I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I think this community is really good at digging in to all sorts of topics and keeping a healthy skepticism until the facts are in, why not keep a record of the more egregious misleading news so we can keep the threads more organized.
I’m making this a wiki so feel free to edit and add as you see fit.
This might not get updated often and that’s ok, it just means we’re good at sorting thru BS before posting!
This surprised me, it seemed so real!
I will have to add to this in the future, I hate when fake facts get passed around.
Speaking of:
This explains Trump’s persistent and un-sourced claims of massive GOP support, which he ups a percentage point every so often.
Here’s FBI memo about the whole QAnon conspiracy leaked to the media.
Our rating: False
The claim that Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities and politicians are under house arrest for child sex trafficking is rated FALSE because it is not supported by our research. Such claims are rooted in conspiracy theories that are supported by no evidence but that have circulated on social media platforms for years.
Our fact-check sources:
- USA TODAY: “QAnon: The conspiracy theory explained, after Q posters spotted at Trump’s Florida rally”
- The Guardian: “What is QAnon? Explaining the bizarre rightwing conspiracy theory”
- USA TODAY: “Judge orders D.C. pizzeria shooter held without bond”
- California Legislative Information, Penal Code 290 text
- California Megan’s Law website
- U.S. Department of Justice, national sex offender search
- TheEllenShow on YouTube: “Ellen Practices Social Distancing from Average Andy”
- Oprah Winfrey tweet, March 18, 2020
- Ava DuVernay tweet March 18, 2020
- Travis View, interview
- Yotam Ophir, interview
- Reuters: “False claim: Bill Gates traveled to Epstein’s island multiple times”
- USA TODAY: “Chrissy Teigen defends herself from Pizzagate conspiracy theorists: ‘This is really scary’”
Exchange between CNN’s Jim @Acosta and Kayleigh McEneny WH Press Sec
Questions regarding the altered videos of two children (1 white/1 black) hugging each other and a misleading (sarcastic - WH says) language attached.
Sole purpose for Kayleigh entertaining this back and forth is to criticize CNN at length.
Video - 3.45 mins
And I have to admit…this response to Kayleigh’s words made me laugh. Piece of work she is.
Since it was brought up, some of the brilliant work of Daniel Dale.
Yes, we’ve been posting and reading his fact-checks on here since back when he was just a lowly fact-checker at the Toronto Star. Love that guy. Must have been before you joined. 
Quite possibly. I follow him and see him a lot on twitter, and figured just a bunch of his best articles is a good resource.
Ok - hit Facebook in the pocketbook. Verizon, Ben & Jerry’s Patagonia, REI are pulling their advertising on these platforms - Facebook. and Instagram. They do not like the false information that is ever present on these sites.
Verizon said on Thursday it is pulling advertising on Facebook until the company “can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable.”
A company spokesperson said the pause applies to both Facebook and Instagram. It comes as marketers including Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia and REI have also said they plan to pause advertising on the platforms.
Last week, a group of six organizations called on Facebook advertisers to pause their spending on the social media platform during the month of July. The groups – the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense – asked “large Facebook advertisers to show they will not support a company that puts profit over safety.”
“We have strict content policies in place and have zero tolerance when they are breached, we take action,” Verizon’s chief media officer John Nitti said in a statement. “We’re pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we’ve done with YouTube and other partners.”
Reading some headlines indicates that one of the largest advertisers, such as Procter & Gamble is considering pulling ads from Facebook. And while it is not clear what they will do, there is enough ad dollar muscle to change this.
(Unfortunately these are locked sources unless you want to subscribe)
https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/06/26/p-g-to-pull-ads-from-platforms.html
And WSJ says FB wants to hit back SAYING they are doing something, but not doing anything that sticks. Hit 'em where it hurts…bottom line.
Facebook Inc. is working to persuade its top advertisers not to pause spending on the social network, as it tries to keep a boycott from a handful of marketers from turning into a widespread revolt.
Facebook executives in emails and calls with advertisers and ad agencies over the past week have conveyed that they are taking seriously the concerns of civil-rights groups about the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation on its platform. But they are also maintaining that business interests won’t dictate their policies, according to people familiar with the discussions.
“We do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure,” Carolyn Everson, vice president of Global Business Group at Facebook, said in an email to advertisers last weekend that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “We set our policies based on principles rather than business interests.”
Facebook executives are also vowing to invest more to tackle hate on the platform including continuing the development of artificial-intelligence technology that can detect hate speech, according to the email.
“Now that the very expensive, unpopular and unfair Individual Mandate provision has been terminated by us, many States & the U.S. are asking the Supreme Court that Obamacare itself be terminated so that it can be replaced with a FAR BETTER AND MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE ALTERNATIVE… Obamacare is a joke! Deductible is far too high and the overall cost is ridiculous. My Administration has gone out of its way to manage OC much better than previous, but it is still no good. I will ALWAYS PROTECT PEOPLE WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS,ALWAYS!!!”
— President Trump, in a pair of tweets , June 27, 2020
Just as the number of weekly coronavirus cases reached a new high in the United States, the Trump administration filed a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act.
About 20 million people covered through the act could lose their health insurance if Trump succeeds, among many other consequences bearing directly on the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Key provisions of the health-care law prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people who are already sick, or who have “preexisting conditions.”
Trump has claimed nearly 100 times since he took office that he will “always protect people with preexisting conditions,” but the legal brief filed by the Justice Department last week belies the president’s claim. It says point blank that the entire Affordable Care Act — including its coverage guarantee for people with preexisting conditions — “must fall.”
The Facts
Republicans for a decade have tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. The Supreme Court has upheld the law twice in the face of legal challenges from conservative groups.
