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2020年9月10日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

迪士尼乐园是否放弃加州,搬到德克萨斯州?

标记讽刺的内容的例行审查。

【宣称】

华特迪士尼公司于 2020 年 9 月宣布,迪士尼乐园将从加利福尼亚迁移到得克萨斯州。

【结论】

标记讽刺

【原文】

On Aug. 31, 2020, Uncle Walt’s Insider published an article positing that the Disneyland theme park was leaving California and moving to Texas:

BREAKING: Disneyland is abandoning California, moving to Texas

Saying they’ve “finally had enough” and the state is “just nuts,” Disneyland officials have announced that the park is leaving California.

The park joins hundreds of thousands of California residents fleeing the state each year. Various reasons have been given for the mass exodus, but most common are the high cost of living, the overreaching liberal government, or that the state is “just nuts.”

This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

All events, persons, and companies depicted herein, including Disney, Walt Disney, and The Disney Company, are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, or to actual firms, is coincidental. Really. The same goes for any similarities to actual facts.

The satire site’s Facebook page carries a similar disclaimer:

Only the most super-reliable theme park news from the most super-reliable theme park gurus. All stories internally peer-reviewed for minimum 17% accuracy.

In addition to the site’s disclaimer, Uncle Walt’s Insider also contains several tongue-in-cheek references indicating its satirical nature. A banner at the top of the website, for instance, farcically claimed that it won the “Best Made Up Awards.”

This banner also notes that Snopes previously identified Uncle Walt’s Insider as a “relatively obscure” satire website in 2018. While this is true, Uncle Walt’s Insider has been publishing satire for more than two years now. To our knowledge, that makes Uncle Walt’s a contender to be the longest-running satire site solely devoted to Disney theme park content on the web.  

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

2020年9月7日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

雅各布·布莱克的前女友的姑姑在推特上谴责他吗?

在暂停之前,推特帐户 @lifeisasoph 在 2020 年 8 月简要呈现趋势。

【宣称】

推特帐号 @lifeisasoph 背后的人是雅各布布莱克的前女友的姑妈。

【结论】


【原文】

In September 2020, multiple readers asked Snopes to examine a series of tweets posted by a Twitter user with the handle @lifeisasoph, who claimed to be related to the ex-girlfriend of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man shot several times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, some days earlier. Twitter suspended the account on Aug. 31. 

Users posted screenshots of the tweets on The Donald, a website popular among some supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, especially since Reddit banned the subreddit The_Donald in June 2020 after its users repeatedly engaged in hate speech and harassment. 

On Sep. 2, the right-leaning talk radio host Richard Randall posted on Facebook this message: “Neither BLM, nor Twitter, care about the life of ‘Sabrina’ the black woman who was sexually assaulted by Jacob Blake right before police arrived to try to arrest him. Sabrina’s aunt was standing up for her on Twitter, but got banned.”

That caption accompanied screenshots of several tweets by @lifeisasoph, which had earlier been posted to Twitter by @Patrici15767099:

When the Kansas City Chiefs NFL franchise introduced new rules that discouraged or prohibited fans from displaying Native American symbols in the team’s stadium, @lifeisasoph claimed to be of Quapaw ancestry, and said “it’s disappointing that our heritage is being removed.” During an argument about the transatlantic slave trade, he claimed to be a woman from the West African nation of Benin.

When defending Trump’s alleged description of Haiti and other countries as “shithole” countries, @lifeisasoph wrote “Haiti is a shithole country. Ask my father.”

#JusticeForRi

Perhaps most revealing of all, though, were the inconsistencies and glaring inaccuracies in @lifeisasoph’s tweets about the shooting of Blake, and the charges Blake faced of allegedly having subjected his ex-girlfriend, with whom he has three children in common, to sexual assault and domestic abuse. More detailed information about those charges can be found in our Aug. 27 fact check.

Initially, on Aug. 25, two days after Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, @lifeisasoph wrote about the shooting in the manner of someone without any personal knowledge of the parties involved. He tweeted: “Allegedly, he broke into his ex’s house who was of age then beat her and raped her,” and “Blake had a warrant out for raping someone,” and “This narrative that he was just breaking up a fight is plausible I guess but there’s obviously more to the story…”

In the days that followed, his line of argument changed dramatically, and he began to describe Blake’s ex-girlfriend as his “niece,” repeatedly tweeting claims that Blake had raped her, describing the woman’s suffering, and writing “she’s sitting there watching NBA demand justice for her rapist while we’re still trying to get justice for her.”

On at least three occasions, @lifeisasoph referred to his “niece,” Blake’s ex-girlfriend, as “Ri.” He even tweeted out the hashtag #JusticeForRi, which users on The Donald picked up on, with one poster writing, “She wants us to use #JusticeForRi.”

In the ensuing days, that hashtag spread, with more than 1,000 posts across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, most of them containing @lifeisasoph’s Twitter handle, or screenshots of his tweets, and many of them explicitly pointing to the supposed authority and credibility of that account’s claims and condemnations of the NBA strike, because @lifeisasoph claimed to be the aunt of “Ri” — Blake’s ex-girlfriend. 

However, that’s not that woman’s name, and not even an appropriate abbreviation for it. The man behind @lifeisasoph, who fraudulently claimed to be a 55 year-old Black woman and the aunt of an alleged sexual assault victim in order to add credibility to his views on racial justice, appears to have also fabricated that nickname out of thin air.

Using various methods and several publicly available sources, Snopes has discovered the actual identity of Blake’s ex-girlfriend. We are not naming her, because she alleges to be a victim of sexual assault and domestic abuse, and has so far not chosen to speak publicly. However, we can say with certainty that her name is not “Sabrina,” as the talk radio host Richard Randall claimed on Facebook, and it is not at all conducive to the nickname “Ri.”

She is a real person, though, and her experiences and version of events deserve careful and sympathetic attention. As such, her allegations against Blake are being acted upon by prosecutors in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. But the exploits of a “grown man from St. Louis” who posed as a West African woman and the aunt of an alleged sexual assault victim had nothing to do with honoring that woman, and everything to do with boosting and amplifying the political views of @lifeisasoph, whoever he is.  

2020年9月7日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

特朗普总统是否碰到了失去双臂的老兵的脸?

一张特朗普触摸他的支持者脸的照片是真实的,但随之而来的背景故事在事实上受到挑战。

【宣称】

一张照片显示,美国总统唐纳德·特朗普触摸一名受伤的老兵的脸,他失去了双臂,因为总统知道这名男子不能握手。

【结论】

字幕错误

【原文】

A photograph supposedly showing U.S. President Donald Trump touching the face of a wounded veteran who had lost both of his arms is frequently shared on social media:

This photo is often accompanied by the claim that the pictured Trump supporter is a veteran. Some of these messages also imply that this individual lost his arms in battle. The above-displayed tweet, for instance, reads: “President Trump respectfully touches the face of a U.S veteran who lost both arms, knowing he could no longer enjoy the feel of a handshake. THIS. IS. MY. PRESIDENT. #AmericaFirst #Vets #Military #REDFRIDAY”

Radio personality Mark Simone also shared this image in May 2017 with the caption: “Here’s a powerful picture that no news outlet will publish. It took place at a Trump rally when the President met a severely wounded veteran. This soldier lost both of his arms. The feeling of a handshake is lost to him. President Trump realized this, and touched his face so he could feel the human connection.”

This is a genuine photograph of Trump briefly touching the cheek of a supporter with two prosthetic arms. However, the accompanying backstory about the supporter being a veteran is inaccurate. 

This photograph was taken in January 2016 during a Trump rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and shows a man named Henry “Bubba” Stevenson Jr.  We’re not certain who took the picture. However, news outlet Online Chester published three other photographs showing the pair’s meeting.

We also found a video that presumably shows the moment Trump touched the man’s face:

Online Chester reported that Stevenson attended the rally in Rock Hill. Afterward, he got a chance to meet the then-presidential candidate, and Trump even autographed one of the prosthetic arms:

Henry “Bubba” Stevenson Jr. has a unique tattoo on his left arm.

The “ink” could be referred to as a billion dollar ‘tat.’ Republican presidential candidate and real estate mogul Donald Trump autographed Stevenson’s prosthetic arm at a Trump rally at Winthrop University on Jan. 8.

While Trump did touch Stevenson’s face, Stevenson is not a wounded veteran. 

Stevenson was born without arms. According to Online Chester, his right side stops just above his elbow and on his left he has “only a nub below his shoulder.” A GoFundMe set up in 2014 to raise money for two bionic arms also stated that he “was born without arms” and featured a photograph of him as a child. 

In 2014, Online Chester published an article about him after he received his first prosthetic arm. That article goes into a little more detail about his life:

For the first time in his life, Henry “Bubba” Stevenson Jr. can offer a handshake. But it’s not your everyday handshake … it’s bionic!

Stevenson, 23, was fitted with a “1-limb ultra bionic arm” on Sept. 22.

Stevenson was born without arms. On his right side, his arm stops shy of his elbow and on his left side, there is only a nub below his shoulder.

As a baby, Stevenson learned to hold his bottle and feed himself using his feet and toes. As he grew up, he also used his feet and toes to feed himself and accomplish other tasks.

And now for the first time, the 6-foot,1-inch tall man can hold a glass. The task is challenging but Stevenson is determined to master the skill.

None of the articles we found about him mentioned any sort of military service. At the end of the Online Chester article, Stevenson, then 23, said he wanted to “learn to drive and to be more independent” and had a long-term goal of getting a job.

The viral photograph of him and Trump first gained widespread attention in January 2016 after the Trump campaign posted a video touting the candidate’s support of American veterans, which featured an image of Russian military ribbons. The original campaign video was deleted, and the image of the Russian ribbons was replaced with the viral photograph of Trump touching Stevenson’s face. This, too, of course, was misleading, because he is not a wounded veteran. 

2020年9月7日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

一个暴力的种族主义狂欢节游戏曾经在美国流行?

在不久的过去,白人狂欢节的观众在一场普遍被称为 “打 N-宝贝” 的游戏中向非裔美国人扔蛋或球。

【宣称】

“打黑鬼宝贝” 曾经是美国露天市场的热门景点。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

Editor’s note: This article covers historical material involving the use of offensive racial epithets. 

The history of the United States is both scarred and partly defined by racial subjugation and violence, a legacy with an almost endless litany of horrific incidents and phenomena.  In February 2018, many thousands of Americans were confronted — some for the first time — with images of a once-popular fairground game with the extremely offensive name shown below:

<!–

–>

We asked Franklin Hughes, a digital media specialist who works with the Jim Crow Museum, about whether toddlers were subjected to being human targets, and he told us that “In many cases, the ‘dodger’ would holler things out to the carnival attendees trying to bait them into playing; I can’t really see how a toddler could do this on the same level … However, I would not put it out of the question.”

While we did find some references to “boys” playing the role of “African dodger,” Hughes pointed out that “In Jim Crow times, many black men were called ‘boys,’ so it would be hard to determine the age of most of the ‘dodgers.'”

Similarly, not every game billed as such involved real human beings. At times, wooden “heads” or effigies stood in for real African-Americans. It’s unclear whether the Camp Minikani version of the game shown in the viral Facebook post above used inanimate objects or people as targets.

Hughes told us that choosing an artificial target over a human one was not necessarily a sign that a particular carnival operator was especially progressive-minded. “Sometimes it was easier just to have a wooden target,” he said.

And as Hughes documented in his 2012 article, some carnival owners came up with a less physically dangerous (but no less racist and demeaning) alternative to the African Dodger: the “African Dip,” which appears to have made its debut during the summer of 1910 and involved black men being dunked in water every time a target was hit.

The New Jersey paper Trenton True American described this form of carnival attraction in 1911 as follows:

It used to be just five cents a throw at the colored gentleman’s head, and every time you hit it a cigar was your reward. But it is changed now, along with the progressive era. Here’s the way it’s played, according to the printed rules:

“The lip” is so arranged that every time a baseball hits the target a colored man, seated upon a bar, is thrown into a large pool of water.

It’s said to be lots of fun for the man who pays the nickel but it didn’t prove enjoyable for the fellow who fell into the pool. Yesterday he was put out of commission. According to the management of the carnival [in Flemington, New Jersey], the cool weather and repeated baths gave him the swimmer’s cramps.

The popularity of the game meant that it had significant cultural impact, appearing in movies, newspaper “funny pages,” and in cartoons, including Popeye. At times in the early 20th Century, the idiom “playing African Dodger” was used as shorthand for “avoiding uncomfortable questions,” especially in the context of political debate and journalism. 

This video collage, produced by Hughes for the Jim Crow Museum, provides good insight into the disturbing popularity and prevalence of this terrible tradition:

2020年9月6日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

特朗普是否称麦凯恩为失败者?

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普说,他 “从来没有叫约翰(麦凯恩)失败者,” 但事实并非如此。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普称美国参议员约翰·麦凯恩,R-阿里斯,一个失败者。

【结论】

正确归因

【原文】

On Sept. 3, 2020, The Atlantic published an article entitled “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers,’” which detailed numerous derogatory remarks U.S. President Donald Trump allegedly made at the expense of members of the armed services.

For example, reporter Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that Trump was furious when flags were lowered at half-staff to honor McCain after his death in August 2018, saying: “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser.”

As the article spread on social media, President Trump took to Twitter to issue a denial, and said that he never called McCain a loser:

While Trump writes that he “never called John [McCain] a loser,” this simply isn’t true. In fact, Trump himself once tweeted an article quoting Trump saying that McCain was a loser.

The article Trump shared in July 2015 was referring to an appearance then-candidate Trump made at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa. Conservative pollster Frank Luntz asked Trump if it was appropriate for a man running for the country’s highest office to refer to McCain — a war hero and navy pilot who became a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down over Vietnam — as a “dummy.”

Trump said: “He lost [the 2008 election], so I never liked him as much after that because I don’t like losers.” 

When Luntz repeated that McCain was a war hero, Trump said: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

Here’s a video from C-Span of Trump’s response:

As for the comments reported in The Atlantic article, Goldberg cites “three sources with direct knowledge of this event.” News outlets such as The Associated Press have been able to confirm some of The Atlantic’s reporting with other military officials, and Miles Taylor, a Republican Trump appointee who served as the chief of staff to the United States secretary of homeland security until he resigned after allegedly witnessing Trump offering pardons to those who implemented illegal immigration policies, said that he could confirm that Trump was angry about lowering the flags for McCain after his death:

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

邮件投票很方便,但并不总是秘密

当人们投票以邮寄时,他们不得在完全保密的情况下这样做。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


Voting by mail in 2020 could be a real life-saver for American democracy, allowing tens of millions of people to participate in the election while limiting the spread of the pandemic. It’s widely available, popular, well-protected against fraud and doesn’t provide either political party with any special advantage. But mail-in voting carries its own risk to the integrity of the election.

The problem is that when people cast their ballots to be mailed in, they may not do so in complete secrecy. Our research for our forthcoming book, “Should Secret Voting Be Mandatory?” highlights exactly how crucial the secret ballot is to a healthy democracy.

Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe holds a press conference.Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe holds a press conference.
The Japanese government is embroiled in an alleged vote-buying scandal involving the country’s 2019 elections.
Rodrigo Reyes Marin/Pool Photo via AP

Secrecy matters to voters

Ballot secrecy is important to voters. Experimental studies have found that a quarter of voters did not believe their votes were kept secret. A note assuring them of a secret ballot increased turnout by 3.5% – a little more of a boost than the 2% increase in voter turnout that results from the convenience of voting by mail.

Forty-four U.S. states have constitutional provisions guaranteeing secrecy in voting; the others have statutes to the same effect. At the same time, five states now vote entirely by mail, and 29 states permit no-excuse absentee ballots. Some states permit voters to register as “permanent absentees” who are automatically mailed ballots year after year.

Once voting shifts from an official polling place to the home, the ability of others to see how a person votes – to watch as a person marks their ballot and examine the ballot afterward to make sure – reopens the potential for bribery and coercion. Then employers, landlords and other power brokers could undermine a century of democratic progress, leaving voters vulnerable to domination, and destroying electoral legitimacy.The Conversation


Susan Orr, Associate Professor of Political Science, The College at Brockport, State University of New York and James Johnson, Professor of Political Science, University of Rochester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

Kim Klacik:调查她的病毒运动广告巡回巴尔的摩的街道

作为党内快速崛起的明星,她是 2020 年共和党国民大会的演讲者之一。

【原文】

Republican activist Kim Klacik first garnered national attention when U.S. President Donald Trump shared one her tweets with his millions of followers in July 2019, a post that showed trash surrounding some Baltimore homes and criticizing late Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, who had represented parts of the city for 23 years.

