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FMD200 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: LONDON — With thousands of people demonstrating against President Trump outside Parliament, British lawmakers on Monday debated whether to deny him a formal state visit because — in the eyes of nearly two million Britons in an online petition — it would “cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the queen. †The debate included the kind of political showmanship and heated language that members of Parliament often do well, with dueling lawmakers invoking Mr. Trump’s impetuousness, his strategic importance to Britain or even his willingness to misrepresent the weather during his inauguration as reasons to cancel or go ahead with the visit. “The intellectual capacity of the president is protozoan,†said Paul Flynn, an opposition Labour lawmaker who led the argument against a state visit. In making his case, Mr. Flynn quoted a journalist’s remarks about the disgrace of “pimping out the queen for Donald Trump†— a remark that the Conservative legislator Jacob condemned as unworthy, even as a quotation. Mr. Trump would hardly be the first contentious leader to be honored with a state visit. The queen, acting as always on the recommendation of the government, has in the past received President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and President Mobutu Sese Seko, the former leader of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. After a recent visit with President Xi Jinping of China, she was caught on camera speaking of how “very rude†the Chinese leader had been. “A queen who has been asked over the decades to host tyrants such as Presidents Mobutu of Zaire and Ceausescu of Romania is going to take a brash billionaire from New York effortlessly in her stride,†William Hague, a former foreign secretary, wrote in The Daily Telegraph. Still, the prospect of Mr. Trump’s visit has stirred great passion in Britain. The online petition, backed by 1. 8 million people, does not call for Mr. Trump to be barred from Britain altogether, only that his visit be a political one, without the involvement of Queen Elizabeth II. Another online petition, signed by more than 300, 000 people, called for the state visit to take place. Petitions with more than 100, 000 signatures are eligible for parliamentary debate, and any vote would not be binding. The government of Prime Minister Theresa May has been firm in saying that the invitation to Mr. Trump for a full state visit this year will not be withdrawn. In Parliament, Mr. Flynn cited the need to keep public trust in politicians and noted that no president had ever been invited for a state visit in his first year in office. He also accused Mr. Trump of acting “like a petulant child†and said the queen should not be seen as approving either his actions or his attitudes toward women and Muslims. But a Conservative legislator, Nigel Evans, said that Mr. Trump was the president of a great ally of Britain and that the critics should “get over it. †Mr. Trump was fairly elected, he said, adding, “I do respect that he stood on a platform on which he is now delivering. †Alex Salmond, a legislator from the Scottish National Party, argued that the invitation should be rescinded because members should not confuse respect for the United States with a personal invitation to Mr. Trump. Traditionally, American presidents must wait several years before getting a state visit, and many do not get one at all. Mrs. May, after Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union, was eager to cement good relations with the new American president, and she arranged a rapid visit to Washington. During the visit, she conveyed the invitation, which Mr. Trump accepted. Leaving the European Union could lock Britain out of the bloc’s single market, a zone, as well as the customs union, which eliminates tariffs and customs checks. So Mrs. May has seemed eager to shore up her country’s relations with the United States as a counterbalance. During the debate, a Labour legislator, David Lammy, spoke of Mr. Trump’s attitudes and asked why Britain should “abandon all its principles†and invite him, “because this country is so desperate for a trade deal that we would throw all our own history out the window?†He said: “We didn’t do this for Kennedy. We didn’t do this for Truman. We didn’t do this for Reagan. But for this man, after seven days, we say, ‘Please come and we will lay on everything because we are so desperate for your company? ’†He added, “I am ashamed that it has come to this. †But James Cartlidge, a Conservative, said that if Britain canceled the visit, “there will be smiles all around in the Kremlin,†which wants to “divide the West. †And another Conservative, Simon Burns, said that it was important to be “a candid friend†able to influence Mr. Trump and the United States, particularly so given Britain’s plan to leave the European Union. Various opinion polls indicate that a small majority of Britons support the state visit. But there are also concerns that it would be met with large protests, comparable to 2003, when President George W. Bush made a state visit and many came out to protest the Iraq war. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, supports the petition to disinvite Mr. Trump because of the president’s “ban on people from seven countries†and his decision to block refugees from entering the United States. “In those circumstances, we shouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet,†Mr. Khan said on Sunday. On Monday, the House of Lords began at least two days of debate on a bill, already passed by the House of Commons, to authorize the government to enact Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would inform the European Union of Britain’s intention to leave the bloc. The government intends to invoke Article 50 by the end of March, if not sooner, beginning at least two years of negotiations with the other 27 member states on the terms of Britain’s exit and a framework for future relations. | 1 | [
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FMD201 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Nearly simultaneous explosions targeted a Turkish peace rally Saturday in Ankara, killing at least 95 people and wounding hundreds in Turkey's deadliest attack in years — one that threatens to inflame the nation's ethnic tensions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said there were "strong signs" that the two explosions — which struck 50 meters (yards) apart just after 10 a.m. — were suicide bombings. He suggested that Kurdish rebels or Islamic State group militants were to blame.
The two explosions occurred seconds apart outside the capital's main train station as hundreds of opposition supporters and Kurdish activists gathered for the peace rally organized by Turkey's public workers' union and other groups. The protesters planned to call for increased democracy in Turkey and an end to the renewed violence between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces.
The attacks Saturday came at a tense time for Turkey, a NATO member that borders war-torn Syria, hosts more refugees than any other nation in the world and has seen renewed fighting with Kurdish rebels that has left hundreds dead in the last few months.
Many people at the rally had been anticipating that the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, would declare a temporary cease-fire — which it did hours after the bombing — to ensure that Turkey's Nov. 1 election would be held in a safe environment.
Television footage from Turkey's Dogan news agency showed a line of protesters Saturday near Ankara's train station, chanting and performing a traditional dance with their hands locked when a large explosion went off behind them. An Associated Press photographer saw several bodies covered with bloodied flags and banners that demonstrators had brought for the rally.
"There was a massacre in the middle of Ankara," said Lami Ozgen, head of the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions, or KESK.
The state-run Anadolu Agency said the attacks were carried out with TNT explosives fortified with metal ball-bearings.
Turkey's government late Saturday raised the death toll in the twin bomb blasts to 95 people killed, 248 wounded. It said 48 of the wounded were in serious condition — and a doctor's group said many of them had burns.
"This massacre targeting a pro-Kurdish but mostly Turkish crowd could flame ethnic tensions in Turkey," said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst at the Washington Institute.
Cagaptay said the attack could be the work of groups "hoping to induce the PKK, or its more radical youth elements, to continue fighting Turkey," adding that the Islamic State group would benefit most from the full-blown Turkey-PKK conflict.
"(That) development could make ISIS a secondary concern in the eyes of many Turks to the PKK," Cagaptay said in emailed comments, using another acronym for IS militants.
Small anti-government protests broke out at the scene of the explosions and outside Ankara hospitals as Interior Minister Selami Altinok visited the wounded. Some demonstrators chanted "Murderer Erdogan!" — referring to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom many accuse of increasing tensions with Kurds to profit at the ballot box in November. Erdogan denies the accusations.
Later Saturday, thousands gathered near Istanbul's main square denouncing the attacks and also holding the government responsible.
The Turkish government imposed a temporary news blackout covering images that showed the moment of the blasts, gruesome or bloody pictures or "images that create a feeling of panic." A spokesman warned media organizations they could face a "full blackout" if they did not comply.
Many people reported being unable to access Twitter and other social media websites for several hours after the blasts. It was not clear if authorities had blocked access to the websites, but Turkey often does impose blackouts following attacks.
At a news conference, Davutoglu declared a three-day official mourning period for the blast victims and said Turkey had been warned about groups aiming to destabilize the country.
"For some time, we have been receiving intelligence information based from some (Kurdish rebel) and Daesh statements that certain suicide attackers would be sent to Turkey... and that through these attackers chaos would be created in Turkey," Davutoglu told reporters, using the IS group's Arabic acronym.
"The (Kurdish rebels) or Daesh could emerge (as culprits) of today's terror event," Davutoglu said, promising that those behind the attacks would be caught and punished.
Davutoglu said authorities had detained at least two suspected would-be suicide bombers in the past three days in Ankara and Istanbul.
Authorities had been on alert after Turkey agreed to take a more active role in the U.S.-led battle against the Islamic State group. Turkey opened up its bases to U.S. aircraft to launch air raids on the extremist group in Syria and carried out a limited number of strikes on the group itself. Russia has also entered the fray on behalf of the Syrian government recently, bombing sites in Syria and reportedly violating Turkish airspace a few times in the past week.
On a separate front, the fighting between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels flared anew in July, killing at least 150 police and soldiers and hundreds of PKK rebels since then. Turkish jets have also carried out numerous deadly airstrikes on Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
Erdogan condemned Saturday's attacks, which he said targeted the country's unity, called for solidarity and canceled a planned visit Monday to Turkmenistan.
"The greatest and most meaningful response to this attack is the solidarity and determination we will show against it," Erdogan said.
Critics have accused Erdogan of re-igniting the fighting with the Kurds to seek electoral gains — hoping that the turmoil would rally voters back to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP. Electoral gains by the country's pro-Kurdish party caused the AKP, founded by Erdogan, to lose its parliamentary majority in a June election after a decade of single-party rule.
The attacks Saturday, which even surpassed twin Al Qaeda-linked attacks in Istanbul in 2003 that killed some 60 people, also drew widespread condemnation from Turkey's allies.
Turkey's state-run news agency said President Obama called Erdogan to extend his condolences. The Anadolu Agency, citing unnamed officials, said Obama told Erdogan the United States would continue to side with Turkey in the fight against terrorism. It quoted Obama as saying the U.S. "shared Turkey's grief."
Erdogan earlier said the twin bombings aimed to destroy Turkey's "peace and stability." Anadolu said the two leaders agreed to talk more in the coming days.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent her condolences, calling the attacks "particularly cowardly acts that were aimed directly at civil rights, democracy and peace."
"It is an attempt at intimidation and an attempt to spread fear," she said. "I am convinced that the Turkish government and all of Turkish society stands together at this time with a response of unity and democracy."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said "there can be no justification for such a horrendous attack on people marching for peace... All NATO allies stand united in the fight against the scourge of terrorism."
Saturday was the third attack against meetings of Kurdish activists. In July, a suicide bombing blamed on the Islamic State group killed 33 peace activists, including many Kurds, in the town of Suruc near Turkey's border with Syria. Two people were killed in June in a bomb attack at the pro-Kurdish party's election rally.
"This attack (Saturday) resembles and is a continuation of the Diyarbakir and Suruc (attacks)," said Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the Turkey's pro-Kurdish party. He held Erdogan and Davutoglu's government responsible for the latest attack, saying it was "carried out by the state against the people."
In the aftermath of the Ankara attack, the PKK declared a temporary cease-fire. A rebel statement said Saturday the group is halting hostilities to allow the Nov. 1 election to proceed safely. It said it would not launch attacks but would defend itself.
The government has said there would be no letup in its fight against the Kurdish rebels.
"Our operations (against the PKK) will continue until they lay down arms," Davutoglu said late Friday. | 1 | [
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FMD202 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald Trump took to Twitter Saturday morning where he launched his latest attacks on Hillary Clinton, calling her "brainwashed" after she acknowledged that she "short-circuited" when making a misstatement.
When speaking to members of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Washington Friday, Clinton sought to "clarify and explain" a statement she made that FBI Director James Comey said that her previous answers about her private email use were "truthful."
"I may have short-circuited [her answers] and for that I will try to clarify," Clinton said.
Trump not only labeled her speech as "habitual lying," but he also took to Twitter noting that it's proof she is not fit to be president: | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD203 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: President Donald Trump’s effort to roll back Obamacare gained momentum on Wednesday as Republican leaders scheduled a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday on newly revised legislation. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed confidence the bill would pass and several moderate Republican lawmakers who previously objected to the bill said they could now support it. A vote was expected as early as midday Thursday, with lawmakers planning to leave town later that day for a week-long recess. Late on Wednesday, the bill cleared a procedural step allowing it to advance to the House floor. Even if a narrow majority in the House approves the bill, it still faces a steep climb in the Senate, where only a few defections could kill the effort. Keen to score his first major legislative win since taking office in January, Trump threw his own political capital behind the bill, meeting with lawmakers and calling them in an effort to cajole their support. Trump, whose Republican party controls both the House and Senate, is seeking to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Aides said he worked the phones furiously. Wavering moderate Republicans had worried that the legislation to overhaul President Barack Obama’s 2010 signature healthcare law would leave too many people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to afford health coverage. But several Republican skeptics got behind the bill after they met with Trump to float a compromise proposal that is still expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition. The legislation’s prospects brightened further after members of the Freedom Caucus, a faction of conservative lawmakers in the House who played a key role in derailing the original version of the bill last month, said they could go along with the compromise. The bill is also receiving a torrent of opposition from medical groups, including the American Medical Association, who say millions of Americans will lose coverage or face higher costs. Millions more Americans got healthcare coverage under Obamacare, but Republicans have long attacked it. They view it as a government intrusion into the healthcare system and blame it for driving up costs. Called the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill would repeal most Obamacare taxes, including a penalty for not buying health insurance. It would slash funding for Medicaid, the program that provides insurance for the poor, and roll back much of Medicaid’s expansion. The latest effort comes after earlier pushes by Trump for healthcare reform collapsed twice, underscoring the difficulty of rallying together the Republican party’s divided factions. Earlier this week, prospects for the legislation appeared grim as several influential moderate Republicans said they could not support the bill, citing their concerns about protecting people with pre-existing conditions. Putting a spotlight on the concerns about pre-existing conditions, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made a tearful plea for keeping that provision in Obamacare as he recounted a medical emergency that arose with his newborn son. Kimmel’s monologue about his son’s congenital heart condition was viewed nearly 19 million times on his show’s Facebook page and on Wednesday morning was the No. 1 trending story on YouTube. Republican Representatives Fred Upton and Billy Long, who were part of a group of moderate lawmakers who met at the White House with Trump, said the president endorsed their plan to add $8 billion over five years to help cover the cost for people with pre-existing illnesses who could otherwise be priced out of insurance markets. Describing Trump’s efforts to secure his support, Long said Trump told him: “‘Billy we really need you, man.’†Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, said the new language on pre-existing conditions was a “net plus†for garnering the votes needed to pass the healthcare bill. Critics of the changes to the law, including several health policy experts, said the $8 billion could not be enough to cover the cost of coverage for the sickest patients. Republicans did not await a new score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to see how many people would be insured under their revised plan and how much it would cost. Health insurers, such as Anthem Inc (ANTM.N), UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N), Aetna Inc (AET.N) and Cigna Corp (CI.N), have faced months of uncertainty over healthcare’s future. So have hospital companies, such as HCA Holdings Inc (HCA.N) and Tenet Healthcare Corp (THC.N). On Wednesday, Aetna said it will exit the Obamacare individual insurance market in Virginia next year, citing “growing uncertainty†and expected losses this year. House Democrats rejected the latest change to the Republican legislation on Wednesday, saying patients with pre-existing illnesses would be vulnerable to being pushed off their insurance in certain states and face higher costs. “This is deadly,†House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told a news conference. “No Band-Aid will fix it.†Democrats have long thought their best chance of stopping the repeal would be in the Senate, where only a few Republicans would need to defect to stop the law from moving forward. The difficulty in the House is now making Democrats optimistic that Republicans will face backlash from voters and face losing seats in the 2018 midterm elections. | 1 | [
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FMD204 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Channel list
Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually
Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida
Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote
The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush
Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food
Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI
Obama captures rare Pokémon while visiting Hiroshima
Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"
Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"
White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party
President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'
Following Obama's 'Okie-Doke' speech , stock of Okie-Doke soars; NASDAQ: 'Obama best Okie-Doke salesman'
Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber
Experts: melting Antarctic glacier could cause sale levels to rise up to 80% off select items by this weekend
Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line
As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards
John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom
Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'
News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"
Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign
Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009
National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman
National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruz’s basement
Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response
Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican
Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check
Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing
Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first
Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer
Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote
New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"
Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president
Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two
Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence
Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men
In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas
TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons
Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'
Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"
University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities
Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island
Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"
Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy
State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery
NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget
College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action
ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios
Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic
'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood
Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people
Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need
John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side
Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone
John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend
Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider
Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillary’s Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons
Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations
Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals
US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy
China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"
Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'
Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%
America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith
Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine
Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award ; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'
Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State
President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise
Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record
People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services
Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba
White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'
CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate
Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'
Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'
Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first
The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office
White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders
Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time
Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy
Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents
Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences
Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity
Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow
African countries to ban all flights from the United States because"Obama is incompetent, it scares us"
Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it
Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'
BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama
Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free
Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness
President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser
Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members
White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos
Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency
Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole
Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"
Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids
Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution
Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon
"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original
Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts
Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks
100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"
Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news
"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence
Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours
Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues
"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes
Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed
Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account
Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"
In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea
Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"
Mardi Gras in North Korea: " Throw me some food! "
Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"
US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"
Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help
The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back . The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."
In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook
MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine
Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants
Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America
North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"
Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout
Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss
Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district
Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend
Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle
North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party
White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare
Kim Jong Un executes own " crazy uncle " to keep him from ruining another family Christmas
OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea
President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy
Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"
Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC
Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"
Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week
Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message
NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"
Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough
The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"
Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare
Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation
Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans
Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy
GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords
Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare
Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria
Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"
DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women
Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees
Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left
Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'
FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp
Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies
GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'
Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'
Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism
News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota
Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith
Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page
Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment
White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria
Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'
Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins
Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date
IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history
After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot
Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'
Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program
US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?
Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy
This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester
White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras
Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse
Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school
Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition
Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State
Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'
Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'
Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested
Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead
Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending
Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances
Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons
Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago
Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections
Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country
Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'
White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out
New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen
White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class
To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead
State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations
Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward
President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward
Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects
World ends; S&P soars
Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood
Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes
Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway
Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013
Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama
As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list
Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves
Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium
Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future
Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs
Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet
Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'
Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties
Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years
Obama attends church service, worships self
Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending
Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"
Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh
Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"
Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness
Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears
Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke
Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights
Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'
Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: "Too few words"
Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't
Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost
Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space
Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck
White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus
Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed
Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"
Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere
Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"
Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college
Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!
Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'
Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'
Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome
People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies
Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"
Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans
Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law
Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond
Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics
Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof
Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels
Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party
Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend
May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above
Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"
Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name
Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich
Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag
Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"
Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off
Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"
Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed
White House: "Let them eat statistics"
Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama | 0 | [
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FMD205 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on November 6, 2016 by Eric Zuesse. Eric Zuesse The leading financiers of the Republican Party, the Koch brothers, were exposed on November 4th by the great investigative journalist Lee Fang, as being solid supporters and heavy financiers of congressional candidates who have been leaders in expanding the U.S. military budget and moving America toward a police state (including militarization of the police). The leading financier of the Democratic Party, George Soros, has long been known to provide major financial backing for the most-neoconservative Democratic candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, who favor every possible military invasion and coup (and see this , for more on that). In fact, Soros was one of the top three financial backers (the other two were the U.S. government and the Netherlands government) for the television station in Ukraine that championed extermination of the people in Ukraine’s Donbass region, where the coup-imposed government, which he helped to install, is loathed . And also on the Ukrainian matter, the Kochs have championed the view that when considering whether Crimea should be part of Russia, or else part of Ukraine, or else entirely independent, the people who live there shouldn’t have any opportunity to vote on the matter, and they should instead be forced to be ‘Ukrainians’ , even if they loathe this post-coup Ukrainian governmen t. Soros and the Kochs insist that this Ukrainian government should be imposed upon Crimeans, regardless of what they want. In fact, Soros has proposed adding from 20 to 50 billion taxpayer dollars to the effort by the coup-imposed Ukrainian government’s military, in order for that government to achieve this conquest of Crimea (to restore it to Ukraine, to which it had been forcibly joined, by the Soviet dictator Khrushchev in 1954, after having been for hundreds of years a part of Russia — and to which Obama and the Kochs and Soros insist it belongs). Regarding the U.S. Presidential contest, the difference between the Kochs and Soros is that the Kochs in 2016 directed all of their political financing away from the Presidential contest altogether, so as to weaken Trump’s effort to beat Hillary, whereas Soros has devoted tens of millions of dollars to the financing of Hillary’s campaign and of PACS (such as this) that support Hillary against Trump. Hillary is supported by Kochs and the big oil-and-gas firms as well as by Soros and Wall Street. Virtually all of the U.S. aristocracy want Hillary Clinton to become President. Right after the nominating conventions, the Kochs withdrew their financial backing of the Republican ‘hawk’ U.S. Senatorial candidate Ron Johnson in Wisconsin because Johnson had just endorsed Trump . But afterwards, the Kochs — as Lee Fang noted — spent big on the campaigns of Ron Johnson and of other pro-Lockheed-Martin (etc.) Senators. To be pro ‘Defense’ industry, isn’t to be pro-U.S. defense, but instead to be pro-mega-corporate investors, and that’s something America’s entire aristocracy are, because they control all of the large U.S.-based corporations. Those corporations expand by the U.S. military having the might to enforce in foreign countries what their owners want — so that America’s State Department and USAID etc. can serve as spokespersons for, essentially, the billionaires who own controlling blocs of stock in U.S.-based international corporations. That’s “the system,” which Hillary Clinton and the Kochs and Soros and all the rest of the U.S. aristocracy support, and which Bernie Sanders opposed without understanding it. If Donald Trump understands it, he’s been keeping that fact secret from his followers, who generally understand nothing of it at all. Maybe if he were to try to explain it to them he’d be called ‘unpatriotic’ — even though his trying to explain it to them would actually be the deepest form of patriotism. Unfortunately, for him to be patriotic in that way would probably be politically suicidal for his campaign. He instead points to “foreigners” as being America’s enemies, when the real enemies are actually right at home in America — and they’re enemies of the entire world, not just their own country. These are the people at the top of the global food-chain. It’s not clear whether Trump feels mainly that he’s one of them, or instead that they’re his chief enemies. How much more ambiguous could a person be than that? And is the ambiguity intentional? The most reliable answer might be found by identifying whom his actual political enemies are — and they seem to be virtually all of the global aristocracy. Maybe they know him in ways that the U.S. public don’t and can’t. The public will just have to guess. But no guesses are necessary in order to understand Hillary Clinton. She has a lengthy record in public office, and it’s entirely consistent, as a neoconservative . | 0 | [
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FMD206 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will reshuffle his cabinet within a day, media said on Monday, a sign the embattled leader hopes to capitalize on a weekend by-election win to refresh his ministry. Turnbull s center-right government regained its razor-thin parliamentary majority through the poll triggered by a constitutional crisis, shoring up his support in a country where three prime ministers have been ousted by their own party since 2010. The changes could include Attorney-General George Brandis quitting parliament to become the high commissioner, or ambassador, to Britain, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. and other media said. Representatives for Turnbull and Brandis did not respond to requests from Reuters for comment. Winning that (byelection), allowing him to send off Brandis to London, and then to put in some new faces and get a bit of movement there, that s the positive message running into Christmas and then the new year, said Stewart Jackson, a specialist in Australian politics at the University of Sydney. He will last until March. If there s a new disaster there, or any more referrals to the High Court, then it will be on for young and old, he added, referring to the crisis over the disqualification of lawmakers holding dual citizenship. When Turnbull unseated then prime minister Abbott in 2015, he said the move was necessary because the latter s government had lost 30 opinion polls in a row. Under Turnbull, the government has lost 25 opinion polls in a row. Many commentators say that if the figure reaches 30, which could happen as soon as March, Turnbull s party may consider removing him. Social services minister Christian Porter and employment minister Michaelia Cash are frontrunners to be the next attorney general, the Australian newspaper said. Turnbull may seek to exploit their relative youth | 1 | [
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FMD207 | 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: No, Biden Didn't Give China Control Over the US Power Grid Claim summaries: Biden signed an executive order. Wild conspiracy theories ensued.
contextual information: In mid-to-late February 2021, readers emailed Snopes asking about memes and stories posted online that claimed U.S. President Joe Biden had signed an executive order granting the Chinese government access to or control over the U.S. power grid. stories For example, the headline on an opinion piece published in the Washington Examiner on Jan. 27, 2021, read, "Bidens order could let China control US electric grid." headline Others took it a step further to falsely claim that Biden gave China access to the U.S. power grid, and it was China that caused millions of Texans to lose power during a brutal cold snap in February 2021. Here is one example, with the Twitter user's name cropped out for privacy reasons: millions First off, Biden didn't sign an executive order granting China access to or control over the U.S. power grid system. Biden signed an executive order suspending for 90 days an order by his predecessor, Donald Trump, that bars installation of equipment purchased from foreign adversaries into electrical infrastructure, so Biden's administration officials could evaluate Trump's order. But that doesn't mean Biden gave China access to U.S. power grids. We will explain below. The U.S. is served by three electrical grids one that interconnects the western half of the U.S. and western Canada, another that interconnects the eastern half of the U.S. and eastern Canada, and a third grid that is the independent system serving most of Texas. These, along with a fourth grid serving Quebec, are usually referred to as the bulk-power system (BPS). three electrical grids On May 1, 2020, Trump signed an executive order entitled "Securing the United States Bulk-Power System." Trump's order prohibited the purchase and use of bulk-power system electrical equipment "designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied, by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary" to mitigate what it said was the potential threat of a cyberattack by foreign adversaries hacking into U.S. electrical systems. entitled On Dec. 17, 2020, Dan Brouillette, Trump's secretary of energy, issued a prohibition order stemming from Trump's May 1, 2020, executive order. Brouillette's order "prohibits utilities that supply critical defense facilities (CDF) from procuring from the Peoples Republic of China, specific BPS electric equipment that poses an undue risk to the BPS, the security or resilience of critical infrastructure, the economy, national security, or safety and security of Americans." prohibition order In other words, Brouillette's order barred equipment purchased from China from being used in critical electrical infrastructure in the U.S. On Jan. 20, 2021, Biden signed an executive order entitled, "Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis." The order suspended Trump's May 1 order for 90 days. entitled During those 90 days, Biden's order directs the U.S. secretary of energy and director of the Office of Management and Budget to "jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued." That does not mean that, while the order is suspended, China has 90 days of free access to electrical grids serving the United States. The U.S. Department of Energy said that during the suspension, utility providers must still refrain from installing equipment specified in Brouillette's prohibition order: said prohibition order [During] this 90-day review period, Responsible Utilities will refrain from installation of bulk-power system electric equipment or programmable components specified in Attachment 1 of the Prohibition Order that is subject to foreign adversaries ownership, control, or influence, and that Responsible Utilities will continue to work with the Department on identifying and mitigating supply chain vulnerabilities. To ensure that security of the Nations bulk-power system is strengthened during this suspension, the Department requests that Responsible Utilities designate critical defense facilities as a priority load in the applicable system load shedding and restoration plans. The Texas power grid is independently operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), taking its policy direction primarily from state officials, not the federal government. primarily The Texas power grid didn't fail because of interference by China or any other external entity. It failed because when the state experienced Arctic temperatures that it isn't used to experiencing, demand for electricity spiked beyond what the grid was prepared to handle. State officials also failed to weatherize power-generating infrastructure from cold temperatures, which resulted in problems like natural gas supply lines and wind turbines freezing. spiked beyond We reached out to the White House seeking further clarification on this subject but didn't get a response in time for publication. We will update this story when and if we hear back. | 0 | [
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FMD208 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: November 6, 2016 @ 12:34 pm
The same in the EU. YOu now there are EU Elections.And everybody who have 2 Passports from EU can vote-but only 1 time is allowed.
But in TV the Leftwing Journalist DI LORENZO from the Socialdemocratic Newspaper DIE ZEIT-sayed that he voted 2 times.And what happened?The charge was stopped.
And this leftwing guy who always behave like he knews all sayed:In didnt know that it is forbidden to vote 2 times… | 0 | [
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FMD209 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Anticipating that Hurricane Irma will devastate part of the United States, U.S. officials were preparing a massive response to the storm, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Friday. With Irma set to hit Florida as early as Saturday night, parts of Florida was expected to lose electricity for days, if not longer, and more than 100,000 people may need shelter, FEMA Administrator Brock Long warned at a news conference. Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states, Long said. Irma was a Category 5 hurricane, the most dangerous measure by the National Hurricane Center, before being downgraded to Category 4 early Friday after pummeling islands in the Caribbean. The United States has experienced only three Category 5 storms since 1851 and Irma is far larger than the last one to hit the United States in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, according to Long. He warned people not to ignore evacuation orders. They need to get out and listen and heed the warnings, Long said. Officials have thousands of personnel ready to respond and millions of meals and liters of water in place nearby, Long said. The National Weather Service said that Friday was the last day to evacuate before winds would start to reach unsafe speeds in Florida. Airlines added extra flights from Florida on Thursday before announcing plans to halt service from some southern Florida airports starting Friday afternoon. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price called Irma a remarkably dangerous storm and the window to get yourself in the right spot ... is closing rapidly. Price said the main hospital in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was closed after being damaged by Irma, and critically ill patients were being evacuated to Puerto Rico or other islands. On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 316-90 to approve a measure to more than double funding to $15.25 billion for FEMA and local block grants to handle natural disasters after the Senate passed the measure Thursday, 80-17. FEMA s disaster assistance fund could have run out of money Friday without action. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure Friday. The measure also extends the life of the National Flood Insurance Program through Dec. 5. It had been set to expire Sept. 30. | 1 | [
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FMD210 | 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: Permanent Closure at Walt Disney World Due to Hurricane Irma? Claim summaries: Rumors holding that Walt Disney World would close the Fort Wilderness Campgrounds due to damage from Hurricane Irma originated on a prank web site.
contextual information: On 13 September 2017, an article claiming that Disney World was permanently closing the Fort Wilderness Campground due to damage sustained from Hurricane Irma was posted to the prank news web site BreakingNews247.com: article prank Walt Disney has officially announced that they will be permanently closing Fort Wilderness Campgrounds due to damage exceeding over $1 Million from one estimate. This article, along with everything else published on BreakingNews247.com, is fabricated. "Prank" web sites like this one allows users to generate their own fake news stories to share with their friends on Facebook:This website is an entertainment website, news are created by users. These are humourous news, fantasy, fictional, that should not be seriously taken or as a source of information.The creator of this particular story must have felt some remorse after posting it, as the article was later removed and replaced with a message explaining that it had been a "bad joke":Despite the article's deletion, however, the rumor continued to circulate as web sites like ViralDisney.net republished near verbatim copies of the story. These web sites are unaffiliated with Walt Disney World, which has indicated in public statements that Fort Wilderness will soon reopen. "Prank" web sites like this one allows users to generate their own fake news stories to share with their friends on Facebook: Prank This website is an entertainment website, news are created by users. These are humourous news, fantasy, fictional, that should not be seriously taken or as a source of information. The creator of this particular story must have felt some remorse after posting it, as the article was later removed and replaced with a message explaining that it had been a "bad joke": message ViralDisney.net The Florida theme park did sustain some damage during Hurricane Irma and the Fort Wilderness campground was temporarily closed. A message on the official Disney World web site explained that the campground will likely reopen by the end of September 2017: damage message explained All Disney Resorts have begun normal operation, with the exception of Fort Wilderness Campground and Disney's Saratoga Springs Treehouse Villas.We anticipate that Disneys Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground will reopen next week, but it remains closed at this time as we clean up the property following the storm. Disney's Wilderness Lodge remains open. We anticipate that Disneys Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground will reopen next week, but it remains closed at this time as we clean up the property following the storm. Disney's Wilderness Lodge remains open.To allow Disneys Fort Wilderness to prepare the property after Hurricane Irma, all shows at The Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue and Mickeys Backyard BBQ will be canceled up to and including To allow Disneys Fort Wilderness to prepare the property after Hurricane Irma, all shows at The Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue and Mickeys Backyard BBQ will be canceled up to and including Tuesday September 19th. Any existing reservations will be automatically canceled and refunded. Fox News. "Disney World Photos Show Hurricane Irma's Damage to Parks."
13 September 2017. | 0 | [
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FMD211 | 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: Did a WTC Leaseholder Buy Terrorism Insurance Just Before 9/11? Claim summaries: A longstanding urban legend holds that World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein "fortuitously" took out terrorism insurance just months before the 9/11 attacks.
contextual information: Some of the most persistent contemporary legends about the 9/11 attacks involve people supposedly benefiting from foreknowledge of the event, whether it be a group of World Trade Center workers who "fortuitously" called in sick and escaped certain death that day, or investors who "fortuitously" bought "put options" on United and American Airlines stock immediately before the attacks, thus profiting when the prices of those stocks fell afterwards. workers stock American businessman Larry Silverstein, who famously signed a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center complex in June 2001, two months before the attacks, is at the center of another story about profiting from the event: Larry Silverstein Just months before 9/11, the World Trade Center's lease was sold to Larry Silverstein. Silverstein took out an insurance plan that 'fortuitously' covered terrorism. After 9/11, Silverstein took the insurance company to court, claiming he should be paid double because there were 2 attacks. He won, and was awarded $4,550,000,000. While the story obviously contains elements of fact, it's also partly fiction most notably the implication, made via the use of scare quotes around the word "fortuitous," that Silverstein's decision to purchase terrorism insurance just before 9/11 was no mere coincidence. There are several underlying assumptions at work here: that the World Trade Center must not have had terrorism insurance before Silverstein took over; that selecting such coverage was purely optional; and that because he "chose" to buy such coverage when he did, Silverstein must have known in advance that (and when) terrorists would strike. It's important to note that, despite appearances, Silverstein wasn't actually the sole leaseholder of the World Trade Center: He led a consortium of investors and lenders which included GMAC Commercial Mortgage (a General Motors subsidiary), Westfield America Inc. (a shopping center developer), and real estate investor Lloyd Goldman. All these entities had a voice in deciding how much insurance coverage the properties would have, and each had some claim on whatever insurance monies were paid out. Bear in mind, too, that when we speak of "terrorism insurance coverage," what we're actually speaking of is coverage that doesn't have a terrorism exclusion. Such exclusions aren't uncommon now, but according to the Insurance Information Institute virtually all commercial insurance policies sold in the U.S. before 9/11 covered terrorist incidents as a matter of course (and essentially free of charge), because the risk was considered so remote. Thus, for example, the World Trade Center was fully covered when it was bombed by terrorists in 1993, and insurers paid out an estimated $510 million in damages after that incident. There's no reason to suppose that the WTC wasn't routinely covered against terrorist acts right up until the time Silverstein took over the lease in 2001. covered Moreover, upon signing that lease, Silverstein was obligated to insure the World Trade Center. There was nothing strange, suspicious, or "fortuitous," therefore, about his purchasing an all-risk insurance policy which at that time would have automatically included terrorism coverage two months before 9/11, because that's when he became contractually responsible for doing so. Ultimately, Silverstein wasn't even solely responsible for the total dollar amount of that coverage ($3.55 billion) because that was the minimum demanded by his lenders, according to a 2002 report in The American Lawyer. report It's a fact that Silverstein took his insurers to court after 9/11 and asked for double the damages. It's also a fact that he did so on the grounds that there were two attacks (or, in insurance lingo, "occurrences"), not one. But this wasn't some premeditated scam based on foreknowledge that a terrorist attack involving two planes would occur. The cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center, which in 2004 was estimated at $9 billion, made Silverstein's court strategy a virtual necessity. Plus, he had obligations to lenders and co-investors, and still owed lease payments of $10 million per month to the Port Authority. estimated obligations The court ultimately did grant Silverstein a payout of $4.55 billion, which amounted to about a third more than the maximum allowable for a single "occurrence" by his insurance policy, but significantly less than the $7.1 billion he had originally sought. payout Ackman, Dan. "Trade Center Financing on Shaky Ground." Forbes. 11 September 2003. Bagli, Charles V. "Final Vote Set on Silverstein's Towers at Ground Zero." The New York Times (City Room Blog). 25 August 2010. Frangos, Alex. "Uncertainties Soar at Ground Zero." The Wall Street Journal. 20 October 2004. Frankel, Alison. "Double Indemnity." The American Lawyer. 3 September 2002. Hirschkorn, Phil and Jonathan Wald. "Verdict in 9/11 Insurance Battle." CNN. 30 April 2004. Lieberman, Joseph. "America Needs Terrorism Insurance." Forbes. 12 July 2005. Sorkin, Andrew and Simon Romero. "A Day of Terror: The Insurers; Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damages." The New York Times. 12 September 2001. Insurance Information Institute. "Terrorism Risk and Insurance." August 2016. Insurance Journal. "Court Upholds Juries' Rulings in World Trade Center Claims." 19 October 2006. Reuters. "WTC Attack to Cost Insurers Billions." 11 September 2001. | 2 | [
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FMD212 | 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: Virginia tax receipts in just the last four years alone have grown 50%. Claim summaries: Virginia's general fund tax receipts grew 45.2 % over the last four fiscal years, slightly lower than the 50% growth Gov.
contextual information: Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been stressing that Virginia can afford the $1 billion in tax cuts he recently proposed. The overtaxation of Virginians is something we can address here and now because we have seen the government's tax resources grow astronomically, Youngkin said on Jan. 23 during a speech at the Weinstein Jewish Community Center in Richmond. Receipts in the last four years alone have grown by 50%. Virginia's Republican governor made the same 50% tax growth claim in his State of the Commonwealth Address on Jan. 11. We fact-checked the governor's claim and found it to be close to the mark. Youngkin wants to cut levies that go to Virginia's general fund, which supports public education, public safety, health programs, and general government expenses. Those tax revenues grew by 45.2% during the past four budget years, according to state financial records. Virginia collected $19.9 billion in general fund taxes for the fiscal year that ran from the start of July 2017 to the end of June 2018. It took in $28.9 billion for the budget year that ended in mid-2022. (Virginia's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.) The general fund has three major sources of revenue: personal income tax, corporate income tax, and sales tax. These account for 93% of the general fund's tax receipts, and each revenue stream significantly grew during the last four years, even as tax rates remained unchanged and Virginia's population barely grew. Let's take a look. Personal income taxes are by far the largest source of general fund money, contributing about two-thirds of the revenue. Their net revenue grew over the last four budget years (fiscal 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022) from $14.1 billion to $20.4 billion—a 44.7% increase. Nationally, state income tax receipts grew by an estimated 36.7% over the same span, data from the National Association of State Budget Officers shows. Virginia collects two types of income taxes. A withholding tax is the money held out of paychecks, while a non-withholding tax (also called a capital gains tax) is a levy on profits from selling personal assets such as stocks. Net withholding tax collections rose from $10.6 billion to $13.6 billion during the last four budget years—a 28.3% increase. Much of the increase came from salary growth among upper-income workers, according to a November 2022 report by the staff of the Virginia House Appropriations Committee. Gross non-withholding tax receipts rose from $3.5 billion to $6.8 billion—a 94.3% increase. The gain was primarily due to people cashing in profits from the soaring stock market of the last four years. Sales tax revenue increased from $3.5 billion to $4.6 billion over the last four budget years—a 31.4% increase. Much of the rise was caused by inflation and heightened demand for goods during the COVID-19 crisis, said Anne Oman, staff director of the state's House Appropriations Committee. Sales tax receipts in all states grew by about 30% during this period. Corporate income tax collections rose from $862 million to $2 billion over the same period—a 132% increase. Oman noted that uncertainty over inflation, recession, and the economic effects of COVID caused many businesses to hold onto profits instead of reinvesting them, resulting in greater corporate tax income. Corporate income tax revenue from all states combined grew by an estimated 177% during the same four years. Virginia's burgeoning tax revenues have not been unique. States have quirks that make it impossible to exactly compare their total general fund tax receipts. What they have in common, however, is that income, sales, and corporate taxes produce the vast majority of their proceeds. Virginia's revenue from those three levies increased by 46.1% over the last four years, slightly higher than the estimated 44.2% rise seen by all states combined. Youngkin's $1 billion in tax cuts would come on top of nearly $4 billion in tax cuts that went into effect in the second half of 2022. This boon allowed Youngkin and the General Assembly to agree on a budget last year that also raised spending and lifted Virginia's reserve funds to a record $2.6 billion. However, the gravy train began to slow in the latter half of 2022 and is expected to continue to do so this year due to uncertainty about rising interest rates, the stock market, and a possible recession, according to Virginia Secretary of Finance Stephen Cummings. Democrats have been skeptical about Youngkin's proposed tax cuts this year, saying the money is needed to improve programs. Youngkin stated that Virginia tax receipts in just the last four years alone have grown by 50%. State records show that general fund tax receipts have grown by 45.2% over the last four budget years. Therefore, Youngkin's claim, although credible, is slightly high. We rate Youngkin's statement as Mostly True. Correction, Jan. 25, 2023: This fact-check originally stated that PolitiFact Virginia made two attempts to contact Youngkin's office and did not receive a response. Our emails, it turns out, were mistakenly sent to the wrong web address. Our ruling is unchanged. | 1 | [
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FMD213 | 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: Was Rev. Al Sharpton Paid $24K to Speak at George Floyd's Funeral? Claim summaries: You can claim anything if you remove the barrier of evidence.
contextual information: Rumors are surging in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting protests against police violence and racial injustice in the United States. Stay informed. Read our special coverage, contribute to support our mission, and submit any tips or claims you see here. Read contribute here In June 2020, several social media users copy-pasted a piece of text across social media that claimed the Rev. Al Sharpton was paid $24,000 to speak at the funeral of George Floyd, the Black man whose death while in police custody sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice. social media Verbatim or near-verbatim copies of this message "Al Sharpton was paid $24,000 to speak at George Floyd's funeral" have been shared by dozens of users on Facebook and Twitter. The earliest posting of this message that we could find was shared on June 13, a few days after Floyd's funeral service, by Brian Benedetto. That post had been shared more than 69,000 times: However, none of the posts that we examined offered any evidence to support the claim. These posts weren't accompanied by links to news articles, quotes, TV interviews, financial records, or any other evidence to prove this accusation. It seems that this claim was simply conjured up out of thin air. This type of post, a piece of text overlaid on a bright background, is frequently used to share unfounded claims, which are repeated over and over until some people become convinced that they are true. Poynter wrote in 2019: Poynter When Facebook started letting users post text on top of colored backgrounds in 2016, it seemed like a fairly benign way to get people to share more personal thoughts on the platform. [...] But since then, like other formats on Facebook, the text post feature has been weaponized into an effective way to spread misinformation on the platform. Over the past few weeks, some of the most viral hoaxes on Facebook have spread in the form of text posts. They make salacious political claims without linking to any website or attaching a photo or video. They often come from regular Facebook users instead of Pages or Groups. There is no evidence to support the claim that Sharpton was paid $24,000 to speak at Floyd's funeral. This claim did not originate with a credible source and is not supported by any available evidence. However, we can't definitively say that Sharpton was not paid for this speaking engagement. We reached out to Sharpton and The Fountain of Praise Church in Houston for more information and will update this story if we hear back. A video of Sharpton's eulogy can be viewed below: eulogy Funke, Daniel. "Forget Fake News Stories. False Text Posts Are Getting Massive Engagement on Facebook."
Poynter. 6 March 2019. Emmrich, Stuart. "The Most Moving Moment of Al Sharptons Eulogy for George Floyd."
