Listed here are Wisconsin Watch's prime 10 most learn reality briefs

Studying Time: 4 minutes

On Sept. 24, 2022, Wisconsin Watch printed its first reality temporary. It marked a brand new partnership with Gigafact, a nonprofit community of nonpartisan native, regional and professional newsrooms that fact-check and confirm influential claims circulating on-line.

Within the two years since, our greater than 500 reality briefs stand out from different fact-checking efforts. We deal with questions that may be answered sure or no, and every temporary is proscribed to 150 phrases.

Politicians and different information retailers have pointed to our reality briefs as an authoritative examine on misinformation being injected into the general public discourse. On-line readership has spiked for related reality briefs throughout this summer time’s political conventions and two presidential debates.

Invoice Adair, founding father of PolitiFact and creator of “Past the Massive Lie,” has spoken extremely of Gigafact.

“Within the years that we’ve been finding out the rise of misinformation, we’ve realized there merely aren’t sufficient fact-checks to counter all of the falsehoods,” Adair mentioned. “Gigafact is addressing this head-on with a splendidly easy method that ought to yield a dramatic enhance actually checks.”

At Wisconsin Watch, we are able to report that Adair’s prediction turned out to be true. Truth briefs have been among the most generally learn articles that Wisconsin Watch has produced.

Right here in reverse order is a countdown of our prime 10 most learn reality briefs.

10. No, Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom candidate Janet Protasiewicz as a Milwaukee County choose didn’t launch Darrell Brooks on bail earlier than his lethal Waukesha Christmas Parade assault.

Milwaukee County Courtroom Commissioner Cedric Cornwall permitted Brooks’ launch on $1,000 bail on Nov. 5, 2021.

On Nov. 21, 2021, Brooks drove a Ford Escape by the parade. The assault left six folks useless and injured greater than 60.

The declare about Protasiewicz was made in the course of the marketing campaign main as much as her election to the Supreme Courtroom in April 2023.

9. No, Wisconsin’s structure doesn’t “clearly” say the Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom chief justice administers the Supreme Courtroom.

Wisconsin’s structure says: “The chief justice of the Supreme Courtroom shall be the executive head of the judicial system and shall train this administrative authority,” however provides “pursuant to procedures adopted by the Supreme Courtroom.”

8. Sure, you’ll be able to gather unemployment in Wisconsin when you get fired.

It is determined by the circumstances. Staff might not obtain unemployment advantages in the event that they get fired for “violating affordable necessities of the employer.”

7. No, a regulation Tim Walz signed doesn’t permit a toddler to be taken away from mother and father who don’t consent to “intercourse adjustments.”

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio made the declare whereas campaigning in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Walz, the Minnesota governor and 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, signed laws permitting Minnesota courts to take non permanent jurisdiction in a toddler custody dispute between mother and father in one other state if one desires a toddler to acquire “gender-affirming care” in Minnesota.

The regulation doesn’t change when the state can take custody away from mother and father or allow the state to remove custody in reference to such care.

6. No, “nearly each regulation enforcement company within the nation” had not endorsed Donald Trump for president in early 2024.

Former President Donald Trump made the declare in an April 2024 Milwaukee radio interview.

As of early that month, few regulation enforcement organizations had introduced endorsements within the 2024 presidential election.

Police unions — not regulation enforcement businesses comparable to police or sheriff’s departments — endorse candidates.

In early September, the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest lobbying group representing greater than 350,000 regulation enforcement officers, endorsed Trump. In response, about 100 regulation enforcement officers endorsed Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

5. Sure, Donald Trump prompt guidelines within the U.S. Structure might be terminated in response to election fraud.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made the declare throughout a 2023 Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, drawing consideration to Trump’s false declare.

Trump mentioned in a 2022 social media publish: “A Huge Fraud of this sort and magnitude permits for the termination of all guidelines, rules, and articles, even these discovered within the Structure. Our nice ‘Founders’ didn’t need, and wouldn’t condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

4. Sure, people below age 21 can legally drink alcohol in a bar in Wisconsin if they’re with a mother or father.

Wisconsin’s authorized ingesting age is 21, however folks below 21 can legally drink alcoholic drinks in institutions comparable to taverns and eating places if they’re with their mother and father, guardians or spouses of authorized ingesting age.

Nonetheless, institutions can refuse to serve underage folks.

3. No, Tim Walz didn’t signal laws requiring feminine hygiene merchandise to be put in in boys’ bogs.

Walz signed a Minnesota regulation requiring public colleges to offer free menstrual merchandise to “all menstruating college students in restrooms often utilized by college students in grades 4 to 12 in accordance with a plan developed by the varsity district.”

The Minnesota Training Division informed Wisconsin Watch: “Every faculty district ought to have its personal plan to adjust to the laws. (The division) has not directed colleges to offer these merchandise in boys’ bogs.” Some colleges have stocked them in unisex bogs as an alternative.

2. No, the U.S. has not “misplaced” seven embassies throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, essentially the most below any president.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., made the declare about embassies, the official headquarters for U.S. diplomats and authorities representatives serving in international international locations, on the 2024 Wisconsin Republican Celebration conference.

Underneath Biden, three U.S. embassies — in Afghanistan, Belarus and Sudan — suspended and haven’t resumed operations, every following unrest in these international locations.

1. Sure, the U.S. debt elevated by $7.8 trillion throughout Trump’s presidency

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the assault in an interview with the conservative Wisconsin Proper Now web site as he was competing with Trump and others for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

The federal debt was $27.8 trillion when Trump left workplace, $7.8 trillion greater than when he entered.

The debt — borrowing achieved when the federal government spends greater than it takes in — is a results of choices made by a president and Congress throughout a president’s time period, but additionally by choices made by earlier presidents and Congresses.