A fact-checking blog

There was one other American girl in the dorm, different college in the states tho. She didn't interact with the rest of us much (and given I'm quite the introvert that says something). One day, I want to say about a month before the end of term, I was cooking in the kitchen and the more jokester-y of the older boys was hanging out with me. We were chatting about the different books from our literature classes--mine was Paradise Lost.

In walks Other American Girl. I don't know how it came up, but one of us made a comment about not seeing her much. Somehow this led to her ranting about how "godless" England was. (I, a Jew who not only had seen TONS of churches while here but also had been learning calligraphy from a nun every Monday morning in the school chapel, was especially baffled. Their fucking national anthem was "god save the queen"!).

Anyway, jokester boy teased her a little and she got even MORE worked up, insisting she'd seen "demons" in "so many people" just walking around the campus and city. At this point the other older boy, who was a bit of a jock, came in and asked why demons came up. She repeated herself.

It was all very chill at this point. Snacks had been bought, silly French news stories had been shared in exchange for silly Florida ones, we were on a first-name basis, and I had shown him a picture of my school's giant fountain in the library full of rubber duckies. We're leaning back, quite casual and comfy, watching the French countryside go by. I tell him about Moth Man, beloved icon of my home state. He thinks I'm shitting him and looks it up, then laughs and sends pictures to his buddies. Oh, people back then were crazy, he jokes, shaking his head in disbelief, eyes glittering with laughter.

Yeah, I say, now we only do some crazy things, like allow child marriage in four states.

I see the laughter slowly die in his eyes as he asks what I mean. Do I mean teenagers? Do I mean 18? What do I mean? I, the son of a pediatric forensic psychologist mom whose whole job is to help kids heal, tell him. I tell him about the four US states where there is no minimum age limit to be married. If you can find a judge to agree to it, you can marry a kid at literally any age. Any age. Yes, theoretically 0. In practice the youngest my mom ever ran into was 10.

Ten. He repeats that several times, slowly. He had leaned forward. Now he leans back, as if in shock. This French man, you see, was considerably older than me. He has children close to that age. He asks me if the marriage is to another child. I explain it's to an adult. The French man rubs at his face, cups his hand over his mouth, settles for a mixture of resting his chin in his palm and covering part of his lower face. With his other hand, he pulls out the phone to fact check me. I am not lying. He puts the phone in his pocket and stares out the window at nothing.

Why, the French man says, with a tone of voice I usually hear people use when talking about war, is this legal? Why is this allowed? Why would a parent allow it, even when it's allowed?

I explain that in some sects of Christianity, having sex out of wedlock is an unspeakably bad sin, even if you're a child, even if you said no, even if you hated it. I explain that statutory rape laws do not apply to a married couple. It saves the girl's honor in the eyes of the Lord and the community, it sets things right, I explain, taking care to add that I'm Jewish and not a part of this particular legal nightmare.

He stares at nothing for a long, long time. There's anger in his eyes but it's the kind born of empathy, the quiet fury that is probably still simmering in him when he remembers this bit of US law. The silence goes on long enough that I worry about how he's processing this. It was always kind of a trivia fact in the US, a little blip. For us it was Tuesday. For him it was high-octane horror beyond his capacity to imagine.

Fuck the US, he eventually told me, he doesn't hate religion but he hates every person participating in this "marriage" (he says while making actual air quotes in sheer disgust). How doesn't it get banned in new laws?

Because Christians, which there are a lot of in the US, vote against banning it when Republicans tell them that keeping it preserves religious freedom. I was suddenly aware, as I said this, that a train car at 10AM is a very quiet place, and people were listening in on this. I can only imagine what they were thinking. My eyes went to a kindly woman in her 60's with flawless dyed blonde hair, who is unnaturally still, to a couple and their baby, who were continually glancing at each other, myself and the baby without a word. Even if they don't like it, I explain, they like Jesus, and they see the people who oppose it as liking Jesus less or not at all.

Jesus, he informs me, never fucking said that [child marriage] was fucking okay and even if he had, it wouldn't be right.

It's not about what's right, I say, as if I'm explaining a thing everybody knows, as if this truth is self-evident, it's about taking a side for the Lord.

He puts his face in both of his hands, looking like a man who has aged a decade in the course of this conversation.

(This map could kill a Frenchman under the right circumstances.)

