Former Missouri House Speaker Diehl headed to prison for pandemic loan fraud0%
By Jason Rosenbaum0%
3/9/2026, 9:09:07 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 4 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Horn Effect, and Recency Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 89% saturation with 121 hits. Analysis detected 252 faulty-reasoning hits from 136 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 0% and a BS Rank of 0% (0 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 100.00% of the article peer group.
A federal judge sentenced former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl to 21 months in prison Monday for using pandemic loan money for personal expenses.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk also fined Diehl $50,000.
He pleaded guilty last year to one count of wire fraud for misusing a portion of roughly $400,000 in COVID-19-era business loans.
He has since paid restitution.
Diehl admitted to using some of those funds for personal expenses, including country club dues, college tuition and car and mortgage payments.
Sentencing documents from the federal government stated that Diehl used some of the COVID-19 loans to pay off “a civil settlement related to his time as Speaker of the House.”
Diehl served in the Missouri House from 2009 through 2015.
He resigned in 2015 after being caught sending sexually explicit texts to an intern.
Confirmation Bias
0%Confirmation Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2.4%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Anchoring Bias
0%Anchoring Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.6%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Availability Heuristic
0%Availability Heuristic
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Representativeness Heuristic
0%Representativeness Heuristic
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Hindsight Bias
0%Hindsight Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Overconfidence Bias
0%Overconfidence Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.8%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Framing Effect
82.4%Framing Effect
OverallThis article
82.4%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
8.6%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Loss Aversion
0%Loss Aversion
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.7%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Status Quo Bias
0%Status Quo Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.4%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Sunk Cost Effect
0%Sunk Cost Effect
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Optimism Bias
0%Optimism Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
3.6%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Pessimism Bias
0%Pessimism Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
1.9%Bar shows this article. Yellow and cyan markers show the selected author and publication averages.
Negativity Bias
89%Negativity Bias
OverallThis article
89%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
6.7%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
7.1%Bar shows this article. Yellow and cyan markers show the selected author and publication averages.
Self-Serving Bias
0%Self-Serving Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
3.5%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Fundamental Attribution Error
0%Fundamental Attribution Error
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Actor-Observer Bias
0%Actor-Observer Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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In-Group Bias
0%In-Group Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
0%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.9%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Halo Effect
0%Halo Effect
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Horn Effect
10.3%Horn Effect
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10.3%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Dunning-Kruger Effect
0%Dunning-Kruger Effect
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Recency Bias
3.7%Recency Bias
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3.7%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Primacy Effect
0%Primacy Effect
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Blind-Spot Bias
0%Blind-Spot Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Ad Hominem
0%Ad Hominem
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.5%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Straw Man
0%Straw Man
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.7%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Appeal to Authority
0%Appeal to Authority
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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False Dilemma
0%False Dilemma
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.6%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Slippery Slope
0%Slippery Slope
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Circular Reasoning
0%Circular Reasoning
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Hasty Generalization
0%Hasty Generalization
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
4.9%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Red Herring
0%Red Herring
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.4%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Bandwagon
0%Bandwagon
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Appeal to Emotion
0%Appeal to Emotion
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
7.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Begging the Question
0%Begging the Question
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Post Hoc (False Cause)
0%Post Hoc (False Cause)
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.9%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Tu Quoque
0%Tu Quoque
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Burden of Proof
0%Burden of Proof
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.5%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Appeal to Nature
0%Appeal to Nature
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Composition/Division
0%Composition/Division
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Anecdotal
0%Anecdotal
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No True Scotsman
0%No True Scotsman
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0.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Ambiguity (Equivocation)
0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.3%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Gambler’s Fallacy
0%Gambler’s Fallacy
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Middle Ground
0%Middle Ground
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Personal Incredulity
0%Personal Incredulity
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Special Pleading
0%Special Pleading
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0.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Genetic Fallacy
0%Genetic Fallacy
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Unattributed Quote
0%Unattributed Quote
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1.2%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Biased Writer Voice
0%Biased Writer Voice
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
2.9%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Politically Left Leaning Bias
0%Politically Left Leaning Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.8%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Politically Right Leaning Bias
0%Politically Right Leaning Bias
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
1.7%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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Attempt to Sell a Product or Service
0%Attempt to Sell a Product or Service
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0%AuthorJason Rosenbaum
0.1%PublicationBelleville News-Democrat
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136 words analyzed.
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.