Viewers of interview video didn't get the 'joke'
A fake interview showing a Democratic candidate give strange answers to basic questions, made up of pieced-together clips, recently topped a million Facebook views hours after it was posted.
Conservative station CRTV created the video about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, according to BuzzFeed News. Ocasio-Cortez upset incumbent Joe Crowley last month in a New York congressional district primary.
The doctored footage cuts from host Allie Beth Stuckey's separately recorded questions to answers Ocasio-Cortez gave in an interview earlier this month with Firing Line's Margaret Hoover on PBS.
In the actual PBS interview, while answering a question about how her ideals relate to young voters, Ocasio-Cortez mentioned she was in school during the terrorist attacks in 2001 in New York City.
On the CRTV clip, Stuckey asks what experience qualifies Ocasio-Cortez to do the job.
"Basically when I was in middle school 9/11 happened," Ocasio-Cortez said, followed by a puzzled look from Stuckey.
Stuckey then asks the candidate if she has any knowledge of how the political system works.
The video cuts to a clip of Ocasio-Cortez shaking her head "no."
Back to Stuckey. "Yikes," the host exclaims.
The video, titled, "Allie Grills Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," wasn't originally labeled fake but an update, stating, "Yes, this is satire," and a winking emoji were added 16 hours after it was posted, BuzzFeed said.
Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter, "Republicans are so scared of me that they're faking videos and presenting them as real …"
Some contributors to the comment section declared the video fake but others claimed they thought it was real. Some reported it as fake news on Facebook, BuzzFeed said.
Stuckey took to Twitter to respond to Ocasio-Cortez.
"Girl - it was a clear joke, not a 'fake' video," Stuckey said.
Kansas not leading Midwest
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach has claimed on Twitter, Facebook, his campaign website and during interviews that Kansas is the "sanctuary state of the Midwest."
That claim is false, according to The Associated Press. Kansas has not passed laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Although there is not a legal definition of "sanctuary" locations, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that for immigration, the term refers to jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal agencies, AP said.
Kobach's campaign said the claim is based on the states that border Kansas - Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Colorado - having passed laws discouraging illegal immigration, AP said. But the Midwest is made up of 12 states. Among those, Illinois has passed a law restricting law enforcement's ability to work with federal immigration agents, AP said.
Immigration and law expert Rick Su told AP that Kansas doesn't have "any prohibition or limits on cooperation with the government."
Iowa and Indiana have taken measures against sanctuary cities in those states, but Kansas has not taken similar measures, AP said.
"Even the most broad definition of sanctuary wouldn't apply to Kansas," Su said to AP.
Kobach is challenging Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Aug. 7 primary.
Numbers don't add up
A former governor and current candidate for U.S. Senate recently said Tennessee's meth problem was "cut in half" when laws were enacted during his term in the state's top job.
Democrat Phil Bredesen, governor from 2003 to 2011, signed the Meth-Free Tennessee Act in 2005, requiring pseudoephedrine products be sold behind the counter, according to The Washington Post.
The number of incidents at meth labs in Tennessee did, indeed, decline from 2,341 in 2004 to 599 in 2007, the Post said. However, the figures began to rise in 2008 and by 2011, Bredesen's last year in office, meth lab incidents were at 2,333 - a decrease of 0.3 percent from 2004 to 2011.
Bredesen is looking to replace Sen. Bob Corker, who is not seeking reelection.
Death by KeKe Challenge
Many viewers of video showing a woman struck by a car while performing the KeKe Challenge didn't see the disclaimer stating the film was "not real."
The original post on Instagram said the video had been edited. But the footage was shared on YouTube and other social media platforms without the disclaimer, according to Snopes.com.
The KeKe Challenge is one of the names for the internet craze this summer that had social media users posting videos of themselves dancing to the Drake song "In My Feelings," according to Snopes.com.
Kari Miller, the woman dancing in the film, added a reassurance to her Instagram post of the video. "I'll be OK," she said.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.