A new challenge brought by a group of Republican state attorneys general is now pending before the court. The Justice Department filed a brief June 25 in support of the GOP argument that “the entire ACA … must fall.”
Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could consider a person’s health status when determining premiums, sometimes making coverage unaffordable or even unavailable if a person was already sick with a problem that required expensive treatment.
The act prohibited this practice through two provisions: “guaranteed issue,” which means insurance companies must sell insurance to anyone who wants to buy it, and “community rating,” which means that people within the same geographic area who buy similar insurance and are the same age pay similar prices. The two together made insurance affordable for people with, say, cancer. Before Obamacare, even minor health problems could have led an insurance company to deny coverage.
The Affordable Care Act also established online health insurance marketplaces and subsidies for participating buyers, gave states the option to expand their Medicaid programs primarily with federal funding, and imposed a financial penalty known as the “individual mandate” on people who did not have coverage during a given year.
Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress reduced the individual mandate’s penalty to zero in late 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, nullifying but not repealing that section of the law. A federal appeals court ruled in December that the individual mandate, already down to zero, was unconstitutional.
Now, the GOP state attorneys general argue that Congress meant to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act when it reduced the mandate to zero. The same argument appears in the Justice Department’s brief, signed by Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco.
“Even though the guaranteed-issue and community rating provisions are constitutionally valid when standing on their own, it is evident that Congress would not ‘have wanted’ them to stand without the individual mandate,” Francisco wrote. “That these provisions are inseverable is evident from the enacted text of the ACA, where Congress expressly found that the individual mandate is essential to the operation of the guaranteed-issue and community rating provisions.”
Some Republicans say the Trump administration’s official legal position is flimsy and ill-advised.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate health committee, said he was disappointed Trump decided to press the case. “I thought the Justice Department argument was really flimsy,” Alexander said last month on “Meet the Press.” “What they’re arguing is that when we voted to get rid of the individual mandate, we voted to get rid of Obamacare. I don’t know one single senator that thought that.”
“Congress had the opportunity to strike other provisions and chose not to,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is in a close race for reelection this year and opposes the Republican lawsuit.
The Washington Post reported last year that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged Trump “to hold off on pushing for a court-ordered destruction of the ACA, advice the president ignored.”
“McCarthy has complained privately to donors that the last GOP attempt to gut Obamacare — including its most popular provisions, such as protections for preexisting conditions — was the main reason the party lost at least 40 House seats” in the 2018 midterms, The Post reported.
Attorney General William P. Barr, according to CNN, tried to get the White House to back off from pursuing a full rollback of the Affordable Care Act but was unsuccessful.
“The ACA remains in effect while the litigation is pending,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. “However, if all or most of the law ultimately is struck down, it will have complex and far-reaching consequences for the nation’s health care system, affecting nearly everyone in some way. A host of ACA provisions could be eliminated, including protections for people with preexisting conditions, subsidies to make individual health insurance more affordable, expanded eligibility for Medicaid, coverage of young adults up to age 26 under their parents’ insurance policies, coverage of preventive care with no patient cost-sharing, closing of the doughnut hole under Medicare’s drug benefit, and a series of tax increases to fund these initiatives.”
Trump told The Post days before his inauguration in January 2017 that he was nearly done with his plan to replace Obama’s signature health-care law. Three and a half years later, no replacement plan has emerged from the administration. It would be an enormous undertaking. The health-care industry accounts for roughly one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The Affordable Care Act is a sprawling piece of legislation with deep roots after 10 years.
Republicans hardly agree on what a replacement for Obamacare would look like — or how to preserve the protections for preexisting health conditions. “I spent 6 months of 2014 working on a replacement, every single day, with staff and the 4 committee chairs of jurisdiction. We could not even put together a white paper,” Republican consultant Doug Heye wrote on Twitter.
Before he asked the nation’s highest court to strike down the law, Trump consistently sought to weaken some of the Obamacare provisions at issue, as we found in this fact check.
The president threw his support behind House and Senate bills that would have weakened the guaranteed issue and community rating protections by allowing states to seek waivers and consider a person’s health status when writing policies in the individual market. The theory was that removing sicker people from the markets and allowing policies with skimpier options would result in lower overall premiums.
But the Congressional Budget Office concluded that states that took advantage of these provisions could perversely end up blowing up their insurance markets, leaving people with preexisting conditions with spiraling costs. About one-sixth of the U.S. population was estimated to live in states that would face this problem.
The Trump administration also has issued new rules that promote the use of low-quality, short-term plans that were prohibited under Obamacare. These plans typically don’t have the same protections for people with existing health conditions, allowing insurance companies to deny coverage or charge higher prices. (A number of states, mainly Democratic-leaning, have acted to prohibit or limit these Trump plans.)
The Pinocchio Test
Trump says he will always protect people with preexisting health conditions who need to buy affordable insurance. But what is he actually doing with the powers of the presidency?
In the middle of a pandemic, against the advice of many Republicans, the president is asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act — including its coverage guarantee for patients with preexisting conditions.
Trump has offered no plan to replace these, or any, provisions of the law. He has supported legislation to water down protections for people with preexisting conditions, and his administration has issued new rules promoting plans that allow insurance companies to deny coverage or charge higher prices to sick patients.
In addition to being a Four Pinocchio claim, this is a Bottomless Pinocchio — our worst rating — because Trump has repeated the falsehood more than 20 times. In fact, he’s nearing 100 repetitions. In our new book, “Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth,” we labeled this one of Trump’s top 10 whoppers.
Four Pinocchios
Note: This is MY version of the Bottomless Pinocchio graphic.
WTAF. Why is this even a thing?
With the recent arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was charged in connection with the sexual abuse case against the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, we find another unsubstantiated attack against Fauci.
