Another GOP misfire on Biden and UkrainePresident Trump insists despite all evidence that former vice president Joe Biden acted nefariously in late 2015 and 2016 when he pushed Ukraine to sack a prosecutor who was widely criticized by Western allies and the international community. No proof has emerged, but Republicans keep trying to ensnare Biden. Rep. Devin Nunes, the California Republican who has taken a lead role defending Trump from impeachment, had a pointed question during one of the House hearings last month: "Did you know that Joe Biden called Ukrainian President Poroshenko at least three times in February 2016 after the president and owner of Burisma's home was raided on February 2nd by the state prosecutor's office?" Nunes was suggesting — based on opinion columns by the writer John Solomon — that something smelled. Burisma is the energy company where Biden's son, Hunter, got a well-paying board seat in 2015. The "raid" reported by Solomon supposedly happened in February 2016 at the home of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, supposedly around the time that Biden had phone calls with Ukraine's then-president Petro Poroshenko. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has made this alleged connection the start of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation he has launched into Biden and his son, demanding records and transcripts of Biden's calls to Ukraine that month. The Fact Checker dug deep on this one, assisted by our Washington Post colleagues in Ukraine. A careful reconstruction of events shows that nothing significant appears to have happened in February 2016 except primarily the reinstatement of a previous court order. Zlochevsky's assets had been seized a year earlier and were only briefly not under a court order because of a prosecutorial error. We gave Four Pinocchios to Nunes and Graham. There would have been no reason for Biden to raise the supposed raid of Zlochevsky's home in his phone calls with Poroshenko. Biden's aides at the time told us neither Burisma nor Zlochevsky was raised in the calls. For the full fact check, click here. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Buttigieg games the numbers on South Bend's black poverty rateButtigieg, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has gained support in recent polls but has struggled to attract African American voters. At a meet-and-greet event in a majority-black town in South Carolina, Buttigieg said the African American poverty rate had declined by "more than half" in South Bend since he became mayor in 2012. Here's the rub: The Census Bureau publishes two different estimates of South Bend's black poverty rate. One of them barely supports Buttigieg's claim. The other estimate, which experts told us is more statistically reliable, contradicts him. The bureau's longitudinal estimates over five years show a modest decline in the African American poverty rate in South Bend from 2007-2011 to 2013-2017. The city's black poverty rate went from 41.86 percent to 39.25 percent in this data set, which rounds out to a 6 percent cut. Buttigieg instead is relying on single-year estimates, according to his campaign. In this data set, the reduction in South Bend's black poverty rate was "more than half," or 54 percent — but only after chopping up the numbers selectively. The rate fell from 53 percent to 24 percent when comparing 2011 with 2017, but the Census Bureau last month uploaded 2018 figures to its data portal, which Buttigieg ignored. The 2018 data shows South Bend's poverty rate for African Americans rose 8 points, to 32 percent. So the total decline during Buttigieg's time in office would be nearly 40 percent, not more than half, when using his preferred metric. Meanwhile, Census Bureau materials and an independent expert say the five-year data is less prone to sampling errors. Remember, that estimate shows a 6 percent cut in South Bend's black poverty rate. We gave Three Pinocchios to Buttigieg. For the full fact check, click here. Once is enoughWe were both fascinated and disturbed by the findings of a new study published in Psychological Science. Researchers Daniel A. Effron and Medha Raj conducted several experiments with more than 2,500 people, and the results "suggest that repeatedly encountering misinformation makes it seem less unethical to spread — regardless of whether one believes it." Let that sink in. The Effron-Raj study suggests misinformation loses its stigma the more often it appears in front of readers, even when they know it's bunk. "Seeing a fake-news headline one or four times reduced how unethical participants thought it was to publish and share that headline when they saw it again — even when it was clearly labeled as false and participants disbelieved it, and even after we statistically accounted for judgments of how likeable and popular it was," the study says. "In turn, perceiving the headline as less unethical predicted stronger inclinations to express approval of it online. People were also more likely to actually share repeated headlines than to share new headlines in an experimental setting." We think of "viral" headlines as spreading fast on the Internet, but this study suggests some viral headlines are a lot like a disease as well. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK, @SarahCahlan or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. 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