instead, Singer argues it is characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. When asked by Klein whether he envisions denying treatment to disabled infants to become more common in the US under the new health-care law, Singer replied: It does happen. Not necessarily because of costs. If an infant is born with a massive hemorrhage in the brain that means it will be so severely disabled that if the infant lives it will never even be able to recognize its mother, it won t be able to interact with any other human being, it will just lie there in the bed and you could feed it but that s all that will happen, doctors will turn off the respirator that is keeping that infant alive. I don t know whether they are influenced by reducing costs, Singer continued. Probably they are just influenced by the fact that this will be a terrible burden for the parents to look after, and there will be no quality of life for the child. So we are already taking steps that quite knowingly and intentionally are ending the lives of severely disabled infants. And I think we ought to be more open in recognizing that this happens. Klein then asked singer, I know that it happens and it happens certainly if the family gives consent. But do you think in the future in order to ensure a more fair rationing of health-care and health-care costs, that it should actually be instituted more? The killing of severely disabled babies? Singer responded by saying the killing of infants would be quite reasonable if it saved money that can be used for better purposes. He contended that most people would say they don t want their premiums to be higher so that infants who can experience zero quality of life can have expensive treatments. Singer s full response: I think if you had a health-care system in which governments were trying to say, Look, there are some things that don t provide enough benefits given the costs of those treatments. And if we didn t do them we would be able to do a lot more good for other people who have better prospects, then yes.I think it would be reasonable for governments to say, This treatment is not going to be provided on the national health service if it s a country with a national health service. Or in the United States on Medicare or Medicade. And I think it will be reasonable for insurance companies also to say, You know, we won t insure you for this or we won t insure you for this unless you are prepared to pay an extra premium, or perhaps they have a fund with lower premiums for people who don t want to insure against that. Because I think most people, when they think about that, would say that s quite reasonable. You know, I don t want my health insurance premiums to be higher so that infants who can experience zero quality of life can have expensive treatments. Via: Examiner.com | 0 | [
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FMD13 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Lebanon s Christian Maronite Patriarch began a historic visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday under heightened scrutiny amid political tensions that have thrust his country back to the forefront of the conflict between the Sunni kingdom and Shi ite rival Iran. Patriarch Beshara al-Rai heads the Maronite church, which has a presence in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus and follows an Eastern rite of the Roman Catholic church. Maronites number about 900,000 in Lebanon, around a quarter of the population. An official visit to Saudi Arabia by such a senior non-Muslim cleric is a rare act of religious openness for the kingdom, which hosts the holiest sites in Islam and bans the practice of other religions but says it wants to open up more to the world. It is also the first trip to Riyadh by a senior Lebanese official since the start of a crisis sparked by Saad al-Hariri s resignation as Lebanese prime minister on Nov. 4 from the Saudi capital. Top Lebanese government officials and senior sources close to Hariri say Saudi Arabia coerced him into resigning and has put him under effective house arrest since he flew there more than a week ago. During his visit, Rai plans to meet Hariri as well as King Salman and his son and heir-apparent, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, both of whom he praised in an address to Lebanese living in Riyadh. Certainly his resignation surprised the Lebanese and saddened them and created a type of deadlock, he later told reporters between selfies with followers. We hope that with this visit we can speak about this topic. TOLERANCE AND CO-EXISTENCE But Rai said his visit, which was planned before the latest crisis, was not political but aimed at boosting religious tolerance and co-existence in a region torn by sectarian conflict. Hariri said in a television interview on Sunday that he was a free man and would return to Lebanon within days to affirm that he had resigned. He said Lebanon was at risk of Gulf Arab sanctions because of the Shi ite group Hezbollah s regional meddling. Asked when he expected Hariri to return to Lebanon, Rai said: I wish tonight ... we hope as soon as possible. Hariri s resignation and its aftermath have destabilized his country, where Sunni, Shi ite, Christian and Druze factions fought a civil war from 1975-1990, often backed by rival powers around the region. The only other visit to Saudi Arabia by a Christian patriarch took place in 1975, according to the Saudi information ministry. Rai thanked King Salman for the invitation and said he had never dreamed of visiting the kingdom, which bans all non-Muslim houses of prayer, forcing Christians there to risk arrest by praying in private homes. | 1 | [
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FMD14 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Rabbis representing four prominent Jewish organizations have decided that they will not hold their annual conference call with the President because the man currently holding that office openly supports white supremacists.Following Trump s atrocious response to the tragic events in Charlottesville, the rabbis issued a statement explaining that they simply cannot organize such a call this year. They said that this decision was made because Trump s reaction to Nazis marching in the streets and the death of Heather Heyer was lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred. We have concluded that President Trump s statements during and after the tragic events in Charlottesville are so lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred that we cannot organize such a call this year, the rabbis wrote. The President s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia, they wrote. Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels. In the days following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that left three people dead, Trump insisted that many sides were to blame for the violence. The rabbis concluded by saying that they would pray that President Trump will recognize and remedy the grave error he has made in abetting the voices of hatred. They added that they will also pray that those who traffic in anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia will see that there is no place for such pernicious philosophies in a civilized society. The statement was signed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, The Rabbinical Assembly, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD15 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: 'Marxist' Quotes from Hillary Clinton Claim summaries: A quiz about list of various statements supposedly made by Hillary Clinton.
contextual information: Claim: List reproduces various "Marxist" statements made by Hillary Clinton. Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2007] A little history lesson: If you don't know the answer make your best guess Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it? 1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." A. Karl MarxB. Adolph HitlerC. Joseph StalinD. None of the above 2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." A. LeninB. MussoliniC. Idi AminD. None of the Above 3) "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." A. Nikita KhrushevB. Josef GoebbelsC. Boris YeltsinD. None of the above 4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own ... in order to create this common ground." A. Mao Tse DungB. Hugo ChavezC. Kim Jong IlD None of the above 5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed." A. Karl MarxB. LeninC. MolotovD. None of the above 6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." A. PinochetB. MilosevicC. Saddam HusseinD. None of the above Answers: (1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005 Be afraid. Be very, very afraid and voteAnybody (woman) that would vote for her just because they think it's time for a female president has got to be out of their lunatic mind! Origins: This list of purported "Marxist" quotes by former first lady, senator, presidential candidate, and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is (like many collections of utterances from various political figures) difficult to rate as strictly "true" or "false": She did make the statements reported above, but they have all been stripped of any explanatory context, and some of them had portions elided, creating potentially misleading impressions about the nature of those statements. Below we verify the source and complete wording of each statement on this list and provide the context in which it was made. (All of these entries date from between 2004 and 2007, during which time Hillary Clinton represented the state of New York in the U.S. Senate.) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." This statement by Senator Hillary Clinton was not (as commonly assumed) addressed to the general public, but rather to a group of relatively well-to-do Democrats attending a June 2004 fundraiser for California senator Barbara Boxer. Her statement specifically referred to a desire to repeal tax cuts that had recently been enacted by the Bush administration, cuts which many Democrats had criticized as favoring the wealthy: tax cuts Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress. "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few ... And to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." This entry is a pieced-together passage from a 29 May 2007 economic policy speech given by Senator Clinton on the subject of "Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity." The supposedly "Marxist" nature of this statement is undercut when the sentences that immediately followed it (affirming support for a free market economy) are included for context: speech It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society. Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed. When we get our priorities in order and make the smart investments we need, the markets work well. "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground." "I certainly think the free-market has failed." The above three statements are all out-of-context passages taken from a 4 June 2007 CNN "Presidential Forum" conducted with three Democratic presidential hopefuls, senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. The second statement was part of a straightforward expression of the need to for people to reach a consensus (through metaphorically giving up some of their political "turf," not literally giving up their possessions) on how to proceed in order to tackle an issue such as universal health insurance, while the first statement is another pieced-together quote that omits the contextual references to the issues of health care, dependence on foreign oil, and climate change: Presidential Forum We can set the vision. We can even work to articulate the goal. But the pathway is extraordinarily complicated because of how we live today andhow we think of ourselves in relation to our fellow citizens. Take health care. I think we could get almost unanimous agreement that having more than 45 million uninsured people, nine million of whom are children, is a moral wrong in America. And I think we could reach that agreement, and then we would have to start doing the hard work of deciding what we were going to do to make sure that they were not uninsured, because an uninsured person who goes to the hospital is more likely to die than an insured person. I mean, that is a fact. So, what do we do? We have to build a political consensus. And that requires people giving up a little bit of their own turf, in order to create this common ground. The same with energy you know, we can't keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to deal with global warming, and the challenge that it poses to our climate and to God's creation, and just let business as usual go on. And that means something has to be taken away from some people. The third statement was part of a passage in which Senator Clinton listed a number of entities (including churches, schools, and the government, as well as the free market) that she felt had failed in helping young people to make responsible decisions (particularly in reference to abortion): Q: Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common ground, with the goal ultimately in mind of reducing the decisions for abortion to zero? A: Yes. Yes. And that is what I have tried to both talk about and reach out about over the last many years, going back, really, at least 15 years, in talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. And, by rare, I mean rare. And it's been a challenge, because the pro-life and the pro-choice communities have not really been willing to find much common ground. And I think that is a great failing on all of our parts, because, for me there are many opportunities to assist young people to make responsible decisions. There is a tremendous educational and public outreach that could be done through churches, through schools, through so much else. But I think it has to be done with an understanding of reaching people where they are today. We have so many young people who are tremendously influenced by the media culture and by the celebrity culture, and who have a very difficult time trying to sort out the right decisions to make. And I personally believe that the adult society has failed those people. I mean, I think that we have failed them in our churches, our schools, our government. And I certainly think the, you know, free market has failed. We have all failed. We have left too many children to sort of fend for themselves morally. "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." This passage was taken from a 2 September 2005 appearance by Senator Clinton in front of constituents in Elmira Heights, New York, where (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) she expressed her opinion about the need for federal regulatory oversight of the oil industry in order to curb high gasoline prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil: The anxiety and anger felt by motorists was evident at nearly every turn in her travels throughout the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. She made clear she shared the concern. "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in our entire economy that they're being watched," she said in explaining her call for an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission. "I think human nature left to itself is going to push the limit as far as possible, and that's what you need a government regulatory system for: to keep an eye on people to make the rules of the game fair, to make a level playing field and not give anybody some kind of undue advantage." Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country's long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. "We've had 30 years to do some things we haven't done," she said. "In fact we've gotten, we've gone backwards in many respects. "I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I'm tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies," Clinton said. Last updated: 30 March 2015 Fouhy, Beth. "San Francisco Rolls Out the Red Carpet for the Clintons." Associated Press. 29 June 2004. CNN. "The Situation Room: Sojourners Presidential Forum." 4 June 2007. | 2 | [
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FMD16 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Does Biden hail from the same Scranton that served as the setting for 'The Office'? Claim summaries: And is the home of world's most famous fictional paper company real?