Then, roughly one year later, she released a new video on the social media platform, with a similar message. This time, however, with the explicit intent to convert Democrats to switch political parties in the upcoming 2020 election. She was campaigning to represent the area that Cummings did in Washington, D.C. — Maryland’s 7th Congressional District — and Trump again used his social media popularity to spread Klacik’s name by retweeting her video footage.

Kimberly will work with the Trump Administration and we will bring Baltimore back, and fast. Don’t blow it Baltimore, the Democrats have destroyed your city! //t.co/PDdjgxbIHu

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 19, 2020

Is Klacik’s Viral Ad an Accurate Depiction of Baltimore?

On Aug. 19, 2020, The Baltimore Sun’s editorial board published a scathing commentary on Klacik’s video message, claiming that she was placing inappropriate blame on Democratic leadership for “ruining” the city since she was not campaigning for Baltimore mayor or a seat on the Baltimore City Council but rather running for a congressional seat that not only covered the West Baltimore neighborhood, but some of the metro’s well-to-do suburbs, as well. The board stated:

Whatever one may think of members of Congress, they don’t run cities, counties or even states, they represent one of 435 votes in one chamber of the federal legislative branch. Maryland’s 7th extends far beyond the city to Howard and Baltimore counties. 

[It’s] ludicrous and overly simple to blame the city’s ills on party affiliation. Concentrated poverty, substance abuse and a war on drugs that disproportionately criminalized low-income African Americans, racism and red-lining, the loss of blue collar jobs, collapsing public infrastructure, broken families and failing schools, these are among the major culprits. …

Once again, Baltimore is made to play the role of Urban Horror and to scare people who have never been here, will never visit and likely will never realize that, overall, average household income in the 7th District is above the national average. 

Overall, the board alleged Klacik used a neighborhood in West Baltimore to construct a political message that would resonate with voters nationally, and help Trump in his race for reelection against Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Nov. 3. Meanwhile, the board said the video did not accurately represent what it is like for most residents of Maryland’s 7th Congressional District.

To determine if there was any credibility to that assertion, we compared the latest U.S. census data for the district and the city of Baltimore, since that was where scenes of the ad were shot, using the statistical table below.

  Maryland’s 7th Congressional District (see here) Baltimore City (see here)
Total Population 716,136 people 602,495 people
Black Population 51.9% (371,523 people) 61.3% (369,090 people)
White Population 32.6% (233,481 people) 27.7% (166,647 people)
Median Household Income

 

$60,729 $51,000
Individuals Below Poverty Line

 

14.8% (27,050 people) 24.1% (29,166 people)
Vacant Housing Units

 

15.6% (49,845 properties) 19.2% (56,429 properties)

Based on that data, it was accurate to claim that the area for which Klacik was running to represent was whiter and wealthier than the city where she had recorded the campaign video, and it had less abandoned buildings. The Associated Press reported in July 2019, after Trump alleged the congressional district, which was then represented by Cummings, was a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess”:

While parts of Maryland’s 7th Congressional District have struggled with poverty and crime, it also includes more affluent areas and Baltimore landmarks such as Johns Hopkins University and its hospital, the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Elsewhere are cultural touchstones like the Baltimore Museum of Art and the world-class Walters Art Museum. …

Trump’s tweets paint an incomplete picture of a sprawling district that spans Baltimore City and parts of surrounding counties. It has stretches of empty storefronts and boarded-up homes, as well as trendy neighborhoods dotted with manicured parks and restaurants. It also has Pimlico Race Course, which is home to the Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of horse-racing’s annual Triple Crown.

Baltimore residents said their city bears no resemblance to the place Trump described, though few would deny the city has problems with violent crime and drugs, per The Associated Press.

Next, we considered statistics for the neighborhood that was the filming location for at least portions of the campaign video — Baltimore’s Penn North neighborhood — to determine its socioeconomic levels and if, or to what extent, they matched all Baltimore neighborhoods, since the ad suggested the neighborhood’s conditions were representative of the entire city. We learned the area’s residents are often combined with the adjacent Reservoir Hill neighborhood for reviews by the city’s health department.

According to a 2017 analysis by the Baltimore City Health Department, which essentially distilled census data for neighborhood-by-neighborhood analysis, the following was true:

  Penn North/Reservoir Hill Baltimore City
Total Population 10,576 people 622,454 people
Black Population 85% 62.8%
White Population 10.9% 30.3%
Median Household Income

 

$33,264 $41,819
Families Below Poverty Line

 

40.4% 28.8%
Vacant Lots Per 10,000 Housing Units

 

466.9 677.3

In other words, the area where portions of the campaign video was filmed had a higher concentration of Black residents and families below the poverty line than the city overall, though a lower concentration of vacant lots per 10,000 housing units.

Additionally, the Penn North and Reservoir Hill neighborhoods tallied a slightly higher percentage of city requests for pest control because of rats (423.5 requests per 10,000 residents, compared to 408.8 per 10,000 Baltimore residents overall), and the neighborhoods’ homicide rate was higher than all city neighborhoods (7.9 per 10,000 residents, compared to 3.9 per 10,000 city residents overall), the analysis showed.

Based on that statistical evaluation, we deemed it misleading to showcase the West Baltimore area as what it was like to live anywhere in the city, like the script of the campaign video suggested.

What Was Klacik’s Response to Criticism?

In the absence of an interview with Klacik herself, we considered a letter by her published in The Baltimore Sun on Aug. 21, 2020, in which she defended the campaign video, and alleged the newspaper’s journalists had not done their due diligence in the past to hold Democrats accountable. She stated:

I have a young daughter I love and would not dare subject her to the blight, soaring crime, broken schools and low expectations of the city. …

I presume you’ve written me off because President Donald Trump has brought unsolicited attention to my race and Baltimore’s ills. I agree with some of his policies; I disagree with others. But I was raised to respect the president. …

It is true that last year I brought attention to trash in West Baltimore. The president used it to attack our city’s failures. That was not my intention, but it happened. …

You speculate my ad was tailored to a national audience because I mentioned the failures of Democratic leadership in cities across the country. Ironically, I did that so no one could accuse me of beating up on just Baltimore as though our problems are unique. Because they are not.

Voters in Maryland’s 7th Congressional District were preparing to choose between Klacik or incumbent Mfume in the general election on Nov. 3, 2020, as of this writing.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

《宪法》中没有选举权

如果你正在寻找投票权,你不会在美国宪法或权利法案中找到它。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


If you’re looking for the right to vote, you won’t find it in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights recognizes the core rights of citizens in a democracy, including freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. It then recognizes several insurance policies against an abusive government that would attempt to limit these liberties: weapons; the privacy of houses and personal information; protections against false criminal prosecution or repressive civil trials; and limits on excessive punishments by the government.

The nation has evolved from being led by an elitist set of beliefs toward a much more universal and inclusive set of assumptions. But the founders’ fears are still coming true: Levels of support for the rights of opposing parties or people of other religions are strikingly weak in the U.S. as well as around the world. Many Americans support their own rights to free speech but want to suppress the speech of those with whom they disagree. Americans may have come to believe in a universal vote, but that value does not come from the Constitution, which saw a different path to the protection of rights.The Conversation


Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
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现代婚姻建议的白人至上主义者起源

几乎所有的原始自助书籍都是由优生学运动的支持者撰写的。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


When I was conducting research for my new book on the destructive aspects of modern heterosexual relationships, I started looking into the archives of early 20th-century books about courtship and marriage written by physicians and sexologists.

In the process, I made a discovery that would radically alter my understanding of why so many parts of heterosexual culture remain mired in violence and inequality.

Much has been written about the hardships endured by queer people. Almost all of us are familiar with queer suffering. Yet we tend to overlook the miseries of straight culture, despite overwhelming evidence.

Relatively honest accounts of these miseries exist in the past and present world of self-help books, or what I call the “heterosexual repair industry.”

Inside the volumes of marriage advice for straight couples, one message has been clear: forging modern heterosexuality is a difficult accomplishment, one undeniably shaped by the intersections of white supremacy and misogyny.The Conversation


Jane Ward, Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
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为什么美国人购买比以往更多的枪支

美国人近几个月来一直在创纪录的购买枪支狂欢。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


Americans have been on a record gun-buying spree in recent months.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, the gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates that gun sales from March through July were 8.5 million. This is 94% higher the same period in 2019.

3. Social connection and recreation

Finally, guns can provide a tangible basis for social connection. Social bonding through consumption is a well-established phenomenon in consumer research.

Retailers facilitate this by serving as a social hub and providing expertise on specific products. Visiting a firearms retailer and buying a gun can also enable consumers to feel socially connected to like-minded others.

According to our research, going to shooting ranges and hunting are lower-risk activities in terms of accidental shootings. We speculate that because these activities can be done outdoors, while wearing masks and with distance between people, they may also involve lower risk for COVID-19 transmission.

Americans who haven’t joined the buying frenzy may question the use of a gun against a virus or rioters in faraway cities. During a time of crisis, citizens want to feel connected, secure and independent. For some Americans, buying guns may help them do so.The Conversation


Aimee Huff, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Oregon State University and Michelle Barnhart, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
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伦理专家呼吁监管机构批准 RNC 白宫演讲

一项声明允许 RNC 在室外白宫场所演讲的决定引起了道德的红旗。

【原文】

First lady Melania Trump on Aug. 25, 2020, gave an unprecedented Republican National Convention (RNC) speech — unprecedented not because of anything she said, but because it was delivered from the White House Rose Garden. The appearance immediately raised ethics questions about whether it violated the Hatch Act, a federal anti-corruption law.

The Hatch Act, passed in 1939, bars the use of taxpayer-funded public resources for electioneering and tries to ensure that federal employees can perform their service to the public in a nonpartisan manner, free of coercion.

Amid a flurry of news stories and commentary about the previously obscure law and possible breaches of it during the RNC, the U. S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which enforces the Hatch Act, released a statement on Aug. 26, 2020, clarifying its Aug. 12 conclusion that political activities in the Rose Garden and on the South Lawn (where U.S. President Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination) are not restricted by the Hatch Act. The conclusion and its timing prompted more criticism.

Walter Shaub, senior adviser for the government accountability group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, slammed the decision, saying he believes OSC is “making it up as it goes.”

Nick Schwellenbach, senior investigator for the government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said holding RNC events on White House grounds definitely violates the spirit of the law, even if OSC said it was within the letter of the law.

We sent a detailed list of follow-up questions asking, among other things, for further clarification on the reason the Rose Garden and South Lawn are not restricted from political activity under the Hatch Act. We also asked when OSC drew the conclusion about the grounds slotted for the Trumps’ RNC speeches, and whether the White House was notified in advance of that conclusion. We requested a list of areas in the White House that are covered by the Hatch Act versus ones that are not.

“I am unable to provide additional information in response to your questions at this time,” Kurz responded.

“They don’t have a good answer. That’s why [they didn’t respond to follow-up questions],” Shaub told us in a text message.

Shaub said the idea that Rose Garden, or South Lawn for that matter, would be exempt from the Hatch Act simply because they’re outdoors contradicts federal regulations that restrict political activity by federal employees in any federally owned space “including but not limited to” public buildings.

Shaub also pointed to ethics training materials for federal employees and past advisories that limit political stickers on their cars in the parking lots of federal buildings. In one 2018 video, Ana Galindo-Marrone, head of OSC’s Hatch Act unit, said those employees would “basically need to go across the street, whether it’s a Starbucks or some other location” to post a political message on social media using their own phones in order to avoid a Hatch Act violation.

Shaub told us these contradictory messages, in which lower-level federal workers are warned they could violate the Hatch Act by posting political tweets in the break room of a federal building, while the president and first lady give full-on campaign speeches on White House grounds, sends a bad message:

This messaging from the White House and the Office of Special Counsel tells employees that government ethics don’t matter. It tells them that lower level employees are held to a higher standard than more senior officials who have more power to do harm. It tells them that partisans are calling the shots and making a mockery of the law and our system of government. It tells them that the head of the Office of Special Counsel—which literally says Tea Party activity in the workplace is allowed but tweeting the vague term “resist” on a lunch break away from their desks on personal cell phones is a violation—is looking out for the president’s interests.

Although the president, vice president, and first lady are exempt from the Hatch Act, federal employees and publicly owned equipment that might be used to support the planning and execution of these events are not.

As we previously reported, Shaub said that while past administrations have “stuck their toes in the water” when it came to using public resources for campaigning, the Trump administration has done a “cannonball into the swimming pool,” saying the RNC 2020 events were “of a magnitude that is unprecedented.”

There are civil penalties for federal employees who violate the Hatch Act, which can range from reprimand, reduction in pay, firing, or being forced to pay up to $1,000 in civil fines. But the law also has criminal provisions applying to everyone, including the president and vice president, against intimidating or coercing federal employees to engage in political activities.

However, Holman said that it doesn’t appear anyone in the Trump White House will be punished in the event any violations occurred:

Given that it is up to the White House counsel and the Attorney General to enforce these laws, the Trump team clearly felt they had free rein to use official resources and governmental employees for partisan political purposes without fear of repercussion. The violations of these laws were prevalent. Worse yet was the denigration of the institution of the White House, using the “people’s house” as headquarters of the national Republican party.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
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为什么 “犹太人的长老协议” 仍然被反犹太人推行

一个多世纪历史的反犹太人骗局在共和国国民大会正在举行之时再次抬头头。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


An anti-Semitic hoax more than a century old reared its ugly head again as the Republican National Convention was underway last week.

Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of the advisory board of President Trump’s reelection campaign, was due to speak on Aug. 25. But she was suddenly pulled from the schedule after she had retweeted a link to a conspiracy theory about Jewish elites plotting to take over the world.

From the Rothschilds to Soros

What sustains the influence of the Protocols among cranks and extremists is not the language of the text itself – which few of them are likely to have fully read in its various versions – but what this forgery purports to underscore, which is the astonishingly cunning influence of Jews in modern history.

The Protocols thus have no importance in themselves; they are spurious. But they do bestow precision upon apocalyptic fears, which could not survive without some ingredient of plausibility – however wildly far-fetched.

The Rothschild family was pivotal to the emergence of finance capitalism in 19th-century Europe. The family firm had branches in Germany, France, Austria, Italy and England, which lent credence to the charge of “cosmopolitanism” during an era of rising nationalism. The boom-and-bust oscillations of the economy generated not only misery but also grievances against financiers who seemed to benefit from such uncertainties.

Today, Soros, a Hungarian-born, British-educated American Jew, has become an especially hated figure for the far-right. Among the world’s canniest investors, he has spent billions of dollars promoting progressive causes. He seems to personify what Ford called “the international Jew.”

Venom against minorities other than Jews has not resulted in any equivalent to the Protocols. Judeophobia produced a specious documentation that bigotry against no other minority has ever elicited. Perhaps the very explicitness of the Protocols helps strengthen the suspicion that majority beliefs and interests are under attack, and keeps this dangerous form of anti-Semitism alive.The Conversation


Stephen Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
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为什么新娘穿白色?

“婚纱的代表远远不仅仅是一件礼服。它也是梦想的体现,” 王维拉说。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


“A wedding gown represents far more than just a dress. It is also the embodiment of a dream,” said Vera Wang.

For most American brides, that dream is realized in a beautiful white wedding gown. It’s a seemingly timeless tradition that is often the center point of little girls’ wedding fantasies. In 2018, about 83% of brides wore white dresses on their big day, according to a survey by Brides Magazine. Such an overwhelming statistic begs the question: Why do we associate white with wedding gowns? And how long has this tradition existed?

They were ultimately successful, and the limitation order exempted wedding gowns. But silk was difficult to find; the war with Japan had disrupted trade routes. Nylon was also in short supply, as it was being used in place of silk to manufacture parachutes. Most wedding gowns from those years were made from acetate – except for those worn in “parachute weddings.” Some soldiers, like B-29 pilot Major Claude Hensinger, kept the parachutes that saved their lives during the war and later gave the material to their betrothed to make a gown.

Although the first records of brides garbed in white reach far back into the annals of history, it only became standard fashion over last 80 years. With the arrival of ready-to-wear clothing, brides could order affordable, mass-produced gowns based on sample sizes that were then fitted for them: a custom-made gown at a ready-to-wear price. A large, traditional wedding with the bride outfitted in a princess-style white wedding gown became a symbol of the American dream.

From WWII through the end of the 20th century, the white gown symbolized prosperity, virginity and a lifetime commitment to one person. For most people today, those meanings are gone.

White is now the overwhelming choice for most American brides, with 4 out of 5 choosing to walk down the aisle in a white gown, a sort of bridal uniform. It has become an iconic symbol of weddings, an expected part of the celebration, and despite knowing the relatively short history of the tradition of a white wedding, it was my choice as well.


The Conversation

Marlise Schoeny, Assistant Curator for the Ohio State Historic Costume & Textiles Collection, Adjunct Instructor for the Columbus College of Art and Design, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
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冠状病毒再感染实际意味着什么,为什么你不应该恐慌

病毒学家了解冠状病毒再感染是常见的,免疫学家正在努力确定保护性免疫标志在康复患者中持续多长时间。

【原文】

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation. This content is shared here because the topic may interest Snopes readers; it does not, however, represent the work of Snopes fact-checkers or editors.


