That’s quite the spin. The size of Social Security checks is linked, by law, to inflation (ssa.gov/cola/#:~:text=…). This year’s increase is unusually big because the inflation rate is unusually big.

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1587546267923742725

It’s true that this year’s increase is the biggest in years. Very much not sure “there was big inflation and therefore also, as required by decades-old law, a big cost-of-living adjustment to Social Security” is what people think of as an example of presidential leadership

https://twitter.com/marbles1730/status/1587621023943462912

Thread: The FBI's newly released criminal complaint against the man charged with attacking Pelosi features a summary of a Mirandized interview in which, per the FBI summary, *the man himself* essentially debunks the conspiracy theories about the incident. How did DePape get into the house? "DEPAPE stated that he broke into the house through a glass door, which was a difficult task that required the use of a hammer."

When NBC’s Welker reminded Herschel Walker he’d earlier in the campaign opposed all exceptions on abortion, he said, “No no no. I said I’m for life. I never said I didn’t have any exception.”

Walker in May: “There’s no exception in my mind…No exceptions, I believe in life.” 1/ That’s not all. Walker filled out a questionnaire from an anti-abortion group. They specifically asked which exceptions he supports. He checked off none of them. 2/ irp.cdn-website.com/d51b2a5e/files…

This is a dishonest claim. The truth: *the National Archives* sorted Bush docs for his library in a heavily secured facility (patrols, cameras, sensors) that happened to be a former alley/restaurant. As with Obama docs the Archives took to Chicago, Bush didn’t take them himself.

https://twitter.com/howardmortman/status/1579061581844951040

Here’s a 1994 article about the Archives’ work with Bush documents in the secure facility that happened to be a former bowling alley/restaurant. Trump made it sound like Bush himself had carelessly taken docs to an alley/restaurant. latimes.com/archives/la-xp…

“Updating this viral story”

Salon has now changed a 2021 headline that falsely said "DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state." The survey is optional for students/profs and anonymous (though some have expressed concerns about potential to be IDed). The inaccurate Salon headline from last year went viral again in the past couple days, with some Democratic commentators and other prominent people, even including author Stephen King, sharing the false claim.

Wrong. What actually happened: The super PAC sent me, unsolicited, an email that a reporter from another outlet had sent the super PAC. They declared this was “off the record”; I’d never agreed to that. I simply reached out to the other reporter to confirm the email was real.

https://twitter.com/FireBoebert/status/1539736011974008832

I never made an “off the record” agreement over this other reporter’s email, which was sent to me unsolicited. But also…I never published the unsolicited email! I simply asked a follow reporter if the email the PAC had sent me was a real email this reporter had sent the PAC.

These claims that Oz isn’t registered to vote in Pennsylvania are false. He has been registered in PA since 2020, at his in-laws’ house where he says he now rents…you can find his record on PA’s voter site.

He is *also* registered in NJ, but “not Pennsylvania” is wrong. 1/ Fetterman, his Democratic opponent, tweeted cheekily today that Oz has a NJ registration (correct) and that NJ isn’t PA (correct). But then others explicitly said Oz doesn’t have a PA registration at all, and that’s not correct. 2/

Looked up the context for Judge Jackson's accusation about US leaders committing war crimes. It was in a filing that alleged a Gitmo client had been tortured. She argued that directing, ordering, ratifying, conspiring in this mistreatment were war crimes. scribd.com/document/55663… (Just posting the context because Sen. Graham and Sen. Cornyn challenged her on the "war crimes" accusation without outlining why she had made the accusation.)

Viral tweets saying Marjorie Taylor Greene refused to applaud Zelensky are *false.*

She was a pretty tepid clapper, but full footage shows she clapped 4 times: when Zelensky appeared, when the UKR ambassador was noted, when Pelosi said Slava Ukraini, when Zelensky concluded. 1/ Clap timeline:

Zelensky and Pelosi appear. (Greene claps 3-4 secs, stops, grabs phone, films the clapping room.)

Pelosi notes UKR ambassador. (Greene claps about 10 sec.)

Pelosi says Slava Ukraini. (Greene claps 3-4 total sec.)

Zelensky finishes. (Greene claps about 16 sec.)