For California, requirements for "an unmarried person under 18 years of age" are:

Get permission via court order

Proof of filing written consent from one parent/guardian of each underage person, or court permission if no parent/guardian exists who is capable of consenting

If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: An investigation by Family Court Services recommending the marriage after ruling out "potential force, threat, persuasion, fraud, coercion, or duress" by any person involved, after interviewing each person to be married and one parent/guardian (if applicable). (If these are not ruled out, a report to child protective services must be made.)

If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: A filmed second interview with each person involved

If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: The court separately considering "whether there is evidence of coercion or undue influence on the minor"

If under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED and/or with no pregnancy involved: A minimum 30 day waiting period

The court considering whether to require premarital counseling, which cannot be required to be from any religious organization

Further information to be provided to the court about the two people to be married, with information provided to "the minor" regarding emancipation and rights of an emancipated minor, divorce, numbers for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Assault Hotline

Note that, though the California statutes apply to marriages between two minors, they sometimes refer to "the minor" as if assuming there is only one in the marriage.

News site California Health Report contrasts data from the state compared to a study conducted by anti-child-marriage nonprofit Unchained. The news article quotes a statement from the ACLU that opposes changing the law, out of worries that child marriages will be done under the radar, but I could not independently verify that this quote is legitimate.

In New Mexico*, the requirements for marriage for "any person under sixteen years of age" (with separate requirements for ages 16-17) are:

The children's or family division of the district court authorizes the marriage

A parent/guardian of the minor requests the marriage "to compel support and establish parentage" OR one of the marriage partners is pregnant

The annotations to the New Mexico law mention that the law previously did not allow females 14 and under to marry, but that this was repealed in 1978. ChildUSA, cited below, states that no proof of age is required, but the statute appears to require examining the minor's birth certificate to determine parentage.

*Link is not a .gov site but is endorsed as the official state law database here

In Oklahoma, the requirements for marriage of any "person under the age of sixteen (16) years" (with separate requirements for ages 16-17) are:

The marriage is part of "settlement of a suit for seduction or paternity," OR all of the following apply:

A pregnancy is involved or the illegitimate child has already been born

At least one parent/guardian of each minor (if not in custody) presents in court and has the opportunity to object (if not present, they may be given notice of the hearing)

Note that the Oklahoma statute is written in a way that is difficult to interpret for a layperson like me, so the above may contain caveats. I also do not see "seduction" defined in the definitions list in the statute. FindLaw interprets this statute simply as "Minors under 16 may obtain license in case of pregnancy or birth of child with parental consent and court authorization." Oklahoma also bans same-sex marriage in the same statute, so presumably this would not apply for same-sex underage marriages. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

In Mississippi*, the requirements for marriage in the case that "the male applicant is under seventeen (17) years of age or the female is under fifteen (15) years of age" (with separate requirements for males aged 17-21 or females aged 15-21) are:

The court receives proof that the marriage is willing and "sufficient reasons exist"

The parents/guardian of each minor consents

Neither partner is intoxicated or seems to the clerk to be mentally incapable of consenting to marriage

Mississippi bans same-sex marriage in the same statute, so presumably this would not apply for same-sex underage marriages.

*Link is not a .gov site but is endorsed as the official state law publisher here

A report published by ChildUSA, a think tank advocating against child abuse, offers an overview condemning child marriage in the USA, which also goes state-by-state. It states that "there is no federal law banning child marriage" and points to Washington as another state which does not have an age requirement. US territories without an age requirement are listed as Guam, N.M.I., and Puerto Rico. It also brings up that child marriage can occur in the 28 states that do not require "official proof of age for all applicants."

A consideration raised by a 2022 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health compared statutory rape laws to child marriage laws by state, also mentioning when the laws did not apply specifically due to a provision in the law regarding marital rape. By state:

In California, laws regarding rape don't apply only if one party in the marriage "is incapable of giving legal consent because of mental disorder or developmental or physical disability." Statutory rape laws explicitly do not apply for spouses.

In Mississippi, pedophilia law and statutory rape law explicity do not apply if the child is the adult's spouse. Sexual battery charges seem to still apply, however - which is to say, sexual penetration is illegal without consent, or for ages 14-16 if the perpetrator is 3 years older than the victim, or for any child 13 or under if the perpetrator is 2 years older than the victim. Pornography is also prohibited from distribution to anyone under 18 in all cases. Additionally, "No person shall, by any means including computer, knowingly entice, induce, persuade, seduce, solicit, advise, coerce, or order a child to meet with the defendant or any other person for the purpose of engaging in sexually explicit conduct." (Definitions for this statute were repealed.)