Scientists in Hong Kong have reported the first confirmed case of reinfection with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, reportedly backed up by genetic sequences of the two episodes of the 33-year-old man’s infections in March and in August 2020. Naturally people are worried what this could mean for our chances of resolving the pandemic. Here’s why they shouldn’t worry.

Nearly nine months after the first infection with the novel coronavirus, we have very poor evidence for reinfection. However, virologists understand that reinfection with coronaviruses is common, and immunologists are working hard to determine how long the hallmarks of protective immunity will last in recovered patients.

Three potential outcomes

So how should we receive the news on reinfection of recovered individuals? There are three possible outcomes of reinfection with a similar virus: worse symptoms that lead to more severe disease, the same symptoms as the first infection, and improvement of symptoms leading to milder or no disease.

The first outcome is known as disease enhancement and is noted in patients infected with similar strains of viruses such as dengue. There is no evidence for this for the novel coronavirus, despite over 23 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide.

The second outcome, where the patient suffers the same disease twice, indicates that there is no sufficient immunological memory left behind to protect from reinfection. This could happen if the first infection did not require antibodies or T cells to be resolved, perhaps because other rapidly deployed immune defences were enough to control it.

The final outcome is milder infection thanks to a healthy immune system that generated antibodies and memory B and T cell responses that persisted long enough to be of value during the second exposure. Given the diversity of antibody and T cell responses reported in different COVID-19 patients, we anticipate that immune protection – if efficient – may vary in different people.

Of course, this has implications for the potency and duration of herd immunity, the idea that when we reach a large number of recovered patients immune to reinfection, this will protect the most vulnerable. Therefore vaccination is critical to induce and sustain protective immune responses in the long term.

Vaccination can elicit more potent and longer-lasting immune responses compared with natural infection, and these can be sustained by booster vaccinations when necessary. This is why scientists were not surprised to hear of evidence of reinfection. The lack of symptoms experienced by the Hong Kong patient is very good news.The Conversation


Zania Stamataki, Senior Lecturer in Viral Immunology, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

2020年9月5日
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伦理专家警告 RNC 事件可能违反了孵化法

特朗普政府官员在共和党国民大会期间的演讲已经举起道德红旗。

【原文】

Ethics experts are raising warning flags that Republican National Convention speeches at the White House by U.S. President Donald Trump, officials in his administration, and by first lady Melania Trump could violate the Hatch Act, a federal anti-corruption law.

In layman’s terms, a Hatch Act violation occurs when taxpayer-funded federal resources and employees are used for political campaigning or activities. The law also tries to ensure that federal employees can serve the public in a nonpartisan manner, free of coercion.

In this case, ethics experts say Trump aides and speeches given on White House grounds are being used as part of the campaign to reelect Trump in November 2020 — which could be illegal. But these actions also break with ethics norms set by past administrations, and set a bad example, experts say.

While the RNC is being held in Charlotte, North Carolina, Melania Trump gave her speech on Aug. 25, 2020, from the White House Rose Garden, while President Trump will accept the Republican party’s presidential nomination on Aug. 27, 2020, on a stage set up on the South Lawn.

Other administration officials also speaking during the RNC include U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, counselor Kellyanne Conway, social media director Dan Scavino, and economic adviser Larry Kudlow, raising questions about the electioneering activities of federal employees.

They still cannot help with the set-up, and publicly-owned equipment can’t be used, however.

Trump’s planned acceptance speech on White House grounds violates ethics norms established by previous presidents, Goldstone said, noting that former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama set a precedent of establishing a clear line between public servants and political candidates by limiting political activity to the residential parts of the White House — areas not used for public business.

Pompeo’s speech, given while on an official State Department visit to Israel, prompted U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to launch an investigation on Aug. 25, 2020, “demanding answers on Secretary Pompeo’s participation in a political party convention in the course of official government work, which is a potential violation of federal regulations, U.S. state department policy, and the Hatch Act.”

Goldstone said that Pompeo’s speech blurred the line between politics and government service, as did decisions to accept speaking roles by other administration officials.

“The disregard for keeping business out of politics is out of step with the norms established by previous administrations of both parties,” Goldstone stated. “Whether or not the activity violates the Hatch Act or any other law, it clearly violates the principle that the law stands for: that public service is a public trust, and using public office for partisan political gain undermines the public’s trust in the government’s ability to conduct business impartially and without political influence.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee posted to Twitter a directive sent to state department employees, telling them that they are barred from participating in their official capacity in political activities. The committee stated in the tweet that Pompeo’s RNC speech “violates legal restrictions and his own instructions to Department personnel.”

While past administrations have “stuck their toes in the water” when it came to flirting with the idea of using public resources for campaigning, the Trump administration has done a “cannonball into the swimming pool,” Shaub said. “This is of a magnitude that is unprecedented.”

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has been accused of violating the Hatch Act. Officials have been reprimanded on numerous occasions by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for doing things like using official social media accounts to promote or denigrate political candidates.

Conway, for example, has been found to be in violation for numerous instances in which she used her official position in the White House to publicly disparage Democratic candidates. In 2019, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recommended that as a repeat offender who has shown disregard for the law, Conway should have been removed.

2020年9月5日
发表者 minici
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通过邮件投票?立即仔细检查您所在州的截止日期

美国邮政局警告说,如果你通过邮件投票,等到申请或归还选票的截止日期可能会使投票过近。

【原文】

Jump to see your state’s absentee or mail-in voting deadlines:

AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | DC | FL | GA | HI | ID | IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD | MA | MI | MN | MS | MO | MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ | NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA | RI | SC | SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY

Why We Made This Guide

In the months before the 2020 U.S. elections — amid widespread shutdowns and myriad challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic — confusion, rumors, and misinformation about mail-in voting flooded the internet and the Snopes inbox.

There was little reassurance from the news cycle: U.S. President Donald Trump made several questionable or controversial remarks about mail-in voting, the U.S. Postal Service sparked outcry with confusing operational changes, and an investigation by The Washington Post found that millions of voters in as many as 46 states could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots. Snopes contacted the Postal Service for further clarification but did not hear back at the time of publication.

Despite ongoing debate about the Postal Service’s ability to reliably deliver mail-in ballots in 2020, it did appear at the time of this writing that current absentee or mail-in voting deadlines in some states may not allow enough time for votes to be counted in the general election.

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District of Columbia (D.C.)

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: No, in response to COVID-19, all registered voters will receive a ballot at their registered address beginning the first week of October. Voters may request a ballot only if they wish to receive it at a different address. In other election years, Washington, D.C., is a no-excuse absentee voting district. Anyone may apply. 
  • Application Deadline: Requests for mail-in ballots must be received no later than Oct. 27. 
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Mailed ballots must be postmarked or otherwise demonstrated to have been sent on or before Election Day, and must arrive no later than a week after. Beginning in October, the status of mailed ballots can be tracked here.
  • Early Voting Options: Early voting begins Oct. 27 and runs through Nov. 2, but dates and hours may vary based on the area a voter lives. A list of voting centers can be found here
  • Other Resources

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Florida

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Georgia

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Hawaii

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Idaho

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Illinois

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Indiana

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Iowa

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: Yes, applications are available online. Iowa is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply. Applications must be received by the voter’s county auditor no later than 5 p.m. on Oct. 23. 
  • Application Deadline: Read the instructions sent with each ballot. Absentee ballots must be received in the county auditor’s office by the time the polls close on election day. Ballots received after must be postmarked by the Monday before Election Day or earlier and received in the county auditor’s office no later than noon on the Monday following the election.
  • Early Voting Options: In-person early voting is available from Oct. 5 to Nov. 2, but dates and hours may vary based on where a voter lives. Check with the local county auditor for available times. 
  • Other Resources

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Kansas

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Kentucky

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Louisiana

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Maine

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Maryland

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Massachusetts

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Michigan

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Minnesota

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Mississippi

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Missouri

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Montana

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Nebraska

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Nevada

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New Hampshire

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New Jersey

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: No, New Jersey will mail a ballot to all active, registered voters under a vote-by-mail initiative in response to COVID-19. In other election years, New Jersey is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply.
  • Application Deadline: A new online system is expected to launch by Sept. 4 in order to register new voters. The deadline to register to vote is 21 days prior to the election. 
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Ballots must be returned through the mail with a postmark on or before Nov. 3 to be counted as a valid ballot by the county clerk, and received by 8 p.m. on Nov. 10. Ballots without a postmark that are received by the county boards of elections within 48 hours of the closing of polls on Nov. 3 will be considered valid. Ballots may also be hand-delivered to select secure drop boxes. Find a list of locations here
  • Early Voting Options: Early voting is only available by mail. 
  • Other Resources

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New Mexico

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New York

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North Carolina

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North Dakota

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Ohio

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Oklahoma

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: Yes, applications are available online or through the OK Voter Portal. Oklahoma is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply.
  • Application Deadline: All applications for absentee ballots must be received by the county election board no later than 5 p.m. on the Tuesday before an election. A postmark on that date will not suffice. Applications can be submitted by mail, email, fax, or in person. 
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Voters must return voted absentee ballots to the county election board by mail that has delivery documentation. An absentee ballot must be received by the county election board by 7 p.m. on Nov. 3 to be counted. Hand-delivered ballots must be returned no later than the end of business hours on the day before the election, and the voter must show the same identification required for in-person voting. 
  • Early Voting Options: Voters may cast an absentee ballot in person at the county election board office from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday and Friday before the election and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. In-person absentee voters must fill out and sign an application form when they arrive to vote. Contact the local county election board for more information. 
  • Other Resources

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Oregon

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: No, Oregon is an all-mail voting state. All registered voters will receive a ballot by mail in addition to having in-person voting options. Voters may check online to ensure their registration and address are current.
  • Application Deadline: The deadline for online voter registration is Oct. 13. 
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Mail or drop off completed ballot at any official drop box​ in the state. If a voter casts a ballot after the Wednesday before an election, the ballot should be left at a drop box site to ensure it’s counted. Ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. Postmarks are not enough.
  • Early Voting Options: Oregon does not offer in-person early voting. 
  • Other Resources

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Pennsylvania

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Rhode Island

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South Carolina

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South Dakota

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Tennessee

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Texas

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Utah

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Vermont

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: Yes, applications are available online or can be requested at the clerk’s office. Ballots may also be requested through the My Voter Portal. Vermont is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply.
  • Application Deadline: Absentee ballot requests must be submitted by 5 p.m. or by the close of the town clerk’s office on the day before the election. Applications must be submitted to the respective town and city clerks.  
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: All ballots must be returned to the town clerk’s office before the close of the office on the day before the election, or to the polling place before 7 p.m. on the day of the election, in order to be counted.
  • Early Voting Options: Early voting begins Sept. 20. Early voter ballots must be mailed or returned in person to the town clerk’s office before the close of business on Nov. 2 or to the polling place by 7 p.m. on Nov. 3.
  • Other Resources

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Virginia

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Washington

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West Virginia

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Wisconsin

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: Yes, applications can be requested online. Additionally, the state will mail applications for mail-in ballots to most registered voters. Wisconsin is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply.
  • Application Deadline: The legal deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is Oct. 29.
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Officials recommend returning mailed absentee ballots to the municipal clerk by Oct. 27. Voters returning an absentee ballot to a polling place must submit it by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3
  • Early Voting Options: In-person absentee voting begins Oct. 20 and runs to Nov. 1. Dates and hours may vary. Check with the municipal clerk for specifics. 
  • Other Resources

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Wyoming

  • Must Apply for Mail-in Ballot?: Yes, applications are available online. Ballots can be requested by mail, email, in person or online. Wyoming is a no-excuse absentee voting state. Anyone may apply.
  • Application Deadline: The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Nov. 2. 
  • Ballot Delivery Guidelines: Absentee ballots must be delivered to the county clerk’s office in person or by mail no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day. Ballots arriving after the deadline will not be counted.
  • Early Voting Options: Early voting runs from Sept. 18 to Nov. 2.
  • Other Resources

 
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2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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洛雷塔·林恩和小子摇滚结婚了吗?

这位 88 岁的乡村音乐传奇人物于 2020 年 8 月将读者带着 Instagram 的帖子送到斯诺佩斯。

【宣称】

2020 年 8 月,洛雷塔·林恩和基德·洛克互相结婚。

【结论】


【原文】

In August 2020, Snopes readers asked us to examine the accuracy of news reports which claimed that country music legend Loretta Lynn had married rock-country star Kid Rock at her ranch in Tennessee. 

CNN, for example, reported that:

The country legend got people talking over the weekend after she posted some photos from her son Ernie’s vow renewal ceremony on her official Instagram account. “It was beautiful and everything it should be,” the caption read. “Marriage isn’t always easy — heck it’s not even always pretty, but love holds you together and you push through the bad days to enjoy the good ones.” The 88-year old singer said she was proud of her son and his wife Crystal and wished them happiness.

Then, she stirred a bit of a tizzy about herself and 49-year-old Kid Rock. “Things got crazy then — my boy Kid Rock was there and we’ve always teased about getting ourselves married,” the caption read. “Well, the preacher was already there so we had some fun with it. Sorry girls, he’s taken now!”

That description of Lynn’s Instagram post was accurate:

The Facebook page for Lynn’s ranch and campground, in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, posted a short video of the moment when the pastor announced the pair as “Mr and Mrs. American Badass.”

However, as CNN also reported, Lynn later clarified that the “wedding” was no more than a bit of fun. In a second Instagram post, she wrote:

“Well, it didn’t last long, y’all but it sure was fun! I guess I better get on here and let y’all know that it was just a joke — Kid Rock and I didn’t get married over the weekend, but we had a blast.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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特朗普誓言是否要 “终止” 社会保障?

总统在 2020 年 8 月在他的高尔夫俱乐部举行的新闻发布会上阐述了几个不同的工资税计划。

【宣称】

2020 年 8 月,美国总统唐纳德·特朗普誓言 “终止” 社会保障。

【结论】

混合物

【原文】

In the summer of 2020, less than three months before that year’s U.S. presidential election, several readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of reports that President Donald Trump had vowed to “terminate” Social Security.

On Aug. 8, 2020, the non-profit group Social Security Works published a news release with the headline “Donald Trump: If Re-Elected, I Will ‘Terminate’ Social Security.” In the press release, the group’s president Nancy Altman wrote:

Donald Trump once promised that he would be ‘the only Republican that doesn’t want to cut Social Security.’ We now know that what he meant is that cutting Social Security doesn’t go far enough for him: He wants to destroy Social Security.

Donald Trump’s executive order, which seeks to defer Social Security contributions, is bad enough. But his promise to ‘terminate’ FICA contributions if he is reelected is a full-on declaration of war against current and future Social Security beneficiaries.

Social Security is the foundation of everyone’s retirement security. At a time when pensions are vanishing and 401ks have proven inadequate, Trump’s plan to eliminate Social Security’s revenue stream would destroy the one source of retirement income that people can count on. Moreover, Social Security is often the only disability insurance and life insurance that working families have. If reelected, Trump plans to destroy those benefits as well.

On the same day, left-leaning website Common Dreams posted an article whose headline read, “Donald Trump Just Admitted on Live Television He Will ‘Terminate’ Social Security and Medicare if Reelected in November.” The Common Dreams article stated that “President Donald Trump openly vowed to permanently ‘terminate’ the funding mechanism for both Social Security and Medicare if reelected in November … Announcing and then signing a series of legally dubious executive orders … Trump touted his order for a payroll tax ‘holiday’ — which experts noted would later have to be paid back — but said if he won in November that such a cut would become permanent.”

Trump did not explicitly vow to terminate Social Security, as those headlines claimed, but one of several plans he mentioned in an Aug. 8 press conference involved eliminating payroll taxes — a move that would, as things stand, remove the overwhelming majority of funding for Social Security and likely pose a threat to its continued existence.

 
Trump articulated several intentions in that section of his speech.

First, he said he planned to “forgive” the payroll taxes in question, meaning that rather than simply being delayed, the obligation to pay those four months’ worth of Social Security and Medicare taxes would be removed entirely. Second, he said he planned to “make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” suggesting that the rate at which Social Security and Medicare contributions are withheld would be reduced from 6.2 % and 1.45 %, respectively. Third, Trump said he would “extend” the payroll tax deferral beyond Dec. 31. Finally, Trump said he would “terminate the tax.”

An important difference exists between extending the deferral of payroll tax obligations and forgiving deferred obligations — just as a very significant difference exists between cutting payroll taxes and terminating them entirely.