The "Trump is so poor he is begging supporters for money to buy a new plane" story that's going around social media is not accurate. There's a small kernel of truth to the tale, but it has been wildly exaggerated. (Small thread) What happened? 1) A private plane carrying Trump - a donor's plane, not Trump's plane - had to make an emergency landing this weekend. 2) Trump's team sent an email to its fundraising list that was like psst we're building a new plane, it's top secret, wanna see? Click here! 2/

There is an internationally viral story, repeated by lots of news sites, that Leonardo DiCaprio made a $10 million donation to Ukraine in part because his grandma is from there.

DiCaprio didn't donate $10 million and has no family member from Ukraine, a source close to him says. DiCaprio stands with Ukraine and did make donations to a variety of humanitarian organizations trying to help Ukraine, the source said, but it wasn't $10 million, wasn't to Ukraine's government or military as some stories said, and wasn't connected to his grandmother.

This video is a fake. It takes video from a Feb. 4 Austrian news report on a demonstration about climate change (oe24.at/oesterreich/ch…) and overlays it with unrelated audio from a February 24 NBC news report from Ukraine (facebook.com/watch/?v=37266…).

https://twitter.com/LouieKerr8/status/1500486894190215173

1) Feb. 4 Austrian news report on a climate protest
2) Feb. 24 NBC report from Ukraine
3) The fake -- which A) took the Austrian video of the climate protest B) replaced the audio with NBC audio from Ukraine, C) replaced the screen text on the protest with NBC text on Ukraine

And a few fact-check notes about Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' State of the Union response: Reynolds said both Biden and Harris haven’t gone to the border since taking office. That's true of Biden, but not true of Harris. She went in June.

Here's a thread with some fact-check notes about Biden’s State of the Union. Biden said gun manufacturers are the only industry “that can’t be sued.” False. While they are shielded from liability over criminal use of guns, they can be and are sued for other reasons. And other companies – notably including vaccine makers – also have liability protections.

There is wild conspiracy nonsense swirling that UN forces secretly landed in North Bay, Ontario to crack down on pandemic protests.

In boring reality: a North Bay company called Voyageur has a contract to fly and maintain planes for the UN. This is well-known locally. 1/3 UN planes have been seen at Voyageur’s North Bay facility for years. One of these planes even prompted an entirely separate ridiculous conspiracy, that one about immigration, in 2018. factcheck.afp.com/un-sponsored-m…

This is another imaginary Ottawa-protest-related claim, just fiction. No judge has ordered police to give back fuel they’d seized from protesters. The viral video doesn’t actually show police returning fuel.

And this one lie quickly turned into three lies. (Quick thread) After protest supporters invented a court order requiring police to return fuel, and that false claim was repeated on a livestream by prominent protest man Pat King, other protest supporters got mad that police were defying the (again, nonexistent) court order. (2/3)

False. Ottawa police are required to be vaccinated.
They were initially exempt -- the clip here is from October -- but still at 84% fully vaxxed even *before* Ottawa reversed course and set a Jan. 31 deadline. Now, of 1,480 officers, fewer than 10 haven't received a dose. Source for the "fewer than 10": cbc.ca/news/canada/ot…

Dan Bongino's Fox show took a website's list of the most healthy US cities and turned it into a graphic titled "TOP TEN MOST UNHEALTHY U.S. CITIES," which it used to back Bongino's claim that Democrats don't care about urban deaths. Nice catch by @Acyn.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1490152371640360960

(Bongino's show additionally appears to have mixed up Irving, Texas with Irvine, California.)

I'm not sure if everyone on the left is aware that the controversy about Walensky's comments as they relate to people with disabilities has been followed by a separate controversy on the right about the same comments as they relate to Americans' risk of dying of Covid. There are a bunch of "the unedited comment changes nothing, she was still devaluing disabled lives!" tweets. That's subjective; people can debate it all they want. But the unedited comment clearly shows that the other controversy is based on a misinterpretation of what she said.

Walensky referenced a particular study that found:

Of 1,228,664 people *fully vaccinated*

Just 36 died of Covid-19

28 of those 36, 78%, had four or more comorbidities

Walensky was asked about this study and responded by summarizing the study. Did not talk all Covid deaths

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1480592500817637379

Lots of unvaccinated people who’ve died of Covid have also had lots of comorbidities. My point, which has been made by others, is that Walensky’s comments on Good Morning America are being inaccurately described