Vogue. 2 June 2020. CBS Minnesota. "Al Sharpton To Deliver Eulogy At George Floyd Memorial Service." 2 June 2020. | 2 | [
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FMD214 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Washingtons BlogEveryone s talking about fake news Google Trends shows that starting in late October that phrase absolutely exploded in terms of internet searches:In the last month, Obama, Merkel, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post and many other mainstream media have warned about the dangers of fake news.There certainly is a lot of fake news. And some of it is by anti-establishment types trying to discredit American institutions with false reports.But as we document below the government and mainstream media are by far the biggest purveyors of fake news.The Government s Been Deploying Propaganda On U.S. Soil for Many YearsThe United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities found in 1975 that the CIA submitted stories to the American press: After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the CIA. By this time, Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The usual methodology was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to witting or unwitting reporters. Those reports would then be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services.The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning off funds intended for the Marshall Plan [i.e. the rebuilding of Europe by the U.S. after WWII]. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers.In 2008, the New York Times wrote:During the early years of the cold war, [prominent writers and artists, from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to Jackson Pollock] were supported, sometimes lavishly, always secretly, by the C.I.A. as part of its propaganda war against the Soviet Union. It was perhaps the most successful use of soft power in American history.A CIA operative told Washington Post owner Philip Graham in a conversation about the willingness of journalists to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories: You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month. Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977: More than 400 American journalists in the past twenty five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. ***In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America s leading news organizations.***Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were [the heads of CBS, Time, the New York Times, the Louisville Courier Journal, and Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include [ABC, NBC, AP, UPI, Reuters], Hearst Newspapers, Scripps Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald Tribune.***There is ample evidence that America s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. Let s not pick on some poor reporters, for God s sake, William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee s investigators. Let s go to the managements.***The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were taught to make noises like reporters, explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management.***Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.***Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Timeand Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.***In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine s foreign correspondents attended CIA briefing dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS.***When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from, said a former deputy director of the Agency. Frank Wisner dealt with him. Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency s premier orchestrator of black operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his mighty Wurlitzer, a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.)***In November 1973, after [the CIA claimed to have ended the program], Colby told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington Star that the Agency had some three dozen American newsmen on the CIA payroll, including five who worked for general circulation news organizations. Yet even while the Senate Intelligence Committee was holding its hearings in 1976, according to high level CIA sources, the CIA continued to maintain ties with seventy five to ninety journalists of every description executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews. More than half of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976.***Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side . There were a lot of representations that if this stuff got out some of the biggest names in journalism would get smeared .An expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA now employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations. Whether or not his estimate is accurate, it is clear that many prominent reporters still report to the CIA.A 4-part BBC documentary called the Century of the Self shows that an American Freud s nephew, Edward Bernays created the modern field of manipulation of public perceptions, and the U.S. government has extensively used his techniques.John Pilger is a highly-regarded journalist (the BBC s world affairs editor John Simpson remarked, A country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed ). Pilger said in 2007:We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by the British secret intelligence service MI-6. In what they called Operation Mass Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All of these stories were fake.***One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. I have to tell you, said the spokesman, that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don t have to do any of that. What is the secret? Nick Davies wrote in the Independent in 2008: For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I ve spent the last two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media.The Zarqawi letter which made it on to the front page of The New York Times in February 2004 was one of a sequence of highly suspect documents which were said to have been written either by or to Zarqawi and which were fed into news media.This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of strategic communications which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and Nato who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda. ***The Pentagon has now designated information operations as its fifth core competency alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own psyop element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department s campaign of public diplomacy which includes funding radio stations and news websites. In Britain, the Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations in the Ministry of Defence works with specialists from 15 UK psyops, based at the Defence Intelligence and Security School at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.In the case of British intelligence, you can see this combination of reckless propaganda and failure of oversight at work in the case of Operation Mass Appeal. This was exposed by the former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, who describes in his book, Iraq Confidential, how, in London in June 1998, he was introduced to two black propaganda specialists from MI6 who wanted him to give them material which they could spread through editors and writers who work with us from time to time .The government is still paying off reporters to spread disinformation. And the corporate media are acting like virtual escort services for the moneyed elites, selling access for a price to powerful government officials, instead of actually investigating and reporting on what those officials are doing.One of the ways that the U.S. government spreads propaganda is by making sure that it gets its version out first. For example, the head of the U.S. Information Agency s television and film division Alvin A. Snyder wrote in his book, Warriors of Disinformation: How Lies, Videotape, and the USIA Won the Cold War: All governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first. ***Another casualty, always war s first, was the truth. The story of [the accidental Russian shoot-down of a Korean airliner] will be remembered pretty much the way we told it in 1983, not the way it really happened.In 2013, the American Congress repealed the formal ban against the deployment of propaganda against U.S. citizens living on American soil. So there s even less to constrain propaganda than before.One of the most common uses of propaganda is to sell unnecessary and counter-productive wars. Given that the American media is always pro-war, mainstream publishers, producers, editors, and reporters are willing participants.It s not just lying about Saddam s non-existent weapons of mass destruction the corporate media is still selling lies to promote war. While the older generation that pioneered these domestic propaganda techniques has passed from the scene, many of their prot g s are still around along with some of the same organizations. The National Endowment for Democracy, which was formed in 1983 at the urging of CIA Director Casey and under the supervision of Walter Raymond s NSC operation, is still run by the same neocon, Carl Gershman, and has an even bigger budget, now exceeding $100 million a year.Gershman and his NED played important behind-the-scenes roles in instigating the Ukraine crisis by financing activists, journalists and other operatives who supported the coup against elected President Yanukovych. The NED-backed Freedom House also beat the propaganda drums. [See Consortiumnews.com s A Shadow Foreign Policy. ]Two other Reagan-era veterans, Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, have both provided important intellectual support for continuing U.S. interventionism around the world. Earlier this year, Kagan s article for The New Republic, entitled Superpowers Don t Get to Retire, touched such a raw nerve with President Obama that he hosted Kagan at a White House lunch and crafted the presidential commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of Kagan s criticism of Obama s hesitancy to use military force.***Rupert Murdoch s media empire is bigger than ever .Another key to American propaganda is the constant repetition of propaganda. As Business Insider reported in 2013:Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a highly-respected officer who released a critical report regarding the distortion of truth by senior military officials in Iraq and Afghanistan .From Lt. Col. Davis:In context, Colonel Leap is implying we ought to change the law to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 appears to serve this purpose by allowing for the American public to be a target audience of U.S. government-funded information campaigns.Davis also quotes Brigadier General Ralph O. Baker the Pentagon officer responsible for the Department of Defense s Joint Force Development who defines Information Operations (IO) as activities undertaken to shape the essential narrative of a conflict or situation and thus affect the attitudes and behaviors of the targeted audience. Brig. Gen. Baker goes on to equate descriptions of combat operations with the standard marketing strategy of repeating something until it is accepted:For years, commercial advertisers have based their advertisement strategies on the premise that there is a positive correlation between the number of times a consumer is exposed to product advertisement and that consumer s inclination to sample the new product. The very same principle applies to how we influence our target audiences when we conduct COIN.And those thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs appear to serve Baker s strategy, which states: Repetition is a key tenet of IO execution, and the failure to constantly drive home a consistent message dilutes the impact on the target audiences. Government Massively Manipulates the Web, Social Media and Other Forms of CommunicationOf course, the Web and social media have become a huge media platform, and the Pentagon and other government agencies are massively manipulating both.Documents released by Snowden show that spies manipulate polls, website popularity and pageview counts, censor videos they don t like and amplify messages they do.The CIA and other government agencies also put enormous energy into pushing propaganda throughmovies, television and video games.Cross-Border PropagandaPropaganda isn t limited to our own borders Sometimes, the government plants disinformation in American media in order to mislead foreigners. For example, an official government summary of America s overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950 s states, In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq (page x).The CIA has also bribed leading foreign journalists.And CNN accepted money from the brutal Bahrani dictatorship to run pro-monarchy propaganda.Everyone Who Challenges the Status Quo Is Labeled As a Purveyor of Fake News Or WorseThe First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of the press from censorship by government.Indeed, the entire reason that it s unlawful for the government to stop stories from being printed is because that would punish those who criticize those in power.Why? Because the Founding Father knew that governments (like the British monarchy) will always crack down on those who point out that the emperor has no clothes.But the freedom of the press is under massive attack in America today For example, the powers-that-be argue that only highly-paid corporate media shills who will act as stenographers for the fatcats should have the constitutional protections guaranteeing freedom of the press.A Harvard law school professor argues that the First Amendment is outdated and should be abandoned.When financially-savvy bloggers challenged the Federal Reserve s policy, a Fed official called all bloggers stupid and unqualified to comment.And the government is treating the real investigative reporters like criminals or even terrorists:READ MORE MSM LIES AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Files | 0 | [
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FMD215 | 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 Facebook Removing Military Amputee Photos? Claim summaries: Cognitive dissonance: Using Facebook to share a photograph that has supposedly been banned by Facebook.
contextual information: Since at least August 2013 a message has been circulated via Facebook claiming the social networking site was removing posted photographs of military veterans who had lost limbs due to amputation or injury, reportedly because Facebook has deemed such images to be "offensive" and a violation of the company's community standards: Facebook is removing Veteran Amputees photos' and calling them offensive and against the Community Standards of Facebook. Please like and share. However, there is absolutely no basis for asserting that Facebook has taken such an action or implemented such a policy. No published Facebook guidelines make reference (directly or indirectly) to this class of photograph being unacceptable, and many images featuring amputees and other persons with missing limbs (including both military personnel and civilians) have long been plainly viewable on that social networking site. (In fact, one of the more popular images commonly shared on Facebook in recent years is one that is identified, albeit incorrectly, as showing a group of female veteran amputees.) amputees amputees Moreover, the content of the warning message itself belies its claim, as it has been posted and shared on Facebook countless times despite its inclusion of a supposedly-banned photograph of a military amputee. The image shown above is a picture of Casey Owens, a U.S. Marine whose legs were amputated after he was injured by shrapnel from an anti-tank mine while he was taking part in a rescue mission in Iraq in September 2004. This particular photograph was taken while Owens was attending the inauguration of President George W. Bush in January 2005: inauguration Casey Owens, a wounded Marine, salutes as his mother Janna Owens cries during the inaugural speech by President Bush. The president pledged to work to heal a country divided by the Iraq war. "We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes, and I will strive in good faith to heal them." Sydiongco, David. "Don't Bother Posting the 'Facebook Privacy Notice' That's Spreading Around."
Slate. 5 June 2012. | 0 | [
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FMD216 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It was rare for poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to venture into the realm of politics, however, quite a few of his songs, including some of his love songs, were infused with a bleakness that confronted morality and the darkness of humanity. He also wrote a song of hope and possibility about the experiment of democracy in the United States that, perhaps, takes on a new kind of resonance in the wake of the election of Donald Trump.
Cohen was asked in 2014 if songs can offer solutions to political problems. He replied, “I think the song itself is a kind of solution.”
And so, to pay tribute to a troubadour who died at 82 and whose artistic work only seemed to get better as he aged and his voice grew deeper, here is a retrospective on some of the more philosophical and sociopolitical songs he composed.
“Joan Of Arc” (1971) Cohen declared in an interview for Rolling Stone in 1971, “Women are really strong. You notice how strong they are? Well, let them take over. Let us be what we’re supposed to be – gossips, musicians, wrestlers. The premise being, there can be no free men unless there are free women.” He believed it was just for women to gain control of the world.
With that context, this elegiac narrative takes on greater gravitas. It consists of a dialogue between Joan of Arc and the Fire, as she is burnt at the stake. The women’s movement was flourishing at the time, and Cohen saw Joan of Arc as a symbol of courage. Yet, he also recognized she may have been lonely because she had to disguise herself as a male soldier, and he imagined what it was like to fight English domination of France and in her final moments face down the fact that she would never return to what could be considered an ordinary life.
“Dance Me To The End Of Love” (1984) During a CBC radio interview in 1995, Cohen said the song came from “hearing and reading or knowing that in the death camps” during the Holocaust “beside the crematoria” the string quartet would be “pressed into performance” while “this horror” unfolded. Cohen sings in the opening, “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove.” The song represents an embrace of passionate acts in the face of atrocities and death.
“If It Be Your Will” (1984) This is a truly grim song in which Cohen is probably using the specter of a benevolent oppressor or fascism as a metaphor for the next stage of a relationship. And yet, the lyrics are subtle enough that Cohen may be addressing morality and how easy it is to convince men to carry out heinous acts. He sings, “All your children here in their rags of light/In our rags of light/All dressed to kill/And end this night/If it be your will.”
“First We Take Manhattan” (1987) The song is about terrorism or militant extremism. It is told from the perspective of an individual who tried to work within the system in order to change it. That failed. Now the individual has taken solace in the “beauty of his weapons” and turned to Manhattan and to Berlin to make his or her mark.
In a 2007 interview for XM Radio, he said, “There’s something about terrorism that I’ve always admired. The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises. That position is always very attractive. I don’t like it when it’s manifested on the physical plane. I don’t really enjoy the terrorist activities, but psychic terrorism. I remember there was a great poem by Irving Layton that I once read, I’ll give you a paraphrase of it. It was ‘well, you guys blow up an occasional airline and kill a few children here and there’, he says. ‘But our terrorists, Jesus, Freud, Marx, Einstein. The whole world is still quaking.'”
What Cohen meant, albeit in a very cynical way, is the philosophies of these people have such a history of being used to justify horrible acts. He never engages with the subject fully (and probably never wanted to do so), but Cohen’s song clearly approaches the issue of state-sponsored political violence versus political violence of the individual.
“Everybody Knows” (1988) It is one of the most well-known songs he ever recorded. The wry cynicism diagnoses the realities of a cruel world. In the neoliberal age of austerity, the opening lyrics are exceptionally appropriate, “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.”
Cohen sings, “Everybody knows that you’re in trouble.” Those in charge of the social order are indifferent to the pain and suffering of the masses. But are the owners and politicians capable of maintaining control? Because everybody also knows that it is coming apart.
“Democracy (1990) Cohen described in an interview with Paul Zollo that he wrote the song after the Berlin Wall came down. “Everyone was saying democracy is coming to the east, and I was like that gloomy fellow who always turns up at a party to ruin the orgy or something. And I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen that way. I don’t think this is such a good idea. I think a lot of suffering will be the consequence of this wall coming down.'”
That seems strikingly backward. But it motivated Cohen to ask, “Where is democracy really coming?” He thought there may be more democracy coming to the United States. From a love of America, he wrote a song that is really about the irony of America, “a song of deep intimacy and affirmation of the experiment of democracy in this country.” He added, “This is really where the experiment is unfolding. This is really where the races confront one another, where the classes, where the genders, where even the sexual orientations confront one another. This is the real laboratory of democracy.”
Given the American exceptionalism of Cohen’s statement, he could have easily produced something with lyrics Lee Greenwood would have proudly belted out on stage. However, each time Cohen sings, “Democracy is coming to the USA,” there is a raw irony it, like he does not believe the forces running this nation are capable of democracy. Then, there’s the inimitable line, “I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean. I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.” It makes it clear Cohen was a disappointed idealist. Like so many, he liked the idea of America but seeing it play out on that “hopeless little screen” was never quite what he had in mind.
“The Future” (1990) For this song, Cohen’s character looks into the future, and it is not good at all. It is so frightening, in fact, that he thinks he would be willing to see fascist society restored. “Give me back the Berlin wall. Give me Stalin and St Paul. Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima.”
The song hurdles onward into more nostalgia for familiar horror, “Destroy another fetus now. We don’t like children anyhow. I’ve seen the future, baby: it is murder.” He has no hope that humanity can right itself. Civilization can try and erect a social order with a tyrant or it can unravel tyranny and push for something more just. Yet, inevitably, to Cohen’s character, there will be murder. In which case, what really is the right thing to do?
“On That Day” (2004) Cohen wrote this as a response to the September 11th attacks. It is an artifact that represents reactions to what happened. He sings, “Some people say it’s what we deserve for sins against god, for crimes in the world.” There are others who blame it on the fact that women live “unveiled” or because the country has its fortunes as well as people who are subjugated. Whatever the case may be, Cohen does not seek to settle the discussion. Rather, he seems more interested in whether those who survived were able to press onward. So he poses a rhetorical question: “Did you go crazy or did you report on that day?” Then the song abruptly ends.
“Amen” (2012) This song comes from the latter era of Cohen’s life, where the sultry nature of his music took on a much more wistful and brooding characteristic. He wrote about love but love in a time of war or love with inescapable horror all around.
In “Amen,” the character Cohen channels desperately wants to love. He must first see through the terror around him. He does not think he can love until the “victims are singing and laws of remorse are restored.” He does not think he can love until the “day has been ransomed and night has no right to begin.” He awaits some kind of redemption and only then will he be able to feel wanted again, but there is too much despair and destruction right now for the character to indulge in pleasure.
“Almost Like the Blues” (2014) We live in a world of permanent war, and so, in this gorgeously layered piece of music, Cohen grapples with atrocities he witnessed. “I saw some people starving. There was murder, there was rape. Their villages were burning. They were trying to escape. I couldn’t meet their glances. I was staring at my shoes. It was acid. It was tragic. It was almost like the blues.”
Few of Cohen’s songs are as profound. The song, which appears on “Popular Problems,” could easily be grappling with what goes through the minds of war criminals. He sings, “I have to die a little between each murderous thought, and when I’m finished thinking, I have to die a lot.” The soldier witnesses torture or is party to it. He witnesses killing or is party to it. “And there’s all my bad reviews.” It seems his superiors are unhappy with his performance. Maybe, they do not think he is killing enough. Whatever the case may be, he has lost his grip on morality entirely and finds himself confronting the scope of his sins.
“A Street” (2014) To Cohen, “Popular Problems” was all about dealing with defeat . He told the Telegraph the lyrics were about facing down failure, disappointment, bewilderment—especially the “dark forces that modify our lives.” What is a person to do?
“Recognize that your struggle and your suffering is the same as everyone else’s,” Cohen suggested. “I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, we are in a continual savage battle with each other with no possible solution, political, social, or spiritual.”
While referring to “A Street,” which is about a faltering romance during war, he added, “When I say ‘the party’s over but I’ve landed on my feet . I’m standing on this corner where there used to be a street,’ I think that’s probably the theme of the whole album. Yeah, the scene is blown up, but you just can’t keep lamenting the fact. There is another position. You have to stand in that place where there used to be a street and conduct yourself as if there still is a street.”
In a very basic sense, the master of romantic despair, the high priest of pathos, has now gone up to that Tower of Song, meant people have to find ways to keep living. They have to exist, and by existing, that is in and of itself an act of resistance to all the depravity that unfolds around them.
The post The Political Songs Of Leonard Cohen appeared first on Shadowproof . | 0 | [
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FMD217 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: There are a lot of crazy Republicans out there. Trump supporters, Alex Jones disciples, hell Alex Jones himself. But then there is the one who might be the pinnacle of clinically insane Republicans and that is Robert Morrow.Morrow is the brand new chair of the Republican Party in Travis County, Texas, where the state capitol of Austin is located. Sounds like an important guy. Right?You might think that he is some party insider with a track record of qualifications for such an important position in what is such a traditionally Republican state. That thought would be instantly destroyed once you read this guy s Twitter account.It s hard to explain how this individual won the election, with the stuff he says online. It isn t a troll account. It isn t some work of performance art or an impersonator that hacked his Twitter. It s REALLY him and it is, for Republicans, an embarrassment to say the least.Remember this is an elected Republican chairman of one of the most important counties in the largest Republican state in the country.The following tweets are not exactly safe for work. Much of the Bush family should be in Jail. Rick Perry is (was) a rampaging bisexual adulterer. https://t.co/Bn5y4puIJR Robert Morrow (@RobMorroLiberty) March 2, 2016GHW Bush, CIA drug smuggler 1980's. Homosexual pedophile involved with Franklin pedophile ring. October Surprise. https://t.co/k01SQjqLs2 Robert Morrow (@RobMorroLiberty) March 2, 2016So do all your sexual fantasies about Hillary Clinton involve "snuff films?" Probably not good for most of you Bill to answer that question Robert Morrow (@RobMorroLiberty) February 28, 2016The simply astronomical amount of fully insane conspiracy theories, vulgar references, homophobic, misogynistic, bigoted, racist and otherwise generally offensive things on his twitter are impossible to describe with mere words. If you are particularly brave and have some free time, you can entertain yourself by reading it HERE.Morrow goes on to say Hillary Clinton is a bull dyke, that she has had more female partners than Bill (an obvious dig at Bill s alleged history of affairs), and that Chelsea Clinton is actually some other man s daughter. Morrow is an equal opportunity offender, though, and accuses Marco Rubio of attending gay foam parties, and said he needs to be in gay underwear advertisements. In fact, he compared the entire Republican National Committee to a gay foam party. The RNC is a gay foam party https://t.co/xEhcnObTa0 Robert Morrow (@RobMorroLiberty) February 27, 2016Pretty sure George W. Bush can suck a dick better than Hillary Clinton https://t.co/sZFJdcujd2 Robert Morrow (@RobMorroLiberty) March 2, 2016For a totally heterosexual Republican, this guy thinks about gay stuff more than actual gay people. Morrow also had a now deleted Facebook page, where he posted many grossly offensive things about Hillary Clinton. Just one example is below:Hillary Clinton masturbation fantasy update. 3 HOURS 27 MINUTES 15 SECONDS. What is wrong with me? I am I getting old? Losing the passion? No matter how much I sniff Hillary s panties which I bought off of Ebay, I can NEVER seen to be able to last more than 4 hours choking the chicken while thinking about her. [Facebook, 11/13/13]Source: Media MattersI am not going to be adding more of the Facebook posts because the one above is probably the tamest out of all of them. If you really want to see more you can follow the link to Media Matters above. Remember, I warned you about them.Surprisingly, other Texas Republicans seem to be suddenly shocked by this and are now vowing to force Morrow out of office.Morrow s Vice Chairman, Matt Mackowiak, had this to say: We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account, Mackowiak told the Tribune. I m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover. Source: LatestMorrow s response to the Texas Tribune regarding the threat was tell them they can go f-ck themselves. Mackowiak commented further on the situation: We have someone who ran here who absolutely has no intention of serving the Republican Party with leadership and faithfulness, Mackowiak said. His social media account is something that no child should see. He is a total disaster. Source: Texas Star TribuneAll I have to say is this: Republicans asked for it. Ever since 2008 when Obama won his first election, the entire Republican party on every level from local to federal has embraced the worst of the worst of the worst of their ultra right-wing fringe lunatics. It guaranteed them an easily motivated and manipulated voting base. However, now they have to deal with the mess they ve wrought and in many cases, they are simply powerless to do so.Mackowiak has said he and other county legislators are even considering forming a Republican splinter cell in Travis County, to form a new organization to usurp the existing one if they have no options to force Morrow out of office.Morrow will assume his post in June. If you re a liberal in Travis County, tell a Republican friend Told ya so! Featured image via Youtube | 0 | [
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FMD218 | 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: Did a Florida Manatee Break Free from Bicycle Tire Entanglement? Claim summaries: Sea cows are nicknamed for their rotund appearance and affinity for water grass.
contextual information: A Florida manatee spotted ensnared in a bicycle tire in October 2019 was seen again more than a year later, this time without the potentially deadly entrapment wrapped around its body. A Facebook post shared on Dec. 5, 2020, by the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) and Wildlife Research Institute described the return of the now-free manatee as it made its way back to Blue Spring State Park, a spring-fed sanctuary outside of Orlando known for its annual return of hundreds of manatees every winter. known Aptly named Schwinn by researchers and Wheelie by concerned citizens, the manatee was reported in October 2019 in Fernandina Beach before it migrated some 150 miles to Blue Spring for the winter. During its stay, wildlife officials made several attempts to rescue the manatee but were unable to do so safely. Due to the difficulties involved in making a safe rescue among hundreds of other manatees staying warm in the spring, Schwinn became wary and evaded rescue boats, research canoes, or approaching in-water biologists, making it impossible to safely rescue the tire-encircled manatee, wrote the affiliated nonprofit organization, Save the Manatee, in a news release. news release But a cold front in late 2020 brought the manatees back to the sanctuary, where the previously entangled manatee was recognized on a live webcam maintained by the Save the Manatee Club. This time around, conservationists noted that the marine mammal returned a little lighter than last year. live webcam Experts cannot determine exactly how the manatee escaped the encircling tire. Ironically, Schwinn the manatee was superficially struck by a boats propeller in February, which cut through a significant portion of the tire, added the FWC. The cut from the propeller likely weakened the tire, allowing the manatee to swim free sometime later. Nicknamed sea cows for their similarities to livestock, manatees are fully aquatic marine mammals that survive nearly entirely on water grass. The Florida manatee, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, is considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act and designated as below their optimum sustainable population level or depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. These slow-moving mammals are largely threatened by human interference by way of boat collisions, entanglement in fishing gear and other trash, and a loss of habitat. considered Schwinn the manatee bears obvious scars from the bicycle tire entanglement. Each year, many manatees are killed or injured by debris discarded into the waterways. Save the Manatee Save the Manatee | 1 | [
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FMD219 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Posted on October 30, 2016 by The Free Thought Project
Decade-old audio exposes then-Senator Hillary Clinton saying the US should have manipulated Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 to prevent a Hamas victory. The presidential candidate lamented that the US didn’t “determine who was going to win.”
“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” then-New York Senator Clinton told the Jewish Press, a New York-based weekly newspaper, several months after the January election.
“And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she said.
Until Friday, the comment Clinton made on September 5, 2006, only existed on a private audio cassette belonging to journalist Eli Chomsky. An editor and a staff writer for the Jewish Press, he interviewed Clinton at the newspaper’s office in Brooklyn.
Chomsky, who shared and played the tape for the Observer, says it is the only existing copy of that meeting with Clinton, during which the Palestinian parliamentary election was among primary topics. The comments have been posted on SoundCloud.
Speaking to the news portal, he recalled being confused by the fact that “anyone could support the idea — offered by a national political leader, no less — that the US should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.” 2006 audio emerges of Clinton proposing election rigging in Palestine; censored by Israeli press for past 10 years https://t.co/LsMYcUzJR4
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 28, 2016
The interview took place nine months after the Hamas movement claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, pushing aside the US-favored Fatah movement and securing the right to form a new cabinet. That victory was neither welcomed in Israel, nor in the US. In Washington, where Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, officials repeatedly stated that they would not work with a Palestinian Authority that included Hamas.
Then-President George W. Bush spoke of the elections as symbolizing the “power of democracy,” but refused to deal with Hamas as long as it opposed Israel’s existence and espoused violence.
That day in September 2006, Clinton made “odd and controversial comments,” all now saved on the 45-minute record that Chomsky “held onto all these years.”
“I went to my bosses at the time,” Chomsky told the Observer. “The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybody — even a direct quote from anyone — in a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didn’t think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years.” Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 | [
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FMD220 | 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: Tide Detergent Thefts Claim summaries: Are U.S. stores experiencing a rash of thefts of Tide brand laundry detergent?
contextual information: Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2012] Are people stealing Tide to pay for drugs and is it an epidemic? Origins: On 12 March 2012, The Daily, an iPad publication, reported on a "Grime Wave": a rash of store thefts of Tide brand laundry detergent that had left law enforcement officials across the country puzzled. According to the report, some cities were setting up special task forces to stop Tide theft, retailers were taking special security precautions to protect their Tide, and one Minnesota man stole $25,000 worth of the product before recently being caught. The proffered reasons behind the Tide crime wave were that laundry detergent is a household staple with a relatively high price ($10 to $20 a bottle) which is easily resold to consumers (or other stores), that it's impossible to track, and that Tide is the most recognizable and popular of detergent brands. reported One portion of the Daily report linked the Tide-stealing spree to the drug trade and left some readers wondering whether the article was intended as satire: Most thieves load carts with dozens of bottles, then dash out the door. Many have getaway cars waiting outside. "These are criminals coming into the store to steal thousands of dollars of merchandise," said Detective Harrison Sprague of the Prince Georges County, Md., Police Department, where Tide is known as "liquid gold" among officers. He and other law enforcement officials across the country say Tide theft is connected to the drug trade. In fact, a recent drug sting turned up more Tide than cocaine. "We sent in an informant to buy drugs. The dealer said, 'I don't have drugs, but I could sell you 15 bottles of Tide,'" Sprague told The Daily. "Upstairs in the drug dealer's bedroom was about 14 bottles of Tide laundry soap. We think [users] are trading it for drugs." Police in Gresham, Ore., said most Tide theft is perpetrated by "users feeding their habit." "They'll do it right in front of a cop car buying heroin or methamphetamine with Tide," said Detective Rick Blake of the Gresham Police Department. "We would see people walking down the road with six, seven bottles of Tide. They were so blatant about it." The following day, FoxNews.com (which is owned by the same parent corporation as The Daily) questioned the article, reporting that evidence supporting claims of an alleged nationwide rise in Tide detergent theft appeared to be scant: reporting While police acknowledge that name-brand household items are commonly swiped from store shelves, authorities in at least two states referenced by [The Daily] say they have not seen a specific rise in stolen Tide detergent. Lt. Matt Swenke of the West St. Paul Police Department in Minnesota referenced one case of a man suspected of stealing $25,000 worth of Tide detergent from a Walmart in West St. Paul over a 15-month period. He said the man, identified as 53-year-old Patrick Costanzo, was seen on surveillance video stocking up his surveillance video shopping cart with various items, including Tide, and walking out of the store without paying. But, Swenke said, "We haven't noticed anything in terms of this being a rising problem." He said of the five major retailers in the West St. Paul area, only one store Walmart came forward to police about thousands of dollars of missing Tide inventory believed to have been taken by Costanzo. "As of yet, we have not been contacted by any of our larger retail establishments," Swenke told FoxNews.com. "I don't know any other jurisdictions in Minnesota that have had that volume." Authorities in Kentucky also backed away from the claim that Tide theft is on the rise. Lt. Shannon Smith of the Somerset Police Department recalled a case from 2011 in which three individuals were charged with shoplifting from Cincinnati-based Kroger stores as well as from a local Walmart. Smith says the alleged shoplifters made off with several items, including Tide detergent, and then sold them on the black market to small, privately-owned stores. [H]e stressed that Tide theft, in particular, is no more widespread in the Somerset area than theft of other popular household items. Retailers, meanwhile, also are denying reports of a new spike in stolen Tide products. "We are not experiencing a 'wave' of Tide thefts," CVS/pharmacy public relations director Mike DeAngelis wrote. Other mainstream news outlets who followed up on the story reported instances of thieves' pilfering Tide detergent from stores, but in many of those cases the shoplifters were caught stealing a variety of household goods, not just Tide. Some outlets however, reported information along the lines of the The Daily's original article. For example, an Associated Press account stated: "We've seen organized retail crime, or the theft of goods for profit, resale or barter, for many years now," said Joseph LaRocca, senior adviser on asset protection for the National Retail Federation. LaRocca said that Tide had not shown up previously on lists of the most commonly targeted items, but that several retailers told him this week it has been a problem. In Prince George's County, police said they learned from informants, undercover officers and other sources that drug dealers encourage their customers to pay with shoplifted Tide instead of cash. "I'm out of marijuana right now, but when I get re-upped I'll hook you up if you can get me 15 bottles of Tide," one dealer was quoted as telling an informant, according to police. Surveillance videos from a Safeway in Bowie, Md., showed crews of two or three people entering the store, loading up shopping carts and rushing outside, where they loaded the detergent into a waiting car. Police made nearly 30 arrests when they broke up the theft ring last fall. Employees at a Duane Reade drugstore inside New York City's Penn Station said that a few weeks ago, a man walked in with a suitcase and filled it up with bottles of Tide. He was caught on a security camera and detained. Several retailers were tightlipped about the problem. A Safeway spokesman said only that Tide thefts aren't unique to the chain's stores. A Target representative said the company is aware of the issue and encouraging stores to be vigilant. Last updated: 15 March 2012 Corbin, Cristina. "Police Say Reports of Nationwide Spike in Tide Thefts Doesn't Wash." FoxNews.com. 13 March 2012. Nestel, M.L. "Grime Wave." The Daily. 12 March 2012. Nuckols, Ben. "Thieves Rolling Tide Detergent Out of Stores." Associated Press. 14 March 2012. | 2 | [
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FMD221 | 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: Nude College Roommate Claim summaries: College student bursts into dorm room naked and finds his girlfriend and parents waiting inside.
contextual information: A college student bursts into his dorm room naked to play a crude prank on his roommate, not realizing that his girlfriend and her parents are waiting inside. Two roommates had taken to pulling crude pranks on each other in the dorm. One lazy Sunday afternoon, one of the roommates went down the hall from his room to take a shower. His fellow roommate was in the room studying when there was a knock on the door. The showering roommate's father, who had driven down for a visit, entered, bringing with him the girlfriend of the showerer and his mother. The folks were quite naturally invited into the room, and they began to chat. The other roommate was quite taken with the girlfriend, and he did not go to get his friend, likely assuming he would return soon, which he did. Clad only in a towel, he threw it off as he opened the door and barged in; gripping his penis, he screamed, "Bang, bang; you're dead!" Some versions suggest that the second roommate deliberately does not give the returning showerer any warning because he has designs on his roommate's girlfriend himself. In another variation, the showerer has two roommates and is thus not tipped off by the sounds of conversation coming from the room when he returns. Some variants involve the showerer wrapping his towel around his head and shouting with a foreign accent as he enters the room. One variant describes a student who strips naked and hides inside the closet of his girlfriend's dormitory room. He jumps out of the closet when he hears someone enter the room, only to discover that the new arrival is the fire inspectors and not his girlfriend. A quaint legend from an era when same-sex dormitories and chaperoned visits were the norm, impressing your girl's parents was the most important part of the dating ritual (after impressing your girl, of course). Embarrassing yourself in front of your girl's parents (and your girl to boot) was the ultimate in dating disasters, and what could be more humiliating than being caught acting goofy while naked? In the following years, when we began to admit that young, unmarried people actually engaged in sex (but we still didn't condone it), we developed a few answers to that "What could be more humiliating?" question. We had the Blind Date legend, in which a young man's intentions of engaging in sex were inadvertently revealed to his date's father, and then the Fete Worse Than Death legend, in which both boyfriend and girlfriend are caught participating in sexual foreplay in front of a host of friends and relatives. This legend is now a mostly moribund relic of a time when sexual attitudes were less liberal, superseded by tales of adults caught engaging in "unusual" (and formerly unmentionable) sexual practices that still have the power to shock or titillate some listeners. | 1 | [
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FMD222 | 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: Did Deutsche Bank Fund Auschwitz, Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and ISIS? Claim summaries: The suggestion that working from home is a "privilege" led some on social media to dig into the bank's past.
contextual information: On Nov. 11, 2020, Bloomberg reported that strategists at Deutsche Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, recommended levying a tax against people who plan to continue working from home, arguing that "remote workers should pay a tax for the privilege. At least on Twitter, this was a poorly received take. One particularly viral response alleged that the bank "funded Auschwitz, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and ISIS." reported response As we show below, the tweet is a largely accurate recounting of history, though the assertion that the bank funded ISIS overstates what is publicly known at this time. In 1999, during negotiations to merge with the New York-based Bankers Trust, the Germany-based Deutsche Bank disclosed that it had helped finance the construction of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. As reported by Reuters at the time, Deutsche Bank's historian, Manfred Pohl, described the bank's loans to companies involved in multiple aspects of Auschwitz, including loans for construction of the camp and its incineration units, as well as to a company involved in the production of the deadly Zyklon-B gas, which the Nazis used to murder millions: reported Manfred Pohl, head of Deutsche Banks historical institute, said newly uncovered documents showed the bank had links with firms that built the camp in Poland. It also had credit links to one company that made incineration units and funded another whose subsidiary made the Zyklon-B gas used in the camp. On examination of credit records, we determined that branches . had credit links to local companies which were active at the construction site . in Auschwitz, Pohl said at a media briefing in Frankfurt. Pohl told reporters that the existence of these loans would have been known to high-ranking managers of the bank. "It is clear that this was known as high up at the main office in Katowice. It is not certain whether it was known in Berlin," Pohl said, though he added these loans would have had to be approved in Berlin to go ahead. Deutsche Bank has had a relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump since 1998. As reported in The New York Times, "Over the course of two decades, the bank lent him more than $2 billion so much that by the time he was elected, Deutsche Bank was by far his biggest creditor." Speaking to Reuters in November 2020, one bank official said that the Trump Organization currently has around $340 million in outstanding debt from the bank: reported Reuters Deutsche Bank has about $340 million in loans outstanding to the Trump Organization, the presidents umbrella group that is currently overseen by his two sons, according to filings made by Trump to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in July and a senior source within the bank. The three loans, which are against Trump properties and start coming due in two years, are current on payments and personally guaranteed by the president, according to two bank officials. According to that Reuters report, the bank is looking to distance itself from the president moving forward. Their relationship with Trump "cemented Deutsche Banks reputation as a reckless institution willing to do business with clients nobody else would touch," they wrote. "It has made the company a magnet for prosecutors, regulators and lawmakers hoping to penetrate the presidents opaque financial affairs." Regardless, Trump's history with Deutsche Bank is factual and well known. Reuters According to a 2019 report by the New York State Department of Financial Services, "the relationship between Deutsche Bank and Mr. Epstein officially began on August 19, 2013" and eventually involved his opening and funding "more than 40 accounts at the Bank." 2019 report Controversially, they entered into business with Epstein after his 2008 arrest for the solicitation of a minor and after other media revelations about Epstein's alleged trafficking of underage women for sex. Some of these Deutsche Bank accounts were involved in suspicious transactions including, according to The New York Times, "suspiciously large cash withdrawals and 120 wire transfers totaling $2.65 million to women with Eastern European surnames and people who had been publicly identified as Mr. Epsteins co-conspirators." according In July 2020, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $150 million to the New York State Department of Financial Services "to settle allegations that it maintained weak internal controls, including processing hundreds of transactions for Jeffrey Epstein despite the billionaires troubled history." The bank has since apologized for its association with Epstein. apologized In the banking world, Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are notifications made by financial institutions to the United States government about potentially suspicious or illegal activity. A transaction labeled suspicious in these reports does not necessarily indicate illegal activity, however. SARs issued about transactions involving Deutsche Bank have been used to link them to ISIS in multiple investigations. made In December 2017, BuzzFeed News reported on SARs showing that Deutsche Bank had been engaged in business with a corrupt Cyprus bank named FBME that "served as a major conduit to terrorism, organized crime, and chemical weapons." The SARs revealed that "Deutsche processed hundreds of millions of dollars of suspicious transactions for FBME clients including a Kremlin-linked network of Russian slush funds funneling money to financiers of the Syrian regime and a businessman trading oil with ISIS." The reports do not indicate, however, that Deutsche Bank knowingly participated in illegal activity. reported In September 2020, the existence of an even larger trove of SARs obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) was announced. The collaboration a project named the FinCEN files led to hundreds of stories in newsrooms across the world. One story, published by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), identified further transactions that could point to a potential involvement of Deutsche Bank in the movement of funds to, from, and within ISIS held territory. FinCEN files story The files, ARIJ said, "reveal suspicious money transfers of at least $4 billion flagged by Deutsche Banks US branches and Bank of America to a number of Iraqi banks between June 15, 2014 and June 30, 2015." Though the files do not indicate which bank branches were used, they reported, "the transactions were sent and received during the height of the Islamic States reign and its control over several Iraqi bank branches." The report notes that "many of the banks in northern Iraq were in areas of IS [Islamic State] influence, and such transfers could be the proceeds of the illicit oil and gas trade that the organisation largely relied on in its areas of control." said While suggestive of an at least unwitting role for Deutsche Bank in ISIS related finances, these reports are not strong enough evidence to support the statement that Deutsche Bank "funds" ISIS. Because there is some truth to the ISIS claim, and because the other assertions are true, we rank the overall claim made in the viral tweet as "true." | 1 | [
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FMD223 | 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: Did Man Stuck 71 Hours in Elevator Kill and Eat Wife To Survive? Claim summaries: Desperate situations sometimes call for horrifically desperate measures.
contextual information: On 18 April 2017, the entertainment website World News Daily Report (WNDR) published a fake news article claiming that Bruce Franklin, a Philadelphia man, killed and ate his wife after being stuck in an elevator for 71 hours: published 44-year old Bruce Franklin was arrested this morning, after he confessed to killing his wife and eating her flesh while he was stuck with her in an elevator. According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the partially devoured corpse of his wife was lying next to him when he was rescued after being stuck for three days in an elevator. There is no truth to this story. WNDR is a well-known satirical website with a long history of peddling fictional news articles. The site carries this disclaimer: well-known history World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website even those based on real people are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle. As with many of its fake news stories, WNDR used photographs from unrelated events in order to lend credence to its claims: Although we have not been able to uncover the exact source for the mugshot, that image has been online since 2011 when it was included in a gallery of "funny hair" mugshots. online Another image in the article shows Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross, correctly identified by WNDR, but the photograph was taken during a City Council budget hearing in April 2016, not a press event concerning a man who just ate his wife. photograph The final photograph in the article, of the elevator shaft, was taken inside the National Lift Tower in Northampton, England. National Lift Tower | 0 | [
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FMD224 | 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: Scam Alert: Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden Facebook Vouchers Claim summaries: Viral Facebook posts on multiple pages and profiles claimed to offer a "meal for two with drinks voucher offer for everyone!"