Although Trump articulated several plans for payroll taxes, it remains the case that he did at one point say he would “terminate the tax.” Doing so would remove the overwhelming majority of funding for the two benefits that comprise Social Security: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), and Disability Insurance (DI), known collectively as OASDI. According to the federal Social Security Administration, fully 89% of OASDI came from payroll taxes in 2019.

It is reasonable to suppose that removing so much funding for Social Security, without replacing it, would pose a threat to the continued existence of Social Security itself and its associated OASDI benefits. In his Aug. 8 remarks, Trump made no reference to a plan for replacing the funding that would be lost if he carried out his stated intention to terminate payroll taxes, nor has he done so anywhere else. (Snopes asked the White House and the Trump campaign to provide details on how the president intends to cover the shortfall in Social Security funding, but we did not receive a substantive response from either.)

Since Trump has publicly articulated an intention to eliminate payroll taxes, and he has not accompanied that with any proposal to replace the taxes as a source of Social Security funding, it is reasonable to argue that, as Social Security Works and Common Dreams did, Trump’s payroll tax proposals, as they stand, could effectively spell the end of Social Security.

However, it should not be ignored that, in the same Aug. 8 speech, Trump also articulated several other plans in relation to payroll taxes, and that at least one of those plans was mutually incompatible with “terminating the tax,” since Trump could not initiate “permanent cuts” to payroll taxes if those taxes no longer existed. As a result, we are issuing a rating of “Mixture” for this claim.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

在格鲁吉亚的拖车中是否发现了 39 名失踪儿童?

不被遗忘的行动,由美国元帅带头,导致数十名失踪和濒危儿童的救援。

【宣称】

在格鲁吉亚州的一辆双宽拖车中发现了 39 名失踪儿童。

【结论】

混合物

【原文】

A two-week effort  to rescue endangered and missing minors led by the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) Missing Child Unit in August 2020 — nicknamed Operation Not Forgotten — resulted in the recovery of 39 children.

Alongside other federal, state, and local agencies, the USMS said they rescued 26 missing children, and ensured the safe locations of 13 more, while arresting nine individuals in connection with alleged crimes ranging from sex trafficking to parental kidnapping.

The large number of children found during the initiative immediately attracted the attention of internet rumormongers. Snopes readers shared a number of memes with us claiming that the children were all found in one trailer. 

How is finding 39 missing children in a double wide trailer here in Georgia NOT the biggest news story in America?

— King Randall, I. (@NewEmergingKing) August 28, 2020

While the rescue itself indeed took place, according to the USMS, the descriptions of the circumstances around the discovery of the children in these memes were largely untrue.

According to a statement from the USMS, and information provided to us by Josue Rivera, an inspector from USMS involved in the investigation, the two-week operation took place in various counties throughout Georgia, and children were also rescued from Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Kentucky. Since it occurred over a long period of time in more than one location, it is unlikely that all the children could have been found in one trailer. Rivera described at a press conference the locations where the children were found and the arrests of the alleged perpetrators were made, including motels, apartment complexes, and other residences. 

The U.S. Marshals’ office described the different circumstances for the missing children:

These missing children were considered to be some of the most at-risk and challenging recovery cases in the area, based on indications of high-risk factors such as victimization of child sex trafficking, child exploitation, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and medical or mental health conditions. Other children were located at the request of law enforcement to ensure their wellbeing. USMS investigators were able to confirm each child’s location in person and assure their safety and welfare.

The missing children ranged in ages from three to 17. We reached out to USMS and learned that fifteen of the children were identified as victims of trafficking. The other children were victims of parental kidnappings, children who absconded from the Division of Family and Children Services (DFACS), Department of Juvenile Justice custody, and were believed to be in danger or critically missing. A majority of the children were runaways who fell into the human trafficking realm. 

Investigators said nine people were arrested on warrants that included sex trafficking, registered sex offender violations, possession of drugs and weapons, and custodial interference. A few of the arrests were made in Florida, where one child was also rescued after being found with a parent who had arrest warrants for various sexual offenses. USMS provided us with a list of the nine people arrested and their alleged connections to the crimes: 

  1. Moradeyo Amos Bandele – Warrant for rape
  2. Trayon Moore – Sex trafficking and probation violation warrants
  3. James Garcia – Aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy and incest with a minor
  4. Faye Smith – Warrant for probation violation
  5. Sally Garcia – Interference with child custody
  6. Zachary Bailey – Human trafficking, enticing of a minor for indecent purposes, and enticement of a minor for solicitation
  7. Stanson Causey – Registered sex offender, arrested for probation violation
  8. Kirk Waters – Felon in possession of a firearm
  9. Trevonte Shareef – Interference with custody and obstruction

We should note that the USMS has been accused of exaggerating its success in the past. In 2018, the USMS said they found 123 missing children in an operation in Michigan, while state police said just four of the children were actually missing, and many of them were found with their guardians.

Dave Oney, a USMS spokesperson, told us that these headlines were “misleading.” He argued that they had actually “cleared 123 cases,” and not rescued all 123 children. Many of the children reported as missing earlier had come back, he said, and the people who reported them had not updated the USMS. 

Operation Not Forgotten was a joint effort between the USMS, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia Office of the Attorney General, Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. 

According to the most recently available statistics from the FBI, there were 421,394 reported cases of missing people below the age of 18 in the U.S. in 2019. Out of those, 90 to 91% were considered endangered runaways, according to Donald Washington, director of USMS, and one in six of those endangered runaways were likely to become victims of sex trafficking.

Given that the main source of information we have about the recovery of these missing children in Georgia is from the USMS — an organization that has been accused of misrepresenting numbers in the past — and there is no proof all these children were found in one trailer, we rate this claim a “Mixture.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

背景调查:调查乔治·弗洛伊德的犯罪记录

过去的逮捕问题往往出现在那些希望使黑人在拘留期间被杀害的警官行动合理化的人中。

【宣称】

【结论】

【原文】

Snopes also has in-depth reporting on the background of Derek Chauvin, one of four former police officers charged in the case surrounding George Floyd’s death. Read that report here.

As cities worldwide erupted in protests over the death of George Floyd — a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for about nine minutes in Minneapolis — the leader of that city’s police federation sent the below-displayed email to union members. In it, he criticized journalists’ and politicians’ portrayal of the man whose death had sparked a global reckoning over racism in policing.

“What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd,” said Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Lt. Bob Kroll, who represents more than 800 police officers. “The media will not air this.”

The June 1, 2020, letter by Kroll, whom Snopes could not reach for this report, inspired a wave of claims online about Floyd’s alleged arrests and incarcerations before his death — mostly among people who seemed to be searching for evidence that either the actions by the Minneapolis police officer who choked Floyd were justified, or memorials to honor him were unnecessary.

Then, per emergency medical technicians’ and fire department personnel’s accounts of the incident, medics loaded Floyd into an ambulance, where they used a mechanical chest compression device on Floyd, though he did not regain a pulse and his condition did not change. 

It’s unclear whether at any point before or during the call the MPD officers knew of Floyd’s past arrests in Texas and, if so, whether that information at all influenced how they acted, consciously or subconsciously. MPD spokespeople did not respond to Snopes’ questions about the officers’ prior knowledge of Floyd before the call from the convenience store, nor did the department answer whether officers in general adjust their responses to 911 calls, or how they approach suspects, based on the criminal records of people involved.

Charging documents, police records and other court filings that lay out Floyd’s criminal history are all publicly available via the Harris County District Clerk online database. Additionally, according to MPD’s policy and procedure manual, which outlines everything from how officers should dress on the job to use-of-force guidelines, officers use a computerized dispatch system to handle 911 calls and often rely on computers in their squad cars to look up and document information.

All of that said, MPD Chief Medaria Arradondo said on June 10, 2020: “There is nothing in that call that should have resulted in the outcome with Mr. Floyd’s death.”

It’s an Exaggeration of Toxicology Findings To Claim Floyd Was ‘High on Meth’ When He Died

In response to one of Owens’ claims  — “George Floyd at the time of his arrest was high on fentanyl and he was high on methamphetamine” — as well as assertions by social media users who seemed to be in search of proof for why the MPD officers acted the way they did, here we unpack the results of Floyd’s autopsy report.

The claim is two-pronged: that Floyd had meth in his system and that he was high on the drug when Chauvin knelt on his neck, choking him.

Firstly, on May 29, 2020, court documents revealed the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s investigation into Floyd’s death showed “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxiation,” and that “potential intoxicants” and preexisting cardiovascular disease “likely contributed to his death.” (Note: Coronary artery disease and hypertension typically increase patients’ risk of stroke and heart attack over years, not minutes, and asphyxia, or suffocation, does not always leave physical signs, according to doctors.)

Two days later, the county released a statement that attributed Floyd’s cause of death to “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” which essentially means he died because his heart and lungs stopped while he was being restrained by police. That announcement came just hours after Floyd’s family released findings of a separate, private autopsy that determined Floyd had indeed died from a combination of Chauvin’s knee on his neck and pressure on his back from other the officers. (A copy of that autopsy with all of its details has not been made public.)

According to the county’s postmortem toxicology screening, which is summarized below and was performed one day after Floyd’s death, he was intoxicated with fentanyl and had recently used methamphetamines (as well as other substances) before Chauvin choked him.

More Specifically, Floyd tested positive for 11 ng/mL of fentanyl — which is a synthetic opioid pain reliever — and 19 ng/mL of methamphetamine, or meth, though it’s unclear by what method the intoxicants got into his bloodstream or for what reasons.

But more complex is proving whether “he was high” at the time of his fatal encounter with police. While everyone’s reaction to and tolerance for such drugs varies, and the effects of mixing drugs can be totally unpredictable, lab technicians say fentanyl slowly leaves users’ systems, mostly via urination, over the course of three days from when they first shot up. Additionally, they consider “the presence of fentanyl above 0.20 ng/mL” — which is significantly less than the amount found in Floyd’s system — to be “a strong indicator that the patient has used fentanyl,” according to Mayo Clinic Laboratories

For methamphetamines, which are typically smoked or injected, users feel an instant euphoria, and then the tapering effects of the drug last anywhere from eight to 24 hours. After that initial “rush,” the amount of meth reduces in their bloodstreams and tests for the drug can be positive for up to five days. Per the University of Rochester Medical Center, the amount of methamphetamines found in Floyd’s bloodstream (19 ng/mL or .019 mg/L) is “within the range” of some patients’ “therapeutic or prescribed use” of the drug.

Also, Hennepin County medical examiners stated Floyd’s blood levels made it seem like he had “recently” used meth in the past, not that he was peaking on a high from it, and the county investigators did not list the drugs as Floyd’s cause of death, but rather as “significant conditions” that influenced how he died. For those reasons and considering the amount of methamphetamines detected in Floyd’s toxicology report, it’s an exaggeration of the scientific evidence to claim Floyd “was high on meth” before police choked him — though his bloodstream did test positive for the drug.

But while making that analysis, it is important to consider the insight of a group of emergency room doctors and psychiatrists, who in the wake of Floyd’s death wrote in the Scientific American: “When Black people are killed by police, their character and even their anatomy is turned into justification for their killer’s exoneration. It’s a well-honed tactic.”

Furthermore, a letter on behalf of thousands of Black doctors and health care workers in America titled “The ‘Collective Black Physicians’ Statement’ on the death of Mr. George Floyd” stated:

Any mention of potential intoxicants of which Mr. Floyd may have been under the influence is meritless at this stage of the physical autopsy examination. In a medicolegal autopsy, the results of a urinary toxicology screen are often inaccurate. All substances must be detected and confirmed in blood and/or particular organs before it can be said that an individual was intoxicated and that death is a complication of that toxicity.

Floyd’s Rap Sheet and Toxicology Results Are Likely To Play a Role in Officers’ Murder Trials

We can credit history for our conclusion on this point. For example, during the murder trial of George Zimmerman — who, though not a police officer, was eventually acquitted of homicide charges in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in 2012 — reports of Martin’s alleged truancy and petty crimes made news headlines. Similarly, people called attention to the arrest record of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a white police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016, as his surviving relatives filed a wrongful death lawsuit against police and the city (which remains ongoing as of this writing).

In the latest high-profile case of deadly use of force by police, all four officers — Lane, Kueng, Chauvin and Thao — were fired from MPD the day after Floyd’s controversial killing and were criminally charged.

For 19-year MPD veteran Chauvin, 44, who faces the most severe charges of the four men, Hennepin County prosecutors initially charged him with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. But in early June, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz requested the state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over the case, Ellison upgraded those charges so the ex-MPD officer now faces a more severe charge of second-degree murder, in addition to the original charges brought forth by county prosecutors. (Read that latest complaint here.) He made his first court appearance on June 8, 2020, which was mostly procedural, and was held on $1.25 million bail.

Meanwhile, Thao, Kueng and Lane face charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, and with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s killing. (You can read the full charges against Thao here; Kueng here, and Lane here.) They made their first court appearances on June 4, 2020, where a judge set bail for each of them at $750,000 if they agreed to certain conditions, such as leaving law enforcement work and avoiding contact with Floyd’s family. One week later, Lane, 37, posted that amount and was freed from Hennepin County jail, and his attorney told the Star Tribune he was planning to file a motion to dismiss the charges.

As of this report, all four officers were scheduled to make their next court appearance June 29, 2020, and no court proceedings have focused on Floyd’s criminal history or drug use, with the exception of the charging documents that mention Hennepin County’s autopsy report and toxicology findings.

Why People Draw Attention to Criminal Histories of Black Men Who Die in Police Custody

For decades, corners of the internet and journalists have highlighted the criminal records of non-white people killed by authorities or caught in viral videos, no matter the relevancy of the rap sheets.

One of the uglier examples is the case of Charles Ramsey, a self-described “scary looking black dude” who helped rescue Amanda Berry, a Cleveland woman who had been kidnapped and held hostage for years in a home near Ramsey’s, in 2013. His interviews about the rescue spread like wildfire online, but then a local TV station aired a story on his criminal past (it was later removed and the station apologized).

More similar to the case of Floyd are the above-mentioned examples of Sterling and Martin, Black men who died at the hands of police and a neighborhood watch volunteer, respectively, and whose histories were trotted out in news stories after they died, seemingly as part of an effort to deny them martyrdom. 

Advocates for police reform say the pattern puts unjust blame on victims of police violence and distracts the public from the most important issue at the center of these incidents: Officers too often resort to violence when dealing with citizens, especially if they are Black, indigenous, or people of color.

Kevin O Cokley, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies police brutality against Black Americans, explained the psychology behind the media pattern in an email to Snopes. Of people calling attention to Floyd’s criminal past, specifically, he wrote:

It fits into what psychologists have called the just-world hypothesis, which is a cognitive bias where people believe that the world is just and orderly, and people get what they deserve. It is difficult for people to believe that bad things can happen to good people or to people who don’t deserve it. This is because if people know that these things do happen, they have to decide whether they want to do something about it or sit by silently knowing that there is injustice happening around them.

Furthermore, his colleague Richard Reddick, an associate dean in the university’s College of Education, told us in a phone interview the claims about Floyd were also a product of the era’s highly polarized media environment, compounded by years of problematic storytelling by politicians and reporters that portrays Black men only as “criminal entities” instead of nuanced people. He said:

This is something that Black men are subject to quite a bit — not often seen as complex, whole human beings, who have done wonderful things and not so great things in their lives, but simply a criminal. … This is something that seems to be very specific to Black men who are ex-judiciously murdered; we have to find a rationale, or excuse, or justification for it, no matter what it was.

In other words, he said, shifting the public narrative away from police officers’ actions and onto Floyd’s criminal history is a reoccurring communication strategy “that’s intended to make us not see him as a victim, to dehumanize him, and to make him a caricature.” People can subscribe to the “he had it coming” trope so they don’t have to feel sorry for the victim of police brutality and can deny police responsibility for their actions, Reddick said. He added:

I don’t trust the motivations of the folks bringing this forward. … Of course they’re asking, ‘Why isn’t [Floyd’s criminal history] covered in the major media?’ And it’s because it’s not relevant to this kind of story. What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis has nothing to do with what happened to him, what he did, in 2007.

To that point, Reddick said Floyd’s past arrests and incarcerations may justifiably appear in “wholesome portraits” about Floyd’s life (such as this AP story), while O Cokley said the news media should not include the background in its stories about Floyd because it “has no relevance to the officer’s behavior,” and because “there is no standardization of the inclusion of background information on stories involving victims of police misconduct.” Reddick summed up the phenomenon like this:

We shouldn’t conflate the complexity of a person’s life with an event that ended with their life being lost — those moments and that time is relevant, but not a criminal conviction from years prior because this is supposedly a country where, when you’ve served your sentence, you’re now able to go rebuild your life, as what he was trying to do.