contextual information: Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but misinformation continues to spread. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. Throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden frequently referred to his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Some social media users questioned whether this was the same "Scranton" from the U.S. sitcom "The Office" and whether Scranton was indeed a real American city. Meanwhile, Biden's political rival, U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Biden of exaggerating his connections to the small Pennsylvania city. This topic arose once again during the final presidential debate of 2020. Twice during the debate, Biden mentioned his small-town roots while discussing middle-class families. Here are transcripts from these two moments: "Where I come from, in Scranton and Claymont, the people don't live off the stock market. This isn't about me. There's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the substantive issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family, and your family's hurting badly. If you're making less than, if you're a middle-class | 1 | [
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FMD17 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: License DMCA The face of the Republican Party.
There is a light at the end of this tunnel called a presidential election campaign and, if the gods are not playing a cruel trick on us, that light is not on an engine with TRUMP emblazoned on its sides. In any event, the end is near and I am as weary of writing about this ugly affair probably as you are of reading about it.
The problem is, that's all most of the mainstream and social media care to talk about these days. In case you missed the other news: 1) The Cubs and Indians are in the World Series. 2) Heavily armed police in North Dakota attacked hundreds of protesters who joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe trying to block construction of a pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites. 3) Soupy Sales, master of the pie-in-the-face, died. And 4) Tim Tebow is apparently just as good at baseball as he was at playing quarterback in the NFL.
But really, the only thing the media want to talk about are Donald Trump's repeated claims that the election is rigged and that the press -- meaning all the news outlets who report accurately on his words and actions -- lie.
These are claims that losers and demagogues resort to when everything else -- lies, threats, lies, threats, lies, threats -- fails. Honestly, it is disheartening to feel a need to point out to, apparently, millions of Americans, that Trump's claims are nonsense. It is even more disheartening to realize that many of the people who still support his candidacy don't seem to care. There is a major issue to address some day soon in that.
Meanwhile, as to his two claims: Voter fraud is virtually non-existent in America. You can check this with any legitimate news provider. The real threat is voter intimidation -- keeping some people from voting through excessive (illegal) regulations and perceived threats. Suggesting rigged elections is a serious threat to the very foundation of a free, democratic society -- an orderly transfer of power. This is something about which Trump knows little and seemingly cares less. As far as he's concerned, if he doesn't win, the powers that be must be against him. The press. Ah, the press. "They can say anything they want," he complained the other day. No kidding, Sherlock. You just noticed? He says if he's president he's going to change that and strip the major media companies of their power. He can try, of course. It won't be easy though. You see, Donald, those same forefathers who were so wise as to guarantee Americans the right to bear arms in that Second Amendment you and your followers are so fond of spouting and shouting about thought the idea of a free and unfettered press was so important to a functioning democracy that they wrote it into the First Amendment of the Constitution. That's one ahead of the guns amendment, which some might say suggests it is more important. Since a civics lesson is apparently in order for Trumpers, it should be noted that the First Amendment also guarantees everyone freedom of religion. Which is also to say, freedom from your religion.
But these are mere facts and Trump and the folks at Fox News have demonstrated the power of repeating false news over and over again until listeners -- like the inhabitants of Orwell's "1984" -- simply take it for fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia. We have never been at war with Eurasia. Love is hate. War is peace. I know Putin well. I never met the man. - Advertisement -
We are told that many Trump supporters -- virtually all of them white and the majority male -- are angry and frustrated with their lives. Somehow, goes the argument, all those black, brown, Muslim, Mexican, gay, Jewish, Arab, Asian people who don't belong here -- and some pushy American women as well -- have prevented these Trump fans from realizing the American Dream. They took all the jobs and live on welfare. Love is hate. Up is down. Bigotry has nothing to do with it. We just want to make America great again, like before all those other people said they wanted to enjoy the American Dream, too.
Enough already. At some point in a person's life, if he or she is lucky, the opportunity presents itself to take responsibility for one's actions. To take stock of how things are going. Not materially, but really. It can be frightening. It can also be rewarding. Among other things, this look in the mirror allows one to say -- if one can be honest -- "I've made some mistakes. I sincerely regret them. I hope to do better from now on." A lot of people never do this.
With that runaway train called Trump menacing the trust and tolerance that are the pillars of our, yes, already great nation, I'm thinking that a lot of people -- a lot of white, Republican people -- have a date with a mirror. It's far too late to undo the damage Trump has done or to deny any part in it, but it's not too late to admit the mistake of supporting him in spite of all the hateful, false things he said. It's not too late to admit to acting as if he didn't say them because, well, maybe because you were angry or confused or frightened or thought it would be disloyal. Maybe you feel you were lied to. Or maybe you just wanted to believe the lies.
Republican politicians who have stuck with Trump have no such out. The McCains and Ryans and Cruzes and Rubios knew Trump was bad news from day one. But he was their bad news and his lies became their lies even when they disagreed with him, because they never had the courage -- the humility, the simple decency -- to look in the mirror and say: "Enough. This man is obscene. He is an insult to our party and our nation. We made a grave mistake in pandering to the worst instincts of some of our party members in order to get their votes. Our pride kept us from admitting this. Fear drove our decisions. We allowed him to make fools of us. Indeed, we made fools of ourselves."