contextual information: In early March 2022, we reviewed several reader emails inquiring about purported voucher offers for Olive Garden and Chick-fil-A on Facebook. The posts on multiple Facebook profiles and pages displayed pictures of food from both restaurants and claimed to provide a "meal for two with drinks" for "everyone." However, these were not legitimate offers. The fake voucher offer for Chick-fil-A appeared on facebook.com/ChickFans, as well as other profiles and pages. This page is not managed by the fast-food chicken chain. This was the first step of a scam. We recommend reporting posts like these to Facebook. The post read as follows: "Hello everyone, I'm Michael Gorham. I am very happy to announce I'm the new CEO of Chick-Fil-A. I'd like to start my new job off with a good deed for everyone, as I know recent times have been tough, which is why I'm going to be rewarding everyone who shares and comments in the next 24 hours with a voucher to get a meal for two at any Chick-Fil-A for lunch or dinner." To be clear, Andrew Truett Cathy is the CEO of Chick-fil-A, not someone named "Michael Gorham." Several helpful readers sent in screenshots of the purported voucher offer for Olive Garden. It was similar to the posts for Chick-fil-A and had been circulating since at least September 2021. This did not come from a legitimate Facebook page. The scam Facebook posts with the fake "meal for two with drinks" voucher offer for Olive Garden read as follows: "Olive Garden Meal for two with drinks voucher offer for everyone! I'm Dave George, the president of Olive Garden. I know times have been tough, so to help everyone out, I have a special surprise for everyone who shares and comments. Every person who does this by Sep 28th can get a voucher. Each voucher can be used at any Olive Garden restaurant to get a meal for two with drinks!" Not only was there no voucher since it was a scam, but also Dave George hasn't been with Olive Garden since he retired in 2020. As of early 2022, the company's president was Dan Kiernan. After users commented on the above posts, the scammers directed them to other posts that looked like the one below: These scams have been circulating since at least 2021. Notice that the post pictured above has photographs for Olive Garden but also a Chick-fil-A profile picture in the top-left corner. This indicated that the Facebook accounts involved had managed scams for both restaurant chains. The post read: "#CONGRATULATIONS For those of you who have received comments from us, you have a chance to win them. To Enter??? Step 1 = Like and Share Step 2 = Enter here ? (link removed) ? Step 3 = comment DONE. Like and share our page below?????? God bless you." Upon clicking the link in the posts—something we advise readers against doing—we were led to rewardgiantztesters.com and then promotionsonlineusa.com. These websites appeared to lead to endless offers and surveys. Similar websites can also potentially lead to attempts at phishing, identity theft, or other similar outcomes. According to multiple pages we found that were pushing the same scams, these pages and profiles that promised the fake offers for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden may have been managed from Vietnam and Indonesia. Several of the profiles named "Olive Garden Fans" that are linked in the paragraph above appeared to have switched profile pictures from Olive Garden to Chick-fil-A to run one or both scams. Some of the profiles and pages that displayed the scams showed other businesses as well. The scammers appeared to also push fake voucher offers for Costco, Texas Roadhouse, and KFC. In sum, no, Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden were not giving away vouchers, gift cards, or anything else on Facebook that included a "meal for two with drinks voucher offer." The official Facebook pages for Chick-fil-A and Olive Garden feature blue verified badges. This symbol indicates that a page is genuine. | 0 | [
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FMD225 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: 21st Century Wire says Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive action removing legal obstacles holding up the completion of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. This story will certainly be a hot button for a lot of people. Reactions will likely depend on one s perspective on Trump, understanding of land issues, thoughts on cultural preservation, energy, US jobs, water quality and ecological harmony.With Progressive Leftwing attacks in full overdrive, post Trump s inauguration, many people are looking to the Trump administration to either confirm their worst fears or their greatest hopes, with every move he makes. But remember, Trump s Art of the Deal, is in play now and things may not always be black/white or good/bad, as this administration performs their first set of actions setting the foundation for the next 4-8 years.Many following the issue are not taking into consideration that the pipeline is more than 90% complete when Obama put a hold on the completion of the DAPL via the US Army Corps of Engineers. Obama s move was hardly one of stopping development of this pipeline but was likely politically motivated.It is worth noting that they had previously approved all plans for the completion of the DAPL in June of 2016 and appears to have been put a hold on the completion in the wake of the elevated protests at the Standing Rock location and the US Presidential election.Regardless, both pipeline projects are divisive political hot potato issues which have now fallen into the hands of Donald Trump. Expect Trump s reaction to generate renewed protests and opportunities for negative press.RT explores the topic further in the report below:RTPresident Donald Trump ordered the removal of obstacles to the construction of two major oil and gas pipelines, which the Obama administration had reluctantly blocked after protests from environmentalists and Native Americans.The construction will be subject to terms and conditions to be negotiated by us, Trump said, citing as an example the need for pipe components to be built in the US.Other presidential actions signed on Tuesday included expediting environmental reviews for critical infrastructure projects and streamlining the extremely cumbersome regulatory process for domestic manufacturing. The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled-up mess, Trump said.Tuesday s actions weren t technically executive orders but presidential memoranda, an executive action ranked just below but with equal force. Unlike an executive order, a presidential memorandum does not have to be numbered, include a cost estimate, or cite the authority under which it is issued.White House spokesman Sean Spicer reminded reporters on Tuesday that the Dakota Access Pipeline is 93 percent complete. Trump intends to sit down with all the parties involved with the pipeline, including Native Americans, and negotiate the best deal that benefits everyone, Spicer said.The new administration wanted to start on the Keystone XL approval process as soon as possible, Spicer said.TrumpDAPLReactions Trump s decision was quickly condemned by environmentalists, Native American activists, the American Civil Liberties Union and a number of Democratic lawmakers. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said the US can t afford to build new pipelines that lock us into burning more fossil fuels and vowed to do everything to stop both pipelines.A lawyer for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said the decision was made hastily and irresponsibly. The tribe said it intended to pursue legal action against Trump s order, adding that the pipeline posed a risk not just for their water supply but also for millions of Americans living downstream.One of the leading organizations in the Standing Rock protests, the Indigenous Environmental Network, called Trump s actions insane and extreme, and nothing short of attacks on our ancestral homelands. Trump is portraying his true self by joining forces with the darkness of the Black Snake pipelines crossing across the culturally and environmentally rich landscape of the prairie lands of America, the IEN said in a statement.The North Dakota Petroleum Council, representing the state s oil producers, hailed the presidential action as a great step forward for energy security in America, the organization s president Ron Ness told Reuters.Keystone XL is a shortcut proposed for the existing system that carries oil and gas from Alberta s shale fields in Canada to Steele City, Nebraska. The segment would have run through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Despite being initially in favor of the pipeline, the Obama administration rejected it in November 2015, citing its overinflated role in [US] political discourse. Obama likewise blocked the final stretch of the Dakota Access (DAPL) pipeline in December, after US military veterans joined Native Americans protesting the construction under Lake Oahe, the principal water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. Most of the 1,172-mile-long pipeline from North Dakota s Bakken shale fields to Illinois has already been completed.Asked about #DakotaAccessPipeline & #Keystone, Spicer says #Trump's focus is jobs, the economy & using US resources https://t.co/m96ivKU6bR pic.twitter.com/10MSqpx5YL RT America (@RT_America) January 23, 2017Both Trump and his nominee for Energy Secretary Rick Perry held shares in Energy Transfer Partners, the company building DAPL, but have since divested of them, according to their attorneys.Following media reports that Trump would revive the pipeline projects, shares of TransCanada, Energy Transfer Partners LP and Energy Transfer Equity LP went up 1.1 percent, 3.3 percent and 1.7 percent respectively, Bloomberg noted.Continue this report at RTREAD MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 | [
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FMD226 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Iraq s Kurdish leadership rejected on Sunday a demand by the Iraqi government that it cancels the outcome of an independence referendum as a precondition for talks to resolve the dispute. Kurdish leaders who met to discuss the crisis in the town of Dokan renewed their offer to resolve peacefully the crisis with Baghdad. The Kurdish parties are ready for talks between Erbil and Baghdad, they said in a statement, referring respectively to the seat of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq and the federal capital of Iraq. The talks between Erbil and Baghdad should be under the supervision of international parties, the statement added. Among those at the meeting were KRG President Masoud Barzani, Iraqi President Fuad Masum a Kurd who holds a largely ceremonial position in the federal state and Hero Talabani, widow of Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who died earlier this month. They rejected what they described as military threats from Iraqi forces against Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and pledged to defend Kurdish-held territory in case of an attack. The KRG and the Shi ite-led central government in Baghdad have been at loggerheads since the Sept. 25 vote and its loud call for Kurdish independence. Tension between two parties has flared around the multi-ethnic oil city of Kirkuk, which Peshmerga forces took in 2014 when Iraqi security forces collapsed in the face of an Islamic State onslaught. The Peshmerga deployment prevented Kirkuk s oilfields from falling into jihadist hands. | 1 | [
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FMD227 | 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: DoD Suspension of Brass Cartridge Casing Sales Claim summaries: Has the Department of Defense cut off sales of spent cartridge cases to U.S. ammunition manufacturers?
contextual information: Claim: The Department of Defense has cut off sales of spent cartridge cases to U.S. ammunition manufacturers. OF AND OUTDATED INFORMATION Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2009] Georgia Arms is the 5th largest retailer of .223 Ammo in America. (they sell 9 mm, .45, etc ammo) They normally buy spent brass from the US Dept of Defense - 'one time used' shell casings by our Military - from training on Military bases, etc. They buy the brass and then re-load for resale to Law Enforcement, Gun Shops, Gun Clubs, Wal-Mart, and etc. They normally buy 30,000 lbs of spent brass at a time. This week the DoD wrote a letter to the owner of Georgia Arms and said that from now on the DoD will be destroying the brass - shredding it. It is no longer available to the Ammo makers - unless they just buy it in a scrap shredded condition (which they have No use for). The shredded brass is NOW going to be sold by the DoD to China as scrap metal.... after the DoD pays for it to be shredded. The DoD is selling the brass to China for less money than Ammo manufacturers have been paying... plus the DoD has to pay to have the brass shredded and do all the accounting paperwork. That sure helps the US economy now, doesn't it? Sell cheaper to China - and do not sell shells at all to a proven US business. Any agenda working here???? Obama going after our ammunition!!!!! The Georgia Arms owner even related a story that one of his competitors had already purchased a load of brass last week - and the DoD contacted him this week and said they were sending someone over to make sure it was destroyed. Shell Casings he had already bought! THE BRASS HAS NO VALUE TO THE AMMO MAKER IF IT IS DESTROYED/SHREDDED/MELTED. THE AMMO MANUFACTURER ONLY USES THE EMPTY BRASS SHELLS TO RELOAD DIFFERENT CALIBERS - MAINLY .223 BULLETS. Georgia Arms owner says that he will have to lay off at least Half of his 60 workers, within 2 - 3 months if the DoD no longer sells their spent brass to him. He has 2 - 3 months inventory of shells to use. By summer - he's out. If he has to buy new manufactured brass shells, then the cost of ammunitioin to the buyer will double and triple. Origins: The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS), which is part of the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which in turn is part of the Department of Defense (DoD), is the service "responsible for the disposition of excess and surplus DoD property" and is tasked with "protecting national security by ensuring property is properly identified for reutilization and disposition and not released for public sale when to do so would jeopardize national security." DRMS In March 2009, while reviewing a policy change issued by the DoD the previous year, the DLA halted or reclassified the sale of a broad category of items, a category which included spent cartridge cases. This event caused consternation among manufacturers and purchasers of ammunition because it cut off some ammunition manufacturers from their largest supply of brass casings, as U.S. senators Max Baucas and Jon Tester noted in a letter on the subject to the DLA: "This reclassification has an impact on small businesses who sell reloaded ammunition utilizing these fired casings, and upon individual gun owners who purchase spent military brass at considerable cost savings for their personal use." letter The issue was quickly resolved, however: a week later the DLA issued a press release announcing that upon completion of their review, they had determined that cartridge cases "could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for sale": press release Small arms cartridge cases are identified as a sensitive Munitions List item and were held pending review of the policy relating to the category of items in which cartridge cases were included. Upon review, the Defense Logistics Agency has determined the cartridge cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for sale. The DRMS sales contractor has been notified of this decision and has begun the process of reoffering the cases that have been held pending completion of the policy review. The National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) also issued a statement on 18 March 2009 which noted (in part): statement [T]he Department of Defense informed NRA-ILA that fired military small arms cartridge cases are once again eligible for sale, following a temporary suspension in such sales instituted last week. NRA-ILA began discussions with DoD shortly after the suspension took effect, and we were assured from the beginning that efforts were underway to resolve the issue favorably. In announcing that the suspension has been lifted, DoD also made clear that no cartridge cases that, in the absence of the suspension, would have been sold for reloading purposes were destroyed while the suspension was in effect. Such cases were instead protected by DoD during the suspension, and are again eligible for sale. With ammunition currently in short supply, that was welcome news, to be sure. DLA also put to rest various theories and rumors that were circulated on the internet concerning the reason for the suspension. As DLA explained to Senators Baucus and Tester, and to NRA-ILA, DoD officials responsible for the demilitarization of military property temporarily halted the release of the cartridge cases last week pending review of a policy change issued last year by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which, in the interest of national security, halted the sale of items within a broad category of government property including, but not limited to, surplus small arms cartridge cases. To make cartridge cases eligible for sale once again, DoD demilitarization officials verified that the cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for use within the United States, and then executed the recategorization. Whereas during the brief suspension, fired cartridge cases would have been releaseable only if the purchaser crushed or smelted them, now the cases may be sold as before, intact and reloadable. Last updated: 19 April 2009 Gonsalves, Chris. "Feds Lift Rule That Threatened Ammo Shortages." Newsmax. 19 March 2009. Johnson, Tonya. "Small Arms Cartridge Case Policy Revised." Defense Logistics Agency 20 March 2009. | 0 | [
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FMD228 | 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: Were parents in Missouri schools mandated to sign COVID-19 liability waivers? Claim summaries: Discussions around when and how schools would reopen during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic sparked a few controversies.
contextual information: Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.
In July 2020, social media posts and news reports claimed that a Missouri school district asked parents to sign COVID-19 death waivers in advance of the academic school year. The waiver went viral after a Twitter user shared it. The focus on the word "death" came from an article published by the online tabloid Raw Story, which extrapolated language from the waiver meant to release the Hazelwood School District (HSD) in Missouri from legal liabilities in the event a child dies in any way related to COVID-19. While it is true that HSD issued a waiver related to COVID-19, Anthony Kiekow, HSD director of communication and public relations, told Snopes that parents would only be required to sign it if their child planned on participating in summer athletic programs. The waiver asked that a parent confirm their acknowledgment of the public health crisis related to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and confirmed that they would not allow a child to participate in programs if they showed any symptoms of COVID-19 or had been exposed to anyone diagnosed with the disease or awaiting test results.
It further notes: "The undersigned agrees to release, discharge, hold harmless, and indemnify the Hazelwood School District, its | 1 | [
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FMD229 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: While Republicans and some others insist that President Obama is a lame duck and in the twilight of his presidency, he is still showing that his office exercises considerable muscle and power in order to work on the behalf of taxpayers.This time it was a victory against the big pockets of Big Pharma, who were attempting a corporate maneuver that would allow them to skip out on a big part of the tax bill they owe America.Pfizer has announced that its planned merger with Allergan will no longer go through. As CNBC reporter David Faber noted in a tweet, Changes in inversion regs dealt deal death blow. Pfizer and Allergan will mutually terminate their merger tomorrow morning- sources.Changes in inversion regs dealt deal death blow.$AGN,$PFE David Faber (@davidfaber) April 6, 2016That decision came just a few hours after President Obama announced that his Treasury Department would release new rules that allowed the government to crack down on so-called corporate inversions, a maneuver that allows companies to effectively dodge paying taxes:Inversion is when a company moves its tax residence overseas on paper, typically to a low-tax country, to avoid paying their fair share in taxes here at home.When multinational corporations exploit these loopholes enjoying the many benefits of locating in the United States without responsibly paying into the system it erodes the American tax base, undercuts businesses that play by the rules and ultimately leaves the middle class and small businesses to pay the tab.The $150 billion proposed deal between Pfizer and Allergan came directly in the sights of these new Treasury rules, and as the L.A. Times reported, the Treasury Department seemed to be targeting the Pfizer-Allergan deal and others like it. As has often been the case, President Obama has had to use the power of his office to go after activities like this because the Republican-controlled Congress has spent more time sitting on their hands than actually doing anything. He again implored Congress to address inversions, and noted, When companies exploit loopholes like this, it makes it harder to invest in the things that are going to keep America s economy going strong for future generations. It sticks the rest of us with the tab. And it makes hardworking Americans feel like the deck is stacked against them. Despite GOP wishes, Obama hasn t hung it up yet, and another bunch of pharma bros are feeling it.Featured image via YouTube screen capture | 0 | [
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FMD230 | 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: An Open Letter to President Obama - Lou Pritchett Claim summaries: Lou Pritchett penned an 'open letter' to President Obama?
contextual information: Claim: Lou Pritchett penned an "open letter" to President Obama. CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2009] AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA Dear President Obama: You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me. You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you. You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support. You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American. You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll. You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.. You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others. You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail. You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad. You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector. You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one. You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves. You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world. You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations. You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals. You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people. You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient. You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do. You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view. You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing. Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years. Lou Pritchett Origins: Lou Pritchett is a former vice president of Procter & Gamble whose career at that company spanned 36 years before his retirement in 1989, and he is the author of the 1995 business book, Stop Paddling & Start Rocking the Boat. Lou Pritchett Mr. Pritchett confirmed to us that he was indeed the author of the much-circulated "open letter" quoted above: I did write the 'you scare me' letter. I sent it to the NY Times but they never acknowledged or published it. However, it hit the internet and according to the 'experts' has had over 500,000 hits. In April 2012, the following update was added to the original: In April 2009, I sent President Obama and the New York Times a lettertitled "You Scare Me" because, as a candidate, he promised to"fundamentally transform America." Now, after observing his performancefor over three years, he no longer scares me he terrifies me for thefollowing reasons: FIRST-- He has done more to damage America's standing in the world, tolower the standard of living in America, to impoverish future generationsand to shake our faith in the country's future than any other Americanpresident in history. SECOND-- With a compliant Democrat congress, a lapdog media and a weak,almost nonexistent Republican opposition, he has shattered the Americandream of job security, home ownership and rugged individualism formillions of Americans and has poisoned and divided our civil society withhis politics of envy, class warfare, race warfare, and religious warfarewhich he is using as fundamental building blocks for his 'socialist'agenda. THIRD-- culturally, he remains totally out of touch with traditionalAmerican values. This has absolutely nothing to do with race or where hewas born, rather it has everything to do with where, how and with whom hewas raised, schooled, educated, trained and associates with still today. FOURTH-- he has surrounded himself with naive academicians, lawyers,politicians, bureaucrats and socialist leaning czars who arrogantly thinkand behave exactly as he does.People who offer no balanced suggestions or devils advocate positions andthink in lock step with him that big government is the answer to all ourproblems. FIFTH-- he not only encourages but aids and abets the unionization of allAmerican industry, the albatross around the neck of the free market. Inturn, they provide the money and muscle to intimidate his opponents. SIXTH-- he has increased the national debt by over 30% in just threeyears. If re-elected and this rate of increase continues, America will beburdened with an unsustainable 20 trillion dollar debt which will resultin the Country's financial death. Recovery will be impossible ---- Americawill be the Greece of 2016. SEVENTH-- given his fanatical beholding to the 'environmental' and'man-caused global warming' fringe, he has deliberately discouraged U.S.fossil fuel exploration and production while wasting millions of tax payerdollars on solar, wind and algae experiments. He refuses to accept thatoil, gas and coal are not America's enemies, they are America's assetswhich, properly managed, could make us energy independent within ageneration. EIGHTH-- He views the U.S. as a power in retreat which abused its Worlddominance. Therefore he systematically apologizes round the world. LastMarch he whispered to Russian President Medvedev "--this is my lastelection. After my election, I have more flexibility". Just what is thesecret that Obama and Putin are concealing from the American people untilafter the election? With what other leaders has he made similar secretagreements? NINTH---and finally, after all his mis-steps, bad decision making, poormanagement, and zero leadership, the fact that he has the audacity to seekre-election should terrify every American.I predict that if re-elected, future historians and political interpreterswill look back at the eight year period 2008-2016, and conclude "the 44thPresident of the U.S. allowed the takers to overpower the payers whichresulted in the greatest economy in history vanishing from the face of theEarth". Lou Pritchett April 15, 2012Farewell America, the World will really miss you! Last updated: 12 May 2012 | 1 | [
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FMD231 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: In his successful runs for state senator in Montana and then for Congress, Representative Ryan Zinke has promoted his career in the Navy SEALs as one of his main credentials, going so far as to put the SEALs’ Trident symbol on his campaign bus. While he has portrayed his accomplishments in the Navy in glowing terms, Mr. Zinke, a Republican and Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of the interior, has acknowledged one “glitchâ€: that he improperly billed the government for travel to his home in Montana when he was a midlevel SEAL Team 6 officer in the late 1990s. He had to repay $211 for one of two trips, he has said, maintaining that the episode did not derail what he described as a “brilliant†career. But two retired admirals under whom Mr. Zinke served say his account understates the damage that it did. Mr. Zinke was in fact punished for abusing his travel expenses, they say, through an evaluation that prevented him from rising to senior levels in the Navy. His former commanding officer in SEAL Team 6, retired Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III, who had never before discussed the matter publicly, said in an interview that it was “an easy decision†to hit Mr. Zinke hard over the travel claims, which came at a time when he was supposed to help prevent such abuses. “I gave him a fitness report that I thought would not allow him to get to captain, and that seemed, in that regard, to work O. K.,†Admiral Calland said. Even though Mr. Zinke served in a succession of No. 2 jobs in special operations after that, “he never got command,†the admiral said. Another retired vice admiral, Sean A. Pybus, who was Mr. Zinke’s boss after he left SEAL Team 6, said that Admiral Calland’s decision to cite Mr. Zinke for “lapses in judgment†in failing to set a proper example was a red flag for boards screening officers for coveted command jobs. Even if a fitness report — essentially a performance evaluation — gives top marks in other areas, as Mr. Zinke’s did, “language there like ‘hey, this officer has questionable judgment,’ that would keep him from being selected for a command position,†Admiral Pybus said. “And I think that’s exactly what happened. †Mr. Zinke has said he took the trips to scout training locations in Montana and nearby parts of Washington and took leave while he was there to do construction work on a family home in Whitefish, Mont. But officials who were at the command said he had less reason to scout sites at the time because he was finishing a tour as an assault team leader. They said one of the trips also seemed suspicious because he had sought reimbursement for excess airline baggage even though he was traveling alone. Admiral Calland recalled that there was “a lot of discussion†among senior officers about how to punish him. It also hurt Mr. Zinke, the officials said, that the trips came when SEAL Team 6 — which, though now best known for killing Osama bin Laden, had initially been filled with mavericks who flouted the rules — wanted to project a more professional image to compete with the Army’s Delta Force for top missions. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump said that Mr. Zinke, 55, was preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday and that neither he nor the transition team would comment for this article. Mr. Zinke’s supporters say he has long since transcended the old problems through his political work and by becoming the first SEAL team member to be nominated for a cabinet position. Mr. Zinke, who was born and raised in Montana, was elected to the State Senate shortly after he retired from the Navy in 2008. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2014 and won his second term in Congress in November with 57 percent of the vote. While the main focus of the hearing is likely to be his support for increasing energy drilling and mining on public lands, and his stated view that climate change is “not proven science,†senators could also question him about his Navy career. There is no doubt that Mr. Zinke was well liked and a rising star in the SEALs before the travel expenses episode. When he was a lieutenant commander in early 1998, his team snatched a Bosnian Serb war criminal, Goran Jelisic, on a city street and hustled him away in a van in a daring daytime operation. Even after Admiral Calland gave him declining performance marks in military bearing and leadership over the travel issues in Mr. Zinke was promoted to the rank of commander, which is equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the Army, Air Force and Marines. But while he would have been eligible two or three times before he retired to be placed in charge of a unit as a commanding officer, he never was. And without serving as a commanding officer, he could not become a captain, which is equivalent to a colonel in the other services, and then an admiral, as some of his SEAL peers have. Kenneth Stethem, a retired SEAL chief petty officer who supports Mr. Zinke, said the travel issue seemed minor so many years later. “We have a saying in the teams: ‘You never shoot a man with a bullet,’ and that’s exactly what’s going on right here,†he said. But some former SEAL team members claim that Mr. Zinke has also exploited his past — he placed the SEALs’ insignia (with six stars, presumably for SEAL Team 6) on his campaign bus in violation of Defense Department guidelines against politicizing such symbols — and that he exaggerated what he did in his later military jobs to obscure that he never received commands of his own. He published an autobiography in November that was grandly titled “American Commander. †And his biography on his congressional website says that he was “deputy and acting commander†of a task force “where he led a force of over 3, 500 Special Operations personnel in Iraq†in 2004. In an interview, Michael S. Repass, who retired from the Army as a major general and was Mr. Zinke’s boss in Iraq, chuckled and said, “That might be a stretch. †General Repass said that while Mr. Zinke was his deputy commander for four months, he had named him acting commander for only about a week and a half, when the general traveled to the United States. General Repass said Mr. Zinke “did a good job†as his deputy and was “a competent guy,†and he had nominated Mr. Zinke for one of two Bronze Stars he received. Admiral Pybus said that Mr. Zinke was “embarrassed and humbled†when he left SEAL Team 6 and “did quite well†as his deputy at a command using SEAL units in Europe. “I didn’t see any fallback on poor judgment or indiscretions,†Admiral Pybus said, adding that he had heard Mr. Zinke also did well in another Navy job, as the officer (and briefly acting commander) of the main SEAL training center. Mr. Zinke attended the University of Oregon on a football scholarship and graduated in 1984 with a geology degree. He served first at a regular SEAL team and then trained other SEAL team members. Records show that two of his early bosses believed that he had the potential to become an admiral. He joined SEAL Team 6 for a stint in 1991. After working on a staff in London, Mr. Zinke returned to SEAL Team 6 in 1996 as the leader of Gold Team, one of three assault teams. Mark Cochiolo, one of the enlisted team members, said Mr. Zinke fixed “some disciplinary issues†and “got us refocused on what we were there for. †The high mark came on Jan. 22, 1998, when members of Mr. Zinke’s team jumped from unmarked vans and seized Mr. Jelisic, who had called himself the “Serb Adolf,†after Hitler, as he killed detainees during the Bosnian war. The operation took only a minute, former team members say, and Mr. Jelisic ended up with a prison sentence. Admiral Calland called Mr. Zinke a “superstar†in his fitness report for that year and predicted that he would “lead and command with distinction. †But in referring to the travel problems that hurt his next evaluation, Mr. Zinke surprised some of his former teammates by suggesting in his book that he was not aware that standards had tightened. He recalled how Team 6 members had earlier “traveled and trained where they liked and Navy oversight was little or none. †When he became the Gold Team leader, he maintained, “the command had changed, but I had not,†attributing his travel violations to either “bad judgment or a bad habit. †He also minimized the effect the issue had on his career. While he wrote that it was “a hard lesson to learn and likely put a cloud over me making flag officer,†or admiral, he referred to the episode as just a “shot across the bow. †He also wrote that “the biggest penalty was being embarrassed for wrongdoing. †| 1 | [
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FMD232 | 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: Says the Central Health district's tax rate is the lowest among the largest counties in Texas, and it will continue to be the lowest if voters approve a proposed tax increase.
contextual information: Central Health, the government agency entrusted with improving health care access across Travis County, has a low tax rate that will remain low if voters ratify Proposition 1 on the November 2012ballot, a proponent says.Mark Nathan of theKeep Austin HealthyPAC said recently: Our health care districts tax rate is the lowest among the largest counties in Texas, and it will continue to be the lowest if the proposal wins approval. His comment appeared in anAustin American-Statesmannews article posted online the same day, Oct. 18, 2012.Central Health, the county health-care district created in 2004, seeks to increase its tax rate from 7.89 cents per $100 of assessed value to 12.9 cents for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013. Resulting revenue would help support health-care initiatives including a new medical school plus a site for a new teaching hospital.We wondered about the districts current and possible future tax rates.In 2005, the first year the district collected property taxes, Central Healths governing board set a tax rate of 7.79 cents per $100 of assessed property value, which cost the average taxpayer $126.84, according to a July 31, 2012,Statesmannews story. Between 2005 and 2011, the average tax bill for Central Health rose $29.77 to the current $156.61 on the average-valued home in Travis County, counting exemptions--an increase of 23.5 percent, the story says.Generally, according to the story, Central Healths finances were helped over the years by unexpected windfalls in federal payments, a robust real estate market that pumped up property tax collections and a deal the City of Austin cut with the Seton Healthcare Family years before voters created the district, allowing the district to steadily expand services while setting relatively modest tax rates.By phone, district spokeswoman Christie Garbe told us the districts low tax rate is an artifact of how the district was born, reflecting the merger of separate rates previously levied for health care by the City of Austin and Travis County. Garbe said by email that after the change, residents outside the city experienced a significant rate increase while city residents saw a slight decrease.Another fiscally relevant distinction: Unlike hospital districts in Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Tarrant and El Paso counties, the JulyStatesmanstory says, Central Health does not run a hospital, so it can function with a lower tax rate. The Seton Healthcare Family operates the safety-net University Medical Center Brackenridge and bears most of the financial responsibility for it, the story says, which has helped Central Health set property tax rates 60 to 74 percent lower than other urban Texas hospital districts.At our inquiry, Nathan emailed us a chart, attributed to Central Health, indicating that its tax rate trails those of hospital districts in the urban counties noted in the JulyStatesmanarticle plus Nueces County. All things staying equal, the other districts rates would also outpace the Central Health rate if Proposition 1 passes, according to the chart. Garbe told us by email that the chart reflects April 2012 research by Central Health.According to the chart, the Nueces County district has the next-lowest rate, 16.24 cents per $100 valuation. That's more than double Central Healths rate.Via telephone interviews and web research, we confirmed the proclaimed rates, but found one rate getting cut. Mike Norby of the Harris County Hospital District, also known as the Harris Health System, said by phone that the countys commissioners court voted to reduce the districts tax rate by a penny to 18.22 cents per $100 valuation, effectively cutting the districts revenue by $10 million once all factors are considered. (He said the vote to do so occurred Oct. 23, 2012, which was after Nathan made his claim. )So, Central Health has the lowest rate among seven urban Texas hospital districts and would still have the lowest rate if the proposition passes, presuming other districts do not slash rates in the meantime.At the recommendation of Jonny Hipp, ceo of the Nueces County district, we queried Austin consultant Shari Holland, who told us she has written reports in the past comparing Texas hospital districts; report purchasers have included Central Health, she said.Holland agreed that Central Health has and will likely have a lower tax rate than the other cited districts, due in part, she said, to the Austin areas high property values. In 2008, she said, Travis County had assessed property values of $97,100 per resident, tops among the 10 most populous counties.Curious about the possible effect of higher property values, we asked Nathan how much tax revenue each of the cited health districts raises per resident.Central Health has ranked last among the seven districts in total tax revenues per resident, at $71, according to another Central Health chart emailed to us by Nathan. However, its per-resident revenue would escalate to $115 if the proposition passes. The district could then be collecting more per resident than the districts in Nueces and El Paso counties, which have per-person tax revenues of $91 and $86, respectively, according to Central Health. The other analyzed health districts still would generate more tax revenue per resident, the districts research suggests.By email, Nathan pointed out he did not say Central Healths per-resident tax collections would stay the lowest.Our rulingNathan, the PAC spokesman, said Central Health has the lowest tax rate among districts in the largest Texas counties and will retain that distinction if the proposition passes. Thats correct, presuming other districts dont slash rates.Still, Central Healths per-person tax levy is projected to outpace those of two other districts should Travis County voters approve the bump. This information was missing from the spokesman's statement. Tax rates alone make the comparison incomplete..We rate the claim as Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD233 | 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: Fraudulent promotion circulating on Facebook offering fake coupons for Home Depot. Claim summaries: Rumor: Home Depot is giving out coupons to Facebook users.
contextual information: In May 2015, a fraudulent offer for $200 Home Depot coupons began circulating on Facebook. The message contained a link that redirected bargain hunters to a website adorned with Home Depot's logo, which had nothing to do with the real Home Depot. The $200 Home Depot coupon scam is very similar to other schemes that targeted Costco, Amazon, and Kroger shoppers. While each scam has slight variations, they all feature three main components. First, they require people to like or share the message on Facebook in an attempt to spread the scam across the Internet. Second, they direct people to complete a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and credit card numbers. Lastly, these scams never end with "free" rewards, because users must first agree to sign up for several costly, difficult-to-cancel "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print to claim their coupons. In April 2017, another Facebook coupon scam targeted Home Depot. In that iteration, the chain was purportedly doling out $50 coupons "to celebrate Mother's Day," and links directed users to www.homedepot.com-grabitnow.us (a URL clearly unaffiliated with the legitimate Home Depot website). Home Depot did not address the 2017 Facebook coupon scam on their social media channels as of April 24, 2017, but it was nevertheless clearly not a legitimate promotion affiliated with the chain. The Better Business Bureau provided these three tips to identify scams on Facebook: Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos, and headers of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD234 | 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: Was Marvin Gaye intentionally making a poor quality album in order to deceive his ex-wife and avoid paying royalties? Claim summaries: The album 'Here, My Dear' chronicled the deterioration of Marvin Gaye's marriage into its heartbreaking, bitter, and angry end.
contextual information: Divorce can be anything from an amicable parting of spouses who realize their partnership just isn't working, to a vicious, protracted fight between two embittered people determined to wreak as much physical, emotional, and economic damage on the other as possible. Unfortunately, the end of singer Marvin Gaye's first marriage came closer to the latter than the former. Marvin Gaye's Divorce In 1962, a 22-year-old Marvin Gaye wed Anna Ruby Gordy, a woman seventeen years his senior and the sister of Motown Record Corporation founder Berry Gordy, Jr. (a marriage, some cynics suggested, calculated to further the fledgling career of Gaye, who recorded for Motown). By the time Anna filed for divorce thirteen years later, the couple had been separated for over two years, and each had accused the other of infidelities. (Marvin's infidelity was hardly a matter of debate, as he was living with a teenage girl seventeen years his junior who was pregnant with his child. Moreover, the son Marvin and Anna Gaye had claimed as their own was actually a child Marvin Gaye had fathered by his wife's fifteen-year-old niece.) The divorce proceedings dragged out over two years as Marvin continually failed to show up for court dates, refused to pay court-ordered support for Anna and their son, and claimed his expenses exceeded his income even as he continued to spend money recklessly, purchasing luxury automobiles, boats, and beachfront properties. By the time Marvin's day of financial reckoning arrived, he had little cash and was well in arrears for a large amount of back taxes, so his attorney worked out a settlement under which Anna would be paid off from the royalties earned by Gaye's next album. Here, My Dear That next album turned out to be Here, My Dear, a harrowing "concept album of divorce" which chronicled the turmoil of Anna and Marvin's relationship. The record's symbolism was hardly subtle: Featuring songs with titles such as "You Can Leave, But It's Going to Cost You," the album bore an inner sleeve which depicted a Monopoly-like board game emblazoned with the word JUDGMENT, across which a male hand passed a broken record to a female hand. On the man's side of the board were only a piano and some recording equipment, while the female's side of the board included money, a house, a Mercedes, and a diamond ring: Although Marvin and Anna's divorce settlement was indeed tied to the royalties generated by Here, My Dear, the common legend surrounding the record -- that Marvin Gaye was ordered by a judge to hand over all his royalties from the album to Anna, and that Marvin was in a position to spitefully deprive Anna of those royalties by intentionally recording an album so bad it would not sell -- is largely untrue. Debunking the Legend First off, the payment-through-royalties scheme was a settlement worked out through mutual agreement, not one devised and mandated by a judge. Second, rarely does a competent attorney accept (or a responsible judge impose) a dissolution of partnership settlement under which the amount of compensation received by one party is completely dependent upon a future endeavor of the other party, precisely because such a settlement could allow one side to cheat the other by deliberately underperforming. (A similar legend about producer Phil Spector is based on this premise.) Phil Spector The circumstances in Marvin Gaye's case were that he agreed to pay Anna a total of $600,000, the first $307,000 coming from the advance against royalties he was guaranteed for his next album, and the remaining $293,000 to be paid out of any royalties earned beyond the advance. But Anna would lose nothing if Gaye's next record sold poorly, because the agreement specified that if the album failed to earn $293,000 within two years, Gaye was obligated to pay Anna the difference himself, and thus he had nothing to gain by tanking the sessions and purposely turning out substandard product. In fact, Gaye was in a position to lose a great deal by deliberately turning out a substandard effort, both because he was entitled to keep any royalties earned after the first $600,000 and because he stood to earn additional monies through publishing rights (rather than record sales) that were not payable to Anna. It is true that Gaye initially considered giving the album less than his best effort, but he soon found that he was incapable of recording with anything less than a complete commitment to his art, and if he had any intent to "get" his ex-wife, it was through the album's lyrics and not its sales: At first, I figured I'd just do a quickie record nothing heavy, nothing even good. Why should I break my neck when Anna was going to wind up with the money anyway? But the more I lived with the notion, the more it fascinated me. Besides, I owed the public my best effort. I'll give her my next album but it'll be something she won't want to play and it'll be something she won't want the world to hear because I'm gonna tell the truth. Critical Reception Although the album was not a smashing commercial success, it was admired in many quarters for its artistic qualities: Despite Marvin's efforts, Here, My Dear was a commercial failure, not because it lacked ideas and sophisticated music, but, perhaps, because it possessed them in abundance. I think Here, My Dear was simply too sophisticated, too boldly honest, too remarkably insightful and too close to the emotional quick to succeed commercially. On "I Met a Little Girl," Gaye appeals to his past: musically, through sweet fifties harmonies, and personally as he narrates meeting Anna, falling in love with her, and the relationship's demise. On "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You," which appears again as an instrumental and a reprise, Marvin uses a Latin-tinged mellow groove to probe for more than six minutes the philosophical question of love's origin and its end, both passing imperceptibly into existence, and into each other, as Marvin's multiple falsettos lash at the song's rhythms, and Anna: "You said bad things and you lied." On "Anger," Marvin mounts a funky shuffle of percussion and bass to declare the defining vices of a fundamental human passion: "Anger ... can make you old ... can make you sick ... destroys your soul." The songs cross every genre "Anna's Song" is a rhythmically complex patterning of soul-jazz that conjures Coltrane's ballads, while "Funky Space Reincarnation" is disco-funk that dreams of a raceless musical universe. And "Here, My Dear" is a poignant doo-wop love fugue transposed to detail Marvin's sorrowful joys and sad nostalgia in the aftermath of their breakup. Anna Gaye didn't take lightly some of the revelations Marvin expressed through his music on Here, My Dear (especially accusations that she was preventing him from seeing their son and that she had lied to God by breaking their marriage vows), and upon its release she told People magazine that she was considering filing a $5 million invasion of privacy lawsuit, although nothing ever came of her threat. Critical reaction to Here, My Dear was mixed. As Gaye biographer Steve Turner wrote, "Reviewers didn't seem to know whether the double album was a huge joke at the expense of Anna Gaye and Motown, or a work of genius." The record was not a hit, failing to sell well enough to even recoup the advance against royalties paid by Motown, so Marvin Gaye (who was by then officially bankrupt) was obligated to begin making monthly payments to Anna to cover the shortfall. However, Gaye was killed in 1984 still owing Anna the additional $293,000 due her, and monies earned by his estate after his death went to paying off the IRS rather than benefiting his ex-wives and children -- thereby proving the maxim about life's only two certainties. Dyson, Michael Eric. Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves & Demons of Marvin Gaye.
New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004. ISBN 0-465-01769-X.
Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves & Demons of Marvin Gaye Ritz, David. Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye.
New York: Da Capo Press, 1985. ISBN 0-306-80443-2.
Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye Turner, Steve. Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye.
New York: HarperCollins, 1998. ISBN 0-06-019821-4. Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD235 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The Government-Orchestrated Bankruptcies Of General Motors And Chrysler Led To Tens Of Thousands Of Direct Factory, Supplier And Other Related Job Cuts. While government influence at decade s end helped Detroit recover financially, the government-orchestrated bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler led to tens of thousands of direct factory, supplier and other related job cuts. The primary benefit of the U.S. industry restructuring for employment has been the balance of jobs saved rather than jobs created. (John Crawley, Analysis: Obama Seeks Lift From Detroit Auto Jobs, Reuters, 1/12/12)TARP Inspector General: Tens Of Thousands Of Jobs Were Lost Due To Hasty Factory Closings. The report by Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program of the Treasury Department, said both carmakers needed to shut down some underperforming dealerships. But it questioned whether the cuts should have been made so quickly, particularly during a recession. The report, released on Sunday, estimated that tens of thousands of jobs were lost as a result. (Nick Bunkley, TARP Audit Questions Rush To Close Auto Dealers, The New York Times, 7/18/10)Ford Motor Company announced Tuesday it will cancel a $1.6 billion plant planned for Mexico and will instead invest $700 million in a Michigan assembly plant, directly tying the decision to pro-growth policies championed by President-elect Donald Trump.Trump had previously been critical of Ford s plans to build in Mexico. After the announcement, Trump tweeted a link to a story about the Ford decision and then added in a subsequent message: Instead of driving jobs and wealth away, AMERICA will become the world s great magnet for INNOVATION & JOB CREATION. We re doing this decision based on what s right for our business, Ford CEO Mark Fields told Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Network. As we think about the investments here in Michigan, as you can imagine, Neil, we look at a lot of factors as we make those. One of the factors that we re looking at is a more positive U.S. manufacturing business environment under President-elect Trump and some of the pro-growth policies he said he s going to pursue. And so this is a vote of confidence. FOX News | 0 | [
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FMD236 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: For the anniversary of the heinous attack on Orlando Pulse nightclub, Moms Demand Action is pushing a #DisarmHate campaign. In so doing, they fail to note that everyone in Pulse was disarmed it was a zone. [This is one of the inconvenient truths the gun control movement does not acknowledge because it is hard to push gun control on the back of a heinous attack if Americans are given all the information. And all the information includes the fact that Orlando Pulse had a ban on guns, period. t was actually an illustration of the failure of gun bans, rather than justification for implementing them. It was actually an illustration of the failure of gun bans, rather than justification for implementing them. Consider so many of the other horrific criminal terrorist attacks that gun control proponents use in hopes of pushing their agenda: the Virginia Tech University (April 16, 2007) the Aurora movie theater (July 20, 2012) Sandy Hook Elementary (December 14, 2012) the DC Navy Yard (September 16, 2013) Fort Hood (April 2, 2014) Umpqua Community College (October 1, 2015) San Bernardino (December 2, 2015) UCLA (June 1, 2016) and Orlando Pulse (June 12, 2016) to name a few. And what do all of these horrific events have in common? The common thread in all is that they occurred in zones. But as it turns out, zones do not #DisarmHate. Instead, they actually give vent to it. zones give hate a place it can be unleashed because the attacker does not have to worry about facing an armed response. Regardless of these facts, Moms Demand Action has spent the day tweeting and retweeting people who have used the hashtag #DisarmHate or who are attending #DisarmHate marches and rallies. Their tweet of 13 attendees at a Washington state rally exemplifies what they are tweeting: Seattle and Tacoma @MomsDemand represent at Seattle Pride! #DisarmHate pic. twitter. — NW Mama (@PhdTeresa) June 11, 2017, The cold hard truth is that the people in Orlando Pulse were disarmed, so they had no way to fight back. Following the horrific Orlando Pulse attack, Gwendolyn Patton, spokesperson for the LGBT gun rights group Pink Pistols, warned people not to be fooled into blaming guns for the attack. Patton stressed: Let us not reach for the fruit of blaming the killer’s guns. Let us stay focused on the fact that someone hated gay people so much they were ready to kill or injure so many. A human being did this. The human being’s tools are unimportant when compared to the bleakness of that person’s soul. Patton also pointed out that one of the viable responses to the attack is to keep a gun close for not to disarm. In fact, less than a month before the attack on Orlando Pulse, the Pink Pistols announced, “We teach queers to shoot. Then we teach others that we have done so. Armed queers don’t get bashed. †AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 | [
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FMD237 | 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: Fukushima radiation results in the death of all Orca whale offspring. Claim summaries: A fear-mongering article based on speculation and out-of-context quotes falsely claimed that radiation from the Fukushima disaster had caused 100% infant mortality among orca whales.
contextual information: Fear-mongering articles claiming that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (triggered by the tsunami that followed the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011) caused a 100% infant mortality rate among orca whales born since then have circulated online for several years. The website Humans Are Free renewed interest in this rumor in September 2016 when it published an article with the clickbait title "Radiation from Fukushima Now Causes 100% Infant Mortality Rate in West Coast Orcas." This piece was sourced from an article by the disreputable Natural News website, which employed a similarly misleading title ("West Coast Orcas Experiencing 100% Infant Mortality Rate as Radiation from Fukushima Drifts Across Ocean"), even though the text of that article plainly admitted that there was no proven connection between the Fukushima disaster and the mortality of infant orcas. No one has yet proven a direct link between the 100% mortality rate seen among orca infants and the effects of radiation contamination in the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima reactor leak in Japan, but it certainly can't be ruled out as a possibility. Natural News listed several sources about whale deaths at the bottom of its article, but none of those sources mentioned radiation from Fukushima as a likely or definitive cause. Quotes from Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington, were also misleadingly reproduced out of context by Natural News to bolster a claim that Balcomb's statements did not support. The recent discovery of a carcass off the coast of British Columbia, that of a 19-year-old orca female believed to be in the late stages of pregnancy, is just one example of the recent orca deaths that have scientists and conservationists worried. Ken Balcomb stated, "Her death doesn't bode well for the southern resident population and certainly not for that matriline. Her mother died young. Her aunt had two sons, and she's probably post-reproductive. She hasn't had any babies in the last 12 years. So there's no future." Balcomb also remarked, "We haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years. We have had stillborns and newborns die and a number of whales that appear to be pregnant but didn't ultimately produce any calves. It's like zero survival in birth rate here." While Balcomb did say that "we haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years," he was referring only to the local Puget Sound orca whale population, and he did not connect a 100% infant orca mortality rate to radiation from Fukushima. His quotes originated from a story published by the Seattle Times in December 2014 about a baby orca whale that had died in Puget Sound. While the exact cause of that whale's death was unclear, Balcomb suggested that the whale likely died due to a diminished food supply (and not radiation). He noted that two of the whales' three biggest problems—the buildup of pollutants such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls in their blubber, and disturbance by marine traffic—appear to be worsened by a third issue: a reduction in available prey. These whales can eat sockeye and halibut but overwhelmingly prefer fatty chinook from Puget Sound and Canada's Fraser River, distinguishing them from other fish by using sonar to sense differences in the animals' swim bladders. However, Puget Sound chinook numbers have dropped to about 10% of their historic high, and they, too, are listed for protection under the ESA. For Balcomb, the loss of J32 suggests it's time to consider drastic measures, such as a ban or steep curtailment in chinook fishing, even though fishing is likely the least of the threats chinook face. "It's a wake-up call—we know what the problem is, whether it's dams or fishing or habitat destruction," he said. "It's just what happens when millions of people move into the watershed. (But) stopping fishing, at least for a while, is something we can do immediately." The reality is that the basic problem is food, Balcomb said. Although apparently no baby orcas survived long after birth in Puget Sound in 2013 or 2014, that wasn't the case in the immediately following years, as 2015 saw nine successful orca births in Puget Sound. In just over a year, Puget Sound welcomed nine baby Southern-resident orcas to the fold, as the pod continued to rebound from the 30-year-low numbers reported at the end of 2014. While radiation from the Fukushima disaster did have a major impact on marine life, the leak of radioactive material from the plant did not cause a proven "100% infant mortality" rate among orca whales. Moreover, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not list nuclear radiation (from any source) among the threats currently facing the world's whale population. | 0 | [
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FMD238 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: They Knew: The End of the Clinton Lies Begins There’s only one lie left. October 27, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
During Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign, Neera Tanden was described as “the wonk behind Hillary.” A close associate of the Clintons, Tanden helped shape policy for both Bill and Hillary. Then she switched to playing that role for Obama.