In January 2013, after Floyd was paroled for the aggravated robbery, people who knew him said he returned to Houston’s Third Ward “with his head on right.” He organized events with local pastors, served as a mentor for people living in his public housing complex, and was affectionately called “Big Floyd” or “the O.G.” (original gangster) as a title of respect for someone who’d learned from his experiences. Then in 2014, Floyd, a father of five, decided to move to Minneapolis to find a new job and start a new chapter.

“The world knows George Floyd, I know Perry Jr.,” said Kathleen McGee, his aunt (in reference to her nickname for Floyd), at his funeral on June 9, 2020. “He was a pesky little rascal, but we all loved him.”

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.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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基督教众筹运动是否为凯尔里滕豪斯筹集资金?

里滕豪斯,17 岁,被指控杀害两人在抗议警察暴行在威斯康星州基诺沙,于 2020 年 8 月 25 日。

【宣称】

在基督教网站 GiveSendgo 的众筹活动招募捐款,以帮助凯尔·里滕豪斯,一个 17 岁的被控杀害两个人在一次抗议在威斯康星州的凯诺沙。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

After Illinois teen Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with fatally shooting two people and wounding another during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 25, 2020, Snopes received numerous inquiries from readers wondering if a self-described Christian crowdfunding website was hosting a fundraiser to supposedly help pay Rittenhouse’s legal defense.

The killings occurred during a chaotic confrontation between people protesting the Aug. 23 police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, and armed vigilantes who claimed to be patrolling the lakeside city to prevent looting and property destruction. Rittenhouse, 17, was captured in video footage carrying a military-style rifle, marching alongside members of the latter group, and putting his hands up after shots were fired. Authorities arrested him on Aug. 26 in connection with the deaths in Antioch, Illinois, where he was being held without bail and awaiting his next court hearing on Sept. 25.

The charges against Rittenhouse included first-degree intentional homicide, which carries a life sentence. The Chicago Tribune reported:

Rittenhouse’s case immediately became a popular cause in conservative circles, where pundits began defending the teenager before he had even been charged. At least two defense funds have been launched in his name in recent days, though it’s unclear if the Rittenhouse family supports either of those efforts.

That brings us to the question from Snopes readers: Was a website that brands itself as Christian called GiveSendGo hosting an apparent online fundraiser to help Rittenhouse pay court costs?

On Aug. 27 the crowdfunding site posted the following statement to Twitter:

The campaign stoked controversy online among people who believed it wrongfully celebrated the actions of an alleged killer and should be removed from the crowdfunding website. Referring to Blake, who was paralyzed from the waist down after a white police officer shot at his back multiple times on Aug. 23, one Facebook user alleged:

In response to those critics, Wells told Snopes:

We recognize that we live in a world of diverse ideas and opinions and that part of our strength is in that diversity. We will respond with grace to those that disagree with us. We will give grace to ourselves to not always get it right as we learn and grown. Finally we will give grace to the campaign owner, those that support the campaign, and Kyle as he walk out [sic] the ramifications of his actions.

In sum, given how GiveSendGo describes itself — the “#1 Free Christian Crowdfunding Site” — as well as evidence of listed donations on a webpage that says it will give all contributions to help fund Rittenhouse’s legal defense, we rate this claim “True.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

这些是凯尔里滕豪斯的父母吗?

成语 “全布” 可以追溯到 19 世纪服装卖家的虚假广告。

【宣称】

照片显示凯尔·里滕豪斯,17 岁的被控杀害两人,打伤三分之一在基诺沙,威斯康星州的抗议活动的父母。

【结论】


【原文】

In August 2020, we encountered several rumors about Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old accused of shooting and killing two people and injuring a third during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin — related to the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake.

For instance, social media users claimed that Rittenhouse once attended a rally for U.S. President Donald Trump, which is true, and that he assaulted a woman on video, which is likely, but unproven. On Sept. 1, we came across another rumor involving a meme that supposedly showed Rittenhouse’s parents:

The people in the above-displayed image are not Rittenhouse’s parents. 

The image on the left has been online since at least July 7, 2020, when it was shared on the “Video’s and Memes” Facebook page along with derogatory remarks about the pictured individual. A few days later, the image was shared to the “Geezer Board” and the “Thanks I Hate It” section of Reddit. None of those early postings identified the individual in this image. The claim that it showed Rittenhouse’s father was seemingly pulled out of thin air in the days following the shooting. 

The claim that the image on the right shows Rittenhouse’s mother is equally baseless. This image first started going viral when it was attached to the claim that it showed Rittenhouse’s mother after she drove her son to the protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This image, however, was taken the night prior to the deadly shooting, and shows a woman in Madison, Wisconsin.  

The photographer provided some additional details about this image on Twitter:

The original photograph was first posted online without any information about the person’s identity. After the shooting, social media users started to claim that it pictured Rittenhouse’s mother, but offered nothing in terms of proof. This claim, again, appears to have been made up out of whole cloth. 

The photograph supposedly showing Rittenhouse’s mother is often shared along with the claim that she drove her son to the protest on the night of the shooting. But we have not been able to find any credible reporting to support this claim. In fact, a statement from Rittenhouse’s lawyers disputes this idea, noting that “Kyle and a friend armed themselves with rifles due to the deadly violence gripping Kenosha and many other American cities, and headed to the business premises.”

In summation, there is no evidence to support the claim that the above-displayed images show Rittenhouse’s parents. This claim is based on unfounded assumptions, and the “identity” of these people was only noted after Rittenhouse’s name made headlines.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

疾控中心是否 “悄悄地更新” COVID-19 死亡说只有 6% 是合法的?

一个谣言低估致命病毒的严重性是由包括美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在内的一群人推动的

【宣称】

疾控中心在 2020 年夏季 “悄悄更新” 了其 COVID-19 死亡率统计数据,显示之前报告的死亡人数中只有 6% 是由冠状病毒造成的,而其余 94% 死于先前存在的健康状况。

【结论】


【原文】

As governments fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Snopes is fighting an “infodemic” of rumors and misinformation, and you can help. Read our coronavirus fact checks. 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 attempt to ring the alarm on supposed deceptive practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hard-line conservatives including U.S. President Donald Trump promoted the idea in August 2020 that the public health agency suddenly changed its methods for reporting COVID-19 mortality statistics.

And as a result, viral social media posts alleged, America only tallied about 9,000 COVID-19 fatalities, or roughly 6% of the more than 150,000 deaths widely reported by politicians, scientists, and news reporters.

Many believers, including conspiracy theorist Jeff Berwick, dubbed the alleged change by the CDC evidence that people other than his followers were exaggerating the seriousness of the pandemic, and that everyone should be skeptical of rules on social distancing that halt the economy. In a Sept. 1 video, for example, he said: “It’s been proven by the CDC — [the pandemic] is nothing, it was absolutely nothing. Zero. 9,000 people? That’s nothing.”

The death certification statistics, in short, prove that people with preexisting health problems — such as asthma or hypertension — face higher risk for serious illness, or dying, if they’re infected with COVID-19, according to Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS. He said in a statement to NBC News: “These data are consistent with CDC guidance that those with underlying medical conditions are at greater risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19.”

Additionally, Fauci explained the phenomena in a Sept. 1 interview on the ABC program “Good Morning America:

The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of [COVID-19 deaths] had nothing else but just COVID. That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19 — they did. So the numbers that you’ve been hearing — the 180,000-plus deaths — are real deaths from COVID-19. …It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Next, we found data to address another aspect of the fringe theory: that the “overwhelming majority” of reported COVID-19 deaths were among people of a “very advanced age.” For the purpose of this report, we considered that group to be people aged 85 or older. And according to the CDC death certificate data, 53,000 documents for that population listed COVID-19 as a potential cause of death, accounting for about one-third of the total, or less than the majority.

We should note here: Epidemiologists and health officials have been up front with the fact that COVID-19 patients who are older — as well as those who have underlying health problems — are at greater risk for serious problems.

“As you get older, your risk of being hospitalized for COVID-19 increases. Everyone, especially older adults and others at increased risk of severe illness, should take steps to protect themselves from getting COVID-19,” according to the CDC. Eight out of 10 people who have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S. were over the age of 65, per the agency’s data.

Lastly, we looked for any evidence to confirm or deny that the CDC attempted to “quietly” adjust its mortality statistics under the public’s radar. Bob Anderson, lead mortality statistician at NCHS, told NBC News in a statement the death certificate data does “not represent new information as NCHS has been publishing this same information since the outset when we began posting data on COVID-19 deaths on our web site.” 

In sum, considering the way in which the coronavirus impacts the human body, the way the CDC compiles data from death certificates — listing comorbidities that were either developed or exacerbated by COVID-19  — as well as the fact that one-third of COVID-19 fatalities were people aged 85, we rate this claim “False.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

凯尔里滕豪斯在这段视频中打了一个女人吗?

在威斯康星州 Kenosha 战斗的视频,据称显示 17 岁的被控杀害两个人抗议袭击一名妇女。

【宣称】

一个视频显示凯尔·里滕豪斯,17 岁的被控杀害两人在威斯康星州基诺沙抗议,拳打一个女人。

【结论】

未经证实

【原文】

On Aug. 29, 2020, a video supposedly showing Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old accused of shooting and killing two people and injuring another during a protest related to the shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin — punching a woman. The video was widely circulated on social media:

New video of Kyle Rittenhouse the murderer. Here he is beating up a woman on camera. But yea he is a good kid because he was “ Cleaning up graffiti “ Get that shit out here. pic.twitter.com/KzxQmxwohn

— BlackCultureEntertainment? (@4TheCulture____) August 29, 2020

Then, on Aug. 29, 2020, two videos started circulating on social media that supposedly showed Rittenhouse involved in a fight in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The videos were originally shared by Reese Granville and CJ Wakefield, two residents of Kenosha, and shows an altercation that took place about two months prior on July 1. Rittenhouse did not live in Kenosha, but he did live about 20 miles away in Antioch, Illinois.

Kenosha News reports:

At that point, the males filming — identified on Facebook as Reese Granville and Cj Wakefield, both of Kenosha — and several others jump out of their respective vehicles and run in.

Granville confirmed to The Journal Times the date and location of the fight. Videos on Facebook show that Wakefield also was at protests in Downtown Kenosha this past week. Both Granville and Wakefield have said, based on what they witnessed and recorded, that the person throwing punches in their videos is Rittenhouse.

Both of the individuals who posted videos of this fight identified the person in the red and blue shorts as Rittenhouse. However, it doesn’t appear that these individuals recognized Rittenhouse at the time, and only noticed the similarities when Rittenhouse made headlines following the shooting on Aug. 25, 2020. Granville, for example, told The Journal Times that he started filming when he noticed an altercation as he was driving by, and that he didn’t know what caused the fight:

Granville told The Journal Times in a message that he doesn’t know what led to the fight. He said he was just driving past, saw what was going on and started recording.

The individuals who recorded this footage, as well as a number of social media users, did highlight some circumstantial evidence that the man in the video was indeed Rittenhouse. For instance, social media users pointed to a photograph of Rittenhouse holding a gun and wearing American flag clogs, the same shoes that can apparently be seen in the video:

Comparing visuals from the video and known photographs of Rittenhouse also seems to show that this is the same person. Of course, more than one person can own the same style of shoe, and identifying a person based solely on visual comparisons isn’t always accurate.

To sum things up, videos taken in July 2020 appear to show Rittenhouse punching a woman during an altercation in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Both videographers identified Rittenhouse as the man in the red and blue shorts. However, this identification appears to be based on visual comparisons and circumstantial evidence, so while this video most likely shows Rittenhouse, we can’t say with certainty that this isn’t another person who resembles the 17-year-old accused of shooting and killing two people at a protest.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

卡马拉哈里斯是否支持堕胎直到分娩?

民主党副总统候选人的支持堕胎权的记录已经受到保守派的审查。

【宣称】

美国参议员卡马拉·哈里斯,D-加利福尼亚州,支持进行堕胎直到妇女分娩的能力。

【结论】

混合物

【原文】

Debates surrounding abortion frequently resurface around presidential election season, and 2020 was no different. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif, has been touted as a pro-abortion-rights advocate based on her record of supporting legislation focused on increasing abortion access across the U.S.

Conservative media like The Federalist and Life News have scrutinized Harris’ record for this very reason and have argued that she supports abortions until birth, or “late-term” abortions. Snopes readers also shared the below image with us, asking us to investigate whether Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Harris, his vice-presidential running mate, were in favor of an abortion minutes before a baby’s birth.

We learned that while Harris has not explicitly stated that she supports abortion until the moment of birth, she has advocated for policies that allow for late-term abortions, primarily when the mother’s life is at risk.

This issue was presented to Harris back in February 2019, when conservative news outlet The Daily Caller asked various Democratic senators “if there was a point at which [abortion] would be considered immoral.” Harris did not offer a direct answer, instead saying: “I think it’s up to a woman to make that decision, and I will always stand by that […] I think she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her priest, with her spouse.”

We should note a key distinction here is the WHPA’s effort to stop post-viability bans. As defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, bans on post-viability abortions must make exceptions for when the woman’s health and life are at risk. This distinction implies that proponents of this bill support certain post-viability abortions in situations where giving birth may harm the woman’s health. It is clear from the language in the WHPA that post-viability abortions should be allowed when the life of the woman is at risk.

Conservatives’ emphasis on Harris’ and Biden’s possible support for “late-term” abortions is also misleading. No precise medical or legal definition exists for “late-term” abortions, though they are generally understood to take place around the 21st or 24th week of gestation, which is the second trimester of pregnancy. Some doctors and scientists have called the terminology surrounding “late-term” abortions deceptive, saying the phrase implies these abortions are taking place when a woman has reached or passed what’s considered a full-term pregnancy, which often starts in the 37th week. 

Such abortions are also rare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found in a 2016 report that two-thirds of abortions were performed at less than or at eight weeks of gestation, while only 1.2 percent of abortions performed were at or more than 21 weeks’ gestation, according to the latest information available.

Biden, for the record, also has not explicitly stated support for “late-term” abortions but has called for making the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision federal law. As mentioned earlier, the High Court supports abortions late into pregnancy only if the mother’s life is at risk. 

Snopes reached out to Harris’ and Biden’s press teams for comment. We will update this post if more information becomes available.

Given Harris’ support for an individual’s right to choose when to terminate a pregnancy, combined with her backing legislation that seeks to prevent restrictions on post-viability abortions, it is possible that she supports abortion at any time before birth. In accordance with the Supreme Court ruling, Harris does support an abortion closer to the birth of a child only if the birth posed a risk to the mother’s health. Furthermore, Harris has not explicitly stated her support for abortions at any time before birth. We therefore rate the truth of this claim as a “Mixture.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

特朗普有没有说女人,“你必须对待 ‘时间像低潮’?

关于总统过去的宣告的声称重新出现在 2020 年 8 月,当乔·拜登命名卡马拉·哈里斯为他的跑步伴侣。

【宣称】

1992 年,唐纳德·特朗普被引述女人的话,“你必须像狗屎一样对待他们。”

【结论】

正确归因

【原文】

In August 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden named U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris made history as the first woman of color on a major-party presidential ticket, and would break further ground if elected on Nov. 3, 2020, becoming the first woman to assume the office of U.S. vice president.

In response, critics of President Donald Trump again turned their attentions to his history of making demeaning and disrespectful statements toward and about women. In particular, internet users widely shared the following quotation, attributed to Trump: “You have to treat ’em like shit.”

On August 12, the author Stephen King tweeted: “Trump on women, in 1992: ‘You have to treat ’em like shit.’”

Trump on women, in 1992: “You have to treat ’em like shit.”

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 12, 2020

Later in the article, Baumgold describes a car journey to Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the company of Trump and the renowned architect Philip Johnson, whom Trump had asked to redesign part of the casino (emphasis added):

Philip Johnson looks at his watch. He is going to Berlin this evening to design a building at Checkpoint Charlie. Trump is talking about women and says, “You have to treat ’em like s—.” “You’d make a good mafioso,” says Johnson. “One of the greatest,” says Donald as the car glides through the protected pinelands into the corrupted city.

Baumgold’s article then recounts Trump’s discussion of the recent conviction of boxer Mike Tyson, who was found guilty of raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington and given a 10-year prison sentence, with four years suspended, in March 1992:

Donald is discussing his buddy Mike Tyson. Tyson told Trump the woman who put him in jail “wanted it real bad.” Trump feels Tyson is doing time on a bad rap: “She knocked on his door at 1am and was up and dancing at eight the next morning.” This speech is another of the set pieces he is so fond of delivering. When he defended Tyson and suggested a payoff and community service for the champ, his mother got so angry she raised her voice to him for the first time in his 46 years.

We could not find any record of Trump having denied that he said of women, “you have to treat them like shit.” Snopes asked both the White House and Trump’s reelection campaign if he now denied having made those remarks, but we did not receive a response from either in time for publication.

