Blue Feed

Were mental health professionals at the Wisconsin Pride festival in August of 2022 "just handing out" letters declaring patients' readiness for gender affirmation surgery? No, that's not true: letters were not handed out. A photograph of a booth at the Magic Pride Festival in Madison offering free "Letters of Readiness," service is real. But, the letters were not handed out…

Did Hallie Biden, the widow of the president's son Beau Biden, start a new Twitter account? No, that's not true: Twitter has taken down this account, but while it was up it did not have a checkmark confirming that it's authentic. It tried to lure people into donating money to a PayPal account. Screen grabs of the account are still…

Does a video show Sen. Ted Cruz telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi she is guilty? No, that's not true: The video shows a clip of Cruz speaking about various political topics but not about Pelosi. The video's headline does not match the footage. It appears to be clickbait to draw attention to a Facebook page. The claim appeared in a…

Did 44 percent of pregnant women in Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine trial have miscarriages? No, that's not true: Author/activist Naomi Wolf incorrectly analyzed public information when making the claim that "out of 50 pregnant women, 22 of them lost their babies." Wolf and two publishers have all retracted the claim, which continued to circulate nonetheless. Jeffrey Morris, professor of biostatistics at…

Does the student loan forgiveness program announced by the Biden administration on August 25, 2022, treat canceled student debt as taxable income? No, that's not true. Although debt cancellation is usually considered taxable, the Biden student debt relief falls under the American Rescue Plan, which exempts most student debt relief from taxation through the end of 2025. The claim appeared…

Is President Joe Biden going to launch a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) in December 2022? No, that's not true: Although Biden signed an executive order in March 2022 that required research into the future of money and payment systems in the country, the order did not mandate that the federal government establish a national CBDC. The claim appeared…

Was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene raided by the Department of Justice on August 24, 2022? No, that's not true: Greene's house was "swatted," with someone falsely reporting that there was a crime committed at her home. However, there is no publicly available evidence that the DOJ raided her home. The claim appeared in a Truth Social post published on August…

Did the FBI seize Donald Trump's home? No, that's not true: Unsealed court records reveal that agents took multiple sets of documents during the August 8, 2022, search of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where the former president resides, but did not seize his home. The claim originated in a Facebook post on August 20, 2022, under the title "Trump Supporters, Must…

Did Dominion Voting Systems lose its lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and personal attorney for Donald Trump; and Sidney Powell, another Trump attorney? No, that's not true: In an August 22, 2022, email from Dominion, representative Jack Eichner said of the claim, "This is false. The cases against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell are ongoing." At…

Did Sen. Ted Cruz say he has Hunter Biden's laptop and leak a secret document implicating U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland? No, that's not true: This video does not include any of those claims. The video is an exchange between Cruz and Franita Tolson, the George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Chair in Law at the University of Southern California…

Does a video of Sen. Ted Cruz questioning current FBI Director Christopher Wray or former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe expose either man in a lie about the circumstances surrounding the August 8, 2022, search of Mar-a-Lago, the Florida home of former President Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The video of Cruz is spliced together from separate congressional hearings…

Did a social media video contain authentic audio recordings of a Secret Service agent bemoaning President Joe Biden's difficulty in putting on his jacket? No, that's not true: The video was a satirical clip originally posted online by a comedian and labeled with the hashtag #comedy. The video first appeared in an August 10, 2022, TikTok post (archived here) published…

Was a woman found dead in the Arkansas River linked to the "suspicious death" of former Clinton advisor Mark Middleton? No, that's not true: A report in radaronline.com quoted an anonymous source -- purportedly an associate of Middleton's -- to link Ashley Haynes and Middleton. The alleged link first appeared in a radaronline.com article, and nowhere else, on May 27,…

Are the 30 percent of signatures that did not qualify for the recall of the Los Angeles County district attorney the same as ballots rejected in the 2020 election? No, the claim is missing context: Nothing stops an unqualified person from signing a petition to have an issue placed on a ballot. The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk verifies that…

Does a video show election workers in Clark County, Washington, illegally closing ballot drop boxes "30 minutes prior" to the voting close time, insinuating that there is fraudulent activity involved with voter mail-in ballots? No, that's not true: The video shows a certified election worker giving a voter the appropriate legal options to submit their mail-in ballot. The Clark County…

Did former President Barack Obama take 30 million pages of documents, including some secret nuclear papers, from the White House to Chicago when he left the presidency and then refuse to return them? No, that's not true: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) did ship 30 million pages of documents to a secure NARA facility in Chicago, but they…

Is a photograph real that shows Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, partying with the judge who approved the FBI warrant to search former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence? No, that's not true: It's been altered. The original photo, previously published by several media outlets in December 2021, shows Maxwell with Epstein, not the judge. The claim appeared…

Is Congress considering a bill that would cut $300 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare, former President Barack Obama's health care law? No, that's not true: The Inflation Reduction Act, which was introduced by congressional Democrats, was passed in the Senate through the reconciliation process on August 7, 2022. If it became law, the measure would reduce some drug costs…

Did "U.S. Army Special Forces" arrest Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on August 6, 2022? No, that's not true: "There is no truth to this claim," a duty officer at the Pentagon told Lead Stories. The U.S. military is not allowed to arrest civilians under the Posse Comitatus Act. In addition, these claims were posted on…

Was George Soros banned from Hungary, his birth country? No, that's not true: According to a communications director at the Open Society Foundations, where George Soros is the founder and the chair, as of this writing he has not been banned from Hungary. The claim appeared in a Facebook post with a video on August 3, 2022, under the title…