While Hillary’s email scandal broke, Tanden was in charge of the Center for American Progress, a radical left-wing group that had been described as "Obama's Idea Factory." And she was chatting with John Podesta, the top Clintonite who had founded CAP. Podesta had co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition Project. Neera Tanden would co-chair the Hillary-Kaine Transition Project under Podesta who headed up Hillary’s presidential campaign. Podesta had helped shape the last eight years of national politics through Obama and Tanden looked forward to shaping the next eight under Hillary.
And what did they think of Hillary? Did they believe their defenses of her wrongdoing?
Podesta and Tanden ridiculed her associates for the cover-up. “Why didn’t they get this stuff out like 18 months ago? So crazy,” she wondered. “Unbelievable,” Podesta wrote. “They wanted to get away with it.”
Since the early days of the email scandal, we’ve been treated to the sordid rituals of feigned innocence. The issue was a non-issue, Clinton surrogates were quick to assure us. And even if it was, no one did anything wrong. The flies on the wall knew better though and now we can all be the flies on the wall.
Away from the cameras and the briefings, the Clintonites held their bosses in contempt. Neera Tanden, a supposed close associate of Hillary, blasted her instincts as “suboptimal” and described her as suffering from a character problem. And there was never any doubt as to what was going on.
Tanden ridiculed Cheryl Mills for the mess. Mills fired off an email to Podesta warning that Obama’s denial wouldn’t hold up. “We need to clean this up -- he has emails from her -- they do not say state.gov,” she warned.
Obama had offered his usual denial claiming to have only learned about the scandal from the media. The revelation that Hillary had emailed Obama from her illegal address would show that he had lied. But meanwhile his people struggled to reinvent his lie by claiming that while he knew about her illegal address, he didn’t know that it was illegal. This put his lie in line with Hillary’s lie.
There was only one problem.
When in doubt, the Clintons take refuge in the final lie that you may be able to prove that they did wrong, but not that they meant to do wrong. That was Hillary’s final email defense to the FBI. Spliced with claims of memory loss due to a concussion was that old Sergeant Schultz favorite, “I know nothing.”
But that defense completely falls apart once you prove that they did know. That is what the leaked emails have begun doing. They are establishing that the Sergeant Schultz defense is utterly hollow.
Cheryl Mills knew. John Podesta knew. Barack Obama knew. And Hillary Clinton knew.
When Obama told a lie that could easily be disproven while trying to distance himself from Hillary, Mills quickly fired off a warning that he had better get his story straight. And his people did. That makes Obama complicit before and after the fact. He knew what Hillary was doing when she was doing it. And his people participated in the effort to cover it up afterward, not just to protect her, but to protect him.
Hillary Clinton was not a rogue actor. She was part of an administration that had waged a war on transparency. Even media allies had dubbed it as the least transparent administration in history.
Lies, censorship and targeting whistleblowers were the norm for Obama Inc. A New York Times reporter dubbed it, “The greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.” The Washington Post noted that the, “Obama administration routinely makes a mockery of its long-ago pledge to establish itself as the most transparent administration in U.S. history.” The AP pointed out that it, “more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them.”
Bizarre administration email dodges included EPA boss Lisa Jackson using Richard Windsor as her alias. Jackson/Windsor left the EPA and took a seat on the board of the Clinton Foundation.
Tanden and Podesta didn’t take issue with Hillary Clinton breaking the law, but with her clumsy political instincts, her inability to fake sincere apologies and spin scandals as smoothly as Obama. Hillary’s biggest flaw in their eyes was her clumsiness at covering up acts that were routine in in Obamaworld. They didn’t despise her because she broke the law, but because she was bad at it.
That made her a threat to their political futures.
Hillary’s clumsy instincts led her to the point of having to admit what she did while denying having intended to do it. Motive is simultaneously the strongest and weakest defense. You can prove what someone else did, but it is hard to prove what someone else meant to do.
Unless you have their emails.
This is Hillary’s firewall. It’s what every painful trickle of the scandal was meant to drag out and delay. Every partial revelation is buying time while bringing us closer to the final breach in the motive wall.
What the Podesta emails tell us is that they knew. Those around Hillary knew. And those around them knew that the inner circle knew. They knew and they hated Hillary for being a bad liar. And now, as the inside drama of Clintonworld spills across the internet, the red queen moves closer to being in check.
By making it all about motive, Hillary Clinton turned personal communications, particularly emails, into the key instrument of culpability. That is why Podesta’s emails are such a hot commodity. It’s why her emails are becoming an even bigger prize.
Neera Tanden was right. Hillary Clinton’s political instincts are suboptimal. She is the member of the Obama graduating class voted least likely to be able to lie convincingly on national television. And she has a perverse knack for dragging everyone around her into her scandals while exposing their own.
We know that her people knew that she lied. We know that Obama lied. All that’s left is her final lie. | 0 | [
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FMD239 | 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 the proposition by Biden for a 3% federal property tax being suggested? Claim summaries: The Democratic presidential candidate has not proposed a 3% property tax.
contextual information: During the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, social media postings repeatedly warned readers that Democratic candidate Joe Biden was planning to impose a 3% federal tax on the value of homes, in addition to any property taxes homeowners were already paying. However, this warning about a Biden-backed federal property tax was unfounded. Property taxes in the U.S. are set and collected at the state, county, and city levels, and the announced Biden Tax Plan includes nothing that could be construed as imposing an additional federal property tax on privately owned homes. The Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy nonprofit, summarizes the Biden tax plan as including the following primary elements applicable to individuals (rather than businesses): it imposes a 12.4 percent Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (Social Security) payroll tax on income earned above $400,000, evenly split between employers and employees. This would create a gap in the current Social Security payroll tax, where wages between $137,700, the current wage cap, and $400,000 are not taxed. It reverts the top individual income tax rate for taxable incomes above $400,000 from 37 percent under current law to the pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act level of 39.6 percent. It taxes long-term capital gains and qualified dividends at the ordinary income tax rate of 39.6 percent on income above $1 million and eliminates the step-up in basis for capital gains taxation. It caps the tax benefit of itemized deductions to 28 percent of value for those earning more than $400,000, meaning that taxpayers earning above that income threshold with tax rates higher than 28 percent would face limited itemized deductions. It restores the Pease limitation on itemized deductions for taxable incomes above $400,000. It phases out the qualified business income deduction (Section 199A) for filers with taxable income above $400,000. It expands the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for childless workers aged 65 and older and provides renewable energy-related tax credits to individuals. It expands the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) from a maximum of $3,000 in qualified expenses to $8,000 ($16,000 for multiple dependents) and increases the maximum reimbursement rate from 35 percent to 50 percent. For 2021 and as long as economic conditions require, it increases the Child Tax Credit (CTC) from a maximum value of $2,000 to $3,000 for children 17 or younger, while providing a $600 bonus credit for children under 6. The CTC would also be made fully refundable, removing the $2,500 reimbursement threshold and 15 percent phase-in rate. It reestablishes the First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit, which was originally created during the Great Recession to help the housing market. Biden's homebuyers credit would provide up to $15,000 for first-time homebuyers. It expands the estate and gift tax by restoring the rate and exemption to 2009 levels. Similar analyses of Biden's tax plan by other entities include no mention of a federal property tax. | 0 | [
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FMD240 | 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: John Kerry and Heinz Claim summaries: Does Senator John Kerry's wife own Heinz, a company that outsources much of its work abroad?
contextual information: Claim: Senator John Kerry's wife owns Heinz, a company that outsources much of its work abroad. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Factories located at: Taipei, Taiwan (makes Heinz baby foods); Dublin, Ireland; Paris, France; Douarnenez, France; Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Monguzzo, Italy; Athens, Greece; Warsaw, Poland; Pudliszki, Poland; Wodzislaw, Poland; Miedzychod, Poland; Moscow, Russia; Georgievsk, Russia; Cairo, Egypt; Tel Aviv, Israel; Haifa, Israel; Elst, The Netherlands and six other plants there; Brussels, Belgium; Dusseldorf, Germany; Seesen, Germany; Turnhout, Belgium; Rovereto, Italy; Chateaurenard, France; North York, Ontario, Canada; Wheatley, Ontario, Canada; Caracas, Venezuela; San Jose, Costa Rica; Johannesburg, South Africa; Gaborone, Botswana; Harare, Zimbabwe; Chegutu, Zimbabwe; Wellington, South Africa; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Republic of Singapore; Auckland, New Zealand; Tokyo, Japan; Guangzhou, People's Republic of China (makes infant cereal); Qingdao, People's Republic of China (makes infant foods, ketchup, mayonnaise, and puree); Inchon, South Korea (makes Heinz products and StarKist); Bangkok, Thailand; Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Surabaya, Indonesia; Manila, Philippines; Wanchai, Hong Kong. Also recently purchased from Borden these products: Classico Pasta Sauce; Aunt Millie's Pasta Sauce; Mrs. Grass Recipe Soups; Wylers Bouillons & Soups. Think of the conflict of interest a President would have whose wife owns business interests in all of these countries and others. Pass it on!!!! Origins: In 1995, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts wed Teresa Heinz, whom he first met at an Earth Day rally in 1990. Born Teresa Simes-Ferreira in Mozambique to Portuguese parents, Mrs. Kerry was previously married for 25 years to Henry John Heinz III, who was a member of the founding family of the H.J. Heinz Company and represented Pennsylvania for twenty years in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate prior to his death in a plane crash in 1991. Mrs. Kerry inherited a Heinz family fortune estimated at over $500 million. Although Senator Kerry has been critical of the Bush administration for rewarding "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who move "profits and jobs overseas," the above-quoted attempt to link Kerry (through his wife) with the very outsourcing he decries is flawed in two major ways. First off, Teresa Heinz Kerry does not "own the Heinz Corporation"; she has no involvement whatsoever with the management or operations of the H.J. Heinz Company, nor does she own anything close to a controlling interest in the company's stock. According to Heinz itself, the Heinz family trust which Mrs. Kerry inherited sold most of its shares of Heinz stock back in 1995 and currently holds less than a 4% interest in the company. There is no connection between any philanthropic programs of the H.J. Heinz Company and its Foundation and the Heinz family interests (including the Howard Heinz Endowment, the Vira Heinz Endowment, and the Heinz Family Philanthropies). (A 4% stake in a company as large as Heinz still represents a considerable amount of money, but it isn't nearly large enough a share to give the holder any significant control or influence over the company's business decisions.) Moreover, the Heinz Company's operations are not an example of the type of outsourcing that is currently a hot political issue (i.e., sending out work to offshore companies to provide services which a company might otherwise have employed its own staff to perform). Heinz is a U.S.-based global business that sells its products in dozens of other countries, and like other food companies, it has to localize some of its production at factories located in its foreign market areas. (It makes little sense from either an economic or a freshness standpoint to be shipping fruits and vegetables and/or finished food products halfway around the world rather than producing them locally.) One wouldn't expect, for example, every can and bottle of Coca-Cola sold anywhere in the world—whether it be Australia, China, or Portugal—to be produced by U.S. bottlers. As the H.J. Heinz Company notes, well over half its sales come from foreign markets, and it therefore operates overseas facilities to serve those markets. Last updated: 2 September 2007. | 0 | [
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FMD241 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Thursday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano suggested the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should reach a “gentlemen’s agreement†on South China Sea waterways because there is no legal authority to enforce a binding contract for navigation through the region. [“If it’s legally binding, which court can the parties go to? And the countries that do not comply, will they respect that court?†Cayetano said to reporters, as reported by Reuters. “Let’s start with it being binding, gentlemen’s agreement. We have a community of nations that signed it. †He was referring to the draft framework for a South China Sea code of conduct between ASEAN and China on Thursday. Cayetano seemed to be throwing in the towel on getting China to sign a more stringent contract. As Reuters delicately puts it, there is “regional skepticism whether Beijing will commit to rules likely to restrain its maritime ambitions. †Such a “gentleman’s agreement†would control shipping lanes that handle five trillion dollars per year in commerce. The proposal follows remarks by President Rodrigo Duterte that China was installing “some kind of armed garrison†on the disputed South China Sea islands it claims. Reuters notes that some of ASEAN’s representatives believe China is playing along with the draft framework merely to “buy time for Beijing to wrap up construction activities,†at which point Chinese ownership of everything Beijing covets in the region would be a fait accompli, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruling against Chinese claims of sovereignty last year. China largely ignored the ruling, which explains Cayetano’s doubt that any controlling legal authority to enforce anything stricter than a gentleman’s agreement could be found. Chinese officials spoke vaguely of encouraging progress made in the talks with ASEAN but would not establish a firm timeline for finalizing a Code of Conduct. For their part, the Association nations took a notably softer stance against Chinese development of disputed islands, abandoning complaints about “land reclamation and militarization†at their April 30 summit meeting that were part of the previous year’s declarations. At the time, Philippine President Duterte bluntly stated that complaining about China’s maritime activities was pointless because no one could pressure China into halting them — a similar, if less tactful, sentiment to the one expressed by Duterte’s foreign secretary at Thursday’s meeting. Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, head of the Chinese delegation, said the new draft framework “will be an internal document and nobody should publish it,†because keeping the details confidential was key to “future consultations†with the ASEAN nations. Liu also expressed hope that “our consultations on the code are not subject to any outside interference,†in a rather obvious jab at the United States. A report from the South China Morning Post said: China and ASEAN committed to drafting the code 15 years ago, and while it should, in theory, tame how they behave in the South China Sea, it remains an open question whether Beijing will be willing to slow construction of artificial islands and pursuit of effective control over disputed territory. It’s another question whether Southeast Asian countries will have any leverage to ask Beijing to respect the rules. The SCMP report states that China and the Philippines will continue bilateral talks aimed at “creating conditions for a final settlement over the two side’s claims in the South China Sea. †Four ASEAN countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, along with Taiwan, which is not a member of ASEAN. | 1 | [
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FMD242 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A meeting between Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday at the G20 summit in Germany will last about 30 minutes and probably not lead to any major agreements, Mexico’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. The face-to-face talks will be the first between Pena Nieto and Trump as presidents. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray warned not to expect too much. “We have to put it in context and not have expectations that are unjustified,†Videgaray said. Trump’s election and his early days in office strained relations between the two neighbors because of his threats to apply tariffs to Mexican-made goods and a plan to build a wall on the southern U.S. border and force Mexico to pay for it. Trump and Pena Nieto will discuss renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement scheduled for August, as well as cooperation in combating drug cartels and development in Central America, the Foreign Ministry said. Pena Nieto will also talk about the rights of Mexican migrants in the United States, the ministry said. Later on Wednesday, Pena Nieto and Videgaray met with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who was visiting Mexico ahead of the G20 summit along with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. According to a statement from Pena Nieto’s office, both sides agreed to work together on security and Pena Nieto praised the Trump administration’s decision to keep in place a program that allows some immigrants, brought into the country illegally by their parents, to stay. One topic not on the agenda at the encounter in Hamburg is Trump’s pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, Videgaray said in an earlier television interview. In late January, a planned meeting between the two presidents was canceled following a Twitter dispute over Trump’s pledge to make Mexico pay for the wall, which the Mexican government has insisted it will not do. Trump has since said he will find a way for Mexico to repay the United States for construction of the wall but that Congress would need to fund it first. His administration also toned down threats to pull out of the NAFTA pact with Mexico and Canada. Last August, during Trump’s presidential campaign, he accepted an invitation to visit Mexico in what became a public relations disaster for Pena Nieto, who was widely condemned for inviting a man who has united Mexicans like few others in shared disdain. | 1 | [
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FMD243 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Diego Arria — a former Venezuelan diplomat and U. N. Security Council president now dedicated to the struggle against socialist Chavismo in his native country — sees removing dictator Nicolás Maduro from power as only a first step in saving Venezuela from decades of corruption and decay. [Arria emphasized in an interview with Breitbart News, conducted in both Spanish and English, that removing Maduro would do little to establish a free democratic republic in Venezuela without a clean sweep of the thousands of government employees and soldiers affiliated with terrorism, drug crime, and still loyal to a socialist model of government. “[We need] a model based on liberty, free economy — not a or socialist model or anything remotely like that,†Arria noted. “If we do not change the political and economic model, we will always be an unstable country. †Arria deemed this establishment of a political and economic model a “refounding of the republic,†which would require a new constitution and an abandonment of both the leftist ideology of the ruling party and the approach of the official opposition. The Venezuelan opposition today largely focuses on the removal of Maduro from power, demanding free and fair elections. What the leaders of the opposition wish to see replace Maduro is not clearly defined, largely because of their own backgrounds: many also identify as socialists. While they oppose the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) many of the parties that form the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) the opposition coalition in the National Assembly, are member parties of the Socialist International, including Popular Will, the party led by political prisoner Leopoldo López. Henry Ramos Allup, a key member of the Venezuelan opposition, is a vice president of the Socialist International. Asked to explain this phenomenon to an American audience, who largely reject the label “socialist,†Arria laments that many Venezuelan parties feel the need to identify as socialist, even nominally. “For a long time, the official opposition was ‘Chavista light’ … there has been a sort of hijacking of the political class, as if the Socialist International were the club of dignified, enlightened, or democratic governments in the world when this is not true,†he notes. “Among the official parties there are all kinds [of ideologies] but all are social democrats or moderate socialists, there is not a single [other kind]. †“In Venezuela, people have a complex about calling themselves conservative,†he adds. “We have to enter a period of transition,†he explained, “that will not be conventional, it will not be a ‘Jeffersonian model’ [of reform] because Venezuela has things like this:†We have 50, 000 Cubans in Venezuela. This is more than the number of forces that Spain had occupying Venezuela during our war of independence. I am not saying that these 50, 000 Cubans are all soldiers, but thousands of them are trained for these ends. We have 100, 000 militiamen, paramilitaries … and the influence of the drug cartels in the armed forces, in police forces, in the judicial system. How do you remove that simply with an election replacing one government with another? Late dictator Hugo Chávez forged a lasting bond with the communist government of Cuba that persists to this day, in which Venezuela relies heavily on Cuba for doctors, ( ) medicine, soldiers, and intelligence officials. Venezuela supplies Cuba with oil, filling a void left by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Venezuelans have long complained that among the cruelest and most violent state officers acting against peaceful protesters have been Cubans, easily identified by their accents and superior ranking. The word “colony†for what the Castros have done to Venezuela surfaces often. A 2013 estimate by General Antonio Rivero put the number of Cuban nationals that had passed through Venezuela since Chávez took power at upwards of 200, 000. Arria emphasizes that civilian Cubans seeking an escape from the island prison are not the problem. “To begin with, the ones who are doctors and sports players, I’m sure they would like to stay in Venezuela, so those are no problem because you give them nationality and they are fine,†he notes. “The problem is with the people who are today in the intelligence departments … Cubans have killed Venezuelans and tortured Venezuelans and they are doing that now. †Rescuing Venezuela from failed state status, then, also requires the demise of the Castro regime, because any resources that fall in the hands of the Castros further their colonial ambitions in the South American country. “You cannot exclude in the U. S. agenda my own country, because we play a fundamental role in the preservation of the Cuban economy and we pay the consequences of that relationship,†he notes. Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 1 | [
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FMD244 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: It s shocking that stalking conservatives to intimidate or harm them is actually happening in 2017. Several instances of stalking and threatening behavior have been reported by conservatives on campus at UC Berkeley. The latest reported by Campus Reform is a series of tweets telling where to stalk a group of campus Republicans having dinner.Naweed Tahmas, the vice president of the Berkeley College Republicans, also condemned the actions of Antifa while noting that intimidation will not stop us. Conservatives in Berkeley are routinely targeted, harassed, and stalked, he told Campus Reform. Knowing that they have sympathizers within both the city administration and university administration, leftist groups will continue to target conservatives as they know there are no consequences to their actions. It has become socially acceptable in Berkeley to physically beat someone for being a conservative, Tahmas added. In fact, it is even encouraged. Do you ever feel uneasy when you express conservative beliefs? Do you feel afraid if you wear political attire like a Trump MAGA hat? We d like to know if you ve ever had a bad experience while showing your conservatism.The left has been so successful at hijacking the narrative on what it means to be conservative. They ve been screaming that conservatives are Nazis and white supremacists. Do you see what they re doing? They re trying to shame you into being afraid to announce your conservative views that are nothing close to being anything but devoted to small government, lower taxes and freedom THE VIDEO BELOW IS FRIGHTENING AND IS WHAT S BECOME OF OUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH:Ashton Whitty, a UC Berkeley student who was stalked by Antifa because of her conservative views joined Fox News to discuss the state of Free Speech on Campuses in America. She s joined by Troy Worden, the College Republicans President at UC Berkeley.THREATENING AND STALKING? IS THIS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS STAND FOR? | 0 | [
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FMD245 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ukrainian officials, security monitors and Kiev s foreign backers warned on Wednesday that Moscow s decision to withdraw from a Ukrainian-Russian ceasefire control group could worsen the fighting in eastern Ukraine. On Monday, the Russian foreign ministry said it was recalling officers serving at the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) in Ukraine, accusing the Ukrainian side of obstructing their work and limiting access to the front line. Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak and security chief Olekshandr Turchynov said the decision, coupled with a recent surge in fighting in the eastern Donbass region, suggested Russia had switched to a more offensive strategy. We cannot rule out that they withdrew their officers in order to start stepping up not only military provocations but also military operations, Turchynov said. We will strengthen our positions at the front. The Ukrainian armed forces are currently prepared for a change in the situation, Poltorak told journalists. A Russia-backed separatist insurgency erupted in 2014 and the bloodshed has continued despite a ceasefire that was meant to end the conflict. More than 10,000 people have been killed, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis. A spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which works with the JCCC to monitor the much-violated Minsk peace agreement, said: We are concerned about any step that might lead to a further deterioration of the security situation in the region, affecting both the SMM (OSCE special monitoring mission) and the civilian population. Fighting between Ukrainian troops and separatists has climbed to the worst level in months, the OSCE said this week, after the shelling of a frontline village wounded civilians and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes. Russia denies accusations from Ukraine and NATO it supports the rebels with troops and weapons, but the U.S. envoy to peace talks, Kurt Volker, said Moscow was answerable for the violence. Russia withdrew its officers from JCCC | 1 | [
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FMD246 | 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: Was This the Original Mount Rushmore Design Before Funding Ran Out? Claim summaries: Initial designs showed the four presidents in their suits.
contextual information: Curious about how Snopes' writers verify information and craft their stories for public consumption? We've collected some posts that help explain our process. Happy reading, and let us know what else you might be interested in learning. Sculpting Mount Rushmore was anything but a simple task. With 60-foot sculptures depicting the likenesses of four presidents, the 14-year project faced several challenges, including, as one Reddit post claimed, a half-finished design resulting from a lack of funding. This claim is partly true. A closer look at National Park Service (NPS) documents revealed that, along with financial difficulties, the monument's creator also faced issues with workers and obtaining permission, as well as geological challenges and the impending American involvement in World War II. Hosted by the Library of Congress, the image featured in the meme indeed depicts the original design, sculpted into plaster, of Mount Rushmore at one-twelfth the size of its anticipated height. A similar image showed the men from head to waist in suits and was described by the National Park Service as "the final version of the plaster model used to carve Mount Rushmore located in the second studio at Mount Rushmore, which was built in 1939 and finished in 1940." Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore was originally envisioned by Idaho-born sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who intended each figure to be its own standalone statue, complete with detailed clothing from their respective time periods, according to South Dakota Public Broadcasting. But that's not exactly how it played out. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge promised federal funding for the project, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon secured full funding under the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Act. However, Borglum declined, stating that he would only accept half and match the rest with private donations dollar for dollar, according to NPS. This was a major oversight. In total, the bill authorized funds up to $250,000 (equivalent to $4 million in 2022). As the Depression struck the U.S. in the 1930s, then-Sen. Peter Norbeck of North Dakota worked to ensure that construction would continue through emergency relief programs that were part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, a program aimed at providing jobs to Americans through the construction of infrastructure, among other things. Funds from the New Deal were then matched with money allocated in the original bill. Funding was erratic and unpredictable, and when the money ran dry, so did the work, reported PBS. In the last two years of construction, Borglum traveled to secure funding while his son, Lincoln, supervised the construction. He died in Chicago following surgery on March 6, 1941. His death and the project's lack of funds, coupled with logistical issues and the impending American involvement in World War II, ultimately led to the project being declared complete on Oct. 31, 1941. In total, the monument's construction cost just shy of $1 million at the time, the equivalent of about $19 million in 2022, with about $836,000 coming from the federal government. The missing busts are not the only details where construction fell short of the original design. Borglum also envisioned an entablature to be carved in an area shaped like the then-territory of the Louisiana Purchase, with three-foot tall letters. "The Entablature was to be a brief history of the United States, symbolized by Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, carved beside the four faces. The Entablature would emphasize that Mount Rushmore was a national memorial, commemorating the first 150 years of the United States, not just the lives of the four great men," wrote the NPS. Inconsistencies in the rock required that the presidential figures be relocated to where the entablature was to be placed. Borglum also figured that the words would be too difficult to read from below and abandoned the idea completely. Rife with a controversial history, today Mount Rushmore is largely recognized as a misplaced monument located on land stolen from the Native American Lakota (also known as Sioux) people, who called the granite formation Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, or Six Grandfathers Mountain, noted National Geographic. As we have previously reported, the monument has a dark history of ties to the KKK and an illegal war. | 1 | [
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FMD247 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Share This
Our nation is out of control, and perhaps the biggest threat is our lax border policy, courtesy of Barack Obama. Proving just that is an illegal alien who managed to sneak his way back into this country after being deported twice. However, it’s the sick surprise he had for his girlfriend that landed him behind bars – and hopefully, it’s for good.
It all started when the daughter of illegal alien Raul Perez, 43, got an odd phone call from her father that just couldn’t be ignored. After hanging up with her father, Perez’s daughter immediately called 911, prompting dispatch to send a few officers to the home of the girl’s mother, 31-year-old Karla Guadalupe-Magana, a mother of 5 and Perez’s girlfriend. Raul Perez (left), Karla Guadalupe-Magana (right) (Source: Mail Online )
Unfortunately, the situation would take a horrid turn as officers made their way into the home to find the woman dead on the bathroom floor with Perez asleep in the bed just feet away. Come to find out, the illegal alien decided to strangle her to death for reasons unknown – but it only gets worse from there .
According to reports, Perez is actually a Mexico national in the United States illegally and had already been deported twice, but making matters worse, he was actually in police custody just 4 days prior to the murder. Unfortunately, he was released on bond due to a technicality.
Perez had been arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated, but he reportedly used a fake name to fly under the radar. Although his fingerprints were taken and sent to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seeing how the agency “ doesn’t monitor this type of thing 24/7 ,” Perez was released on bond before the local jail heard anything back.
Right now, Perez is facing life in prison and deportation once he has answered for his crimes – not that it really does any good. As it stands, this illegal alien could live the rest of his life, leeching off the American taxpayer while in our prison system, because our border is so porous that he just walked across three separate times. If he’s deported, that would solve the drain on our taxpayers, but as he’s already proven, it also means he could do it all again if our border issue isn’t solved.
This is the type of problem that America is dealing with, and it all stems from Barack Obama’s presidency and the man’s dangerous policies. Beyond tying Border Patrol’s hands behind their backs, our so-called leader has left our nation’s border literally open for anyone to simply walk across.
Unfortunately, because of that lunacy, a mother of 5 is now dead. However, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel if Donald Trump gets elected. Not only will he allow Border Patrol to do its job, he’ll build a wall, making it just about impossible for scum like Perez to come into this country – and that, my friends, is exactly what we need. | 0 | [
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FMD248 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: SAN FRANCISCO — Sitting in a basement office that she rents by the hour, Shannon Coulter ticks off the activities she gave up in defiance of President Donald J. Trump: renting movies with her husband on Amazon, and shopping at Nordstrom, Macy’s and other retailers that sell Ivanka Trump’s products. A Nordstrom bag sat on a nearby table. It represents a victory lap of sorts for Ms. Coulter, who has almost spearheaded a retail revolt against the president and his family. She was wearing a new silver Elizabeth and James lariat necklace purchased at the department store soon after it scrubbed Ms. Trump’s name from its website. “The goal,†Ms. Coulter said, “came originally from a place of really wanting to shop the stores we loved again with a clear conscience. †It’s been a wild ride these past few months for Ms. Coulter, who runs her shoestring movement from her home, or from cheerfully decorated work spaces like this one — surrounded by furniture, clam chairs and decorative pillows that feel more Silicon Valley than war room. Enraged by a video that emerged last October of Mr. Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, Ms. Coulter began a boycott of any sort of product connected to Mr. Trump. At first, it was just a tweet — a list she had compiled of companies that sold Trump products — but the ember quickly turned into a blaze. Thousands of people have contacted the stores Ms. Coulter has on her boycott list, including Macy’s and Amazon. Retailers including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and T. J. Maxx have backed away from products connected to Ms. Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, since Ms. Coulter’s efforts began. A herd of activists and celebrities, including the feminist writer Gloria Steinem, the Olympic diver Greg Louganis and the actress Lucy Lawless of “Xena: Warrior Princess,†have expressed support. The attention has transformed Ms. Coulter, 45, a digital marketing specialist, into the unlikely general of the digital army now supporting her campaign, Grab Your Wallet. “People describe me as an activist in media coverage, I don’t know who they’re talking about,†she said. “I’ve never done anything this organized or structured or purposeful. †The new role has taken up much of her time, and has made her the target of criticism and attacks from Trump supporters. She’s lost count of how many times she has been called a “bully†or a “disgrace. †The abuse gets more menacing with each victory a recent email included her mother’s name in the subject line, with threats to publish more of her personal information. In the latest twist, the boycott has drawn Ms. Coulter, a progressive liberal, into a growing debate over whether targeting Ms. Trump is sexist. And she said she worries that people will think she is profiting from the venture. Ms. Coulter was particularly upset when a knockoff “Grab Your Wallet†group sold clothing and other merchandise on Facebook. “We don’t even have a we don’t have stickers, nothing,†she said, adding that she does not accept compensation from companies, or donations. “I don’t think either of us envisioned that some of the things that have happened would happen,†said Sue Atencio, who helped Ms. Coulter get the site started. In many ways, Ms. Coulter has embraced her new position. She answers emails at all hours and scours Twitter for tips on companies to add, or remove, from the boycott list. Then there are the phone calls — lots and lots of phone calls — from angry Trump supporters or journalists or the companies that want to get off her list. There is no doubt that it has changed her life. She doesn’t sleep or socialize as often as she used to. Most of her work on Grab Your Wallet is done after she eats dinner with her husband, taking up what free time she has. “She went underground, basically,†said Amie Penwell, a fellow San Francisco resident who hasn’t seen much of her friend of seven years recently. The negative attention has made Ms. Coulter careful about her privacy. She insisted on meeting at the work space for an interview, to avoid having a reporter at her home, out of fear that it could be targeted. She would not let her husband, whom she met online in 2010, be interviewed. Born in Indiana, Ms. Coulter studied journalism at Penn State. She said she began her career by “piggybacking†on the Bay Area’s technology boom, helping with their email marketing. A year ago she started her own agency, DoubleKnown, which helps executives and small businesses build their online presence through blog posts, social media feeds and other digital tools. The company has one other employee and a handful of education and technology clients, but has stopped taking on new accounts since Grab Your Wallet took off. Political activism has not been a big part of Ms. Coulter’s life since college, when she spoke at a rally raising awareness about violence against women. Her most recent organized effort came after the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon in 2015, when she circulated a list of lawmakers who had voted against tougher gun control measures. “Maybe that gave me a taste of what something like this would be like,†she said, describing herself as a chronic list maker. “I like the efficiency of them. †After becoming incensed by the video, Ms. Coulter began searching retailers’ websites for products and collecting the names on a spreadsheet. Wondering who else might be interested in a boycott, she looked at Twitter, and found Ms. Atencio, who had tweeted “fashion not fascism. â€Ms. Coulter contacted her and suggested they announce the boycott together. Since then, most of the work has fallen to Ms. Coulter, though she refers to Ms. Atencio as her “spiritual guide†and sounding board. Ms. Atencio, 59, sees herself as the less visible half of a musical duo. “I feel like I’m the Garfunkel and Shannon is Paul Simon,†Ms. Atencio said. Grab Your Wallet now includes a list of places to shop and not shop, and a short script for people who want to call companies to complain. As many as 32, 000 people visit her site in an hour, Ms. Coulter said. When the women’s marches took place across the country in January, 350, 000 people arrived during a period. In early February, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus removed Ms. Trump’s name from their websites. Employees at T. J. Maxx and Marshalls were instructed not to display Ivanka Trump products and to throw her signs in the trash. None of the retailers credited Grab Your Wallet with their decision — the department stores blamed poor sales — and it is not possible to know to what degree Ms. Coulter and her followers have influenced the companies’ decision making. But in the waning days of January, complaints, many of which mentioned Grab Your Wallet, were Nordstrom’s most common customer feedback, according to a person with direct knowledge who was not authorized to speak publicly. Nordstrom said it did not have “specific numbers†on the number of customers it had heard from. “I attribute it directly to the Muslim ban,†Ms. Coulter said, referring to the executive order on immigration that Mr. Trump issued on Jan. 27. “I can see when the numbers spike when certain news events happen. †Monitoring those spikes, updating her list and responding to emails, tweets and press inquiries have become Ms. Coulter’s second job. “My life is so completely here,†she said, gesturing to her MacBook, “that it all just sort of overlaps and is an endless stream of emails and tweets and Facebook posts. †She does get some help from volunteers, like the woman who helps run the legitimate Grab Your Wallet Facebook group, which has more than 12, 000 members. But for the most part, Ms. Coulter is on her own. That means the threats and negative attention are also directed largely at her. People ask her why she’s “attacking another woman,†or call her a bully. People like the Fox host Jeanine Pirro have argued that Ms. Trump’s brand has nothing to do with the White House, and that she is being unjustly targeted. Defenders also point to a proposed maternity policy that Ms. Trump developed with her father’s campaign, and her brand’s hashtag, WomenWhoWork, as examples of how she promotes women. “We have to stop destroying women based on the men in their lives,†Ms. Pirro said during a recent episode of her show. S. E. Cupp, a conservative author and commentator, stopped short of calling the boycott of Ms. Trump’s products sexist. But in an email, Ms. Cupp said that it seemed “misdirected. †“I’m never a fan of going after the kids, grown or not, of presidents,†she said. “Nor does it feel consistent with the argument — that he’s ‘ ’ — to economically punish his daughter, a working wife and mother. †A spokesman for Ms. Trump’s brand declined to make someone at the company available for an interview. In a statement, the company said it had been “swept into the political fray, becoming collateral damage in others’ efforts to advance agendas unrelated to what we do. †Ms. Coulter finds such comments perplexing. She pointed out that Ms. Trump moved to Washington and has taken on an informal advisory role in the White House. She frequently sits in on her father’s meetings with foreign leaders. Ms. Trump’s husband, the real estate developer Jared Kushner, is a top adviser to President Trump. In addition, Ms. Coulter said, Ms. Trump played a prominent role in the presidential campaign. “Someone who passionately campaigned for a man who likes to grab women by the genitals will never convince me that she’s on the side of women,†she said. “Ever. †Ms. Steinem also said that Ms. Trump was fair game, particularly after the election, when it can no longer be argued that she is just doing her “filial duty†on the campaign trail. “It’s appropriate to boycott her not because he is her father,†Ms. Steinem said, “but because she supports his policies. †Ms. Steinem specifically faulted Ms. Trump’s proposed policy for its exclusion of fathers and mothers. Despite the long hours, Ms. Coulter said she could continue running Grab Your Wallet indefinitely. She’s considering turning the campaign into a nonprofit and running it full time, and is struggling to figure out what to do with her fledgling business. “I’m trying to understand what the right next step is,†she said. “I think as long as he’s in office, this will be alive. †| 1 | [
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FMD249 | 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: Did Debby Ryan Have a Heart Attack? Claim summaries: Unfounded rumors concerning Debby Ryan's health were circulated in the wake of the death of her co-star Cameron Boyce.
contextual information: On July 6, 2019, fans of actor Cameron Boyce were shocked and saddened to learn that the 20-year-old Disney star had passed away after experiencing a seizure. As celebrities and fans mourned Boyce's loss on social media, a rumor began to circulate that actress Debby Ryan had suffered a heart attack after hearing the news about her former co-star's death. There was no truth to this unfounded rumor, which was widely disseminated by a viral video posted to YouTube by @Dancetayley and titled "Debby Ryan Rushed to Hospital After Finding Out About Cameron Boyce." The video, which racked up nearly 2 million views within a day of its initial posting, included a number of screenshots of tweets from random people who claimed that Ryan had suffered a heart attack. None of those tweets originated from verified sources, and no credible news outlets reported that Ryan experienced a heart attack. This rumor likely stemmed from the fact that Ryan's voice was absent from the conversation immediately following Boyce's death. While many other co-stars and celebrity friends posted messages on social media mourning Boyce's loss after the news broke, Ryan's social media accounts were largely silent. Fans began to wonder why she hadn't commented yet, and some started to claim without evidence that she had suffered a heart attack. There were, of course, innumerable potential reasons why Ryan didn't immediately post on social media that did not involve a heart attack. For example, she might simply have taken some time to process the news of her co-star's passing. While Ryan didn't immediately post on social media, she did like a tweet posted by actor Charles Esten, who co-starred with Ryan and Boyce on the show Jessie. Ryan, who turned off her Instagram comments following Boyce's death—likely because a large number of fans were continuously reminding her that her friend had just died—also posted a video to her Instagram story of Boyce's acceptance speech for the Pioneering Spirit Award at the 2018 Thirst Gala. Here's the full video of Boyce's acceptance speech. The portion of his speech included in Ryan's post is transcribed below: "It's crazy, we can tweet whenever we want and we can use social media and Instagram and make the world a better place, instead of a worse one, which so many people use it for... We need to use what we have and make the world a better place for other people, people who need us." | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD250 | 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: One year ago, (Republicans) would not fill seats vacated for people who went to the administration because of the cost of those elections. Now, theyre talking about changing the rules to add additional elections that will cost millions of dollars of taxpayer expense.
