A day after the Republican presidential candidates gathered in Iowa for what was unquestionably the most combative debate of the campaign season, Rachel Maddow examined particular claims made by the candidates to determine if they were true or false.

A good news economic story out of Georgia today as it turns out people in China are eating with chopsticks that are made in America. Donald Trump, a persistent critic of China and their economic policies, should take note as China is apparently eager to boost America’s exports as they load up on these American-made chopsticks.

Donald Trump, the former frontrunner in the 2012 Republican race until The Apprentice seduced him away, is still happy to chat about politics and give his perspective, and still pushing most of the views that brought him to prominence early in the year. But tonight, while still going strong against President Obama’s foreign policy, Trump had praise for the way the President handled at least some of his business: by doing it on the golf course.

With the debate on raising the national debt ceiling fast becoming the most important debate currently on the House floor, candidates to become members of said House may be feeling the pressure to run on a platform that highlights their refusal to allow the debt to grow any further. But highlighting a take on policy and plain fearmongering are two different things, and it’s pretty clear in what category Nevada Republican House candidate Mark Amodei‘s “Chinese nightmare” ad falls.

Be careful if you pick up a Chinese-grown watermelon this summer. The BBC reports farmers in eastern China have a bizarre problem: their watermelons keep exploding. “Farmer Liu Mingsuo told the Xinhua news agency that more than two-thirds of his crop had blown up,” explains the BBC.

Watermelons (at least those that have not been filled with explosives by local fire departments in an effort to dramatize the dangers of fireworks) do not tend to explode. But in China, state-run media’s reporting acres and acres of melon meeting their fate in sudden detonations. “Growth chemicals” have become prime suspects in the strange situation, except for the fact that melons untreated by chemicals are also, basically, blowing up:

World Press Freedom Day is May 3rd, a time when editorial writers will rightly mourn the decline of freedom of expression and the alarming rise in the number of journalists and bloggers killed or incarcerated around the world. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 79 journalists
were killed in 2010 and hundreds of professional and citizen journalists remain behind bars. These are undeniable tragedies, most especially for the journalists and the families of those who were killed, tortured or jailed for trying to report the news, a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the much-cited freedom of expression indices are misleading.

Mike Huckabee, the other possible GOP presidential candidate running in second place in the polls, visited Fox & Friends to talk about his new rival, Donald Trump, and it turns out Huckabee fully supports his presidential bid. Confirming that, yes, “he’s going to do it,” Huckabee argued that, while the birth certificate debate “was working for the Donald,” he didn’t intend to open that can of worms himself anytime soon.

The Chinese government cares so much about the safety of its people that it has released a video of nightmarish traffic accidents to scare its citizens straight. Although it’s not clear whether the intended message is to be more observant on the road generally or just to avoid a specific intersection of destruction.

A few days ago, the New York Times published a story (which we picked up, taking special note of the article’s reference to a popular Shakespeare quote) about censorship in China, alleging that saying the word “protest” twice during a cell phone call – in either English or Chinese – would result in that call being dropped.

Shanghai Scrap (“Observations on Asia and the world by Adam Minter, an American writer in Shanghai.”) decided to put the article to the test… and then discovered an interesting Re-Tweet by one of the article’s contributors.

The much-publicized revolutionary spirit sweeping through the Middle East seems to have officials in China more than a little wary. Case in point: There is mounting evidence that phone calls in the country are being monitored and policed so that, at the second mention of the word “protest,” calls are automatically dropped – that goes for mentions in either English or Chinese dialects.

The country’s top intelligence officer, James Clapper, who notably knew nothing about a series of terror arrests in Britain the day of an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, has done it again. During an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was holding a hearing on worldwide threats, Clapper was asked about the gravest threats against the United States today. North Korea? Iran? No, he said China and Russia.

Today, Laura Ingraham had possible presidential candidate Donald Trump on her radio show, where the mogul and media personality was extremely open about his political views on a number of touchy subjects, like abortion and immigration.