Speaking, if I may, for the rest of an angry, resentful nation, that day of reckoning can't come soon enough. - Advertisement - | 0 | [
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FMD18 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: SaysTed Cruz distributed the ad showing a nude Melania Trump on a rug.
contextual information: Call it the war over the wives. An ad suggesting that Donald Trump's wife, Melania, might not be modest enough to be first lady sparked a series of nasty exchanges between Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz that have dominated the campaign for more than a week. CNN's Anderson Cooper grilled Trump about the ad during a March 29 interview in Wisconsin, questioning him about his accusation, made in a March 22 tweet, that Cruz was responsible for the picture. "I did not start this," Trump told Cooper seven days after the tweet. "He sent out a picture, and he knew very well it was a picture..." "He didn't send out a picture," Cooper interrupted. "It was an anti-Trump super PAC." When Cooper asked Trump if he had any proof that Cruz was behind the ad, Trump replied, "No. Everybody knows he sent it out. He knew the people in the super PAC. He knew. I would be willing to bet he wrote the phrase," referring to the words that accompanied the nude photograph of Mrs. Trump, a model posed on a rug. "Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady," the ad stated. "Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday," a reference to the March 22 Utah primary. "I didn't send the photo to everybody in the state of Utah. He did," said Trump. "It was his people, who were his friends." For this fact-check, we'll examine whether Trump is correct in claiming that Cruz distributed this Facebook ad containing a nude photograph of Trump's wife. Federal law states that political ads must clearly identify their source, and this one lists the source as a political action committee called Make America Awesome. Such groups are known as super PACs because they can spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for or against a candidate or a point of view. Super PACs have one major restriction: They cannot coordinate their efforts with a candidate's official campaign, which is limited in its spending. If Cruz did arrange for the ad under the auspices of the super PAC, it would be a serious violation of federal law. The super PAC stated, "The Cruz campaign had nothing to do with this ad whatsoever. We didn't get the image or the idea for the ad from them," said Republican strategist Liz Mair, who is behind the super PAC. Make America Awesome, based in Virginia, was founded in December and reported $20,752 in contributions through February, with most of the money spent on small purchases of airtime in nine states, according to the Federal Election Commission website. "I would guess that including money that has come in since our last filing, we have raised about $35,000," said Mair. There's also no evidence that the PAC is a front for the Cruz campaign. When we checked the PAC's YouTube page, we found four commercials, only two of which are the standard length for broadcast. The Jan. 20 "Buyer Beware" commercial, obviously made on a shoestring budget, includes a light-hearted rundown of nine Republican presidential candidates as breakfast cereals. They include Jeb Bush ("Good source of experience and wonkiness. The brand you know."), Ben Carson ("With extra nice guy doctorness."), Chris Christie ("100% RDA of telling it like it is."), and Ted Cruz ("Two Scoops of Conservatism!"). In the ad, the shopper buys the Trump cereal ("Guaranteed success and a free 'Screw the Liberal Establishment!' voucher inside") and ends up regretting the purchase. The only ads we've run in favor of any candidate are the three Facebook ads we ran targeting Mormons in Utah and Arizona, of which the Melania one was one, and the one with the least money put behind it (about $300, maybe even less than that, honestly), Mair wrote in an email. The Melania ad, she wrote, was targeted only to Mormon women of (if I recall correctly) ages 45-65 living in Utah and Arizona who self-identified as moderate, conservative, or very conservative. "The shot we used was chosen because of the presence of handcuffs, which was particularly bothersome to the target audience," Mair said. However, there are definitely racier shots of her out there that would no doubt be considered more scandalous by a lot of voters across the entire political spectrum—too racy for us to use in Facebook ads, candidly. Although the ads urge voters to support the Texas senator, he was only one of two viable alternatives to Trump currently on the ballot in those states. In a March 27 interview with ABC News, Trump claimed Cruz or his campaign bought the rights to the Melania photo and gave it to the super PAC. There's no evidence that Cruz, the campaign, or Mair's group purchased rights to the photo, taken when she was Trump's girlfriend. "The image was, at the time we concepted out and then created the ad, already republished all over the Internet at numerous sites," Mair told us in an email. The photographer who took the image for the 2000 photo spread in British GQ, Antoine Verglas, told our friends at FactCheck.org that nobody contacted him to buy rights to the picture. The magazine reprinted that photo, along with other pictures from the shoot, online March 4 under the headline, "The Future First Lady? Sexy Melania Trump's Nude Photo Shoot." As for Cruz himself, Mair said, "I think I've met him at gatherings attended by many people maybe once or twice in my life (and it will have been some time ago), and I have never spoken to him privately." We contacted the Trump campaign but didn't receive a response. Our ruling: Trump said Cruz was responsible for the racy ad questioning whether people wanted Melania Trump to be first lady. One of the tenets of PolitiFact is that the person making the claim is responsible for substantiating it. Trump stated on CNN that he has no real proof. All the evidence we found points to the ad being the work of a political action committee whose goal has been to block Trump's nomination. There's no proof of Cruz working with that committee, which would be illegal. We rate Trump's claim as False. | 0 | [
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FMD19 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The uniquely uncivil presidential campaign is about to produce one of the biggest civic gatherings in decades: For 90 minutes on Monday night, a polarized nation will pause to watch the first encounter between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The total audience, network executives and political strategists say, could be as high as 100 million viewers — Super Bowl territory. That would surpass the 80 million who watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980, the record for a presidential debate, and rank among television benchmarks like the finales of “MASH†and “Cheers. †Not all viewers will watch from their living rooms. At the Dreamland Theater in tiny Nantucket, Mass. so many are expected for a party that the town assigned a police officer to stand watch in case of rowdiness. In Paris, many of those abroad for Fashion Week are setting alarms so they can watch the debate live — at 3 a. m. local time. “I need to feel like I’m part of this,†said Laura Brown, InStyle’s editor in chief. And in Richardson, Tex. the Alamo Drafthouse had to switch to a bigger room after overwhelming interest in a screening with refreshments like a “build a wall around it†taco salad. Mass experiences — built around news events like the moon landing, and pop culture moments for older generations like the “Who shot J. R. ?†episode of “Dallas†— are rare in an age of fragmented media and the drift toward partisan outlets, where viewers can effectively choose their own news. But tight polls and curiosity about the unconventional Mr. Trump are luring viewers. In a New York News poll this month, 83 percent of registered voters said they were very or somewhat likely to watch on Monday. “It’s a throwback to a phenomenon that has essentially disappeared in the era of digital media,†said Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News. “This is Americans gathering around the electronic hearth. †Advertisers, including Audi cars and Tecate beer, are taking advantage, introducing commercials in the kind of marketing usually reserved for events like the Super Bowl. Although the debate will air without commercials, cable and broadcast channels have sold millions of dollars’ worth of ads for programming before and afterward. Television networks and online streaming sites, including Facebook and Twitter, will carry the same feed on Monday, showing a spare debate stage at Hofstra University, on Long Island, a format that predates the blaring graphics and sets that now dominate television news. Still, even if a large portion of the country is watching, what Americans see may be as much about their beliefs and preferred news outlets as what transpires onstage. About 8 percent of registered voters remain undecided, according to the New York News poll, a thin if crucial sliver of the electorate. And after Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump conclude on Monday, viewers are likely to return to their ideological silos, absorbing instant analysis from anchors on MSNBC or commentators at outlets like Breitbart News. The debate itself will be subject to instant, interpretation on social media. “Regardless of where you’re watching, whether it’s Facebook Live or NBC or Fox News, there will be a moment where we all witness it,†said Charles L. Ponce de Leon, author of “That’s the Way It Is,†a history of television news. “But that moment will quickly crumble when all the instant analysis and opining comes into play. †The event’s impact is unlikely to rival that of, say, 1960, when John F. Kennedy’s smooth performance in the first televised debate helped sway voters against his opponent, Richard Nixon. That debate aired without commentary — or graphics and captions on the screen. “Journalists were of the opinion they should wait and ruminate and think about what went down, and then, a day or a week later, talk about it,†Mr. de Leon said. Tom Sander, who runs a program on civic engagement at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said he was worried that voters might not have a chance to remove partisan blinders. “Many of us come to these events more to confirm what we already think we know, rather than to search for common ground,†Mr. Sander said. The candidates may hope otherwise. Mrs. Clinton has told donors privately that she expects 100 million people to watch the debate, and that 60 million of those viewers may be focusing on the campaign for the first time, a prime opportunity for her to make inroads. Many may tune in merely for the spectacle. “It’s like waiting for the fight,†said Dick Cavett, the longtime host, referring to the highly anticipated boxing bouts between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the 1970s. Mr. Cavett said he would cut short a dinner on Monday to ensure he would be in front of a TV by 9 p. m. “There’s possible drama and fireworks and insults and horror and disaster and potential enlightenment,†Mr. Cavett said. “It would attract anybody. †Some in TV noted that the 2008 meeting between Joseph R. Biden and Sarah Palin attracted 70 million viewers, more than any of that year’s presidential debates, a sign that civic interest may be less of a draw than seeing a colorful candidate like Ms. Palin — or Mr. Trump. The 1980 debate scored a record audience in part because it was the only matchup between the candidates in a precable era. But Neal Shapiro, a former president of NBC News, recalled that Mr. Reagan’s unusual background as a Hollywood actor spurred interest. “People wanted to see, would they really feel comfortable with Reagan as president?