Georgia

Does the song "Jingle Bells" make a hidden reference to slaves forced to wear bells so they could be easily tracked if they tried to escape under the cover of night? No, that's not true: The song "Jingle Bells," originally named "One Horse Open Sleigh," is a song about the fun of a winter sleigh ride. The song is not…

Does a sudden decrease in the displayed vote tally for U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker during Fox News coverage of Georgia's December 6, 2022, runoff election prove that voter fraud occurred? No, that's not true: Human error by the Associated Press (AP), the news organization that provides voting data for multiple networks, including Fox News, was responsible for the change…

Did police in Kennesaw, Georgia, investigate a toxin-laced tissue that was reportedly placed on a gas pump handle by human traffickers to incapacitate their victims? No, that's not true: Lead Stories contacted two law enforcement agencies in Cobb County, Georgia, where the incident allegedly took place, and neither had any record of that, nor of it being reported. The person…

Did graffiti showing Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eating money appear in the capital of France during November 2022? No, that's not true: Neither local authorities nor the personnel of a store located near the supposed graffiti's site saw it. Journalists sent on location did not find any signs of the graffiti. The absence of other images of the scene suggests…

Did U.S. Special Forces take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into custody after the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps charged her with "multiple counts of treason and seditious conspiracy"? No, that's not true: A representative of the U.S. Special Operations Command earlier denied to Lead Stories that Special Forces had arrested any civilian, and noted that the Special Forces do…

Does a photo on social media show Georgia's U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, clad in a jumpsuit, walking in front of a line of women wearing penis pants? No, that's not true: The image is of a Nigerian celebrity attending a funeral in Nigeria for a music executive's mother in October 2022. The claim appeared in a tweet (archived here) on…

Are these staged photos taken from the phone of an employee of the Ukrainian CIPSO (Center for Information and Psychological Operations) showing fake victims, proving the war in Ukraine is staged? No, that's not true: The photos were taken in 2016 during a first-aid training exercise for the Ukrainian organization TacCat First Aid. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, several…

Were "poll pads" in Texas caught adding "hundreds" of voters in real time as a poll was being closed? No, that's not true: The state-certified Election Systems & Software (ES&S) voting systems e-pollbooks in Dallas County, Texas, previously experienced "some delay in the downloading" of checked-in voters and then caught up, according to the Texas Secretary of State. "The updating…

Did the U.S. military find "evidence of election fraud amid fizzled red wave"? No, that's not true: This claim was made on a website known for publishing fabricated content. The claim originated in an article published by Real Raw News on November 9, 2022, titled "Military Finds Evidence of Election Fraud Amid Fizzled Red Wave" (archived here). It opened with…

Did President Joe Biden's term start immediately after the 2020 election was called, thus influencing Donald Trump's decision to announce a second presidential bid for 2024? No, that's not true: Biden was not formally sworn into office until the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2021, as the Constitution mandates. The 2020 presidential election was certified on January 7, 2021, after…