Interestingly, a letter to the editor appeared in New York magazine a few weeks after Baumgold’s article, purportedly written by Trump’s secretary and offering a firm defense of him. In the Dec. 7, 1992, issue (on page 11), a “Carolin Gallego” wrote:

Based on the fact that I work for Donald Trump as his secretary — and therefore know him well — I think he treats women with great respect, contrary to what Julie Baumgold implied in her article “Fighting Back” [November 9.] No man that I have seen has given women a greater opportunity in business. The real-estate, construction, and gaming industries are awash with successful women who got their big break from Donald Trump. Likewise, women adore him. I do not believe any man in America gets more calls from women wanting to see him, meet him, or go out with him. The most beautiful women, the most successful women — all women love Donald Trump.

Carolin Gallego

Manhattan

In 2017, when New York reprinted the Gallego letter in the magazine’s 50th anniversary issue, several internet users speculated that it may have been bogus or written by Trump himself. Several journalists have over the years attested that Trump had a habit of boosting his own reputation in conversations with reporters, while posing as publicists named “John Miller” or “John Baron.” In a sworn deposition in 1990, Trump himself admitted to having used the name “John Baron” in the past.

In one recorded conversation from 1991, “John Miller” told a reporter for People magazine that Trump “gets called by everybody, he gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women” — a remarkably similar formula of words to the one used by “Carolin Gallego” in the December 1992 letter to New York magazine.

The use of repetition, superlatives, and hyperbole seen in the Gallego letter (“The most beautiful women, the most successful women — all women love Donald Trump”) are also characteristic of Trump’s own patterns of speech and writing. Washingtonian magazine reported in 2017 that they had been unable to locate or identify any woman named Carolin Gallego who worked as Trump’s secretary, noting that the future president’s long-time secretary was Norma Foerderer, who was replaced in that role by Rhona Graff in 2005. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen told the magazine he did not recognize the name Carolin Gallego.

We asked the White House and Trump’s reelection campaign if he denied having written the Gallego letter or having asked someone else to write it on his behalf, but we did not receive a response from either in time for publication.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

这是 ‘特朗普军’ 筹款电子邮件真的吗?

特朗普运动于 2020 年 3 月推出了 “军队为特朗普” 网站。

【宣称】

图片显示了一封为特朗普活动筹款电子邮件,要求人们加入 “特朗普军队” 去打击 “自由党”。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

In June 2020, an image supposedly showing a fundraising email for U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in which people were urged to join the “Trump Army” in order to fight the “liberal MOB” started to circulate on social media:

This is a genuine fundraising email for the Trump campaign. The above-displayed image was originally shared on Twitter by Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter with The Washington Post. Blake forwarded a copy of this email to us so that we could verify that this message was truly sent by an email address ([email protected]) connected to Trump’s re-election bid

The email featured a link to a WinRed URL, a fundraising platform endorsed by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, which contained a similar message informing people that they could receive a “Camo Keep America Great” hat by joining the Trump Army. The WinRed site stated that all donations will benefit the “Trump Make America Great Again Committee,” one of the campaign’s fundraising committees:

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a statement calling this fundraising email “appalling”:

“It’s appalling to see President Trump’s reelection campaign trying to exploit our nation’s crisis during these trying times and incite division. The campaign is not only taking advantage of people’s current fears and insecurities, but, by using language that pins Americans against each other, they are inciting violence against the same people Trump swore to serve.”

While many people encountered the “Trump Army” for the first time due to Blake’s tweet on June 4, 2020, this is not the first time that this language has accompanied a fundraising email for the Trump campaign. The Twitter account @TrumpEmail, a social media account that archives Trump fundraising emails, shared a similar message that was sent out circa May 5, 2020.

That message read, in part:

“The Trump Army is made up of the President’s fiercest defenders who are willing to go to battle with the Left-wing MOB whenever they come after us. Just take a look at everything they’ve fought for so far:”

After Blake’s tweet went viral, @TrumpEmail reported that they had received at least four emails containing the words “Trump Army” since March 2020:

On March 2, 2020, the Trump Campaign put out a press release announcing the launch of Army for Trump, “a website dedicated to recruiting and mobilizing Americans across the country who are committed to fighting to re-elect President Trump.” While the Army for Trump website does use some military terms (they ask supporters to “enlist” for campaign updates, instead of “join” or “register”), the website’s main objective is to “provide a one-stop online destination to get involved with President Trump’s re-election campaign, allowing people to become a volunteer or activist in communities throughout the country.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

Antifa.com 是否重定向到拜登的官方活动网站?

如果这是一个恶作剧,这不会是政治家第一次以这种方式成为目标。

【宣称】

URL antifa.com 自动重定向到美国民主党总统候选人乔·拜登的官方竞选网站。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

Shortly after presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, Snopes readers asked us to verify a number of rumors and claims surrounding the Democratic ticket and their respective campaigns. Among them was the question of whether the URL antifa.com automatically redirects to the official campaign website of Biden and Harris.

A quick search by Snopes confirmed this rumor to be based in truth (our initial search from Aug. 12, 2020, is recorded in the video clip shown below). As of that date, the URL redirected internet users to joebiden.com. However, by the next day (Aug. 13), the antifa.com site and its redirect had been removed entirely. Since our initial publication of this story, the antifa.com redirect continued to change, pointing users once again to the official Biden campaign website at some point in late August 2020, according to readers. On Aug. 25, the URL redirected at least some users to a site called It’s Going Down (itsgoingdown.org), which described itself as a “community center for anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements.” By Aug. 31, the antifa.com URL once again redirected the majority of users to joebiden.com. There was no apparent link between either of the websites and the Biden campaign.

Snopes contacted the Biden campaign for comment regarding any potential involvement with the redirect but did not hear back at the time of publication. In an Aug. 31Tweet, Rob Flaherty, digital director for the Biden campaign, denied involvement with the redirect and blamed it on internet trolls.

So whoever owns //t.co/HgEpqQ9MqZ is redirecting it to our website as a troll. What we do know was that the website was registered with a Russian registrar for a while. Odd!

The VP very obviously has/wants nothing to do with fringe groups. Wish Trump could say the same.

— Rob Flaherty (@Rob_Flaherty) August 31, 2020

Flaherty also noted that antifa.com was registered to an entity located in Russia, which is partly true. An investigation of internet domain search engine Whoxy confirmed that antifa.com was previously registered through a domain privacy service located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, but a cross-reference with WhoIs, an online domain registry record found that the URL was registered in Panama as of Sept. 1.

Rumored associations with the political protest movement antifa, short for anti-fascists, have plagued Biden’s campaign. In June 2020, the politician was falsely accused of having called the far-left network a “courageous group of Americans.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, antifa is not a unified group but rather a “loose collection of local/regional groups and individuals” that many civil rights organizations have deemed “dangerous and counterproductive” for their use or endorsement of intimidation and violence.

As of the most recent update of this article, it is unknown who implemented the web redirect. Anyone who owns or has access to a domain can establish either a temporary or permanent URL redirect, which essentially tells a search engine that the page has moved. As such, a redirect simply directs site visitors to a different URL when they click a particular link, according to website hosting platform Squarespace.

According to Whois, antifa.com was registered on April 24, 2002, and was last updated on Oct. 23, 2019. We dug through the internet archives to establish a timeline of the domain in order to determine when the redirect was created. Here’s what we found:

  • The earliest archive of the URL listed the domain as for sale on Nov. 21, 2008. The domain remained available for sale until Jan. 30, 2020, according to our analysis of the archives.
  • The first archived version of the URL that directly associates it to the antifa political group is dated May 31, 2020.
  • On July 23, 2020, the most recent version of the “antifa” website was available with a note that an updated website would be coming soon.
  • An Aug. 12, 2020, archived version of antifa.com confirmed that a redirect from antifa.com had been established to send users to the joebiden.com official campaign website (see below). At this time, the URL redirected internet users to joebiden.com. Later on Aug. 12, antifa.com showed a “500 — Internal Server Error” message. At that time, the website was listed as unavailable.

  • At the time of this story’s initial publication (Aug. 13), the antifa.com site and its redirect had been removed.
  • Starting Aug. 21, antifa.com started redirecting to kamalaharris.org, which itself had already been redirecting to joebiden.com since Aug. 12.
  • On Aug. 25, the joebiden.com URL redirected at least some users to a site called It’s Going Down (itsgoingdown.org), a self-described anarchist website.
  • By Aug. 31, antifa.com once again redirected most users to the official Biden campaign website.

It’s not the first time Biden’s website has been the target of internet hoaxes. In 2019, Republican consulting firm Vici Media Group created joebiden.info, a mock website for the presidential hopeful that featured pictures, videos, and animated GIFs of Biden appearing to kiss and touch young women and girls. The marketing group also created fake websites for other Democratic candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

这段视频是否显示拜登在接受采访时睡着了?

被操纵的剪辑由特朗普总统的社交媒体总监分享。

【宣称】

一个视频显示了 2020 年美国民主党总统提名乔·拜登在电视直播采访期间睡着了。

【结论】


【原文】

On Aug. 31, 2020, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media Dan Scavino posted a manipulated video that supposedly showed 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden falling asleep during a live television interview:

pic.twitter.com/wyeAO5cAAd

— Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) August 30, 2020

The video of Belafonte comes from an appearance the then-84-year-old singer made on KBAK, a California television station, in October 2011. After the video went viral, Belafonte’s spokesperson released a statement blaming the singer’s “nap” on a technical glitch. The spokesperson said that Belefonte’s earpiece wasn’t working and that the singer was meditating while the issue was being worked out:

“After weeks of literally hundreds of interviews promoting his HBO documentary, memoir and CD, Mr. Belafonte had an early morning satellite TV tour this past Friday. True to form, there was a technical glitch in the feed to a local station in Bakersfield, CA. His earpiece wasn’t working, so he decided to take the time to mediate before the rest of his Day-O. Mr. Belafonte is 84 years young, but sharper and more awake than most who have been interviewing him. Maybe the world would be a better place if more people took a moment to meditate.”

Here’s the video from 2011:

The clip of Biden comes from the 2020 Democratic National Convention. The manipulated footage appears to show Biden sleeping, but it’s clear in the original footage that Biden was never actually asleep.

The segment used in the manipulated footage comes from the moment during the DNC in which former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed Biden for president. In the full video from C-SPAN, Biden can be seen momentarily looking downward, but it doesn’t appear that he ever actually falls asleep.

The video shared by Scavino loops together a few seconds of footage from this video in which Biden either has his eyes closed or is looking downward and then plays it beneath unrelated audio of a person snoring.

Although Scavino did help spread this manipulated footage, he didn’t create it. It appears that this video was created by Twitter user @damonimani. When @damonimani was asked if this video was real on Twitter, he replied that it was “technically” real:

We’re not sure how taking footage of someone who momentarily had their eyes closed, falsely claiming that they were sleeping, placing that footage into unrelated context, creating fake chyrons, adding a snoring sound effect, and then presenting the altered video as if it showed someone “taking a little nap” during a live TV interview could be considered a genuine reflection of reality, technically speaking.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

雅各布·布莱克被指控强奸一个孩子吗?

在线评论员和社交媒体用户试图破坏由警方枪击布雷克在威斯康星州于 2020 年 8 月引发的抗议活动。

【宣称】

雅各布·布莱克曾被指控在威斯康星州强奸一名儿童,于 2020 年 8 月被威斯康星州的 Kenosha 开枪。

【结论】


【原文】

On Aug. 23, 2020, a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake several times in the back during an encounter that was recorded on cellphone video. Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was left paralyzed by the shooting, his family’s attorney told reporters.

The shooting prompted widespread outrage and sparked three successive nights of protest in Kenosha and other U.S. cities, adding to an existing wave of renewed protest over racial injustice and police brutality that followed the death in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. 

Some online commentators and social media users sought to justify Blake’s shooting and/or undermine the legitimacy of protests surrounding it. As part of that effort, a rumor emerged in the days after the shooting that claimed Blake had been charged with a sexual assault offense that involved sexual penetration of a minor between 14 and 16 years old, and that he was therefore a “child rapist” and “pedophile.” Others alleged specifically that Blake had “raped a 14 year old girl” and “raped a child.”

Many of those social media posts featured a graphic that comprised what appeared to be a list of charges against a defendant named Jacob S. Blake, including “third degree sexual assault,” juxtaposed with what appeared to be a definition of “third degree sexual assault” taken from a statute. The definition stated that:

“A person is guilty of third degree sexual assault if he or she is over the age of eighteen (18) years and engaged in sexual penetration with another person over the age of fourteen (14) years and under the age of consent, sixteen (16) years of age.”

In Wisconsin, third-degree sexual assault is covered under Section 940.225(3)(a) of the Wisconsin Statutes, which states that: “Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person without the consent of that person is guilty of a Class G felony.”

Whoever created the widely shared graphic therefore took a screenshot of an authentic list of charges against Blake, including third-degree sexual assault, but juxtaposed it with an excerpt from the laws of a different state, in order to give readers the entirely false impression that Blake had been accused of committing an act of sexual penetration against a child. He had not. Claims that Blake was a “child rapist” and had “raped a child” were therefore baseless.

A search of Blake’s name in Wisconsin Circuit Court records revealed only child support disputes and a June 2018 conviction in Racine County on a charge of operating a vehicle without being in possession of a driver’s license, which is not a criminal offense and was resolved with a fine. Blake is not listed on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Sex Offender Registry.

In September 2015, the Racine County Eye reported that Blake had been arrested after brandishing a gun at a bar in Racine, and that officers required the assistance of a police dog when Blake allegedly refused to comply with their orders. He was charged with several offenses, including: felony resisting arrest “causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer”; carrying a firearm while intoxicated; and endangering safety by the use of a dangerous weapon.

However, Blake was never tried or convicted on those charges, and in August 2020, the Racine County Eye reported that the charges appear to have been dismissed at the urging of the prosecutor and no longer appear in public court records.  

Similarly, Blake has not been tried or convicted on the charges he faced in July 2020, including third-degree sexual assault, and he has not yet entered a plea in that case. Thus, social media posts that described Blake as a “convicted sex offender” and “convicted rapist” were inaccurate at the time they were posted.

On Aug. 24, 2020, retired police officer and right-wing commentator Brandon Tatum published a widely shared tweet in which he labeled Blake a “domestic abuser and sex offender” and included a screenshot of the 2015 Racine County Eye article, adding the claim that Blake was “known for pulling guns on people.” As of Aug. 26, 2020, Blake had not yet even entered a plea in relation to the domestic abuse and sexual assault charges against him, not to mention being tried or convicted on them, and the latter accusation had to do with charges that were dropped by the prosecutor in the case.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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加利福尼亚民主党是否提出了 “保护强奸儿童的恋童癖者” 的 LGBTQ 法案?

加利福尼亚州参议院提出的一项法案将让法院酌情决定犯有涉及未成年人的特定性犯罪的个人是否必须登记为性犯罪者。

【宣称】

加利福尼亚州参议院第 145 号法案将保护强奸儿童的恋童癖者不必登记为性犯罪者。

【结论】

大多是假的

【原文】

In January 2019, California state senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill (SB-145) that would modify the state penal code to allow certain individuals convicted of sex offenses involving minors to apply for discretionary relief from having to register as sex offenders.

Under current California law, all persons found guilty of having non-forcible oral or anal intercourse with a minor are automatically required to register after serving time. The revised statute would leave that requirement to a judge’s discretion “if, at the time of the offense, the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor, as measured from the minor’s date of birth to the person’s date of birth.”

The aim of the bill, according to a press release from Wiener’s office, is to redress the disparity between how heterosexual and LGBT offenders are treated under the existing law:

Currently, for consensual yet illegal sexual relations between a teenager age 15 and over and a partner within 10 years of age, “sexual intercourse” (i.e., vaginal intercourse) does not require the offender to go onto the sex offender registry; rather, the judge decides based on the facts of the case whether sex offender registration is warranted or unwarranted. By contrast, for other forms of intercourse — specifically, oral and anal intercourse — sex offender registration is mandated under all situations, with no judicial discretion.

This distinction in the law — which is irrational, at best — disproportionately targets LGBT young people for mandatory sex offender registration, since LGBT people usually cannot engage in vaginal intercourse. For example, if an 18 year old straight man has vaginal intercourse with his 17 year old girlfriend, he is guilty of a crime, but he is not automatically required to register as a sex offender; instead, the judge will decide based on the facts of the case whether registration is warranted. By contrast, if an 18 year old gay man has sex with his 17 year old boyfriend, the judge *must* place him on the sex offender registry, no matter what the circumstances.

A 21 February 2019 article on The Washington Pundit website put a decidedly different spin on the proposal. That article, entitled “CA Democrats Introduce LGBTQ Bill that would Protect Pedophiles who Rape Children,” claimed:

SB-145 would allow a sex offender who lures a minor with the intent to commit a felony (i.e. a sex act) the ability to escape registering as a sex offender as long as the offender is within 10 years of age of the minor.