†Mr. Shapiro said. “People were wondering, ‘Can I live with this guy? ’†The first debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 drew 67 million viewers. Advertisers, anticipating even more this time, are using the opportunity to unveil new ads with themes that may resonate with Americans focused on the campaign. Audi’s commercial shows a man and woman, both hotel valets, battling for the right to drive an Audi RS7 luxury car, and features the slogan “Choose the next driver wisely. †American flags, and ice sculptures of a donkey and an elephant, convey the message that the car, as an Audi vice president for marketing put it, is “a metaphor for the importance of America. †In a spot set for Monday night, Tecate, a Mexican beer label owned by Heineken, features a view of the Mexican border and a that declares, “The time has come for a wall — a tremendous wall. †The wall is revealed as a resting place for Tecate beers, “a wall that brings us together. †The ad, airing on networks including Fox News and Univision, is “absolutely not†about a political point of view or affiliation, said Felix Palau, a vice president at Tecate. “Tecate, being a Mexican beer, is a perfect protagonist of a story where a wall brings people together in a very fun way,†Mr. Palau said. The debate’s biggest televised competition on Monday is likely to be another program featuring intricate strategies and crushing blows: “Monday Night Football†on ESPN. And one famous political junkie says he may flip the channel — for a few minutes, at least — to the action on the gridiron. “The president’s fired up about ‘Monday Night Football,’†Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, playfully told reporters who asked if President Obama planned to watch the debate. “There will be millions of people across the country who are quite interested to see the two candidates onstage together for the first time,†Mr. Earnest added. “I imagine the president will be one of them. †| 1 | [
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FMD20 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In response to the establishment media s contrived fake news crisis designed to marginalise independent and alternative media sources of news and analysis, 21WIRE is running its own #FakeNewsWeek awareness campaign, where each day our editorial team at 21st Century Wire will feature media critiques and analysis of mainstream corporate media coverage of current events exposing the government and the mainstream media as the real purveyors of fake news throughout modern history SARTRE 21st Century WireUnderstanding the complex relationships that make up human endeavors permeates every aspect of society and politics. The ability to be informed about events is a basic motivation to search out news about what is exactly happening in the world we all live in. Journalism purports to report the first draft of history. In practice, the press and media coverage is systemically bereft of relevant facts and completely void of objectivity. The currency of the realm is trust for all journalists. Their collective credibility is bankrupt for a very simple reason; their newscasts are based upon lies, newspeak and intentional deception.Carlin Romano in We Need Philosophy of Journalism , asks an essential question that is not at all addressed by the Fourth Estate: How can it be that journalism and philosophy, the two humanistic intellectual activities that most boldly (and some think obnoxiously) vaunt their primary devotion to truth, are barely on speaking terms? Essentially, every component of the mainstream media multiplex is foremost a business. The business model is to operate under the aegis of monopolies. Even a casual observation of the interlocking ownership of big media must acknowledge that the concentration of likeminded Oligopolists are in unison to construct a consortium of predisposed narratives that has nothing to do with seeking the truth.When the term Pressitude is used to characterize the profession, the uninformed or limited literate news consumers often find comfort in turning on their network disinformation program. Those who take pride in obtaining their news from papers of record like the New York Times and the Washington Post rely upon a different motivation. Their aversion to any source that contradicts the establishment worldview is so painful to consider that they adopt a feeble rationalization for self-preservation, which demands rejection of any argument, verifiable facts or documented evidence that challenges their scripted storyline of reality.The example of Sharyl Attkisson, and Judith Miller, have been treated differently by their own employers. The first demonstrating courageous investigative reporting; whereas the second produced a fabricated account that deceived the public about nonexistent WMDs in Iraq. Attkisson was ostracized, while Miller is now a FOX News contributor.Miller s Pulitzer Prize, awarded while employed by the NYT is no badge of honor. The term Yellow Journalism is most closely associated with Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Their sensational duelling newspapers and extra editions shared the Fake News prototype during the late 19th century and early 20th century. What once was conveyed by a cartoon image is now a 24/7 cable news cycle. Granted, the 21st century is different, but the spin and outright lies follow the same pattern of misinformation. Deception, falsification and distortion are absorbed as nonchalantly as a My Pillow advertisement that inundates the propaganda that masquerades as news.The orthodox version of American media journalism was crafted under the guidance of William S. Paley of CBS, setting the highest standard for news reporting at that time. Names like Edward R. Murrow, Elmer Davis, William L. Shirer, Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith and Eric Sevareid are icons in the industry. For those who contend that this era invented The most trusted man in America Walter Cronkite, one must not forget that the broadcast news division ran budget deficits, while the parent network was most profitable. Yet for all the celebrated accolades that CBS News coveted, the underlying message behind the script was Edward Bernays propaganda. Fast forward to the internet age and you find that these one-time news bureaus no longer control their monopoly over the news cycle.Immediacy in information dissemination no longer guarantees accuracy in the report anymore than corporatist editing ensures the believability of the popularly accepted viewpoint. Nevertheless, the predominant originator of Fake News comes from a far more sinister source; government brainwashing. Indeed, at the very core of vast news media apparatus are state-sponsored operatives and embeds. Any pretense that there is any independence within establishment media outlets is a symptom of the chronic idiocy within the popular culture. Inserting the government fake news version, using unreliable sources to shape an echo chamber of official fiction is the paradigm for mass indoctrination. Controlling gatekeepers to filter out any conflicting accounts uses both covert and overt censorship. The flagship news purveyors devote their resources to discredit genuine freelance reporting from any ideological perspectives. Mainstream Media (MSM) has the mission to smear any alternative news source and label them as disrepute journalists.The American Press Institute states that Journalism s first obligation is to the truth. Then refines this criterion by adding conditionality to the standard: Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but in a capacity that is more down to earth. By inserting a subjective value element, any reasonable expectation that the work product is trustworthy is suspect. It becomes the task of the reader or viewer to critically analyze the underlying bias and intention to inculcate the culture. When Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, The medium is the message, he was foreseeing the extent of the newspeak affixed within the medium was not fully appreciated.Corporations select journalists for their adherence to nihilism in reporting. The MSM s denial of objective facts and practicing deception by generating actual fake news has produced generations of na ve, ill-informed and confused souls placing a purdah veil over the heads of trendy clones, fostering the shearing of the sheeple society.Escaping this planet of press corps apes requires a withdrawal from the sophism. The coordinated accusations of Fake News attacks by the dinosaur media upon autonomous internet reporting is a sure sign that suppressing truth to power is the only storyline that matters to these secular relativists and muckraking crusaders to maintain their stranglehold on headline sound bites.The selection agenda which determines what constitutes news is an editorial function that bears witness to the parameters for public conditioning. All other reporting is declared as conspiracy theory. Even a casual assessment of the foreign press provides a contrast to the perception spin machine from K Street or Madison Avenue. As the monopoly media manipulation resorts to their faux news narrative, astute observers understand that their broadcast lies are the real Fake News.*** Author SARTRE is a special contributor to 21st Century Wire. Learn more about his writing and join-in on more forum discussions at BATR.READ MORE ABOUT MSM FAKE NEWS AT: FAKE NEWS WEEKSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD21 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Email
It is especially painful for me, as an economist, to see that two small cities in northern California — San Mateo and Burlingame — have rent control proposals on the ballot this election year.
There are various other campaigns, in other places around the country, for and against minimum wage laws, which likewise make me wonder if the economics profession has failed to educate the public in the most elementary economic lessons.
Neither rent control nor minimum wage laws — nor price control laws in general — are new. Price control laws go back as far as ancient Egypt and Babylon, and they have been imposed at one time or other on every inhabited continent.
History alone should be able to tell us what the actual consequences of such laws have been, since they have been around for thousands of years. Anyone who has taken a course in Economics 1 should understand why those consequences have been so different from what their advocates expected. It is not rocket science.
Nevertheless, advocates of a rent control law are saying things like "this will prevent some landlords from gouging tenants and making a ton of money off the housing crisis."
The reason there is a housing crisis in the first place is that existing laws in much of California prevent enough housing from being built to supply the apartments and homes that people want. If landlords were all sweethearts, and never raised rents, that would still not get one new building built.
Rising rents are a symptom of the problem. The actual cause of the problem is a refusal of many California officials to allow enough housing to be built for all the people who want to rent an apartment.
Supply and demand is one of the first things taught in introductory economics textbooks. Why it should be a mystery to people living in an upscale community — people who have probably graduated from an expensive college — is the real puzzle. Supply and demand is not a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge.