contextual information: In the wake of the November 2018 midterm election, in which Democrats wrested the governors office from Republicans, the political divide in Wisconsin continues. Republicans are proposing to move Wisconsin's presidential primary in 2020, which would improve the chances of conservative Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly retaining his seat. Kelly was appointed to the seat by soon-to-be-former Gov. Scott Walker. Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, is crying foul -- and hypocrisy. One year ago, (Republicans) would not fill seats vacated for people who went to the administration because of the cost of those elections, said Hintz, in a Nov. 18, 2018, interview on WISN-TVs UpFront with Mike Gousha. Now, theyre talking about changing the rules to add additional elections that will cost millions of dollars of taxpayer expense. Lets take a look at both parts of Hintzs claim. Legislative elections Walker did initially decline to call special elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down in December 2017 to join his administration. At the time, Walker argued for leaving the seats open until the regularly scheduled Nov. 6, 2018, election. Democrats countered it was not fair to leave residents of those districts without representation for that long, noting the law requires elections to be held promptly. Walker himself cited cost as a factor, speaking to reporters in Pewaukee: Its just awaste of taxpayersmoney. The Legislature would be adjourned before a special election was held so (candidates would) ... have to be running for the fall election for a state legislative seat at the same time there would be a special election for a seat that wouldnt get to vote on anything until after the fall election anyway. The seats had belonged to former state Sen. Frank Lasee of De Pere and former state Rep. Keith Ripp of Lodi. The two Republicans stepped down inDecember 2017to join Walker's administration. Voters in those areas took Walker to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama. On March 22, 2018, Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds held Walker had a dutyunder state lawto hold special elections. A second Dane Countyjudge denied a delay. Sodid an appellate judge. Ultimately, Walker and the GOP dropped the matter instead of taking it to the state Supreme Court, and the elections were held. So, Walker and Republicans did describe scheduling the elections as a waste of money, though they also cited other reasons. Chiefly, that the Legislature would be adjourned before a special election was held. Presidential election Now to the second part of Hintzs claim -- that Republicans are now talking about changing the rules to add additional elections that will cost millions of dollars of taxpayer expense. On Nov. 15, 2018, theMilwaukee Journal Sentinel reportedRepublicans are considering using the lame-duck session -- while they still hold the governors office -- to help keep a conservative on the state Supreme Court and give GOP lawmakers greater control of two state boards. Republicans have been concerned about the 2020 state Supreme Court race because it is scheduled to be held alongside Wisconsin's presidential primary when Democratic turnout is expected to far outpace Republican turnout, since Democrats will be deciding who will challenge President Donald Trump. A turnout imbalance could spell trouble for Kelly, whom Walker appointed in 2016. Republican legislative leaders, the Journal Sentinel reported, are looking at moving the 2020 presidential primary from April, possibly to March of that year. The GOP plan would require voters to go to the pollsthree timesin the spring of 2020 likely in February, March and April. Holding the extra election would indeed cost millions. Nearly30 of Wisconsin's 72county clerks have come out against the proposal, noting -- among other issues -- the statewide cost of holding a standard spring election is around $7 million. Hintzs statement was a bit off, however, in that he said the GOP was considering holding multiple extra elections. Only one is being considered. Our rating Hintz said, One year ago, (Republicans) would not fill seats vacated for people who went to the administration because of the cost of those elections. Now, theyre talking about changing the rules to add additional elections that will cost millions of dollars of taxpayer expense. Hintz is generally on target: Republicans did cite cost as one factor -- among several -- when they initially planned to hold off on calling special elections to fill seats vacated by Walker appointees. And they are considering adding a single -- not multiple -- additional election in 2020, which by one estimate could cost taxpayers about $7 million. We rate the claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD251 | 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: Was an image of Patti LaBelle utilized by Fox News in the midst of their tribute to Aretha Franklin? Claim summaries: Fox News accidentally included a photograph of singer Patti LaBelle instead of Aretha Franklin as they reported on the latter's passing.
contextual information: On 16 August 2018, Aretha Franklin, the iconic Grammy Award-winning singer known as the "Queen of Soul," passed away at the age of 76. As fans took to social media to share their memories of the late soul singer, many of them noticed a curious graphic that had been shared by the official Fox News Twitter account. The news network used the same graphic in their television broadcast about Franklin's death. This graphic was of particular interest because while the foreground picture is that of Aretha Franklin, the woman in the green jacket seen in the background is not the Queen of Soul. That is actually an image of singer Patti LaBelle performing at the "Women of Soul: In Performance at the White House" concert in 2014. Jessica Santostefano, Vice President of the Media Desk at Fox News, issued an apology for the mistake. She stated, "We sincerely apologize to Aretha Franklin's family and friends. Our intention was to honor the icon using a secondary image of her performing with Patti LaBelle in the full-screen graphic, but the image of Ms. Franklin was obscured in that process, which we deeply regret." LaBelle and Franklin both performed at a 2014 White House concert, but the network's explanation for the error seemed questionable to some viewers because Franklin didn't appear at all in the photograph of LaBelle that formed the basis of the graphic. The original photograph, which was taken during LaBelle's performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst, can be seen below. | 1 | [
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] | 1 |
FMD252 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Ted Wade hasn’t cared about politics enough to cast a vote in a U.S. presidential election for almost a quarter of a century, back when he supported Ross Perot’s independent candidacy in 1992. But Republican Donald Trump’s 2016 White House bid has motivated Wade to get involved and he plans to support the real estate mogul in Nevada’s nominating caucus next month. Trump is a “non-politician†who can fix the “chaos†in Washington, he says. About one in 10 Americans who plan to cast a vote this election will do so for the first time in years, if ever, and Trump holds a decided edge with them, according to polling by Reuters/Ipsos. (tmsnrt.rs/1SgeLvi) These voters offer Trump a pool of voters who could be decisive either in the Republican primaries or a general election. They could be crucial for Trump in early-voting states such as Iowa and South Carolina, where his nearest rival, Senator Ted Cruz, is putting pressure on Trump and enjoys a strong base of support with more traditionally conservative voters. In Reuters/Ipsos polling from June to December 2015, 27.3 percent of these “new†voters said they would vote for Trump, higher than his poll numbers among independents and Republicans who regularly vote. By way of comparison, Cruz captures just 3.4 percent of these voters. And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida snags only 4 percent. “I’m tired of the chaos between Democrats and Republicans and want to give somebody a try who I think can make a difference,†said Wade of Trump. The 51-year-old has already switched his affiliation from Democrat to Republican and even attended a Trump campaign event in Las Vegas. He has told his three older children to get involved in the elections, although he did not say whether he wanted them to vote for Trump. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has made targeting “lost†voters such as Wade a focus of his campaign. His anti-immigrant rhetoric and protectionist trade proposals have helped him to fashion a message tailored to reach Americans alienated by the endless enmity between the political parties and who, because of declining economic prospects, may feel like neither party has done much for them. Trump’s strategy is a gamble, given the lack of reliability of many of the voters with whom he is most popular. In interviews, some of those lost voters insist they will show up, saying they are drawn to Trump’s outsider status and his willingness to upend the political system. Tucson, Arizona, resident Renay Cunningham, 56, said she had never paid much attention to politics in the past. She plans to cast her first ever vote for Trump after hearing his proposed policies to curb illegal immigration, which include building a giant wall on the southern border and making Mexico pay for it. “We need a piranha in there, and he’s definitely a piranha,†she said. Trump and his operatives are confident they can do what few of his rivals for the Republican nomination have shown they can do — expand the party’s potential voter pool. But while Democrat Barack Obama did that eight years ago by largely registering new voters, including record levels of minorities, both male and female, in urban centers, Trump’s campaign has instead largely sought out the disaffected, who tend to be overwhelmingly older, white, and less educated than the broader electorate. “My whole campaign has been focused on expanding the number of people who want to, and will, participate in this election cycle,†Trump wrote in a recent op-ed in USA Today. When analyzing “lost†or “new†voters, Reuters compiled poll results from people who haven’t voted in the previous two presidential campaigns and midterm congressional elections. The results focused only on those who said they were nearly certain to vote in the November election. It included responses from 3,440 “new†Republican and independent voters – a sample that has a credibility interval of 2 percentage points. Jan Leighley, an expert on turnout at American University, said it’s too soon to compare Trump’s “new†voters with the disenfranchised voters, especially minorities, who in 2008 turned out in record numbers to elect the first black president. Those voters didn’t find their way to the polls simply because they were inspired to make history, Leighley said. “He also had a kick-ass mobilization structure.†“Obama’s campaign went door-to-door. They canvassed whole neighborhoods. “I don’t know if he (Trump) has the campaign infrastructure to make sure that the folks who are riled up are walked to the polls on Election Day,†she said. Trump’s campaign insists he does have the infrastructure, but won’t provide specifics on how it intends to turn casual supporters into engaged voters. The campaign says it does follow up with the thousands of attendees who jam arenas for Trump’s rallies. That’s one significant advantage the reality star has over the other candidates in the Republican field, as the challenge in reaching voters who have fallen out of the political process often lies in simply locating them. “We’ve identified a lot of people in early primary states who have not participated in the process before,†campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told Reuters. Lewandowski resists the notion that Trump needs to turn out “new†or reluctant voters to win states such as Iowa. Even if the Trump campaign isn’t necessarily counting on them, it may be reassuring that his supporters among “new†voters who responded to the Reuters/Ipsos survey appear motivated to cast a vote for him. At least for the time being. Ronald Thomas, a 49-year-old truck driver and Navy veteran in North Carolina, said he, too, has never voted in a presidential contest. His girlfriend would push him to vote but he would always say “Yeah, but the right one ain’t come along yet,’†Thomas said. Trump is that man. His willingness to take on the government has set him apart as someone who would “actually look out for the people,†said Thomas. Now he wants to know how to register so that he can vote for the billionaire. And there’s Vince DiSylvester, a retired maintenance worker in Missouri, who, at 73, said has never cast a ballot for president. But Trump has inspired him to rethink that. “He’s a businessman, he knows business, he knows how to get things done,†he said. “And he tells it like it is. If you don’t like it | 1 | [
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FMD253 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The California State Assembly passed a bill Monday to allow state employees to be communists — a surprise to observers who may have presumed many state employees were already communists. [The bill, AB 22, would amend existing laws — passed, the Sacramento Bee says, “during the ‘Red Scare’ of the 1940s and ’50s†— that allowed state employees to be fired if they were found to be members of the Communist Party. Moreover, the bill would delete existing section of the state code declaring California’s official opposition to communism. The section of the state code proposed to be deleted states: The Legislature of the State of California finds that: (a) There exists a revolutionary movement to establish a totalitarian dictatorship based upon force and violence rather than upon law. (b) This revolutionary movement is predicated upon and it is designed and intended to carry into execution the basic precepts of communism as expounded by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. (c) Pursuant to the objectives of the world communism movement, in numerous foreign countries the legally constituted governments have been overthrown and totalitarian dictatorships established therein against the will of the people, and the establishment of similar dictatorships in other countries is imminently threatening. The successful establishment of totalitarian dictatorships has consistently been aided, accompanied, or accomplished by repeated acts of treachery, deceit, teaching of false doctrines, teaching untruth, together with organized confusion, insubordination, and disloyalty, fostered, directed, instigated, or employed by communist organizations and their members in such countries. (d) Within the boundaries of the State of California there are active disciplined communist organizations presently functioning for the primary purpose of advancing the objectives of the world communism movement, which organizations promulgate, advocate, and adhere to the precepts and the principles and doctrines of the world communism movement. These communist organizations are characterized by identification of their programs, policies, and objectives with those of the world communism movement, and they regularly and consistently cooperate with and endeavor to carry into execution programs, policies and objectives substantially identical to programs, policies, and objectives of such world communism movement. (e) One of the objectives of the world communism movement is to place its members in state and local government positions and in state supported educational institutions. If this objective is successful, propaganda can be disseminated by the members of these organizations among pupils and students by those members who would have the opportunity to teach them and to whom, as teachers, they would look for guidance, authority, and leadership. The members of such groups would use their positions to advocate and teach their doctrines and teach the prescribed Communist Party line group dogma or doctrine without regard to truth or free inquiry. This type of propaganda is sufficiently subtle to escape detection. There is a clear and present danger, which the Legislature of the State of California finds is great and imminent, that in order to advance the program, policies and objectives of the world communism movement, communist organizations in the State of California and their members will engage in concerted effort to hamper, restrict, interfere with, impede, or nullify the efforts of the State and the public agencies of the State to comply with and enforce the laws of the State of California and their members will infiltrate and seek employment by the State and its public agencies. The new bill, proposed by Assemblymember Rob Bonta ( ) would leave intact the provisions of the state code that bar state employees who belong to organizations that “advocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of any state by force or violence. †Several Republicans, including Assemblymembers Randy Vopel ( ) and Travis Allen ( Beach) spoke out against the bill. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential†people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 | [
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FMD254 | 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 a Photo Show Ice Cube, 50 Cent Wearing Trump Hats? Claim summaries: A manipulated image was just a lil bit misleading.
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. On Oct. 20, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump's son Eric Trump posted an image to social media that supposedly showed musicians Ice Cube and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson wearing "Trump 2020" hats. This is not a genuine photograph of 50 Cent and Ice Cube wearing "Trump 2020" hats; it is a doctored image created from a photograph of Ice Cube and 50 Cent at a BIG3 basketball game in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2017. In the original image, Ice Cube is wearing a hat with the BIG3 logo, while 50 Cent is wearing a hat with a New York Yankees logo. Ice Cube shared the original photograph on his Twitter page in July 2020, along with a birthday message for his friend 50 Cent. Getty Images has archived a few other photographs taken at this event. The image at the top of this article, for example, carries the caption: "LAS VEGAS, NV - AUGUST 26: BIG3 founder and recording artist Ice Cube and Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson attend the BIG3 three-on-three basketball league championship game on August 26, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/BIG3/Getty Images)." Ice Cube confirmed that the image was fake in a message posted to Twitter, and Trump has since deleted his tweet. Although this image is fake, both musicians have indeed aligned themselves, at least in part, with the Trump administration. While Ice Cube has not endorsed Trump for 2020, he did work with the president's administration to create a "Contract With Black America." Ice Cube stated that he would "advise anyone on the planet who has the power to help Black Americans close the enormous wealth gap." 50 Cent's support for Trump was more explicit. On Oct. 19, 50 Cent took to Instagram and shared a message endorsing Trump, along with a screenshot from CNBC's "Power Lunch" concerning a report that Biden's tax plan would raise the tax rate to as much as 62% on Americans who make more than $400,000 a year. This screenshot comes from a segment of "Power Lunch" that aired on Oct. 19. During this segment, CNBC's Robert Frank explained how people earning more than $400,000 a year could pay income taxes at a rate of more than 62%. Interestingly, Ice Cube and 50 Cent appear to be aligning themselves with Trump for polar opposite reasons. Ice Cube, for instance, said that he was willing to work with either presidential campaign to improve the lives of Black Americans and to "close the enormous wealth gap." 50 Cent, on the other hand, stated he didn't care that "Trump doesn't like Black people" and that he was endorsing the incumbent because his opponent's tax plan would increase taxes on wealthy Americans. | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD255 | 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: Did Biden promise to abolish the 'stepped-up' basis for capital gains tax? Claim summaries: For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements.
contextual information: In early 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of a widely shared social media post that purported to describe U.S. President Joe Biden's intention to eliminate a piece of tax law that allows taxpayers to benefit from selling a home inherited from their parents. The post, which was critical of Biden and the supposed plan, first emerged during the 2020 presidential election campaign but regained prominence after Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. It typically read as follows: "Did you know Biden wants to get rid of something called 'stepped-up basis'? How does this affect you? When your parents pass and leave you the family house, normally you would inherit that property at its current value. If you were to sell that house, you would only pay taxes on the gain from its current value and what it sells for. If Biden does away with 'stepped-up basis,' you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for it. If you decide to sell, you will pay taxes on the difference between the original purchase price and what it sells for today. Here is what this looks like:
Current Policy
Inherited House at Current Value - $200,000
Sells for $205,000
Taxable income = $5,000
Taxes Due - 20% of $5,000 = $1,000
Profit to you = $204,000
Biden Policy
Inherited House at Original Purchase Price - $40,000
Sells for $205,000
Taxable income = $165,000
Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000
Profit to you = $172,000
If your parents had sold this property prior to passing, they would have paid no taxes because it was their primary residence. So much for helping the middle class get ahead. My educated guess would be that at least 95% of Americans don’t even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of additional tax dollars for the average person after inheritance! Wow, Google 'Biden stepped-up basis' and educate yourself because this is significant! Please share!
The viral post accurately stated that Biden proposed eliminating the 'stepped-up' basis for capital gains tax and correctly explained the potential practical consequences for an individual taxpayer who inherits a home. In fact, the tax burden for wealthier individuals would be even greater than the post indicated, as Biden has also proposed doubling the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with income over $1 million.
Here's how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office describes the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, which is the tax due on profits from the sale of an asset, such as shares or property: When people sell an asset for more than the price they paid for it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the asset's adjusted basis—generally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the asset's fair-market value at the time of the owner's death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the asset's value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the asset's value relative to the stepped-up basis. As a result, any appreciation in value that occurred while the decedent owned the asset is not included in taxable income and therefore is not subject to capital gains tax.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama also proposed eliminating the stepped-up basis. Here's his administration's explanation of how it works: Suppose an individual leaves stock worth $50 million to an heir, who immediately sells it. When purchased, the stock was worth $10 million, so the capital gain is $40 million. However, the heir's basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when inherited, so no income tax is due on the sale, nor ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of the stepped-up basis.
During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed their intention to eliminate the stepped-up basis. As first highlighted by Politifact, the Biden campaign presented the proposal as a partial way to pay for its proposed student loan reforms. In October 2019, ABC News reported that the plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt. Biden's policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who enter the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate debt relief per year for up to five years of service. Biden would also double the maximum amount of Pell grants available to students, including Dreamers, and would allow students making less than $25,000 a year to defer payments on their federal loans without accruing interest. Any student making more than $25,000 would pay 5% of their discretionary income toward their loans rather than the current 10% owed. The plan would be funded through the elimination of the stepped-up basis loophole, a type of break on inheritance taxes, and capping itemized deductions for wealthy Americans at 28%, according to the campaign.
In June 2020, according to CNBC, Biden told potential donors: "I'm going to get rid of the bulk of Trump's $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that, but I'm going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis." On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): "The Biden plan for post-secondary education is a $750 billion investment over 10 years, aimed at developing a stronger and more inclusive middle class. It will be paid for by ensuring the super-rich pay their fair share. Specifically, this plan will be funded by eliminating the gap in our tax law known as the 'Stepped-up Basis Loophole' as well as reducing the itemized deductions that the richest Americans can make to 28%."
Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only eliminating the stepped-up basis but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains—that is, profits from the sale of an asset owned for more than one year—for relatively wealthy taxpayers. Here's what the Biden-Harris campaign website stated, as part of the campaign's healthcare plan: "As President, Biden will make healthcare a right by eliminating capital gains tax loopholes for the super wealthy. Today, the very wealthy pay a tax rate of just 20% on long-term capital gains... As President, Biden will roll back the Trump rate cut for the very wealthy and restore the 39.6% top rate he helped restore when he negotiated an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012. Biden's capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will ensure that those making over $1 million will pay the top rate on capital gains, doubling the capital gains tax rate on the super wealthy."
The Facebook post shared widely in late 2020 and early 2021 accurately described Biden's stated intention to eliminate the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on an individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents before selling it. The tax burden for wealthier taxpayers would be even greater than the Facebook post outlined, since Biden has also proposed increasing the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with an income above $1 million. The Facebook post did not mention that Biden had stipulated he would use the money raised from eliminating the stepped-up basis to help pay for his healthcare and education plans. Snopes contacted the White House to ask whether the Biden administration still intended to push for the elimination of the stepped-up basis, but we did not receive a response in time for publication. | 1 | [
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FMD256 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump won the White House after spending a little more than half of what Hillary Clinton did, using a combination of his own money and contributions from donors big and small to fuel a campaign that shattered the modern conventions of money and politics. The figures for the final weeks of the campaign, released late Thursday, showed that Mr. Trump paid his own companies nearly $12 million over the course of the election — reimbursement for flights, hotel stays, meals and services for him and his staff members, as well as office space in the tower he owns on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. His preferred mode of transportation — his private aircraft — made up the largest chunk of money that went back into Trump entities, $8. 7 million. The figures also show that Mr. Trump put in $65 million of his own cash, well short of the $100 million he had originally promised he would spend on his campaign. These unusual practices provide a glimpse of the kind of potential conflicts and ethical issues that Mr. Trump will have to resolve as president. The wealthiest man ever elected president, Mr. Trump is already facing calls from government ethics officials to sever ties to his vast real estate and financial holdings around the world. He is resisting so far, raising the possibility that he could enter office with a virtually unknowable number of personal entanglements that is without precedent. Over all, Mr. Trump raised far less money than Mrs. Clinton did, though the disparity — like the race itself — closed at the end of the campaign. The Clinton campaign brought in $70 million from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28, compared with $86 million for the Trump campaign, of which $10 million came from Mr. Trump’s own pocket. The combined figures, which include what each campaign and its outside allies raised, reinforce just how little money seemed to matter in this election. Mrs. Clinton and her allies took in about $1 billion Mr. Trump and the groups working on his behalf raised only about $600 million. Sustained at times by little more than a Twitter account, his own money and extensive news media coverage, Mr. Trump relied far less on the traditional tools of campaigning. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was more dependent on television advertising, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on almost relentlessly negative attacks. At a time when every presidential election promises to obliterate spending records, 2016 was an exception. Both candidates spent significantly less than their counterparts did in 2012. Mrs. Clinton’s total expenses were $565 million, compared with $775 million for President Obama Mr. Trump spent $322 million, while Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee that year, spent $460 million. Mrs. Clinton closed with under $1 million in the bank, much less than the $7 million remaining for the Trump campaign. Though Mr. Trump would often brag that he was financing his own campaign, that was only partially true. The new disclosures show that nearly 80 percent of the money his campaign brought in came from donors. The disclosures also undercut another theme that was central to Mr. Trump’s appeal as an antipolitician — his insistence that he would not favor wealthy donors and powerful interests if elected. Some of his nominees, who include millionaires and billionaires, made large donations to his campaign or to “super PACs†supporting him. For example, Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling mogul whom Mr. Trump has chosen to lead the Small Business Administration, donated $7 million to two groups. The records also show that the men he intends to nominate for his secretaries of Labor, Treasury and Commerce all made contributions to his campaign, the Republican National Committee or another group supporting him. Still, Mr. Trump’s campaign also benefited from a network of ordinary Americans who gave small amounts of money, an illustration of his powerful appeal. percent of the amount donors gave directly to his campaign came from people who donated $200 or less. The financial fortunes of the political parties are also reflected in the outcome of the campaign, with Democrats in worse shape than Republicans as they head into 2017. The Democratic National Committee reported having $13 million on hand and $2 million in debt. The Republican National Committee has $21 million on hand and no debt. The figures also showed the extent to which the Republican National Committee benefited from its financial arrangement with Mr. Trump, who despite being a drag on the party’s finances early on ended up helping to rescue it. The committee kept a slice of the money it had raised with Mr. Trump through two joint committees, helping to pay off $7 million in debt and leaving it in much better financial condition than at the beginning of the campaign. | 1 | [
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FMD257 | 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: Jonathan Gruber, a key figure in designing Obamacare, has praised the perceived ignorance of the American people. Claim summaries: 'Obamacare architect' Jonathan Gruber recently said that Obamacare only passed due to the 'stupidity' of the American voter and a lack of 'transparency,' and video footage of his remarks was deleted f
contextual information: Claim: Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency," and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. : : Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency. Video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. Example: [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Hey Media, is UPenn pulling the Gruber video where he says ObamaCare passed by Democrats lying to the public a newsworthy event? Just askin' Jonathan Gruber, an Obamacare's architect admitted that lack of transparency/stupidity of electorate helped pass the bill Origins: In November 2014, a 52-second long excerpt from a video of a 2013 conferenceinvolving Jonathan Gruber, a consultant who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration and Congress during the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or "Obamacare"), began to circulate on the internet. Gruber made the remarks captured in that excerpt during the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics in October 2013. Gruber's remarks became controversial when video of the conference was posted online thirteen months after the LDI panel on health economics took place. panel Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of economics, was speaking at a panel titled "The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA and How Economics Can Inform Inevitable Mid-Course Corrections." The footage from which the comments originated ran for nearly an hour and covered issues tangential to Obamacare, such as its classification as a tax, subsidies, and how the bill came into law. Gruber's controversial remarks come at around the 18-minute mark in the video shown below: During the portion of the video in question, Gruber said: This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money it would not have passed. OK? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not. After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he "spoke inappropriately": elaborated Gruber's comments were part of a broader public conversation between him and economist Mark Pauly on the economics of health care reform. Gruber was responding to a remark by Pauly about financing transparency in the law and the politics surrounding the ACA's individual mandate. The political process, he said, striking a critical tone, resulted in inefficiencies in the law which should be corrected. "In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed," he said. "You can't do it politically, you just literally cannot do it. It's not only transparent financing but also transparent spending." In the video, Gruber appeared to be speaking specifically about the political environment in 2010 and its impact on the law's funding mechanisms. Gruber takes a critical stance on some of those outcomes, calling them "irrational." "I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent but I'd rather have this law than not," Gruber said. "That involves tradeoffs that we don't prefer as economists but are realistic." Gruber apologized for his comments during an on-air interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow. "The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said. "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments." Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures "led to an incomplete law with some typos." "It would have made more sense to do Obamacare the way we did in Massachusetts, which would be to just give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance," Gruber said. "That was politically infeasible and so instead it was done through the tax code." The full video of the 2013 Health Economics Conference was published by PennLDI on YouTube, and when the excerpt video of Gruber's remarks began to circulate online, many viewers assumed the comments to be recent (they were not), and others maintained PennLDI then removed the clip from the Internet due to the political controversy. On the latter point, several Twitter users posted screenshots of a YouTube error page that indicated the source video had been (at least briefly) removed by the University after Gruber's remarks became a focus of attention: recent However, it isn't yet clear whether the PennLDI video was deliberately pulled from the Internet due to the political controversy it created, or whether it was made unavailable at some point after it was initially posted for unrelated reasons (e.g., error, copyright issues, technical problems). It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics when they were spotted and excerpted from the longer PennLDI video by Philadelphia investment adviser Rich Weinstein, then posted to the YouTube channel of the American Commitment 501(c)(4) (i.e., a politically active nonprofit organization), whose Phil Kerpen tweeted: Rich Weinstein American Commitment My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014 The claim that the University of Pennsylvania deliberately tried to scrub the clip from the Internet may also have stemmed from Kerpen or the PAC: Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014 Last updated: 12 November 2014 | 2 | [
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FMD258 | 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: Major petroleum companies Claim summaries: E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry.
contextual information: Claim: E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry. OF AND INFORMATION Examples: [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies, policies and legislation that have contributed to the current and future US oil supply situation. Did you know that the United States does NOT have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign. This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States unlike, say, France actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endlessbillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela to be used in propping up their economies. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democrat Party aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, off Cuba but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming. We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our dirt burms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no burm around it. People wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly nothing. So, America enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil. What the US government also does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "Record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc. amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon. To all you Democrats, when you go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama just keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin through a Democrat's name. William "Bill" Phillips Origins: Several readers (including members of the Phillips family) have maintained to us that there is no descendant of Frank Phillips matching the description of the putative author of this piece, which itself appears to be a rewritten/expanded version of an earlier article (one not originally attributed to William "Bill" Phillips). Given the uncertain provenance of the "Phillips" authorship version, we'll address our analysis primarily to the wording of the (presumed) original: article I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up. Ranking businesses according to "bigness" can be based on a variety of different metrics: geographic reach, scale of operations, market value, gross revenues, net profits, etc. Exxon Mobil is certainly one of the world's largest (in terms of gross revenues) and most profitable public companies. (Many of the world's largest non-public companies are also in the oil business.) The statement here about Exxon Mobil's being "only the 14th largest [oil company] in the world" refers to the amount of oil and gas reserves that company controls, and it is generally true that the major (public) oil companies have much less access to oil and gas resources than they did a few decades ago, most of which are now controlled by national oil companies: largest profitable non-public reserves Despite record crude prices, the major oil companies are struggling to access resources that are being jealously guarded by national companies with whom they are forced to establish partnerships. As paradoxical as it may seem, high oil prices do not mean a golden age for the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Totalor BP. Of course, with a barrel of oil at more than 140 dollars, they are seeing major profits, but the future has never seemed so uncertain. The problem is access to reserves. The oil majors now control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s, according to figures released by the office of Ernst and Young at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. As a result they are being forced to explore in increasingly extreme conditions. The statement that "94% of the world's oil supply [is] locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States" might be a considered a bit misleading since many of those "hostile" countries have relatively small oil reserves, while the country with the second-largest oil reserves, Canada, is U.S.-friendly (and both Mexico and the United States are also among the countries with the largest oil reserves). reserves This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States unlike, say, France actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. Drilling for oil off of most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts has largely been barred due to a moratorium imposed by Congress in the early 1980s and by an executive order signed by President George H.W. Bush (a Republican) in 1990. The congressional moratorium has to be renewed every year, and it has remained in place for nearly three decades through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. (On 14 July 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the executive order barring offshore drilling that had been signed by his father eighteen years earlier.) The congressional moratorium is due to expire on 1 October 2008 unless Congress votes to extend it. Some analysts have claimed that if the oil industry could extract oil and gas from oil shale in a cost-effective manner, oil shale deposits in the U.S. (particularly on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, site of the world's largest such deposit) could produce viable oil reserves of about 800 billion barrels (three times the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia). However, the cost and effectiveness of oil shale development (and the resource use and environmental effects attendant to accomplishing it) remain a subject of considerable debate, and oil companies remain barred from undertaking commercial oil shale projects on federal land: At best production is years away, while unpredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land for commercial-scale oil shale projects. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. The subject of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development is another issue that has been pursued across the years through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR. As of now, both major-party presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are opposed to opening ANWR to oil exploration. pursued factors Last updated: 14 July 2008 Dechaux, Delphine. "Despite Rocketing Prices, Outlook Is Bleak for Oil Majors." Agence France Presse. 6 July 2008. Feller Ben. "Bush Trumps Congress; Moves First on Drilling." Associated Press. 14 July 2008. Forbes, Steve. "Will We Rid Ourselves of This Pollution?" Forbes. 16 April 2007. Guerrera, Francesco and Carola Hoyos. "Hidden Value: How Unlisted Companies Are Eclipsing the Public Equity Market." Financial Times. 15 December 2006. Ivanovich, David. "Despite 800 Billion Barrel Potential, Oil Shale a Hard Sell." The Houston Chronicle. 12 July 2008. Simon, Richard. "Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling." Los Angeles Times. 14 July 2008. | 1 | [
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FMD259 | 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 there a 'Secret Tax Credit' that covers fifty percent of journalists' pay? Claim summaries: Spoiler alert: The news media do not write, regulate, or pass legislation.
contextual information: As the federal government debated the contents of the high-profile Build Back Better infrastructure bill in late fall 2021, social media memes portrayed what were said to be elements of the legislation. One such claim asserted that a journalism tax credit would allocate funds of up to half of a journalist's salary, or a maximum of $50,000 annually. Some media publications and social media users inaccurately reflected the contents of the bill and how the tax credit actually works. One such report came in September 2021 from the right-leaning publication The Daily Signal, which claimed that the media hid a secret in the $3.5 trillion spending bill. The massive, bloated $3.5 trillion spending bill has so much pork that fiscal hawks could eat it for weeks. One piece that hasn't received much attention yet is a special journalism tax credit equal to 50% of the salary of each journalist, up to $50,000 per journalist annually. Yes, that's correct; your tax dollars would be paying 50% of the salary of many journalists, whether you like their reporting or not. First, such claims are misleading. The news media do not write, regulate, or pass legislation, and therefore could not hide additional funds in a spending bill. It is true that in fall 2021, two pieces of legislation, each introduced in the House and Senate, aimed to create a tax credit that would incentivize local news subscriptions and advertising, as well as credit local publications that employed journalists for a limited time, up to a certain amount. However, the legislation was ultimately excluded from the infrastructure spending bill, and memes depicting its core components are somewhat misleading. As we have previously reported, just because legislation is introduced does not mean that it will be passed and enforced. Furthermore, the bill language as presented above was not included in the high-profile Build Back Better (BBB) infrastructure bill that has been at the heart of a congressional stop-and-go debate. In short, similar language was introduced in the BBB, but the tax credit was not included in its final passage. A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction of income tax owed. If approved, that credit would essentially lower the income tax owed by local newsrooms. As is the case with most legislation, the bill was not as cut-and-dry as the meme made it out to be and was instead made up of three major components that were outlined in detail by the Nieman Journalism Lab. The three points were summarized in a letter issued by the office of the U.S. Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, who co-sponsored the bill. There were differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Below is the language for the House's H.R. 3940, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which was introduced in June 2021. This bill allows individual and business taxpayers to claim tax credits for the support of local newspapers and media. Specifically, individual taxpayers may claim an income tax credit of up to $250 for a local newspaper subscription. The bill also allows local newspaper employers a payroll tax credit for wages paid to an employee for service as a local news journalist, and certain small businesses a tax credit for local newspaper and media advertising expenses. That version of the bill did not move past the House Committee on Ways and Means and was ultimately dropped; but it was proposed again by the Senate in November 2021 under S.2434, as reported by Poynter at the time. It read: This bill allows individual taxpayers a tax credit of up to $250 in any taxable year for subscriptions to one or more local newspapers for the taxpayer's personal use. It also allows a local news journalist employer a payroll credit for wages paid to local news journalists. The bill allows certain small businesses a tax credit for amounts paid for advertising in a local newspaper or through a broadcast of a radio or television station serving a local community. Roughly speaking, the credit would have cost around $1 billion in the first year, and as the News Media Alliance pointed out, the bipartisan legislation was only available to local news organizations with 51% or more of their audience in a state or single area within a 200-mile radius of the news operation. Regardless, neither body passed the legislation. We also read through the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed Congress in December 2021 and has since become law. A word search revealed that there was no mention of journalism, and nearly all mentions of the word media referred to ways in which the government could conduct advertising or outreach. Although some publications mischaracterized the contents of the proposed legislation and failed to mention that it was not passed by Congress, it is true that the bill, as it was introduced, included allocating a tax credit to, at least in part, subsidize the salaries of some local journalists. As such, we have rated this claim as a mixture. | 2 | [
"0",
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] | 2 |
FMD260 | 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: Cheating at the Gas Pump Claim summaries: Account reports an instance of a customer being cheated by a malfunctioning gas pump.
contextual information: <!---->When economic conditions are tough and/or the price of gasoline rises substantially, the suggestion that already financially pinched consumers aren't even getting a fair shake at the pump is enough to make anyone see red. So, it's not surprising that the warning quoted below and its variations about "cheating at gas pumps" quickly gained widespread currency in April 2008 as gasoline prices edged towards $4.00 per gallon, and began hitting inboxes again during an ongoing economic downturn in May 2009: Examples: [Collected via e-mail, April 2008] Cheating at Gas Pumps This is a true story, so read it carefully. On April 24, 2008, I stopped at a Kangaroo BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville, GA. My truck's gas gage was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 14 gallon's to fill it up. When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got. Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount: Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only check the pump. It doesn't matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the Georgia Agriculture Department, and direct your comments to Tommy Irvin, Commissioner. In other states contact proper authorities. Please don't delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates. [Collected via e-mail, May 2009] Cheating at the gas pumps (PRINT OUT YOUR RECEIPTS!!!)This email was sent to me by a friend whose cousin is the Ridgetown, Ont. fire captain.This is true. It happened to them three weeks ago somewhere in Ridgetown on our way to Kingston. The pump should have totaled @ $38.00 (and change). When the receipt was printed, and she checked it was $ 47.00 (and change).She got mad, went inside the store, asked for a calculator and let them do the math. They refunded her. She told them that if they cheat, they had better make it right. Normally, her husband would skip printing the receipt.. Not herWe saw on the news the other night that this is happening everywhere.Brian pumped exactly one liter of gas. The price did not match the cost of one liter. It was higher. He went inside and complained, got a refund.There is also a number on each pump that you can call and complain.This is a true story, so read it carefully.On March 24, 2009, I stopped at a gas station in Chatham. My truck's gas gauge was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the regular grade, which was priced at $0.885 per liter. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 45 liters to fill it up.When the pump showed 45 liters had been pumped, I began to slow it down. Then, to my surprise, it went to 50, then 55. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 60 liters onthe pump. It stopped at 62 liters. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only a 65 liter tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 10 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got.Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 LITERS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount. If the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged.In my case, as I said, the mid-grade was $0.885 per liter; my dollar amount for 10 liters should have been $8.85. I wish I had checked the pump. It doesn't matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 liter price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the MTO, and direct your comments to the Commissioner, the info is on the gas pumps.Please don't delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates. Cheating at the gas pumps (PRINT OUT YOUR RECEIPTS!!!) This email was sent to me by a friend whose cousin is the Ridgetown, Ont. fire captain. This is true. It happened to them three weeks ago somewhere in Ridgetown on our way to Kingston. The pump should have totaled @ $38.00 (and change). When the receipt was printed, and she checked it was $ 47.00 (and change). She got mad, went inside the store, asked for a calculator and let them do the math. They refunded her. She told them that if they cheat, they had better make it right. Normally, her husband would skip printing the receipt.. Not her We saw on the news the other night that this is happening everywhere. Brian pumped exactly one liter of gas. The price did not match the cost of one liter. It was higher. He went inside and complained, got a refund. There is also a number on each pump that you can call and complain. This is a true story, so read it carefully. On March 24, 2009, I stopped at a gas station in Chatham. My truck's gas gauge was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the regular grade, which was priced at $0.885 per liter. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 45 liters to fill it up. When the pump showed 45 liters had been pumped, I began to slow it down. Then, to my surprise, it went to 50, then 55. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 60 liters onthe pump. It stopped at 62 liters. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only a 65 liter tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 10 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got. Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount: Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 LITERS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount. If the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my case, as I said, the mid-grade was $0.885 per liter; my dollar amount for 10 liters should have been $8.85. I wish I had checked the pump. It doesn't matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 liter price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the MTO, and direct your comments to the Commissioner, the info is on the gas pumps. Please don't delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates. Variations: This email was sent to me by a friend whose cousin is the LA fire captain.This is true. It happened to them three weeks ago somewhere in Pomona on their way to Pechanga. The pump should have totaled @ $68.00 (and change). When the receipt was printed, and she checked it was $77.00 (and change). She got mad, went inside the store, asked for a calculator and let them do the math. They refunded her. She told them that if they cheat, they had better make it right. Normally, her husband would skip printing the receipt. Not her... We saw on the news the other night that this is happening everywhere. Brian pumped exactly one gallon of gas. The price did not match the cost of one gallon. It was higher. He went inside and complained, got a refund. There is also a number on each pump that you can call and complain. It's difficult to verify whether some anonymous person in Georgia truly encountered a malfunctioning gas pump one day in April 2008 (and whether his report of same was accurate), but the Georgia Department of Agriculture told us at that time that the pumps at the station referenced in the quoted e-mail had been checked by that agency's Fuel and Measures Section in November 2007 and were re-checked (in response to this e-mail) in May 2008, and in both cases they were found to be operating according to standards: Our Fuel and Measures Section has looked into these claims against the station in Cartersville. The station in question was inspected on November 29, 2007 and all the pumps were found to be accurate. The station was inspected again on May 5, 2008 and again all pumps were found to be accurate. Since this message conflates two distinctly different issues (whether gas pumps accurately report the amount of gasoline dispensed vs. whether gas pumps accurately register the proper charge for the amount of gasoline dispensed), we'll address them by discussing some general factors involved in the dispensing of gasoline. Vendors of gasoline are subject to a variety of state and federal laws requiring them to maintain adequately calibrated dispensing equipment and calling for periodic inspections by government regulatory agencies to ensure that they are in compliance with said laws. However, this does not guarantee that every gas pump you might encounter will necessarily be accurate, for a variety of reasons: Some agencies may not have the funds to regularly carry out required inspections at every location, regulators' equipment might itself be inaccurate, understaffed agencies may not be able to adequately enforce compliance with regulations, etc. Furthermore, instances of malfunctioning or improperly calibrated pumps are not necessarily indicators that a particular gasoline vendor is "cheating." Such irregularities may be due to worn-out equipment which can be difficult to spot (and is about as likely to cheat the vendor as it is the customer), such as the common occurrence of worn check valves: check valves Some alert consumers have noticed it over the years: A pump that seems to hesitate a second when the lever is squeezed. Anywhere from 2 to 6 cents tick off before the rush of gasoline starts. That's what happens with a common, hard to diagnose and mostly ignored problem with the "check valve," which is supposed to make sure gas flows at the same time the price meter starts.Don't blame the gas guys. Even consumer advocates say retailers may be losing as often as consumers, and no one appears able to rig the meters. But the small "check valve" at the end of the multibillion dollar industry just wears out, and often goes unnoticed for months. A bad valve can also work against retailers, freezing the price gauge for an instant after gas starts. No one's sure who gets gored more, or how deeply. Unfortunately, much of the responsibility for spotting such irregularities and reporting them to regulatory agencies falls upon consumers themselves, and it isn't always easy for the average consumer to notice problems like the ones described in the above-quoted message. Determining whether a particular pump is correctly reporting the amount of gasoline dispensed can be rather difficult, especially if the difference is relatively small just about all consumers can do in this area is to be aware of how much gasoline their vehicles should take at various fuel gauge level readings and note whether the reported number of gallons they buy corresponds to this number. (That is, if you know your car typically takes seven gallons to fill when your gas gauge needle is on the halfway mark, you should be concerned if a half-tank fill-up suddenly takes eight or nine gallons instead. Note that you need to learn this system by trial and error: Because gas gauge needles do not necessarily move at an even rate across the full range between "F" and "E", you can't assume that a car with a 14-gallon gas tank will necessarily take exactly seven gallons to fill when the needle sits on the halfway mark.) It's much easier to determine whether pumps are accurately registering the proper charge for the amount of gasoline dispensed simply by multiplying the number of gallons you buy by the price per gallon. (If you can't easily do this calculation in your head, you can either use a calculator or employ the suggested method of noting the total dollar charge at the moment the pump reads exactly ten gallons dispensed.) But of course, catching this sort of problem is only possible if the pump is accurately reporting the amount of gasoline dispensed, which, as noted above, is usually much more difficult to determine. (It can also be the case that gas pumps which test as correctly calibrated when dispensing, say, five gallons of gasoline may not necessarily test as correctly calibrated when dispensing smaller or larger amounts of fuel.) For now, though, it's generally the case that the retail gasoline industry has a number of other (and bigger) problems to deal with, and that consumers have not (so far) been very aggressive in reporting the problems they might encounter: "I think our industry would love to replace anything that wears down," Bob Renkes of the Petroleum Equipment Institute said. But the check valves aren't a high priority when the industry is dealing with issues such as preventing identity theft when swipe cards are used, static electricity discharges and the 5 percent of retailers whose old mechanical equipment can't register a price of $4 a gallon.State and local regulators doubt any but the most ambitious consumers would contact them in case of a problem, even though the phone numbers are on inspection stickers. More likely, consumers fume and wonder if they were cheated, or report it to the manager of the gas station or convenience store. Elder, Laura. "Gas Station Accused of Cheating Customers."
The [Galveston County] Daily News. 23 July 2008. Gormley, Michael. "Common Glitch at Pump Adds to Gas Costs, Also Cheats Station."
Associated Press. 26 April 2008. Theodore, Terri. "Feds Announce Fairness at the Pumps Legislation."
Canadian Press. 15 April 2010. Associated Press. "2 Mich. Men Charged with Rigging Gas Station Pumps."
