September 12, 2024: Presidential Debate Fact Check Part II, PLUS Rumor Has It: Did Harris Wear Earpiece Earrings? Did Biden Wear A Trump 2024 Hat? Did Texas Remove 1M+ Voters?
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Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Thursday, September 12th, and this is your final news rundown of the week. As your reminder, if you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen on, share this show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, please just go ahead and hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not already. All of those things really help me out, so thank you very much.

As far as the format of today's episode, we'll do a follow-up debate segment where I'll fact check a couple of other claims and provide some clarification to some claims covered in yesterday's episode. We'll then do some quick hitters, then Rumor has it, and we'll finish with that critical thinking segment. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories.

Starting with the fact check follow-up. Last night, I obviously fact checked a bunch of claims, but one of those was Trump's claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating dogs and cats, pet dogs and cats.

And I stated that the city manager hadn't seen, you know, reports of such incidents and local police in Springfield hadn't received any police reports of such incidents. Following the release of yesterday's episode, a few people sent me police body cam footage of a woman who was arrested for killing and eating a cat. So I just want to speak on that video for a moment. They

This video was shared on YouTube and X, and one of the X users that shared it wrote, quote, immigrants in America are stealing, sacrificing, and eating neighborhood pets like dogs, cats, ducks, and geese. This Haitian immigrant woman was arrested for eating her neighbor's pet

End quote. So let's fact check that video. First of all, this was body cam footage taken in Canton, Ohio, which is about three hours from Springfield, Ohio. Also, the Canton Police Department confirmed that the woman in that video was an American woman named Alexis Farrell.

not a Haitian immigrant. The woman is also registered to vote in Ohio, and I know there's some controversy surrounding the ability to register to vote, but you do have to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, which is more evidence that the woman in this video is an American citizen. Now,

on the other side of this, here's what I'll say. Springfield does have a lot of immigrants from Haiti. Since 2020, about 15,000 Haitian immigrants were brought into the town of Springfield, which has a total population of about 58,000. And in Haiti, some Haitians, not all, but some practice voodoo. And in voodoo, various animals are sacrificed. This includes not only cats and dogs, but also animals like bulls,

you know, goats, birds, things of that nature. So could some of the Haitian immigrants be killing cats in Springfield, Ohio? Sure. And some residents of Springfield have said that this is happening. But again, we have not yet seen any actual videos of it happening. And that

one video that has gone viral is not a Haitian immigrant was not arrested in Springfield, but rather in Canton. So what I'm trying to say here is that it's not totally crazy to think that the claim may be true, you know, just given what we know about the population in Springfield and the religion of some of those Haitian immigrants. But I'm not going to say it's true until I have seen actual evidence, which I haven't at this point.

So moving on to the next request stemming from yesterday's episode, this was another fact check request. Someone asked, is it true that Trump killed the border bill like Harris said? So this is referring to Harris's remarks at the debate about Trump killing the recent H.R. 2 bill that she says she supported. But she said that for, you know, Trump killed it for political reasons and implied that the reason Trump killed it is because he didn't want the Biden administration getting that win during an election season. So is it true?

What we know is that the draft of the bill was released on February 5th, and this bill included funding for border security, so $20 billion. It gave the executive branch the authority to shut down the border when the average number of daily crossings exceeded 5,000. It ended catch and release. It raised standards for asylum screening. It increased personnel at the border, among other things.

This bill also included foreign aid, so aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. And this was a bill negotiated by both Democrats and Republicans. The day that the draft of this bill was released, so February 5th, Trump wrote on Truth Social, quote,

Only a fool or a radical left Democrat would vote for this horrendous border bill, which only gives shutdown authority after 5,000 encounters a day when we already have the right to close the border now, which must be done. This bill is a great gift to the Democrats and a death wish for the Republican Party.

It takes the horrible job the Democrats have done on immigration and the border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans. Don't be stupid. We need a separate border and immigration bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form. The Democrats broke immigration and the border. They should fix it. Make America great again.

End quote. So according to Trump, the reason he told Republicans or lawmakers generally to vote against the bill is because one, it was tied to foreign aid and two, because it would have absolved the Democrats. So that's where Harris's comment at the debate came from. Those are the facts. Do with them what you will.

Moving on, I received requests to fact check Harris's claim that Trump said there were quote, fine people on both sides, end quote, in Charlottesville. Specifically, what Harris said is quote, let's remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-Semitic hate. And what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side, end quote.

So a little bit of backstory here, there was a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 called the Unite the Right Rally. And according to the organizers of the rally, the purpose of it was to protest the removal of a statute of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and promote the unification of the American white nationalist movement.