A century ago, virtually any economist could have explained why preventing housing from being built would lead to higher rents, and why rent control would further widen the gap between the amount of housing supplied and the amount demanded. Not to mention such other consequences as a faster deterioration of existing housing, since upkeep gets neglected when there is a housing shortage.
Today's economists have advanced to far more complicated problems. It is as if we had the world's greatest mathematicians but most college graduates couldn't do arithmetic.
Part of the problem is that even our most prestigious colleges seldom have any real curriculum requirements that would ensure that their graduates had at least a basic understanding of economics, history, mathematics, science or other fundamental subjects.
Many students and their parents spend great amounts of money, and go into debt, for an education that too often leaves them illiterate in economics and ignorant of many other subjects.
Part of the problem is that many college graduates do not take a single course in economics. Another part of the problem is that many economics departments leave the teaching of introductory economics in the hands of some junior or transient faculty member, or even graduate students who get stuck with the job.
One of the things that made me proud of the economics department at UCLA when I taught there, decades ago, was that teaching the introductory economics course was the job of a full professor, even if not the same professor every year.
In all too many subjects today, the introductory course is taught by junior faculty, transient faculty or graduate students, while the full professors teach only upper level courses or postgraduate courses.
That may save a department the expense of staffing the introductory course with their more highly paid members. But, it is extravagantly expensive from the standpoint of society as a whole, when it means sending graduates out into the world unable to see through the wasteful economic hokum spread by politicians.
That is how you get ill-informed voters who support price controls of many kinds, without understanding that prices convey economic realities that do not change just because the government changes the prices. It is as if someone's fever was treated by putting the thermometer in cold water to bring the temperature reading down. You don't get more housing with rent control.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com .
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FMD22 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Is it not possible to stop recurring donations to the Trump Campaign? Claim summaries: A CNN reporter tweeted out a former Donald Trump supporter's claim that it was impossible to cancel recurring donations to the campaign once initiated, but it wasn't clear that was always the case.
contextual information: On 3 August 2016, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond shared a screenshot via Twitter of an e-mail sent by a frustrated former Trump supporter, claiming that it was impossible for backers to cancel recurring donations to the Trump campaign: Jeremy Diamond INBOX: Help, I set up a recurring contribution to Trump's campaign & want to cancel it: (cc: @realDonaldTrump) pic.twitter.com/TFOHhdZDlJ @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/TFOHhdZDlJ Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) August 4, 2016 August 4, 2016 Diamond's tweet sparked a number of articles and blog posts stating it was "impossible" to cancel recurring Trump campaign donations, based solely or primarily on the anecdotal, secondhand claim made in that tweet. Among the comments prompted by original tweet sent by Diamond were those left by other purported donors asserting that the claim wasn't exactly accurate: @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump Spreading bogus info. When you contribute, you get receipt with an email + tel number to call if you need help. @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump M G (@MadaGasp) August 4, 2016 August 4, 2016 @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump now please stop spreading false information, its all in the email you receive when you contribute @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump Brian (@Brian_with_a_B) August 6, 2016 August 6, 2016 A large number of commenters expressed skepticism about the report, given that the claim was anonymously sourced from a single individual: @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump Cheap shot: we all know you can contact your bank or other form of payment you use, to cancel right away. @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump Viktor Staudt (@ViktorStaudt) August 4, 2016 August 4, 2016 @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump so exactly who was this unknown mystery person that went straight to a journalist? pic.twitter.com/R4h78829CP @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/R4h78829CP Patti Hannah (@b6sangel) August 7, 2016 August 7, 2016 We were unable to turn up any reports about the issue that antedated Diamond's tweet. If any Trump donors had previously encountered difficulties canceling their recurring donations, they didn't seem to chatter very much about it on social media prior to 3 August 2016 (and ceasing to support Trump as a candidate is only one reason someone might seek to cancel a recurring payment). Diamond appeared to pass the baton on the story overall, updating followers later with a link to an article published by Mic: The folks at @mic took this ball and ran with it. Here's what they found: https://t.co/eTODFa4f3O https://t.co/cktSrf88Z2 @mic https://t.co/eTODFa4f3O https://t.co/cktSrf88Z2 Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) August 5, 2016 August 5, 2016 Diamond did not provide any further information about the claim, the claimant, or how he verified it before sharing it to Twitter. But Mic attempted to reproduce the problem on 4 August 2016 and gathered more information on the difficulty level of canceling recurring Trump donations. In a series of screenshots the site illustrated their findings, stating it was not possible to delete a stored credit card without replacing it with a separate valid credit card: After investigating, Mic can confirm that there is no easy option to stop recurring donations on Trump's donation site: We set up a recurring donation of $1 and found no button or other obvious way to cancel payments or remove a credit card from the system either on the homepage, the "update card" page, or in your contribution confirmation email. Once you're registered, if you try to change your payment information on Trump's site, you will see no option to remove your credit card only "update" it. Then, when you click on "update card," you see a page that allows you to alter your payment information but you cannot completely delete your credit card. You are forced to replace it with another valid card: Invalid numbers are rejected. One responder to the original tweet then objected to that claim, stating it was impossible to set up a recurring $1 donation: .@JDiamond1 You can't set up a $1.00 recurring amt.What else about this story is BS?@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/kB4TalWOSE @JDiamond1 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/kB4TalWOSE ValerieNoFux (@OPFergVal) August 7, 2016 August 7, 2016 However, it appears that it is possible to enter any amount as a recurring donation: enter Mic confirmed that if a putative donor set up an account, then it would be possible for that person to cancel a recurring donation made via Trump's web site: It turns out that there is a way to delete your card from the Trump campaign's system, but it seems you must have first registered an account and created a password: If you did not do so, there is no clear way to cancel your payment. Assuming you did create an account and have logged in, to stop your payment you must click the small gray question mark icon in the upper right corner of the donations page. Then you will see [a separate] screen. In order to delete your card, you must click "manage." Then will you be redirected to the website of the Trump campaign's vendor. There you must click "recurring plans," and only then can you cancel your monthly payment; notably, even after you cancel, there is still no obvious way to delete your card number without replacing it with another valid number. Per Mic's screenshots, that vendor was Revv, and we sent an e-mail inquiry to them to clarify whether it was possible to cancel the recurring payments some other way. Revv However, even if the web site interface didn't allow for such a cancellation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) notes that the the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) provides for consumers to cancel unwanted recurring payments: notes If you have regular, automatic deductions from your checking account (to pay for expenses such as insurance premiums or utility bills), the EFTA allows you to stop those payments. First, notify the vendor. Next, tell your bank about your request at least three business days before the money is scheduled to be transferred. Your notice to the bank may be oral, but the institution may require you to provide a written follow-up within 14 days to ensure that no additional payments are made. If you fail to provide a written follow-up, the bank is no longer responsible for stopping future payments. Stopping an automatic, recurring payment on a credit card is different. Start by putting in your request with the vendor. But if the vendor continues to charge your credit card, contact your card issuer. You'll have 60 days to dispute the charge, starting when the card issuer sends you the statement with the charges. While it appears to be atypically difficult to cancel a recurring donation to the Trump campaign, it is certainly not impossible, as individuals who create an account can do so via the web interface. Overall, it seemed the problem related more to the interface of a third-party vendor (Revv) to whom the Trump campaign had outsourced donations and not to the campaign itself. Dennin, James. "Donald Trump's Campaign Website Won't Let Some Cancel Recurring Donations."