SB-145 would add a section to the state’s penal code (Section 290.55) stipulating that as long as the offender is “not more than 10 years older than the minor,” they are not automatically mandated to register as a sex offender. There is no age limit or range specified, except for existing law which already excludes lewd acts with children under 14.

SB-145 appears to allow adults to victimize minors by luring them with the intent to have sex, and then shields the predator from being automatically registered as a sex offender, as in the case of a 25 year old luring a 15 year old for sex, or a 22 year old luring a 12 year old.

SB-145, as currently written, appears to allow certain sexual predators to live among the population without anyone being aware.

“The bill does not apply to anyone under 14 years old,” Ruiz-Cornejo said when we showed him the passage. “Nor does the bill shield anyone, it simply grants the judge discretion.” (The Washington Pundit deleted the example and noted the correction after we contacted them to point out its inaccuracy.)

Finally, the sentence “SB-145, as currently written, appears to allow certain sexual predators to live among the population without anyone being aware” simply repeats the erroneous claim that discretionary relief will be granted to sexual predators.

We sought comment on the discrepancies in the article from The Washington Pundit’s publisher, who defended the website’s overall characterization of the bill. “By eliminating the different treatments for vaginal vs oral and anal assaults, it doesn’t change the nature of the bill,” he said in an email. “It actually expands on it and applies more protection to the pedophile. (Our definition of pedophile is an adult who sexually preys on children).”

He also stood by the claim that the bill would “protect pedophiles who rape children,” citing California’s age-of-consent law as a reason to ignore the distinction between forcible rape and “consensual” sex acts such as those that fall under the heading of statutory rape:

When an adult takes advantage of the innocence of a child, they are raping them. That’s why we don’t believe in having consensual sex with a drunk, adult woman. She may have consented but she wasn’t in the right state of mind to give actual consent. When a guy knowingly has sex with a drunk woman, he knows she isn’t in her normal state of mind. We believe any pursuit to engage in sexual acts that isn’t respectful and misleading the woman’s or child’s state of mind is immoral and equal to rape. Now, your definition of rape may be different. According to our definition, and the definition of our audience, it fits the description of rape. The title is not misleading. The title may be interpreted differently depending on who is reading it.

On 4 March 2019, Wiener’s office issued an amended version of SB-145 to clarify its intent and allay public confusion about which types of offenses are and are not included in the bill. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Public Safety and a hearing was set for 2 April.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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卡马拉·哈里斯是否与威利·布朗有婚外婚姻关系,提升了她的职业生涯?

哈里斯很久以前就远离了自己的关系。

【宣称】

副总统提名人卡马拉·哈里斯与前旧金山市长和国会议长威利·布朗有婚外关系,后者给予她两个政治任命,启动了她的政治生涯。

【结论】

混合物

【原文】

On Aug. 11, 2020, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, selected U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as his running mate. Harris, who is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, made history as the first woman of color nominated as vice president on a major party ticket.

Predictably, the internet lit up with rumors about Harris, who has been married to her husband, attorney Douglas Emhoff, since 2014. Snopes readers asked about articles and memes circulating on social media stating that years prior, Harris had an “extramarital” affair with former San Francisco Mayor and California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, with some claiming that Harris’ political success was achieved by being Brown’s so-called mistress.

A tawdry headline from Teaparty.org story read, “Flashback: Kamala Harris Launched Her Political Career In Bedroom As Mistress Of Married Mayor Willie Brown.”

Here’s an example of a meme circulating on Facebook, which appears to have been generated during Harris’ run in the presidential primaries:

These narratives are misleading by way of exaggeration. Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s, but Brown had been estranged from his wife since 1981. Brown did appoint Harris to two political posts in 1994 while he served as Speaker of the California Assembly, but that was years before Harris won her first election in 2003. She was already working as an assistant district attorney in Alameda County when she took on the appointments.

It’s never been a secret Harris dated Brown in the mid-1990s, although it may not be well known outside political circles in California. Brown addressed their past relationship in a terse piece published by the San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 26, 2019, a day before Harris officially launched her presidential campaign:

Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker.

And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco. I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians.

The history of the relationship and political appointments Brown gave Harris have also been reported in California-based news outlets for years. Los Angeles Magazine reported in 2019:

Willie Brown was a fixture in California politics for years, serving as speaker of the state assembly for 15 years, and known as something of an unofficial deal-maker and influencer. He first met Harris in 1994, when she was an assistant district attorney in Alameda County. He was 60 years old at the time, and had been estranged from his wife, Blanche Brown, since 1981.

In his capacity as speaker, Brown appointed Harris to two political positions. The first was a six-month appointment to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board; the second was a role on the Medical Assistance Commission, a body tasked with negotiating contracts to control Medi-Cal costs. At the time, Brown had a reputation for filling many openings with his personal associates and inner circle; when Harris vacated the Appeals Board gig, he replaced her with his longtime buddy Philip S. Ryan.

Harris ended the relationship–which was conducted in the open and frequently reported on at the time–in late 1995, shortly before Brown was sworn in for his first of two terms as mayor of San Francisco.

Harris didn’t run for political office until well after her relationship with Brown ended. In 2003, she made a successful bid for the office of San Francisco district attorney, a position she held until she was elected to serve as the attorney general of California, taking office in 2011. She held that post until she was elected in 2016 to serve in the United States Senate representing the state of California.

Harris has been beset by allegations that Brown influenced her career for years. At the time of her first run for office for San Francisco district attorney, SF Weekly quoted Harris distancing herself from Brown:

I refuse to design my campaign around criticizing Willie Brown for the sake of appearing to be independent when I have no doubt that I am independent of him — and that he would probably right now express some fright about the fact that he cannot control me.

His career is over; I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing.

In regards to the political appointments, Harris went on to state:

These jobs were created before I was born. Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work. I worked hard to keep St. Luke’s Hospital [in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood] open. I brought a level of life knowledge and common sense to the jobs. I mean, if you were asked to be on a board that regulated medical care, would you say no

It’s true that Harris dated Brown between 1994 and 1995. During that time, when he was serving as speaker of the California assembly, Brown gave Harris two political appointments. Although it’s true that Brown was married at that time, the relationship was no secret, since Brown had long been separated from his wife. All of Harris’ electoral victories occurred years after her relationship with Brown ended. We rate this claim “Mixture,” because while there are elements of objective fact — Brown and Harris dated, Brown appointed Harris to two posts — other elements are sensationalized and misleading.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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刑事司法活动家唐娜·希尔顿在民主全国大会上发言吗?

在网上传播的传言说,Hylton 被判定犯有 1985 年可怕的谋杀罪并被监禁数十年,在 DNC 发表讲话。

【宣称】

唐娜·希尔顿,谁被判定 1985 年绑架,酷刑和谋杀一个房地产经纪人,在民主国民大会于 2020 年 8 月发表讲话。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) took place in mid-August 2020, featuring a range of activists and political leaders over the span of four days. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is set to face off against U.S. President Donald Trump in the November election, and the lists of participants for the national conventions on both sides have been subject to scrutiny.

Rumors circulated online that Donna Hylton, a formerly incarcerated woman and criminal justice activist, had spoken at the DNC. Right wing media like Fox News picked up the story, critiquing the choice of including Hylton. We learned that Hylton did participate in the opening video of the DNC, but was not a featured speaker.

In the video, titled “We the People,” Hylton appears in a montage alongside community leaders, actors, sports figures, politicians, and activists like Dolores Huerta, Daniel Dae Kim, Megan Rapinoe, and Biden. They recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, interspersed with images of other Americans. Hylton can be seen at the 1:08 mark in the video, standing alone, and saying “promote the general welfare.” 

She had been the subject of controversy before when she was included as a speaker for the 2017 Women’s March. We covered her background and criminal history here.

Hylton took part in the 1985 kidnapping, torture, and murder of 62-year-old real estate broker and alleged con man Thomas Vigliarolo. She was one of seven people who drugged and kidnapped Vigliarolo and held him captive for two to three weeks while he was starved, burned, beaten, tortured, and found in a trunk after being asphyxiated.

Hylton received a sentence of 25 years to life on kidnapping and second-degree murder charges for her part in the killing, and was released in 2012 after serving 27 years of that sentence. While still incarcerated, she earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences, and a master’s degree in English. She now works as an activist, public speaker, and community health advocate. 

More than 30 years later, Hylton’s full role in the killing remains unclear. Those involved in her murder case, including the law secretary to the judge and Hylton’s defense attorney, described her role as “secondary,” and tagged others as the “true malefactors.” Hylton has said she participated in the crime under duress, and that Louis Miranda, another perpetrator of the crime, threatened to kill her daughter.

In sum, since she participated in a video montage in which she spoke only a few words and was not actually a featured speaker at the DNC, we rate this claim as “Mostly True.”

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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想知道 Qanon 吗?了解这个危险的阴谋理论的事实

请注意,选民:一批模糊不清的可笑谣言已经成为一种隐形的网络游戏,现在正在 2020 年美国选举中扮演明显的角色。

【宣称】

【结论】

【原文】

In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, elements of an unwieldy and unfounded conspiracy theory, QAnon (Q), were percolating on the fringes of the internet. While Q wasn’t fully Q yet, the groundwork was being laid through rumors that falsely claimed a cabal of Democratic leaders and liberal entertainers engaged in satanic rituals and global sex trafficking. 

By this writing in August 2020, Q was going mainstream: A GOP candidate with a record of promoting QAnon had won a primary race in Georgia; QAnon was being regularly promoted on Fox News; and Q content was even appearing in the social media threads of U.S. President Donald Trump. When he was asked about the dangerous conspiracy theory on Aug. 19 at a news conference, he refused to condemn the group, which the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorist threat, and instead called QAnon a group of people who love their country. 

As the group QAnon has grown, its tentacles have reached into all manners of political discourse, spreading lies about everything from vaccination, to Black Lives Matter, to the fight against COVID-19. It is a vehicle for disinformation, and it is quickly riding its way to the ballot in 2020. If voters aren’t aware of Q and its origins, they should be. 

So What Exactly Is QAnon?

QAnon refers to a group of people who have built a belief system by extrapolating meaning from cryptic messages that were posted by an anonymous person(s) on various internet forums.

The vagueness of this odd statement left it open to interpretation. To some, it was just a silly remark. To QAnon, it was a secret code word to signal that mass arrests were imminent.

What Is the ‘Great Awakening’?

While QAnon may seem a bit dark — with all of its talk about pedophilia, sex trafficking, and satanic rituals — there is light at the end of this fictitious tunnel. The Great Awakening, a term borrowed from religious revivals throughout history, is the idea that after “the storm” we’ll see a period of enlightenment as the evils of the deep state are destroyed.

How Has QAnon Evolved?

When QAnon first emerged, it was largely concerned with various political players connected to the 2016 presidential election. In the ensuing years, however, this conspiracy theory has seeped into all manners of political discourse. Elements of Q can be found spreading misinformation related to Black Lives Matter, vaccinations, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brandy Zadrozny, an NBC News reporter whose health misinformation beat has been increasingly intertwined with QAnon, said that these conspiracy groups use nearly identical tactics to increase their reach and spread misinformation.

In a podcast interview with “Lawfare,” Zadrozny described two main tactics used by QAnon and the anti-vaccination movement. First, they create an enemy. Second, they create fear. The first item gives people something to rail against, while the second gives them a noble purpose for their cause.

Zadrozny said:

[QAnon and anti-vaccination groups] are almost exactly the same in terms of ideology and tactics. What’s changed is the players, right? So take out John Podesta and Hillary Clinton and Obama and you can put in Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates and whoever your local county health policy maker is. And they are the bad guys, and you go after those bad guys relentlessly. You create these entire fantasies surrounding, if we’re talking about anti-vaccination groups, around Bill Gates and Big Pharma and “all of these children are dead.” There’s a very pure reasoning behind this: “We’re out to save children,” both groups say constantly. But what they’re doing is leveraging social media to create these harassment campaigns against anyone who is against them. And again with tactics, they are both so so good at cross pollinating different groups who may also have a distrust of institutions.

[…]

I have been saying it’s like the “boss” level because before […] one of us [reporters] would take political extremism, one of us could take medical or health extremism and misinformation and have out beats, but now they are just doing everything in a sort of lock-step. And the largest anti-vaccination group is very much a QAnon group, and so they have really managed to boost their numbers, and so has QAnon. They’ve both been able to feed on that distrust. And the distrust in institution is the thing that binds all conspiracy theories. That’s what they have to keep going. This fear. Just supplying this fear in inordinate amounts. Whether it’s the fear of your child being injured or killed with a vaccine, or your child being swept up in this sex trafficking ring. It really is just all so similar.

What Does Trump Have to Say About This?

Trump has retweeted content made by QAnon conspiracy theorists, but he has largely refrained from talking directly about Q. That is, until Aug. 19, 2020, when he was asked about the conspiracy theory during a press conference.

The New York Times reported:

President Trump on Wednesday offered encouragement to proponents of QAnon, a viral conspiracy theory that has gained a widespread following among people who believe the president is secretly battling a criminal band of sex traffickers, and suggested that its proponents were patriots upset with unrest in Democratic cities.

“I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Mr. Trump said during a White House news conference ostensibly about the coronavirus. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than they do supposedly like me.”

When told by a reporter about the central premise of the QAnon theory — a belief that Mr. Trump is saving the world from a satanic cult made up of pedophiles and cannibals connected to Democratic Party figures, so-called deep-state actors and Hollywood celebrities — Mr. Trump did not question the validity of the movement or the truth of those claims.

Instead, he offered his help.

“Is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?” the president said lightly, responding to a reporter who asked if he could support that theory. “If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there.”

Let’s end this article the same way we started it, with a simple question:

What Is QAnon?

Over the last few years, a section of the internet has been involved in a sort of “game” in which people extrapolate meaning from cryptic messages on internet forums posted by an anonymous person claiming to be a high-ranking government official known as “Q.” While this supposed government insider has repeatedly made incorrect predictions, followers of QAnon have become convinced of a “deep state” cabal of satanic, baby-eating, child sex-traffickers led by prominent members of the Democratic party, and they believe Trump is the only one who can stop it. 

While this conspiracy theory was once relegated to the fringes of the internet, it has since made serious headway into mainstream politics. Despite being labeled as a threat by the FBI, supporters of QAnon have found some success in their efforts to seek political office, earning more than a half million collective votes and, arguably, receiving support from the highest office in government.

QAnon is no longer a fringe conspiracy theory. It is a popular ideology that teaches people to reject reality and distrust institutions. While “the storm” may never arrive, Q is already here. 

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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睾丸吹击比分娩更痛苦吗?

在这场比赛中没有真正的赢家。

【宣称】

被击中睾丸比分娩或分娩更痛苦几百倍。

【结论】


【原文】

A kick to the groin is, like childbirth, an undeniably intense experience. That area of the human body is delicate and filled with nerves, and whether you’ve been kicked or just had a baby, it’s very likely that you’ll be off your feet for awhile.

But which is more painful? It’s difficult to know for sure, but a graphic meme has been circulating for years claiming that a blow to the testicles is the clear winner, hands down: “A kick in the balls is above 9000 del (units) of pain which is similar to giving birth to 160 kids & breaking up to 3200 bones at a time.”

The earliest version of this claim we could find was posted to the website Joy Reactor on 30 March 2010. That posting included a different image and additional claims about having a baby:

DO YOU KNOW? A human body can bear only up to AS del (unit) of pain. But at the rime of giving birth, a woman feels up to 57 del (unit) of pain. This Is similar to twenty bones getting fracture at a time. Love our mother, the most beautiful person on this earth, our best critic, yet our strongest supporter.

A Kick in the nuts its above 9000 in the scale of pain. It’s similar to giving birth to 160 kids and breaking up to 3200 bones at a time. Love your father, he did well protecting his balls so you could live.

This meme does little to shed any light on the battle of which experience is the most painful. First and foremost, there is no “del” unit of pain. Researchers at Cornell University proposed a measurement of pain called the “dol” in the 1940s, but this measurement was never widely used. The “del” can’t be explained away by a typo, either, as the dol scale only had a range between 0 and 10.5.

The logic is also nonsensical. The main reason the dol — and other measurements of pain — ever caught on is that pain is subjective and difficult to quantify by nature:

Everyone feels pain differently. Some people have conditions that should cause great pain, but don’t. Others have no sign of a physical problem, but are in great pain. Your level of chronic pain can’t be assessed in a scientific test or screening.

To help compensate for this problem, many doctors rely on pain scales to get a more concrete sense of a person’s pain. You might have seen a pain scale in your doctor’s office before. One common type shows a series of numbered cartoon faces moving from 0 (smiling and pain-free) to 10 (weeping in agony.) A doctor would ask a person in pain which face matched up with what they were feeling.