The rally ended up turning violent when one self-identified white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of people, killing one and injuring at least 19. The night before the rally, a group of again self-proclaimed white nationalists held lit tiki torches, walked through the campus of the University of Virginia, and at times were chanting blood and soil.

The day of the rally, after the man drove his car through the crowd and violence ensued, Trump tweeted, quote,

Following that statement, Trump came under fire for not specifically condemning the white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

That Monday, Trump wrote, quote, End quote.

The day after that tweet is when Trump really came under fire for this comment, find people on both sides. So at a press conference after Trump said people on the left instigated the violence, a reporter said, quote, the neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville. And this was Trump's response. I'll play the clip for you. I'd rather do it this way just so, you know, nothing gets misconstrued. So here you go.

And you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were...

Very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me. Excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. George Washington was a slave owner.

Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now are we going to take down his statue? Yes, sir.

So you know what? It's fine. You're changing history, you're changing culture, and you had people, and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers,

and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats, you had a lot of bad people in the other groups. I just don't understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? No. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.

I'm sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people. Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest because, you know, I don't know if you know...

They had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit. So I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country. So those are the facts surrounding the Charlottesville comments from Trump. And now again, like I said in the last one, come to your own conclusions based on that information.

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Moving on, some of you asked me to fact check Trump's claim, which was that Harris now, quote, wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison, end quote. So this claim comes from a recent CNN report on Harris's answers to a 2019 questionnaire from the ACLU. This is when she was running for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

The question asked was, quote,

And Harris's answer was, quote,

I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment." End quote.

So again, as I continue to say, those are the facts. Do with it what you will. And finally, I received some requests to talk about the Minnesota abortion law that was enacted by Governor Walz because at Tuesday's debate, Trump said, quote,

End quote. I fact-checked the abortion claims in yesterday's episode, but let's now specifically talk about this law enacted by Walsh in Minnesota because I did not cover that specifically.

What Walls did is he signed a bill which removed certain abortion restrictions from the state's existing abortion law, including viability restrictions. So under the state's original viability standards, a mother could only get an abortion after viability if it threatened her life or health. Viability is typically around 22 to 24 weeks.

Now, under Walz's change, there is no viability limit. So Minnesota is one of those states that allows late-term abortions. In addition to that change, Walz also changed the language of a law called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 1976.

Originally, that law read, quote,

Now the law reads under Walz's change, quote,

end quote. So there were two changes. First, the as a result of an abortion language was removed from the original law. And second, the phrase to preserve the life and health of the child was changed to care for the infant who is born alive. So supporters of those changes say that the change was designed to keep doctors from having to give aid to infants who are unlikely to survive for medical reasons, but upon

argue that the change is equivalent to allowing infanticide or the killing of a baby after birth. And as I've said, infanticide remains a crime in all 50 states. It has not been legalized anywhere. But again, those are the facts as they pertain to Woolsey's abortion measures.

Do with them what you will. Moving on to quick hitters. Harvey Weinstein was hit with new criminal charges today after he had his rape conviction overturned in April, finding that he did not get a fair trial because of improper testimony at that trial. The new charges come less than a week after he was rushed to the hospital from Rikers for emergency heart surgery.

Mortgage rates continued to fall this week, hitting their lowest point since February of last year. The standard 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 6.2% this week, which is down from last week's 6.35%.

And a judge in North Dakota overturned the state's abortion ban, finding that the state's constitution protects women's rights to an abortion before the fetus is viable. The state's current law makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortion, except in the case of saving the mother's life or when the mother's health is at serious risk.

The law also makes an exception for rape and incest up to six weeks of pregnancy. It is possible that the state appeals this ruling, so we'll see what happens there. And finally, a story we have been following from SpaceX. The first commercial spacewalk was officially completed today. Two of the astronauts were able to spend 10 minutes each outside of the aircraft. And now for Rumor Has It.

For the first rumor, I want to revisit one of the rumors from last week, that Alexa rumor. Last Thursday, I reported on a rumor about Amazon's Alexa device giving users reasons why they should vote for Harris, but then saying that she would not comment when asked for reasons why they should vote for Trump.

for Trump. And in that report, I said that I had seen the videos and it was definitely happening for some people. But when I personally tried to do it, my Alexa device would not comment on either candidate. She didn't show any preference towards one candidate or the other. So what I basically said was that, look, I tried it. It didn't happen, but it could be because Amazon already corrected the issue.

