Skeptics Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [united-states]

Use this tag for questions about claims based in the United States, or limited to the United States.

The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, the States, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district.

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Does the President of the United States have the ability to deploy nuclear weapons at will?

I heard this claim back during the Bush years, and recently I've been hearing it again. For example: Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All - The New Yorker I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent…
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Did NASA invest a million dollars in the research of a space pen, when the USSR simply used a pencil?

I encountered this picture of the "Russian space pen" from the MIT Museum gift shop When NASA first started sending astronauts into space, they realized that the ball-point pen would not work at zero gravity. A million dollar investment and two…
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Are people of Nordic Nations "happier, healthier" with "a higher standard of living overall than Americans"?

Ernest W. Adams wrote in the answer to the question "Why are people so negative about Nordic nations, especially Sweden?": There are a lot of right wing Americans who have been preaching for the last 70 years that the welfare state can’t work, it's…
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Did Donald Trump say that "global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese"?

In the Presidential debate of 26th September, Hillary Clinton claimed that "Donald Trump said that global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese" . Trump replied several times "I did not say that". Did he say (or write) that?
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Was pink a boy color and blue a girl color prior to the 20th century?

A recent essay in the New York Times by Claire Cain Miller, entitled How to Raise a Feminist Son, claims that: Until the mid-20th century, pink was the boy color and blue was for girls. It, in turn, cites an Ask Smithsonian blog post by Jeanne…
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Do vote counts for Joe Biden in the 2020 election violate Benford's Law?

Benford's Law is a statistical rule that says that the distribution of digits in real-world numerical datasets tends to follow a specific pattern. It is often used to test whether an election is legitimate or phoney, by comparing the frequency of…
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Are there 96 million workers in the US who want a job and can't get one?

On Wednesday 11 Jan 2017, US President-elect Donald Trump claimed in a press conference that: There will be a major border tax on these companies that are leaving and getting away with murder. And if our politicians had what it takes, they would…
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Did Amazon pay $0 in US taxes in 2018?

Background I saw this article saying that Amazon paid $0 in corporate income tax last year. Is this true or just phrased to sound like they are getting away with paying nothing? Here's the article: Amazon’s $0 corporate income tax bill last year,…
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Are violent video games a better explanation of school shootings than access to guns?

This site already has a question on the general relationship of video games and violence. But the recent Florida school shooting has raised a more specific set of claims that deserve to be addressed. According to this Rolling stone report, the…
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Did the @POTUS Twitter account use a picture from Obama's inauguration for its cover image?

There's an image going around Facebook claiming that the @POTUS Twitter account is using an image from President Obama's inauguration. Is this true? Where is the original image from?
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Did Republicans take 10 of 13 Congressional seats in the 2018 North Carolina general election with roughly the same number of votes as Democrats?

This image has been shared on social media Transcription: Gerrymandering in North Carolina 1,747,742 votes for Democrats = 3 Congressional seats 1,638,684 votes for Republicans = 10 Congressional seats Example sources: [1], [2] Are these…
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Is the USA murder rate at a high? Specifically is it at a 45 year high?

Current US President Donald Trump is on record as repeatedly saying that "The murder rate is the highest it's been in I guess 45-47 years." Is that true?
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Was ISIS created by the USA?

I hear many folks talking about the founders of ISIS and they say that USA created it to make chaos in the Arabic countries. Mark Danner in an episode of Talking Heads by Vice News "In effect the United States created ISIS, nothing like it…
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Has the 9th Circuit Court been overturned 80% of the time?

This claim is being made in some parts of the media: The 9th Circuit Court has been overturned 80% of the time. Similar versions abound. Here is another one Why? Because the “reversal rate” of the 9th Circuit is hovering at a solid 80…
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Have more Americans been killed in schools than in military service this year?

I've just come across a tweet by @spectatorindex that reads: In 2018, more Americans have died in schools, with twenty-nine people killed, than in military service, where thirteen troops have been killed. Are those figures true?
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