There’s no clear answer to the question of which is more painful, as comparing the two events is nearly impossible. One causes a brief rush of pain that disappears relatively quickly, and the other comes and goes, but for several hours (at least). When ASAPScience investigated this question in 2013, they ruled that it was a tie:

The claim that getting hit in the testicles causes “9000 del of pain” and that child birth causes “57 del of pain” is not based on any scientific information and appears to have been made up out of whole cloth.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
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芝加哥代码蓝色 FB 页面发布米姆嘲笑雅各布布雷克?

面向执法支持者的 Facebook 页面有发布有争议的内容的历史。

【宣称】

芝加哥代码蓝色 Facebook 页面分享了一个模因嘲笑雅各布布莱克,他在 2020 年 8 月被威斯康星州一名警察击中后瘫痪。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

On Aug. 23, 2020, a 29-year-old Black man named Jacob Blake was shot several times in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The shooting, which left Blake paralyzed, intensified civil unrest around the United States and led to several nights of protests marred by violent incidents. 

A few days after the shooting, an image started to circulate on social media that supposedly showed a meme mocking Blake for being disabled as a result of the shooting and that was posted by the Code Blue Chicago Facebook page, a pro-police Facebook page with about 140,000 followers:

Social media users may have been skeptical that this image was real for a few reasons. For starters, would a pro-law enforcement page really share such a callous meme mocking someone who was recently paralyzed from a gunshot wound? Social media users who searched for this page / post may have also been suspicious when they were unable to find an active listing for Chicago Code Blue. 

The above-displayed meme was truly posted by this Facebook page. However, at this writing, the post (as well as the entire page) appeared to have been either made private or removed entirely by Facebook. An archived version of this post is still available, however, which can be viewed here

We should note this is not the official Facebook page of the Chicago Police Department. However, previous investigations into this page revealed that many of its members are either current or former members of law enforcement.

A 2018 report from Buzzfeed News found that the group was launched in 2016 to support law enforcement as Chicagoans protested the police shooting death of a 17-year-old Black man named Laquan McDonald. While the Facebook page has a pro-police bent, it has also been known to push misinformation and racist content.

Buzzfeed News reported:

Chicago Code Blue, where scores of current and former Chicago police officers are followers and occasional commenters, was created two years ago to defend the police force from criticism over McDonald’s shooting. But posts on the page, which has more than 53,000 followers, quickly went far beyond boosterism. Many comments spew racist hate and encourage police to abuse suspects.

An exhortation to “Shoot the rhino” appeared on the Facebook page of current Chicago police Officer Sofia Terrones in response to a video of a Philadelphia police officer beating a large black woman. Other posts disparaged victims of police shootings. “Every Thug Deserves a Slug,” wrote one commenter next to a picture of a 16-year-old boy who was shot and killed by Chicago police in 2016 as he was climbing a fence to get away from them.

When the Buzzfeed News article was published in 2018, this Facebook page had a little over 50,000 followers. At the time of this writing, Chicago Code Blue had more than 140,000 followers. It’s not clear how many of these followers are current or former members of law enforcement. 

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

CDC 是否显著 “重新调整 COVID-19 死亡数字”?

疾控中心报告的 COVID-19 “死亡率” 随着时间的推移而上升,并没有大幅度下调。

【宣称】

疾控中心将 COVID-19 的死亡人数从 6 万人减少到 37,000 人。

【结论】


【原文】

At the beginning of May 2020, widely circulated social media posts asserted that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had substantially revised their figures for the number of deaths in the U.S. caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, from 60,000 down to about 37,000:

HOLY SHIT: Did I read this wrong or did the CDC just revised the national COVID-19 deaths to 37,308?!?!//t.co/FkhFUzPHaH

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) May 2, 2020

However, this claim was not true, and it was the result of comparing two separate data sources that report different measurements.

The link included in the above tweet points to the CDC’s Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) page, which provides provisional death totals by week and state according to the following criteria:

The provisional data presented on this page include the weekly provisional count of deaths in the United States due to COVID-19, deaths from all causes and percent of expected deaths (i.e., number of deaths received over number of deaths expected based on data from previous years), pneumonia deaths (excluding pneumonia deaths involving influenza), pneumonia deaths involving COVID-19, influenza deaths, and deaths involving pneumonia, influenza, or COVID-19; (a) by week ending date and (b) by specific jurisdictions.

As of May 1, 2020, that page reported the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. as being 37,308:

However, that page also notes that the provisional data it displays are continually revised, may be incomplete, likely will not include more recent deaths, and may differ from other published sources because data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks:

The provisional counts for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths are based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System. National provisional counts include deaths occurring within the 50 states and the District of Columbia that have been received and coded as of the date specified. It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods. Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. COVID-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks.

Provisional death counts may not match counts from other sources, such as media reports or numbers from county health departments. Our counts often track 1–2 weeks behind other data for a number of reasons: Death certificates take time to be completed. There are many steps involved in completing and submitting a death certificate. Waiting for test results can create additional delays. States report at different rates. Currently, 63% of all U.S. deaths are reported within 10 days of the date of death, but there is significant variation among jurisdictions. It takes extra time to code COVID-19 deaths. While 80% of deaths are electronically processed and coded by NCHS within minutes, most deaths from COVID-19 must be coded manually, which takes an average of 7 days. Other reporting systems use different definitions or methods for counting deaths.

That 37,308 was not a drastic downward revision of any previously reported death total. Rather, it only might have seemed such because it was mistakenly compared to the number of deaths reported on the CDC’s COVID-19 Cases in the U.S. page, which as of May 3, 2020, displayed a total of 65,735 deaths:

Why such a large discrepancy? Because as latter page’s “About the Data” section explains, its data are updated daily based on “Case notifications received by CDC from U.S. public health jurisdictions and the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS)” and includes “both confirmed and probable deaths.” This more up-to-date page will obviously report higher death figures that one whose data lag by 1-2 weeks.

Indeed, two weeks earlier, the “Cases in the U.S.” page had displayed a total of 35,443 deaths, a number much closer to the 37,308 figure reported by the “Provisional Death Counts” with its 1-2 week data lag.

In short, this claim is like comparing stock prices from a two-week-old newspaper with those offered today by a cable news station, and then attributing any differences to a conspiracy rather than the mere passage of time as reflected in more current reporting.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

“绿野仙踪” 是否包括蒙奇金自杀?

最无处不在的电影传奇人物之一认为,在拍摄 “绿野仙踪” 时,一个 Munchkin 将自己上吊在相机上。

【宣称】

在绿野仙踪拍摄过程中,一位描绘着一个芒奇金斯的恋人演员上吊自己的设置。

【结论】


【原文】

The so-called “munchkin suicide” scene in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz occurs at the very end of the Tin Woodsman sequence, as Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodsman head down the road on their way to the Emerald City. This sequence begins with Dorothy and the Scarecrow trying to pick fruit from the talking apple trees, encompasses their discovery of the rusted tin man and their encounter with the Wicked Witch of the West (who tries to set the Scarecrow on fire), and ends with the trio heading off to Oz in search of the Wizard:

I just recently was crashing in at my best friend’s house and we decided to watch The Wizard of Oz. Now, rumor has it that a small munchkin can be spotted in the background. Now, when I saw this, I began to flip out. I started running around my best friend’s house and I hit the wall. I then got the courage to watch the movie again. I am so positive that I saw munchkin in the background who committed suicide because he was in love.

My mom and I watched a documentary of the behind the scenes of The Wizard of Oz. We saw the footage closely and they even showed us before shots of the person. My mom told me to watch the movie closely and look in the woods in the trees for a person wearing black moving around strangely when Dorothy, the scarecrow and the tin man were walking down the yellow brick road. Which I did and I saw clearly a person hanging.

No one, munchkin or otherwise, died on-set during the filming of this cinematic classic, much less in a cut that was used in the finished version of the movie.

To give the indoor set used in this Oz sequence a more “outdoors” feel, several birds of various sizes were borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo and allowed to roam the set. (A peacock, for example, can be seen wandering around just outside the Tin Woodsman’s shack while Dorothy and the Scarecrow attempt to revive him with oil.) At the very end of this sequence, as the three main characters move down the road and away from the camera, one of the larger birds (often said to be an emu, but more probably a crane) standing at the back of the set moves around and spreads its wings. No munchkin, no hanging — just a big bird.

The unusual movement in the background of the scene described above was noticed years ago, and it was often attributed to a stagehand’s accidentally being caught on the set after the cameras started rolling (or, more spectacularly, a stagehand’s falling out of a prop tree into the scene). With the advent of home video, viewing audiences were able to rewind and replay the scene in question, view it in slow-motion, and look at individual frames in the sequence (all on screens smaller and less distinct than those of theaters), and imaginations ran wild.

The change in focus of the rumor from a hapless stagehand to a suicidal munchkin (driven to despair over his unrequited love for a female munchkin) seems to have coincided with the heavy promotion and special video re-release of The Wizard of Oz in celebration of its 50th anniversary in 1989: someone made up the story of a diminutive actor who, suffering the pangs of unrequited love for a female “little person,” decided to end it all right there on the set, and soon everyone was eager to share this special little film “secret” with others. Since (grossly exaggerated) tales of munchkin lechery and drunken misbehavior on the “Oz” set had been circulating for years (primarily spread by Judy Garland herself in television talk show appearances), the wild suicide story had some seeming background plausibility to it. (Other versions of the rumor combined elements from both explanations, such as the claim that the strange figure was actually a stagehand hanging himself.)

The logistics of this alleged hanging defy all credulity. First of all, the forest scenes in The Wizard of Oz were filmed before the Munchkinland scenes, and thus none of the munchkin actors would yet have been present at MGM. And whether one believes that the figure on the film is a munchkin or a stagehand, it is simply impossible that a human being could have fallen onto a set actively being used for filming, and yet none of the dozens of people present — actors, directors, cameramen, sound technicians, light operators — noticed or reacted to the occurrence. (The tragic incident would also had to have been overlooked by all the directors, editors, film cutters, musicians, and others who worked on the film in post-production as well.) That anyone could believe a scene featuring a real suicide would have been left intact in a classic film for over fifty years is simply incredible.

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

这张照片是否显示拜登亲吻一个 15 岁的女孩?

一张乔·拜登在爱荷华州集会期间亲吻他的孙女的嘴唇的照片引起了一些观众的批评,而另一些观众则表明了这种亲切的姿态没有问题。

【宣称】

照片显示乔·拜登亲吻了一个 15 岁女孩的嘴唇。

【结论】

字幕错误

【原文】

Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has drawn scrutiny for his behavior around adult women and girls, which led to Biden’s declaring in April 2019 that he would “be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future”:

Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. That’s my responsibility and I will meet it. pic.twitter.com/Ya2mf5ODts

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 3, 2019

2020年9月4日
发表者 minici
暂无评论

特朗普是否支付 3.5 亿美元来解决对他的强奸儿童索赔?

一个 “完全失灵的疯子,心灵被事实、证据或理由所掩蔽” 可能不是最好的来源。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普一直是多项指控的目标,他强奸 13 岁及以下的儿童,他支付了至少 3500 万美元来解决这些索赔。

【结论】

大多是假的

【原文】

Since January 2019, claims have circulated online that U.S. President Donald Trump has had to deal with multiple accusations that he raped children aged 13 and younger, paying out at least $35 million to settle most of those claims and ensure the silence of his victims:

trump settles child rape casestrump settles child rape cases

This meme contains one nugget of truth: A woman using the pseudonym “Katie Johnson” has twice filed a civil lawsuit accusing Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein of having sexually abused her at parties held at the Manhattan homes of Epstein and Trump in 1994, when she was just 13 years old. However, her first complaint was dismissed by the court and the second was voluntarily withdrawn by Johnson, so the case is not “pending,” and no evidence has ever been offered in court to support Johnson’s allegations.

Aside from that, everything else included in the meme appears to be nothing but sensationalistic fabrications.

Information about the six entries listed after Johnson in this meme — children ranging from ages 10 to 13 who were supposedly raped by Trump but paid off by Trump’s “fixer” to remain silent — all stem from a single source: a Jan. 14-15, 2019, post from the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), a blog published by a notorious conspiracy monger who has been described as an “Utterly deranged nutter with a mind unclouded by facts, evidence, or reason, who at least lets his bigotry shine through rather clearly in his ravings about world politics”:

Here are a few of Wayne Madsen’s greatest scoops: Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik was an Israeli agent who murdered 69 people on behalf of his handlers in Tel Aviv. The attacks of 9/11 were masterminded in Israel and Washington, D.C., as a “false flag” operation. The 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole was also a “false flag” operation, executed by — you guessed it! — the Israelis.

When not mumbling about the perfidious Jews, Madsen is enlightening readers on President Obama’s gay past (he wore “clear nail polish” and was a habitué of Chicago bathhouses), speculating that a “White House S&M ring order[ed] special videos from Abu Ghraib,” and reporting that President Bush’s “feces and urine are classified top secret” and “captured” from special toilets and “flown back from Europe.”

The key passage from the referenced WMR article is the following:

Donald Trump continues to lash out at his former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, as the February 7 public testimony by Cohen before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), draws nearer.

Cohen said he wants to “give a full and credible account of the events that have transpired.”

While Cohen will avoid certain subjects still under investigation by Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller, he may provide some insight into the types of embarrassing things he “fixed” for Trump, before they ended up in scandalous court trials. This may include Cohen assisting Trump in paying off victims of Trump’s sexual assaults over the years.

The cases go way beyond those widely reported in the mainstream press, WMR reports. They also go beyond cases that involve women and adults. They indicate Trump has a disturbing taste for children:

In addition to Stephanie Clifford, aka porn actress “Stormy Daniels,” and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen reportedly helped settle a number of rape cases involving Trump. WMR received a list from a reputable Republican source of these settlement claims, all of which involve male and female minors:

(1) Michael Parker, 10-years old, oral rape, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1992. Trump paid his parents a $3 million settlement.

(2) Kelly Feuer, 12-years old, $1 million settlement paid in 1989, allegations of forced intercourse, Trump Tower, NY, NY.

(3) Charles Bacon, 11-years old, $3 million, allegations of oral and anal intercourse, 1994, Trump Tower, NY, NY.

(4) Rebecca Conway, 13-years old, intercourse and oral sex. Trump Vineyard Estates, Charlottesville, VA, 2012, $5 million settlement.

(5) Maria Olivera, 12-years old. Her family was paid $16 million to settle allegations of forcible intercourse occurring in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1993.

(6) Kevin Noll, 11-years old, anal rape, Trump Tower, NY, NY. 1998. Settlement details unknown.

This recounting presents a common, highly implausible trope used in the promulgation of wild conspiracy theories for which evidence is completely lacking: the unidentified (and therefore unverifiable) source who is in unique possession of secret information of monumental importance, but who does nothing with that information other than “leak” it to a marginal, disreputable website. Or, as the Encyclopedia of American Loons sarcastically observed, “Madsen knows a remarkable number of unidentified people who just happen to overhear or be told extremely secret information.” (Madsen had not yet responded to our request for comment at publication time.)

The scenario posited above also possesses a serious flaw: Although parties to civil lawsuits can (and frequently do) settle claims prior to trial, and those settlements often contain confidentiality provisions that preclude the disclosure of their terms, those confidentiality provisions do not eradicate all evidence of the underlying lawsuits from the public record. The original complaints, responses, demurrers, motions, and any other paperwork filed with the court in conjunction with those cases prior to settlement would remain extant and accessible. Yet no one has managed to turn up any documentation of even a single one of these purported cases against Trump.

Of course, it’s also possible to make accusations, claims, or demands against a party and reach settlement of them without resorting to filing lawsuits first. But that scenario would require us to believe, incredibly, that at least six different children between the ages of 10 and 13 reported that they had been raped by Trump, but not a single parent in any of those cases submitted a police report or criminal complaint, sought redress in civil court, or ever spoke publicly about their child’s experience — every single one of them simply approached Trump privately and demanded large sums of money from him to keep quiet, and he complied.

Moreover, the notion that all of these cases involved private out-of-court settlements is undercut by the meme’s concluding statement: “In court, Trump was diagnosed as #65.4 ‘Pedophilic Disorder’ from DSM-5 Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” If something happened “in court,” then a record of those proceedings would exist somewhere.

Additionally, now-disbarred Lawyer Michael Cohen did not begin working for Trump until 2006, many years after the alleged wrongful sexual behavior on Trump’s part occurred in all but one of the listed cases. Settlements would not necessarily have had to occur immediately, but again this scenario would require us to believe that all the parents of five young children who reported having been raped by Trump waited anywhere from 8 to 29 years to effect settlement of those matters, without pursuing any other course of action or publicly speaking up in the meanwhile.

Altogether this meme offers one claimed — but as yet unproved — accusation of sexual misconduct against Trump, along with several dubious alleged accusations for which there is no evidence whatsoever outside toxic online conspiracy circles.