Toledo Blade. 7 September 2005. | 2 | [
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] | 2 |
FMD261 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: PARENTS think a lot about what their money might one day do for their children. Will it give them options in life to accomplish something meaningful, or rob them of ambition? Or will a lack of family money leave them at a disadvantage? Of course, there are a lot of other outcomes. But fear about the bad things that money can do to children sends some parents to lawyers and advisers to create trust documents with rules stating what children need to do to obtain the money. Even parents of modest means are encouraged to own life insurance policies in trusts to inhibit their children from getting all the cash at once should the parents die. These are necessary in certain cases. But long before children are aware of what they might inherit, there are more foundational conversations that parents should have. What if parents thought about the capital — yes, financial, but also emotional and intellectual — that they were spending on their young children as assets in an “emotional trust fund†with trustee duties inherent in it? That’s the concept being advanced by Jacalyn S. Burke, a former nanny, a commentator on parenthood issues, and the author of “The Nanny Time Bomb: Navigating the Crisis in Child Care†(Praeger, 2015). She argues that thinking in financial terms when it comes to parental choices could make a difference in shaping children who grow up to live meaningful lives — regardless of whether any money comes to them. The essential components of an emotional trust fund are analogous to those of a conventional one — cash, stocks, bonds and property as the holdings, with trustees directing the investments in each, with an eye toward the recipient’s best interest. How investments in those assets are divided up, though, is what matters. “That same structure we use for our financial lives could be applied to how we raise our children,†Ms. Burke said. “The different components could relate to a child’s life. A nanny comes in as a massive part of that portfolio, particularly if they work with them 9 to 5 and sometimes longer. †Nannies and child care workers more broadly are the stocks in the emotional trust fund. Their influence on children is a bet on the future, and just like stocks, no one makes a selection thinking it will underperform. Like stocks, some nannies do well from the start. Others pay dividends over time. And then there are the ones that seem like but prove to be disappointments. Ms. Burke said this is where her thinking started, largely because she found parents not putting enough time into selecting someone — or enough money into paying such a crucial person in their children’s development. Cutting corners and hiring a disengaged nanny early on, she said, could hurt a child’s ability to form relationships over the long run. To choose well, she said, parents need to do their due diligence. “For someone who you’re employing for the majority of the time when you’re out of the home, you should go back and see how that stock has performed in the past,†she said. “Did it perform well for six months or for 10 years? A reliable performer is someone with various credentials who shows up each week — that’s a solid stock that’s not going to wobble. †Karen Kaufman, a clinical psychologist in Manhattan, who also wrote the preface to Ms. Burke’s book, said distracted nannies can inflict lasting damage on children. (The same goes for parents.) “Just about every nanny I see is on the phone,†Dr. Kaufman said. “They’re distracted. It’s all these little tiny disruptions that make kids question if they’re enough. †Separating good from bad nannies is as difficult as trying to select a stock. Ms. Burke recommends detailed background checks but also visiting the nanny at home or where she was last working, to gauge her interaction with that family. This also serves to make sure the nanny is telling the truth. “I was routinely asked by other nannies to pretend I was a parent and be a reference,†she said. For people who have consistently chosen nannies who didn’t work out, Ms. Burke suggested finding a consultant to work with the family on finding the right fit, much as one would go to an adviser to help with selecting securities. And as with stocks, trustees need to be dutiful managers — in terms of nannies’ work but also their happiness in their jobs. “When nannies got together and complained, you’d think the No. 1 complaint would be the awful wages they got paid,†Ms. Burke said. “It wasn’t. It was the lack of respect. †Of course, it may take time before parents can judge how well their child care money was spent — or they may have an anchoring bias that keeps them with a mediocre nanny for fear that others will be worse. Enrichment activities are different. They’re the bonds in the portfolio. Just as analysts following the declining prices of municipal bonds knew Detroit and Puerto Rico were headed into trouble long before a crisis hit, parents can measure their children’s responses to enrichment fairly quickly. Ms. Burke said she is not focused on the number or kind of activities for a child, but on how those activities are inspiring or hurting a child. “There is so much value in doing something outside their school curriculum,†she said. “There’s a consummate value in enriching your children but not overextending them. †Community, broadly defined, is the property component of the emotional trust fund. “A cloistered sense of the world does not do them well,†Ms. Burke said. “At the weekends, walk the dog around the neighborhood, have pancakes, play ball in your neighborhood, get involved in your church or synagogue. It gives your kid a great grounding in life. †How parents spend time with their children is the cash in the emotional trust fund. It can be spent wisely to maximum benefits or it can be squandered on things that don’t matter or could do harm. In some ways, spending that cash carelessly dovetails with too much enrichment — activities scheduled throughout the weekend keep families apart. Instead, Ms. Burke calls for parents to spend their emotional cash on experiences — sitting, playing, baking, talking — and not on more things. “Cash is switching your phone off and doing things with your children,†she said. “What I hear from children is they just want down time with their parents. I can’t tell you how many extremely wealthy children say ‘I just want to play ball with Dad. ’†Like any trust fund, an emotional one needs a balance between what the trustees — the parents — are doing and how those actions are received by children — the beneficiaries. “The nannies can provide a tremendous amount of education,†Dr. Kaufman said. “But the main theme is no one is as important as the parents. It’s encouraging parents to be more physically present, not to be on their devices, to make eye contact. †None of this is to say that parents can substitute an emotional trust fund for talking to their children as they grow up about wealth and the responsibilities that come with it. “Financial wealth is not a free ride — it’s a powerful tool,†said Kristen Armstrong, a wealth dynamics coach with U. S. Bank’s Ascent Private Capital Management. “In high school, having some conversations about being a family with significant wealth and being a family who has some opportunities is important. †Given the amount of time and money parents spend on their children today, the emotional trust fund is an interesting concept. If nothing else, thinking in these terms might reframe how people spend time and money in their family. | 1 | [
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FMD262 | 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: Fraudulent Free Dunkin' Donuts Coupon Offer Claim summaries: An online Dunkin' coupon offering that promises a free box of donuts is part of an anniversary giveaway scam.
contextual information: Social media users are frequently targeted by anniversary giveaway and survey scams, with one common form of bait being fake coupon offers for free boxes of Dunkin' Donuts: Such scams typically provide links which lead to web pages (not operated or sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts) displaying the Dunkin' logo along with entreaties to spread the scam further by sharing those pages and writing thank you in the comments field. The free Dunkin' Donuts offers are a variation of the company anniversary survey scam, a ploy that depends on the unwary unwittingly promoting the phony offer to their social media friends: anniversary survey scam These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the companies they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook share buttons and post comments to the scammers site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two Reward Offers (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards). A representative for Dunkin' Donuts wrote on the company's official Facebook page that the online "free dozen" coupon was not one offered by the chain: The Better Business Bureau issued guidelines warning specifically of identical scams on Facebook that target shoppers: Dont believe what you see. Its easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure theres a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organizations real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward thats too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Legitimate Dunkin' Donuts offers are listed in a Promotions page on the company's website. Promotions | 0 | [
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FMD263 | 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: Bills Passed by Paul Ryan Claim summaries: Paul Ryan has sponsored two Congressional bills that have been passed into law?
contextual information: Claim: Paul Ryan has sponsored two Congressional bills that have been passed into law. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, August 2012] Is it true or false that Paul Ryan managed to get only 2 bills passed during his 13 years in the House of Representatives? If true, what were they? Rumor is one of them was to name a post office after himself. In his 13 years in Congress, Paul Ryan got only two bills passed. One was to change the name of the post office in his home town. Origins: In August 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tapped as his vice presidential running mate Congressman Paul Ryan, who has represented Wisconsin's 1st district in Congress since 1999. That selection focused attention on the legislative record of Ryan, including the number of bills he sponsored that had been passed into law. According to the Library of Congress' THOMAS legislative THOMAS information source, Rep. Ryan in his Congressional career has been the primary sponsor of two bills that have been passed and enacted as law: a 2000 bill to name a United States Postal Service facility in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, and a 2004 bill to modify the excise taxes on arrows used as archery equipment. (In the former case, the bill did not name a USPS building after Ryan himself, as mentioned in one of the examples reproduced above, but after Les Aspin, a Democratic Congressman who for twenty-two years represented the same Wisconsin district that Ryan currently does.) During his tenure in Congress Rep. Ryan has also sponsored 73 bills that were not passed and signed on as co-sponsor of another 975 bills. name arrows In general, several thousand bills are introduced in every Congress, but only about 5% of them roughly an average of one per Congressmember per term are eventually passed into law. introduced Last updated: 16 August 2012 | 0 | [
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] | 0 |
FMD264 | 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: Did the National Debt Fall by $102 Billion After Donald Trump's Inauguration? Claim summaries: A conservative web site accurately described a remarkable decline in the debt during the first half of 2017 but offered no evidence that the President was responsible for it.
contextual information: On 30 July 2017, the conservative Truth Division web site reported that the United States' national debt had fallen to a "surprising" extent in the seven months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump: Truth Division President Donald Trump and his administration are undoing the governments rampant spending that occurred under former President Obamas watch. According the U.S. Treasurys direct record, a surprising amount of money has been saved over the course of seven months. On January 20th, the day Trump was inaugurated, the total debt was $19,947,304,555,212.49. On July 30th, seven short months later, its at $19,844,938,940,351.37. Overall the debt has decreased by $102,365,614,861.12. We have checked these numbers and set them in context, and found that the national debt did indeed fall by $102 billion between 20 January and the end of July 2017. This decline is also historically remarkable, in both absolute and percentage terms. This six-month fall in the national debt is also significant when measured against the size of the overall economy. National debt the basics The national debt is, in brief, the total value of what the federal government owes, and is made up of accumulated annual deficits (when the government spends more than it receives in taxes and other income). It is made up of "public debt" and "intragovernmental holdings." Public debt is, essentially, debt held by sources outside the central government. Intragovernmental holdings are debts between agencies within the federal government, in the form of government trust funds, such as Social Security trust funds. National debt the numbers According to figures published by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Fiscal Services on the TreasuryDirect web site, the national debt was $19.84 trillion on 27 July 2017 (not 30 July, as stated by Truth Division. On 20 January, it was $19.95 trillion. TreasuryDirect That shows a fall of $102.37 billion, or 0.51 percent, over a period of 131 business days. To set that in context, we analyzed national debt data stretching back to 12 July 1993, and examined every 131-day period in the last 24 years. You can download a spreadsheet containing all the relevant data here. here Debt-to-GDP ratio The national debt, however, is best viewed with reference to the overall economy. If two countries have about the same national debt, the one with the smaller economy will likely be more constrained in its spending, whereas the larger economy despite having the same level of debt will be less affected in terms of economic and fiscal policy. A good way of checking this is to compare the size of the debt to the size of the economy, measured as GDP (gross domestic product). GDP is the combined market value of all goods and services produced in a given jurisdiction (in this case, the United States). This comparison between the size of the national debt and the size of the economy is known as the debt-to-GDP ratio. While the Treasury Department publishes the national debt for every business day, GDP is only published on a quarterly basis (once every three months). In order to compare the debt-to-GDP ratio on 27 July with the same figure on Inauguration Day, we have to get a little bit creative. For example, we know that the United States GDP was $18.9 trillion at the end of December 2016 (the end of the fourth quarter), according to figures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Bureau of Economic Analysis We also know that the national debt on 30 December 2016 was $19.98 trillion, so the estimated debt-to-GDP ratio on that date was 105.67 percent. In other words, the debts of the United States federal government were 5.67 percent bigger than the size of the Unites States economy (when measured by GDP). At the end of the first quarter of 2017 (the end of March), GDP was $19.06 trillion. And we know that on 31 March, the national debt was $19.85 trillion, meaning the debt-to-GDP ratio was 104.14 percent a healthier number than at the end of December. But to estimate GDP for all the days in between 30 December and 31 March (including 20 January, Inauguration Day) we have to cheat a little bit. You can read more about our methodology by downloading this spreadsheet, but here's what our estimates revealed: Causes The Truth Division, a conservative, openly pro-Trump web site, clearly attributes this decline in the national debt to the president, claiming he and his administration are "undoing the government's rampant spending" and "keeping his promises regarding fiscal responsibility". However, the article does not cite any examples of actions taken by Donald Trump which would support this conclusion. Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, dismissed any claims that President Trump is responsible: Trump hasn't legislated anything that would have any impact on the fiscal accounts, so it simply doesn't make sense on the face it. Instead, Bernstein told us, the cause of the drop in the debt is simple the federal debt ceiling that has been in place since March 2017. If you look at a plot of the total debt right now, it's holding steady at the limit, because to go over the limit is unconstitutional. So you either have to engage in extraordinary measures or eventually default, and the latter is unimaginable so right now Treasury is engaged in the former. That is, they are delaying or suspending various payments that need to be made, particularly within some of their intra-governmental accounts... By those measures, they can hold the national debt where it is for a certain amount of time. Eventually, Bernstein says, the debt ceiling will have to be lifted, and the payments that had been delayed will cause the national debt to increase once again. That pattern can be seen in this chart, which shows the national debt from January 2011 up to the end of July 2017. There are four flat lines showing four periods during which the debt ceiling was frozen: from May to August 2011; May to October 2013; March to October 2015; and the ongoing period since March 2017. 2011 2013 2015 Conclusion The Truth Division article accurately describes the extent to which the national debt fell between the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017 and the end of July of the same year. And it rightly describes this fall as "surprising", since it ranks among the very largest 131-day declines in the national debt since July 1993, both in absolute and percentage terms. Similarly, the decline in both components of the national debt public debt and intragovernmental holdings was highly significant between 20 January and 27 July 2017, both in absolute and percentage terms, and as we have shown, the national debt has fallen by an estimated 2.25 percent since Inauguration Day even when measured against the size of the overall Unites States economy. Whether or not any actions or decisions made by Donald Trump have caused or contributed to these historically remarkable declines in the debt is a question that goes beyond the scope of this particular fact check. Unfortunately, the national debt resumed its upward march in August 2017 and by mid-August 2018 stood at about $21.3 trillion (up $1.4 trillion since Inauguration Day), so the early 2017 drop has not proved to be a long-term trend. national debt A spreadsheet containing all the data relevant to this article can be downloaded here. here Bureau of Fiscal Services. "Frequently Asked Questions About the Public Debt".
TreasuryDirect.gov. 1 April 2016. | 1 | [
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FMD265 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: WASHINGTON — America’s intelligence chiefs sat down with members of Congress behind closed doors on Friday for what they thought would be a straightforward briefing on Russian cyberattacks. What ensued instead was a confrontation Democrats have long sought with James B. Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Why, the House Democrats demanded to know, did Mr. Comey believe it was O. K. to make repeated disclosures during the campaign about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails but to this day refuse to say if the F. B. I. is investigating links between the Trump campaign and Russia? His answers did not prove very satisfying. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, grew so frustrated that at one point she chastised Mr. Comey for being “condescending to members. †Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who was chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee when it was hacked, asked why Mr. Comey had never called her about the intrusions, which began in August 2015 and continued over the course of many months. The F. B. I. notified the committee of the original hacking, but reached a tech support contractor and went back and forth with him for months before the leadership of the organization was informed and took steps to halt the intrusion. The committee and the bureau have blamed each other for the delay, and the pattern continued on Friday, according to multiple Democrats in the meeting. Afterward, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, called the tenor of the exchanges “contentious at times. †“I don’t want to go into the contents of what were discussed,†Mr. Schiff said. But “a great many members are concerned with whether the director has employed a double standard. †The hearing took place a day after the Justice Department’s inspector general said it was investigating Mr. Comey’s decision during the campaign to hold a news conference announcing the end of the case — and then, just before the election, inform Congress there was possible new evidence only to say days later that it did not amount to anything. Mr. Comey “didn’t really answer,†said Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. He dismissively referred to Mr. Comey as “a policeman,†and added, “I don’t remember anything substantive he said. †The reaction to the assessment by intelligence agencies that Russia sought to promote the candidacy of Donald J. Trump has been mixed. Mr. Trump has seen it as undermining his electoral victory and ridiculed the agencies, accusing them this week of using leaks to discredit him after it briefed him on a dossier of unsubstantiated reports of compromising personal information the Russians allegedly collected. But on Friday, Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and the panel’s vice chairman, Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, announced that the committee would hold hearings on the Russian activity and its effect on the election. Before Russians were an issue, there was the F. B. I. investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information that was in emails on a private server she was using. Mr. Comey discussed the investigation and sharply criticized Mrs. Clinton at a news conference announcing that no charges would be brought against her. He also wrote two letters near the end of the campaign that Clinton supporters say cost her the election. But Mr. Comey has not publicly commented on whether there are any open investigations of Mr. Trump or anyone associated with his campaign. Democrats said the closest Mr. Comey came on Friday to offering an explanation for his actions was to say he would only disclose an ongoing investigation if the public had an overwhelming need to know about it or if it was obvious there was one underway. He said he did not believe any possible investigation into Trump or his associates met either standard. The F. B. I. ’s position is that it does not discuss counterintelligence investigations that could compromise important methods and sources. Speaking to reporters afterward, Ms. Pelosi said that “really, the American people are owed the truth. †“There is a great deal of evidence to say that this is an issue of high interest to the American people,†she continued. “For that reason, the F. B. I. should let us know whether they’re doing that investigation or not. They’re usually inscrutable. †The F. B. I. declined to comment on the meeting. Mr. Nadler said he thought Mr. Comey should have been fired “months ago. †Other Democrats, perhaps concerned about who Mr. Trump would name to replace Mr. Comey, either said that he should remain on the job or that they were still unsure. The meeting in the auditorium of the Capitol’s visitor center was standing room only. Some Republicans unsurprisingly had a different reaction. “Their questions and comments seemed to make the case that Hillary Clinton would be president if it were not for hacking,†Representative Steve King of Iowa said. Mr. King left the meeting unconvinced about the Russian hacking, which the intelligence chiefs did manage to discuss amid the questions about Mr. Comey’s conduct. The congressman added that he thought “some†intelligence officials were trustworthy. But “not all. People there need to be rooted out,†he said without elaborating. | 1 | [
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FMD266 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: SANFORD, Fla.—The struggle for the White House and the Capitol took center stage this week in one familiar battleground—Florida—as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept across the state.
Mr. Trump finished three days of campaigning here Tuesday, touching down in its biggest cities and filling the airwaves with his most expensive advertising buys. At the same time, Mrs. Clinton launched a two-day trip, seeking to capitalize on an... | 1 | [
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FMD267 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: syria , cinema , movies Russian filmmaker Maria Ivanova. Source: Elena Kern / press-photo
Where did you find the courage to go to the Middle East to make a film on migrants?
Maria Ivanova: I began making my film in Berlin, in a camp for refugees. I was searching for a female protagonist. But when I arrived, I was told that girls do not flee Syria alone, only with their husbands or relatives.
In the end I visually began "capturing" interesting faces. I found my protagonist – 14-year-old Muhammad, who was sent by his parents to Germany alone. He did the whole journey alone so that later, he could get his relatives out of Syria through the legal process of family reunification.
During the shooting I understood that I needed to go to Damascus, where this boy's parents stayed. Because of the hassle in obtaining a Syrian visa my cameraman and I travelled to Syria through Beirut. In Lebanon you don't need a visa.
U.S. needs Russia in Syria: Russian analysts
As we were driving along the road I knew that ISIS was only 10 kilometres [6 miles] away, very near. We were driving incredibly fast, at 200 kilometres per hour, when the driver saw a motorcycle coming. So our car quickly turned around and headed in the opposite direction. “Why?” I asked the driver later. Because terrorists often drive around at night on motorcycles, he said.
That’s how we got to Damascus. There was no heating in the apartment we were taken to. No electricity and hot water. We slept on something similar to a couch. There are no real beds there. And at three in the morning, I heard bombing.
Is all of Damascus in this state?
M.I.: I was in the south and there it was frightening to walk out on the street. People have fear in their eyes, the atmosphere is very heavy.
Did you meet the parents of your protagonist Muhammad? How did you contact them?
M.I.: They welcomed us with open arms. They fed us. They have all means of communication, they use social networks. After meeting with them we returned to Beirut and went to the refugee camps in Lebanon's mountains, filming there for two weeks.
Were the Lebanese camps different from the German ones?
M.I.: Of course. Lebanon doesn’t have special conditions. There’s a character in our film, a man who has 17 children. He lives in a tent that he has divided into several parts. He patches up the holes. They all sleep on the floor. Despite their horrible position, these people offered us food and played the oud [an Arabian musical instrument – RIR] for us. They joked… Their life is based on the hope that they will return home. Of course, many want to go to Europe. They fill out applications. But Europe does not accept everyone.
Lebanon is an unusual country. Just think, there are 18 religious confessions on a territory that is smaller than the Moscow Region. There are four million residents and one and a half million Syrian refugees. And yet, I never saw a conflict between, say, Christians and Muslims. They all go to the same restaurants, the same movie theatres, everyone is friendly.
Which films are you taking to the festival in Lebanon?
M.I.: We finished this documentary film just a few days ago and I decided to hold the premiere in Lebanon, where we shot most of the material. Moreover, our partner, the TV channel RT, is producing two documentary films: Women against ISIS and Sector of Contradiction . The directors of these films are coming to answer questions and hold master classes.
How much is Russian culture present in Lebanon? Do people speak Russian there?
M.I.: Many Lebanese studied in the Soviet Union. There is even an association of Soviet university graduates. These people speak Russian, many even married Russian citizens. Furthermore, there are 30,000 Russians living there. There are Lebanese who attend classes and study Russian. Sure, you mostly hear Arabic, English and French. Russian culture is not well known. So we sort of filled a vacuum.
A common film market for Russia, India and China?
Is the war in the neighbouring country felt in Lebanon?
M.I.: You still feel the previous war, the civil war. There are buildings scarred by bombings. There are many military personnel, roadblocks, armoured personnel carriers, patrols. But next to a destroyed building you can find a modern art gallery, which is followed by soldiers again, and then a modern theatre. This is a patchwork country, it is very heterogeneous.
Once I was at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which had a really heavy atmosphere. There were no stadiums there. They had turned into cemeteries since there was no space for burying people. While in Lebanon you feel very light. You want to live, despite certain moments… The presence of soldiers, on the contrary, creates the feeling of security.
I travelled there by car with a driver, saw beautiful cities, mountains, wine production. I went to an apple festival. I wasn’t afraid. The country has a modern airport, taxis, hotels, wonderful restaurants, beaches and movie theatres. The thing is that no one anywhere will give you 100-percent guaranteed security, including when you're driving through France or Germany. In terms of security, Lebanon is no different than Europe.
The full interview can be found on RIA Novosti . Facebook | 0 | [
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FMD268 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Tweet Widget by Yohannes Woldemariam
The minority ethnic regime in Ethiopia now faces multiple rebellions. The regime’s foreign friends are part of the problem. “Faced with increased intrusion into their lands by so-called international investors, by displacement and by the breakdown of their social fabric, Ethiopians are mobilizing to resist.” The once formidable government coalition “is beginning to unravel.” The Deteriorating Situation in Ethiopia by Yohannes Woldemariam
This article previously appeared in Pambazuka News .
“ The revolts are widespread and they appear beyond the power of the state to control and put down.”
The revolts in Ethiopia have the potential for creating radical, beneficial changes in the political order or instigating complete chaos that crosses its borders and destabilizes the entire fragile Horn of Africa region, for the outcomes of such uprisings have varied considerably from country to country. These protests can be the catalyst for building a new and democratic Ethiopia or end up in tears and disillusionment, as in Libya, South Sudan and many other places in the world. Countries emerging from dictatorships are particularly vulnerable and Ethiopia is certainly under a vicious dictatorship.
The events in Ethiopia are being described as “Intifada,” “Ethiopian Spring” or as something akin to the Color Revolutions in the Ukraine and Georgia and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China. During the uprising in 2005 protesting the rigged election, the late chief of the Tigrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) and Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, did say that there would not be any more Color Revolutions in Ethiopia. That uprising was put down with hundreds dead and thousands in concentration camps.
This time, however, the revolts are widespread and they appear beyond the power of the state to control and put down. Apparently, Mr. Zenawi spoke prematurely. Technological innovation is a very important part of this current political mass mobilization, which is why the government has moved with cutting Ethiopia off from the internet and dismantling satellite dishes from the homes of ordinary citizens. Drawing on satellite television, mobile phones and the Internet, the revolts are spreading. Within seconds, activists send their messages against the tyranny. Unsurprisingly, the TPLF oligarchy is extremely fearful of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and the diaspora media.
In this piece, I want to reflect on three points:
1. The celebrity factor: Feyisa Lilesa versus Prime Minister Halemariam Desalegn
2. Mr. Abay Tsehaye’s reference to Rwanda
3. The newly declared State of Emergency
The celebrity factor: Feyisa Lilesa versus Prime Minister Halemariam Desalegn
In the wake of the Rio Olympics, the profile of the Ethiopian uprising got a boost from Feyisa Lilesa , with his heroic act of crossing his arms on winning the silver medal for marathon, a signature symbol of solidarity of the oppressed Oromo nation to which Feyisa belongs. The influence of the celebrity athlete for social change is formidable, and Feyisa has emerged as a powerful voice for the struggle of his Oromo people, causing nervous shivers in the beleaguered regime. What the death and imprisonment of thousands of Oromos couldn’t accomplish in Ethiopia was achieved by his symbolic act at the finish line. Now the whole world is clued into the terrible conditions in Ethiopia and beginning to learn about the plight of the Oromo people.
Other Ethiopian athletes have since used their successes to follow suit. Ebsa Ejigu, Tamiru Demissie and Hirut Guangul have used their international successes to publicize the plight of their country’s men and women to an international audience. This trend is likely to continue now as other athletes and celebrities are losing their fear of retaliation and becoming more and more willing to participate in what has become a growing national movement. Yes, these athletes will pay a price. Lilesa is now separated from his wife and children and beckoning an unknown fate. Life in exile will not be easy even for famous athletes. But compared to those losing lives and limbs to bullets in Ethiopia, it is a small price to pay. They are heroes, and their names are already inscribed in history books.
“These athletes will pay a price.”
The TPLF reaction to Lilesa’s heroic act can be gleaned from statements given by PM Hailemariam Desalegn. Although the PM is from the Wolayta ethnic group, which was traditionally relegated to the periphery of the Ethiopian mainstream, he has become a willing accomplice and spokesman for the TPLF. Most people regard him as an accidental PM who happened to be in the right place and at the right time when his powerful boss, PM Meles Zenawi, passed away in the summer of 2012. He was handpicked as Zenawi’s deputy because he wasn’t a threat and, as a non-Tigrean, served as a convenient cover and a token representing “diversity” for the TPLF. He is so loyal to the late PM, he still refers to the Meles “vision” in his public pronouncements. Most Ethiopians know that he is just a figurehead with no real power. Yet, in an interview conducted with the online Foreign Policy.com, he is quoted as saying:
“It’s me who sent [Lilesa] to Rio for the Olympics, and we expected him to come back after winning the medal. . . . [T]his is not the capacity of the man himself. It’s something which has been orchestrated by someone else from outside.”
It is remarkable that the PM has the audacity to say he sent Feyisa Lilesa to the Olympics, as if Feyisa needed his charitable permission. It is crystal clear that Feyisa earned his place in the Olympics.
One can readily concede that he may have acquiesced to nepotism by sending to the Olympics the unqualified son of the head of the sports federation, Robel Kiros Habte , who made Ethiopia a laughing stock with his hopeless performance in a swimming race. But no one can doubt that Feyisa went to the Olympics because he was Ethiopia’s best hope for the marathon. And he delivered in no unmistakable terms by winning a silver medal competing with the best and the elites in the world. It is hard to believe that Desalegn referring to Feyisa actually said: “This is not the capacity of the man himself” – thus exposing his own pomposity, shallowness and contempt for the Oromo hero. Clearly, Desalegn has sold his soul to the TPLF devil. To suggest that Feyisa cannot think for himself and act on his own is inexcusably ignorant and arrogant and unbecoming of a prime minster.
“Desalegn is a sellout with little dignity, reading and parroting whatever script is given to him by the TPLF.”
Feyisa is not only a fine athlete; he is also a dignified, proud, principled and articulate Oromo and Ethiopian, as he amply demonstrated during the press conference in the Washington D.C. rally where Congressman Chris Smith also spoke. Also, in a direct reply to the PM’s insult, Feyisa quipped:
“I was not surprised by his comments because individuals who are always controlled by others tend to assume everyone is that way as well. . . . Unlike the prime minister, I make my own decisions and speak for myself.”
Indeed, Desalegn is a sellout with little dignity, reading and parroting whatever script is given to him by the TPLF. The pretentious PM has replaced the real world with a make-believe virtual world. It is for this reason that he is unable to see realities on the ground; he is temporarily sheltered behind a wall whose mortar is sychophantic servitude and a wicked willingness to say and do anything to appease his TPLF benefactors.
It is beyond regrettable that Desalegn is unable to see the rapid downside toward further chaos and civil war in Ethiopia that is due to the abject misery and oppression suffered by the people who are subjected to the policies of those he is serving and to whom he has sold his soul. He calls himself a born-again Christian with a straight face. How would Jesus himself, who stood up to the hypocritical Pharisees and threw the money-changers out of the temple in Jerusalem, have regarded a man like Desalegn, who is in bed with the TPLF elites who are the modern day equivalent of the Pharisees in Ethiopia and whose words and actions rarely match? The human suffering that is the result of the violent and continuous repression cannot be seen from inside their ideological castles resting on the thin air of empty rhetoric and shameless self-promotion.
Desalegn would be well advised to keep his mouth closed to spare himself more disgrace. He has already sunk into the deep end of an abyss. It is depressing to see a human being selling out his people and becoming a slave of oppressors.
Invoking the specter of Rwanda
The TPLF ideologue and one of the real powers behind the throne, Mr. Abay Tsehaye, in an interview with the pro-government Radio Fana, compared the situation of Rwanda in the early 90s to the current situation in Ethiopia. He correctly stated that Rwanda was comprised of only two ethnic groups (the Hutu and the Tutsi), really not much of a country, and was on the verge of disintegration. He went on to say that reconciliation occurred and the country recovered. In Ethiopia with over eighty ethnic groups, if the situation goes “out of control,” he concluded, Ethiopia will cease to exist as a country. Every thoughtful person worries about this. However, one can reasonably surmise from his analysis that Ethiopia under the control of his Tigray-dominated government, who make up only six percent of the Ethiopian population, is his guarantee for holding the country together. Mr. Tsehaye fails to recognize the draconian hegemonic policies of his regime as the very reasons for the grim state of affairs in the country. As the Ethiopian uprising makes clear, the various ethnicities are no longer buying TPLF shenanigans and see the TPLF itself as the main cause of Ethiopia’s predicament, as the country descends into possible civil war.
For anyone willing to see the truth, Ethiopia is in a state of turmoil due to the exploitation of the long-suffering people of Oromia, Ogaden, Gambella and other ethnic groups by the TPLF elite in partnership with international enablers such as China and the United States, the principal rivals in Africa and the Horn region. The TPLF exploitation, in which valuable resources and political roles are dominated by a minority elite that has transformed itself into an oligarchy, has created highly rebellious resentment by the victims while reinforcing a sense of ethnic identity and consciousness. Faced with increased intrusion into their lands by so-called international investors, by the displacement and stunted developments they experience and by the breakdown of their social fabric, Ethiopians are mobilizing to resist.
“The various see the TPLF itself as the main cause of Ethiopia’s predicament, as the country descends into possible civil war.”
The government’s state-driven development projects financed by international investors and partners bypass the rural peasants and pastoralists, alienating the people and reinforcing the politics of deep ethnic hierarchy. Recent events have made it clear that TPLF’s “constitutional federalism” has more to do with its divide-and-rule strategy and its elitist allocation of national resources, comparable to actions of the former Soviet Communist Party, which retained tight control over its regions through local parties. The TPLF set up People’s Democratic Organizations, local versions of the ruling party, which squeezed out traditional authority.
The co-opted ethnic leaders from these regions have either completely lost credibility, are sitting on the fence, or are jumping ship to support the resistance. Key former government figures like Junedin Sado are breaking their silence and speaking out with scathing attacks on the regime. He has apologized to the Ethiopian people for the time that he served under the regime. The so- called coalition that the TPLF built is beginning to unravel. Some Amhara and some Oromo are coming together against the TPLF, overcoming but not necessarily forgetting, the legacy of the historic oppression by Amhara elites which began with Menelik II.
Abay Tsehaye and TPLF leaders will need to face reality — if they have it in them to be truly concerned about Ethiopian unity. Oromo historical grievances are not myths, as some revisionist history asserts. Oromo land is the most fertile and lush in Ethiopia, in contrast to the northern Ethiopian highlands with its rugged mountains and thin soils contributing relatively little to national economic production, but the Oromo have been alienated from control over their land throughout the 20th century first by the Amhara and now by the new TPLF overlords.
Acutely divided societies in which no single faction can impose its view might find an ability to arrive at political compromises in a constitutional form. But in Ethiopia, the hegemonic Amhara and now the Tigreans have excluded others from real power-sharing making true constitutionalism elusive. The leaders see the state as a prize to be won, a basis for private accumulation and patronage. But there is not enough patronage to go around, and those excluded from it mobilize their co-religionists and ethnic groups in an increasingly unmanageable opposition.
The State of Emergency
In response, the TPLF is relying on intensified repression by security forces, ethnic loyalists and the army. And for the first time in twenty-five years, the regime has declared a State of Emergency , clearly showing how rattled it is by the rebellion in the country. The Prime Minster announced :
“The cause of this (state of emergency) is that anti-peace forces in collaboration with foreign enemies of the country are making organized attempts to destabilize our country, to disrupt its peace and also to undermine the existence and security of its peoples.”
This response undoubtedly means more sticks and further erosion of civil liberties in the country but is unlikely to quell the unrest. One of the targets of the State of Emergency is the Internet and Social Media. PM Desalegn did make it a point to rant against diaspora media and the Internet during his appearance in September at the United Nations General Assembly:
“In fact, we are seeing how misinformation could easily go viral via social media and mislead many people, especially the youth…Social media has certainly empowered populists and other extremists to exploit people’s genuine concerns and spread their message of hate and bigotry without any inhibition...it is critical to underline one matter which is usually given short shrift, both by the media and others. It is simply hypocritical to deny that some of our countries have been targets for destabilization activities carried out with no accountability by people and groups who have been given shelters by States with whom we have absolutely no problems.”
The regime that Desalegn serves is responsible for suffocating the Ethiopian people by denying them any alternative media. The Ethiopian government is one of the top jailers and harassers of anyone daring to publish or practice independent journalism within the country. Now, Desalegn is shedding his crocodile tears about his inability to control and suppress social media and broadcasting emanating from the diaspora. While he has a point about the inherent potential for the abuse of social media, the regime is responsible for bringing criticisms on itself. In the absence of media freedom in the country, social media and broadcasting from the diaspora acquired enormous significance for Ethiopians hungry for information. It is clear that Ethiopians no longer trust the regime and have little confidence in official government news, which in reality is mostly propaganda.
“The Ethiopian government is one of the top jailers and harassers of anyone daring to publish or practice independent journalism.”
Authoritarian regimes adopt various forms of censorship to depoliticize the population and prevent the questioning of their legitimacy. By definition, authoritarian regimes demand strict submission by the media to their political authority. They do so by publishing or broadcasting deceptions in order to maintain their power structures. For example, the regime’s media censored Feyisa’s symbolic gesture in Rio while proclaiming that Feyisa is a national hero and welcome to return home, without any consequences.
The advent of the Internet has somewhat leveled the playing field by empowering regular Internet users to become content producers by utilizing decentralized and distributed networks such as social media. These uses of media pose a great danger to dictatorial regimes, which are moving to subvert, block social media and limit internet use, as in Ethiopia today.
China is the leading culprit in creating the technology to enable censorship, which it is sharing with the Ethiopian government. This suppression of the media will not succeed. Freedom-loving people find ways to circumvent these barriers and make determined efforts to stay informed – and, in turn, to inform the whole world. Yohannes Woldemariam is an educator and author. This article previously appeared on the Huffington Post’s Contributor platform. [2] | 0 | [
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FMD269 | 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 'Antifa' Planning a Civil War? Claim summaries: Despite what random people might say in homemade YouTube videos, they offer no proof that any anti-fascist groups are planning even a skirmish.
contextual information: In August 2017, rumors began to spread on social media that anti-fascists (often shortened to "antifa," which has become shorthand for a subset of protesters usually clad in black and accessorized with bandanas, and who evidently unnerved bloggers and vloggers enough to be the pet topic of many an angry online rant) were planning extended unrest, riots, the killing of random citizens, or outright civil war beginning on November 4, 2017. Depending on the source, "antifa" (always treated as though it is one homogeneous, unified group) was purportedly planning extended riots, joint violence alongside Black Lives Matter and the Black Panthers, or a coup of the American government. The rumors seem to have originated from a video published on August 30, 2017, by an individual named Jordan Peltz. Peltz was widely (and incorrectly) identified as a "U.S. Marshal" in the video, which shows him wearing what looked like an official badge that was actually simply printed on his shirt. However, he is not law enforcement or military; Peltz instead evidently works as some combination of bail bondsman and bounty hunter. Claiming to be a United States marshal is very popular among the sovereign citizen set; those involved claim to answer only to their interpretation of common law and maintain they are not subject to other legal conventions, including obtaining driver's licenses and paying taxes. Local, state, and federal governments tend to disagree. On Instagram, Peltz describes his work as "#fugitiverecovery" and "#warrantservice." Peltz published a video to "clear the air" on September 27, 2017, after reporter JJ MacNab, whose beat includes anti-government and sovereign citizen groups, wrote a thread on Twitter about how militia groups were being goaded into taking up arms against anti-fascists. Peltz responded by stating that his video, which gave the impression he was either predicting or calling for a November 2017 civil war, had been edited; although he didn't specify when, by whom, or why, he claimed that despite millions of views and thousands of comments, he had remained unaware it had been altered until he saw reports. On September 29, 2017, InfoWars published an article using Peltz's "civil war" wording, claiming that antifa was planning a new round of nationwide riots on November 4 as part of a plot to start a civil war that would lead to the overthrow of the Trump administration. Far-left militants were said to plan to gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across the country in the hope of building momentum for civil unrest that would lead to nothing less than domestic regime change. A longer screed posted on the Revolutionary Communist website made it clear that antifa was not prepared to wait for electoral change from Democrats and would engage in a ferocious struggle based on plans outlined in a book written by Bob Avakian, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, titled The Coming Civil War. The page also cited "antifa" websites, neither of which threatened violence. One provided a list of Facebook events, and the other read in its entirety: "ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017: We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power. Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of humanity and the world we want—in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. Our determination to persist and not back down will compel the whole world to take note. Every force and faction in the power structure would be forced to respond to our demand. The cracks and divisions among the powers already evident today will sharpen and widen. As we draw more and more people forward to stand up, all of this could lead to a situation where this illegitimate regime is removed from power. Spread the word and organize now. Be a part of making history. Don’t let it be said that you stood aside when there was still a chance to stop a regime that imperils humanity and the Earth itself. Join in taking to the streets and the public squares day after day and night after night demonstrating that In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. On November 4, 2017, we will stand together with conviction and courage, overcoming fear and uncertainty, to insist that: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO!" @AntifaChecker, a Twitter feed devoted to sniffing out phony "antifa" accounts, stated it was not even aware of the call to action. An article in L.A. Weekly reported on both the freeway protest and upcoming events. Their placards bore letters that spelled out "NOV 4 IT BEGINS." However, they couldn't get enough volunteers to hold all 12 letters, so the tallest among them, those with the broadest wingspans, held up two letters each. The eight people weren't enough to block the on-ramp, so some motorists were able to swerve around. Organizer and USC film professor Perry Hoberman stated that the protest was conceived in part to get the word out about a November 4 demonstration the group was planning. He mentioned that it was being modeled on the Women's March held in January at Pershing Square and that organizers hoped the action would include an encampment in a public place, like Occupy Wall Street, or at least a prolonged series of protests over several days. At one point, they knelt on the freeway, which organizer Michelle Xai said was to acknowledge "black and Latino people who have been and continue to be murdered by police." A video of the protest uploaded to the group's Facebook page has more than 700,000 views. Many of the 24,000-plus commenters asked for more information about November 4. Plenty of others objected to the group's inconveniencing motorists, and some appeared to endorse running them over. It is true that some groups linked to the antifa movement planned coordinated protests on November 4, 2017, but that had nothing to do with Peltz's video expressing disdain for the group in August 2017, nor did he appear to have any insider law enforcement knowledge, as he does not work in law enforcement himself. When a wave of rumors about November 4 anti-fascist protests began, his clip became part of the claim as "evidence" that a "federal officer" warned of coming violence. In reality, a list of apparently peaceful protests was paired with an older, unrelated video to create the impression of a looming threat. Peltz himself walked back the claims after his video brought him unwanted attention and scrutiny. There was an uptick in the rumor's spread on November 1, 2017, when the groups advertised the November 4 demonstrations in the New York Times. | 0 | [
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FMD270 | 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: Murder of Jamie Bulger Claim summaries: An outdated petition decries the true and horrific death of Jamie Bulger at the hands of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson.