Mic. 4 August 2016. | 2 | [
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FMD23 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it will push to lock in fuel efficiency standards central to outgoing President Barack Obama’s climate policy before the Trump administration takes over in January. Automakers had appealed to President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Obama’s climate policies, to review the rules requiring them to nearly double fleet-wide fuel efficiency by 2025, saying they impose significant costs and are out of step with consumer preferences. The EPA under law had to decide by April 2018 whether to modify the 2022-2025 model year vehicle emission rules requiring average fleet-wide efficiency of more than 50 miles per gallon. Instead, the agency said it will end the public comment period by Dec. 30, and could move to lock in the rules after then and before the Obama administration leaves office on Jan. 20. The EPA in a statement said it concluded after a lengthy review that automakers can meet the 2025 standards. Janet McCabe, EPA acting assistant administrator, told reporters the technical record could “arguably support strengthening the 2022 through 2025 standards,†but the EPA believes it “is not the time to introduce uncertainty by changing the standard.†She denied the impending administration change prompted the decision, but the EPA website previously showed a timeline that suggested a decision on mid-term review was not expected until mid-2017. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) and others, blasted the decision, saying “this extraordinary and premature rush to judgment circumvents the serious analysis necessary to make sure the (vehicle) standards appropriately balance fuel efficiency, carbon reduction, affordability and employment.†The group said it looked forward to working with the Trump administration on revisions and that “the evidence is abundantly clear that with low gas prices, consumers are not choosing the cars necessary to comply with increasingly unrealistic standards.†It had previously asked Trump to review the automotive greenhouse gas rules, and other Obama administration actions that enable California and certain other states to mandate sales of electric vehicles. Environmental groups applauded the administration move and said they expect the EPA to finalize the rules by Jan. 20. “What’s not to like about a plan, agreed to by the automakers, that cuts oil use, saves money at the pump and reduces pollution?†said Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, a Washington-based group that supports strong climate action. The Republican U.S. Congress or the Trump administration could seek to reverse or modify the rules. However, if the current EPA rules are locked in, it could make doing so more difficult and time consuming. Auto lobbyists said the next administration will have a variety of ways of reversing the EPA action, including reopening the technical assessment report. They also said the Obama administration’s move could backfire by bringing more attention to the issue early in the Trump administration. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In 2011, Obama announced agreement with major automakers to raise fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 mpg, which the administration said would save motorists $1.7 trillion in fuel costs over the life of the vehicles but cost the auto industry about $200 billion over 13 years. In July, EPA said because Americans are buying fewer cars and more SUVs and trucks that they now estimate the fleet will average 50.8 mpg to 52.6 mpg in 2025. The agreement included a mid-term review to decide whether the 2022-2025 model year requirements were feasible. The California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols said the EPA decision “provides solid support for continuation of the single national program to produce a new generation of clean vehicles.†| 1 | [
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FMD24 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The United States on Thursday presented for the first time pieces of what it said were Iranian weapons supplied to the Iran-aligned Houthi militia in Yemen, describing it as conclusive evidence that Tehran was violating U.N. resolutions. The arms included charred remnants of what the Pentagon said was an Iranian-made short-range ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Nov. 4 at King Khaled International Airport outside Saudi Arabia s capital Riyadh, as well as a drone and an anti-tank weapon recovered in Yemen by the Saudis. Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with such weaponry and on Thursday described the arms displayed as fabricated. The United States acknowledged it could not say precisely when the weapons were transferred to the Houthis, and, in some cases, could not say when they were used. There was no immediate way to independently verify where the weapons were made or employed. But U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley expressed confidence the transfers could be blamed on Tehran. These are Iranian made, these are Iranian sent, and these were Iranian given, Haley told a news conference at a military hangar at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, just outside Washington. All of the recovered weapons were provided to the United States by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon said. Saudi-led forces, which back the Yemeni government, have been fighting the Houthis in Yemen s more than two-year-long civil war. The unprecedented presentation | 1 | [
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FMD25 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In 1997, he followed a 15-year-old home from school. He grabbed her, held her at gunpoint and sexually assaulted her -- then shot her in the head and threw her in Colorado's Platte River, according to court records.
She survived. Despite her injuries, she walked a half-mile -- 1,000 steps -- to a highway, and flagged down a car for help.
Nearly two decades after she was left for dead, justice was at last delivered when officials were able to check the DNA from a previously untested rape kit against a federal database. Ojeda was sentenced Monday to 144 years in prison.
This case is the exception.
An untold number of rape cases -- by some estimates, in the hundreds of thousands -- remain unsolved because the rape kits used to collect critical evidence sit untested and gathering dust in police departments across America, despite $1 billion in taxpayer money approved to clear the massive backlog.
Critics blame the Justice Department, claiming it simply is not sending the money where it needs to go.
"It's a tragedy that evidence from perhaps hundreds of thousands of unsolved rape cases has never been tested for DNA," Scott Berkowitz, president and founder of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, told FoxNews.com.
A comprehensive investigation by USA Today and its media partners uncovered at least 70,000 neglected kits in more than 1,000 police agencies. A state-by-state review suggests those numbers are on the conservative side, with 34 states reportedly admitting they have no idea of the number of untested kits.
Federal officials pushed back against USA Today's report, saying it "greatly mischaracterizes what has been, and continues to be achieved by the Department of Justice to address un-submitted sexual assault kits."
Rape kits contain forensic DNA evidence collected from victims during an often invasive process that can take up to six hours to complete. Testing DNA evidence in a timely manner helps identify suspects, leads to more prosecutions and in some cases exonerates those wrongly accused.
But none of that can take place if the kits aren't tested -- the $1,000 price tag for each test, though, can stress the budget of a local police department.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently sent Attorney General Loretta Lynch a letter demanding the Department of Justice address the issue. "Victims of sexual assault should not have to wait unnecessarily for justice," he wrote in the June 29 letter.
Cornyn and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., were behind landmark federal legislation that led to the passage of the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting (SAFER) Act. Signed on March 7, 2013, SAFER requires at least 75 percent of the $1 billion appropriated in the law to be directed toward reducing the massive rape-kit backlog, and increasing the capacity of labs processing sexual assault kits through 2018.
The problem, victims' advocates and lawmakers argue, is that the DOJ is spending the money on other programs.
"Congress has provided the funds to fix this problem, but over the past 10 years a large part of that money has been used for other criminal justice or administrative purposes," Berkowitz said. He said the law passed by Congress set "very specific spending guidelines to ensure that the vast majority of the money goes to casework," adding: "We'd like to see the Justice Department follow that formula and solve this problem once and for all."
But an official with the DOJ's National Institute of Justice told The Washington Examiner the department "has not received appropriations specifically to implement" the DNA backlog grant program.
Instead of waiting for the Justice Department, some states have taken matters into their own hands.
Colorado, for instance, passed a law in 2013 requiring law enforcement agencies to analyze within one year all of their 3,542 untested rape kits -- a deadline that was met, Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Susan Medina told FoxNews.com.
"It was a way for us to really collaborate with our law enforcement partners," Medina said.
While larger metropolitan cities are starting to step up and cut down their backlogs, stark inconsistencies still exist in how rural communities handle rape kits.
Decisions on which kits are tested -- and when and how -- are often left to the discretion of police departments, leaving justice at the discretion of dollars and local policy. | 1 | [
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FMD26 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: Be cautious of fraudulent schemes promising a '$3,600 Stimulus for Homeowners'. Claim summaries: It might not be a good sign when the bottom of a brand new website displays a list of "disclaimers" in small print addressed to "Facebook reviewers and 3rd party fact checkers."