Republicans believe child rape is a property right for religious leaders. Absolutely.

The "right" in question was related to this and became a question of due process - the question was whether a new law (allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse to file for compensation as adults) followed the state constitutional right that protects someone from being sued for something that occurred in the distant past.

Due to public outcry, the court has reopened the case.

The public and the state legislature seem to be in favor of victims of sexual abuse getting justice. The court decision chose a reading of broader rights for all constituents despite the unfavorable consequence of not punishing offenders, but this choice is still unpopular and widely seen as protecting offenders. The topic is civil lawsuits and not criminal law, so child rape is still very much illegal in the state.

Seven copies of Babe

The New York Times (paywall shouldn't be visible in this link) reports that the artist Jason Allen claims that the work was submitted under the name "Jason M. Allen via Midjourney." The digital category at the Colorado State Fair was specifically for "digital art/digitally manipulated photography."

Allan is quoted as saying: “The fair was coming up and I thought: How wonderful would it be to demonstrate to people how great this art is?”

The article also adds that "Mr. Allen declined to share the exact text prompt he had submitted to Midjourney to create 'Théâtre D'opéra Spatial.' But he said the French translation — “Space Opera Theater” — provided a clue."

As for the Colorado State Fair, a representative "said Mr. Allen had adequately disclosed Midjourney's involvement when submitting his piece; the category's rules allow any 'artistic practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process.'" The NYT reports: "The two category judges did not know that Midjourney was an AI program, she said, but both subsequently told her that they would have awarded Mr. Allen the top prize even if they had."

The competition included only two other artists: Ashley Martin's "The Forager," which won second place, and Jessica Hair's "Judge, Jury, and Executioner" (which I have not been able to find a photo of).

Critics say that AI-generated art uses images across the internet as material for training the algorithm. NYT quotes digital artist RJ Palmer: " What makes this AI different is that it's explicitly trained on current working artists. You can see below that the AI generated image(left) even tried to recreate the artist's logo of the artist it ripped off.[...] Here is a collection of relatively modern or currently working artists that they advertise as styles to steal on their site(there are hundreds of others). This is just gross."

Allen rebuts this concept in the NYT: "Art is dead, dude. It's over. AI won. Humans lost."

Jesus Christ lmao

The pink sauce does indeed claim to have 444 servings per container with 1 tablespoon per serving. This is approximately 1.7 gallons. The Pink Sauce appears to be in a ketchup-style squeeze bottle, which are closer to 20 ounces. The Heinz ketchup in that link has 1 tablespoon as a suggested serving but only claims 33 servings per container.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is actually legal to sell homemade food without a license in some cases. This is called "cottage food." However, the Florida regulations for cottage food include that "All cottage food products offered for sale to the general public must be labeled: 'Made in a cottage food operation that is not subject to Florida’s food safety regulations.'" This may be because "garlic-in-oil mixtures" are specifically mentioned as being disqualified, as are "salsa, barbeque [sic] sauce, mustard, and other 'wet' products," which "must meet significant federal and state requirements." Florida cottage food is also specifically made at a "residence," but the manufacturer (as seen below) is a business.

The manufacturer is "FLAVOR CRAZY INC." The address listed is not associated with a company by that name on Google Maps, but the building itself seems to be associated with many other businesses.

The company name is associated with a specific owner and a different address - I will assume that this is Chef Pii and will not doxx her. As of June 2021, it's an active "domestic profit corporation." In any case, it seems to be based out of Miami, especially considering the job posting that is also in Miami.

The job listing is similarly sporadic with its information. It lists Chef Pii as the employer, saying that it is "a intern to hire position that provides hands-on experience to enhance your professional skills in the hospitality/media industry." It emphasizes that "This is a hospitality industry." Hospitality traditionally is a term associated with hotels. There is a type of food service that is considered hospitality - in the context of lodging and/or providing food for immediate consumption. The duties in the job listing are that of a personal assistant and social media manager. No food-related duties are listed, although 1 year of food industry experience is preferred.

The job pay is listed at "$200.00 per week" but seems to have checked many unrelated boxes on the job search engine, claiming to be "Full-time, Part-time, Temporary, Internship" with many different hours, plus "Bonus pay, Commission pay, Signing bonus, Tips" - but this position is "perform[ing] personalized administrative duties direct to CEO," making commissions or tips seem unlikely. A signing bonus is probably not in the cards since the position is "internship to hire."