contextual information: On February 12, 1993, two-year-old James Bulger was brutally murdered by ten-year-olds Jonathan (Jon) Venables and Robert (Bobbie) Thompson in Liverpool, England. For example, a small boy who was to turn three in March was taken from a shopping mall in Liverpool by two ten-year-old boys. Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second, and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson. They took Jamie on a walk for over two and a half miles, stopping every now and then to torture the poor little boy, who was constantly crying for his mommy. Finally, they stopped at a railway track, where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes, and pushed batteries up his anus. They then left his beaten body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, despite being young, understood that what they did was wrong, as evidenced by their attempts to make it look like an accident. This week, Lady Justice Butler-Sloss awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities. We cannot let this happen. They will also leave early this year, having served just over half of their sentence. One paper even stated that Robert may go on to university. They are getting away with their crime. They need to pay, and we have to do something to ensure they are held accountable for their horrific actions. They took Jamie's life violently, and in return, they get a new life. Please add your name and location to the list and forward it to friends and family. Please copy this email instead of forwarding it so we do not get > at the beginning of sentences. If you are the 200th person to sign, please forward this email to st.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk, addressing it to Lady Justice Butler-Sloss. Then start the list over again and send it to your friends and family. The Love-Bug virus took less than 72 hours to reach the world. I hope this does too. We need to protect our family and friends from individuals like Robert and Jon. One day, they may be living next to you and your small children without your knowledge. If Robert and Jon could be so evil at ten, imagine what they could do as adults. With only one exception (the batteries in the victim's anus; they went into his mouth), the details of the crime as outlined in the email are accurate. The boy was taken from a shopping mall while there with his mother. A video surveillance camera captured footage of the two killers leading James away. The child was brutalized as he was forced to walk along with the boys. Witnesses later reported seeing the boys dragging, pushing, and carrying the weeping two-year-old during a disjointed journey through the streets of Liverpool. They did kill him in the manner described, albeit more brutally than even the text of the e-petition suggests. Two days after the murder, James' remains were found on a lonely stretch of railroad track. He was naked from the waist down; his shoes, socks, trousers, and underpants had been removed. His penis had been manipulated by his abductors, but he had not been anally penetrated. He had been beaten to death with rocks, bricks, and an iron bar. As the boys hammered at him, they splattered him with model airplane paint stolen days earlier. Once he was dead, his killers laid him on the tracks, and his body was cut in two by a passing train. The killers hoped to hide their crime by having it mistaken for an accidental death of a young child who had foolishly played on the tracks. Venables and Thompson were taken into custody a few days later. Each sought to blame the other for the killing, but both eventually confessed. They were tried, found guilty of murder, sentenced, and placed in separate detention homes. The killers have not seen each other since the trial. All this is true and horrifying. Yet even so, there's no point in signing the petition or urging others to do so. Beyond all the usual problems with e-petitions, one issue specific to this case undermines the utility of such a plan: the situation being decried is already a done deal. On January 8, 2001, the High Court of England guaranteed both Venables and Thompson lifelong anonymity, plus an unprecedented open-ended injunction barring any publicity about them. Each of these young men was released in June 2001 when they turned 18. The email states that the two killers "will also leave early this year, only serving just over half of their sentence." That statement is false. Although there is no theoretical maximum length of sentence imposed, a minimum sentence of eight years had been set, and that minimum was satisfied. The boys were detained "at Her Majesty's pleasure" (without a maximum fixed term). Her Majesty's Pleasure (HMP) sentences are imposed only in cases of murder and manslaughter committed by children under 18. In these cases, the judge sets a tariff (minimum term, defined as the period required for retribution and deterrence). Once the tariff has been satisfied, the prisoner is assessed based on the likely risk he will pose to the outside community. Therefore, a killer sentenced to such a term is eligible for release once the tariff has been served, provided he does not impress the court as posing a danger to society. The judge at Venables' and Thompson's November 1993 trial set an eight-year tariff. In early 1994, Lord Taylor, then Lord Chief Justice, recommended increasing this minimum to ten years. Michael Howard, Home Secretary, imposed a 15-year sentence on Venables and Thompson in July 1994, but his actions were ruled unlawful by the High Court and the Court of Appeals in 1996 and struck down. Lord Woolf, the current Lord Chief Justice, ruled in 2000 that the killers' tariff was eight years, a term that was reached on February 21, 2001. Venables' and Thompson's sentences were thus eight years each, and they have been served. Had the sentences unlawfully imposed by Michael Howard been upheld, then the e-petition's claim about the killers only having served "half their sentences" would be relevant. The anonymity guarantee and publication ban were set in place by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the High Court's Family Division. She was convinced the pair would be genuinely at risk if their identities and locations were disclosed, hence her ruling. "Although the crime of these two young men was especially heinous, they have the right of all citizens to the protection of the law." She said people other than James Bulger's family "continue to feel such hatred and revulsion at the shocking crime and a desire for revenge that some at least of them might well engage in vigilante or revenge attacks." She may well have been right, especially in light of threats received. Dame Butler-Sloss banned the media from publishing any information leading to the identification or disclosure of the whereabouts of Venables or Thompson, including photographs and descriptions of their appearance. She also banned, for 12 months, publication of information about their eight-year stay in local authority secure units. Even after that, confidential information relating to their treatment and therapy cannot be published. The judge admitted she was aware the injunctions she imposed might not be fully effective outside England and Wales. She banned the domestic media from giving wider circulation to material from the Internet or media elsewhere if it was likely to breach the injunction. Was it right for Venables and Thompson to be protected from the public? Some said yes, arguing that otherwise they'd have been torn limb from limb (and that would render society no better than those it would prosecute for such crimes), or that children (which the defendants were at the time of the Bulger murder) should not be held accountable for a crime—even a heinous one—in the same manner that we hold adults. Others said no, asserting that the public had a right to know where potentially dangerous felons are, and some on that side of the fence claimed that there are some crimes which cannot fully be expiated by time served. Jon Venables' reprieve from incarceration proved to be temporary when he violated the terms of his release by downloading and distributing indecent images of children and was returned to jail in March 2010. In July 2013, the U.K. parole board confirmed that Venables had been granted parole for a second time, although that body declined to provide details about when he would be released. In June 2006, the following related item began circulating: Hello friends, I am just so angry, frustrated, and really upset at what has happened at the Livingston Shopping Centre that I needed to let you all know the "truth" behind the mongrel murderer. About three years ago, when I was working at the prison, we found out that one of the boys (at the time aged about 12) who abducted James Bulger from a shopping centre in the U.K., then brutally raped and murdered him, had reached the age of 18 and had been sent out to Australia with a new identity for his family, etc. Long story short, he was given the name of Dante Arthurs; his grandfather's name is Arthur Dante, and his family moved into a house in Canning Vale. When the prison staff got wind of this, it was all supposed to be kept hushed up; it was some sort of prisoner exchange deal the Australian Government set up. Soon after he got here, he assaulted a 12-year-old girl in a park in Canning Vale and consequently came to Hakea prison, but for only about six weeks, as they couldn't get enough evidence on him, and the incident was brushed under the mat. His parents used to visit him, and their photos were on the computers at work, and I clearly recall seeing his mum at the Livingston shops one day. I even had his address, and because I've got friends and family in the area, I felt I had a right to tell them—stuff the prisons! I had even driven past his house in Lakeview Rise estate in Canning Vale! Anyway, when this happened yesterday, I said to Ron, it'd be interesting to see if it's that Dante Arthurs guy from the U.K., and sure enough, today we find out that it is him. I am, along with a lot of others, absolutely furious that the mongrel arsehole was allowed to come here via the Government in the first place and that he was allowed to appear to live a normal life! Why haven't the police done something about this? He should not be allowed to breathe air; he is the scum of the earth. And tonight he would be sitting back in a comfortable cell in prison, having just had a reasonable hot dinner and be watching TV! That innocent little girl and her poor family will never ever be the same again—all because the weak Justice System and Government allowed him to live in our country! There is a register for paedophiles so that the community is allowed to know where they're living, and yet this piece of shit can live on our doorstep with a new identity. People whinge about illegal immigrants; what about this? It will be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few days, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's whisked out of the country in the same manner he was brought here. Then again, knowing our pathetic laws, we'll probably keep him here in our justice system, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed and entertain him, PLUS the do-gooders will believe in their minds that they can rehabilitate him! I was just going to type "sorry," but I'm not at all sorry for alerting my friends to something that should be publicly known. Stay safe, talk soon. This message refers to the rape and murder of eight-year-old Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia-Shu in a suburban shopping center restroom in Canning Vale, Australia, on June 26, 2006. A 21-year-old man named Dante Wyndham Arthurs was arrested and charged in connection with that case, and the message reproduced above claims Arthurs was also one of Jamie Bulger's killers, renamed and relocated to Australia after having served out his sentence as a juvenile in England (even though both of the principals in the Bulger murder were then at least 23 years old). The British High Commission and Australian police have denied any link between the Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia-Shu and Jamie Bulger killings. The British High Commission has ruled out claims that a man charged over the rape and murder of a Perth schoolgirl was one of two notorious English child killers. Perth police also denied that Dante Wyndham Arthurs, 21, of the Perth suburb of Canning Vale, was one of the killers of British boy James Bulger. Clive Hunton, of the British High Commission in Canberra, said there was "no connection between the man arrested in Western Australia and the individuals involved in the James Bulger case." Arthurs was remanded in custody after appearing in Perth Magistrates Court charged with wilful murder, sexual penetration of a child, and deprivation of liberty. He was charged following the discovery of the body of Sofia Rodriguez-Urrutia-Shu on the floor of a shopping centre toilet. The fact that Dante Arthurs was born in Australia (and was not an English immigrant using an assumed identity) has been confirmed by both his birth notice and the doctor who delivered him. Also, his fingerprints do not match those of Jonathan (Jon) Venables or Robert (Bobbie) Thompson, the murderers of James Bulger. The emailed rumor quoted above was presented as if it were written by a prison officer. According to the West Australian, that message is being investigated by Australian authorities: The Department of Corrective Services has confirmed that an investigation was underway into an email claiming to be from a prison officer, which was sent to thousands of people across Australia. "The email appears to have come from outside the department," a spokeswoman said. Nonetheless, rumors persisted that Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were relocated to Australia, and in May 2008, Australian MP Liz Cunningham raised the issue of investigating whether the pair had been accepted by Queensland authorities. In March 2010, the BBC reported that Jon Venables (then age 27) was back in prison after having breached the terms of his release. Image caption: Denise Fergus, the mother of murdered two-year-old James Bulger, attends a press conference to launch an appeal to raise funds for bullied children on March 14, 2008, in Liverpool, England. The Red Balloon Learner Centre bearing James Bulger's name will be a sanctuary for bullied children. | 2 | [
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FMD271 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and four other U.S. senators on Thursday called on President Barack Obama to order a comprehensive environmental review of a pipeline project that has stirred widespread opposition from Native Americans and environmental activists. After a federal appeals court on Sunday night denied a request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the senators asked Obama to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to complete a full environmental impact statement, including stronger tribal consultation, for a contested part of the route. “The project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,†said the letter by Sanders and Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein, Ed Markey, Patrick Leahy and Benjamin Cardin. Also on Thursday, the governments of 19 cities, including St. Louis and Minneapolis, passed ordinances to support the Standing Rock tribe in opposition of the pipeline. In recent weeks, protests against the Dakota Access pipeline led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota have drawn international attention, prompting the U.S. government to temporarily block construction on federal land. Tribal leaders say the pipeline will desecrate land and pollute water, especially around the planned crossing through Lake Oahe, a sacred site. Opposition to the pipeline has drawn support from 200 Native American tribes. On Tuesday, anti-pipeline activists in four states, in solidarity with the Dakota pipeline protesters, closed pipeline valves to halt the flow of crude through arteries transporting 15 percent of U.S. oil consumption. A day earlier, actress Shailene Woodley was arrested in North Dakota while protesting the pipeline, an incident that was live streamed on Facebook. On Thursday, Amy Goodman, a journalist from the independent TV and radio program Democracy Now!, said she would turn herself over to authorities in North Dakota on Monday morning, in response to a criminal complaint was filed against her on Sept. 8 for trespassing. Goodman had filmed the crackdown on protesters by authorities last month. “I was doing my job as a journalist, covering a violent attack on Native American protesters,†she said. When fully connected, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km) pipeline would be the first to carry crude directly to the U.S. Gulf from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada. The $3.7 billion project is being built by the Dakota Access subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, which has vowed to complete construction. “There must be a serious consideration of the full potential climate impacts of this pipeline prior to the Army Corps of Engineers approving any permits or easements for the Dakota Access pipeline,†the senators said. Experts say that the full environmental review requested by the senators could take several months. | 1 | [
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FMD272 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Home / Badge Abuse / Shots Fired, 117 Arrests Made as Militarized Police Remove Pipeline Protesters Shots Fired, 117 Arrests Made as Militarized Police Remove Pipeline Protesters The Free Thought Project October 28, 2016 1 Comment
Standing Rock, ND — (RT) Hundreds of police in riot gear and with heavy military equipment have moved Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from their encampment on private land in North Dakota. Police have reportedly arrested at least 117 demonstrators so far.
“117 protesters have been arrested [as of 8:15 pm Thursday]. Morton County will be utilizing other jails in this mass arrest operation,” said Donnell Hushka, a spokeswoman for the Morton County, North Dakota, Sheriff’s Department.
Police have entered the sacred ground camp and surrounded protesters there. Livestream videos showed more than one hundred protesters on the front line. Police have protesters more or less surrounded. #noDAPL pic.twitter.com/G4xGQuXpZM
— Jason Patinkin (@JasonPatinkin) October 27, 2016
The Morton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to the Associated Press that it had cleared the private land of protesters around 6:30pm EST Thursday.
Shortly after 7:00pm EST Thursday, the sheriff’s office posted on its Facebook page that “one woman has been arrested for firing a weapon at the police line near Highway 1806.”
The sheriff’s office just after 8:00pm EST stated in a Facebook post that it received reports of “several incidents involving firearms.” One “involved a private individual who was run off the road by protestors. The victim was shot in the hand and is being treated. An investigation in underway. No law enforcement was involved with this shooting.”
With regard to the woman arrested, the sheriff’s office said she “pulled a .38 caliber revolver and fired three shots at law enforcement, narrowly missing a sheriff’s deputy.” The sheriff’s office claims it did not fire any shots when taking her into custody.
“Ten shots were reported in the area. It’s possible it is local hunters. This incident is under investigation,” the Facebook post concluded. BREAKING: Sheriff: Dakota Access pipeline protesters cleared from private property.
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 27, 2016
According to KFYR, police made 16 arrests by evening time Thursday.
“The protesters are not being peaceful or prayerful. Law enforcement has been very methodical in moving ahead slowly as to not escalate the situation. However, the protesters are using very dangerous means to slow us down. Their aggressive tactics include using horses, fire and trying to flank us with horses and people,” said Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney in a press release Thursday. 16 arrests at DAPL today…. #kfyrkafe
— KFYR AM 550 (@KFYR550) October 27, 2016
“Move to the south,” police said over the loudspeaker.
“We see some of you have bows. Do not shoot bows and arrows at us,” they added, as protesters laughed.
National Guard troops and police removed tents and other possessions from the new encampment, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says is sacred land granted to them via treaty in 1851.
Police also dismantled the barricade across the road.
As police corralled the protesters southward, some activists remained facing the police and even engaged with them while walking backwards. Atsa E’sha Hoferer was livestreaming on Facebook, telling officers that they should be on the side of the protests and that they too would suffer from contaminated water should the pipeline burst. Police are pulling down tents now. Just saw them spray paint an X on a teepee. pic.twitter.com/nNrWRPDggP
— Caroline Grueskin (@cgrueskin) October 27, 2016
The stand-off with police had lasted for several hours before authorties moved closer to the camp and started arresting people. The number of arrested is currently unclear.
The protesters are currently blocking state Highway 1806, which law enforcement is attempting to clear using cop cars and military – style vehicles. Police said they will defend themselves against horses if necessary #DAPL #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/5yWqKBUeGW
— wes enzinna (@wesenzinna) October 27, 2016
Police have said that they will defend themselves against horses, journalist Wes Enzinna tweeted.
“Do not ride horses at the police,” law enforcement announced.
“You’re endangering people’s lives by what you’re doing,” police told the protesters, telling them to move south or be arrested. People will not be arrested if they return to the main camp, one officer said at the barricade.
Protesters are burning tires, logs and other objects, sending smoke onto the roadway. A car has also been torched, journalist Jason Patinkin tweeted.
— Jason Patinkin (@JasonPatinkin) October 27, 2016
Although the Federal Aviation Administration has restricted flights over the Cannon Ball area until November 5, there is a police helicopter above the faceoff, journalist Antonia Juhasz tweeted.
More than 260 protesters have been arrested in the weeks leading up to Thursday’s operation, AP reported.
In the morning police made a line in front of the fence and the company workers are behind them. The tents of the so-called North Camp were located a stone’s throw away from the police line. Authorities insist that this camp should be removed, according to activist Atsa E’sha Hoferer live-streaming from the site.
People on the barricades are retreating peacefully amid chants of “hands up, don’t shoot!”
People are moving from the road towards the construction site. “We might as well get arrested defending the sacred,” a protester told the Bismarck Tribune’s Caroline Grueskin. We need to band together and keep the pressure up against them. One is a map of Native American reservations the other is the DAPL. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/VQ5MXgXkpY
— Bart Starr Mistrot (@bartmistrot) October 27, 2016
Construction on the pipeline has resumed within sight of the confrontation on the state highway. While police came from north and things riled up, pipeline construction restarted to west. False flag much? pic.twitter.com/XxgC7vH11Z
— Jason Patinkin (@JasonPatinkin) October 27, 2016
“Protesters’ escalated unlawful behavior this weekend by setting up illegal roadblocks, trespassing onto private property and establishing an encampment, has forced law enforcement to respond at this time. As I said yesterday, I visited the protesters roadblock and requested them to remove the barricade and have protesters vacate the private property. However, the spokesperson at the roadblock, Mekasi Camp-Horinek of Oklahoma, told law enforcement they ‘were not moving’,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said in a statement . “I can’t stress it enough, this is a public safety issue. We cannot have protesters blocking county roads, blocking state highways, or trespassing on private property.” So @potus , this means you're going to remove the National Guard from Standing Rock and cancel DAPL, right? Right? #NoDAPL https://t.co/FVV5KsgUom | 0 | [
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FMD273 | 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 the Trump campaign automatically selecting a "Recurring Donation" option that will expire in December? Claim summaries: The campaign website, until recently, had been accepting recurring donations up until Election Day.
contextual information: Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but misinformation continues to circulate. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. On Oct. 31, 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, although the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform, WinRed, changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It is worth mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh stated that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and that donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign." From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, while much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committee's general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim. | 1 | [
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FMD274 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Trump advisor Roger Stone says a bunch of wacky stuff on Twitter, but he managed to go too far even for a platform that seems to ban more people for condemning hate speech than anything else.After it was announced that at least one person had been indicted by a grand jury in the Russia probe, Stone went nuts on journalists who reported the information especially CNN s Don Lemon. There r no credible fact checks that clear the Clinton s on Uranium, Stone wrote in his typical uneducated manner to Lemon. Even the people at CNN say i are a buffoon behind you back. You come across on tv as a dull witted arrogant partyboi, the dull-witted Trump ally added. You lie constantly and no one who knows you thinks you r bright. Don Lemon must be confronted, humiliated, mocked, and punished, Stone said. Dumber than dog shit. Stop lying about the Clinton s and Uranium you ignorant lying covksucker !!!! Stone continued. You fake news you dumb piece of shit. Stone also told Charles Blow, U have no cried you fast talking arrogant fake news piece of shit ! It s unclear why Stone has never bothered to learn to spell at above a second-grade level or why he thinks there should be spaces before exclamation marks, but he ll have plenty of time to think about that and possibly learn to spell because he s gone from Twitter.Whoa. Roger Stone lost his shit to such a degree, Twitter suspended his account.So, why hasn't Trump been suspended? pic.twitter.com/849LYIGztl Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) October 28, 2017Maybe Stone is just worried that he might be indicted, maybe he s just furious that the chickens are coming home to roost but at least we don t have to deal with his bullsh*t anymore.Featured image via Getty Images/screengrab | 0 | [
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FMD275 | 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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FMD276 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Donald J. Trump lashed out at Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other critics within his party on Tuesday in a barrage of Twitter posts deriding the Republican as a feckless leader and warning that those who have been disloyal risked handing the election to Hillary Clinton. The early morning attack escalated the war between the Republican presidential nominee and those party establishment figures who have abandoned him since the emergence of a 2005 video that showed Mr. Trump demeaning women in lurid terms. That was the last straw for Mr. Ryan, who told Republicans in Congress that they should feel free to stop supporting Mr. Trump if they felt it would improve their own prospects on Election Day. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump was still seething over Mr. Ryan’s refusal to stick with him. Mr. Trump also appeared to be laying the groundwork to blame Mr. Ryan and Republicans who opposed him should he lose the election next month, complaining that it is “hard to do well†without the support of his own party. Democrats, he said, are more loyal to their own kind. In a mood to settle scores, Mr. Trump also assailed Senator John McCain of Arizona for selling him out. The two men clashed last year when Mr. Trump declared that Mr. McCain, a decorated veteran who was captured and imprisoned in Vietnam, was not a war hero. They later made amends but the relationship unraveled when Mr. McCain denounced Mr. Trump for boasting about sexually assaulting women in the video. “The very Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won) then dropped me over locker room remarks!†Mr. Trump wrote in an afternoon post on Twitter. Mr. Trump has increasingly been trying to fire up his base of supporters by ridiculing Republican leaders and making incendiary allegations against Mrs. Clinton and her husband. At a rally on Monday night, he reiterated his promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs. Clinton if he were elected president, and he warned that if more videos of him exhibiting vulgar behavior became public, he would redouble his attacks on Mrs. Clinton’s family. The Trump campaign has also released a new advertisement that features footage of Mrs. Clinton having a coughing fit and a scene of her stumbling into a vehicle when she came down with pneumonia last month. Mr. Trump had initially avoided using Mrs. Clinton’s illness against her, but recently mocked her stumble publicly and said it was more evidence that she lacked stamina. The fallout from the video and Mr. Trump’s more combustible attitude has already shown signs that it is turning off independent voters and women. Christian conservatives, an important segment of the Republican base, have also expressed concern that Mr. Trump has taken his scorched earth approach too far. “This past week, the latest (though surely not last) revelations from Trump’s past have caused many evangelical leaders to reconsider,†Andy Crouch, the executive editor of the evangelical publication Christianity Today, wrote in an editorial published Monday. “The revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual conquest — indeed, sexual assault — might have been shocking, but they should have surprised no one. †The essay went on to argue that many Christians have been supporting Mr. Trump for strategic reasons, largely based on the notion that he was on their side when it came to social issues and the direction of the Supreme Court, but that ultimately social conservatives could not be blind to Mr. Trump’s behavior. “Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord,†Mr. Crouch wrote. “They see that some of us are so and so that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us — in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us. †However, not everyone is turning against Mr. Trump, with four weeks to go until Election Day. In a speech at Liberty University in Virginia on Monday, Ralph Reed, a prominent evangelical leader, made a forceful case for why Mr. Trump remained a better choice than Mrs. Clinton despite the offensive video that was revealed last week. And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who fought bitterly with Mr. Trump during the Republican primary campaign, said on Tuesday that he was not ready to abandon Mr. Trump. For his part, Mr. Trump suggested on Tuesday that he now felt emboldened by his campaign’s new leadership team and the fact that he was no longer trying to please establishment Republicans by restraining himself. | 1 | [
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FMD277 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The deputy director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau late on Sunday filed a lawsuit seeking to halt President Donald Trump from naming an official to run the watchdog agency on an interim basis. Leandra English, who was named acting director by outgoing agency chief Richard Cordray on Friday, is seeking a temporary restraining order barring Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, from taking control of the agency as Trump had sought. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, argues that Trump overstepped his legal authority in attempting to place Mulvaney in the post, maintaining Cordray had legal grounds to name his successor until a full-time director is named by Trump and confirmed by the Senate. | 1 | [
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FMD278 | 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: Was Malia Obama Indicted for Food Stamp Fraud? Claim summaries: "Obama has trained the youth of America to be so dependent on the government that even his own daughter thought she was entitled to free stuff."
contextual information: Back in December 2016, America's Last Line of Defense, a junk news website, published an article falsely reporting that First Daughter Malia Obama had been indicted on food stamp fraud charges. The article claimed that a member of the First Family would face fraud charges early in 2017, but it wasn't who one might think. It suggested that President Obama was guilty of fraud for his use of a fake birth certificate and for pretending to be a Christian, and that Michelle Obama was guilty for the $180 million in lavish vacations and the 200 staffers she employed to walk her dog and tend to her garden at the taxpayers' expense. However, they seemed impervious to any kind of action against them. Malia, however, was not going to be so lucky. The article alleged that while submitting her paperwork to attend Harvard, the oldest Obama daughter, who had recently turned 18, lied on her financial forms and failed to disclose the $9 million she had in the bank. This was not an issue with the school, as she was going on a full scholarship for being the daughter of a president, but it did not bode well with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The article claimed that Malia decided to fail to disclose her assets when she applied for food stamps. Yes, you heard that right. The article suggested that Obama had trained the youth of America to be so dependent on the government that even his own daughter thought she was entitled to free benefits just because she was not technically working. This item was a fabricated report that originated solely with America's Last Line of Defense, a junk news website that frequently publishes political misinformation as "satire." Several clues on the site indicate the satirical nature of its content, such as the "you're an idiot" tag at the top of the article, the disclaimer on the site's "About Page," and a special note beneath the article mocking its conservative targets. The disclaimer stated that the Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that do not necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical, and any quotes attributed to actual people are complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real. While this story is ridiculous and cannot be verified, conservatives tend not to read below the pictures of patriotic pets. It is here that we can gather to point at them and laugh as they head back to their Facebook pages to make an immediate connection between Malia, food stamps, and black people. Yes, it really is that predictable. Although the rumor that Malia Obama was indicted on food stamp-related fraud charges originated with a 2016 junk news article, several social media users have continued to spread the false rumor in the ensuing years. In April 2019, nearly two-and-a-half years after this fake article was originally published, we encountered a meme asking, "What happened to Malia Obama's Food Stamp Fraud Charge?" The answer to the question posed in this meme can be answered quite simply: Nothing, because those charges never existed to begin with. America's Last Line of Defense has published a number of articles offering false claims about Malia Obama. We've previously covered items asserting that Malia once said white people would be "blended out," that she was expelled from Harvard, that she was caught streaking at college, that she founded an anti-Trump website, that she attacked an old woman, and that she was arrested for purchasing marijuana. None of the aforementioned stories was true. | 0 | [
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FMD279 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: NTEB Ads Privacy Policy THE SMOKING GUN: WikiLeaks Emails Show Proof Positive Of Vast Clinton Foundation Corruption It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned. by Geoffrey Grider October 28, 2016 Grifters-in-Chief: The Clintons don’t draw lines between their ‘charity’ and personal enrichment.
In an election season that has been full of surprises , let’s hope the electorate understands that there is at least one thing of which it can be certain: A Hillary Clinton presidency will be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law.
This isn’t a guess. It is spelled out, in black and white, in the latest bombshell revelation from WikiLeaks . It comes in the form of a memo written in 2011 by longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band, who for years worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and at the head of his lucrative consulting business, Teneo.
It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned. Trump: WikiLeaks Shows Clinton Foundation Corruption
The memo came near the end of a 2011 review by law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett into Clinton Foundation practices. Chelsea Clinton had grown concerned about the audacious mixing of public and private, and the review was designed to ensure that the foundation didn’t lose its charitable tax status. Mr. Band, Teneo boss and epicenter of what he calls “ Bill Clinton, Inc.,” clearly felt under assault and was eager to brag up the ways in which his business had concurrently benefited the foundation, Clinton political causes and the Clinton bank account. The memoed result is a remarkably candid look at the sleazy inner workings of the Clinton grifters-in-chief. Rep. Sessions: Clinton Foundation’s fundraising tactics are criminal
The cross-pollination is flagrant , and Mr. Band gives example after example of how it works. He and his partner Declan Kelly (a Hillary Clinton fundraiser whom Mrs. Clinton rewarded by making him the State Department’s special envoy to Northern Ireland) buttered up their clients with special visits to Bill’s home and tête-à-tête golf rounds with the former president. They then “cultivated” these marks ( Coca-Cola , Dow Chemical , UBS) for foundation dollars, and then again for high-dollar Bill Clinton speeches and other business payouts. Morning Joe Destroys Corrupt Clinton Foundation “Total Corruption”
Teneo’s incestuous behavior also included Mrs. Clinton’s State Department. The Band memo boasts that Mr. Kelly (while he was Mrs. Clinton’s State envoy) introduced the then-head of UBS Wealth Management, Bob McCann, to Bill Clinton at an American Ireland Fund event in 2009. “Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Mr. Mccann [sic] to support the Foundation, which he did . . . Mr. Kelly also encouraged Mr. Mccann [sic] to invite President Clinton to give several paid speeches, which he has done,” reads Mr. Band’s memo. UBS ultimately paid Bill $2 million.
American Ireland Fund meanwhile became a Teneo client, and made Mr. Kelly (of former State envoy fame) a trustee, where he “ensured that the AIF is a significant donor to the Foundation.” AIF then bestowed upon Mrs. Clinton a major award on her final trip to Northern Ireland in 2012, in an event partly sponsored by . . . Teneo.
Not that this is all one way. Mr. Band let slip just how useful all these arrangements were for Teneo, too, when he backhandedly apologized in the memo for hosting 15 client meetings in a hotel room rented by the Clinton Global Initiative.
The memo removes any doubt that the foundation is little more than an unregistered super PAC working on the Clintons’ behalf. Donors to the charity are simultaneously tapped to give Bill speech requests and other business arrangements, including the $3.5 million he was paid annually to serve as “honorary chairman” of Laureate International Universities. Mr. Band’s memo also notes his success at getting donors to “support candidates running for office that President Clinton was supporting.” It’s now 2016 and Bill’s most favorite candidate is running for the presidency. There’s no question foundation donors are being “leveraged” for Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Band wants credit in the memo for prodding existing foundation donors to pony up more money, though the donation statistics he provides paint a different picture. By and large, donations to the foundation begin to spike dramatically in 2009 and 2010. Mr. Band didn’t form Teneo until 2011. What was happening in 2009? Mrs. Clinton was sworn in as one of the most powerful politicians on the planet. The Clinton Foundation takes money from countries that deny rights to women:
The obvious question is where are the prosecutors? (For that matter, where is Lois Lernerwhen you need her?) Any nonprofit lawyer in America knows the ironclad rule of keeping private enrichment away from tax-exempt activity, for the simple reason that mixing the two involves ripping off taxpayers. Every election lawyer in the country lives in fear of stepping over the lines governing fundraising and election vehicles. The Clintons recognize no lines.
Here’s the lasting takeaway: The Clintons spent their White House years explaining endless sleazy financial deals, and even capping their exit with a scandal over whether Bill was paid to pardon financier Marc Rich. They know the risks. And yet they geared up the foundation and these seedy practices even as Mrs. Clinton was making her first bid for the presidency. They continued them as she sat as secretary of state. They continue them still, as she nears the White House.
This is how the Clintons operate. They don’t change. Any one who pulls the lever for Crooked Hillary Clinton takes responsibility for setting up the nation for all the blatant corruption that will follow. source SHARE THIS ARTICLE Geoffrey Grider NTEB is run by end times author and editor-in-chief Geoffrey Grider. Geoffrey runs a successful web design company, and is a full-time minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to running NOW THE END BEGINS, he has a dynamic street preaching outreach and tract ministry team in Saint Augustine, FL. NTEB #TRENDING | 0 | [
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FMD280 | 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: Star Wreck Claim summaries: Web comic rekindles interest in 'Star Trek' creator Gene Roddenberry's experience surviving a Pan Am plane crash and fire in 1947.
contextual information: On 10 November 2015, the web comic The Oatmeal rekindled interest in an incident from the early life of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry: the 1947 crash of Pan Am Flight 121 during its leg from Karachi to Istanbul, an accident that killed seven crew members and seven passengers and left Roddenberry, who was a member of the flight crew, with "a couple of broken ribs and a bruise or two": interest The Oatmeal comic (which can be viewed in its entirety here) related that after the plane crashed, 26-year-old Gene Roddenberry (a pilot who flew with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and worked as a commercial pilot for Pan Am airlines after the war) pulled passengers from the burning wreckage and then led them to a village where they were able to call for help. While some readers were skeptical about the fantastical story,The Oatmeal provided a link to its source material,Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry, which recounts the incident at length in Chapter 5. here source Although The Oatmeal described Roddenberry as the "co-pilot" of the flight, other sourcesidentifiedRoddenberry asthe "third officer without flight responsibilities" or "a deadheading" pilot. Nonetheless, Roddenberry did helm a portion the flight while the captain took a break, and there's no disputing the fact that he helped 22 people survive the crash of Pan Am Flight 121 in 1947 after an engine fire forced the flight down in a desert and the plane ignited: sources helped The flight's Third Officer, Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, of River Edge, New Jersey, purser Anthony Volpe and stewardess Jane Bray helped evacuate the wrecked airliner. "We who could jumped out. The other survivors were handed down and we dragged them away and tried to do what we could for them. We had to carry the Rani away. She had a head injury and had lost some teeth and was in a rather bad way, but we finally quieted her,"Bray recalled. "All we could do then was watch while the plane burned, slowly at first and then fiercely. It must have burned for hours, but I do not remember too well. There wasn't any sound but those flames. Everybody who died must have been killed outright." As described in Star Trek Creator, Roddenberry was instrumental in helping to save surviving passengers: The second the plane came to a rest, Roddenberry, Volpe, and Bray quickly began evacuating their charges through the ruptured fuselage. As the fire in the front of the plane approached their section, they knew they only had seconds to get everyone out. Moving as fast as they could, they pushed open the cabin door and guided the uninjured passengers out. Gene and Tony handed down the injured, then the uninjured passengers on the ground dragged them to safety. Even with the composed and focused actions of the surviving crew, the evacuation did not go smoothly. After most of the passengers had been removed, the seatbelt of the Majarani of Pheleton would not release, trapping her in the burning wreckage. The large woman was hysterical. Gene forced the belt open and rescued the Indian royal. She and her son, the prince, were put with the others on the sand, away from the plane and the fire. Gene pulled out several people who were themselves on fire and used a pillow he found on the ground to smother the flames. On board, the flames were growing in intensity, so he could only make a couple of trips into the passenger compartment. The last passenger he pulled out died in his arms. The wind changed, blowing the burning gasoline directly over the ship's wreckage; Gene and Volpe were unable to rescue any more passengers out of the plane. The other passengers safe for the moment, the trio turned their thoughts to their friends on the flight deck. They ran around the burning fuselage and wings to the front of the plane. Looking in the cockpit windows, they could see the flight crew sitting at their stations, slumped over their seats, dead or unconscious. Frantically pounding on the windows, Volpe, Bray, and Roddenberry tried to rouse their friends until the flames drove them back. The Roddenberry Foundation recounted a similar version of the story, noting that the creator ofStar Trek was awarded a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his efforts after the crash: recounted At war's end, he joined Pan American World Airways. It was on a flight from Calcutta that his plane lost two engines and caught fire in flight, crashing at night in the Syrian desert. As the senior surviving officer, Roddenberry sent two Englishmen swimming across the Euphrates River in quest of the source of a light he had observed just prior to the crash impact. The Englishmen reached a Syrian military outpost, which sent a small plane to investigate. Roddenberry returned with the small plane to the outpost, where he broadcast a message that was relayed to Pan Am, which sent a stretcher plane to the rescue. Roddenberry later received a Civil Aeronautics commendation for his efforts during and after the crash. | 1 | [
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FMD281 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Penguin Random House announced on Tuesday night that Barack and Michelle Obama have both signed book deals with the publisher. According to the statement, the former president and former first lady will each be authoring a book in the near future.The announcement reads: Penguin Random House is pleased to announce that it will publish forthcoming books by former President of the United States Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. Oenguin Random House CEO MArkus Dohle announced today that the company has acquired world publication rights for two books, to be written by President and Mrs. Obama respectively. The statement did not disclose an actual dollar amount for these deals, but according to a report in Financial Times, bids on their books had reached more than $60 million. If accurate, this would blow away the price tag attached to the memoirs of other recent presidents. Bill Clinton got $15 million for his book My Life and George W Bush made approximately $10 million from his book Decision Points.The announcement did say that in support of the mission of The Obama Foundation and Penguin Random House s own commitment to social responsibility, the company will donate one million books in the Obama family s name to First Book. The First Book program strives to promote equal access to education by providing new books, learning materials, and other essentials to children in need. In addition, the Obamas also plan to donate a significant portion of their author proceeds to charity. We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama, Dohle said. With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same. Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance. This is not the first time the former president has worked with the publisher. CNN points out that Penguin Random House has published Obama s past books, so the new deal continues a two-decade-long relationship. The hefty figures quoted in the bids for their books clearly demonstrate the expectation that these books are going to be huge best sellers. Personally, I have only one question: Where can I place a pre-order?New books by @BarackObama and @MichelleObama have been acquired by @penguinrandom, the publisher says. pic.twitter.com/EkF5cfRaOH Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) February 28, 2017Featured image via Mike Theiler-Pool/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD282 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Democratic leaders nationwide sought to exact a political price from Republican officials and candidates on Monday for continuing to support Donald J. Trump after his explosive remarks challenging the objectivity of judges with Mexican or Muslim backgrounds. In an unusually coordinated series of attacks leveled from congressional offices and the Senate floor, in state capitols and sidewalk protests, Democrats excoriated Mr. Trump as racist and demanded that Republicans either stand behind his comments or condemn him and even rescind their endorsements of his candidacy. Democrats received unexpected ammunition from Mr. Trump himself, who, in an extraordinary conference call with allies on Monday, urged them to defend his criticisms of a federal judge’s Mexican heritage — and then rebuked his campaign staff for having suggested otherwise. Mr. Trump’s doggedness, and his chastisement of his own aides, contributed to a sense of powerlessness among Republicans who said they increasingly saw no way to influence Mr. Trump’s behavior or to convince him that his actions could hurt the party in competitive House, Senate and governor’s races. Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has held discussions with Mr. Trump about his attacks on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of Federal District Court, who is overseeing a suit against the Trump University, according to a Republican briefed on the talks. But Mr. Priebus has had similar conversations over many months with Mr. Trump, to little avail. And other senior Republicans said there was confusion about whether it was worth approaching any of Mr. Trump’s aides about doing an intervention with him. Republican candidates in tough races this fall were left to fend for themselves. Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire called on Mr. Trump to retract his comments about Judge Curiel, calling them “offensive and wrong. †Other candidates lay low. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a former rival of Mr. Trump’s, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine both criticized Mr. Trump, yet neither they nor Ms. Ayotte indicated that they would reject his candidacy. “I continue to hope that Mr. Trump will rethink his position and take back those words and show respect for the separation of powers doctrine that is enshrined in our Constitution,†Ms. Collins said in an interview. “I continue to believe in redemption. †No prominent elected Republican came to Mr. Trump’s defense unreservedly. And others found themselves wondering aloud what it would take — what Mr. Trump would have to say or do — for Republicans who have endorsed him to start jumping ship. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another former primary rival of Mr. Trump’s, urged Republicans who have backed Mr. Trump to rescind their endorsements, citing the remarks about Judge Curiel and Mr. Trump’s expression of doubt on Sunday that a Muslim judge could remain neutral in the same lawsuit, given Mr. Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim noncitizens entering the country. “This is the most thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,†Mr. Graham said. “If anybody was looking for an this is probably it,†he added. “There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary. †Republican hopes that Mr. Trump would tone down his language and heed advice were also undercut after he laced into his own campaign team during a strategy discussion with political surrogates. On the conference call, reported first by the Bloomberg News website and later confirmed by two participants, Mr. Trump argued that talking points sent by his campaign to his allies, directing them not to discuss the Trump University case, were ill advised. “Take that order and throw it the hell out,†Mr. Trump said. He then went further in excoriating his campaign staff: “Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?†Mr. Trump said, according to the Bloomberg News report. “That’s one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren’t so smart. †No other modern presidential campaign has unfolded like this, and gleeful Democrats have concluded that one of their best strategies for the general election is to hold Republicans accountable for each new Trump bombshell. In Indiana, state Democratic Party officials held a news conference on Monday to assail Mr. Trump’s remarks about Judge Curiel, who was born in the state and graduated from Indiana University’s law school. But the party’s chairman, John Zody, spent even more time criticizing Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican seeking this year, and Republican House and Senate candidates in Indiana for being “completely silent on the fact that Donald Trump is questioning the integrity of a Hoosier. †Only a few Republican officials in the state have criticized Mr. Trump’s comments as inappropriate. Outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, meanwhile, Melissa the speaker of the New York City Council, and Councilman Carlos Menchaca told reporters that Mr. Trump’s comments about the judge were racist and xenophobic and reflected disrespect for the judiciary system. “He’s quite literally saying Judge Curiel can’t do his job because of his ethnicity. That is the definition of racism,†said Ms. who is Puerto Rican. “It’s gross, it’s vile, and it is not normal behavior for anyone, let alone someone running to be the president of the United States. †The Democratic offensive was more systematic and effective than earlier, scattershot attempts to link Republicans to Mr. Trump’s incendiary language and to his refusal to release his tax returns, among other actions. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was quick to act, putting out a video Monday morning that drew attention to Mr. Trump’s remarks and to some critical responses to him by other Republicans. Representative Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, accused Senator Mark Kirk, the Republican she is challenging, of being “complicit†in Mr. Trump’s campaign of “hate and division†and of dodging Mr. Trump’s comments on Judge Curiel Mr. Kirk did not reply to requests for comment. Democrats in Nevada also held a news conference to draw attention to Mr. Trump’s remarks, while others publicized them to reporters in Ohio and Florida. On Capitol Hill, House Democrats held a private conference call to discuss how to apply pressure on the Republican leadership. “Trump’s incendiary comments about Judge Curiel were the final straw,†said Representative Steve Israel, Democrat of New York. He added, referring to Speaker Paul D. Ryan, “We’re not going to let Speaker Ryan and House Republicans spend every day criticizing Trump with one hand and endorsing him with the other. †Texas Democrats are expected to try to hammer Mr. Trump when he visits their state in a week. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is preparing material to guide its candidates in attacking their opponents over Mr. Trump’s positions. It remains very unlikely that ambitious Republicans and those on the ballot this year will publicly break with Mr. Trump until it becomes politically advantageous for them. At the moment, Mr. Trump enjoys wide support from the sort of Republican voters whom elected officials are loath to antagonize. Mr. Rubio, who has said he would speak at the Republican convention and personally apologized to Mr. Trump for making jokes about the size of his anatomy during the primary, confirmed in a Florida television interview that he would still support Mr. Trump. Still, Mr. Trump expressed displeasure at criticism from his allies. In a Monday morning interview on Fox News, he faulted former Speaker Newt Gingrich for saying the Curiel attacks were “inexcusable. †“I was surprised at Newt — I thought it was inappropriate what he said,†Mr. Trump said. The unified Democratic attack on Mr. Trump came on the final day of campaigning before primaries in California, New Jersey and several other states. In California, Mrs. Clinton blasted Mr. Trump as running a “campaign of insults,†and said: “I’m waiting for him to say — because of all the bigoted things he has said about women — that a woman judge couldn’t preside. †Senator Bernie Sanders, also in California, insisted that he was still the Democrats’ best hope of defeating Mr. Trump. For other Democrats, though, Mr. Trump’s words were buoying hopes of a November resurgence. In a speech on the Senate floor as Congress returned from a break, the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, sought to yoke Mr. Trump to his counterpart, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — and to every Republican running this fall. Mr. Reid pointed out that Mr. McConnell, interviewed on NBC on Sunday, had “repeatedly refused to say Donald Trump’s attacks on Judge Curiel’s ethnicity are racist. †“This is precisely the type of failure that gave rise to Donald Trump in the first place,†Mr. Reid said. “That’s because the hate emanating from Trump’s mouth reflects the Republican Party’s agenda here in the United States Senate for the past seven and a half years. †| 1 | [