contextual information: We advise all readers, as well as their friends and family, to beware of Facebook ads that promise a "stimulus" or "savings" for homeowners in amounts such as $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, $3,800, or other similar figures. The posts featured pictures of U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and members of Congress, among others. Some ads also mentioned the term "mortgage refinance stimulus." The ads gave the impression that Biden and the U.S. government had approved a plan to provide $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, $3,800, or similar amounts as "stimulus" or "savings" in the form of check payments to help homeowners. The pictures and text resembled the previous COVID-19 economic impact payments and child tax credit payments that Americans became familiar with in 2020 and 2021. Those genuine payments came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. However, there is no federal plan to distribute $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 "stimulus" or "savings" checks to homeowners. Facebook users who clicked on the ads were directed to websites that were not operated by the government. From there, they all appeared to lead to a central page: GovHomePrograms.com. This website included a brief survey that asked questions about finances, home value, and mortgage status. The forms also requested a name, email address, phone number, and mailing address. We filled out the forms and were then led to one or more lenders that could assist future homeowners in buying a house or current homeowners in refinancing a mortgage. There was no evidence that the Facebook ads led to a way for homeowners to obtain a $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 "stimulus" or "savings" payment from the government. According to GovHomePrograms.com's terms of service and privacy policy pages, its parent company was RateMarketplace.com. Plateau Data Services, LLC was also mentioned in the documentation. One page led to EnhancedRefiNow.com instead of GovHomePrograms.com. Its parent company appeared to be LMB Mortgage Services, Inc., also known as LowerMyBills.com. As of December 2021, at least eight Facebook pages named American Savings Tips, Wise American Solution, Clever American Choices, New American Community, US Relief, StraightFix, Homeowners of America, and Our Best American Life had spent around $200,000 on advertising since late October to promote the ads. One of the biggest spenders was Wise American Solution, which had spent nearly $60,000 alone in early December, as of Dec. 13. In other words, millions of Facebook users had been served the ads from these pages on Facebook or Instagram. The American Savings Tips Facebook page spent nearly $60,000 on ads between Oct. 27 and Dec. 7. It also misleadingly displayed a picture of a U.S. Treasury check for $3,600. The Facebook pages and their corresponding websites were all brand new and were created in either October or November 2021. Another page named Helpers Today also pushed similar ads about a "stimulus" or "savings" for homeowners. Several hours after we started investigating Clever American Choices, its Facebook page became unavailable. It's unclear why this happened within those few hours and not at any time in previous weeks. According to its advertising information, Clever American Choices was "deleted" after violating Facebook's advertising policies. It had spent at least $45,209 on Facebook ads between Nov. 21 and Dec. 7. The other pages also showed advertising violations. After we clicked on one of the Facebook ads and landed on a website, we noticed this message at the bottom: "THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE." We also found a list of "disclaimers" in small print spaced far below the end of most of the body of the page that was meant "for Facebook reviewers and 3rd party fact checkers." One of the lines attempted to clarify why words like "government" and "Biden" were used in the copy: "Government," "Biden," "New Administration," "Relief" - assume multiple citations below from the following article: "Biden's $10 billion in financial assistance is expected to be available in 2022." It's true that the Biden administration previously created a Homeowners Assistance Fund meant to "provide states with $10 billion to help struggling homeowners catch up on their mortgage payments and utility costs." It's also true that the assistance was still being distributed by various states as of November 2021. But nowhere in this plan did we find anything about a $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 "stimulus" or "savings" plan for homeowners in the same way that past stimulus checks worked, as the Facebook ads appeared to suggest. One of the posts on Clever American Choices originally read: "This was featured on FoxNews [sic] last night. All I did was enter my zip and now I'm getting $3,600 back in savings. It was free to check, Just Enter Zip!" A seemingly endless number of Facebook users then submitted their ZIP codes in the comments under the ads instead of on the resulting website, perhaps believing this would lead to them being contacted to receive a $3,600 check. Not only did this ad show a fake "Homeowner Relief Card," but members of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Cabinet can be seen sitting in the photograph captured in Congress. Aside from the ZIP code comments, the remarks with the most likes caught our eye. For example, a user named Jackie said: "This was featured in CNN yesterday so I guess I could try it since my neighbors already got theirs." Other ads mentioned C-SPAN. We found no record of CNN, Fox News, or C-SPAN recently broadcasting news of a specific $3,600, $3,700, $3,712, or $3,800 "stimulus" or "savings" for homeowners. Also, no one's "neighbors already got" a $3,600 stimulus check payment, because they don't exist. These comments likely convinced quite a few people to give away their personal information. Ben commented: "Wow! I've never seen anything like this before! Thank god that I saw it today so I can signup." Matt remarked: "Heard about this program form [sic] my neighbor. They got the check yesterday so I tried it and received a notification that my check will be here this week!" We also saw the same names making the same comments in multiple ads. It's unclear if these people worked for the websites or companies that were affiliated with the posts. We reached out to the Better Business Bureau and AARP for comment on these ads and websites. The BBB responded and told us that this is what they would refer to as a classic "government imposter scam." A BBB spokesperson told us: "Without further research, it's hard to tell if this is just a way to get homeowners to apply for refinancing, or if the motive is fraud. Consumers are being asked to share personally identifiable information (PII), and that's a huge red flag because it is everything needed for identity theft. The fact that the domains are new is another red flag. BBB advises consumers never to share personal information with someone who has solicited them, whether through email, social media ad, text, etc., but to carefully vet any new company that needs PII." In a study, the BBB found that these sorts of scams increased in 2020 and 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic. They also sent over a page about government grant scams and a scam alert about stimulus checks. We also heard from Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. In an email, Stokes told us: "It is safe to say that ads that pitch free money from the government are government grant scams and the internet, particularly Facebook, is teeming with them. Sometimes you'll see your Facebook friends share the information, claim they got money from a grant, and encourage you to get your free money, too. Often that means the friend's Facebook account has been hacked. Whether it is a scammer or an actual company, you should report the ads to the FTC. These sites often ask for you to share your personal information, which can be dangerous for the person entering it." In sum, the Facebook ads that promised a "stimulus" or "savings" for homeowners simply appeared to be a way to route future homeowners to lenders or to show current homeowners where they could refinance their mortgages. With guidance from the BBB and AARP on identifying this as a "government imposter scam" or "government grant scam," we have rated this story accordingly with the "Scam" rating. The rating for this fact check was changed from "False" to "Scam" after we received guidance in a response from the Better Business Bureau and AARP. We also added several more Facebook pages and updated the advertising dollar figure to be around $200,000. | 0 | [
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FMD27 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: 21st Century Wire says IMPORTANT: We are particularly worried about John Bolton and Rudolph Giuliani holding major diplomatic positions they are both damaged goods and relics of a failed Neoconservative past which some Republicans are acting nostalgic about. Both Bolton and Giuliani have pressed for a pre-emptive strike on Iran in the past, and with continued pressure and finance from the Israeli Lobby it s a near certainty that they will continue this foreign policy line. Trump won the GOP primaries by rejecting the Bush docrine and the Neocon model of foreign intervention. If Trump reverses that postion he is only creating a new and more powerful anti-war oppostion in America. A hawkish Trump policy would only galvanize the left in America, and globally.Let s see if he s smart enough to realize this prospective reality and appoint his cabinet accordingly TRANSITION: Media currently carried away with speculation over what a President Trump administration will look like in Janruary. Daily CallerDonald Trump is contemplating naming a number of recognizable players from the 2016 campaign to serve in senior White House roles, according to an internal transition document obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller.The list was provided by a member of the transition team on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press. Described as a working document, it is being used to help the president-elect envision a White House staff structure, the source said. Some people are listed more than once.It includes names like Trump campaign chairman Stephen K. Bannon, RNC chairman Reince Priebus, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.Bannon who was executive chairman of Breitbart News before joining the Trump campaign is under consideration for chief of staff, as is Priebus. The choice here could be telling about Trump s strategy for working with Congress: Bannon, who is proudly anti-establishment, detests House Speaker Paul Ryan while Priebus and Ryan are close allies.Like chief of staff, a number of the roles listed seem to include both insider and outsider options. For example, Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Republican pollster, is in contention with Corey Lewandowski, who worked with the New Hampshire state police until 2010, for the position of senior adviser.Lewandowski is also in consideration for the role of deputy chief of staff for planning, as is Katie Walsh, the RNC s chief of staff. As for White House counsel, the list includes both Alan Garten, the general counsel at the Trump Organization, and Donald McGahn, his campaign attorney, as options.Trump policy adviser Stephen Miller an immigration hawk and former communications aide to Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions is under consideration for a variety roles, including deputy chief of staff for policy, director of speechwriting, director of the domestic policy council and director of communications. Miller often warmed up for Trump during rallies in the Republican primary and embodies Trump s message of limited immigration, free trade skepticism and distaste for the donor class.Miller isn t the only former Sessions aide being considered for a Trump administration. Rick Dearborn, Sen. Sessions chief of staff, is listed as the sole option for leading the office of legislative affairs.Like Sessions, former GOP Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, formerly the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, appears likely to have influence in the Trump administration. He is being considered for both national security advisor and assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. His former chief of staff, Andy Keiser, is also being considered for the position of deputy national security advisor.Two other people listed for national security advisor are retired Army Lt. Gen. Micheal Flynn, who served as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama, and Stephen Hadley, who served in the same role under former President George W. Bush. Flynn, Rogers, and