True or False?
The Questions
1. An ordinary yellow banana affixed to a white wall with a diagonal piece of duct tape was successfully auctioned off at Sotheby’s last month for $6.2 million. True or False?
2. Despite early claims by manufacturers, studies show that vaping is not safer than smoking tobacco. True or False?
3. Conservatives often claim that major news media such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and ABC are biased towards Democrat candidates and policies. In fact, the percentage of Democrats and Republicans working in editorial positions at those publications is roughly similar. True or False?
4. In October, the Department of Justice succeeded in convincing four federal judges to forbid the election board of Virginia from removing people who were not citizens from the voter rolls. True or False?
5. The US national debt has just passed the $36 trillion mark, equating to $106,000 per person and $272,000 per taxpayer. True or False?
6. A government-sponsored research project begun in 2015 on the effects on adolescents of puberty-blocking drugs found “significant benefits, particularly in the reduction of suicidal impulses.” True or False?
7. In the last 10 years, California has spent more than $30 billion on its homeless problem without any documented results. In fact, during that period the number of homeless people in the state rose by over 50%, from 114,000 to 181,000 in 2023. True or False?
8. Justin Trudeau recently confessed that his government’s immigration policy was unsustainable and driving social problems – crime, school overcrowding, housing shortages – into overdrive. True or False?
9. In 1979, the US led the world in high school test scores, including math and science. Half a century and many trillions of dollars of taxpayer funding later, the US is now in the 24th spot in math and 38th in science. True or False?
10. Florida has one of the most repressive requirements for voting, accepting only a Florida drivers license or a US passport to register. True or False?
The Answers
1. True: It’s sounds crazy. In my view, it is crazy. But it’s true. Read this.
2. False: “One of the great public health advances of this century has been vaping,” says John Tierney, a journalist who has covered protests for years. “Once vaping devices were introduced, smoking rates plummeted to historic lows. But this was a huge threat to anti-smoking activists… so they started scaring people about vaping. They’ve succeeded in persuading most people that vaping is as dangerous as smoking… a horrible thing to do to the public.”
3. False: A recent survey found that of the 87 executives at those publications, 87 were Democrats. None were Republicans. Read this.
4. True: The rationale was a Virginia law signed in 2006 that required election officials to review Department of Motor Vehicles data on non-citizens getting licenses. Since the election board identified and rejected the non-citizens by computer, the Justice Department and the federal judges ruled in favor of the DOJ. (Note: The ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision.) Read this.
5. True: US debt piles up at the rate of $8+ billion per day, and the day of reckoning comes closer. Day after day, the Feds must finance and refinance more debt. By 2028, on its current trajectory, it will reach $50 trillion – $145k per person, $359k per taxpayer.
6. False: The researchers found that the drugs did not lead to improvements in mental health. However, they did not release the study to the public because they feared that their findings could be “weaponized” to support legal bans on this so-called gender-affirming care. Read this.
7. True: To add insult to injury, California’s crime rate rose over roughly the same period, while rates in the rest of the country decreased. By 2022, the state’s crime rate was 31% higher than the national rate. The Public Policy Institute of California reported that “one out of four San Francisco residents said they had been a victim of crime in the last year.” Read this.
8. True: In doing so, Trudeau follows Leo Varadkar (Ireland) and Rishi Sunak (United Kingdom). Canada is aiming for a 21% drop in the number of new permanent residents it allows per annum. Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, admitted that the government should have acted earlier. Trudeau’s move was explicitly timed to match the souring mood of Canadians, a majority of whom are telling pollsters for the first time ever that there is too much immigration.
9. True: Read this.
10. False: Florida has one of the most liberal voter ID policies in the country. Valid forms of ID include a Florida driver’s license or ID card issued by the Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles; a US passport; a debit or credit card; a military ID, student ID, retirement center ID, neighborhood association ID, public assistance ID, or veteran health ID issued by the US Department of Veterans Affairs; a license to carry a concealed weapon or firearm; or an employee ID card issued by the federal government, the state of Florida, or any county or municipality. And voters without any of the above can vote on a provisional ballot.