The images come from the intro to the Kim Possible episode "Bueno Nacho." The dialogue for this scene goes as follows:

Wade: I pulled up your bank account. You are broke! But that's not the bad news. Kim: Apparently the bad news is that my friend who runs my website is hacking into my account! Have you peeked up my diary?

An autopsy report stated Poolaw’s child died at 17 weeks gestation.

The report showed it tested positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine and another drug in the liver and brain.

An OBGYN testified on the stand Tuesday as an expert for the state.

The doctor confirmed the fetus was at the gestational age of about 17 weeks and that methamphetamine use can have an effect on the pregnancy, though he said it may not be the direct cause of death for the fetus.

A nurse and medical examiner both testified to seeing congenital abnormalities on the fetus.

Poolaw was sentenced to four years in prison.

This has been covered in news outlets including Newsweek (quoting the NAPW below) on October 17, 2021; NYT Opinions on October 18, 2021 (paywalled);  and USA Today (reporting on a planned appeal) on October 21, 2021.

The National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) released an October 13, 2021 statement alleging several judicial problems with the ruling, including that:

Oklahoma’s murder and manslaughter laws do not apply to miscarriages, which are pregnancy losses that occur before 20 weeks, a point in pregnancy before a fetus is viable (able to survive outside of the womb). And, even when applied to later losses, Oklahoma law prohibits prosecution of the “mother of the unborn child” unless she committed “a crime that caused the death of the unborn child.” [...] Not even the medical examiner’s report identifies use of controlled substances as the cause of the miscarriage.

The NAPW’s statement also claims that this ruling is only one out of many:

BLOCK 100

21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The part I find questionable is the phrasing of “according to their needs,” from a common translation of Karl Marx’s “Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen” (although the phrase probably did not wholly originate with him).

Acts 2:44-45 in the New International Version of the Christian Bible reads:

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

The phrasing is still slightly different in the meme, though, so this may be quoting a different translation. Let me go through other versions of the Christian Bible online to see what version this is quoting and whether it has been edited. I won’t quote any here unless it’s almost identical to the meme. (For example, other translations say “all who believed” versus “believers,” etc.)

The Evangelical Heritage Version comes close:

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They were selling their possessions and property and were distributing the proceeds according to what anyone needed.

So does the Modern English Version:

44 All who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 They sold their property and goods and distributed them to all, according to their need.

And the King James Version :

44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

So That’s all the versions on Bible Gateway I could find. As you can see, the phrase does in fact pop up in modern translation here and there, but the quote is still not directly from any version on Gateway.

Just in case Gateway was missing something, I did a Google search for the phrase "and all the believers were together and held all things in common." There are currently 10 non-duplicate results, with all of them being memes and one facebook link to a preacher discussing the verses in question. 

To conclude - 

so disney is using emily gwen’s lesbian pride flag with no compensation, and she’s still in need of money. i implore anyone who cares at all about the lgbt community to donate to her instead of paying for fucking mickey mouse pins

Please, if you’re interested, read the article here: https://lesbianflaghistory.tumblr.com/post/185390167678/seeing-a-lot-of-misinformation-flying-around 

Emily Gwen’s design is number 55 at the bottom of the post. 

The 2018 post where Emily created the flag is here (and Emily’s FAQ about the flag is here). I agree that the Disney store seems to be directly copying Emily’s design, which, with the artist’s consent in the FAQ, was released to be used on merchandise without any copyright protection. 

Emily Gwen’s twitter responses to the Disney situation are below:

9:30 PM · Apr 26, 2021: i wanna say thank you so fucking much because I've gotten some donations that have allowed me to pay my health insurance for the next 2 months and I have never felt more relieved and safe in my entire life THANK YOU and yes I am crying again

4:50 PM · May 5, 2021:  wait I'm out of the loop is target america actually using my flag design

4:50 PM · May 5, 2021: honestly that's kinda cool

4:53 PM · May 5, 2021: I mean I do want it to be a free-to-use community symbol but damn can they at least donate to some LGBT charities or something

4:58 PM · May 5, 2021· Is Disney paying their park workers a living wage yet? [included is an image of the pin above]

GRILLED CHEESE  WE CATER EVERYTHING LOBSTER ROLL

(The first line sometimes advertises soups, salads, or wraps.)

