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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Were lawn jockey statues used to indicate stops on the Underground Railroad?

Ran into the following meme on Facebook, accompanied by a picture of one of the lawn jockey statues. They credit it to http://www.ugrrf.org/ (although I can't find that text on their site): A lot of people don't know the real meaning behind these…
Sean Duggan
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Did Hillary Clinton admit in her memoirs to creating ISIS?

The Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei claimed in a speech posted on his official website that: Some Americans have confessed in their own memoirs [including Hillary Clinton's memoirs] that they have played a role in creating, …
March Ho
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Can Mormons distinguish Mormons by the texture of their skin?

Katherine Orgill writes in Skin texture glow distinguishes Mormons from others: The study was prompted by a comment Rule received from a colleague who said he believed Mormons could identify fellow Mormons from non-Mormons in a crowd. [...] “We…
Christian
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Is this comparison of wedge tailed eagles and bald eagles accurate?

From https://twitter.com/dannolan/status/665409197685764096 (408 RTs, 495 likes), though another comparison between the two exists in Australian Popular Science [US flag, picture of American Bald Eagle] American Bald Eagle One of the smallest…
Andrew Grimm
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Did the United States annual free tax credits paid to illegal immigrants quadruple to 4.2 billion in 2011?

In Donald Trump's Immigration Policy for the 2016 US Presidential Election campaign, he claims: The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing…
dsollen
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Have prior U.S. Presidents used executive actions to change immigration policy

I only caught 2 seconds of it on the TV news, but I heard President Obama claim that what he was doing with respect to Immigration Policy was not novel and in fact X-number of prior presidents had done the same thing (so we should all just chill…
Peter Turner
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Were Native Americans given blankets intentionally contaminated with smallpox?

I saw a video posted on Facebook where Wendell Pierce accused white men of intentionally infecting natives with smallpox by giving them infected blankets. A cursory read of this paper published by the University of Michigan suggests it's false. Is…
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Does Hunter Biden work for a Ukrainian oil company?

Around May 2014, Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian oil company announced that it had added Hunter Biden (US Vice-President Joe Biden's son) to its board of directors. This caused a small controversy in the media. The Federalist published a few reasons…
user21645
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Is $77/week the weekly budget for a minimum wage worker?

This is based on this question on Politics.SE. There's currently a "Live the Wage Challenge" which a former governor and several congresspeople are publicly doing (abcnews, politico). The challenge claims on their official site that out of the…
Bobson
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Have the NSA spying programs stopped any terrorist attacks?

The government claims that these security programs are necessary for our safety, and have cited over 50 examples wherein terrorist plots were discovered and stopped due to this surveillance. However, opponents have debunked at least some of these…
Bigbio2002
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Is the pharmaceutical industry the most profitable business in the United States?

The Russia Today article Pharmageddon: America’s bitter pill claims The pharmaceutical industry remains the most profitable business in the US. More success and financial gain for the companies will always remain possible as long as more Americans…
Sam I Am
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Did Japanese people misspell "We pray for MacArthur's election"?

The Internet is full of references to the same story: It was probably in 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur was temporarily put in charge of running Japan, which was in tough shape after surrendering. He was such a decent overseer that many Japanese…
Andrew Grimm
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Does a customer have the legal right to receive change in whatever denomination they want if the cashier can cover it?

I am a cashier at a gas station in California and I recently had a customer put me in this situation. They prepaid for $50 in gas with a fifty dollar bill and filled their car. They had $19 in change. When the customer came in for their change, I…
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Do lower income workers tend to vote Republican?

It's election season in the United States and something that you tend to hear from domestic and international pundits is that: Lower income workers tend to vote Republican... which also tends to be restated using the stereotype: ... while…
rjzii
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Have six of the ten 9/11 commission members said that the US government was covering up something about the 9/11 attacks?

I often see claims like this repeated, "six out of the Ten 9/11 Comission members have gone on record since to admit there was a U.S. government cover-up." Any truth to it? This last time I saw it was on this Facebook post by Conspiracy Theory with…
Evan Carroll
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