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FMD283 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,†Senator Rand Paul ( ) stated that †very conservative that’s come out publicly opposed to†the current Obamacare replacement “has been called by the White House and is being cajoled and wooed by the White House to give in,†because “I think the White House, the administration, and the president understands that there’s enough conservatives that they can’t pass Obamacare lite. †Rand reiterated his prior criticism that the current replacement is “Obamacare lite, keeps subsidies, keeps taxes, actually keeps an individual mandate, and bails out the insurance companies. †Rand then touted his replacement plan as one that eliminates mandates, allows expansions of health savings accounts, and allows individuals to join groups to get cheaper insurance and guaranteed issue through the free market. He further said that his replacement doesn’t deal with Medicaid expansion, and that issue should be addressed in a repeal vote, but that he’s open to a separate vote on Medicaid expansion. Later on, Rand said, “I think the White House, the administration, and the president understands that there’s enough conservatives that they can’t pass Obamacare lite. That’s why, this week, what’s going on behind the scenes is a charm offensive. Every conservative that’s come out publicly opposed to this, has been called by the White House and is being cajoled and wooed by the White House to give in, but if conservatives stick together, if we stick together, we will have a force and a negotiation, and we will talk about clean repeal versus replacement, if we stick together, because they don’t think they have the numbers to pass this at this point. †Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 | [
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FMD284 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: The race is heating up as New York heads into their primary this coming Tuesday. Currently, polls have Hillary Clinton ahead by ten to seventeen points. Clinton, who is ahead nationally by more than 200 pledged delegates and hundreds more superdelegates, will need to win her home state to continue momentum after Sanders string of wins in the previous weeks.A New York win for Clinton will mean more delegates she desperately needs, and with that will come superdelegate support.But the superdelegates have continued to cause controversy within the Democratic primary. Supporters who back Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have decried the system, feeling the individuals who make up the superdelegate system have been manifestly unfair as to how they allocate their support.Supporters within the Sanders camp have demanded that the superdelegates vote the same way as the pledged at the will of the voters for that state.But that isn t how the superdelegate system is set up (another word for superdelegates is unpledged delegates).However, that hasn t stopped the demands. And it hasn t stopped the harsh criticism, either. While these delegates have been regarded as shills, bought-and-paid-for and establishment, one superdelegate wants to remind the nay-sayers of one thing: they are still human.Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Congress first openly-lesbian senator, is also a superdelegate. And she s pretty fed up with the inquisitions. On MSNBC s Morning Joe, the progressive senator claimed if Sanders clinches the popular vote by the time the convention is held in July, she will cast her vote for him. However, as Clinton continues her popular vote lead, she s supporting the former Secretary of State. She added, nervously: I am a human being and a Superdelegate. To put it plainly, based on how the rules are set up, Baldwin is free to vote her conscience, and her conscience says Hillary Clinton for now. Those who back Senator Sanders point to the fact he beat Clinton by 13 points in Wisconsin, thus Baldwin is somehow obligated to back him.It is important to remember that these superdelegates are party leaders who, in their own right, have been elected within the Democratic Party whether it be a position within the DNC, or a senatorial, gubernatorial or representative position. It s also important to remember these delegates have nothing but the best of intentions for their party and the future of the country.Baldwin hasn t reported any harassment, but other superdelegates have (one s 12 year old child received the brunt of hrrasment when they answered the phone).Here s Baldwin s appearance on MSNBC: Featured image via Astrid Riecken/Getty Images | 0 | [
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FMD285 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: More and more evidence is revealed every day, that points to the real possibility that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the person who leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks, and that there is an all-out effort to cover it up, or completely dismiss it as a tin-foil hat theory by social media platforms, the leftist media and the Democrat Party. Twitter just suspended the WND account for posting a story that suggested disgraced DNC chief and top Democratic strategist Donna Brazile may have interceded in the Seth Rich murder investigation. In the WND exclusive story titled:Alicia Powe and Liz Crokin wrote the story that was also posted to and deleted from the social media platform by Twitter: Former Democratic National Committee interim chairwoman Donna Brazile is the high-ranking DNC representative who allegedly called police and the family of murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich and demanded to know why a private investigator was snooping into Rich s death, the private eye revealed to WND Monday. The high-ranking DNC official that called the police after I inquired about Rich s case was Donna Brazile, veteran homicide detective Rod Wheeler told WND. Why shouldn t I reveal who it was? Brazile, who was also a CNN contributor and a Hillary for America donor at the time, was caught providing Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton with questions that would later be asked of Clinton at a televised CNN town hall. In an interview with Fox News before the election, Brazile denied leaking the questions to Clinton. But in a March 17, 2017, column for Time magazine, she finally admitted doing so, saying it was a mistake I will forever regret. According to WND, their Twitter account was suspended because of this Seth Rich investigation bombshell. And now, Big League Politics is reporting associations the DC police chief who resigned only a month after Seth Rich was murdered ran in the same circles as many close to Hillary and top DNC officials. The police chief who oversaw Seth Rich s unsolved murder case has socialized and been honored alongside key Hillary Clinton advisers and even Rich s own boss at the Democratic National Committee. Rich is widely reported to be the source of Wikileaks damning 2016 email release that showed the DNC colluding to hand the nomination to Clinton at the expense of Bernie Sanders. He was gunned down in D.C. 12 days before Wikileaks release.On Sunday, July 10, 2016, at approximately 4:19 am, members of the Fifth District DC MPD were patrolling the area when they heard gunshots. Upon arrival on the scene, members located an adult male victim conscious and breathing, and suffering from gunshot wounds. The victim was transported to an area hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.The decedent was identified as 27-year-old Seth Conrad Rich, of Northwest, DC.Controversy continues to swirl around the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, that detectives working for the MPD under Chief Lanier called a botched robbery (even though nothing of any value appeared to have been stolen from Rich s body) after he was shot several times only blocks from his home.Former Metropolitan Police Department chief Cathy Lanier resigned from her post the month after Rich s murder to accept a position running security for the National Football League. She sits on the Washington Police Foundation board alongside Heather Podesta, the D.C. power broker who was married to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta s lobbyist brother Tony.In 2014, Lanier was honored on ELLE magazine s list of the ten most powerful women in Washington alongside top Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and longtime Clinton friend and informal adviser Neera Tanden. Other honorees included NARAL Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue and Obama Cabinet official Penny Pritzker.Lanier did attend ELLE and Hugo Boss 2015 Women in Washington Power List dinner at the German ambassador s house. Here she is chatting with Clinton crony and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.Who else was at the dinner? None other than Amy Dacey, the CEO of the Democratic National Committee at the time of Seth Rich s murder, who resigned one month after the killing as the DNC was rocked with scandal.Who else was at the dinner? None other than then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. | 0 | [
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FMD286 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: You re gonna love this patriot! He speaks for each and every one of us who are 100% FED Up! with offended Americans! Enjoy this awesome rant and God bless America!// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>HAS AMERICA GONE STUPID? Warning!!!! this video will most likely offend the majority of the population.!Posted by Highways and Hedges Ministries on Monday, January 18, 2016 | 0 | [
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FMD287 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: A divided U.S. Senate on Thursday killed a regulation that had exempted city-run retirement savings plans for low-income workers from strict pension protection laws. Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, the resolution’s sponsor, has said he expects the Senate to soon repeal a related rule on state-operated retirement plans. That resolution may face a tougher time than the one on municipal plans, which barely passed in a 50-49 vote. States are farther along establishing retirement programs for people who do not have workplace savings plans, and Republicans who advocate for states’ rights are more skeptical of the resolution. The House of Representatives has already passed both resolutions. Thursday’s vote marked the 12th time the Republican-controlled Congress has successfully killed an Obama-era regulation through the use of an obscure 1996 law known as the Congressional Review Act. The law lets Congress repeal a newly minted rule through simple majority votes in the House and Senate, and a signature from the president. A “substantially similar†rule can never be enacted in its place. The Labor Department rule was finalized after May 2016, putting it into the window of time set by the law when Congress can repeal it. Using the resolutions, Republicans have sent rules spanning a variety of areas to the chopping block in hopes of loosening regulation they say constricts economic growth. Thursday’s resolution and its near-twin for state plans counters the trend by maintaining regulatory requirements. Toward the end of President Barack Obama’s tenure, his Labor Department exempted both state and city-run retirement plans from the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, a law designed to protect workers’ savings with detailed compliance requirements. Private-sector workers whose employers do not offer 401(k) or other retirement benefits, and who often have low incomes, are automatically enrolled in the plans being launched in states such as California, Illinois and Oregon. States say the ERISA exemption lets employers pass workers’ money into plans without footing compliance costs. They also say Wall Street wants to block the plans because they create competition. But the Investment Company Institute, a mutual funds trade group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others in financial services say the exemptions shortchange workers from important federal pension protections that other workers receive. | 1 | [
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FMD288 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would renegotiate America’s role in the U.N. global climate accord, spelling potential doom for an agreement many view as a last chance to turn the tide on global warming. A pull-out by the world’s second biggest carbon-emitting country would hobble the deal reached in Paris last December by nearly 200 nations, who for the first time in more than two decades found a common vision for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. “I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,†the New York real estate mogul said in an interview with Reuters. “But those agreements are one-sided agreements and they are bad for the United States.†Trump said he did not believe China, the world’s top emitter of the carbon dioxide gas that many scientists believe is contributing to global climate change, would adhere to its pledge under the Paris deal. “Not a big fan because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere,†he said. The accord to transform the world’s fossil-fuel driven economy was a potent signal to investors. It seeks to limit a rise in global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius through combined national pledges to cut emissions, and provide funding for developing nations to mitigate the damaging effects of a sea level rise and climate change. The Obama administration pledged a 26 to 28 percent domestic reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025 compared to 2005, while China promised it would halt increases in carbon emissions by 2030. Both countries have promised to ratify the deal this year. Many U.S. Republicans have found fault with the deal for overreacting to what they see as an uncertain threat. Former French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who helped broker the deal, said this month that the U.S. election was critical to its future. “If a climate change denier was to be elected, it would threaten dramatically global action against climate disruption,†he said. Trump has said that he believes global warming is a concept that was invented by China to hurt the competitiveness of U.S. business. One of his energy policy advisers is a climate change skeptic, U.S. Congressman Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic contender for the White House, has advocated shifting the country to 50 percent clean energy by 2030. Trump’s comment drew fire from environmental advocates. “This is another example of Trump’s dangerous lack of judgment and the very real impacts it could have for all of us,†said Gene Karpinski, president of the U.S.-based environmental group League of Conservation Voters. “Trump’s denunciation of the Paris climate accord is not only short sighted, but would be terribly costly for America and our ability to lead the world. We cannot go backwards on this important step towards a clean energy economy that benefits all our families,†billionaire environmental financier Tom Steyer said in a statement. The Paris agreement has an article built into it meant to protect countries in the accord in the event that a new government comes in and wants to dismantle it. The clause says any nation wanting to withdraw will first have to wait four years. U.S. chief climate envoy Jonathan Pershing said last week that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. election, other countries were likely to be bound by the pact. | 1 | [
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FMD289 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: One of the greatest strategies to gain and hold power over a large population is to pit groups against one another. Divide and conquer. It s a strategy that has been used since the beginning of time as the wealthy elites, knowing they are few in numbers, but large in political sway, can manipulate a populace to their liking so that they remain in power. It s a strategy still being used to this very day, and can be seen in full swing within the Donald Trump campaign.Donald Trump has been using this us vs. them strategy since the start of his campaign. He s made a group of working and middle class blue-collar folks think that the problems in this nation stem from the other. The people who aren t just like them. That if those people weren t around, all of their problems would disappear. It s a mind game played by the wealthy and powerful to make groups of people do their bidding for them.This strategy is especially successful when dealing with a group of people who somehow sees themselves as better than another group. And in the video you re about to watch below, author and activist Tim Wise explains this strategy perfectly. He points out that this has been a strategy used on working class whites, especially in the South for as long as one could possibly remember. The wealthy purchased black slaves, stopped hiring the poor working class white workers because they would need to get paid, and then blamed the problems of the poor working class white workers, including lack of jobs or income, on the black slaves. However, whose fault is it? Certainly not the slaves. However, this skillful manipulation to make it so black slaves would get blamed got the poor working class whites to utterly despise black people. It got them to join militias to suppress slave insurrections. It was the ultimate scam. Divide and conquer. Wise also explains that the Civil War was about states rights, sure, the rights for individuals in states to own slaves.Trump is using this same strategy blaming Mexicans and Muslims to rile up a base of poorly educated working class white folks who really just don t know any better. They ve had a rough go in life and Trump is successfully shifting blame from those on top who manipulate the system to the other yet again. He s giving these working class angry white people a reason to feel superior even though they are totally being manipulated. It gives them a sense of power and entitlement that is, in all honesty, a ruse.It s the ultimate in white privilege. When you can get people to believe that they are superior and deserve better and more just for being white, and if something is bad, blame the people who aren t white, or aren t Christian, or aren t heterosexual, or aren t Republican.Tim Wise, even recently, posted about how Donald Trump his encouraging hatred. He said in a Facebook post, regarding a story of a man who killed three people for not speaking English: This is the fault of nativist bigots like Donald Trump, encouraging hatred for anyone seen as insufficiently American (even someone who, as with one of these victims, was Puerto Rican and thus an American citizen something probably neither the killer here nor Trump knows). This is the kind of America we re in store for, on a much larger level, if the Trump movement is not defeated resoundingly Quite honestly, you can watch this video ten times in a row and still want to watch it again. Wise hits the nail on the head. Bravo. // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Tim Wise Schools Audience On White PrivilegedTim Wise Schools Audience On White PrivilegedPosted by Reggie Hood on Friday, September 4, 2015Featured image via Max Goldberg (flickr) | 0 | [
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FMD290 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Honestly, American taxpayers are getting screwed by leeches on welfare. Before you get upset about what I just wrote, understand that our welfare system is a global magnet. That s right, people from all over the world want to come here because of our generous welfare program. We have the welfare leeches who re citizens but then we have welfare leeches who re refugees brought here by the UN and the State Department. Yes, they re dumped in your communities and given all the goodies that are available:Refugee access to welfare on the same basis as a U.S. citizen has made the program a global magnet.The federal programs available to them include: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly known as AFDC Medicaid Food Stamps Public Housing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Social Security Disability Insurance Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) (direct services only) Child Care and Development Fund Independent Living Program Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI) Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants Refugee Assistance Programs Title IV Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Payments (if parents are qualified immigrants refugees, asylees, etc) Title XX Social Services Block Grant Funds17. Welfare use is staggering among refugees. Welfare usage is never counted by officials as part of the cost of the program. Yet, when it is included, the total cost of the refugee program soars to at least 10-20 billion a year.As some Americans are pushed off of time-limited welfare programs many refugees are going on to life-time cash assistance programs. For instance, 12.7% of refugees are on SSI a lifetime entitlement to a monthly check / Medicaid for elderly or disabled. This rate of usage is at least 4 times higher than the rate of usage for SSI among the native-born population and is reportedly rising from these already very high levels.Permanent and intergenerational welfare dependence has been allowed to take hold to a significant degree in some refugee groups.Read more: Refugee Resettlement Watch NEW YORK IS A GOLD MINE FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS:When they hear the term welfare state, most people think of Europe especially Denmark or France. No doubt those countries offer a wide range of benefits targeted to the middle class, retirees and so forth. But according to a study released by the Cato Institute this week, someone who is poor might just be better off here in New York.The federal government currently funds more than 100 anti-poverty programs. While no one participates in all of them, many can and do collect assistance from multiple programs.In New York, a mother with two children under the age of five who participates in six major welfare programs (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, housing assistance, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and free commodities would receive a total benefits package with a value of more than $27,500 per year.Using a similar measure, Cato found that benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in Romania. In fact, New York s welfare system can be more generous than every country in Europe except Denmark and the United Kingdom. New York is much more generous than such well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111).Moreover, this benefit comparison doesn t include Medicaid, which would be worth roughly $10,460 for this household, because Europe s health-care systems are not targeted to the poor, unlike Medicaid.One of the problems with these welfare systems is that they can reduce the incentive to increase work effort because beneficiaries would stand to lose most of their earnings through lower benefits or higher taxes, while also having to bear the costs associated with going to work, like transportation.These people would see little tangible improvement in their standard of living by working more hours or moving up the job ladder.They re not lazy, but they re also not stupid. Like everyone else, they respond to incentives. If welfare pays better than work, people on welfare will be less likely to work.Indeed, economists often discuss the danger that high marginal tax rates can discourage economic activity. But some of the highest effective marginal tax rates in the world are for someone leaving welfare for work.By creating such a big disincentive for work, our tangled, ineffective welfare system can end up punishing the very low-income people it is supposed to help, in addition to the taxpayers who must fund nearly $1 trillion per year in anti-poverty spending.After all, the evidence strongly suggests that work, even in a low-paying entry-level job, is an important route out of poverty: fewer than 3 percent of Americans who work full-time are poor.READ MORE: NYP | 0 | [
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FMD291 | 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: Wisconsin has one of the most progressive tax codes in the country.
contextual information: The author of a Wisconsin income tax overhaul sees the flat tax in the Flatland to the south as a beacon for Republicans trying to ease the Badger States heavy tax burden on the middle class. We have a long ways to go in Wisconsin, state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield,told reporters.Everyone in Illinois pays 5 percent. Illinois millionaires pay less of a rate in taxes than Wisconsins lower income, middle-class families. Researchers deem Illinois personal income tax structure regressive because a uniform tax rate ultimately takes a bigger bite from lower incomes than higher ones. Wisconsin pioneered the opposite approach, a progressive system in which tax rates rise with earnings. Kooyenga argues change is long overdue. Wisconsin was the first state to enact an income tax in 1911, he wrote in a May 27, 2013postingon the conservative Right Wisconsin website. The complexity of the Wisconsin tax code has exponentially grown as Madison politicians believed the tax code was their magic wand which could be used to accomplish political and social objectives. His conclusion: As a direct result, our tax code picks winners and losers and is one of the most progressive tax codes in the country. Kooyengas plan reduces rates and collapses several tax brackets. It comes on top of Gov. Scott Walkers tax-cut proposal. Combined they reduce taxes by nearly $790 million over two years. Top earners would likely receive the majority of the $444 million in tax savings under Kooyengas plan, and those with modest incomes would land in the same tax bracket as very high earners, theJournal Sentinel reported.Kooyenga acknowledges that, but says everyone deserves tax relief and that the top 10 percent right now pay over 50 percent of the tax revenue in Wisconsin. But Kooyengas claim wasnt about the impact of his plan. Rather it was about the tax system as it stands today. Does Wisconsin have one of the most progressive tax codes in the country? The rankings Kooyengas plan focuses on the personal income tax, so well confine our analysis to that rather than all taxes in the code. We found two 50-state studies comparing income tax burdens by income level, and Kooyenga cited the same research when we asked him for backup. AMarch 2013 studyof 2010 tax data by the non-partisanMinnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence, a research organization, concluded that: -- Among 42 states with an income tax (and the District of Columbia), Wisconsin is the 9th most-progressive when comparing married couples with $10,000 of gross income to those with incomes of $150,000, $250,000, $500,000 and $1 million. -- Wisconsins ranking drops lower, in a range from 11th to 15th most progressive, when comparing a couple earning $35,000 to each of those four higher levels. The ranks were 11, 12, 15 and 15. Minnesota came in number 2. The second study cited by Kooyenga is aJanuary 2013 examinationby the nonpartisan, liberalInstitute on Taxation and Economic Policy(ITEP) in Washington, D.C. (The group is a partner organization to Citizens for Tax Justice, which hascriticized the Walker and Kooyenga tax cutsas costly and regressive. Also, on May 30, 2013, ITEP released areview of Kooyengas plan, concluding that the top 20 percent of earners, a group with an average income of $183,000, would receive more than two-thirds of the benefit.) In any event, the groups earlier 50-state study -- the one cited by Kooyenga to back up his claim -- found that Wisconsins income tax was the 12th most progressive in the nation. That ranking is not revealed in the report, which deals with a broader variety of state and local taxes, but the group made it available to us from its unpublished database. So, the two studies rank the income tax here in a range from 9th to 15th most progressive. That puts Wisconsin among the top 21 to 36 percent of most progressive income tax states, depending on the comparison point and the study. Of course, thats just among the states that levy a personal income tax -- the tax that is the main way to add a progressive element to a tax system. Four states that dont levy a personal income tax are on the ITEPs top-10 most regressive list for their overall tax systems, so its safe to say Wisconsins income tax approach is more progressive than in those additional states that dont even use this progressive tool. Of the two studies, the ITEP research is more up to date, but is limited to non-elderly taxpayers. It, unlike the Minnesota study, accounted for the effect of reductions that Walker initiated in 2011 in the earned income tax credit for low-income workers, a cut of 19 percent, or $56 million over two years. That change made the income tax less progressive, but we dont know how it affected Wisconsins ranking vs. other states, some of whom made similar changes. Digging deeper From the ITEP study, Kooyenga highlighted tables showing that Wisconsins top 20 percent of earners pay an effective income tax rate considerably higher than the national average. Similarly, for the lowest 20 percent, Wisconsins burden is lower than the 50-state average. Thats true, and it demonstrates the progressive nature of the Wisconsin system. The progressive income tax offsets the regressive effect, for example, of the sales tax. Aside from the graduated rate structure that rises with income, the states sliding standard deduction is powerfully progressive, as is the itemized deduction credit, notes Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance president Todd Berry. But the ITEP study also shows that by the time earnings reach an average of $28,000, Wisconsins personal income tax bite is already over the national average for the second 20 percent. PolitiFact Wisconsin in November 2012 reviewed a claim by state Rep. Robin Vos that on income taxes, Wisconsin is one of the best places in the country to be poor but top 4 or 5 worst for middle-income earners. We rated itMostly True. Wisconsin, in the 2013 ITEP study, is not singled out as at the very highest end as either progressive or regressive. Unlike most states, Wisconsin allows a large capital gains tax break, ITEP executive director Matthew Gardner wrote in an email. Since the benefits of this tax break go primarily to the best-off taxpayers, the capital gains tax break makes Wisconsins income tax much less progressive than you would think from just looking at the tax rates. Gardner said it would be reasonable to say that Wisconsin is in the upper tier of least regressive states based on its #12 ranking. But, in his view, its hard to describe the Wisconsin income tax -- or the tax system as a whole -- as among the most progressive in the US. In the Minnesota study, the rankings drop quite a bit when the comparison income is set at $35,000 instead of $10,000. The reason for that is related to the tax credits for very low earners that we mentioned earlier. Wisconsin has a prominent credit, helping to account for its progressive ranking. Such credits phase out as income rises, however, so those people would have a tax liability, unlike lower earners whose bill is wiped out by the credit, said Aaron Twait, research director at the Minnesota center. A few other states keep the credits in place at higher incomes, bumping up their progressive rating. Kooyenga could have balanced off some of the regressive effect of his plan by increasing tax credits for very low-income earners. But he notes that many workers in that category receive the credit even though they did not earn enough wages to have Wisconsin taxes withheld. Its a wage supplement in the form of a refund. That, in Kooyengas view, is one of the inappropriate social objectives in the tax code, his office told us. Our rating PItching his plan to begin flattening the Wisconsin state income tax code, Kooyenga said Wisconsin has one of the most progressive tax codes in the country. Kooyenga was talking about income taxes, and its clear from two national studies that Wisconsins tax is more progressive than two-thirds to four-fifths of the states that levy such a tax, depending on the study. So Wisconsin is clearly in the upper tier, but not in elite of the elite. We rate the claim Mostly True. | 1 | [
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FMD292 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Kraig Moss was a die hard Donald Trump supporter. He followed the then-GOP presidential candidate around the nation, playing his guitar and singing special songs he had written especially for Trump. He was well known in Trump supporter circles, due to his guitar decorated with Trump stickers and other campaign items. He became known as the Trump Troubadour. In the end, Moss had attended 45 Trump rallies. However, all of that has changed now.Moss tragically lost his son to a heroin overdose. He sincerely believes that if his family had had health insurance at the time of the overdose, his son might still be alive. That s why Moss no longer supports Trump: because of his pushing the new healthcare bill that is being trotted out by House Republicans. Moss knows how awful the bill is, and how many people it will rob of healthcare. Thanks to this fact, he no longer sings his Trump songs, and he no longer supports the president. Moss says of his turning on Trump: The bill is an absolute betrayal of what Trump represented on the campaign trail. I feel betrayed. The disastrous healthcare bill will result in terrible losses for addiction services. For Kraig Moss, this is personal. So, now, instead of promoting Trump, Moss held a fund raiser to help a drug rehabilitation facility, raising $3,000 in his son s name.Hopefully, more and more people begin to realize what a massive con Trump has managed to pull off, and he gets annihilated in four years if he isn t impeached first.Watch the video below:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 | [
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FMD293 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Voters in Chicago have ousted embattled Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who has been harshly criticized for her handling of a police shooting investigation. Preliminary Democratic primary results on Tuesday showed Alvarez, 56, was handily defeated by Kim Foxx, an African-American who capitalized on criticism the two-term prosecutor received for taking more than a year to charge Jason Van Dyke, a white officer, who fatally shot a black teenager in 2014. “The stakes in this race were very high,†Foxx said during her victory speech. “I understand the excitement, but let us not get lost in the gravity of the work that is ahead of us.†Foxx, 43, will face Republican Christopher Pfannkuche, who ran an uncontested primary race, in the general election in November. Alvarez will remain in office until then. Killings of black men at the hands of mainly white law enforcement officials in U.S. cities over the past two years have prompted demonstrations across the country and stoked a national debate on race relations and police tactics. Alvarez charged Van Dyke on Nov. 24 with first-degree murder more than a year after he shot Laquan McDonald 16 times. The October 2014 shooting was captured on patrol car dashboard-camera videos that were released on the day Van Dyke was charged, setting off weeks of protests. Politicians, pastors and civil rights advocates called for Alvarez to resign, saying she only filed the murder charges because she was under pressure after the videos were made public. “We find ourselves in this country, not just here in Cook County, in a great climate of change and in reform in the criminal justice system,†Alvarez said during her concession speech. After Van Dyke was charged, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was fired and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation into the Chicago Police Department. “This is what justice looks like,†said organizers of Assata’s Daughters, a local black women’s advocacy group, on a Facebook video post. Foxx served as assistant state’s attorney for Cook County for 12 years and then as chief of staff for the Cook County Board president. Born to a teenage mother, she spent part of her childhood in Chicago’s Cabrini Green public housing complex and in a homeless shelter. “Kim’s life experience has given her a deep understanding of the impact of crime, violence and poverty on our communities,†her campaign website said. | 1 | [
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FMD294 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Environmental policy dominated negotiations on forming a new German coalition on Monday, as the Greens pushed their would-be partners for a quicker exit from coal power. Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives, who lost seats in last month s election, hope a deal with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens will keep her in office, but the unlikely partners are far apart on a host of issues. Merkel urged party leaders at the weekend to show more willingness to compromise after three weeks of exploratory talks also failed to paper over differences on transport, immigration and euro zone governance. What s lying on the table isn t enough for us, said Greens chairwoman Simone Peter in response to a suggestion by the two other camps that 10 coal-fired power stations be shuttered. The Greens are holding out for carbon dioxide emissions cuts that would require the closing of 20 coal plants. Earlier, a discussion paper seen by Reuters showed that the two more pro-business partners wanted to cut coal power by 3-5 gigawatts by 2020. The ecologists wanted an 8-10 gigawatt cut. Peter told reporters that the Greens disagreed on the size of cuts in carbon dioxide emissions that were needed by 2020. The conservatives and the FDP believed cuts of up to 66 million tonnes were needed by 2020, while the Greens believed cuts of up to 120 million could be needed. (This version of the story changes day to Monday in par 1) | 1 | [
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FMD295 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: USA Today reports:
Aoun, 81, is an ally of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political party backed by Iran that has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad survive a five-year civil war on Lebanon’s border.
The vote for Aoun, by 83 of parliament’s 127 members, shows Iran-backed political factions shouldered past those aligned with Saudi Arabia, replacing Syria as Lebanon’s chief foreign power broker.
Aoun’s “victory now is a victory for Hezbollah and that alliance, and certainly a kind of black eye for Saudi Arabia,” said Paul Salem, vice president for policy and research at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Saad Hariri, a pro-Western and Saudi-oriented politician, formally endorsed Aoun last week after failing to garner enough support for the presidency. In return, Aoun is expected to appoint Hariri prime minister.
“It’s a power-sharing system,” Salem said. “In a way, the status quo will continue.”
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby congratulated Lebanon on the election results.
“This is a moment of opportunity, as Lebanon emerges from years of political impasse, to restore government functions and build a more stable and prosperous future for all Lebanese citizens,” he said in a statement.
Asked later about Aoun’s support from Hezbollah, which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization, Kirby said: “Let’ see what decisions he makes, what kind of leadership he exudes as president.”
The U.S. routinely assesses its foreign assistance programs “and we will do that with Lebanon going forward,” Kirby said at a press briefing.
Aoun’s election drew immediate praise from a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, described the choice as a victory for Iran and its allies in Lebanon, because the Lebanese president is “a very significant ring in the chain of the Islamic resistance,” according to Iran’s government-owned Tasnim News Agency.
Aoun, in his first speech after becoming president, pledged to fight corruption and protect Lebanon from the fires raging around it, referring to the Syrian civil war, according to the Associated Press. He also promised to liberate contested territory under “Israeli occupation,” according to Hezbollah’s Al Manar-TV, apparently referring to territory Israel considers part of the Golan Heights, which it conquered from Syria during the 1967 war. Saad Hariri and Michel Aoun
Lebanon has been without a head of state since May 2014, when then-president Michel Suleiman’s six-year term expired. Since then, 45 sessions to elect a new leader have failed because of political infighting, the AP reported. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and Michel Aoun | 0 | [
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FMD296 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Eric Holder was embroiled in some sort of controversy for most of the time he served as Obama s choice for Attorney General. He was the key figure in the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal with Mexico, and was also involved in the IRS scandal that targeted conservatives and conservative leaning organizations. Holder also was instrumental in fanning the flames of the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Florida. While he was acting as our nation s Attorney General, he was caught by Judicial Watch spending our taxpayer dollars to deploy a little-known unit of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Community Relations Service (CRS) to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman. Holder was also present in Ferguson where he did absolutely nothing to stop the rioting and chaos. California lawmakers already are preparing for a legal brawl with the Donald Trump administration and they ve got President Obama s former top attorney in their corner.Top state Democratic lawmakers announced Wednesday that former Attorney General Eric Holder has been tapped as outside counsel to advise the Legislature on potential challenges with the Trump government. He will lead a team from the Covington & Burling law firm, where he s been working since leaving the Obama administration in 2015. With the upcoming change in administrations, we expect that there will be extraordinary challenges for California in the uncertain times ahead, California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de Le n and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said in a statement. This is a critical moment in the history of our nation. We have an obligation to defend the people who elected us and the policies and diversity that make California an example of what truly makes our nation great. They said Holder and his team will advise in our efforts to resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made. The statement did not specify which policies they anticipate will cause friction, though California s numerous sanctuary cities are likely to face challenges from an administration that has threatened to pull their federal funding. FOX NewsSets forth articles of impeachment stating that Holder: (1) engaged in a pattern of conduct incompatible with the trust and confidence placed in him in that position by refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on October 12, 2011, in connection with a congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF); (2) failed to enforce multiple laws, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the Controlled Substances Act, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986; (3) failed his oath of office by refusing to prosecute individuals involved in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal of unauthorized disclosure of tax records belonging to political donors; and (4) testified under oath before Congress on May 15, 2013, that he was neither involved in nor had heard of a potential prosecution of the press but later confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee in a letter dated June 19, 2013, that he approved of a search warrant on journalist James Rosen. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, De Le n suggested Holder s team will work on issues like immigration, climate change, the environment and voting rights. The unorthodox arrangement assigns to Holder s team some duties that normally would be handled by the state s top law enforcement official, the California attorney general. Gov. Jerry Brown has nominated Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra for that job.Holder was one of Obama s longest-serving and most controversial Cabinet members.He had a contentious relationship with congressional Republicans, who in 2012 voted to hold him in contempt of Congress for not turning over documents on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. FOX News | 0 | [
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FMD297 | 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: 'Accidental' Venmo Payment from a Stranger May Be a Scam Claim summaries: Beware of strangers on Venmo "accidentally" sending money and requesting it back.
contextual information: In early March 2021, Snopes readers inquired about screenshots of what appeared to be a scam circulating on the payment platform Venmo. The alleged scam shows a Venmo user sending $600 to another user and then requesting it back, claiming to have sent it to the wrong person. Although we do not know the intentions of the Venmo user involved in the exchange (and we cropped the person's name out for privacy reasons), sending money to strangers and then requesting it back is a known type of scam on Venmo. The Dayton Daily News, a daily newspaper based in Dayton, Ohio, described how the scam works: Even Venmo is aware of these scams and places a warning on its website that Venmo is designed for payments between people who trust each other because there is no protection for the buyer or seller. Therefore, it is important that you do not accept or give money to strangers who could potentially be scammers. For example, scammers connect stolen credit cards to Venmo and use them to transfer money to unsuspecting users. If you send the money back to the scammer, he or she will delete the stolen credit card from the account and add his or her own card in its place. Others send screenshots of fake emails that make it seem like they have paid you through the app when they actually have not. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) also warns against this type of scam, in which a cash app user "accidentally" sends a stranger a payment and then requests that they send it back. The BBB advises that if you are targeted in an exchange like this, do not send the money back. Instead, ask the other person to simply cancel the transaction. "The sender can request that the vendor cancel the transaction. If the person refuses, it is probably a scam," the BBB states. The BBB also encourages cash app users to check their security settings and to link their accounts to credit cards instead of debit cards or bank accounts because, in the event that you are scammed, it is easier to recoup the money if you charged it to a credit card. | 0 | [
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FMD298 | Task: Please determine whether the text is 0. Fake or 1. True. Answer directly without explanations. Text: Europe s drugs regulator has issued a 31.8 million-pound ($42 million) tender for temporary workers and warned it could face a major budget hit as it struggles with the fallout of Brexit, which will uproot it from London. Based in London s Canary Wharf since 1995, with a staff of around 890, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) acts as a one-stop-shop for approving and monitoring the safety of drugs across Europe. The agency has been applauded by drug companies and patient groups for streamlining Europe s drug approval process but its ability to operate smoothly is now being challenged by the enforced move to a new location from March 2019. EMA is anticipating staff losses which will not only challenge the agency s operability but could also result in a major deficit in its budget, the organization said in a statement on Friday, after a meeting of its management board. If operations are delayed or have to stop there could be a dramatic drop in fee income from companies that pay to have their products reviewed, which could be exacerbated by the cost of replacing staff, many of whom are expected to quit rather than leave London. Such shortfall would need to be made up from the (European) Union budget, the EMA said. Executive Director Guido Rasi told Reuters in an interview earlier this week that crucial work, from approving new drugs to running safety checks, would be put at risk if politicians picked an unsuitable new location. Preparing for the fallout of the move and the impact of Britain leaving the European Union is already creating extra work for the EMA and forcing it to cut back on some non-critical activities. Although the EMA regularly employs temporary workers, the scale of the new staffing tender is unusually large. The tender documents call for bi-lingual and multi-lingual staff with administrative, scientific, regulatory and legal expertise to work in the EMA's current London office. (tinyurl.com/yc29jj7b) The agency must be based in an EU country and political leaders are set to decide in a vote on Nov. 20 on a new location among 19 cities vying to host the organization. A staff survey last week found that between 19 and 94 percent of employees were likely to leave after the move, depending on which location was chosen. Picking Amsterdam, Barcelona, Vienna, Milan or Copenhagen as the new headquarters would be the best option for retaining staff, the survey found. | 1 | [
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FMD299 | 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: Reshipper Scam Claim summaries: Work at home and make big bucks acting as an intermediary for international transactions?
contextual information: Claim: Aspiring work-at-homers promised big bucks for acting as intermediaries for international transactions wherein they cash checks for other parties have been defrauded by con artists. REAL FRAUD WHICH COSTS ITS VICTIMS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Good day, my name is Evaldas Vytautas. I'm Sales Manager of Lionder Web Design Agency. We are situated in Vilnius, Lithuania. Lionder Web Design Agency is pleased to offer you the position of Exchange Manager for our organization. We are excited about the potential that you bring to our company. We work with corporate clients and some of them prefer to do wire transfers, however we cannot receive international wire transfers because of heavy taxes. Tax for international wire transfer is 25% In Lithuania. There is no sense for us to work in such a way, however we don't want to lose our clients. You need to have Paypal/bank account. System is completely automated. You will work only 1-2 hours a day, receive, process payments from our clients through your Paypal/bank account. Report about all new payments, act only within the limits of law earn minimum $1500-$2000 per month. Your salary will be 5-15% from every processed amount (you begin from 5%). To join the minimum requirements include : -MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (Skills, Knowledge, Ability, etc.)-The minimum qualifications are diploma or equivalent.-Must be able to multi-task and have good communication skills.-Knowledge of MS Word and other basic computer programs.-This being a new field there is NO experience needed. HOW TO APPLY: If you would like to pursue this opportunity simply send Your Resume (CV) to resume@lionder.net OR Download Job Application Form (www.lionder.net/Job_Application_Form.doc), fill it in and send us to resume@lionder.net (No phone calls please. Callers will not be considered for the position). We will respond promptly. Please don't feel shy to contact our Online Support and ask any questions you will have: Contact Name: Julie JakulyteICQ- 257235542,AOL IM Screen Name- Jakulyte,Yahoo! ID: JJakulyte,MSN- Jakulyte@hotmail.com. No agencies, please. Lionder Web Design Agency is an equal opportunity/affirmative actionemployer. For more information about who we are and what we do, please visit our webiste www.lionder.net It is necessary that we know your decision by November 20, 2004, so that we can plan accordingly. Regards, Evaldas VytautasLionder Web Design Agency Origins: In 2004 we began noticing a new scam targeting those searching for part-time paid duties that could be performed from home. This new con uses the promise of high-paying work to lure eager job seekers into being defrauded themselves or used to steal from others. Those so led down the garden path are pulled in by advertisements for jobs involving the forwarding of monies or goods collected in the U.S. to business entities in other countries. Supposedly, the successful applicants will make thousands of dollars through working from home for a few hours a week, with no special skills or training required. Sometimes international wire transfers are specifically mentioned in these solicitations, and the terms "import/export specialist," "marketing manager," and "financial manager" often turn up in their wording. The reputations of the venues where the ads are found proves no protection to those looking for such opportunities, in that this work-at-home scam has been touted thousands of times on popular job web sites including Monster, Careerbuilder, Careers.com, and Yahoo! Hotjobs. This con operates in one of two of ways, both of which leaves hopeful job seekers in a mess of trouble: In its more usual incarnation, successful job applicants are tasked with depositing checks for varying amounts (anywhere from a few thousand dollars all the way into the six-figure range) into their personal bank accounts and relaying to their new employers 95% of the amount banked, keeping 5% as their commission. The explanation given by the employers for that which necessitates their having someone cash checks on their behalf varies from come-on to come-on, but the need to believe in 'something for nothing' (in this case a high steady income in return for a few hours' work per week) blinds the about-to-be-defrauded to the glaring implausibilities inherent to these tall tales of strange government-imposed restrictions, exorbitant tax rates in the homeland, the need to fly under a competitor's radar, and the like. The checks the unsuspecting dupes are given to deposit are worthless, but this detail is not discovered by them or their banks until weeks after the fact, which is long after 95% of the face value of said financial instruments has been wired to the thieves. As is the case in the 'cashier check' scam (sellers are duped into accepting cashier checks in excess of the amounts they seek for their goods on the understanding they are to forward the additional monies to third parties), the scam works because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) requires banks to make money from cashier's, certified, or teller's checks available in one to five days. Consequently, funds from checks that might not be good are often released into payees' accounts long before the checks themselves have been honored by their issuing banks. High quality forgeries can be bounced back and forth between banks for weeks before anyone catches on to their being worthless. cashier check In this form of the scheme, those who'd thought they were about to pack up and move to Easy Street thanks to their new jobs as international relayers instead find themselves on the hook for the amounts they wired to others. That the original checks were worthless does not absolve those who deposited them from financial responsibility for the funds they subsequently instructed their banks to pay out the two transactions (the deposit and the disbursement) are regarded as separate. Therefore, if a hypothetical erstwhile wire transfer facilitator handled a bogus check for $10,000, instead of netting $500 (his 5% fee), he would be out $9,500 (the amount he had his bank wire to those who'd conned him). The mayhem doesn't necessarily end there. There is a further danger that, now armed with the dupe's banking information from the wire transfer, these same thieves can use those numbers to create a demand draft to withdraw funds without confirmation from the hapless job seeker's bank account until there's nothing left in it but dust. demand draft In another version of the con, those who land these coveted 'jobs' are tasked with collecting payments from their new employers' clients in the U.S. and wiring these funds back to the home office, retaining a specified portion of the recouped accounts as their fees. Only after the fact does it come to light that the deposited checks were for non-existent merchandise vended through online auction sites, usually about the time that the police come a'knocking on the door. This form of the wire transfer scam mirrors a type of the CNP fraud in which job-seeking dupes are hired to repackage and ship to Nigeria goods purchased on stolen credit cards. As with the wire transfer come-on, the promise of easy, high-paying part-time work blinds those who unwittingly become part of an international theft ring thanks to their desire to believe in the job fairy. In both cases, they're the ones left holding the bag when the police turn up to ask questions about the monies or goods others have been duped out of.Those searching for employment opportunities that will allow them to work from home are all too often the very people who can least afford to be defrauded. Although a great many folks CNP daydream about earning livable incomes from the comfort of their dens rather than having to make the trek to their offices each day, they do not as a general rule of thumb search for such job openings with the same fervor as do the elderly, the physically afflicted, or the parents committed to remaining at home with their preschool children. Members of those groups hunt for work-at-home opportunities because laboring in more traditional job settings is impossible for them. Because genuine offers of work of this nature are few and far between, with the need to secure a steady income becoming more of a pressing issue with each passing non-employed day, those folks are at far greater risk of being victimized by such schemes their desperation leads them to be gulled by pie-in-the-sky promises and mollified by the wild backstories that go with them whereas the financially better off are more likely to remain convinced something is very wrong with the offer of mucho bucks in exchange for only a few hours' labor performed from home each week by folks possessed of no special training or skills. Barbara "reshipboard romance" Mikkelson How To Avoid Falling Victim To Reshipper Scams: Avoid job listings that use these descriptions: "package forwarding," "reshipping," "money transfers," "wiring funds" and "foreign agent agreements." These and similar phrases should raise a red flag. Do not be fooled by official-sounding corporate names. Some scam artists operate under names that sound like those of long-standing, reputable firms. Never forward or transfer money from any of your personal accounts on behalf of your employer. Also, be suspicious if you are asked to "wire" money to an employer. If a legitimate job requires you to make money transfers, the money should be withdrawn from the employers business account, not yours. Do not give out your personal financial information. A potential legitimate employer will not request your bank account, credit card or Paypal account number. Provide your banking information only if you are hired by a legitimate company and you choose to have your paycheck direct deposited. Do not fax copies of your ID or Social Security number to someone you have never met. Credit checks and fake IDs can be obtained with this information. Give these documents to your employer only when you are physically at the place of employment. If you have questions about the legitimacy of a job listing, contact your Better Business Bureau, your state or local consumer agency, or the Federal Trade Commission. Stop believing in the chimera of "something for nothing." Additional Information: Work-at-Home Schemes (Federal Trade Commission) Work-at-Home Schemes (Better Business Bureau) Last updated: 11 July 2011 <!-- | 1 | [
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