Their Twitter @trampstamps is not verified but has existed since April 2020. It links to a Flow page which lists @trampstamps as the official Tumblr. This link was only valid for a little while before it was deleted. Some claim they left Tumblr in less than a day--however, they have at least 6 pages on their former tumblr. The Tumblr account had the url “trampstampsbitch” from at least 2/23/2021 until 3/1/2021, when @music​ officially reblogged the account. On 3/23/2021, @music promoted the band at the @trampstamps url instead. (Old posts attributed to @trampstampsbitch now all link to the deactivated @trampstamps instead, implying that the Tumblr url was changed on the original account.)

In contrast, @trampstampzzz on Twitter is a fan account that has existed since April 2021. Although it claims to not be satire, the few tweets associated with this account include retweeting (NSFW) a “STREAM HERE” link to a goatse image. 

On Tumblr, @trampstampzzz first posted on April 18, 2021 and reblogs posts from other blogs that parody the Tramp Stamps. 

If you’ve seen a screenshot of a social media post from Tramp Stamps, it’s most likely one of these parody accounts - the real account did not get much traction on Tumblr before deleting. On the other posts I’ve linked here, the one with the most notes is the promotion by Tumblr itself--still hosted by Tumblr staff--at 781 notes as of this writing. In comparison, the parody account @1-800-miss-ur-guts answered an ask (”ur blog is so cool! love ur shoelaces btw””thanks sweetie”) which currently has 8 notes, while a screencap of the post, which did not acknowledge that OP is a parody account, has 48,273 notes.

One real post is a screencap of their Instagram comments where they say:

@fungender /: aw we didn’t deactivate tumblr cause the trolls got it taken down but thanks caring <3

There have been a few posts compiling what has been seemingly dubbed “raw quotes” from various sources. These quotes may be collected from tumblr shitposts, fanfiction, various forms of modern media, or classical literature and it is rare to see an actual source attached. Therefore I have and continue to put myself through an excessive amount of pain to create an ever growing collection of those quotable quotes complete with sources. (Published 5/29/2020. Updated 1/11/2021. Current count: 97 quotes)

The ad would be easily photoshoppable now, but was a real advertisement campaign in 2011 (possibly as early as 2010). ABC News reported that the National Consumers League registered a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in 2011 in response to the advertising. 

By January 2012, the FTC decided not to take action against vitaminwater, whether or not the claims were false:

Our inquiry focused on whether Energy Brands possessed adequate substantiation for its expressed or implied claims that drinking Vitaminwater could reduce the likelihood of illness (cold or flu), improve eyesight, or prevent eye disease.... [No penalty is imposed because] Energy Brands had permanently discontinued the advertising containing claims that drinking Vitaminwater could reduce the likelihood of illness before being contacted by the FTC, and that Energy Brands is revising its advertising containing claims related to eyesight.

The ads seem to have been pulled before more than two photos of the ad became widely circulated online. 

In 2019, one of the photos began spreading online again. According to AOL:

A Vitaminwater spokesperson confirmed to In The Know that the ad in question has not been in circulation since 2011. "This ad was done in poor taste and should have never been issued," the representative added.

Vitaminwater’s public response to the issue seems to be silence - but there are a lot of deleted tweets. For example, in a response to themselves, the brand tweeted:

*this claim is yet to be verified by a medical professional, or any professional for that matter.

The original tweet, though, was deleted. It seemed to have been quoted on the official Vitaminwater Facebook, but this has also been scrubbed from the site.

Similarly, an oddly high number of tweet responses from the 2019 outcry have been deleted. Despite the controversy, the official Twitter did not reply to the November 13, 2019 tweet about the 2011 ad. Instead, the ad focused its attention on its loyal fans like nsfwdestiel. 

Thanks for all your comments regarding @LilNasX “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” It’s unfortunately out of our control but we are doing everything possible to keep the song up on streaming services. We will keep you up to date as we hear more. Thank you for understanding.

Initial news reports so far have been mixed. Some point to Billboard’s statement that the song is not being taken down from any official platform. This Buzzfeed article, for instance, says that they can still play the song on Spotify and that Lil Nas X is known for “trolling people on the internet.”

Many users report being unable to access Call Me By Your Name on streaming services. Twitter user bastilleashton has a hack for this, which may also explain why the disappearance of the song has not been universal:

So heres the thing: you can still listen to the song on spotify if you already downloaded the song but heres the catch! Find a playlist by someone who has already downloaded the song then you can still listen to it! Heres a link to a playlist of mine w it: https://t.co/AByPhXvKJc?amp=1