Mitt Romney appeared on Laura Ingraham‘s radio show and made quite a few revelations. Unsurprising, of course, is that he’s not the biggest fan of ObamaCare… much more surprising is that he admitted there were some flaws to “RomneyCare.”

President Obama’s worldwide appeal apparently reaches to Asia where KFC China employed an Obama imitator to endorse their new Fish Filet sandwich. With Presidential music playing triumphantly in the background, the look-alike proudly declares “change is good!”

Joining the chorus of people not pleased with President Obama’s State of the Union address is Donald Trump who has a very specific complaint: “I thought the low point was when [Obama] talked about how great China was.” Trump might simply be angry with how China is manipulating their currency and making it difficult for him to do business overseas, or might Trump actually be ramping up criticism of Obama in case he actually does decide to run for President?

For better or worse, the scope of the word “celebrity” appears to ever be expanding, and while it’s common to see it used nowadays for people in YouTube videos or reality TV stars, watching our president get the celebrity treatment will never not be bizarre. The latest celebrity treatment Barack Obama is unfortunate enough to be getting comes from the UK’s Daily Mail, who dare ask whether the President’s “new” hair color is synthetic.

At today’s press conference, Bloomberg TV White House correspondent Hans Nichols persistently pressed China’s Hu Jintao to answer his question concerning human rights in his country. Hu said that, initially, he did not hear questions about human rights “because of the technical translation and interpretation problem,” but, now that he’d heard the question, he was “certainly in a position to answer it.”

On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck expressed his fear that “our landlord is in town and soon he is going to be demanding the rent.” The landlord he is referring to is China, except that Beck predicts a much harsher consequence for the United States awaits than being evicted.

Liz Cheney is often about as strong an ally as the Bush administration can hope for in cable news. A veteran of the state department with family ties to the Vice President, most of her commentary tends to support the choices of the administration for which she worked. But this weekend on Fox News Sunday, she candidly admitted that the blame for a “policy of weakness” for which she blamed some of North Korea’s aggression fell on the shoulders of President Bush.

ABC’s David Muir had a few tense moments in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last night. Muir, part of an ABC team including anchor Diane Sawyer had been answering viewer questions via email when Chinese police approached and demanded his passport.

Muir, interrupted while reporting, never loses a beat as the officer walks right up to him while on camera, greeting the officer in Chinese and then using the interruption to make a point about Chinese freedom of the press–or lack thereof. “This is when it comes to freedom of the press, checking my passport here right outside Tiananmen Square…”

Fox Business loves to hear media moguls talk about Fox Business. Last week, they had CNN thinker-upper Ted Turner show up to talk about new Fox Business employee Lou Dobbs. Now they’ve invited their leader Rupert Murdoch to discuss the most pressing matters of the day—like how awesome Fox Business is. “Fox Business, Fox News” are News Corp.’s “best growth engines,” he said. “Seriously.”

President Obama’s trip to Asia seemed to be haunted by criticism the whole way through. But while much of it seemed peripheral to the nature of the actual mission, the objectives thereof seemed also to have remained incomplete. In covering his final speech abroad, ABC News’ Jake Tapper counted down three major economic faults that remain unsolved in the wake of the President’s return.

Diane Sawyer just finished up anchoring the Chilean miner story last week (which won her praise from one broadcast news expert), and after the midterm election season winds down next month, she’ll be bringing ABC’s World News to China.

Sawyer previewed the trip, where she’ll be anchoring from for three days beginning November 15, Friday night on World News.

Today in ridiculous news: CNN’s Tiffany Lam is reporting that a Hong Kong McDonald’s will become “the first city in the world to roll out McDonald’s nuptial packages for couples,” as of January 1, 2011. Seriously.

Sick of reading about depressing things like witches and double standards and homophobia? Let this amazing video, in which double amputee Liu Wei plays “You’re Beautiful” using only his feet, distract you for a few minutes.