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30 May 2010 11:54

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Politics: Now both parties have a Senate candidate with spotty army stories

  • Dems Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, who’s running against a woman who’s been attacked by a folding chair before, made it seem like he served in Vietnam when he didn’t.
  • GOP Now, Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk was caught claiming in his official bio that he won the U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year when he didn’t. Ah well, it’s not as bad as Roland Burris serving. source

12 Apr 2010 11:01

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Politics: Bizarro hippie Michele Bachmann calls herself Nostradamus

  • Oh, and she says 51 percent of the economy is owned by the federal government. Ever hear a claim so insane that there’s simply no way it’s actually true? Well, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a favorite of the bizarro hippie movement, makes a straight-faced claim that the more than half of the economy is nationalized thanks to Obama. Chris Wallace does rebut at least one of her claims (Bush, not Obama, implemented most of the policies she’s criticizing), but it doesn’t go far enough. As The Raw Story points out, one thing Obama hasn’t done is nationalize banks. source

04 Oct 2009 10:34

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Culture: TMZ said Maya Angelou was in the hospital. They were wrong. Ha!

  • They’re usually right about these sorts of things. From scooping every other mainstream media outlet by hours on Michael Jackson’s death to getting the photo of the Rihanna after the attack by Chris Brown, they usually nail the facts. But not this time. Word is that Angelou, who they said was rushed to an L.A. hospital, wasn’t even in L.A. at the time. Good job, goobers. source

17 Sep 2009 09:48

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U.S.: Falsified rape allegations shock, then anger Hofstra students

  • Now we hear it’s not real. She is causing herself embarrassment because it’s her first year here. She says all this and it’s not true.
  • Hofstra University student Monique Alvarado • On hearing that a fellow student’s rape allegations were untrue. The unnamed student claimed five men brutally assaulted her in her dorm room – and those men were named and arrested. Alvarado’s words were echoed by fellow student Chris Blue in reference to a Hofstra student who was arrested: “The young man’s life is still going to be ruined. The girl lied about a serious thing.” • source

02 Sep 2009 23:29

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Music: The Revenge of the Revenge of Roxanne Shanté’s Revenge



Nothing like unsubstantiated claims to brighten an evening. Roxanne Shanté, above, was a hip-hop icon before hip hop had its big mainstream breakthrough. Everyone forgot about her for a good twenty years, until this New York Daily News story broke, claiming that Warner Music paid for her to get a doctorate at Cornell. Problem is, it's not true.
  • The lies As reported by the New York Daily News (which will have an interesting retraction to write), the hip-hop icon (who scored her one-hit wonder at 14) had a clause in her contract saying they would pay for her education for life. She fought hard to get the label to pay for her education, eventually earning a doctorate at Cornell in 2001. She’s now a “hip-hop” psychologist.
  • The truth According to Slate, Warner never had a contract with Shanté. School records say that she went to Marymount Manhattan College, but never graduated. She admitted to Slate that she never got a Ph.D. from Cornell or elsewhere. She doesn’t have a license to practice psychology. And Warner says the Daily News never tried to contact them, like the story says.
  • Slate’s dirty workBen Sheffner put together an article for Slate that ranks up there with anything The Smoking Gun has put together in recent memory. It’s just devastating. The way he dissected the Daily News’ article is admirable. The paper only quoted two sources in the article – Shanté and hip-hop Russell Simmons. Protip: When a story’s this good, fact-check your sources. source

28 May 2009 22:10

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U.S.: Apologies for false criminal complaints – now in YouTube form!

  • This painfully scripted apology, which makes our brain hurt to watch, is in response to laughably insane allegations that this woman, Cassidy Harris, made about a St. Louis cop. The allegations were false. source