We now know that Amazon did in fact correct the issue and that Alexa was giving reasons to vote for Harris, but not Trump before that issue was corrected. The fact checking platform Verify reached out to Amazon and received a response which said, quote, it was an error that was quickly fixed.

So that rumor is confirmed to have been true, and the situation has since been taken care of. Next one, rumor has it that the earrings Harris was wearing at Tuesday's debate were actually earpieces. So this is false. An Instagram post, which now has more than 40,000 likes, claimed, quote,

The post includes an article about the Nova H1 audio earrings and a photo of a girl wearing them. Now, if you go directly to the Nova website, you can clearly tell that these are different earrings. The Nova audio earrings are a simple clip-on pearl earring with silver hardware. Harris's earrings did have a pearl, but also had a wraparound component, which the audio earrings don't have. And the wraparound component on Harris's earrings was gold and not silver.

Harris's earrings are not made by Nova, but instead made by Tiffany & Co. and are part of Tiffany's hardware collection.

Rumor has it that the state of Texas has removed more than 1 million eligible voters from state voter rolls. This is true, but let's add some context. In 2021, Texas enacted a law known as SB1, which established a system for the Texas Secretary of State's office to verify the accuracy of a person's citizenship status with records from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

This past August, Texas's governor announced that more than 1 million ineligible voters have been removed from the voter rolls in Texas since SB1 took effect in 2021. The governor's website then breaks down the number of people that were removed into different categories. So we'll start with the biggest category and then work our way down to the smallest.

More than 463,000 people were removed because they were on the suspense list, which is basically a list of voters that, you know, may have moved or maybe gave the wrong address, but their registration card was returned to the state as undeliverable.

More than 457,000 people were removed because they're deceased. More than 134,000 were removed because they've responded to an address confirmation notice that they had moved out of state. More than 65,000 people were removed because they failed to respond to a notice of examination.

More than 19,000 people were removed because they requested to cancel their registration. More than 6,500 were removed because they are non-citizens. And finally, more than 6,000 were removed because they have a felony conviction. Add those categories up and it brings the total to more than 1.1 million people removed.

Rumor has it that President Biden wore a Trump 2024 hat. Believe it or not, this is true. On September 11th, as part of Biden's remembrance visit to New York City, he stopped by the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. And while he was there, video footage shows Biden talking to a man wearing the Trump 2024 hat.

Biden offers the man a different hat that has a presidential seal on it, to which the man asks if he would autograph it. Biden says, sure, I'll autograph it, and seemingly turns to look for a marker. The man then asks Biden, you remember your name? And Biden says, I don't remember my name. I'm slow. That gets a laugh from the crowd, and the man responds, you're an old fart, as Biden goes to autograph the hat. Biden says, yeah, I know, man. I'm an old guy. I know you would know about that.

And they both sort of laugh together. Biden signs the presidential seal hat and then gestures to the man's Trump hat and says, I need that hat. The man gives Biden his 2024 hat and people yell from the crowd for Biden to put it on. Biden initially says, I ain't going that far, but then puts it on. And that got a big applause from the crowd. So definitely a true rumor. And I do have video of the whole exchange, including Biden putting the hat on in the sources section if you are interested in watching that.

So finally, critical thinking. For today's critical thinking segment, I want you to think back to Tuesday's debate, those of you that watched it at least. And this is going to seem like a pretty simple critical thinking exercise, but it's an important one and I'll explain at the end. I want you to think about each candidate's performance. First, who

who did a better job in your eyes? And when answering this, challenge yourself to think outside of your own belief system, right? So if you're a Trump supporter, consider Harris. If you're a Harris supporter, consider Trump. You know, following the debate, there were a lot of headlines about which candidate performed better or worse. But I want you to take all of that out, anything you may have read, and I want you to think about this independently.

What would you have liked to see Harris do better? And what would you have liked to see Trump do better? And what did each candidate do well? And I want you to give at least one answer for each candidate. So what did Harris do well? What could she have done better? What did Trump do well? What could he have done better? Like I said, this seems like a simple enough exercise, but it allows us to think about both candidates in a negative and positive light. And in doing so, it can actually help us improve in the future when it comes to being open-minded, fair, and balanced. So I want you to give at least one answer for each candidate.

something maybe we're not good at now, but if we get more comfortable at it, we can do better in the future. And I do want to also say while we're speaking about debates, this should have been in the quick hitters, but it came out just as I sat down to record. Trump has said there will be no third presidential debate. Harris had called for one after the previous debate ended. She said she would do another one, but Trump wrote on True Social today that there would be no third presidential debate.

That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, have a fantastic weekend and I will talk to you on Monday.

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