Facts Matter: Ted Nugent isn't planning benefit concert for border wall
A story recently shared on social media said rocker Ted Nugent had put together a star-studded concert to raise money to fund President Donald Trump's wall at the southern border.
The claim is false, according to Snopes.com, and the website the article first appeared on publishes satirical news stories.
The story said Nugent was using his "massive influence in the world of music" to put together a festival that will "rival Woodstock," Snopes said. The three-day Build the Wall benefit would attract conservatives "who will do more than dance around drinking and drugging" and organizers hoped the event would raise at least $50 million.
Follow-up stories said Nugent couldn't get permits for the concert in New York so Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones offered Texas Stadium for the show, Snopes said. Texas Stadium was demolished in 2010.
The article originally appeared on WeAreTheLLOD.com, a group of fake news websites known as "America's Last Line of Defense (LLOD), according to Snopes.
An entry on the site's home page claims everything on the website is fiction and if anyone believes the content is real, "you should have your head examined."
Warren's vase mistaken for racist figure
A vase on top of a kitchen cabinet in the background as Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren broadcast an Instagram Live Q&A video from her home was mistaken for racist memorabilia, according to Snopes.com.
The false claim, first appearing on internet forums 4 Chan and Reddit and later shared on Twitter by Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren, mistook the Greek urn for a caricature figurine of a black child eating a slice of watermelon, Snopes said. Lahren later deleted her tweet.
The objects on the cabinet top were partially obscured by the camera angle during the Massachusetts senator's video recording.
Warren press secretary Kristen Orthman provided Snopes with photos clearly showing the urn in question, along with a better look at other knickknacks in the congresswoman's kitchen.
Ex-presidents deny Trump claim
While speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden earlier this month, President Trump said a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border should have been built by the presidents who preceded him, according to The Associated Press.
"Some of them have told me that we should have done it," Trump said.
But the four living ex-presidents have denied discussing the border wall with Trump, AP said.
Former president Jimmy Carter, who has been building homes as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity since he left office in 1981, said he has not spoken to the president about building a wall. "(I) do not support him on the issue," Carter told AP.
Bill Clinton spokeswoman Angel Urena said the 42nd president didn't discuss a border wall with Trump. "In fact, they've not talked since the inauguration," Urena told AP.
George W. Bush has not talked to the president about a wall at the southern border, spokesman Freddy Ford said.
Barack Obama's office referred AP to May 2016 comments in which the former president said suggesting a border wall "contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe."
Since the inauguration in January 2017, Obama has had only a brief exchange with Trump at George H.W. Bush's funeral, AP said.
During the Dec. 9 NBC "Today" show, Vice President Mike Pence was asked about Trump's claim, AP reported. "I know the president has said that was his impression from previous presidents," Pence said.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.