Hadley are all hawkish. Flynn has called for the destruction of the Syrian city of Raqqa, Hadley served as deputy national security adviser during the invasion of Iraq and Rogers said in 2014 that ground troops should be deployed to fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.As for White House press secretary, the list includes some memorable faces from the campaign: former Ted Cruz aide and eventual Trump spokesman Jason Miller, top RNC aide Sean Spicer and Conway.Here is the list obtained by TheDC:Assistant to the President and Chief of StaffStephen K. Bannon, Reince PriebusAssistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.Keith Kellogg, Mike RogersAssistant to the President and Press Secretary.Jason Miller, Sean Spicer, Kellyanne ConwayAssistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Planning. Corey Lewandowski, Katie WalshAssistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Stephen Miller, Sam ClovisAssistant to the President and National Security Advisor. Michael T. Flynn, Mike Rogers, Stephen HadleyAssistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting. Stephen Miller, Cliff SimsSenior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement.None listedAssistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.David Bossie, Katie WalshAssistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.Clare Lopez, Walid Phares, Andy KeiserAssistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council.Stephen MillerAssistant to the President and Director, Office of Legislative Affairs.Rick DearbornAssistant to the President and Director of Communications.Jason Miller, Stephen Miller, Cliff SimsAssistant to the President and Senior AdvisorKellyanne Conway, Corey LewandowskiAssistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council. Dan Dimicco, David MalpassWhite House CounselDon McGahn, Alan Garten**** READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD28 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has told MPs that leaving the European Union (EU) is not the biggest threat to financial stability in Britain, and that Brexit actually poses a bigger risk to the continent than it does to the UK. [He said “I am not saying there are not financial stability risks in the UK … but there are greater short term risks on the continent in the transition than there are in the UK†reports the Daily Telegraph. This constitutes a substantial for the Goldman Sachs alumnus, who argued during that referendum that voting to leave the EU could hit growth and tip the country into a technical recession. Following the vote, however, the UK economy has performed strongly. Growth in the construction, services, and manufacturing sectors are at and highs, respectively, according to the purchasing managers indices (PMIs) for each sector. PMIs are among the leading indicators for the economic health of a country. Ewen Stewart, a director at the Global Britain think tank and leading Scottish economist, welcomed Carney’s apparent change of heart, telling Breitbart London he was “baffled†by the central bank’s gloomy forecasts. “The risks of Brexit do indeed lie with the EU and not the UK … because of the inherent contradictions within the Eurozone,†he confirmed. “The EU have far more to lose than the UK, especially as it becomes ever more apparent that the UK is well positioned to strike free trade deals with the US, Australia, and other regions. †Andrew Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, has described the Bank’s inaccurate forecasts as a “Michael Fish†moment, recalling the BBC weatherman’s infamous dismissal of a hurricane prediction hours before the Great Storm of 1987 struck Britain. Richard Tice, of the Leave Means Leave campaign, told Breitbart London that Carney was simply “catching up with what we Brexiteers knew all alongâ€. “The UK will thrive, we have the upper hand and nothing to fear. He should offer to resign given his woeful forecasting track record. †| 1 | [
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FMD29 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Thailand s Royal Household Bureau has dismissed a top palace official for extremely evil behavior , a note on Wednesday said, in what appears to be the latest shake-up under new King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The removal of Grand Chamberlain Distorn Vajarodaya, whose role is to manage the royal household, was announced by the palace in a document dated Nov. 6, media reported. The document lists things that Distorn allegedly did including falsifying a 25 million baht ($754,830) charity receipt for royal honors and tax evasion in the name of the crown. The Bureau of the Royal Household deemed Distorn s ... acts as disciplinary misconducts considered as extremely evil behavior deserving of dismissal from the civil service, the royal household bureau said. A palace official told Reuters on Wednesday that she was unable to comment on the matter. Reuters was unable to reach Distorn for comment. Distorn s dismissal is the latest sign of the new king s assertiveness and part of an ongoing purge of officials who the palace says did not perform or behave according to their rank. King Vajiralongkorn, 65, who inherited the throne last year following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has set about reordering the palace, including the way its finances are managed. In February, a top palace official was also fired for extremely evil misconduct. Late King Bhumibol died in Oct. 2016 aged 88 after ruling for seven decades. During his reign, he helped revive the prestige of the monarchy with the help of a powerful palace public relations machine. He was cremated on Oct. 26 after a year of mourning. The funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of people who thronged Bangkok s historic area to watch a series of spectacular processions and ancient Buddhist and Hindu rites and say goodbye. | 1 | [
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FMD30 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ahhhh .social justice rears its ugly head in the transgender department. Degendered facilities are the new thing for campuses women who don t want to pee with guys are just out of luck How about social justice for women who do not want to share a public bathroom with men? Now that s justice!A New York City college has responded to transgender students who vandalized bathrooms by rewarding them with campus-wide degendered facilities.Bill Mea, acting president of Cooper Union, sent an email March 18 informing the campus community of the new restrooms, which will only be identified as Restroom with Urinals and Stalls, Restroom with Only Stalls, and Restroom Single Occupancy. We have always been ahead of our time and we must continue being leaders on issues of social justice, Mea said. We, who are in positions of power, have the obligation to not only stand with those without power, but to stand in front of them, clearing a path for them to walk. I cannot change the outside world and how it treats transgender and gender non-conforming people, but I can change the Cooper Union environment to help everyone feel safe when they are inside our buildings. The school president then appeared to make a veiled threat of disciplinary action for individuals who publicly protest his decision. I also ask that none of us practice gender policing, where we attempt to restrict someone from using the same restroom we are using or make them feel uncomfortable for doing so, Mea said. If you feel uncomfortable sharing a restroom, then the single-occupancy restrooms will now be available to you. The website Insider Higher Ed reported Thursday that Cooper Union may be the first college to completely eliminate gender distinctions in bathrooms. The process began two years ago when students removed bathroom signs and replaced them with banners reading Bathroom or Degendered. Mea, who left the signs down in order to observe how students reacted, told the website that resistance was relegated to a handful of alumni. I think you ll begin seeing this more and more, Mea said. We here in New York City, we have the support of our mayor and the support of our city. That allows us that opportunity to be more expansive, but obviously there may be less of an opportunity where other colleges are located. Doulos Christou, a reader at the education watchdog The College Fix, said Mea s decision has much more to do with control than supporting those without power. Here s what the [LGBT] agenda is really about, said Christou on Friday. Demanding tolerance gave way to demanding recognition, which gave way to demanding equality, which is now giving way to demanding superiority. We ve written numerous things about this controversy and feel strongly about keeping the bathrooms segregated. One of the best arguments for this:WHAT S SO WRONG WITH TRANSGENDER BATHROOMS? This Guy Has The Awesome Answer!Read more: wnd | 0 | [
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FMD31 | Task: Please determine whether the claim is 0. False, 1. True, or 2. Not Enough Information (NEI) based on contextual information, and provide an appropriate explanation.
The answer need to use the following format:
Prediction: [0. False, 1. True, or 2. NEI]
Explanation: [Explain why the above prediction was made]
Claim: During the Reagan era, the richest Americans had their top income tax rate cut in half.
contextual information: In his latest film,Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore takes more than a few swipes at President Ronald Reagan, essentially asserting that under Reagan's watch, the rich got richer at the expense of everyone else. During the Reagan era, he said, the richest Americans had their top income tax rate cut in half. Moore is correct that the top marginal tax rate the rate of income tax charged to an individual on their last dollar of earnings decreased from 70 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1989. That's not the same as saying the richest had their taxes cut in half. In 1980, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent on earnings over $161,300. The rate was substantially lower for the income earned below that. For example, that year, there were no taxes on the first $2,300 of income; 14 percent on income between $2,300 and $4,400; and on up via a graduated scale. So if you made $162,000 in 1980, for example, you paid far less on average than 70 percent of your income in federal taxes. The marginal tax rate also doesn't take into account various available deductions and tax credits, said Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center. When Reagan revamped the tax code and dropped the top marginal tax rates to 50 percent in 1982, and then down to 28 percent by 1988, he also closed some of the tax loopholes available to people at the top. It's much fairer, we think, to look at effective individual income tax rates. That's the actual percentage of income that people paid in income taxes, factoring in not only the graduated percentages along the marginal tax rate scale, but also the deductions and tax credits that people were entitled to. In 1980,the effective individual income tax ratefor the top 1 percent of earners was 22.3 percent. In 1989, that rate dropped to 19.9 percent. That's a decrease of 2.4 percentage points, which works out to an 11 percent drop. That's sizable, but nowhere near 50 percent. If you widen the field and consider the top 10 percent of earners, instead of just the top 1 percent,the drop in effective individual income tax rate was about the same, just over 10 percent. For middle incomes, the effective individual income tax rate also dropped, from 8 percent to 6 percent. That's a 25 percent decrease. In other words, it wasn't just the rich who saw their income tax rates drop under Reagan. One more thing. When the top marginal tax rate dropped between 1980 and 1989, it went from 70 percent on earnings over $161,300 in 1980 to 28 percent on earnings over $128,810 in 1989. Obviously, that's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Did the rich get richer during the Reagan years? Yes. And Moore is technically correct when he says that the richest Americans had their top income tax rate cut in half. But we suspect some may mistake that for the richest having their taxes cut in half. In fact, we first began to look at this claim from a fact sheet provided on Moore's Web site before the movie was publicly released. And in the fact sheet, it states that the richest had their taxes cut in half. We were prepared to give that a False, as the effective tax rate for the richest was cut by about 10 or 11 percent. But in the movie, Moore describes it as the top income tax rate, apparently referring to the highest marginal rate. As we said, some may misinterpret that, but we think Moore has been careful enough with his words to get a Mostly True. | 1 | [
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